An epigram upon the subject of Francois de Bassompiere being released from the Bastille upon the death of Richelieu, is a strange mixture of lofty thought and puerile conceit. Enfin dans l'arriere saison La fortune d'Armand s'accorde avec la mienne: France, Je sors de ma prison Quand son ame sort de la sienne. The line, “France, Je sors de ma prison,” is the anagram of Francois de Bassompiere. * * * * * The epigrams of the Greek Anthology are characterized more by _náiveté_ than point. They are for the most part insipid. * * * * * Longinus calls pompous and inflated thoughts, “reveries of Jupiter”—insomnia Jovis. * * * * * A French writer of celebrity dedicated a book to Richelieu in terms of the most blasphemous flattery. But being disappointed in his expectations, he suppressed all his praises in a second edition, and re-dedicated his volume “_á Jesus Christ_.” * * * * * The following inscription intended for the Louvre, possesses both simplicity and dignity: Pande fores populis, sublimis Lupara: non est Terrarum imperio dignior ulla domus. * * * * * Under a fine painting of St. Bruno in solitude, some Italian wrote these words, “Egli è vivo, e parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola del silentio.” Malherbe has taken the hint in his epigram upon a picture of Saint Catherine. * * * * * A fine sample of _galimatias_ is to be found in an epigram of Miguel de Cervantes: Van muerte tan escondida, Que no te sienta venir; Porque el plazer del morir No me torne à dar la vida. * * * * * Quintillian mentions a pedant who taught obscurity, and who was wont to say to his scholars, “This is excellent—I do not understand it myself.” * * * * * An Italian metaphysician to disprove that greatness of mind is proportioned to the size of the skull, argues thus: “Non sano, che la mente è il centro del capo; e il centro non cresce per la grandezza del circolo.” * * * * * A horse is often seen on ancient sepulchral monuments. Caylus quotes a passage from Passeri, “de animæ transvectione,” implying that the horse designates the passage of the soul to Elysium. * * * * * The Satyre Menippée of the French is, in prose, the exact counterpart of Hudibras in rhyme. * * * * * A remarkable instance of concord of sound and sense is to be seen in the following stanza by M. Anton. Flaminius: Ast amans charæ thalamum puellæ Deserit flens, et tibi verba dicit Aspera amplexu teneræ cupito a— —vulsus amicæ. * * * * *