gentle, pliant, and enthusiastic dispositions, were more firm, and either took the vows in early youth--which devoted them to lives of hardship and self-denial--or had their young hearts torn by the struggles between the world and (not God) but the priests. Racine, on the whole, acted kindly and conscientiously, and endeavoured to prove their vocation before he consented to the final sacrifice; but the nature of their education, and his own feelings, prevented all fair trial; and his joy at their steadiness, his annoyance in their vacillation, betrays itself in his letters. His income, derived from the king's pensions and the place of historiographer, was restricted; and though the king made him presents, yet these were not more than commensurate to his increased expenses when in attendance at court. He had seven children: he found it difficult, therefore, to give doweries to all the girls; and worldly reasoning came to assist and consolidate sentiments which sprang originally from bigotry. One of the first acts of Racine, on entering on this new life, was to reconcile himself to his friends of the Port Royal. He easily made his peace with M. Nicole, who did not know what enmity was, and who received him with open arms. M. Arnaud was not so facile: his sister, mother Angelica, had been ridiculed by Racine, and he could not forgive him. Boileau endeavoured in vain to bring about a reconciliation: he found M. Arnaud impracticable. At length he determined on a new mode of attack; and he went to the doctor, taking the tragedy of "Phaedra" with him, with the intention of proving that a play may be innocent in the eyes of the severest jansenist. Boileau, as he walked towards the learned and pious doctor's house, reasoned with himself:--"Will this man," he thought, "always fancy himself in the right? and cannot I prove to him that he is in the wrong? I am quite sure that I am in the right now; and, if he will not agree with me, he must be in the wrong." He found Arnaud with a number of visitors: he presented the book, and read at the same time the passage from the preface in which the author testifies his desire to be reconciled to persons of piety. Boileau then went on to say that his friend had renounced the theatre; but at the same time he maintained, that, if the drama was dangerous, it was the fault of the poets; but that "Phædra" contained nothing but what was morally virtuous. The audience, consisting of young jansenist clergymen, smiled contemptuously; but M. Arnaud replied, "If it be so, there is no harm in this tragedy."