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sons: le prêtre, le noble, le bourgeois, le vassal, avaient d'autres notions du juste et de l'injuste que les nôtres ; c'était un autre monde, un monde sans doute moins rapproché des principes généraux naturels que le monde pressent, mais qui ne manquait ni de grandeur, ni de force, témoin ses actes et sa durée." Nothing, I think, can be more true, more just, than the ideas which are here expressed, or than the principles which are bere laid down.

The historian, to be perfect, should show at once the peculiarities and costume of each separate epoch, and the common feelings and the common passions of all epochs. He should paint the man of the thirteenth century, the man of the nineteenth, he should know that both were men, under different circumstances, but possessing similar propensities; he should show what is nature, what's her costume- her costume, that ever varies; her naked figure which is always the same. object, however, is not to write a general criticism upon history, nor even a general criticism upon the present historians of France, for I find that I have already outstepped my limits, and that I have said nothing of M. Girardin, nothing of M. Michelet,* nothing of M. de St. Aulaire, and his interesting picture of a time so interesting in the annals of France, so replete with the grace and the energy of the French character, so remarkable for uniting the chivalry of an age gone by with the grace of an age advancing. My object has simply been to show that history in France is in a new school-that the modern French historian follows the example of the great old French novelist and comedian, and like Le Sage and Molière attempts rather to paint than to explain. Why is this? Authors, since authors have mixed with mankind, have been modelled more or less by their public. The historian's public in the eighteenth century was, as I have said, a public of would-be philosophers and agreeable fine gentlemen, and the historian went trippingly along, now lecturing the one class, now chattering with the other. The historical style of the nineteenth century is different from the historical style of the

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* I ought also, in that case, to have mentioned the very interesting narrative of Charles Edward by M. A. Pichot, an author who is the more deserving of praise from an English critic as being the first French critic who introduced inodern English literature into France.

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eighteenth ; but the historian's manner has not changed more than his readers have changed. He was formerly read by a clique-he is now read by a country.

It is not only that more men read now than they used to do—this has not increased the number of those who disturb the dusty volumes in the royal library that treat of astrology and magic-it is not only that more men read than they used to do, but that more men read history—that more men naturally feel an interest in historical composition.

History is, in fact, not interesting far beyond the pale of those whose actions make history, and whose fortunes are affected by it. History would not be widely interesting in a country, where the great mass of the people were slaves and mendicants, without honours to gain or property to lose. History would be widely interesting in a country, where the great bulk of the people were proprietors ! and where there was no post in the state which every citizen might not reasonably hope to obtain. In the one case it is an idle speculation to be studied from curiosity; in the other it is a practical lesson to be looked to for examples. With the general diffusion of honours, of employments, and more especially with the general diffusion of property—on which the diffusion of honours and employments mainly depends—bas been diffused the interest of history.

The small herd of encyclopedists and courtiers who once listened to the historian, are now cut up, as it were, into an immense crowd of journalists, shopkeepers, soldiers, and mechanics.

This division and diffusion of property—bringing up a fresh class of feelings upon the surface of France-inverting the usual order of events—creating a new society when we might have been looking to the mature caducity of an old oneturning an aristocracy of readers into a democracy of readers -bas made the historian a popular orator where he was formerly a wit and a metaphysician. Addressing a more numerous, a more impassioned, a less reasoning class of readers than his predecessor, he has assumed a more vehement, a more impassioned, a more powerful style of writing.

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DRAMA.

Have spoken of History.-Speak of the Drama.—But one step from Racine to

Victor Hugo and M. Alexandre Dumas.-—"Hernani.”—Proceed to “Lucrèce Borgia.”

I have spoken of history, that branch of French literature the least known to us, and in which the French of the modern day have most succeeded. I would now speak of the drama, that branch of French literature which we have most criticised, and in which the later successes of the French have been most disputed.

There are but two epochs in the French drama. Louis XIV. was on the throne, and in the declining shadow of one man* you yet saw the feudal vigour of the Fronde, and in the rising genius of another t you caught the first colouring of that royal pomp, of that Augustan majesty, which reigns in the verse of Virgil and the buildings of Versailles. And all things were then stamped with the great kingly seal. The orator was in the chair what the writer was on the stage. a great period of the human mind, and from this period to our own, tragedy has taken but one giant stride. The genius which governed the theatre stood unappalled when the genius which had founded the throne lay prostrate. The reign of Robespierre did not disturb the rule of Racine.

The republican Chénier, erect and firm before the tyranny of Bonaparte, bowed before the tyranny of the Academy; the translations of Ducis were an homage to the genius of Shakspeare, but no change in the dramatic art.

In M. Delavigne you see the old school modernized, but it is the old school.

I pass by M. de Vigny,t who has written

This was

* Corneille.

† Racine. More known for his very remarkable romance, “Cinq-Mars," and the pubblication of “Stello.”

La Maréchale d'Ancre ;* I pass by M. Soulier, who has written Clotilde ; † I pass by the followers to arrive at the chiefs of the new drama, M. V. Hugo and M. A. Dumas,

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* The plot of “La Maréchale d'Ancre," a title taken from the well-known favourite of Marie de Medicis, turns upon a passion which this lady smothers for a Corsican adventurer, the bitter enemy of Concini, her husband; the love of Concini for this Corsican’s wife, whose name he is ignorant of; and the divided feelings of the Corsican himself, who at once hates and pursues Concini, and loves and relents when he thinks of Concini's wife. Another passion also works in the drama—the jealousy of the Corsican's wife, who finds out that her husband is in love with the Maréchale, and appears in consequence as evidence against her on her trial for sorcery and witchcraft. This play, which falsifies history in making its heroine, the Maréchale, beautiful and amiable, which is just what she was not, is written nevertheless with great spirit, and contains some very eloquent passages and powerful situations.

+ This is the subject of“ Clotilde :"-Christian, an adventurer, is to marry her on such a day, and receive with her a large fortune; but in order to do this he must show himself to be the possessor of a certain sum. To obtain this sum, he murders the Jew who would not lend it him. Clotilde, however, who is passionately attached to him, quits her father's house at the very time he commits this murder, in order to live with him even as his mistress : this she rather inexplicably continues to do after the murder has been committed. At last Christian, who is about as great a rascal as one could desire to meet, determines on marrying an intriguante who can make him secretary of embassy, and quitting Clotilde. Clotilde, in despair at this treachery, and acquainted by his dreams with the crime of Christian, informs against him. He is condemned to death. She is in despair, and forces her way into the prison to see him. “What have you brought me?” says Christian. "Poison," says Clotilde; and they poison themselves together. The play is full of absurdities, but powerfully written.

# The father of M. Victor Hugo was a general. One of his relations of the same name still holds the same rank, and coinmands in one of the departments. In his early days his opinions were directly opposed to those he has since and now professes. On leaving college, he and his brother published a small newspaper of the same opinions as the “Censor ;” it existed but a very short time. M. V. Hugo next published a novel which he had written whilst at college; afterwards a variety of odes appeared, on the Virgins of Verdun, on La Vendée, on the death of Louis XVII., on the death of the Duc de Berri, on the baptism of the Duc de Bordeaux, and on the death of Louis XVIII., and also one on Napoléon.

M. Victor Hugo received a pension from Louis XVIII. Charles X. wished to increase this pension; M. V. Hugo, in a letter which I have seen, honourably refused this addition.

S M. Dumas, the son of a general also, has written his own life; as a portrait taken from the gallery of 'young France,' this life is too interesting to be crowded into a note, and I hope to have another opportunity of alluding to it. Coming up to Paris to make his fortune, the Chamber and the Theatre before him on one side, the Morgue and the Seine on the other, M. Dumas was placed, through the interest of General Foy, in one of the bureaux of the Duke of Orléans, where he improved his education and first received his draipatic inspirations.

two young men, two rivals ; each has his enthusiastic partisans, but their talents are entirely different; and there is no reason why these writers, or their friends, should suppose that the success of one is incompatible with the reputation of the other. The first drama which M. Victor Hugo brought on the stage (for he had written Cromwell, a clever but cold performance some years before) was Hernani,* and as it has been already translated, it would be useless to enter bere into any lengthened criticism upon its merits. Among M. V. Hugo's plays, however, Hernani stands alone. No other of his dramas has the same tenderness, the same gentleness, the same grace, the same nature ; for Hernani was written by M. Hugo before he laid down for himself the extraordinary rules which I shall presently have to speak of.

In Hernani, then, you find the characters of Spain truly Spanish-in Hernani you find the old Spaniard, jealous and vindicative, and the young Spanish noble, high-minded, adventurous, and romantic, and the Spanish maiden ardent, fond, with all the love and all the enthusiasm which the warm sun of her country begets, and which the dark convent and the keeneyed Duenna have been invented to check.