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Notice by the Editor
21
have shown the beauties of Corneille. However, these are three tragic writers of the highest order.
To this singular incapacity, which is caused by the diversity of our sentiments, one can only add what Fontenelle said in speaking of our features: "What secret can nature have had to enable her to vary in so many ways so simple a thing as a face."
This apparently insurmountable difficulty has not even been perceived by Mr. Gratet-Duplessis, because in him the Abbé Cotton des Houssayes lives again. He possesses the same modesty, the same urbanity, the same literary erudition. That which the
