mirable" than anything of Hamilton's; but it is in a quite different
genus.

[286] The piece _Celle que j'adore_ is the best of the casual verses,
though there are other good songs, etc. Those which alternate with the
prose of some of the tales are too often (as in the case of the
_Cabinet_ insets, _v. sup._) rather prosaic. Of the prose miscellanies
the so-called _Relations_ "of different places in Europe," and "of a
voyage to Mauritania," contain some of the cream of Hamilton's almost
uniquely ironic narrative and commentary. When that great book, "The
Nature and History of Irony," which has to be written is written--the
last man died with the last century and the next hour seems far off--a
contrast of Hamilton and Kinglake will probably form part of it.

[287] As a member, though a cadet, of a cadet branch of one of the
noblest families of Great Britain and Ireland.

[288] As a soldier, a courtier of Charles II., and a Jacobite exile in
France.

[289] I may perhaps be allowed to refer to another essay of mine on him
in _Miscellaneous Essays_ (London, 1892). It contains a full account,
and some translation, of the _Conversation du marechal d'Hocquincourt
avec le Pere Canaye_, which is at once the author's masterpiece of quiet
irony, his greatest pattern for the novelist, and his clearest evidence
of influence on Hamilton.

[290] There are some who hold that _the_ "English" differentia, whether
shown in letters or in life, whether south or north of Tweed, east or
west of St. George's Channel is always Anglo-Norman.

[291] The "Marian" and Roman comparison of Anne Boleyn's position to
Rosamond's is interesting.

[292] It is a sort of brief lift and drop of the curtain which still
concealed the true historical novel; it has even got a further literary
interest as giving the seamy side of the texture of Macaulay's admirable
_Jacobite's Epitaph_. The account would be rather out of place here, but
may be found translated at length (pp. 44-46) in the volume of _Essays
on French Novelists_ more than once referred to.

[293] The most unexpected bathos of these last three words is of course
intentional, and is Hamilton all over.

[294] The nymph is lying on a couch, and her companion (who has been
recalcitrant even to this politeness) is sitting beside her.

[295] This is as impudent as the other passages below are imbecile--of
course in each case (as before) with a calculated impudence and
imbecility. The miserable