than he does, contrives to make a greater reputation.

His first saying is, "that man cannot be cleverer than I am." Then, he says, "Why should he be more successful?" Then he hates and abhors him because he is more successful; and then he very naturally abuses him because he abhors him. No men in France hang more together than literary men; no men defend their order with more tenacity. M. Thiers, as 'ministre,' does not forget that he is 'homme de lettres.' No men in England pull one another so much to pieces. When Mr. Brougham, when Mr. Macaulay, first appeared as politicians, all the papers, and all the newspaper writers, poured forth their ridicule and their abuse on these literary young men who presumed to make speeches. It was utterly impossible, shouted forth all these gentlemen, -employed themselves every day, by the by, in writing and deciding upon the politics of Europe,for any man who had also written to have any notion of these politics. It was indignation, it was scorn, it was vituperation, that these two gentlemen excited, just among those very persons who in France would have been most proud and most happy to say::"We are delighted at Mr. Brougham's or

Mr. Macaulay's eloquence; it shows the advantages of a cultivated taste; the position which literary men might and ought to aspire to"-secretly whispering to themselves, "and we, too, are literary men."

As for property and its division in France, that subject is one too vast for me here to do more than glance at. But it is easily seen that, where fortunes are not of themselves sufficient to make great and important distinctions; where every person is more or less in the situation of the basket-maker and the nobleman among the savages, and chiefly dependent for what he receives on what he is able to do it is easy to see that, where the pen easily procures an income which not three thousand persons possess from land, the profession of writing must hold a different rank from that which it occupies in a country where fortunes are sufficiently great to overbalance every other distinction.

There are many things to say in disparagement and in favour of this, which, as I observed before, I should wish to say more amply and satisfactorily, if I have the opportunity, elsewhere- which I should wish to say-after having more fully explained the various effects for good and evil which the great division of

property in France has produced-effects which I shall presently attempt to trace in some matters which many would suppose they could hardly reach.

But I cannot conclude this chapter without observing, that even in France people do not seem sufficiently aware of the end to which the influence of intelligence, and the insignificance of fortune, must necessarily lead them. They do not seem sufficiently aware of the necessity of recognizing, and more fully establishing, that aristocracy-for aristocracy in every country there must be—that aristocracy which time and taste have already recognized-an aristocracy which would be powerful because it is national - which would be safe, because it is peaceably created and which, when peaceably created, and historically established in a nation, is the most rational, because the best calculated to combine change with conservation, and moderation with improvement.

Yet may we see a new Chamber of Peers taken from the category of the Academy and the Institût; yet may we see the concentration and

The Institût, even at present, opens to the French a double ambition and a double career. It is there that the national character is represented, and that the national distinctions blend and meet. M. Thiers seeks

the representation of the intelligence of the kingdom more fully acknowledged, as the proper mediator between the throne, which its political science would teach it to preserve, and the people, whom its natural affections would prevent it from betraying.

the title of academician with an ardour at least equal to that which has carried him so far in the Chamber of Deputies. The Duc de Raguse was as proud of the title of Membre de l'Institût,' as that of' Marechal de France.' In that society the statesman is brought into honourable connection with the poet, the philosopher with the soldier. In that society the passionate man, the literary man, the active man, the studious man, are blended together; a practical energy is given to speculation, a nobility to ambition. The warrior, the orator, ennoble their conceptions by science; the historian, the professor, correct their theories by experience-the one learns to act with dignity, the other to think with truth.

LITERATURE.

Literature-Society in a transitory state-Every epoch in civilization bears its certain fruit-Afterwards, that society wears out, or must be invigorated by a new soil -A new stratum for society produced in France a new era-The genius of this era first visible in the Army, now in Literature-What I intend to do in speaking of French literature.

THE three influences most popular in society, and most connected with the character and the history of France, are then-the influence of arms, the influence of women, and the influence of letters and the Government that is wise will not endeavour to destroy, but will endeavour so to mould and employ, these influences as to invigorate and embellish the institutions -to improve and to elevate the social existence of the French. But there is another influence, an influence to which I have just been alluding—an influence of more modern growth— twining itself in with the history, incorporating itself with the character of the nation-an influence which, while other influences descend from