en then) dates of
books as given are always second-hand. In reference to the same subject
I have also been rebuked for not taking account of M. Harrisse's
correction of the legend of Prevost's death. As a matter of fact I knew
but had forgotten it, and it has not the slightest importance in
connection with Prevost's work. Besides, somebody will probably, sooner
or later, correct M. Harrisse. These things pass: _Manon Lescaut_
remains.

ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA FOR VOL. II

P. 65.--A reviewer of my first volume, who objected to my omission there
of Madame de Charrieres, may possibly think that omission made more
sinful by the admission of Madame de Montolieu. But there seems to me to
be a sufficient distinction between the two cases. Isabella Agnes
Elizabeth Van Tuyll (or, as she liked to call herself, Belle de Zuylen),
subsequently Madame de Saint-Hyacinthe de Charrieres (how mellifluously
these names pass over one's tongue!), was a very interesting person, and
highly characteristic of the later eighteenth century. I first met with
her long ago (see Vol. I. p. 443) in my "Sensibility" researches, as
having, in her maturer years, played that curious, but at the time not
uncommon, part of "Governess in erotics" to Benjamin Constant, who was
then quite young, and with whose uncle, Constant d'Hermenches, she had,
years earlier and before her own marriage, carried on a long and very
intimate but platonic correspondence. This is largely occupied with
oddly business-like discussions of marriage schemes for herself, one of
the _pretendants_ being no less a person than our own precious Bozzy,
who met her on the Continental tour for which Johnson started him at
Harwich. But--and let this always be a warning to literary lovers--the
two fell out over a translation of the Corsica book which she began.
Boswell was not the wisest of men, especially where women were
concerned. But even he might have known that, if you trust the
bluest-eyed of gazelles to do such things for you, she will probably
marry a market-gardener. (He seems also to have been a little afraid of
her superiority of talent, _v._ his letters to Temple and his _Johnson_,
pp. 192-3, Globe Ed.)

Besides these, and other genuine letters, she wrote not a few novels,
concocted often, if not always, in epistolary form. Their French was so
good that it attracted Sainte-Beuve's attention and praise, while quite
recently she has had a devoted panegyrist and editor in S