ues.]

The next name deserving of mention belongs to a very different writer.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, covered in his brief space of
life not a third of the period allotted to Fontenelle, who was nearly
sixty when Vauvenargues was born, and outlived him ten years. Nor did he
leave any single work of consequence. Yet his scanty writings are far
more valuable in matter, if not in form, than those of the witty
centenarian. Vauvenargues was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 6th of
August, 1715. His family was ancient and honourable, but appears to have
been poor, and his education was interrupted by the bad health which
continued throughout his short life. Nevertheless he entered the army at
the age of eighteen. After this he had scanty opportunities of study,
and it is said that he was ignorant not only of Greek but even of Latin.
He served at first in Italy, and then for some years was employed on
garrison duty. At the outbreak of the war of the Austrian succession his
regiment was sent into Germany, and he had a full share of the hardships
of the Bohemian campaign. No promotion came to him, his means were
almost exhausted, and in 1744 he resigned his commission, after taking
the curiously unworldly step of writing directly to the king, asking for
a place in the diplomatic service. An application to the minister of
foreign affairs was not much more successful, and Vauvenargues, whose
evil star pursued him, had no sooner established himself with his family
than a bad attack of small-pox destroyed the little health he still had.
He set to work, however, to write, and in the short time before his
death actually published some of his works, and left others in a
condition ready for publication. He lived in Paris for the last three
years of his life, and died in 1747, at the age of thirty-two. Latterly
he had made acquaintance with Voltaire, who entertained a very high and
generous opinion of his talents, due perhaps partly to the remarkable
difference of their respective characters and points of view.
Vauvenargues' principal work is an _Introduction a la Connoissance de
l'Esprit Humain_, besides which he left a considerable number of maxims,
reflections, etc., on points of ethics and of literary criticism. In the
last part of his work there is more curiosity than instruction. It is,
however, in its way an instructive thing to see that a man of talent and
even of genius could object to Moliere for having chosen _