From Bengal our traveller proceeded along the Coromandel coast to Masulipatam, and having visited the kingdoms of Golconda and Bejapore, quitted Hindostan, after a residence of twelve years, and returned by way of Persia and Mesopotamia to Europe. The exact date of his arrival in France I have not been able to discover, but it must have been somewhere in the latter end of the year 1669, or in the beginning of 1670; for the first two volumes of his “History of the Revolutions of the Mogul Empire,” which would require some time to prepare them for the press, were published in the course of that year. The third and fourth volumes appeared in 1671, and so great was the reputation they acquired, that they obtained for our traveller the surname of “The Mogul.” These works, which have frequently been reprinted under the title of “The Travels of M. François Bernier, containing the Description of the Mogul Empire, of Hindostan, of the Kingdom of Cashmere, &c.,” were immediately translated into English, and appear to have been the means of introducing their author to the most distinguished individuals of his time. Among those most distinguished by his friendship were Ninon de l’Enclos, Madame de la Sabliere, St. Evremont, and Chapelle, whose _Eloge_ he composed. To many of these his speculative opinions, which were any thing but orthodox, may have rendered him agreeable; but to Ninon, his handsome person, easy manners, and fascinating conversation, which he knew how to enliven with a thousand interesting anecdotes, must have proved by far his greatest recommendation. By St. Evremont he was called “the handsome philosopher;” and in a letter to Ninon, this same writer observes, “Speaking of the mortification of the senses one day, to M. Bernier, he replied, ‘I will tell you a secret which I would not willingly reveal to Madame de la Sabliere or to Ninon, though it contains an important truth; it is this—the abstaining from pleasure is itself a crime.’ I was surprised,” adds St. Evremont, “by the novelty of the system.” Upon this M. Walkenaer shrewdly observes, that this system could have possessed but very little novelty for Mademoiselle de l’Enclos; and he might have added that the surprise of the writer of the letter must either have been affected, or else betrayed a very slight acquaintance with the history of philosophy. The other works of Bernier, which have been suffered to sink into much greater neglect than they perhaps deserve, are,—1. “An Abridgment of the Philosophy of Gassendi:” in which, according to Buhl, the acute and learned historian of Modern Philosophy, he not only exhibited the talents of an able and intelligent abbreviator, but, moreover, afforded numerous proofs of a capacity to philosophize for himself. On several important points he differed from his friend, with whom, previous to his travels, he had lived during many years on terms of the strictest intimacy, and who died shortly after his departure from France. 2.