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his "afferte," or "à Ferté,” so often, that some of his suite called the Marshal's attention to so odd an affectation. The great man, who had been dreaming about other things, is said to have blushed when he was made to understand the monk's meaning. Another curious story told of little Andrew, is, that one day when he was preaching at Paris against the vices of gallantry and intrigue, he threatened to name a lady present as being one of the guilty; that he, however, corrected himself, saying, in Christian charity he would only throw his calote, or skullcap, in the direction where the lady sate; and that as soon as he took his cap in his hand every woman present bobbed down her head, for fear it should come to her. But this anecdote does not rest on good authority, and a story of precisely the same nature, and, we believe, much older, is told of an Italian monk that was preaching on the same vices at Venice.

Gueret says that he one day heard little Andrew in the pulpit compare the poor man to a peasant's fowl that lives on what it can pick up; and the rich man, to a luxurious poodle-dog. "The rich man," cried the monk, "is treated, whilst alive, like ladies' lap-dogs, whose mistresses share all their tit-bits with them, feed them only on the choicest delicacies, and cover them with ribbons from head to tail. But the dog dies, and then what becomes of him? Why! they throw the poodle on the dunghill! Now, on the other hand, the fowl is a poor creature whilst it lives, scratching and pecking for the commonest of food; but after her death she is served up with honour at her master's table. In the same manner the rich man is happy whilst he lives, but after his death

he goes-whither, you all know; whereas the poor man is placed in Abraham's bosom."

The analogy here is not very close, nor is the fate of the fowl so very enviable, for, after all, it is eaten, and goes into the belly, and not the bosom of its master; but the familiar illustration was probably well suited to the ignorant audience of peasants the friar addressed. It is quite clear that although le Père Petit André occasionally turned the batteries of his wit to good purpose, he was no joker, nor intentionally "a buffoon in the pulpit." On the contrary, he was most earnest in his vocation; his life was austere, and he held the world in no sort of consideration. He studied such things as would strike; and his humour, which was natural and spontaneous, was used in most cases only to arouse attention, and keep it awake to his religious and moral lessons. He was descended from a highly respectable, if not noble family:* he belonged to the Augustine order, and had received a good education; but he knew the danger of talking over the heads of his popular congregations, and thence arose his fondness for common sayings and proverbs, and for broad and familiar illustrations. He was a very different man from another preacher, a village curate mentioned by Ménage.

This worthy curate, who had just been taking a drop too much with some friends, on being suddenly called to christen an infant, could not find the baptism service in his ritual; and he said, as he kept turning over the pages of his book, “This is a very difficult child to baptize!"

• His name was Boulanger. The Boulangers had been distinguished lawyers. Andrew died 1675, aged 80 years.

In the rural districts in Italy it is still the common practice of the curates to address their flocks in the style of little Andrew, and to use comparisons and illustrations which, however homely and ridiculous they may appear to us, have no such effect on their hearers.

A few years ago we heard a preacher of this sort holding forth in a village church situated on the hills behind Sorrento. He was speaking of grace, and the care necessary to preserve and keep it alive in the heart.

"The grace of God," said he, in the patois of the country, "is like a charcoal-fire just lit on your kitchen hearths. If you don't puff and blow and fan, and fan and blow and puff, that fire will go out, and leave you nothing to cook your cabbage-soup by, or your maccaroni, should it be a holiday."

*

On another occasion we heard a reverend father, of much higher pretensions than the village curate, and who was preaching to a more refined audience on the pangs of a guilty conscience, make use of the following very familiar simile:

"An evil conscience is like a quarrelsome wife. Yes! Saint Augustine says, Conscientia mala, mulier rixosa est."" But he did not stop there; he continued to draw out every possible thread of his illustration to its full length.

"A quarrelsome wife, my brethren, will not let you rest at home or abroad, at dinner or at supper, in bed or even out of bed! Her litigious temper and loud tongue (which is worse than thunder to the wine-cask) take all the juices and savouriness out of the ragouts you eat; all the sugar and sweetness out of the coffee you

*Minestra verde.

drink. Whether you go forth on foot or on horseback, or in a coach drawn by four galloping horses, is all one; she is always at your skirts, and the memory of her, which, like an indigestible dish of bad eels, is even more troublesome to the stomach than it was noisome to the palate, following you whithersoever you may go, to the Corso, to the

But we are afraid to shock "ears polite" with the further details of the worthy monk, who discoursed as if he had a full connaissance de cause, and a mulier rixosa of his own.

Yet, in addressing ignorant and uncivilised audiences, the very coarseness of these preachers stood them in good stead, where a refined and classical style of oratory would have been unintelligible and utterly thrown away. There have been several remarkable instances of this in the city of Naples. On many occasions when the Lazzaroni existed in all their might of number, after the voice of the law, and the threats of the government force had been vainly applied to check their turbulence, the famous Padre Rocco, by getting on a wooden bench in the market-place, and thundering at them in their own coarse but expressive dialect, never failed in reducing them to order.

LX. THE PREACHER OF CLIMAXES.

THE late Rev. Robert Hall was remarkably happy and apt at hitting off in conversation, by a few bold strokes dashed occasionally with sarcasm, the peculiarities of his acquaintance, whether they happened to lie in their style,

their manners, or their character.

of

We have not seen the

following instance in print. It was told us by the gentleman to whom it was addressed. When talking of the Rev. one of the most popular preachers of the day among the Dissenters, in whose sermons there is a striking contrast between the plainness with which they begin, and the flights of metaphor in which they end, our friend asked Mr. Hall how he liked this style of eloquence? He replied "Not at all, sir; not at all. Why, sir, every sentence is a climax, every paragraph is a climax, every head is a climax, and the whole sermon is a climax. And then, at the end of every head and division of his sermon he shouts out, though scarcely audible at first, in a shrill voice that makes one's ears tingle, some text of Scripture in the shape of an exclamation. Why, sir, he puts me in mind of a little sweep boy, running up a succession of parallel chimneys, and at the top of each crying-sweep! sweep!"

LXI. HERALDIC ANOMALIES.

A CURIOUS gossipping book, a very father of table-talk, was published under this name some twelve years ago. The object of the author partly appears to be to rectify the anomalies which titles ill understood or badly defined often create in society. Thus he would have knights treated with greater reverence, the precedence of doctors more exactly settled, and bishops' wives distinguished by the title of ladies; and he tells a story of a Lady Ban apothecary's wife, who, not malignantly, but erroneously, wrote her name in a library subscription-book

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