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ahead of his compositors and correctors. We must leave him to relate 

 in his own words how this was effected. The volume entitled " Gla- 

 nures " contains a paper, written in the last hours of his life, entitled 

 " Comment j'ai fait mon Dictionnaire," which tells the wonderful story 

 of his literary existence : " My rule of life included the twenty-four 

 hours of the day and night, so as to bestow the least possible amount 

 of time on the current calls of existence. I contrived, by sacrificing 

 every superfluous indulgence, to have the luxury of a dwelling in the 

 country and another in town. My country abode was at Menil-le-Roi, 

 near Paris, a small old cottage with near an acre of productive garden, 

 which dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis, as it did to the old man in 

 the Georgics. There I was master of my time. I rose at eight ; very 

 late, you will say, for so busy a man. Wait an instant. While they 

 put my bedroom in order, which was also my study, I went down- 

 stairs with some work in hand. It was thus, for example, that I com- 

 posed the preface of the ' Dictionary.' I had learnd from Chancellor 

 d'Aguesseau the value of unoccupied minutes. At nine I set to work 

 to correct proofs until the hour of our mid-day meal. At one I re- 

 sumed work, and wrote my papers for the * Journal des Savants,' to 

 which I was from 1855 a regular contributor. From three to six I 

 went on with the c Dictionary.' At six punctually we dined, which 

 took about an hour. They say it is unwholesome to work directly 

 after dinner, but I have never found it so. It is so much time won 

 from the exigencies of the body. Starting again at seven in the even- 

 ing, I stuck to the * Dictionary.' My first stage took me to midnight, 

 when my wife and daughter (who were my assistants) retired. I then 

 worked on till three in the morning, by which time my daily task was 

 usually completed. If it was not, I worked on later, and more than 

 once, in the long days of summer, I have put out my lamp and con- 

 tinued to work by the light of the coming dawn. However, at three 

 in the morning I generally laid down my pen, and put my papers 

 in order for the following day that day which had already begun. 

 Habit and regularity had extinguished all excitement in my work. I 

 fell asleep as easily as a man of leisure does ; and woke at eight, as 

 men of leisure do. But these vigils were not without their charm. A 

 nightingale had built her nest in a little row of limes that crosses the 

 garden, and she filled the silence of the night and of the country with 

 her limpid and tuneful notes. O Virgil ! how could you, who wrote 

 the Georgics, describe as a mournful dirge, miserabile carmen, those 

 glorious strains ? " 



We have never heard of another example of severe labor of the 

 brain carried on systematically for seventeen or eighteen hours a day 

 for so many years. But M. Littre, who was himself a great medical 

 authority, is of opinion that it did him no harm. He was past forty 

 when he began this work ; he was fifty-nine when he began to print 

 the Dictionary ; he was seventy-two when he completed it ; and he 



