were small, he at least was an elegant rhetorician and a delicate and polished writer, to whom the French language is under obligations. As a man of letters, he formed an important link between the school of Louis XIII. and that of the _Grand Monarque_; he was one of the first to appreciate grace of diction, and to attempt the elevation and correction of a spurious style. His florid eloquence, however, not unfrequently wearies by its stilted pomposity, and, save by a few scholars and literati, his works are rather respected than liked, more often praised than read. He wrote for the century, not for all time. And his books, if still occasionally referred to, each day drew nearer to oblivion, when the publication of the _Mémoires sur les Grands-Jours tenus à Clermont_ came opportunely to refresh his fading bays. The lease of celebrity secured by ten studied and ponderous tomes, exhaling strong odour of midnight oil, had nearly expired, when it was renewed by a single volume, written with flowing pen and careless grace, but overlooked and underrated for nearly two centuries. Although scarcely essential to a just appreciation of the book before us, we shall cursorily sketch the career of Esprit Fléchier, esteemed one of the ablest of French pulpit orators,--one of the most kind-hearted and virtuous of French prelates. Born in 1632, in the county of Avignon, he early assumed the sacerdotal garb, and obtained occupation as teacher of rhetoric. At the age of eight-and-twenty, business resulting from the death of a relation having taken him to Paris, he conceived an affection for that capital and remained there. Having no fortune of his own, he was fain to earn a modest subsistence by teaching the catechism to parish children. Already, when professing rhetoric at Narbonne, he had given indication of the oratorical talents that were subsequently to procure him the highest dignities of the church, the favour of a great king, and the enthusiastic admiration of a Sévigné. At Paris he busied himself with the composition of Latin verses, for which he had a remarkable talent, and celebrated in graceful hexameters the successes and virtues of ministers, princes, and kings. The peace concluded with Spain by Mazarine, the future prospects of the dauphin of France, the splendid tournament held by the youthful Louis, in turn afforded subjects for the display of his elegant Latinity. Fléchier had the true instinct of the courtier, exempt from fawning sycophancy, and tempered by the dignity of his sacred profession. And when he condescended to flatter, it was with delicacy and adroitness. Ambitious of the patronage of the Duke of Montausier, he knew how to obtain it by a judicious independence of tone and deportment, more pleasing to that nobleman than the most insinuating flattery. A constant guest in the Salon Rambouillet, he made good his place amongst the wits frequenting it, and when its presiding genius expired, it fell to him to speak its funeral oration.