and unfair. A man would not learn the highest life from the Chesterfield letters; they have little in common with the ethics of an A Kempis, a Jean Paul Richter, or a John Stuart Mill. But they have their value in their way, and if they contain some utterances so unutterably foolish as those in which Lord Chesterfield expressed himself upon Greek literature, they contain some very excellent maxims for the management of social life. Nobody could become a penny the worse for the study of Chesterfield; many might become the better. They are not a whit more cynical than, indeed they are not so cynical as, those letters of Thackeray's to young Brown, which with all their cleverness make us understand what Mr. Henley means when in his "Views and Reviews" he describes him as a "writer of genius who was innately and irredeemably a Philistine". The letters of Lord Chesterfield would not do much to make a man a hero, but there is little in literature more unheroic than the letters to Mr. Thomas Brown the younger.

It is curious to contrast the comparative enthusiasm with which the Whartons write about Horace Walpole with the invective of Lord Macaulay. To the great historian Walpole was the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most capricious of men, who played innumerable parts and over-acted them all, a creature to whom whatever was little seemed great and whatever was great seemed little. To Macaulay he was a gentleman-usher at heart, a Republican whose Republicanism like the courage of a bully or the love of a fribble was only strong and ardent when there was no occasion for it, a man who blended the faults of Grub Street with the faults of St. James's Street, and who united to the vanity, the jealousy and the irritability of a man of letters, the affected superciliousness and apathy of a man of ton. The Whartons over-praise Walpole where Lord Macaulay under-rates him; the truth lies between the two. He was not in the least an estimable or an admirable figure, but he wrote admirable, indeed incomparable letters to which the world is indebted beyond expression. If we can almost say that we know the London of the last century as well as the London of to-day it is largely to Horace Walpole's letters that our knowledge is due. They can hardly be over-praised, they can hardly be too often read by the lover of last century London. Horace Walpole affected to despise men of letters. It is his punishment that his fame depends upon his letters, those letters which, though their writer was all unaware of it, are genuine literature, and almost of the best.

We could linger over almost every page of the Whartons' volumes, for every page is full of pleasant suggestions. The name of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham brings up at once a picture of perhaps the brilliantest and basest period in English history. It brings up too memories of a fiction that is even dearer than history, of that wonderful romance of Dumas the Elder's, which Mr. Louis Stevenson has placed among the half-dozen books that are dearest to his heart, the "Vicomte de Bragelonne". Who that has ever followed, breathless and enraptured, the final fortunes of that gallant quadrilateral of musketeers will forget the part which is played by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in that magnificent prose epic? There is little to be said for the real Villiers; he was a profligate and a scoundrel, and he did not show very heroically in his quarrel with the fiery young Ossory. It was one thing to practically murder Lord Shrewsbury; it was quite another thing to risk the wrath and the determined right hand of the Duke of Ormond's son. But the Villiers of Dumas' fancy is a fairer figure and a finer lover, and it is pleasant after reading the pages in which the authors of these essays trace the career of Dryden's epitome to turn to those volumes of the great Frenchman, to read the account of the duel with de Wardes and invoke a new blessing on the muse of fiction.

In some earlier volumes of the same great series we meet with yet another figure who has his image in the Wharton picture gallery. In that "crowded and sunny field of life"—the words are Mr. Stevenson's, and they apply to the whole musketeer epic—that "place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech," the Abbé Scarron plays his part. It was here that many of us met Scarron for the first time, and if we have got to know him better since, we still remember with a thrill of pleasure that first encounter when in the society of the matchless Count de la Fere and the marvellous Aramis we made our bow in company with the young Raoul to the crippled wit and his illustrious companions. The Whartons write brightly about Scarron, but their best merit to my mind is that they at once prompt a desire to go to that corner of the bookshelf where the eleven volumes of the adventures of the immortal musketeers repose, and taking down the first volume of "Vingt Ans Après" seek for the twenty-third chapter, where Scarron receives society in his residence in the Rue des Tournelles. There Scudery twirls his moustaches and trails his enormous rapier and the Coadjutor exhibits his silken "Fronde". There the velvet eyes of Mademoiselle d'Aubigné smile and the beauty of Madame de Chevreuse delights, and all the company make fun of Mazarin and recite the verses of Voiture.

There are others of these wits and beaux with whom we might like to linger; but our space is running short; it is time to say good-bye. Congreve the dramatist and gentleman, Rochefoucault the wit, Saint-Simon the king of memoir-writers, Rochester and St. Evremond and de Grammont, Selwyn and Sydney Smith and Sheridan each in turn appeals to us to tarry a little longer. But it is time to say good-bye to these shadows of the past with whom we have spent some pleasant hours. It is their duty now to offer some pleasant hours to others.

Justin Huntly M'Carthy.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In revising this Publication, it has scarcely been found necessary to recall a single opinion relative to the subject of the Work. The general impressions of characters adopted by the Authors have received little modification from any remarks elicited by the appearance of 'The Wits and Beaux of Society.'

It is scarcely to be expected that even our descendants will know much more of the Wits and Beaux of former days than we now do. The chests at Strawberry Hill are cleared of their contents; Horace Walpole's latest letters are before us; Pepys and Evelyn have thoroughly dramatized the days of Charles II.; Lord Hervey's Memoirs have laid bare the darkest secrets of the Court in which he figures; voluminous memoirs of the less historic characters among the Wits and Beaux have been published; still it is possible that some long-disregarded treasury of old letters, like that in the Gallery at Wotton, may come to light. From that precious deposit a housemaid—blotted for ever be her name from memory's page—was purloining sheets of yellow paper, with antiquated writing on them, to light her fires with, when the late William Upcott came to the rescue, and saved Evelyn's 'Diary' for a grateful world. It is just possible that such a discovery may again be made, and that the doings of George Villiers, or the exile life of Wharton, or the inmost thoughts of other Wits and Beaux may