[246] Especially, it may be, if one has heard Galuppi's own music played by a friend who is himself now dead.
[247] Some would make it a quintet with Leconte de Lisle, but I think "the King should consider of it" as to this. He is grand sometimes: but so are Père Le Moyne and others. It is hit or miss with them; the Four can make sure of it.
[248] It does, of course, deserve, and in this place specially should receive, the credit of being the first French historical novel of the modern kind which possessed great literary merit.
[249] Alexander, though he actually wrote histories of a kind, was far below Alfred in political judgment.
[250] Vide infra on Dumas himself.
[251] About Plato and Homer, who are very welcome, and "Le Mensonge Social," which is, perhaps, a little less so.
[252] But see note 2 on next page.
[253] One wonders if the Black Doctor was so sure of this on his own death-bed?
[254] The first line of Gilbert's swan-song—the only song of his that is remembered. It sets Stello himself on the track which the "Black Doctor" has concealed up to the point. As the original rhythm could not be kept without altering the substance, I have substituted another—not so unconnected as it may seem.—By the way, Vigny has taken as much liberty with French dates in this story as with English facts in the Chatterton one. Gilbert died in 1780, and Louis XV. had passed from the arms of his last mistress, Scarlatina Maligna, six years before, to be actually made the subject of a funeral panegyric by the poet. In fact, the sufferings of the latter have been argued to be pure legend. But this of course affects literature hardly at all; and Vigny had a perfect right to use the accepted version.
[255] Why should a "basket" be specially silly? The answer is that the original comparison was to a "panier percé," a basket which won't hold anything. But the phrase got shortened.