DECEMBER 289 



the French authorities, condemned to death for rapt et 

 vol, which sentence was commuted to one of imprison- 

 ment at Vincennes. Having suborned the secretary of 

 the governor, he was enabled to carry on a correspon- 

 dence with Sophie for more than three years. The 

 tender regrets, the unreserve, the undying constancy 

 they breathe redeemed from mawkishness by the 

 powerful intellect which gave them birth the feverish 

 impatience for liberty, only with the object of rejoining 

 Sophie render these letters most fascinating, could 

 one but forget the shameful end. When he obtained 

 his release, Mirabeau found that the real Sophie was 

 not the ideal he had cherished during his long con- 

 finement. He deserted her and her child, and after 

 some miserable vicissitudes, she perished by her own 

 hand. 



Replace the book and see if there be nothing near 

 at hand that will leave a sweeter impression of human 

 nature? Sure, here is Michel de Montaigne, and no 

 one is to be pitied who has his company for an hour 

 or two. Luckily, this copy of the famous essays is a 

 good folio of the seventeenth century. To render them 

 in anything but the old typography is all but as cruel 

 as Lamb considered Lord Braybrooke's edition of 

 Burton's Anatomy. Threadbare though he be from 

 over-quotation, he is inexhaustible in quaint reflection, 

 gentle scepticism, kindly advice, irrelevant anecdote, 

 illogical conclusion. Above all, how delicate and vivid 

 are the glimpses which he allows into French society 

 at a time when the revival of learning was beginning 

 T 



