[319]. See Anthologia, passim.
[320]. Such was the strictness of this minister’s principles, that he positively refused to go to Court in shoe-buckles. See Dumouriez’s Memoirs.
[321]. See Madame Roland’s Memoirs.—“Rigide Ministre,” Brissot à ses Commettans.
[322]. The “pumple” nosed attorney of Furnival’s Inn.—“Congreve’s Way of the World.” [... When you liv’d with honest Pumple Nose, the attorney of Furnival’s Inn. Act 3, sc. 1.—Ed.]
[323]. These lines contain the Secret History of Quatremer’s deportation. He presumed in the Council of Five Hundred to arraign Madame De Stael’s conduct, and even to hint a doubt of her sex. He was sent to Guyana. The transaction naturally brings to one’s mind the dialogue between Falstaff and Hostess Quickly in Shakespeare’s Henry IV.
Fal. Thou art neither fish nor flesh—a man cannot tell where to have thee.
Quick. Thou art an unjust man for saying so—thou or any man knows where to have me.
[324]. For instance, in the course of a political discussion Rewbell observed to the ex-bishop [Talleyrand], “that his understanding was as crooked as his legs”—“Vil Emigré, tu n’as pas le sens plus droit que les pieds”—and therewith threw an ink-stand at him. It whizzed along, as we have been informed, like the fragment of a rock from the hand of one of Ossian’s heroes; but the wily apostate shrunk beneath the table, and the weapon passed over him innocuous, and guiltless of his blood or brains.
[325]. See Homer’s description of Vulcan. First Iliad.
Inextinguibilis vero exoriebatur risus beatis numinibus