taste it is well to know that such men exist, and not to divide the human race.  Our homage paid to what is recognized as soon as perceived, we must not stray further; the eye should delight in a thousand pleasing or majestic spectacles, should rejoice in a thousand varied and surprising combinations, whose apparent confusion would never be without concord and harmony.  The oldest of the wise men and poets, those who put human morality into maxims, and those who in simple fashion sung it, would converse together in rare and gentle speech, and would not be surprised at understanding each other’s meaning at the very first word.  Solon, Hesiod, Theognis, Job, Solomon, and why not Confucius, would welcome the cleverest moderns, La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyere, who, when listening to them, would say “they knew all that we know, and in repeating life’s experiences, we have discovered nothing.”  On the hill, most easily discernible, and of most accessible ascent, Virgil, surrounded by Menander, Tibullus, Terence, Fenelon, would occupy himself in discoursing with them with great charm and divine enchantment:  his gentle countenance would shine with an inner light, and be tinged with modesty; as on the day when entering the theatre at Rome, just as they finished reciting his verses, he saw the people rise with an unanimous movement and pay to him the same homage as to Augustus.  Not far from him, regretting the separation from so dear a friend, Horace, in his turn, would preside (as far as so accomplished and wise a poet could preside) over the group of poets of social life who could talk although they sang,—­Pope, Boileau, the one become less irritable, the other less fault-finding.  Montaigne, a true poet, would be among them, and would give the finishing touch that should deprive that delightful corner of the air of a literary school.  There would La Fontaine forget himself, and becoming less volatile would wander no more.  Voltaire would be attracted by it, but while finding pleasure in it would not have patience to remain.  A little lower down, on the same hill as Virgil, Xenophon, with simple bearing, looking in no way like a general, but rather resembling a priest of the Muses, would be seen gathering round him the Attics of every tongue and of every nation, the Addisons, Pellissons, Vauvenargues—­all who feel the value of an easy persuasiveness, an exquisite simplicity, and a gentle negligence mingled with ornament.  In the centre of the place, in the portico of the principal temple (for there would be several in the enclosure), three great men would like to meet often, and when they were together, no fourth, however great, would dream of joining their discourse or their silence.  In them would be seen beauty, proportion in greatness, and that perfect harmony which appears but once in the full youth of the world.  Their three names have become the ideal of art—­Plato, Sophocles, and Demosthenes.  Those demi-gods honoured, we see a numerous and familiar company of choice spirits