at least, is Father Prout's honest opinion; and why should he hide it under a bushel?

The most convincing proof of their sterling virtue is to be found in the docility and forbearance they evinced in promptly submitting to the decree of their suppression, issued ex cathedrâ by one Ganganelli, a Franciscan friar, who had got enthroned, Heaven knows how! on the pontific chair. In every part of Europe they had powerful friends, and could have "shewn fight" and " died game," if their respect for the successor of "the fisherman" had not been all along a distinctive characteristic, even to the death. In Paraguay they could have decidedly spurned the mandate of the Escurial, backed by an army of 60,000 Indians, devoted to their spiritual and temporal benefactors, taught the tactics of Europe, and possessing in 1750 a well-appointed train of artillery. That portion of South America has since relapsed into barbarism; and the results of their withdrawal from the interior of that vast peninsula have fully justified the opinion of Muratori, in his celebrated work on Paraguay, "Il Christianesimo felice." It was a dismal day for literature in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, when their colleges were shut up; and in France they alone could have stayed the avalanche of irreligion; for, by presenting Christianity to its enemies clad in the panoply of Science, they would have awed the scoffer, and confounded the philosophe. But the

Vatican had spoke. They bowed; and quietly dispersing throug' he cities of the continent, were welcomed and ac nired by every friend of science and of piety. The body did not cease to do good even after its dissolution in 1763, and, like the bones of the prophet, worked miracles of usefulness even in the grave.

*

Contrast their exemplary submissiveness with the frenzy and violence of their old enemies the Jansenists (of which sour and pharisaical sect Pascal was the mouth-piece), when the celebrated bull Unigenitus was issued against them. Never did those unfortunate wights, whom the tyrant Phaleris used to enclose in his brazen cow, roar so lustily as the lads of Port Royal on the occasion alluded to. It was, in fact, a most melancholy exhibition of the wildest fanaticism, combined, as usual, with the most pertinacious obstinacy. The followers of Pascal were also the votaries of a certain vagabond yclept le Diacre Paris, whose life was a tissue of rascality, and whose remains were said by the Jansenists to operate wondrous cures in the churchyard of St. Medard, in one of the fauxbourgs of the capital. The devotees of Port

* "And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, behold they spied a band of robbers; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man touched the bones of Elisha he came to life, and stood upon his feet."-2 Kings, chap. xiii. ver. 21.

Royal flocked to the tomb of the deacon, and became forthwith hysterical and inspired. The wags of Louis the Fifteenth's time called them "Les Convulsionnaires." Things rose to such a height of dangerous absurdity at last, that the cemetery was shut up by the police; and a wit had an opportunity of writing on the gates of the aforesaid churchyard this pointed epigram :

"De par le roy, défense à Dieu,

De faire miracles en ce lieu."

And I here conclude this very inadequate tribute of long-remembered gratitude towards the men who took such pains to drill my infant mind, and who formed with plastic power whatever good or valuable quality it may possess. "Si quid est in me ingenii, judices (et sentio quàm sit exiguum), si quæ exercitatio ab optimarum artium disciplinis profecta, earum rerum fructum, sibi, suo jure, debent repetere."(CICERO pro Archiâ poet.) And as for the friend of my youth, the accomplished Gresset, whose sincerity and kindness will be ever embalmed in my memory, I cannot shew my sense of his varied excellencies in a more substantial way than by making an effort—a feeble one, but the best I can command-to bring him before the English public in his most agreeable production, the best specimen of graceful humour in the literature of France. I shall upset Vert-Vert into

English verse, for the use of the intelligent inhabitants of these islands; though I much fear, that to transplant so delicate an exotic into this frigid climate may prove an unsuccessful experiment.

Vert-Vert, the Parrot.

A POEM BY THE JESUIT GRESSET.

10

Hys original Ennocence.

ALAS! what evils I discern in
Too great an aptitude for learning!
And fain would all the ills unravel
That aye ensue from foreign travel;
Far happier is the man who tarries
Quiet within his household "Lares:"
Read, and you'll find how virtue vanishes,
How foreign vice all goodness banishes,
And how abroad young heads will gròw dizzy,
Proved in the underwritten Odyssey.

In old Nevers, so famous for its
Dark narrow streets and Gothic turrets,
Close on the brink of Loire's young flood,
Flourished a convent sisterhood

Of Ursulines. Now in this order

A parrot lived as parlour-boarder;
Brought in his childhood from the Antilles,
And sheltered under convent mantles:

Green were his feathers, green his pinions,
And greener still were his opinions;

30

For vice had not yet sought to pervert

This bird, who had been christened Vert-Vert;
Nor could the wicked world defile him,

Safe from its snares in this asylum.

Fresh, in his teens, frank, gay, and gracious,
And, to crown all, somewhat loquacious;
If we examine close, not one, or he,
Had a vocation for a nunnery.*

The convent's kindness need I mention ?
Need I detail each fond attention,

Or count the tit-bits which in Lent he
Swallowed remorseless and in plenty?
Plump was his carcass; no, not higher
Fed was their confessor the friar;

And some even say that our young Hector
Was far more loved than the "Director." +
Dear to each novice and each nun-

He was the life and soul of fun ;

Though to be sure, some hags censorious
Would sometimes find him too uproarious.
What did the parrot care for those old
Dames, while he had for him the household?
He had not yet made his "profession,"

Nor come to years called "of discretion;"
Therefore, unblamed, he ogled, flirted,
And romped like any unconverted;

Nay sometimes, too, by the Lord Harry!
He'd pull their
caps and "

scapulary."

But what in all his tricks seemed oddest,
Was that at times he'd turn so modest,

VOL. I.

"Par son caquet digne d'être en couvent."
"Souvent l'oiseau l'emporta sur le Père."

X