In some earlier volumes of the same great series we meet with yet another figure who has his image in the Wharton picture gallery.  In that “crowded and sunny field of life”—­the words are Mr. Stevenson’s, and they apply to the whole musketeer epic—­that “place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech,” the Abbe Scarron plays his part.  It was here that many of us met Scarron for the first time, and if we have got to know him better since, we still remember with a thrill of pleasure that first encounter when in the society of the matchless Count de la Fere and the marvellous Aramis we made our bow in company with the young Raoul to the crippled wit and his illustrious companions.  The Whartons write brightly about Scarron, but their best merit to my mind is that they at once prompt a desire to go to that corner of the bookshelf where the eleven volumes of the adventures of the immortal musketeers repose, and taking down the first volume of “Vingt Ans Apres” seek for the twenty-third chapter, where Scarron receives society in his residence in the Rue des Tournelles.  There Scudery twirls his moustaches and trails his enormous rapier and the Coadjutor exhibits his silken “Fronde”.  There the velvet eyes of Mademoiselle d’Aubigne smile and the beauty of Madame de Chevreuse delights, and all the company make fun of Mazarin and recite the verses of Voiture.

There are others of these wits and beaux with whom we might like to linger; but our space is running short; it is time to say good-bye.  Congreve the dramatist and gentleman, Rochefoucault the wit, Saint-Simon the king of memoir-writers, Rochester and St. Evremond and de Grammont, Selwyn and Sydney Smith and Sheridan each in turn appeals to us to tarry a little longer.  But it is time to say good-bye to these shadows of the past with whom we have spent some pleasant hours.  It is their duty now to offer some pleasant hours to others.

    Justin Huntly M’CARTHY.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In revising this Publication, it has scarcely been found necessary to recall a single opinion relative to the subject of the Work.  The general impressions of characters adopted by the Authors have received little modification from any remarks elicited by the appearance of ’The Wits and Beaux of Society.’

It is scarcely to be expected that even our descendants will know much more of the Wits and Beaux of former days than we now do.  The chests at Strawberry Hill are cleared of their contents; Horace Walpole’s latest letters are before us; Pepys and Evelyn have thoroughly dramatized the days of Charles II.; Lord Hervey’s Memoirs have laid bare the darkest secrets of the Court in which he figures; voluminous memoirs of the less historic characters among the Wits and Beaux have been published; still it is possible that some long-disregarded treasury