emerging from barbarity; an age that was still rude and ignorant,

the people of which aimed at wit, though they had not the least

pretensions to it, and sought for points and conceits instead of

sentiments. Bristol stones are more easily found than diamonds.

Voiture, born with an easy and frivolous, genius, was the first who

shone in this aurora of French literature. Had he come into the

world after those great geniuses who spread such a glory over the

age of Louis XIV., he would either have been unknown, would have