illiers; "'t was the most
classical thing I have heard for a long time."

"Why," said Hamilton, laying down his knife and fork, and preparing
himself by a large draught of the champagne, "why, Madame d'Epernonville
appeared without her _tour_; you know, Lord Bolingbroke, that _tour_
is the polite name for false hair. 'Ah, sacre!' cried her brother,
courteously, 'ma soeur, que vous etes laide aujourd'hui: vous n'avez pas
votre tour!' 'Voila pourquoi elle n'est pas si-belle (Cybele),' answered
I."

"Excellent! famous!" cried we all, except Huet, who seemed to regard
the punster with a very disrespectful eye. Hamilton saw it. "You do not
think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these _jeux de mots_: perhaps
you do not admire wit at all?"

"Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees it is
fine; when it cools the wave it is refreshing; when it steals over
flowers it is enchanting: but when, Monsieur Hamilton, it whistles
through the key-hole it is unpleasant."

"The very worst illustration I ever heard," said Hamilton, coolly. "Keep
to your classics, my dear Abbe. When Jupiter edited the work of Peter
Huet, he did with wit as Peter Huet did with Lucan when he edited
the classics: he was afraid it might do mischief, and so left it out
altogether."

"Let us drink!" cried Chaulieu; "let us drink!" and the conversation was
turned again.

"What is that you say of Tacitus, Huet?" said Boulainvilliers.

"That his wisdom arose from his malignancy," answered Huet. "He is
a perfect penetrator* into human vices, but knows nothing of human
virtues. Do you think that a good man would dwell so constantly on what
is evil? Believe me--no. A man cannot write much and well upon virtue
without being virtuous, nor enter minutely and profoundly into the
causes of vice without being vicious himself."

* A remark similar to this the reader will probably remember in the
"Huetiana," and will, I hope, agree with me in thinking it showy and
untrue.--ED.

"It is true," said Hamilton; "and your remark, which affects to be so
deep, is but a natural corollary from the hackneyed maxim that from
experience comes wisdom."

"But, for my part," said Boulainvilliers, "I think Tacitus is not so
invariably the analyzer of vice as you would make him. Look at the
'Agricola' and the 'Germania.'"

"Ah! the 'Germany,' above all things!" cried Hamilton, dropping a
delicious morsel of _sanglier_ in its way from hand to mouth, in hi