of them. The society and example of these ecclesiastics must have had more influence than the companionship of a thousand fashionable young scoffers. Another of his youthful epistles is "To a Lady, a little Worldly and too Devout." It begins by telling her that when she had left the arms of sleep and the eye of day had looked on her charms, soft-hearted Love appeared, who, kissing her hands and bathing them with tears, remonstrated with her, in the prettiest terms, on the ingratitude with which, after all his gifts to her, she was in the habit of turning from him with disdain to read the sermons of Massillon and Bourdaloue. He (Love) exhorts her to give youth to pleasure, to keep wisdom for age, and the piece ends thus:—
"So spake the god; and even while he wooed,
Perchance thy softening heart had owned his sway,
But at thy bedside on a sudden stood
- The reverend Père Quinquet.
- That holy rival’s threatening air
- Told Love he must not hope to gain
- Thee, cold, incorrigible fair;
- And, weary of remonstrance vain,
He dried the pleading tears, so useless now,
And flew to Paris, where his power's assured,
- To seek for beauties easier lured,
- Though far less loveable than thou."
