"Ah, repeat it, Count," cried Boulainvilliers; "'t was the most classical thing I have heard for a long time." "Why," said Hamilton, laying down his knife and fork, and preparing himself by a large draught of the champagne, "why, Madame d'Epernonville appeared without her /tour/; you know, Lord Bolingbroke, that /tour/ is the polite name for false hair. 'Ah, sacre!' cried her brother, courteously, 'ma soeur, que vous etes laide aujourd'hui: vous n'avez pas votre tour!' 'Voila pourquoi elle n'est pas si-belle (Cybele),' answered I." "Excellent! famous!" cried we all, except Huet, who seemed to regard the punster with a very disrespectful eye. Hamilton saw it. "You do not think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these /jeux de mots/: perhaps you do not admire wit at all?" "Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees it is fine; when it cools the wave it is refreshing; when it steals over flowers it is enchanting: but when, Monsieur Hamilton, it whistles through the key-hole it is unpleasant." "The very worst illustration I ever heard," said Hamilton, coolly. "Keep to your classics, my dear Abbe. When Jupiter edited the work of Peter Huet, he did with wit as Peter Huet did with Lucan when he edited the classics: he was afraid it might do mischief, and so left it out altogether." "Let us drink!" cried Chaulieu; "let us drink!" and the conversation was turned again. "What is that you say of Tacitus, Huet?" said Boulainvilliers. "That his wisdom arose from his malignancy," answered Huet. "He is a perfect penetrator* into human vices, but knows nothing of human virtues. Do you think that a good man would dwell so constantly on what is evil? Believe me--no. A man cannot write much and well upon virtue without being virtuous, nor enter minutely and profoundly into the causes of vice without being vicious himself." * A remark similar to this the reader will probably remember in the "Huetiana," and will, I hope, agree with me in thinking it showy and untrue.--ED. "It is true," said Hamilton; "and your remark, which affects to be so deep, is but a natural corollary from the hackneyed maxim that from experience comes wisdom." "But, for my part," said Boulainvilliers, "I think Tacitus is not so invariably the analyzer of vice as you would make him. Look at the 'Agricola' and the 'Germania.'"