Everything can be written. Paper is patience itself. Last year a grave review printed this: "Homer is now going out of fashion." The judgment passed on the philosopher, on the artist, on the poet is completed by the portrait of the man. Byron has killed his tailor. Molière has married his own daughter. Shakespeare has "loved" Lord Southampton. "Et pour voir à la fin tous les vices ensemble, Le parterre en tumulte a demandé l'auteur."[5] That _ensemble_ of all vices is Beaumarchais. As for Byron, we mention this name a second time; he is worth the trouble. Read "Glenarvon," and listen, on the subject of Byron's abominations, to Lady Bl---, whom he had loved, and who, of course, resented it. Phidias was a procurer; Socrates was an apostate and a thief, _décrocheur de manteaux_; Spinosa was a renegade, and sought to obtain legacies by undue influence; Dante was a peculator; Michael Angelo was cudgelled by Julius II., and quietly put up with it for the sake of five hundred crowns; D'Aubigné was a courtier sleeping in the water-closet of the king, ill-tempered when he was not paid, and for whom Henri IV. was too kind; Diderot was a libertine; Voltaire a miser; Milton was venal,--he received a thousand pounds sterling for his apology, in Latin, of regicide: "Defensio pro se," etc. Who says these things? Who relates these histories? That good person, your old fawning friend, O tyrants, your ancient comrade, O traitors, your old auxiliary, O bigots, your ancient comforter, O imbeciles!--calumny. [Footnote 1: This coarse flatterer of the vulgar herd.] [Footnote 2: To me they dare to prefer Crébillon the barbarian.] [Footnote 3: The passage in Saumaise is curious and worth the trouble of being transcribed:-- Unus ejus Agamemnon obscuritate superat quantum est librorum sacrorum cum suis hebraismis et syrianismis et totâ hellenisticâ supellectile vel farragine. --_De Re Hellenisticâ_, p. 38, ep. dedic.] [Footnote 4: Letter CV.] [Footnote 5: "And at last, in order to see all the vices together, The riotous pit called for the author." ] CHAPTER II. Let us add a detail. Diatribe is, on certain occasions, a useful means of government.