[23] The French word _univers_ has three or four distinct senses. It may mean all that exists, or it may mean the solar system, or it may mean the earth's surface, in whole or in part. Voltaire said that Columbus, by simply looking at a map of our _univers_, had guessed that there must be another, that is, the western hemisphere. "Paris est la plus belle ville de l'univers" means simply that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. [24] A French critic recently observed that his countrymen knew little of the tragedy of "Macbeth" except the familiar line "To be or not to be, that is the question!" [25] I never make a statement of this kind without remembering instances, even when it does not seem worth while to mention them particularly. It is not of much use to quote what one has heard in conversation, but here are two instances in print. Reclus, the French geographer, in "La Terre à Vol d'Oiseau," gives a woodcut of the Houses of Parliament and calls it "L'Abbaye de Westminster." The same error has even occurred in a French art periodical. [26] Rodolphe, in "L'Honneur et l'Argent." [27] In the library at Towneley Hall in Lancashire. [28] In Prosper Mérimée's "Correspondence" he gives the following as the authentic text of the letter in which Lady Florence Paget announced her elopement with the last Marquis of Hastings to her father:-- "Dear Pa, as I knew you would never consent to my marriage with Lord Hastings, I was wedded to him to-day. I remain yours, etc." [29] For those who take an interest in such matters I may say that the last representative of the Plumptons died in France unmarried in 1749, and Plumpton Hall was barbarously pulled down by its purchaser, an ancestor of the present Earls of Harewood. The history of the family is very interesting, and the more so to me that it twice intermarried with my own. Dorothy Plumpton was a niece of the first Sir Stephen Hamerton. [30] Sir Walter Scott had sympathy enough with the courtesy of old time to note its minutiæ very closely:-- "After inspecting the cavalry, Sir Everard again conducted his nephew to the library, where he produced a letter, _carefully folded, surrounded by a little stripe of flox-silk, according to ancient form_, and sealed with _an accurate impression_ of the Waverley coat-of-arms. It was addressed, _with great formality_, 'To Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, Esq., of Bradwardine, at his principal mansion of Tully-Veolan, in Perthshire, North Britain. These--by the hands of Captain Edward Waverley, nephew of Sir Everard Waverley, of Waverley-Honour, Bart.'"--_Waverley_, chap. vi. I had not this passage in mind when writing the text of this Essay, but the reader will notice how closely it confirms what I have said about deliberation and care to secure a fair impression of the seal.