Millions for defence, not a cent for tribute!

The treaty made by John Jay with England threatening to involve the United States in a war with France, the Directory refused to receive the American minister, but threw out hints that money paid by the United States might have a favorable effect; to which Pinckney made a reply which became a watchword.

ALEXIS PIRON.

[A French dramatist and poet, called an "epigrammatic machine;" born at Dijon, 1689; wrote comedies, and a drama entitled "La Métromanie," considered his masterpiece; chosen a member of the Academy, 1753, but rejected by the king; died 1773.]

Write your own eulogy.

To an author who said he would like to compose a work upon a subject no one had ever touched, or would ever, Piron said, "Faites votre éloge" (as we might say, Write your own obituary"); the éloge being the laudatory notice of a deceased member of the French Academy, made by his successor.

Piron's own attempt to enter the circle of the "Immortals" is an amusing chapter of French literary history. He had spoken too slightingly of them to command their suffrages, calling them on one occasion "the invalids of wit" (les invalides du bel esprit); and he said of them, "They are forty with the wit of four' (Ils sont à quarante, qui ont de l'esprit comme quatre). Pushing his way one day into a public sitting of the Academy, he exclaimed, "It is harder to enter here than to be received" (Il est plus difficile d'entrer ici que d'y être reçu); “to be received" being the technical expression for the formal introduction after an election.

When asked what he should say, if elected to a vacancy in 1750, he replied, "Oh! this will be enough: 'Gentlemen, I thank you for the honor:' and all will answer, 'It is not worth mentioning'" (il n'y a pas de quoi). Piron was not elected. He said of his failure, "I could not make thirty-nine people think as I do, and I could less think as thirty-nine do." Three years afterwards he was successful; but Louis XV., under the influence of Mme. de Pompadour, annulled the election, giving him instead a

pension of a thousand louis. Shortly afterwards, Piron sent his testament to the Academy with the well-known epitaph inscribed upon it,

"Ci gît Piron, qui ne fut rien,

Pas même académicien."

(Here lies Piron, who was nothing, not even an Academician.)

The entire Academy was invited to his funeral, but not a member attended it; which the wits considered a compliment to Piron, even of whose ghost "the Forty" stood in awe. SainteBeuve notices that the epitaph was not strictly true, as its subject was a member of the Academy of Dijon; but Dr. Johnson could have told him that "in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath."

Humanity may be allowed to stagger when divinity succumbs.

On being reproached with drinking a glass of wine on Good Friday, he replied, "You are wrong: le jour où la divinité succombe, l'humanité peut bien chanceler."

When some one asked why a bridge they were crossing had no railings (garde-fous, literally "fool-protectors "), Piron answered, “Because they did not think that we should ever cross it!" (C'est qu'on ne savait pas que nous y passerions!)

He slyly reproved the love of notoriety of the poet Rousseau (Jean Baptiste, 1670-1741), who fell on his knees at the sound of the Angelus, as they were walking over a deserted plain: "It is unnecessary, God alone sees us" (Cela est inutile, il n'y a que Dieu qui nous voit).

When a supercilious host said one day to a guest who hesitated to pass in to dinner before Piron, whom he did not know, "Don't be ceremonious, marquis, this gentleman is only a poet; " the poet stepped quickly in front, saying, "Since our titles are recognized, I pass first!" (Eh bien, puisque les qualités sont reconnues, je passe le premier!)

The Abbé Des Fontaines, whose morals were any thing but severe, and who had resigned his benefice to devote himself to literature, exclaimed one day in the Café Procope, of Piron's magnificent attire, "What a coat for such a man!" (Quel habit pour un tel homme !) Piron took hold of the abbe's soutane, say

ing, "What a man for such a coat!" (Quel homme pour un tel habit!)

Voltaire asked Piron's opinion of his "Narcisse," first produced June 16, 1749, saying, “I think you would have been very glad, had Piron written it." — “Why?”. "Because it was not hissed," was Voltaire's reason. "Can we hiss when we are yawning?" (Peut-on siffler, quand on baille ?) asked Piron.

The Archbishop of Paris asked Piron with the affected nonchalance of vanity, "Well, Piron, have you read my charge?” "No, monseigneur: have you?" was the cool reply.

WILLIAM PITT.

[The celebrated English statesman, second son of the Earl of Chatham; born in Kent, 1759; educated at Cambridge; entered Parliament, 1781; chancellor of the exchequer, 1782; prime minister, 1783; involved England in a war with the French Republic, 1793, which was continued after the rise of Napoleon; resigned 1801; prime minister again in 1804 until his death, Jan. 23, 1806.]

I am glad I am not the eldest son. I want to speak in the House of Commons, like papa.

by

Young Pitt showed that "the child is father of the man his exclamation at seven years of age, August, 1766, when told that his father had been made Earl of Chatham.

Jennings quotes an entry in Horner's journal, 1805, that during some conversation concerning the sports and exercises of the common people, and the impolicy of suppressing innocent amusements, Pitt's name was mentioned among those whose opinion on that subject might be of importance; and Windham exclaimed, "Oh, Pitt never was a boy!"

And, if this inauspicious union be not already consummated, in the name of my country I forbid the banns.

The figure with which he closed what Brougham pronounced the finest of his speeches. It was upon the unpopular coalition between Fox and Lord North, and the peace of Amiens, which Sheridan said "all men were glad of, but no man was proud of." The war which followed the rupture of the peace, Pitt called "a conflict of armed opinions."

Stopping in a speech in 1781, to allow Mr. Welbore Ellis to whisper to Lord North and Lord George Germaine, Pitt remarked, "I will wait until the Nestor of the treasury has reconciled the difference between the Agamemnon and the Achilles of the American war."

ex

During the war with France in 1805, Pitt called together some country gentlemen, says Jennings, to consider his Additional Force Bill. One of them objected to calling out the force " cept in case of actual invasion," to which Pitt objected that it would then be too late. When considering another clause to render the force more disposable, the same gentleman objected again, and insisted that he would never consent to its being sent out of England, -"except in case of actual invasion," suggested Pitt. Anecdotal History of Parliament.

When the Duchess of Gordon said upon her return to London, "Have you been talking as much nonsense as usual, Mr. Pitt?" he replied, "I am not so sure about that, but I think that since I saw your grace I have not heard so much.”

He said in 1780, on the India Bill, "Necessity is the argument of tyrants and the creed of slaves."

Fold up the map of Europe!

On entering his house at Putney, on his return from Bath, where he had unsuccessfully sought a return to health, Pitt observed a map of Europe, which had been drawn down from the wall: he thereupon turned to his niece, and mournfully said, "Roll up the map: it will not be wanted these ten years.". STANHOPE: Life, chap. 43. This was immediately after the battle of Austerlitz, Dec. 2, 1805, by which the Austrian and Russian armies were crushed, and the coalition of those powers with England against Napoleon destroyed. Only a month before, Pitt had said, in reply to a toast to his health at Guildhall, England has saved herself by her own exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

The Hon. James H. Stanhope, who was present at the death of Pitt, his relative, and made a statement of his last moments, says that the dying statesman uttered these words in a clearer voice than usual: "6 'Oh, my country! how I love my country!" and never spoke again. — Ibid.

Wilberforce said of him, "Mr. Pitt preferred power to principle; " but of his resistance to Jacobinical principles, "He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague was stayed."

Fox said of his rival's speech on the renewal of the war with France, in 1803, "He has spoken with an eloquence which Demosthenes would have admired, perhaps have envied.”

Burke was moved even to tears by Pitt's first speech, and exclaimed, "It is not a chip of the old block: it is the old block itself." "Pitt will be one of the first men in Parliament,” said a member of the opposition, to Fox. "He is so already," an

swered Fox.

When Pitt was laid in the grave of Chatham, in Westminster Abbey, the Duke of Wellington asked, "What grave contains such a father and such a son? What sepulchre embosoms the remains of so much human excellence and glory?"

PLATO.

[Born at Athens or in Ægina, about 429 B.C.; attended the school of Socrates; was sold as a slave in Sicily, but released; on his return to Athens opened the Academy, which he conducted for more than twenty years; died 347 B.C.]

Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces!

To a morose and unpolished philosopher. The advice was repeated by Lord Chesterfield to his son, whose manners were reported to him to be ungraceful. - Letters, March 9, 1748. Voltaire, when asked his opinion of Milton's genius, said of the character of Satan, considered the strongest-drawn figure of "Paradise Lost," "The ancients recommended us to sacrifice to the Graces, but Milton sacrificed to the Devil." Dr. Young, after Voltaire had ridiculed Milton's personification of Death, Sin, and Satan, in "Paradise Lost," produced the following impromptu upon the French poet:

"Thou art so witty, wicked, and so thin,

Thou art at once the Devil, Death, and Sin."

Power and fortune must concur with prudence and justice, to effect any thing great in a political capacity.

PLUTARCH: Life of Dion.