The plot is in perfect harmony with the genius of the author, and the characters he has invented—­perfectly unconnected, and fancifully wild.  Alcidon resolves to marry his three daughters, who, however, have no such project of their own.  He offers them to the first who comes.  He accepts for his son-in-law the first who offers, and is clearly convinced that he is within a very short period of accomplishing his wishes.  As the four ridiculous personages whom we have noticed frequently haunt his house, he becomes embarrassed in finding one lover too many, having only three daughters.

The catastrophe relieves the old gentleman from his embarrassments.  Melisse, faithful to her Macedonian hero, declares her resolution of dying before she marries any meaner personage.  Hesperie refuses to marry, out of pity for mankind; for to make one man happy she thinks she must plunge a hundred into despair.  Sestiane, only passionate for comedy, cannot consent to any marriage, and tells her father, in very lively verses,

    Je ne veux point, mon pere, espouser un censeur;
    Puisque vous me souffrez recevoir la douceur
    Des plaisirs innocens que le theatre apporte,
    Prendrais-je le hasard de vivre d’autre sorte? 
    Puis on a des enfans, qui vous sont sur les bras,
    Les mener an theatre, O Dieux! quel embarras! 
    Tantot couche ou grossesse, on quelque maladie;
    Pour jamais vous font dire, adieu la comedie!

    IMITATED.

    No, no, my father, I will have no critic,
    (Miscalled a husband) since you still permit
    The innocent sweet pleasures of the stage;
    And shall I venture to exchange my lot? 
    Then we have children folded in our arms
    To bring them to the play-house; heavens! what troubles! 
    Then we lie in, are big, or sick, or vexed: 
    These make us bid farewell to comedy!

At length these imagined sons-in-law appear; Filidan declares that in these three girls he cannot find the mistress he adores.  Amidor confesses he only asked for one of his daughters out of pure gallantry, and that he is only a lover—­in verse!  When Phalante is questioned after the great fortunes he hinted at, the father discovers that he has not a stiver, and out of credit to borrow:  while Artabaze declares that he only allowed Alcidon, out of mere benevolence, to flatter himself for a moment with the hope of an honour that even Jupiter would not dare to pretend to.  The four lovers disperse and leave the old gentleman more embarrassed than ever, and his daughters perfectly enchanted to enjoy their whimsical reveries, and die old maids—­all alike “Visionaries!”

SOLITUDE.

We possess, among our own native treasures, two treatises on this subject, composed with no ordinary talent, and not their least value consists in one being an apology for solitude, while the other combats that prevailing passion of the studious.  Zimmerman’s popular work is overloaded with commonplace; the garrulity of eloquence.  The two treatises now noticed may be compared to the highly-finished gems, whose figure may be more finely designed, and whose strokes may be more delicate in the smaller space they occupy than the ponderous block of marble hewed out by the German chiseller.