When LE GRAND D’AUSSY, whose “Fabliaux” are so well known, adopted, in the warmth of antiquarian imagination, the plan suggested by the Marquis de Paulmy, first sketched in the Melanges tires d’une grande Bibliotheque, of a picture of the domestic life of the French people from their earliest periods, the subject broke upon him like a vision; it had novelty, amusement, and curiosity:  “le sujet m’en parut neuf, riche et piquant.”  He revelled amid the scenes of their architecture, the interior decorations of their houses, their changeable dress, their games, and recreations; in a word, on all the parts which were most adapted to amuse the fancy.  But when he came to compose the more detailed work, the fairy scene faded in the length, the repetition, and the never-ending labour and weariness; and the three volumes which we now possess, instead of sports, dresses, and architecture, exhibit only a very curious, but not always a very amusing, account of the food of the French nation.

No one has more fully poured out his vexation of spirit—­he may excite a smile in those who have never experienced this toil of books and manuscripts—­but he claims the sympathy of those who would discharge their public duties so faithfully to the public.  I shall preserve a striking picture of these thousand task-works, coloured by the literary pangs of the voluminous author, who is doomed never to finish his curious work:—­

“Endowed with a courage at all proofs, with health which, till then, was unaltered, and which excess of labour has greatly changed, I devoted myself to write the lives of the learned of the sixteenth century.  Renouncing all kinds of pleasure, working ten to twelve hours a-day, extracting, ceaselessly copying; after this sad life I now wished to draw breath, turn over what I had amassed, and arrange it.  I found myself possessed of many thousands of bulletins, of which the longest did not exceed many lines.  At the sight of this frightful chaos, from which I was to form a regular history, I must confess that I shuddered; I felt myself for some time in a stupor and depression of spirits; and now actually that I have finished this work, I cannot endure the recollection of that moment of alarm without a feeling of involuntary terror. What a business is this, good God, of a compiler!  In truth, it is too much condemned; it merits some regard.  At length I regained courage; I returned to my researches:  I have completed my plan, though every day I was forced to add, to correct, to change my facts as well as my ideas; SIX times has my hand re-copied my work; and, however fatiguing this may be, it certainly is not that portion of my task which has cost me most.”

The history of the “Bibliotheca Britannica” of the late Dr. Watt may serve as a mortifying example of the length of labour and the brevity of life.  To this gigantic work the patient zeal of the writer had devoted twenty years; he had just arrived at the point of publication, when death folded down his last page; the son who, during the last four years, had toiled under the direction of his father, was chosen to occupy his place.  The work was in the progress of publication, when the son also died; and strangers now reap the fruits of their combined labours.