SOME LADIES OF THE OLD SCHOOL. 521 it did not exist. Consider the anecdote related by Han- nah More, bearing npon this point. In her old age, she had a curiosity to read again a novel which had been a favorite in families in her youth, and which she had her- self often read at home to the family circle. Upon get- ting the book she was utterly amazed and confounded at its indecency : at eighty years, she could not read to herself a work which at sixteen she had read aloud to father, mother, and friends. Dr. Franklin's paper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, the best paper ever published in the Colonies, and among the most decent, contains fifty things which no newspaper now-a-days, not the most unscrupulous of all, would dare or wish to publish. Among the shorter tales of Voltaire, there are several which he wrote at the request of ladies, to be used by them in liquidation of forfeits incurred iri games. These tales were read aloud, by or for the ladies, to the whole circle at the chateau or palace ; oftener palace than chateau, some of them being written for German princesses. Those tales we should consider quite inde- cent, all of them. No periodical in Europe or America would publish them. The same author used to lend manu- script cantos of his " Pucelle," a poem of incredible freedom, to the most distinguished ladies in Europe, who regarded the loan as an homage to their taste and discre- tion, and sat up at night making copies for preservation- He read that poem to the Queen of Prussia, mother of Frederick the Great ; and one day, upon looking up, he saw the queen's daughter listening on the sly. The queen, too, saw her a moment after, and exchanged meaning smiles with Voltaire, but did not send her away ; and the reading went on as before, the flavor of the jests being more keenly relished because shared by virgin ears. Women, indeed, were rather fonder of such literature than men, and for an obvious reason. Obscene jests,
