"O fire, do not burn me!" cried he in an agony of terror. "O beautiful and brilliant fire, the brother of the sun and the cousin of the diamond, spare an unhappy creature; restrain thy ardor, and soften thy flame; do not roast me!"

"Did you have pity on me when I implored your aid, ungrateful wretch ?" answered the fire; and fiercely blazing with anger, in an instant it burnt Coquerico to a coal.

The soldier, seeing his roast chicken in this deplorable condition, took him by the leg and threw him out of the window. The wind bore the unhappy fowl to a dunghill, where it left him for a moment.

"O wind," murmured Coquerico, who still breathed, "O kindly zephyr, protecting breeze, behold me cured of my vain follies; let me rest on the paternal dunghill."

"Let you rest!" roared the wind. "Wait, and I will teach you how I treat ingrates." And with one blast it sent him so high in the air, that as he fell back he was transfixed by a steeple.

There St. Peter was awaiting him. With his own hand he nailed him to the highest steeple in Rome, where he is still shown to travelers. However high-placed he may be, all despise him because he turns with the slightest wind; black, dried up, stripped of his feathers, and beaten by the rain, he is no longer called Coquerico, but Weathercock: and thus expiates, and must expiate eternally, his disobedience, vanity, and wickedness.

8760

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

(1645-1696)

HE great French satirist La Bruyère has left a comprehensive portrait gallery of his contemporaries, where one searches Se vainly for the brilliant collector himself. One feels his desire to entertain, almost hears his amused ironical laugh at human follies; but his presence is intangible. He never took the world cor dially into confidence, and we know little now of his uneventful life. He was born at Paris, educated with the Oratorians, and then studied law; but when about twenty-eight he gave up practice, and bought

treasurership at Caen, which he sold again twelve years later. To his friend and admirer Bossuet may be attributed his literary success; for, recommended by him, he became in 1684 instructor in history to the young Duc de Bourbon, grandson of the famous Condé. He received a salary of a thousand crowns, and seems to have taught his charge a variety of subjects. The stormy Condés liked this genial quiet gentlemanteacher and his ready tact. They may have stormed sometimes, after their wont; but La Bruyère knew how to be amiable while

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE preserving his own respect and winning theirs. When his pupil left him, to marry the daughter of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan, he was asked to stay on as gentleman-in-waiting; and did so until his death of apoplexy at the Hôtel Condé, when only fifty-one.

With the Condés the witty bourgeois had every opportunity to gather material for his famous Characters. He was a keen observer, with the clear impartial vision possessed only by an unconcerned. spectator. Though he knew the King and all the powerful noblemen of France, though he was familiar with every court intrigue, he must often have been made to feel that he was a recognized inferior. There was quiet malice in his outward respect for these men and women, and in the merciless analysis with which he exposed their misplaced pride and ridiculous foibles.

The Characters' (Les Caractères), suggested as its name indicates by the work of Theophrastus, and partly modeled after it, appeared

in 1687; and La Bruyère found his literary pastime, his solace to wounded vanity, winning an immediate success. It is said that he had offered to give the manuscript to a bookseller friend, the possible profits to become a dowry for his child. The hesitating bookseller finally printed it, and thus made a large fortune.

La Bruyère has definitely stated the purpose of his work: "Of the sixteen chapters which compose it, there are fifteen wholly employed in detecting the fallacy and absurdity to be found in the objects of human passions and inclinations, and in demolishing such obstacles as at first weaken, and afterwards extinguish, any knowledge of God in mankind: therefore these chapters are merely preparatory to the sixteenth and last, wherein atheism is attacked, and perhaps routed; wherein the proofs of a God, such at least as weak man is capable of receiving, are produced; wherein the providence of God is defended against the insults and complaints of free-thinkers."

The continuity of the sixteen chapters is not very evident. Each begins with general moral reflections upon Merit,' Women,' the 'Affections,' and similar subjects; and ends with a series of literary portraits. La Bruyère was not a profound psychologist, but a careful superficial observer, with a gift for witty description. Although he used fictitious names, the sketches were too like living originals to be mistaken. Naturally they caused resentment and personal enmities, which twice prevented his election to the Academy, finally achieved in 1693. Everybody read the 'Characters,' charmed by the delicate, forceful style, and by the shrewd moral reasoning which enriched the language with wise sayings. Key after key appeared, identifying his personages; but La Bruyère repudiated them all, declaring that he had represented types, not copied individuals.

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The influence of this early realist was very great. But for him Le Sage's famous novel 'Gil Blas' might never have been written. He is said to have inspired the 'Persian Letters' (Lettres Persanes) of Montesquieu. Translated into English as early as 1698, the Characters' had a wide influence upon our literature. "There is no doubt," says Saintsbury, "that the English essayists of the Queen Anne school modeled themselves upon it."

Its success called forth many feeble imitations, among them 'The Little La Bruyère, or Characters and Morals of Children of this Century; and The La Bruyère for Domestics,' by Madame de Genlis, besides a 'La Bruyère for Boys' and a 'La Bruyère for Girls.'

His other works - a translation of Theophrastus, and an unfinished work upon 'Quietism,' materially altered by the Abbé du Pin, and published after La Bruyère's death-are not noteworthy. But the 'Characters' still constitute a delightful model of style, and a wise and witty commentary on social life.

IT

OF FASHION

From the Characters >

T IS very foolish, and betrays what a small mind we have, to allow fashion to sway us in everything that regards taste; in our way of living, our health, and our conscience. Game is out of fashion, and therefore insipid; and fashion forbids to cure. a fever by bleeding. This long while it has also not been fashionable to depart this life shriven by Theotimus; now none but the common people are saved by his pious exhortations, and he has already beheld his successor.

To have a hobby is not to have a taste for what is good and beautiful, but for what is rare and singular and for what no one else can match; it is not to like things which are perfect, but those which are most sought after and fashionable. It is not an amusement, but a passion; and often so violent that in the meanness of its object it yields only to love and ambition. Neither is it a passion for everything scarce and in vogue, but only for some particular object which is rare and yet in fashion.

The lover of flowers has a garden in the suburbs, where he spends all his time from sunrise till sunset. You see him standing there, and would think he had taken root in the midst of his tulips before his "Solitaire": he opens his eyes wide, rubs his hands, stoops down and looks closer at it; it never before seemed to him so handsome; he is in an ecstasy of joy, and leaves it to go to the "Orient," then to the "Veuve," from thence to the "Cloth of Gold," on to the "Agatha," and at last returns to the "Solitaire," where he remains, is tired out, sits down, and forgets his dinner; he looks at the tulip and admires its shade, shape, color, sheen, and edges, - its beautiful form and calyx: but God and Nature are not in his thoughts, for they do not go beyond the bulb of his tulips, which he would not sell for a thousand crowns, though he will give it to you for nothing when tulips are no longer in fashion, and carnations are all the rage. This rational being, who has a soul and professes some religion, comes home tired and half starved, but very much pleased with his day's work: he has seen some tulips.

Talk to another of the healthy look of the crops, of a plentiful harvest, of a good vintage, and you will find he only cares for fruit, and understands not a single word you say. Then turn

to figs and melons; tell him that this year the pear-trees are so heavily laden with fruit that the branches almost break, that there is abundance of peaches: and you address him in a language he completely ignores, and he will not answer you, for his sole hobby is plum-trees. Do not even speak to him of your plum-trees, for he is only fond of a certain kind, and laughs and sneers at the mention of any others; he takes you to his tree and cautiously gathers this exquisite plum, divides it, gives you one half, keeps the other himself, and exclaims, "How delicious! do you like it? is it not heavenly? You cannot find its equal anywhere;" and then his nostrils dilate, and he can hardly contain his joy and pride under an appearance of modesty. What a wonderful person, never enough praised and admired, whose name will be handed down to future ages! Let me look at his mien and shape whilst he is still in the land of the living, that I may study the features and the countenance of a man who, alone amongst mortals, is the happy possessor of such a plum.

Visit a third, and he will talk to you about his brother collectors, but especially of Diognetes. He admits that he admires him, but that he understands him less than ever. "Perhaps you

imagine," he continues, "that he endeavors to learn something of his medals, and considers them speaking evidences of certain facts that have happened,-fixed and unquestionable monuments of ancient history. If you do, you are wholly wrong. Perhaps you think that all the trouble he takes to become master of a medallion with a certain head on it is because he will be delighted to possess an uninterrupted series of emperors. If you do, you are more hopelessly wrong than ever. Diognetes knows when a coin is worn, when the edges are rougher than they ought to be, or when it looks as if it had been newly struck. All the drawers of his cabinet are full, and there is only room for one coin; this vacancy so shocks him that in reality he spends all his property and literally devotes his whole lifetime to fill it."

Another man criticizes those people who make long voyages either through nervousness or to gratify their curiosity; who write no narrative or memoirs, and do not even keep a journal; who go to see, and see nothing, or forget what they have seen; who only wish to get a look at towers or steeples they never saw before, and to cross other rivers than the Seine or the Loire; who leave their own country merely to return again, and