074 BELLES LETTRES EXTRAORDINARY. 



From this number I would except a Frenchman of my acquaintance, 

 who, without possessing a single requisite to form the reputation of a 

 letter-writer, imagined himself a second St. Preux ; but forgetting 

 that his vanity was shown to be stronger than his love, numbered 

 every letter which he wrote to his mistress ! intending them perhaps 

 as a graduated reference to his passion a sort of numerical thermo- 

 meter of the heart. " Ah, mon Dieu, comme cela m ' ennuie ! " ex- 

 claimed Madame de P one day to her cousin Ernestine, " il ne 

 Jinira jamais ce pauvre Victor I il est mamtc.nant au 32 et veut abso- 

 lument me rappeler le 12. He says ( The passion so ardently 

 expressed in No. 19 was but a faint image of that which filled my 

 soul in 28.' ' The despair of 30 can only be equalled by the suf- 

 ferings I endured in writing No. 10.' When he gets up to ninety," 

 added she, " I shall send his letters to the lottery-office, and let them 

 compile a new scale of fortunate numbers from the complexion of 

 each." Victor's mistress never kept her threat ; she had amassed 

 about half the number when a friend made her a present of a beau- 

 tiful poodle ; her lover's billets, written on " papier rose, dore," made 

 admirable papillottes for Fanchon ; Victor caressed the dog one 

 morning before its toilette was made he recognized his own hand- 

 writing, renounced his mistress, forswore the art which chafed old 

 Archibald Douglas, and the French revolution happening most 

 opportunely, he became one of the " braves de Juillet." 



I have been led to make the remarks on letter-writing which pre- 

 ceded this anecdote from having accidentally discovered among my 

 papers a few specimens of the correspondence of various persons, 

 which were given me at different periods, as remarkable either for 

 defiance of orthography, of sense, or for some other absurdity. The 

 greater part of them are the unbiassed emanations of people in humble 

 life ; the poetry and biography of this class have latterly been thought 

 worthy of record, and I see no reason why their correspondence also 

 should remain unedited.* They are also perfectly genuine; no 

 liberty of amendment has been permitted ; the critical pen of the 

 corrector has not been suffered to emasculate the energy of the rude 

 original. We could easily prove their authenticity, but to decipher 

 the autograph would be a task too laborious for general readers ; we 

 therefore prefer giving a faithful transcript to reproducing the Per- 

 sepolitan character in which they are curiously carved. Like the 

 chivalry of old, whose calligraphic attempts resembled sword-blades 

 and spear-heads rather than the round monastic penmanship of the 

 cloister, the formation of the letters in these M.S.S. bears a closer 

 affinity to the instruments of field-labour or housewifery employ- 

 ment, the coulters of ploughs and darning-needles, than to the 

 recondite skill so highly lauded by Mr. Vyse in his spelling-book, 

 where ' ( the plastic pen " is made the subject of immortal verse.t 



* Vide Quarterly Review passim. 



j- I like to quote from high authority, following in this respect the example 

 of a modern poetess, who, in the notes to one of her poems, informs us that she 

 met with a passage relating to an eastern monarch where think you ? not in 

 d'Herbelot, Pococke, Sale, Hyde, Niebuhr, or any other orientalist but in 

 Afavor's English Grammar ! a work of reference so'valuable, that it is pity she 

 did not oflener avail herself of its concealed treasures. 



