to contradict, as he affirms, the extravagant reports circulated about him, to the effect that he was set upon a table, in a cage, or that his hat was fastened to the ceiling by a pulley, that he might ’pluck it up or let it down, to do compliment to a friend, who honoured him with a visit.’  This description is a tolerable specimen of his style, and we give it in the quaint language of an old translation, published in 1741:—­

’I am past thirty, as thou may’st see by the back of my Chair.  If I live to be forty, I shall add the Lord knows how many Misfortunes to those I have already suffered for these eight or nine Years past.  There was a Time when my Stature was not to be found fault with, tho’ now ’tis of the smallest.  My Sickness has taken me shorter by a Foot.  My Head is somewhat too big, considering my Height; and my Face is full enough, in all Conscience, for one that carries such a Skeleton of a Body about him.  I have Hair enough on my Head not to stand in need of a Peruke; and ‘tis gray, too, in spite of the Proverb.  My Sight is good enough, tho’ my Eyes are large; they are of a blue Colour, and one of them is sunk deeper into my Head than the other, which was occasion’d by my leaning on that Side.  My Nose is well enough mounted.  My Teeth, which in the Days of Yore look’d like a Row of square Pearl, are now of an Ashen Colour; and in a few Years more, will have the Complexion of a Small-coal Man’s Saturday Shirt.  I have lost one Tooth and a half on the left Side, and two and a half precisely on the right; and I have two more that stand somewhat out of their Ranks.  My Legs and Thighs, in the first place, compose an obtuse Angle, then a right one, and lastly an acute.  My Thighs and Body make another; and my Head, leaning perpetually over my Belly, I fancy makes me not very unlike the Letter Z. My Arms are shortened, as well as my Legs; and my Fingers as well as my Arms.  In short, I am a living Epitome of human Misery.  This, as near as I can give it, is my Shape.  Since I am got so far, I will e’en tell thee something of my Humour.  Under the Rose, be it spoken, Courteous Reader, I do this only to swell the Bulk of my Book, at the Request of the Bookseller—­the poor Dog, it seems, being afraid he should be a Loser by this Impression, if he did not give Buyer enough for his Money.’

This allusion to the publisher reminds us that, on the suppression of his pension—­on hearing of which Scarron only said, ’I should like, then, to suppress myself’—­he had to live on the profits of his works.  In later days it was Madame Scarron herself who often carried them to the bookseller’s, when there was not a penny in the house.  The publisher was Quinet, and the merry wit, when asked whence he drew his income, used to reply with mock haughtiness, ‘De mon Marquisat de Quinet.’  His comedies, which have been described as mere burlesques—­I confess I have never read them, and hope to be absolved—­were successful enough, and if Scarron had known how to keep what he made, he might sooner or later have been in easy circumstances.  He knew neither that nor any other art of self-restraint, and, therefore, was in perpetual vicissitudes of riches and penury.  At one time he could afford to dedicate a piece to his sister’s greyhound, at another he was servile in his address to some prince or duke.