_Depuis cinq ans entiers chaque jour je la vois._ _Et crois toujours la voir pour la première fois._ --BÉRÉNICE, acte ii, scene 1. Each day, for five years, have I seen her face, And each succeeding time appears the first. would not be at all out of place in serious comedy; but the following verse of Antiochus: _Dans l'orient desert quel devint mon ennui!_ (Id., acte i, scene 4)--The lonely east, how wearisome to me!--would not suit a lover in comedy; the figure of the "lonely east" is too elevated for the simplicity of the buskin. We have already remarked, that an author who writes on physics, in allusion to a writer on physics, called Hercules, adds that he is not able to resist a philosopher so powerful. Another who has written a small book, which he imagines to be physical and moral, against the utility of inoculation, says that if the smallpox be diffused artificially, death will be defrauded. The above defect springs from a ridiculous affectation. There is another which is the result of negligence, which is that of mingling with the simple and noble style required by history, popular phrases and low expressions, which are inimical to good taste. We often read in Mézeray, and even in Daniel, who, having written so long after him, ought to be more correct, that "a general pursued at the heels of the enemy, followed his track, and utterly basted him"--_à plate couture_. We read nothing of this kind in Livy, Tacitus, Guicciardini, or Clarendon. Let us observe, that an author accustomed to this kind of style can seldom change it with his subject. In his operas, La Fontaine composed in the style of his fables; and Benserade, in his translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," exhibited the same kind of pleasantry which rendered his madrigals successful. Perfection consists in knowing how to adapt our style to the various subjects of which we treat; but who is altogether the master of his habits, and able to direct his genius at pleasure? VARIOUS STYLES DISTINGUISHED. _The Feeble._ Weakness of the heart is not that of the mind, nor weakness of the soul that of the heart. A feeble soul is without resource in action, and abandons itself to those who govern it. The _heart_ which is weak or feeble is easily softened, changes its inclinations with facility, resists not the seduction or the ascendency required, and may subsist with a strong _mind_; for we may think strongly and act weakly. The weak mind receives impressions without resistance, embraces opinions without examination, is alarmed without cause, and tends naturally to superstition.