ment, to the excellence
of his advice. What was it in fact? A lad of sixteen or seventeen years
of age, composes two tolerable tragedies, and these essays are made
irrevocably to decide on his future fate. We have then forgotten that
Racine had already reached the age of twenty-two, when he first
appeared, producing _Theagenes and Charicles_, and the _Inimical
Brothers_; that Crebillon was nearly forty years of age when he composed
a tragedy on _The Death of the Sons of Brutus_, of which not a single
verse has been preserved; finally, that the two first comedies of
Moliere, _The three rival Doctors_ and _The Schoolmaster_, are no longer
known but by their titles. Let us recall to mind that reflection of
Voltaire's: "It is very difficult to succeed before the age of thirty in
a branch of literature that requires a knowledge of the world and of the
human heart."

A happy chance showed that the sciences might open an honourable and
glorious path to the discouraged poet. M. de Moncaville offered to teach
him mathematics, in exchange for drawing-lessons that his son received
from the warder of the king's pictures. The proposal being accepted, the
progress of Sylvain Bailly in these studies was rapid and brilliant.

BAILLY BECOMES THE PUPIL OF LACAILLE.--HE IS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS
ASTRONOMICAL LABOURS.

The mathematical student soon after had one of those providential
meetings which decide a young man's future fate. Mademoiselle Lejeuneux
cultivated painting. It was at the house of this female artist, known
afterwards as Madame La Chenaye, that Lacaille saw Bailly. The
attentive, serious, and modest demeanour of the student charmed the
great astronomer. He showed it in a most unequivocal manner, by
offering, though so avaricious of his time, to become the guide of the
future observer, and also to put him in communication with Clairaut.

It is said that from his first intercourse with Lacaille, Bailly showed
a decided vocation for astronomy. This fact appears to me incontestable.
At his first appearance in this line, I find him associated in the most
laborious, difficult, and tiresome investigations of that great
observer.

These epithets may perhaps appear extraordinary; but they will be so
only to those who have learnt the science of the stars in ancient poems,
either in verse or in prose.

The Chaldaeans, luxuriously reclining on the perfumed terraced roofs of
their houses in Babylon, under a constantly a