it has been followed by a thousand imitations.

A notion was long current, and is perhaps
not yet quite exploded, that Gil Blas is itself
an imitation. Voltaire asserted that it was
translated or stolen from the Spanish of
Vincent Espinel; and, more recently, the
charge was repeated, in another form, by
a Spanish Jesuit named Isla. A translation
of the work by this person was
published at Madrid in eighteen hundred and
five, under the title of Gil Blas Restored to
his Country. He asserts that Gil Blas was
composed in the Spanish language, during
the ministry of the Duke of Olivarez (sixteen
hundred and thirty-five), that the work was
denounced to the government as containing
dangerous revelations regarding the secrets of
the court, and the manuscript seized. The
unnamed author, escaping into France, there,
it is said, died, leaving a copy of his
manuscript, which he had concealed and taken with
him; this fell into the hands of Le Sage, and
was by him enlarged, and otherwise adapted
to his purpose, in the same way as he had
adapted previously the work of Velez. This
story refutes itself, because Isla confirmed it
with the assertion that the original MS.
was still in the Escurial. The Comte de
Neuchâteaux, in a dissertation read before
the French Academy, in eighteen hundred
and eighteen, and prefixed to the edition of
Gil Blas published the year following by
Didot, has answered both Voltaire's assertions
and the Spaniard's, He proves that the Life of
the Squire Obregon, the work named by
Voltaire, as the original from which Le
Sage copied, bears no resemblance to Gil
Blas, either in subject, form, or style.
Proceeding then to deal with Isla, he overthrows
the Jesuit's assertion, by showing that if, as
he pretends, the original work was accessible
in Spanish, he ought to have published that
work with all the evidences of its authenticity;
instead of translating Gil Blas into
Spanish out of French.

Le Sage published many other works—
some original, others translations or
imitations. Among the latter, besides those
already particularised, are Roland the Lover,
from Boiardo, and the Adventures of Guzman
d'Alfarache, from the Spanish of Alleman.
He was the first to naturalise Alleman's
amusing tale in France, though not its
first, or even its second, translator into the
language of that country. His industry
appears to have increased with his years. The
Bachelor of Salamanca was his last and his
own favourite fiction; and, at the close of his
literary life — which did not take place till
seventeen hundred and forty-three — when he
had reached the age of seventy-five, he
published his Miscellany of sallies of wit and the
most striking historic incidents.

Le Sage was no less fitted to shine in
society than to excel in literature, but he
lived after his marriage an exceedingly
domestic life. His family consisted of three
sons and an only daughter. Two of the sons,
the eldest, Réné André, and the youngest
François Antoine, occasioned their father no
little pain by choosing the stage for their
profession. Réné André, whom he had
intended for the law, rose to a high reputation
as an actor, under the name of
Montmenil. His style was the quiet, natural, and
unaffected. François Antoine was incited by
his brother's success to an unsuccessful
imitation. Le Sage had for some time ceased
to admit Montmenil to his presence, when, by
the pious management of the second son,
Julien François, who had gone into the church,
he was persuaded to witness, at the Théâtre
Français, the performance of his own Turcaret.
Le Sage appreciated his son's talent and
forgave him for following its bent. Father
and son had, both of them, good hearts, and
Montmenil effaced the remembrance of his
early disobedience by conduct the most filial
and submissive. He became the old man's
pride and his constant companion ; a support
and an honour to the family. When his
duties at the theatre prevented Montmenil
from passing his evenings at his father's
house, Le Sage, deprived of the chief delight
at home, was accustomed to adjourn to a
neighbouring café, He had, even in youth,
been affected with symptoms of deafness,
which increased with his years, but his natural
gaiety was not lessened. His conversation
abounding with wit, anecdote, and shrewd
observation, and shown to the best advantage
by a manly and various elocution, was heard
always with delight. The picture of the
author of Gil Blas, advanced in life,
surrounded by a throng of youthful admirers,
the more distant mounted on chairs and
tables, in order to catch every word of his
discourse, recals what we may have heard of
our own glorious John Dryden at the coffee-
house.

Montmenil's death, in seventeen hundred
and forty-three, was a blow from which Le
Sage never recovered. Paris became
insupportable, and he retired with his wife and
daughter to the house at Boulogne, which
his second son inhabited in quality of canon
of the cathedral. This son (Julien François)
—remarkable for a strong personal
resemblance to Montmenil — was an admirable man;
a wit, and an admirable reader. The Comte
de Tressan, commandant of the Boulonnais,
seconded the attentions of the family; and
from him we derive the few surviving
anecdotes of the last years of Le Sage's life.
They seem to have passed heavily enough.
The finely-strung nervous system of the
author of Gil Blas, like that of some other great
writers, had lost its tone from too continued
tension. He is said at last to have existed
only by help of the sun. From daybreak
until noon his faculties grew more and more
lively. From noon till evening they gradually
left him. When the sun had actually set, he