ENGLISH OPINION all subjects, and that a man has a right to jest upon every thing ! It is then that long experience has taught him the art of con- cealing reason under a veil which may embellish it 1" Whoever has cast an eye on the lately published letters of Madame du Deffand, -a most unnecessary and unprofitable addition to the late loadof similar literary mischiefs, will have beheld such a pic- ture of the manners even of private and select society, among persons of high rank, science, taste, and literature, as must make him look on these distinc- tions without envy, when beheld discon- nected with those principles which alone render talents estimable. In the history of this distinguished lady, we find these striking circum- stances : they present a melancholy in- stance how completely, in Paris, at that time, a disregard of all the obligations of duty, all sense of religion, all the charities 46 Speech of Condorcet to the Academy, on the death of Monsieur de Tressan,
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