MANY of our readers, unacquainted with his writings, will remember the name of the gentle prelate and renowned rhetorician who delivered the funeral oration of the great TURENNE, accomplishing the mournful but glorious task with such eloquence and grace that the composition constitutes his chief claim to the admiration of posterity. We should say, perhaps, that it _did_ constitute his principal hold upon the world's memory, previously to the year 1844, date of exhumation of a work likely to command readers longer than his _Oraisons Funébres_, or, than any other portion of the ten serious volumes published under the incorrect title of _œuvres Completes_. We can imagine the astonishment of an erudite book-worm, suddenly encountering, when winding his way through dusty folios and antique black letter, a sprightly and gallant narrative, sparkling with graceful sallies and with anecdotes and allusions _à la_ Grammont; and finding himself compelled, by evidence internal and collateral, to accept the mundane manuscript as the work of a grave and pious father of the church. A courtly chronicle, in tone fringing on the frivolous, and often more remarkable for piquancy of subject than for strict propriety of tone, suddenly dragged from the cobwebbed obscurity of an ancient escritoire and put abroad as the production of a South, a Tillotson, or a Blair, would astound the public, and find many to doubt its authenticity. In bringing forward the earliest work of the amiable bishop of Nismes, the librarian of the town of Clermont had no such scepticism to contend against. Moreover, he had arguments and proofs at hand sufficient to confound and convince the most incredulous. True, there was vast difference in tone and subject between the literary pastime of the Abbé, and the results of the grave studies and oratorical talents of the reverend churchman and renowned preacher; but affinities of style were detectible by the skilful, and, in addition to this, there had crept out, at sundry periods of the present century, certain letters of Fléchier[24]--letters not to be found in the so-called "complete editions" of his works--whose strain of graceful levity and exaggerated gallantry indicated a talent distinct from that to which he owes a fame now daily diminishing; and prepared the few whose notice they attracted for a transition from grave didactics and inflated declamation to lively _badinage_ and debonair narrative. The masses knew little about the matter, and cared less. Latin verses, complimentary discourses, and funeral orations, dating from a century and a half back, and relating to persons and events great and brilliant, it is true, but now seen dim and distant through the long vista of years, are not the class of literature to compel much attention in this practical and progressive age. As a constructor of French prose, Fléchier is unquestionably entitled to honourable mention. If his claims to originality of genius