Abbe Raynal, with his lubricity and loud loose rant, has spoken his word; and already the fast-hastening generation responds to another.

Glance at Beaumarchais' Mariage de Figaro; which now (in 1784), after difficulty enough, has issued on the stage; and 'runs its hundred nights,' to the admiration of all men.

By what virtue or internal vigour it so ran, the reader of our day will rather wonder:--and indeed will know so much the better that it flattered some pruriency of the time; that it spoke what all were feeling, and longing to speak.

Small substance in that Figaro: thin wiredrawn intrigues, thin wiredrawn sentiments and sarcasms; a thing lean, barren; yet which winds and whisks itself, as through a wholly mad universe, adroitly, with a high-sniffing air: wherein each, as was hinted, which is the grand secret, may see some image of himself, and of his own state and ways.

So it runs its hundred nights, and all France runs with it; laughing applause.