vigor of his thought. His manner is steadily in the service of his matter. He is adequate, not copious; for his moral "frugality and industry" prompt him to eschew surplusage and to make his texture firm. His regard for purity of diction is classical; he avoids vulgarity; he despises the jargon of scientific pedants; but like Montaigne he loves frank and masculine speech, and he likes to enrich the language of the well-bred by discreet drafts upon the burry, homely, sententious, proverbial language of the people. Like Lord Bacon and like many other grave men among his fellow countrymen, he found it dificult to avoid an opportunity for a jest even when the occasion was unpropitious; and he never sat below the Attic salt. When his fortune was made he put by the pewter spoon and earthenware bowl of his apprenticeship for silver and fine china. His biographer reminds us that he kept a well-stocked cellar at Passy and enjoyed the distinction of suffering from the gout. With affluence and years he acquired a "palate," and gave a little play to the long repressed tastes of an Epicurean whom early destiny had cast upon a rockbound coast. The literary expression of his autumnal festivity is to be found in the bagatelles. The tallow chandler's son, having entered on the cycle of his development by cultivating thrift like Defoe, completed it like Lord Chesterfield by cultivating "the graces." The Ephemera proves that this great eighteenth century rationalist had a fancy. It is no
