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days of Mademoiselle Scudery. In short, the last page of his memoir of Madame de Sablé — where we matter-of-fact English people are apt to put in praise of the morals and religion of the person whose life we have been writing — is devoted to this acme of praise. Madame de Sablé had all the requisites which enabled her "tenir un salon" with honour to herself and pleasure to her friends.

Apart from this crowning accomplishment, the good French lady seems to have been common-place enough. She was well-born, well-bred, and the company she kept must have made her tolerably intelligent. She was married to a dull husband, and doubtless had her small flirtations after she early became a widow; M. Cousin hints at them, but they were never scandalous or prominently before the public. Past middle life, she took to the process of "making her salvation," and inclined to the Port-Royalists. She was given to liking dainty things to eat, in spite of her Jansenism. She had a female friend that she quarrelled with, off and on, during her life. And (to wind up something like Lady O'Looney, of famous memory,) she knew how "tenir un salon." M. Cousin tells us that she was remarkable in no one thing or quality, and attributes to that single simple fact the success of her life.

Now, since I have read these memoirs of Madame de Sablé, I have thought much and deeply thereupon. At first, I was inclined to laugh at the extreme importance which was attached to this art of "receiving company," — no! that translation will not do — "holding a drawing-room" is even worse, because that implies the state and reserve of royalty; — shall we call it the art of "Sablé-