1830.] France and Miladi Morgan. 445 



ways ; she has thrust herself, by all miserable contrivances into society, 

 till she has sickened it ; she has travelled, and scribbled her ' travels/ 

 Heaven defend us ! she has been pilloried in criticism, which nothing 

 but her own virulence could have provoked; she has answered the 

 criticism by a display of miserable venom ; she has attempted to laugh 

 at it, and in laughing betrayed her agony in every fibre, under a lash as 

 well deserved as ever was inflicted upon dulness. 



" ' She has set up for an Irish politician, and for a patriot all round the 

 world ; while she knows no more of politics, than that an Irish rebel 

 wears a green ribbon, nor of patriotism, than to bore the world with 

 nonsense on the virtue of Italian quacks and French harlequins. What 

 more can she expect in this life ? Or, must she go on for ever, plunging 

 deeper and deeper in the mire of mediocrity, making her ignorance 

 more palpable, her folly more tiresome, and her effrontery more ridicu- 

 lous. Bah. Miladi Morgan !' 



" I ventured to interpose a word in favour of the pauvre Miladi. ' There 

 must be some admission for involuntary ignorance, for the petty conceit 

 of a woman, by some accident or other led to believe that she has some 

 kind of literary influence/ But he would hear nothing. 



" ' Look there,' said he, and he pointed to a long tirade upon Ninon 

 de 1'Enclos. ' If your moral sense is not enlightened on that ancient 

 profligate, read her tender tale there. The fact is, that this silly 

 person's writings on France offend all my nationality. Is it from the 

 wretched club of coxcombs that such a woman can gather round her, 

 that an idea of literary France is to be given to foreigners ? But even 

 this I could forgive to her ignorance. But what feeling is due to 

 this trifler, ranking herself among the ' celebrites,' standing on tiptoe to 

 make a figure among mankind, and protesting herself the natural repre- 

 sentative of genius, the true surviving compound of De Stael and 

 Voltaire ? Bah ! Miladi Morgan !' " 



" He flung down the book and left the room." 



APHORISMS ON MAN, BY THE LATE WILLIAM HAZLITT, ESQ. 



I. 



Servility is a sort of bastard envy. We heap our whole stock of 

 involuntary adulation on a single prominent figure, to have an excuse 

 for withdrawing our notice from all other claims (perhaps juster and 

 more galling ones), and in the hope of sharing a part of the applause 

 as train-bearers. 



II. 



Admiration is catching by a certain sympathy. The vain admire the 

 vain ; the morose are pleased with the morose ; nay, the selfish and 

 cunning are charmed with the tricks and meanness of which they are 

 witnesses, and may be in turn the dupes. 



III. 



Vanity is no proof of conceit. A vain man often accepts of praise 

 as a cheap substitute for his own good opinion. He may think more 

 highly of another, though he would be wounded to the quick if his 

 own circle thought so. He knows the worthlessness and hollowness of 

 the flattery to which he is accustomed, but his ear is tickled with the 



