226 



statement by the anonymous copyist of Mr. Stirling's MS., that these Me- 

 moirs were written by the Marquis deYillars, was too readily received, not- 

 withstanding the glaring improbability, if not impossibility, of what is 

 added, namely, that they were written, not only hy the Marquis de Vil- 

 lars, but for the instruction of the Marquis de Blecourt^ — a statement 

 almost totally irreconcilable with positive dates and facts. The claim 

 of authorship being thus too readily admitted, all inquiries were turned 

 in the one, and I fear the wrong direction, namely, the Marquis de Yil- 

 lars. Whereas, if the work had been understood to be what it really is, 

 an anonymous one, a moment's search would have cleared up the mystery, 

 and the Philobiblon Society would have been poorer by one superfluous 

 but still curious and interesting book. Barbier's Dictionnaire des Ano- 

 nymes," &c., (tom. 2, p. 372, seconde edition, Paris, 1823), in referring to 

 Madame d'Aulnoy's well-known ^'Memoires de la Cour d'Espagne," 

 has the following remark : — 



Le volume intitule Memoir es de la Cour d^Espagne, depuis 1679 

 jusqu'en 1681, Paris, 1733, in- 12, ressemble beaucoup a I'ouvrage de 

 Madame d'Aulnoy." 



iN'ow, it will be remarked that we have here a work mentioned which 

 is almost identical in title with the MS. of Mr. Stirling, ''Memoires 

 de la Cour d'Espagne, depuis I'annee 1678 jusqu' en ranneel682;" 

 and the examination of which, and collation with the MS., one would 

 have thought, would be the first step in the inquiry. Why this was not 

 done arose, of course, from the preoccupation of all the parties concerned 

 with the name of Villars. If this had been done, there would of course 

 have been an end of the matter, as the MS. of Mr. Stirling and the anony- 

 mous volume of 1733 are identical, excepting those trifling difl'erences 

 which I shall subsequently point out. It will also be noticed that the re- 

 semblance betweenMadame d'Aulnoy's ''Memoires de la Cour d'Espagne" 

 and the anonymous volume of 1733, which struck Mr. Stirling and 

 others with so much surprise when pointed out by the well-informed 

 writer in ^^The Spectator" newspaper (March 8 and March 15, 1862), is 

 referred to so early as the year 1823. What is, however, still more sur- 

 prising is the fact that this very resemblance is pointed out by Mr. Stir- 

 ling himself mhiBY^nsihle ''Annals of the Artists of Spain," published in 

 1848, not many years before the time that he fell in with the supposed 

 Yillars' MS. at Sotheby's. Mr. Stirling, writing of the river Manzanares 

 at Madrid, which, he pleasantly says, '' though the dryest in Europe, has 

 been the great source of smart sayings,"^' adds in a note the following 

 remark : — 



* Some of these smart sayings are collected in the "Relation de Madrid," p. 3, ap- 

 pended to Aarsens de Sommerdyck's "Voyage d'Espagne," Elzevir, 1666. — Cologne, 

 1667. When speaking of the largeness of the bridge, and the insignificance of the 

 stream, it is said that the bridge was waiting for the river, like the Jews for the Messiah. 

 " Esta Puente espera il Rio comelos Judios el Messias." These jokes seem to have been the 

 common property of all the early travellers in Spain. Thus Madame d'Aulnoy, in her 

 "Voyage d'Espagne," torn, iii., p. 9, says, speaking of this bridge — "II estsuperbe, et 



