discretion would conceal."

"/Au diable/ with your discretion!" said Hamilton, "'tis a vulgar
virtue. Vanity is a truly aristocratic quality, and every way fitted to
a gentleman. Should I ever have been renowned for my exquisite lace and
web-like cambric, if I had not been vain? Never, /mon cher/! I should
have gone into a convent and worn sackcloth, and from /Count Antoine/ I
should have thickened into /Saint Anthony/."

"Nay," cried Lord Bolingbroke, "there is as much scope for vanity in
sackcloth as there is in cambric; for vanity is like the Irish ogling
master in the "Spectator," and if it teaches the play-house to ogle by
candle-light, it also teaches the church to ogle by day! But, pardon
me, Monsieur Chaulieu, how well you look! I see that the myrtle sheds
its verdure, not only over your poetry, but the poet. And it is right
that, to the modern Anacreon, who has bequeathed to Time a treasure it
will never forego, Time itself should be gentle in return."

"Milord," answered Chaulieu, an old man who, though considerably past
seventy, was animated, in appearance and manner, with a vivacity and
life that would have done honour to a youth,--"Milord, it was
beautifully said by the Emperor Julian that Justice retained the Graces
in her vestibule. I see, now, that he should have substituted the word
/Wisdom/ for that of Justice."

"Come," cried Anthony Hamilton, "this will never do: compliments are the
dullest things imaginable. For Heaven's sake, let us leave panegyric to
blockheads, and say something bitter to one another, or we shall die of
/ennui/."