Pascal, De Retz, La
Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Montesquieu, and Vau-
venargues, each contributed to the rich stock of French
epigrams. No other country can show such a list
of brilliant writers--in England certainly we can-
not. Our most celebrated, Lord Bacon, has, by
his other works, so surpassed his maxims, that their
fame is, to a great measure, obscured. The only
Englishman who could have rivalled La Rochefou-
cauld or La Bruyere was the Earl of Chesterfield, and
he only could have done so from his very inti-
mate connexion with France; but unfortunately his
brilliant genius was spent in the impossible task of
trying to refine a boorish young Briton, in "cutting
blocks with a razor."
Of all the French epigrammatic writers La Rochefou-
cauld is at once the most widely known, and the most
distinguished. Voltaire, whose opinion on the cen-
tury of Louis XIV. is entitled to the greatest weight,
says, "One of the works that most largely contributed
to form the taste of the nation, and to diffuse a spirit
of justice and precision, is the collection of maxims,
by Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld.
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