calottin in verse, by which he was at once enrolled as a member of the corps.

a

Aymon was elected Generalissimo. His election took place at a splendid banquet, two servants presenting him on velvet cushion, one the fool's sceptre, the staff of authority, the other a cap, ornamented by a weather cock, on which were rats, rattles and butterflies.

De Torsac having one day made a rodomontade at the house of the Generalissimo, Aymon insisted on investing him as the chief; de Torsac was so invested, whether he would or not, and he retained the title up to the period of his death in 1724. They composed a funeral oration in his honor, a piquant satire on the discourses delivered at the French Academy, which was scarcely printed when it was seized through the influence of the parties satirized; but, thanks to the interest of Villars, Aymon, who was re-elected Generalissimo, obtained a reversal of the seizure. The latter died the 5th of May, 1731. The Regiment de la Calotte survived him many years, and ended by sinking quietly away. The best pieces composed by its members have been published. Two orders which recalled the Regiment de la Calotte, the Order de l'Eteignoir and that of Girouette were instituted during the first Restoration, and distributed a great number of commissions.

The order of Capripèdes, Ratiers or Lucifuges the members of which assembled in Languedoc by moonlight.

Les Frères Charbonniers who in turning to politics became the Carbonari.

The order of Charpentiers, subject to the Fendeurs.

The order of chivalry of the Cocus réformés, established at Paris. There was a book of this order published, without date, in octavo.

The order of the Coteaux, of which there is notice in the third satire of Boileau. The origin of the order is thus given in the life of Saint-Evremond. "One day as he was partaking of some refreshment at the house of M. de Lavardin, bishop of Mans, this bishop began to rally him on his delicacy, and that of the Count d'Olonne and of the Marquis de Bois Dauphin. "These gentlemen,' said this prelate, overdo everything. by their extreme desire for refinement in luxury; they can eat nothing but calves fattened along the banks of the river; it is necessary that their partridge should come from Auvergne, and that their rabbits should be of the Roche

Guyon or of Versine. They have not less difficulty as to fruit; as for wine, they can not drink any that is not of les trois coteaux d' Aï, of the Haut-Villiers and of Avenay.' Saint-Evremond did not fail to impart to his friends this conversation and they so often repeated what he said of the coteaux, and joked about it so frequently, that they were soon called Les Trois Coteaux.

From the French literary coteries England derived her Blue Stockings Assemblies; and to one who reads the history, the social history, of the last century, they form its most interesting points.

In the year 1763 England was at peace with France, and many persons of fortune took advantage of that circumstance to visit Paris. Amongst these were several who loved literature for its own sake, and who, obtaining admission to the chief literary coteries of France, resolved to attempt the formation of such societies in their own country; of those so resolving Mrs. Montague was, from her fortune and position, the most remarkable. Her estate was ample, and her rank in life sufficient to enable her to commence the holding of these literary meetings. Whilst in France she attended a sitting of the Academy, and heard Voltaire indulge in his usual strain of senseless and ignorant false criticism of Shakspeare. Suard, the secretary, said to her-" Je crois, Madame, que vous êtes un peu fâchée de ce que vous venez d'entendre"-but she answerd with great readiness" Moi, Monsieur ?-Point du tout je ne suis pas amie de M. de Voltaire." -But so much annoyed was she by this depreciation of the great poet, that upon her return to England she wrote aud published an Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare. Her assem

blies of literary men and women were held once every week, and she frequently invited large parties of the most distinguished persons to very expensive and well appointed dinners, believing, perhaps, with Moliere's hero, that "le vrai Amphytrion est celui chez qui l'on dine."

Mrs. Vesey was a rival of Mrs. Montague, as were, in a minor degree, Mrs. Thrale and Mrs. Boscawen. The commoners, however, were not permitted to hold exclusive possession of all the talent, and occasionally the dowager Duchess of Portland and the young Duchess of Devonshire threw open their mansions to receive the men of genius of the time.

During the thirty years in which these assemblies were held,

Mrs. Montague's house was the centre of all literary attraction. One can fancy the scene her rooms must have presented. The tall, bony hostess, rouged and powdered, and, though nearly seventy years of age, vain of her diamond necklace and bows, is moving amongst her guests. The apartment is richly furnished, and upon the walls hang portraits of most of the great statesmen and writers who graced the reign of George the Second, and who gave a glory to the early years in which his grandson ruled, Pulteney's picture holds the place of honor above the chimney piece, and near it is placed that of the first Lord Lyttleton. The evening is advancing and the rooms are full. There is a crowd around a large burly man, who is rolling, and mouthing, and sirring, and disputing, and drinking innumerable cups of scalding tea-but the throng about him increases-all are anxious to hear Dr. Johnson.

He has been snubbing Boswell, who appears rather pleased, aud thinks the great old Samuel a far nobler follow than that, as Lord Auchinleck called Paoli-" land loupinCorsican". Now the rough old man turns, smilingly, to answer some question of the Duchess of Devonshire, whose fair bright face is bent anxiously towards him, for he is her idol and her sage. Sir Joshua speaks, and the Doctor listens calmly and attentively, and answers so as that every word may reach the dull ear of the painter. Then Topham Beauclerk comes up, and the old man can hardly frown at the open hearted, dear young rake, who is so clever and so witty; but a smile lights up his heavy face as he grasps the hand of that wonderful young Irishman "Mund Burke," he would like to argue with 'Mund, there is no nonsense, sir, about him," but he cannot forget his politeness, and his hostess shews him some china plates, which she wishes him to observe, as they once belonged to Queen Elizabeth. He blinks at them with his bleared eyes, and then making a profound but shambling bow, observes-"belonged to Queen Elizabeth, Madame, they have no reason to be ashamed of their present possessor, who is little inferior to the first."

A little pock-marked man, in a flashy court dress, fidgets around the circle; it is Oliver Goldsmith, anxious to make himself conspicuous, wondering why nobody comes to listen to his opinions, and thinking that unless he can contradict Johnson' he will pass unnoticed. David Hume has returned from Paris, where he has been Secretary of Embassy under Lord Hertford,

and is telling a select few how he attended a masked ball, dressed as a sultan, and sat between two of the handsomest women in France. He is praising Madame D'Epinay, and talking of Grimm and Diderot, to the intense amusement of Horace Walpole, who thinks what a capital paragraph a description of the whole affair will make in that letter which he means to write the next day to Sir Horace Mann, and he wonders if Hume is aware that Madame D'Epinay has described the ball scene in a letter commencing-" Le célèbre David Hume, grand et gros historiographe d'Angleterre, connu et estimé par ses ecrits, n'a pas autant de talens pour ce genre d'amusemens auquel toutes nos jolies femmes l'avoient décidé propre." Walpole thinks too, how oddly "le grand et gros historiographe" would look if he knew that he, Walpole, described him to Lady Suffolk, stating, "Mr. Hume is fashion itself, though his French is almost as unintelligible as his English."

Doctor Burney and his daughter enter, and the latters goes at once to address Doctor Johnson, lest otherwise he might suppose his clever little friend Fanny had forgotten his kind praises of Evelina. Horace Walpole is doing the fine gentleman, and talking to Reynolds about art and artists, particularly of a mad young Irishman, named Barry, who is abusing everybody and everything. Mrs. Carter too is there, and ready to speak on any subject of literature or the classics; and not far off is seated a very ugly, but very clever woman, well known through her letters, Mrs. Chapone. And David Garrick is moving from place to place, his bright eye glancing around, and he is acting in the drawing-room, having left all his nature in his theatrical dressing-room. He has been talking in a corner to Doctor Shipley, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and now turns to speak to a very remarkable young man who has been in the army and navy, who has written sermons and preached them to his company, when they had no chaplain; he is now studying for the bar, but is not a very ardent lover of the dry details of the profession; he will, however, one day, be the great forensic orator of England-he is the Honorable Thomas Erskine, third son of the Earl of Buchan.

Forgetful of his late rebuff, Boswell is hovering and lingering about the Doctor's chair to catch his words, and as some great thought, in morals, in philosophy, or in criticism, falls from his lips, honest Bozzy hopes that he has never spoken thus before Mrs. Thrale, or Ned Malone, or Tom Davies. All these

with others, formed the brilliant circle in the reception rooms of our English Blue Stocking Coteries; but the coteries passed away with knee-buckles and hair powder; with the reign of pantaloons, and hair dressed à la Victime, arose another literary association, which found its last supporters in Lydia White and old Lady Cork.

In these literary coteries all the subjects of the day were before the society; wit and humor were employed upon them, and puns, and epigrams, and stinging lampoons were suggested or written. A better order of composition was attempted by those whose powers enabled them to accomplish it.

ART. II.—PAUL HIFFERNAN. A CHARACTER OF THE LAST CENTURY.

"Old times are changed-old manners gone," and instead of saying there is nothing new under the sun, we may more fitly say, there is nothing old under the sun-whole classes of beings appear to be extinct-we do not speak of the supernatural beings only, who with one consent have taken their departure from a world become all-too bustling for them-the rustic swain now treads his way homewards when his evening task is over, uninterrupted by the merry laugh of fairies dancing on the green; the maiden, as she rises at the dawn of morning, never finds in her shoe the welcome coin; and even veritable beings of actual flesh and blood, have left vacant places in our land, and are never to appear among us again-the very hermits, once considered absolutely necessary to give the finishing effect to the picturesque, no longer sit in solemn state, with a handful of berries, a bunch of cresses and a draught of water, caught from the trickling rills, for their every-day fare-if such things as pilgrimages are still made, depend upon it they are accomplished with the aid of locomotives. The most romantic hero of modern days turns aside from shady groves and purling streams, for the nearest railway station. The children of former times, when ignorance was bliss, who scampered about the green fields, far from the paths of science, have been succeeded by a race of juvenile philosophers deep in scholastic