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cient courtier was satisfied with the painter who drew a god in the attitude of a dancing master-and the modern mob admire the author whose hero is writhed into the grotesque contortions of a devil. The old drama was calculated for effect-the new drama is calculated for effect. The old drama was calculated for effect in the reign of Louis XIV.-the new drama is calculated for effect in the reign of Louis Philippe. The writer, as I began by saying, is not to blame for writing differently to a different audience-the audience is not to blame because it has different feelings, derived from different habits, different pursuits, different educations. I do not blame the audience then for being less refined in its taste; I do not even blame the writer for being violent in the energy, and ostentatious in the colouring, of his piece. The milliner on Ludgate-hill does not make up the same goods for her customers as the milliner near Berkeleysquare. I blame the dramatic author in France, not for the materials he uses, but-I return to the accusation-for the use he makes of those materials. I blame him, because with the same energy of action, with the same floridity of colouring, he might be moral and magnificent where he is immoral and extravagant; he might elevate his audience where he abases it; he might instruct his audience where he misleads it. I blame him for saying, that" as the political revolution of 1789 must have had its scaffolds, so the literary revolution of the present day must have its nightmares.' I blame him for saying this, because I believe that the one was no moré necessary to public liberty than the other is to dramatic excellence.

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But do we not see here, and in all I have just been saying, the effects of that diffusion of property of which I spoke before? Do we not see that it is this which has removed the critics who governed the state from the stage? Do we not see that it is this which has made the persons to please,who were formerly a small set, more easily shocked by errors than struck by beauties, a great crowd, composed of that class who in every country are most

The unity of the beautiful is the consequence of its perfection-but the round and graceful dome of a Greek temple, the full image of which swells out, as it were, over your mind while you examine it, neither surprises nor arrests your attention, like the thousand and one figures of a Gothic cathedral, which strike you as much by their varicay as their horror.

* M. Victor Hugo.

struck by the marvellous, and most inclined to mistake the extraordinary for the sublime? Do we not see that it is this which has taken away the few who criticised, to leave the many who applaud?

When the energy which had been born of a new epoch, and and the equality which was based not merely on the statute, but on the soil-when that energy and that equality were drawn into the armies of the empire, those armies, whatever the character of their chief, were inspired by popular passions, and formed and conducted upon popular principles. It is the passions and the principles which animated the armies of France that animate her drama. The same persons are to have the honours and enjoyments of the one that had the honours and the dangers of the other. You must look at every thing in modern France with the recollection, that it is for no polished or privileged class, but for an immense plebeian public. You must look at every thing in modern France with the remembrance that almost every Frenchman has some interest in the property of France, and expects to have some influence in her honours, emoluments, and amusements.

"But how is this ?" I can fancy my reader saying; " you have shown us the advantages that the division of property has had upon one branch of literature, and now you point out to us the defects as well as the beauties-the extravagance as well as the force-that it has given to another! I thought, at all events, when you entered upon the subject, that you had some startling theory to develop, and that you would prove that this division of property produced every evil or every good." This is not what I believe; and, indeed, my object was to show not so much how this great and pervading cause had affected the modern French literature, as to show that it had affected that literature; for if it has affected the literature, it has still more deeply affected the philosophy, the religion, the society, the agriculture, the industry, the government of France; and it is only when I have traced it through all these, and balanced its various advantages and disadvantages together, that I can be justified in giving an opinion upon one of the most important problems that modern society has to solve.

I wished to have shown in this book the literature of the day

in all its branches-history, the drama, and lighter works. But I now defer the consideration of these topics, as I defer other subjects, to a succeeding portion of the present work; wherein my conrse will be-after reviewing the state of the periodical press, of philosophical and religious opinion-each so singular -to come to the great question with which I connect these, and shall connect other phenomena, and to take at once a view of the state of property, and its various ramifications into the literature, the philosophy, the religion, the industry, the social state, and the government of the French people.

Here we shall have opened to us the question of centralisation, now so interesting, and the opportunity will occur for considering where this mode of government is an effect, where it is a cause-how far the evils it brings upon France ought to be dreaded by ourselves, how far the advantages it secures to France may be required or attained by us.

Many subjects, in reality as much domestic as political—the army, the two chambers, the church, the budget, the system of education in France-subjects replete with questions that come home to the heart and hearth of every Englishman, are present to my mind.

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To pass by these questions in a work of this kind, I need hardly say, is far from my design—but to have treated of them without first treating of the history and the character of the French, and the influences (arising out of that history and that character) to which the French people are subject—would most probably have led my reader to some of the false conclusions which we are too apt to arrive at when we consider what present laws and government do, without remembering what habit, and nature, and time have done.

Besides, it seemed to me first necessary to bring a people upon the stage, to show what they have been and what they are-and then to pierce more deeply into the latent causes which no doubt govern a great part of their existence.

When I have proceded thus far, it will be the time at which, justified by preceding observations, I may more fully review the policy, and more boldly look forward to the prospects, of the government that has risen from the revolution.

of 1830—while, in attempting to trace the future destinies of a great and neighbouring nation, it will necessarily be my task to draw some comparison between its actual situation and

our own.

It is bearing in mind this my intention, that I have adopted a title which refers as much to what I shall shortly publish, as to the observations that I now conclude.

END OF BOOK III.

APPENDIX.

(DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO-Chabrol's Statistique de Paris-Dr. Bowring's Report-Census of Paris.)

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It was at the end of the reign of Louis XV. that gambling-houses, privileged by the police, first established themselves at Paris. Then there were:Dufour, rue Neuve-des-Mathurins.-Amyot et Fontaine, rue Richelieu.Deschamps, Faubourg-St.-Germain-Nollet, rue Richelieu.—Andrieu, Pont-au-Choux.-Chavigny, rue Montmartre.-Delzène, rue Plâtrière.Pierry, rue Cléry.-Barbaroux, rue des Petits-Pères.-Herbert, au café de la Régence.-David et Dufresnoy.-Odelin, rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs.— Latour, rue Feydeau.-Bouillerot, à l'Arche Marion-Boyer et Remy, rue Richelieu.

At present Paris contains eight such gambling-houses. Four at the

Palais-Royal, Nos. 124, 129, 113 et 36.--One, rue Marivaux, No. 13.-One rue du Bac, No. 31-One, at Frascasti, rue Richelieu.-One, at the grand salon, rue Richelieu.

The privilege is at present granted at the price of 6,500,000 francs, which are paid into the treasury through the medium of the city of Paris, which receives 6,500,000 and pays 6,000,000. The company, besides this, are obliged to surrender to the municipality three-quarters of its clear benefits, and the police assist every day at the closing of the accounts.

Income of one thousand francs according to Mr. Millot.

For Taxes direct, indirect, local, &c.
Food, of which the proportions per cent. are

26 drink

34 animal food

19 bread

fr. c.

136.05

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