world, not imps of the closet," and he glanced at Huet--"to do with
scholarship? All the waters of Castaly, which we want to pour into our
brain, are such as will flow the readiest to our tongue."

"In short, then," said I, "you would assert that all a friend cares for
in one's head is the quantity of talk in it?"

"Precisely, my dear Count," said Hamilton, seriously; "and to that maxim
I will add another applicable to the opposite sex. All that a mistress
cares for in one's heart is the quantity of love in it."

"What! are generosity, courage, honour, to go for nothing with our
mistress, then?" cried Chaulieu.

"No: for she will believe, if you are a passionate lover, that you have
all those virtues; and if not, she will never believe that you have
one."

"Ah! it was a pretty court of love in which the friend and biographer of
Count Grammont learned the art!" said Bolingbroke.

"We believed so at the time, my Lord; but there are as many changes in
the fashion of making love as there are in that of making dresses.
Honour me, Count Devereux, by using my snuff-box and then looking at the
lid."

"It is the picture of Charles the Second which adorns it; is it not?"

"No, Count Devereux, it is the diamonds which adorn it. His Majesty's
face I thought very beautiful while he was living; but now, on my