Of Lady Mary's friendship and subsequent rupture with Pope, we have not thought it necessary to say anything, both because we are of opinion that no new light has been latterly thrown upon it, and because we have no desire to awaken forgotten scandals by so idle a controversy. Pope was undoubtedly a flatterer, and was undoubtedly sufficiently irritable and vindictive; but whether his rancour was stimulated upon this occasion by anything but caprice or jealousy, and whether he was the inventor or the echo of the imputations to which he has given notoriety, we do not pretend to determine. Lady Mary's character was certainly deficient in that cautious delicacy which is the best guardian of female reputation; and there seems to have been in her conduct something of that intrepidity which naturally gives rise to misconstruction, by setting at defiance the maxims of ordinary discretion. MADAME DU DEFFAND. [BORN 1697. DIED 1780.] JEFFREY. A lady who was left a widow, with a moderate fortune and a great reputation for wit, about 1750, and soon after gave up her hotel and retired to apartments in the Convent de St Joseph, where she continued to receive almost every evening whoever was most distinguished in Paris for rank, talent, or accomplishment. Having become almost blind in a few years, she found she required the attendance of some intelligent young woman who might read and write for her, and assist in doing the honours of her _conversazione_. For this purpose she cast her eyes on Mademoiselle Lespinasse, the illegitimate daughter of a man of rank who had been boarded in the same convent, and was for some time delighted with her selection. By-and-by, however, she found that her young companion began to engross more of the notice of her visitors than she thought suitable, and parted from her with violent, ungenerous, and implacable displeasure. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, however, carried with her the admiration of the greater part of her patroness's circle; and having obtained a small pension from government, opened her own doors to a society no less brilliant than that into which she had been initiated by Madame du Deffand. The fatigue however, which she had undergone in reading the old marchioness asleep had irreparably injured her health, which was still more impaired by the agitations of her own inflammable and ambitious spirit; and she died before she had attained middle age, about 1776, leaving on the minds of all the most eminent men of France, an impression of talent, and of ardour of imagination, which seems to have been considered as without example. Madame du Deffand continued to preside in her circle till a period of extreme old age, and died in 1780, in full possession of her faculties.