their claims to be enrolled in the regiment for some egregious extravagance.  The wits versified these army commissions; and the idlers, like pioneers, were busied in clearing their way, by picking up the omissions and commissions of the most noted characters.  Those who were favoured with its “brevets” intrigued against the regiment; but at length they found it easier to wear their “calotte,” and say nothing.  This society began in raillery and playfulness, seasoned by a spice of malice.  It produced a great number of ingenious and satirical little things.  That the privileges of the “calotte” were afterwards abused, and calumny too often took the place of poignant satire, is the history of human nature as well as of “the calotins."[140]

Another society in the same spirit has been discovered in one of the lordships of Poland.  It was called “The Republic of Baboonery.”  The society was a burlesque model of their own government:  a king, chancellor, councillors, archbishops, judges, &c.  If a member would engross the conversation, he was immediately appointed orator of the republic.  If he spoke with impropriety, the absurdity of his conversation usually led to some suitable office created to perpetuate his folly.  A man talking too much of dogs, would be made a master of the buck-hounds; or vaunting his courage, perhaps a field-marshal; and if bigoted on disputable matters and speculative opinions in religion, he was considered to be nothing less than an inquisitor.  This was a pleasant and useful project to reform the manners of the Polish youth; and one of the Polish kings good-humourdly observed, that he considered himself “as much King of Baboonery as King of Poland.”  We have had in our own country some attempts at similar Saturnalia; but their success has been so equivocal that they hardly afford materials for our domestic history.

RELIQUIAE GETHINIANAE.

In the south aisle of Westminster Abbey stands a monument erected to the memory of Lady Grace Gethin.[141] A statue of her ladyship represents her kneeling, holding a book in her hand.  This accomplished lady was considered as a prodigy in her day, and appears to have created a feeling of enthusiasm for her character.  She died early, having scarcely attained to womanhood, although a wife; for “all this goodness and all this excellence was bounded within the compass of twenty years.”

But it is her book commemorated in marble, and not her character, which may have merited the marble that chronicles it, which has excited my curiosity and my suspicion.  After her death a number of loose papers were found in her handwriting, which could not fail to attract, and, perhaps, astonish their readers, with the maturity of thought and the vast capacity which had composed them.  These reliques of genius were collected together, methodised under heads, and appeared with the title of “Reliquiae Gethinianae; or some remains of Grace Lady Gethin, lately deceased:  being a collection of choice discourses, pleasant apothegms, and witty sentences; written by her for the most part by way of essay, and at spare hours; published by her nearest relations, to preserve her memory.  Second edition, 1700.”