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184 exactness, in works like De Grammont, and deeming chronology certainly of some, though of minor importance, let us see what can be done in reducing the facts into an historical order of time. I shall confine what I have to say to the English portion of the work—by far the largest part of the book, and unquestionably the most important. The author, it must be observed, sets out by informing us that he has no intention of observing chronological exactness:—

"I farther declare, that order of the time and disposition of the facts, which give more trouble to the writer than pleasure to the reader, shall not much embarrass me in these Memoirs. It being my design to convey a just idea of my hero, those circumstances which most tend to illustrate and distinguish his character, shall find a place in these fragments just as they present themselves to the imagination, without paying any particular attention to their arrangement. For after all, what does it signify where the portrait is begun, provided the assemblage of parts form a whole, which expresses the original?"

This is all very excellent; but readers like myself have been long accustomed to invest these entertaining Memoirs with something of the character of history; and if we can show, in spite of a few chronological excesses, that the events in the book may be brought within a very short compass of years—seven at the most—that their accuracy may be supported, if not by a "cloud of witnesses," by the