The spectre points out that the prospect of having to do so is no mere dream and urges him to sell “_tous tes auteurs fameux_,” pointing out that he could live on the “divine” Homer for at least a day or two, while on the “pensif” Rousseau he could exist a long time. He could count on his precious Virgil for the rent, while the translation “de Delille” should yield his old gardener’s wages. Among the many works mentioned in indiscriminate order are Plutarch, La Fontaine, Don Quichotte, Anacreon, Newton, Milton, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Boccaccio, Erasmus, Montesquieu, Boileau, Corneille, Voltaire, Racine, Favart, Molière, Plato, Dorat, Seneca, and a set of the British Drama! It should be noted, by the way, that Despréaux had some knowledge of English and had paid occasional visits to London with his wife, who was rather a favourite of the then Duchess of Devonshire, and in one of his poems he gives an amusingly bitter “Tableau de Londres,” in which he complains of-- “Cette atmosphère de cendre Qui ne cesse de descendre,” speaks of the lower classes as “insolent” and chaffs the English taste for beer and the eternal “roast-biff” (_sic_); while as to the English Sunday, the stanza must really be given in full: “Deux cents dimanches anglais, N’en valent pas un français, Ce jour, si joyeux en France, Est le jour de pénitence; Et lorsqu’un Anglais se pend Se pend, se pend, C’est un dimanche qu’il prend; A Paris, le dimanche on danse. Vive la France!” Our poet’s range of subject was remarkable--high philosophy, discussed with smiling raillery; curious life-contrasts, like that of his wife being a popular dancer and his sister a nun; charades, dialogues, charming and pathetic little word-pictures like “La Neige,” a “Bacchic” song on “The End of the World,” and so forth, nothing seemed to come amiss that could be turned into song. Throughout his varied work there runs a consistent strain of Gallic gaiety--itself a form of bravery; and if his Muse has not the hard, biting intensity of a Villon, nor the lofty rhetoric of a Victor Hugo, it manages to keep a middle course of sanity and pleasantry with invariable success and an infallible though limited appeal. Among his many ingenious poems are two of special interest to stage-folk of all time, one “Le Langage des Mains,” _Chanson Pantomime_, the other “Le Langage des Yeux”; both of which require to be illustrated by the actor who sings them and emphasise the need of facial and manual expression. As he truly says: “Le comédien ou l’orateur, Sans mains, serait un corps sans âme.”