Madame du Deffand was the wittiest, the most selfish, and the most _ennuye_ of the whole party. Her wit, to be sure, is very enviable and very entertaining; but it is really consolatory to common mortals to find how little it could amuse its possessor. This did not proceed in her, however, from the fastidiousness which is sometimes supposed to arise from a long familiarity with excellence, so much as from a long habit of selfishness, or rather from a radical want of heart or affection. La Harpe says of her, that it was "difficult for any one to have less sensibility and more egotism." With all this, she was greatly given to gallantry in her youth, though her attachments, it would seem, were of a kind not very likely to interfere with her peace of mind. The very evening her first lover died, after an intimacy of twenty years, La Harpe assures us "that she came to supper at a grand company at Madame de Marchius's, where I was; and that, speaking of the loss she had sustained, she said, 'Alas, he died at six o'clock, otherwise you would not have seen me here.'" She is also recorded to have frequently declared that she could never bring herself to love anything, though, in order to take every possible chance, she had several times attempted to become _devote_ with no great success. This, we have no doubt, is the secret of her _ennui_; and a fine example it is of the utter worthlessness of all talent, accomplishment, and glory, when disconnected with those feelings of kindness and generosity which are of themselves sufficient for happiness. Madame du Deffand, however, must have been delightful to those who sought only for amusement. Her tone is admirable, her wit flowing and natural; and though a little given to detraction, and not a little importunate and _exigeante_ towards those on whose complaisance she had claims, there is always an air of politeness in her raillery, and of knowledge of the world in her murmurs, that prevents them from being either wearisome or offensive. PHOEBE BENTLEY. [1700.] CUMBERLAND. The youngest daughter of the illustrious Dr Bentley was the Phoebe of Byron's Pastoral. She was a woman of extraordinary accomplishments, and was the mother of the well-known Richard Cumberland, the most valuable part of whose early education was due to the taste and intelligence of this excellent woman. "It was," according to his account, "in these intervals from school that she began to form both my taste and my ear for poetry, by employing me every evening to read to her, of which art she was a very able mistress. Our readings were, with very few exceptions, confined to the chosen plays of Shakespeare, whom she both admired and understood in the true spirit and sense of the author. With all her father's (Dr Bentley's) critical acumen, she could trace and teach me to unravel all the meanders of Shakespeare's metaphors, and point out where it illuminated or where it only loaded or obscured the meaning."