them
abruptly, and ran to the apartment of his eminence, knocking with all
his force, that he might be certain of being heard. The cardinal had
just gone to bed; but he incessantly clamoured, demanding entrance; they
were compelled to open the door. He ran to his eminence, fell upon his
knees, almost pulled off the sheets of the bed in rapture, imploring a
thousand pardons for thus disturbing him; but such was his joy in what
he had just heard, which he repeated, that he could not refrain from
immediately giving vent to his gratitude and his pride, to have been
compared with his eminence for his poetical talents! Had the door not
been immediately opened, he should have expired; he was not rich, it was
true, but he should now die contented! The cardinal was pleased with his
_ardour_, and probably never suspected his _flattery_; and the next week
our new actor was pensioned.

On Cardinal Richelieu, another of his patrons, he gratefully made this
epitaph:--

Cy gist, ouy gist, par la mort bleu,
Le Cardinal de Richelieu,
Et ce qui cause mon ennuy
Ma PENSION avec lui.

Here lies, egad, 'tis very true,
The illustrious Cardinal Richelieu:
My grief is genuine--void of whim!
Alas! my _pension_ lies with him!

Le Brun, the great French artist, painted himself holding in his hand
the portrait of his earliest patron. In this accompaniment the Artist
may be said to have portrayed the features of his soul. If genius has
too often complained of its patrons, has it not also often over-valued
their protection?

POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, MADE BY ACCIDENT.

Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to display
their powers. "It was at Rome," says Gibbon, "on the 15th of October,
1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the
bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that
the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City first started to my
mind."

Father Malebranche having completed his studies in philosophy and
theology without any other intention than devoting himself to some
religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for
him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and turning
over a parcel of books, _L'Homme de Descartes_ fell into his hands.
Having dipt into parts, he read with such delight that the palpitations
of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was this