Part 24

[23] _Mémoires de Fléchier sur les Grands-Jours tenus à Clermont, en 1665-66_: publiés par B. Gonod, Bibliothécaire de la Ville de Clermont. Paris 1844.

[24] These letters were addressed to a young Norman Lady, Mademoiselle Anne de Lavigne, who wrote sonnets in the Scudéry style, and with whom Fléchier kept up a gallant and high-flown correspondence in mingled prose and verse. As far as can be ascertained the _liaison_ was an innocent one; it is quite certain that it caused no scandal at the time. Most of the letters bear date three or four years subsequently to the _Grands-Jours_.

[25] _Voyage en Auvergne_, and _Resumé de l'Histoire d'Auvergne_.

[26] From the end of the fifteenth century there were no serfs in Auvergne, as is shown by the municipal law of 1510; "_Toutes personnes estans et demeurans au dict pays sont francs et de franche condition._" All persons being and dwelling in the said country are free and of free condition. Nevertheless, there were still "_héritaiges tenus à condition de mainmorte_."--(_Coutume, titre_ xxvii. _art._ 1.) But on the confines of Auvergne, in the Pays de Combrailles, there were persons "_de serve condition, de mainmorte et de suyte_;" _ibid. art._ 2, which means that the servitude of those persons was attached to their flesh and bone; that it followed them every where, even when they abandoned their inheritance and fled the country. One is glad to hear Fléchier and Talon stigmatising, in the names of religion and humanity, those iniquitous rights, which subsisted more than a century after them. _Personal_ servitude was abolished only by an edict of August 1779; for which Louis XVI. and his minister Necker are to be thanked. It took ten more years and the revolution of 1789 to do away with _real_ servitude, which was general in France.--_Mémoires_, p. 112.

[27] This included Upper and Lower Auvergne, the Bourbonnais, the Nivernais, the Forez, the Beaujolais, the Lyonnais, the Pays de Combrailles, Berry and the Upper and Lower Marche.--Vide _Mémoires_, Introduction, xvi.

[28]

In plain good French, Each gentleman From morn till night Doth swell his rents, And multiply his gain. Observes no faith, Takes field and hay, The farmer's grass and grain; Then plays the steward With his pease and pork, And cudgels all at leisure; And like a king, with crown on head, Proclaims it his good pleasure.

[29] An anecdote told of Louis XIII. and Mademoiselle d'Hutefort.

[30] A species of thread lace, in which there was formerly a great trade in Upper Auvergne. It is now scarcely used except by peasant women, and its manufacture is almost abandoned.

[31] Ranke, _Fürsten und Völker_, vol. i. p. 170.

[32] Uchali was a famous renegade, a Calabrian by birth, who, from being a slave of the Grand Seignior's, became King of Argel.--See Brantôme, _Hommes Illustres_, vol. i. p. 286.

[33] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. iii. p. 224.

[34] _Memorial de Antonio Perez del Hecho de su Caso_, p. 300.

[35] DOCUMENTOS INEDITOS PARA LA HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA, vol. iii. p. 178.

[36] Brantôme, HOMMES ILLUSTRES.

[37] DOCUMENTOS INEDITOS PARA LA HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA, vol. iii. p. 182.

[38] Ranke, FÜRSTEN UND VÖLKER VON SUD EUROPA, vol. i. p. 178.

[39] _Memorial de Antonio Perez del Hecho de su Caso_, pp. 304-308.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] _Antonio Perez et Philipe II._, par Mons. Mignet, 1 vol. 3d ed.

[43] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. vii. p. 247-257.

[44] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. vii. p. 265.

[45] "Look there, look at the big gentleman on the little horse."

[46] "Gone, gone."

[47] One of the superficial peculiarities of American magazines is that the names of _all_ the contributors are generally paraded conspicuously on the cover, very few seeking even the disguise of a pseudonym. The number of "most remarkable" men and women who thus display themselves in print is surprising.

[48] This periodical is particularly unfortunate in its predictions. Last year one of them was absolutely falsified _before_ its appearance. The _Democratic_ introduced a biographical sketch of an eminent politician, with the announcement that "before another number was issued, the people of his State would have re-elected him to the highest office in their gift." Accident delayed the publication of this prophecy for a short time, and it appeared the very day after Mr ---- had been _defeated_ by a large majority. Thereupon some editors on the other side stated that the _Democratic Review_ was to be discontinued, "as we learn from its own columns," which may have been a good joke or not, according to tastes. Certainly the editor of the _Democratic_ did _his_ best to make it so, by publishing a serious and angry contradiction of the report.

[49] We have heard this _argument_ again and again in America, generally in reference to the seediest of verses; and there could not be a greater proof of the vagueness and erroneousness of American public opinion as to the nature and object of criticism, and the qualifications for exercising it.

[50] As a general rule, that is: we in America have lately met with some striking exceptions.

[51] Even then, the price is what in Great Britain would be considered small. The _American Review_ pays two dollars (8s. 8d.) a page, and some of the other periodicals from a dollar to a dollar and a half.

[52] It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the absurdity of this fallacy. Every man who reads any thing better than newspapers, finds frequent use for his classics in the way of explaining quotations, allusions &c., while nothing can be imagined more utterly useless in every-day life than Conic Sections and Differential Calculus, to any man not professionally scientific. But because arithmetic is the introductory branch of mathematics, and also the foundation of book-keeping, it is thought that working a boy at mathematics will make him a good man of business.

[53] On one occasion, when a converted priest was lecturing against Romanism, the _Courier_ and _Enquirer_ recommended the intervention of that notorious popular potentate _Judge Lynch, who intervened accordingly_.

[54] These attempts at undue influence and direct intimidation are not confined to the natives; foreigners are very quick at catching them. This very winter an Italian musician endeavoured to expel one of the editors of the _Courier and Enquirer_ from his concert-room, because that paper had not seen fit to praise him so much as others did, or as he himself wished and expected.

[55] "The Mary Ann Greens."

[56] It may be worth while to insert here a copy of the American advertisement of the April Number, in which a denunciation of American piracy, which had been inserted in an article on the "Model Republic," is actually put forward as a _puff_ of the reprint.

Blackwood's Magazine

FOR APRIL, will be published TO-MORROW MORNING.

CONTENTS.

I. Cromwell. II. Lays and Legends of the Thames--Part III. III. Letters on the Truths contained in Popular Superstitions, No. 2--Vampyrism. No. 3--Spirits, Goblins, Ghosts. IV. A New Sentimental Journey. V. The Fighting Eighty-Eighth. VI. Lord Sidmouth's Life and Time. VII. How they manage Matters in the Model Republic. VIII. Horæ Catalinæ--No. 2. IX. Lessons from the Famine.

Extract from the article on the "Model Republic":--

"When these malignant pages arrive in New York, every inhabitant of that good city will abuse us heartily, except our publisher. But great will be the joy of that furacious individual, as he speculates in secret on the increased demand of his agonized public. Immediately he will put forth an advertisement, notifying the men of 'Gotham' that he has on board a fresh sample of British Insolence, and hinting that, although he knows they care nothing about such things, the forthcoming piracy of Maga will be on the most extensive scale."

Price of BLACKWOOD, 3 dol. a-year. Single numbers 25 cents. L. SCOTT & CO. Publishers, 112 Fulton Street.

Transcribers Notes:

Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Small capitals have been capitalised.

On page 22, --Mr Newdegate's Speech, has been given the value "Footnote 19:", omitted from the text.

On page 107 the transcriber could not construe the word (Nug ee?). A search for Mr Brummell's tailor or another name for an outfitter proved fruitless.

Due to a lack of space in 'THIRTY YEARS OF LIBERAL LEGISLATION', the last column of a table has been placed below the body of the table. Similarly a table in footnote 2 has been condensed at the cost of some aesthetics.