declaimed at random, the prompter in vain cried out, nothing was heard, and everything was said; the actor, who could not hear the catch-word, remained disconcerted and silent; the whole was broken, wrong and right; it was all Hebrew.  Nor was this all; the actors behind the scene were terrified, and they either came forwards trembling, and only watching the signs of their brother actors, or would not venture to show themselves.  The machinist only, with his scene-shifters, who felt so deep an interest in the fate of my piece, was tranquil and attentive to his duty, to produce a fine effect.  After the hurly-burly was over, he left the actors mute with their arms crossed.  He opened the scenery! and not an actor could enter on it!  The pit, more clamorous than ever, would not suffer the denouement!  Such was the conduct, and such the intrepidity, of the army employed to besiege the Arsacides!  Such was the cause of that accusation of tediousness made against a drama, which has most evidently the contrary defect!”

Such is the history of a damned dramatist, written by himself, with a truth and simplicity worthy of a happier fate.  It is admirable to see a man, who was himself so deeply involved in the event, preserve the observing calmness which could discover the minutest occurrence; and, allowing for his particular conception of the cause, detailing them with the most rigid veracity.  This author was unquestionably a man of the most honourable probity, and not destitute of intellectual ability; but he must serve as an useful example of that wrong-headed nature in some men, which has produced so many “Abbots of Unreason” in society, whom it is in vain to convince by a reciprocation of arguments; who assuming false principles, act rightly according to themselves; a sort of rational lunacy, which, when it discovers itself in politics and religion, and in the more common affairs of life, has produced the most unhappy effects; but this fanaticism, when confined to poetry, only amuses us with the ludicrous; and, in the persons of Monsieur de Beaussol, and of Percival Stockdale, may offer some very fortunate self-recollections in that “Calamity of Authors” which I have called “The Illusions of Writers in Verse.”

ACAJOU AND ZIRPHILE.

As a literary curiosity, and as a supplemental anecdote to the article of PREFACES,[173] I cannot pass over the suppressed preface to the “Acajou et Zirphile” of Du Clos, which of itself is almost a singular instance of hardy ingenuity, in an address to the public.

This single volume is one of the most whimsical of fairy tales, and an amusing satire originating in an odd circumstance.  Count Tessin, the Swedish Ambassador at the Court of France, had a number of grotesque designs made by Boucher, the king’s painter, and engraved by the first artists.  The last plate had just been finished when the Count was recalled, and appointed Prime Minister and Governor