Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/299

Rh The "M. Thomas" here alluded to was Antoine Leonard Thomas "of the Academy," born at Clermont Ferrand, i October, 1732, died 17th September, 1785. He was one of a family of seventeen children. A perusal of Jumonville is calculated to induce the reader to believe that there were not brains enough to go round, for though not very long,—the four cantos contain less than a thousand lines in all,—it is hopelessly dull and uninteresting, never rising to pathos, though often sinking to bathos. The couplet describing the death of Jumonville will serve as an example:

There is no mention of Washington in the poem;—either the poet had never heard of him at the time (1759) or could not make the name fit into his verses.

The author is not quite fair towards Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (b. 1748, d. 1825). Though a fop in his early days,—he and Fox were esteemed the two best dressed men in town,—he developed into a fairly good