s. Not
one in five was at all known to me, and very few, even of those who
were, could properly be classed among the celebrated writers of the day.
As France has many very clever men who were not on the list, I was
desirous of knowing the reason, and then learned that intrigue,
court-favour, and "_log-rolling_" to use a quaint American term, made
members of the academy as well as members of the cabinet. A moment's
reflection might have told me it could not well be otherwise. It would
be so in America, if we were burthened with an academy; it is so as
respects collegiate honours; and what reason is there for supposing it
should not be so in a country so notoriously addicted to intrigue as
France?

One ought not to be the dupe of these things. There are a few great
names, distinguished by common consent, whose claims it is necessary to
respect. These men form the front of every honorary institution; if
there are to be knights and nobles, and academicians, they must be of
the number; not that such distinctions are necessary to them, but that
they are necessary to the distinctions; after which the _oi polloi_ are
enrolled as they can find interest. Something very like an admission of
this is contained in an inscription on the statue of Moliere, which
stands in the vestibule of the hall of the Academy, which frankly says,
"Though we are not necessary to your glory, you are necessary to ours."
He was excluded from the forty, by intrigue, on account of his
profession being that of a player. Shakspeare, himself, would have fared
no better. Now, fancy a country in which there was a club of select
authors, that should refuse to enrol the name of William Shakspeare on
their list!

The sitting was well attended, and I dare say the addresses were not
amiss; though there is something exceedingly tiresome in one of these
eulogies, that is perpetrated by malice prepense. The audience applauded
very much, after the fashion of those impromptus which are made _a
loisir_, and I could not but fancy that a good portion of the assembly
began to think the Academy was what the cockneys call a _rum_ place,
before they heard the last of it. We had a poem by Comte Daru, to which
I confess I did not listen, notwithstanding my personal respect for the
distinguished writer, simply because I was most heartily wearied before
he began, and because I can never make anything of French poetry, in the
Academy or out of it.

It would be unjust to speak l