able to say by heart before anybody else. As for me, such as you see me,
I amuse myself in that way when I am in the humour, and you may find
handed about in the fashionable assemblies

[Footnote: In the original French the word is _ruelle_, which means
literally "a small street," "a lane," hence any narrow passage, hence
the narrow opening between the wall and the bed. The _Precieuses_ at
that time received their visitors lying dressed in a bed, which was
placed in an alcove and upon a raised platform. Their fashionable
friends (_alcovistes_) took their places between the bed and the wall,
and thus the name _ruelle_ came to be given to all fashionable
assemblies. In Dr. John Ash's New and Complete Dictionary of the English
Language, published in London 1755, I still find _ruelle_ defined: "a
little street, a circle, an assembly at a private house."]

of Paris two hundred songs, as many sonnets, four hundred epigrams, and
more than a thousand madrigals all made by me, without counting riddles
and portraits.

[Footnote: This kind of literature, in which one attempted to write a
portrait of one's self or of others, was then very much in fashion. La
Bruyere and de Saint-Simon in France, as well as Dryden and Pope in
England, have shown what a literary portrait may become in the hands of
men of talent.]

MAD. I must acknowledge that I dote upon portraits; I think there is
nothing more gallant.

MASC. Portraits are difficult, and call for great wit; you shall see
some of mine that will not displease you.