[7]Continued from page 550.
[7]Continued from page 550.
If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial blessings that are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowledge, and so forth, would just take their eyes out of their pockets, and look about them, I would respectfully inquire if they have never met any very knowing and enlightened gentleman, whose acquaintance is by no means desirable. If not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge by his own experience; and the worst rogues I have ever encountered were amazingly well-informed, clever fellows! From dunderheads and dunces we can protect ourselves; but from your sharp-witted gentleman, all enlightenment and no prejudice, we have but to cry, "Heaven defend us!" It is true, that the rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) usually comes to no good himself, (though not before he has done harm enough to his neighbors.) But that only shows that the world wants something else in those it rewards, besides intelligenceper seand in the abstract; and is much too old a world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its plums for his own personal gratification. Hence a man of very moderate intelligence, who believes in God, suffers his heart to beat with human sympathies, and keeps his eyes off your strong-box, will perhaps gain a vast deal more power than knowledge ever gives to a rogue.
Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on the part of the blockheads, who, strange to say, are the most credulous idolaters of enlightenment, and, if knowledge were power, would rot on a dunghill; yet, nevertheless, I think all really enlightened men will agree with me, that when one falls in with detached sharpshooters from the general march of enlightenment, it is no reason to make ourselves a target, because enlightenment has furnished them with a gun. It has, doubtless, been already remarked by the judicious reader, that of the numerous characters introduced into this work, the larger portion belong to that species which we callIntellectual—that through them are analyzed and developed human intellect, in various forms and directions. So that this History, rightly considered, is a kind of humble, familiar Epic, or, if you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the varieties of English Life in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences most prevalent. And where more ordinary and less refined types of the species round and complete the survey of our passing generation, they will often suggest, by contrast, the deficiencies which mere intellectual culture leaves in the human being. Certainly I have no spite against intellect and enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should be such a Goth. I am only the advocate for common sense and fair play. I don't think an able man necessarily an angel; but I think if his heart match his head, and both proceed in the Great March under the divine Oriflamme, he goes as near to the angel as humanity will permit; if not, if he has but a penn'orth of heart to a pound of brains, I say, "Bon jour, mon ange?I see not the starry upward wings, but the grovelling cloven-hoof."I'd rather be obfuscated by the Squire of Hazeldean, than enlightened by Randal Leslie. Every man to his taste. But intellect itself (not in the philosophical, but the ordinary sense of the term) is rarely, if ever, one completed harmonious agency; it is not one faculty, but a compound of many, some of which are often at war with each other, and mar the concord of the whole. Few of us but have some predominant faculty, in itself a strength; but which (usurping unseasonably dominion over the rest) shares the lot of all tyranny, however brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against disaffection within, and invasion from without. Hence intellect maybe perverted in a man of evil disposition, and sometimes merely wasted in a man of excellent impulses, for want of the necessary discipline, or of a strong ruling motive. I doubt if there be one person in the world, who has attained a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody much cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never obtained any reputation at all! Men, like Audley Egerton, are constantly seen in the great positions of life; while men, like Harley l'Estrange, who could have beaten them hollow in any thing equally striven for by both, float away down the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse the dreamy energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If Hamlet and Polonius were living now, Polonius would have a much better chance of being Chancellor of the Exchequer, though Hamlet would unquestionably be a much more intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet? Heaven knows! Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a school, that the difference between one man and another was not mere ability—it was energy. There is a great deal of truth in that saying.
Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration of the sagacious, I enter on the fresh division of this work, and see already Randal Leslie gnawing his lip on the back ground. The German poet observes, that the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! O prostitution of the grandest desires to the basest uses! Gaze on the goddess, Randal Leslie, and get ready thy churn and thy scales. Let us see what the butter will fetch in the market.
A new reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings. Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast majorities, has barely escaped defeat—thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his election are said to have been prodigious. "But who can stand against such wealth as Egerton's—no doubt backed, too, by the Treasury purse?" said the defeated candidate. It is towards the close of October; London is already full; Parliament will meet in less than a fortnight.
In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which foreigners may discover what is meant by English comfort, and the price which foreigners must pay for it, there sat two persons, side by side, engaged in close conversation. The one was a female, in whose pale clear complexion and raven hair—in whose eyes, vivid with a power of expression rarely bestowed on the beauties of the north, we recognize Beatrice, Marchesa di Negra. Undeniably handsome as was the Italian lady, her companion, though a man, and far advanced into middle age, was yet more remarkable for personal advantages. There was a strong family likeness between the two; but there was also a striking contrast in air, manner, and all that stamps on the physiognomy the idiosyncrasies of character. There was something of gravity, of earnestness and passion, in Beatrice's countenance when carefully examined; her smile at times might be false, but it was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures, though graceful, were unrestrained and frequent. You could see she was a daughter of the south. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the fair smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle, something that might have passed, at first glance for the levity and thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman. His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce such marvellous effects of color; and if here and there a silver thread gleamed through the locks it was lost at once amidst their luxuriance. His eyes were light, and his complexion though without much color, was singularly transparent. His beauty, indeed, would have been rather womanly than masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than concealed by an admirable elegance of proportion. You would never have guessed this man to be an Italian; more likely you would have supposed him a Parisian. He conversed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his mode of thought seemed French. Not that he was like the Frenchmen of the present day—an animal, either rude or reserved; but your ideal of theMarquisof the oldrégime—therouéof the Regency.
Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in Italian history. But as if ashamed of his country and his birth, he affected to be a citizen of the world. Heaven help the world if it hold only such citizens!
"But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, "even granting that youdiscover this girl, can you suppose that her father will ever consent to your alliance? Surely you know too well the nature of your kinsman?"
"Tu te trompes, ma sœur," replied Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera, in French as usual—"tu te trompes; I knew it before he had gone through exile and penury. How can I know it now? But comfort yourself, my too anxious Beatrice, I shall not care for his consent till I have made sure of his daughter's."
"But how win that in despite of the father?"
"Eh, mordieu?" interrupted the Count, with true French gayety; "what would become of all the comedies ever written, if marriages were not made in despite of the father? Look you," he resumed, with a very slight compression of his lip, and a still slighter movement in his chair; "look you, this is no question of ifs and buts—it is a question of must and shall—a question of existence to you and to me. When Danton was condemned to the guillotine, he said, flinging a pellet of bread at the nose of his respectable judge—'Mon individu sera bientôt dans le néant'—My patrimony is there already! I am loaded with debts. I see before me, on the one side, ruin or suicide; on the other side, wedlock and wealth."
"But from those vast possessions which you have been permitted to enjoy so long, have you really saved nothing against the time when they might be reclaimed at your hands?"
"My sister," replied the Count, "do I look like a man who saved? Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwilling to raise from his Lombard domains a name and a house so illustrious as our kinsman's, and desirous, while punishing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward my adherence, forbore the peremptory confiscation of those vast possessions at which my mouth waters while we speak, but, annexing them to the Crown during pleasure, allowed me, as the next of male kin, to retain the revenues of one-half for the same very indefinite period—had I not every reason to suppose, that, before long, I could so influence his Majesty or his minister, as to obtain a decree that might transfer the whole, unconditionally and absolutely, to myself? And methinks I should have done so, but for this accursed, intermeddling English Milord, who has never ceased to besiege the court or the minister with alleged extenuations of our cousin's rebellion, and proofless assertions that I shared it in order to entangle my kinsman, and betrayed it in order to profit by his spoils. So that, at last, in return for all my services, and in answer to all my claims, I received from the minister himself this cold reply: 'Count of Peschiera, your aid was important, and your reward has been large. That reward, it would not be for your honor to extend, and justify the ill opinion of your Italian countrymen by formally appropriating to yourself all that was forfeited by the treason you denounced. A name so noble as yours should be dearer to you than fortune itself.'"
"Ah, Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, changed in its whole character; "those were words that might make the demon that tempts to avarice fly from your breast in shame."
The Count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the room and said, quietly:
"Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice, talk common sense. Heroics sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the tone of a family conversation."
Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change in the expression of her countenance, which had seemed to betray susceptibility to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away.
"But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one-half of those ample revenues—why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?"
"I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his possessions?"
"There is aprobability, then, of that pardon? When you first employed me in your researches, you only thought there was apossibility."
"There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I learned some little time since that the question of such recall had been suggested by the Emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger to the State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged abilities—(abilities! bah!)—and his popular name, deferred any decision on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must have embarrassed the ministry. But it is a mere question of time. He cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty, already extended to the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice, on which I acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable age; that if she were to wed, with the Emperor's consent, some one whose attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued my friend) 'apply to the Emperor for his consent to that alliance for yourself?—you, on whom he can depend;—you who, if the daughter should die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke."
"You saw the Emperor?"
"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated, that so farfrom my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against me, when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would willingly give me the hand of his child."
"You did?" cried the Marchesa, amazed.
"And," continued the Count imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front—"and that I should thus have the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty—the agent for the restoration of his honors, while, in the eyes of the envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from all suspicion that I had wronged him."
"And the Emperor consented?"
"Pardieu, my dear sister. What else could his majesty do? My proposition smoothed every obstacle, and reconciled policy with mercy. It remains, therefore, only to find out, what has hitherto baffled all our researches, the retreat of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself a welcome lover to the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I own; but—unless your sex and my glass flatter me overmuch—I am still a match for many a gallant of five-and-twenty."
The Count said this with so charming a smile, and looked so pre-eminently handsome, that he carried off the coxcombry of the words as gracefully as if they had been spoken by some dazzling hero of the grand old comedy of Parisian life.
Then interlacing his fingers, and lightly leaning his hands, thus clasped, upon his sister's shoulder, he looked into her face, and said slowly—"And now, my sister, for some gentle but deserved reproach. Have you not sadly failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for my interests? Is it not some years since you first came to England on the mission of discovering these worthy relatives of ours? Did I not entreat you to seduce into your toils the man whom I knew to be my enemy, and was indubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat—a secret he has hitherto locked within his bosom? Did you not tell me, that though he was then in England, you could find no occasion even to meet him, but that you had obtained the friendship of the statesman to whom I directed your attention, as his most intimate associate? And yet you, whose charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from the statesman, as you see nothing ofMilord. Nay, baffled and misled, you actually supposed that the quarry has taken refuge in France. You go thither—you pretend to search the capital—the provinces, Switzerland,que sais-je?—all in vain,—though—foi de gentilhomme—your police cost me dearly,—you return to England—the same chase, and the same result.Palsambleu, ma sœur, I do too much credit to your talents not to question your zeal. In a word have you been in earnest—or have you not had some womanly pleasure in amusing yourself and abusing my trust?"
"Giulio," answered Beatrice sadly, "you know the influence you have exercised over my character and my fate. Your reproaches are not just. I made such inquiries as were in my power, and I have now cause to believe that I know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide us to it."
"Ah, you do!" exclaimed the Count. Beatrice did not heed the exclamation, but hurried on.
"But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you imposed on me, would it not have been natural? When I first came to England, you informed me that your object in discovering the exiles was one which I could honestly aid. You naturally desired first to know if the daughter lived; if not, you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you desired to effect, through my mediation, some liberal compromise with Alphonso, by which you would have sought to obtain his restoration, provided he would leave you for life in possession of the grant you hold from the crown. While these were your objects, I did my best, ineffectual as it was, to obtain the information required."
"And what made me lose so important though so ineffectual an ally?" asked the Count, still smiling; but a gleam that belied the smile shot from his eye.
"What! when you bade me receive and co-operate with the miserable spies—the false Italians—whom you sent over, and seek to entangle this poor exile, when found in some rash correspondence, to be revealed to the court; when you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count of Peschiera, the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, into the informer, the corrupter, and the traitress! No, Giulio—then I recoiled; and then, fearful of your own sway over me, I retreated into France. I have answered you frankly."
The Count removed his hands from the shoulders on which they had reclined so cordially.
"And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your gratitude. You, whose fortunes are bound up in mine—you, who subsist on my bounty—you, who—"
"Hold," cried the Marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of years—"Hold—gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother—what, indeed, do I owe to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you condemned me to marry against my will—against my heart—against my prayers—and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was pure then, Giulio—pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin crown. And now—now—"
Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before her face.
"Now you upbraid me," said the Count, unruffled by her sudden passion, "because I gave you in marriage to a man young and noble?"
"Old in vices and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had the right, according to the customs of our country, to dispose of my hand. But I forgave you not the consolations that you whispered in the ear of a wretched and insulted wife."
"Pardon me the remark," replied the Count, with a courtly bend of his head, "but those consolations were also conformable to the customs of our country, and I was not aware till now that you had wholly disdained them. And," continued the Count, "you were not so long a wife that the gall of the chain should smart still. You were soon left a widow—free, childless, young, beautiful."
"And penniless."
"True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky; no fault of mine. I could neither keep the cards from his hands, nor advise him how to play them."
"And my own portion? Oh, Giulio, I knew but at his death why you had condemned me to that renegade Genoese. He owed you money, and, against honor, and I believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in discharge of the debt."
"He had no other way to discharge it—a debt of honor must be paid—old stories these. "What matters? Since then my purse has been open to you."
"Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument—your spy! Yes, your purse has been open—with a niggard hand."
"Un peu de conscience, ma chère, you are so extravagant. But come, be plain. What would you?"
"I would be free from you."
"That is, you would form some second marriage with one of these rich island lords.Ma foi, I respect your ambition."
"It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery—to be placed beyond dishonorable temptation. I desire," cried Beatrice with increased emotion, "I desire to re-enter the life of woman."
"Eno'!" said the Count with a visible impatience, "is there anything in the attainment of your object that should render you indifferent to mine? You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry, as becomes you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry. Be it so. I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift clutch of the Genoese—the moment that it is mine to bestow—- the moment that I am husband to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice, you imply that my former notions revolted your conscience; my present plan should content it; for by this marriage shall our kinsman regain his country, and repossess, at least, half his lands. And if I am not an excellent husband to the demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I have sown my wild oats.Je suis bon prince, when I have things a little my own way. It is my hope and my intention, and certainly it will be my interest, to becomedigne époux et irréproachable pire de famille. I speak lightly—'tis my way. I mean seriously. The little girl will be very happy with me, and I shall succeed in soothing all resentment her father may retain. Will you aid me then—yes or no? Aid me, and you shall indeed be free. The magician will release the fair spirit he has bound to his will. Aid me not,ma chère, and mark, I do not threaten—I do but warn—aid me not; grant that I become a beggar, and ask yourself what is to become of you—still young, still beautiful, and still penniless? Nay, worse than penniless; you have done me the honor (and here the Count, looking on the table, drew a letter from a portfolio, emblazoned with his arms and coronet), you have done me the honor to consult me as to your debts."
"You will restore my fortune?" said the Marchesa, irresolutely—and averting her head from an odious schedule of figures.
"When my own, with your aid, is secured."
"But do you not overrate the value of my aid?"
"Possibly," said the Count, with a caressing suavity—and he kissed his sister's forehead. "Possibly; but by my honor, I wish to repair to you any wrong, real or supposed, I may have done you in past times. I wish to find again my own dear sister. I may overvalue your aid, but not the affection from which it comes. Let us be friends,cara Beatrice Mia," added the Count, for the first time employing Italian words.
The Marchesa laid her head on his shoulder, and her tears flowed softly. Evidently this man had great influence over her—and evidently, whatever her cause for complaint, her affection for him was still sisterly and strong. A nature with fine flashes of generosity, spirit, honor, and passion, was hers—but uncultured, unguided—spoilt by the worst social examples—easily led into wrong—not always aware where the wrong was—letting affections good or bad whisper away her conscience or blind her reason. Such women are often far more dangerous when induced to wrong, than those who are thoroughly abandoned—such women are the accomplices men like the Count of Peschiera most desire to obtain.
"Ah, Giulio," said Beatrice, after a pause, and looking up at him through her tears, "when you speak to me thus, you know you can do with me what you will. Fatherless and motherless, whom had my childhood to love and obey but you?"
"Dear Beatrice," murmured the Count tenderly—and he again kissed her forehead. "So," he continued more carelessly—"so the reconciliation is effected, and our interests and our hearts re-allied. Now, alas! to descend to business. You say that you know some one whom you believe to be acquainted with the lurking-place of my father-in-law—that is to be!"
"I think so. You remind me that I have an appointment with him this day: it is near the hour—I must leave you."
"To learn the secret?—Quick—quick. I have no fear of your success, if it is by his heart that you lead him."
"You mistake; on his heart I have no hold. But he has a friend who loves me, and honorably, and whose cause he pleads. I think here that I have some means to control or persuade him. If not—ah, he is of a character that perplexes me in all but his worldly ambition; and how can we foreigners influence him throughthat?"
"Is he poor, or is he extravagant?"
"Not extravagant, and not positively poor, but dependent."
"Then we have him," said the Count composedly. "If his assistance he worth buying, we can bid high for it.Sur mon âme, I never yet knew money fail with any man who was both worldly and dependent. I put him and myself in your hands."
Thus saying, the Count opened the door, and conducted his sister with formal politeness to her carriage. He then returned, reseated himself, and mused in silence. As he did so, the muscles of his countenance relaxed. The levity of the Frenchman fled from his visage, and in his eye, as it gazed abstractedly into space, there was that steady depth so remarkable in the old portraits of Florentine diplomatist or Venetian oligarch. Thus seen, there was in that face, despite all its beauty, something that would have awed back even the fond gaze of love; something hard, collected, inscrutable, remorseless; but this change of countenance did not last long. Evidently thought, though intense for the moment, was not habitual to the man. Evidently he had lived the life which takes all things lightly—so he rose with a look of fatigue, shook and stretched himself, as if to cast off, or grow out of, an unwelcome and irksome mood. An hour afterwards, the Count of Peschiera was charming all eyes, and pleasing all ears, in the saloon of a high-born beauty, whose acquaintance he had made at Vienna, and whose charms, according to that old and never-truth-speaking oracle, Polite Scandal, were now said to have attracted to London the brilliant foreigner.
The Marchesa regained her house, which was in Curzon street, and withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her countenance all traces of the tears she had shed.
Half-an-hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed and calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was capable of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished elegance which comes alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose of rank, you could see but the woman of the world and the great lady.
A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance—a young man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's, was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius, "ought, if he can, to wear his whole mind on his forehead."[8]The young visitor would never have committed so frank an imprudence. His cheek was pale, and in his step and in his movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued nerves or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the tone of the voice were those of a mental temperament controlling the bodily—vigorous and energetic. For the rest, his general appearance was distinguished by a refinement alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not easily forget him. And the reader no doubt already recognizes Randal Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, was that of intimate familiarity; yet it was given and replied to with that unreserved openness which denotes the absence of a more tender sentiment.
[8]I must be pardoned for annexing the original, since it loses much by translation:—"Hominem liberum et magnificum debere, si queat, in primori fronte, animum gestare."
[8]I must be pardoned for annexing the original, since it loses much by translation:—"Hominem liberum et magnificum debere, si queat, in primori fronte, animum gestare."
Seating himself by the Marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse on the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable, that, while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal of the great world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return. Randal Leslie had already learned the art not to commit himself, nor to have quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the eminent. Nothing more injures the man who would rise beyond the fame of thesalons, than to be considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it is always useful," thought Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles—the small social and private springs by which the great are moved. Critical occasions may arise in which such knowledge may be power." And hence, perhaps, (besides a more private motive, soon to be perceived,) Randal did not consider his time thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's friendship. For despite much that was whispered against her, she had succeeded in dispelling the coldness with which she had at first been received in the London circles. Her beauty, her grace, and her high birth, had raised her into fashion, and the homage of men of the first station, while it perhaps injured her reputation as a woman, added to her celebrity as fine lady. So much do we cold English, prudes though we be, forgive to the foreigner what we avenge on the native.
Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and elegant personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, whichLord this and the Duke of that had passed on the Marchesa's charms, Randal laid his hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and said—
"But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for me, and with a generosity which no coquette could have been capable) you, in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else have ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of love who does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes that I fear are terribly extravagant;'—since thus you allowed me to divine your natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy has been founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you excite amongst thegrands seigneursI have named, only serves to defeat your own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest. Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they who are not belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more than beauty and wit—namely, connections to strengthen their political station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title."
"My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the Marchesa—and a certain sadness might be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye—"I have lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's—"ah, I am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures—of a heart so new, that it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home, I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition."
"This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not harmonize with your former answer to me."
"To you," repeated Beatrice smiling, and regaining her lighter manner; "to you—true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that you, with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave pride in her air—"andthen, I could not have consented to share my fate with one whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty and debt. Now it may be different. Now I may have the dowry that befits my birth. And now I may be free to choose according to my heart as woman, not according to my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing."
"Ah," said Randal, interested and drawing still closer towards his fair companion—"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to think that you shall be—rich?"
The Marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich, she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While thus reflecting, Beatrice answered—
"Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be half a million—"
"Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained himself from falling at her feet in adoration.
"Of francs!" continued the Marchesa.
"Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from his sudden enthusiasm, "about twenty thousand pounds!—eight hundred a-year at four per cent. A very handsome portion, certainly—(Genteel poverty! he murmured to himself. What an escape I have had! but I see—I see. This will smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project. I see)—a very handsome portion," he repeated aloud—"not for agrand seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes your ideal. Providentially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our rural nobility—our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?"
"Did I blush?" said the Marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I have been touched by his honest ingenuous love—so evident, yet rather looked than spoken. I have contrasted the lovethat honors me with the suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not what—"
"You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do not allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is true, have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen. He has not at present—few men have. But what Cimon would not be refined by so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows belong but to youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who could see his sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean."
The Marchesa leant her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul—so had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex character been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed position, the equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various debasements to which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her—(not without design on the part of the count, who, though grasping, was not miserly, and who by precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one time, and refusals of all aid at another, had involved her in debt in order to retain his hold on her)—so utterly painful and humiliating to a woman of her pride and her birth was the station that she held in the world—that in marriage she saw liberty, life, honor, self-redemption; and these thoughts, while they compelled her to co-operate with the schemes, by which the count, on securing to himself a bride, was to bestow on herself a dower, also disposed her now to receive with favour Randal Leslie's pleadings on behalf of his friend.
The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such representations as were likely to be most effective. With what admirable tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere individual, and drew him rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position might desire, in the safety, peace, and honor of a home, in the trust, and constancy, and honest confiding love of its partner! He did not paint an Elysium; he described a haven; he did not glowingly delineate a hero of romance—he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Respectable and the Real which a woman turns to when romance begins to seem to her but delusion. Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of the person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried admiringly, "Knowledgeispower; and this man, if as able on a larger field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time."
Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her as he spoke—slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said—
"Well, well, grant all you say; at least before I can listen to so honorable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pressure that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who woos me, 'Will you pay the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of di Negra?'"
"Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry."
"But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon her companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra extended her hand to Randal, and said in her most winning accents, "You are, then, truly and sincerely my friend?"
"Can you doubt it?"
"I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance."
"Mine? How?"
"Listen; my brother has arrived in London—"
"I see that arrival announced in the papers."
"And he comes, empowered by the consent of the Emperor, to ask the hand of a relation and countrywoman of his; an alliance that will heal long family dissensions, and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My brother, like myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law he still owes me it would distress him to pay till this marriage be assured."
"I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?"
"By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought refuge and concealment in England."
"The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and was proscribed?"
"Exactly so; and so well has he concealed himself that he has baffled all our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his pardon in cementing this alliance—"
"Proceed."
"Ah Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know that I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's retreat—sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly knows it—"
"But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me as to you."
"Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you know already that secret which I ask you to share with me."
"What on earth makes you think so?"
"When, some weeks ago you asked me to describe the personal appearance and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections of my childhood, partly from the description given to me by others, I could not but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in spite," said the Marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she spoke—"in spite of your habitual self-command. And when I pressed you to own that you had actually seen some one who tallied with that description, your denial did not deceive me. Still more, when returning recently, of your own accord, to the subject, you questioned me so shrewdly as to my motives in seeking the clue to our refugees, and I did not then answer you satisfactorily, I could detect—"
"Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to shun a merriment so natural as to be ill-bred,—"ha, ha, you have the fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that I may have seen some Italian exiles, (which is likely enough,) what could be more simple than my seeking to compare your description with their appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst them to be the man you search for, what more simple, also, than that I should desire to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering his 'whereabout?' For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery, "ill would it become me to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one who would hide from persecution; and even if I did so—for honor itself is a weak safeguard against your fascinations—such indiscretion might be fatal to my future career."
"How?"
"Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not communicate?—and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an imprudence that committed himself? My dear friend, I will tell you more. When Audley Egerton first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he said, with his usual dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you to discontinue acquaintance with Madame di Negra—for an acquaintance with women like her forms the manners and refines the intellect; but charming women are dangerous, and Madame di Negra is—a charming woman."
The Marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed: "'Your fair acquaintance' (I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to discover the home of a countryman of hers. She suspects that I know it. She may try to learn it through you. Accident may possibly give you the information she requires. Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should judge of your general character. He from whom a woman can extract a secret will never be fit for public life.' Therefore, my dear Marchesa, even supposing that I possess this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to ask me to reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For as yet," added Randal, with a gloomy shade on his brow,—"as yet I do not stand alone and erect—Ilean;—I am dependent."
"There may be a way," replied Madame di Negra, persisting, "to communicate this intelligence, without the possibility of Mr. Egerton's tracing our discovery to yourself; and, though I will not press you further, I add this—you urge me to accept your friend's hand; you seem interested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with a warmth that shows how much you regard what you suppose is his happiness; I will never accept his hand till I can do so without blush for my penury—till my dowry is secured, and that can only be by my brother's union with the exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore, think well how you can aid me in the first step to that alliance. The young lady once discovered, and my brother has no fear for the success of his suit."
"And you would marry Frank if the dower was secured?"
"Your arguments in his favor seem irresistible," replied Beatrice, looking down.
A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few moments.
Then slowly rising, and drawing on his gloves, he said—
"Well, at least you so far reconcile my honor towards aiding your research, that you now inform me that you mean no ill to the exile."
"Ill!—the restoration to fortune, honors, his native land."
"And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you inspire me with the hope to contribute to the happiness of two friends whom I dearly love. I will therefore diligently seek to ascertain if, among the refugees I have met with, lurk those whom you seek; and if so I will thoughtfully consider how to give you the clue. Meanwhile, not one incautious word to Egerton."
"Trust me—I am a woman of the world."
Randal now had gained the door. He paused, and renewed carelessly—
"This young lady must be heiress to great wealth, to induce a young man of your brother's rank to take so much pains to discover her."
"Her wealthwillbe vast," replied the Marchesa; "and if any thing from wealth or influence in a foreign state could be permitted to prove my brother's gratitude—"
"Ah, fie," interrupted Randal, and approaching Madame di Negra, he lifted her hand to his lips, and said gallantly.
"This is reward enough to yourpreux chevalier."
With those words he took his leave.
It is always safe to call an assailer of morality licentious, though many of its defenders be not virtuous.
A pendant to Professor Creasy'sDecisive Battleshas been issued at Stuttgart, under the title ofGrundzüge einer Einleitung zum Studium der Kriegsgeschichte(Outlines of an Introduction to the History of War). The author divides his work into two parts: the first extending from 550B.C.toA.D.1350; the second, from 1350 to 1850; and each of these parts he arranges in three periods. In the first period (550 to 250B.C.), he finds that the controlling part in war must be attributed to distinguished and leading individualities; in the second (250 to 50B.C.), that the dominant element was the political and national, especially the peculiar constitution and nationality of the Romans; the third (50B.C.to 1350A.D.), is remarkable for the number and variety of warlike events, and the gradual decline of the system used in prosecuting wars; in the fourth (A.D.1350 to 1650), the art of war was greatly advanced, especially in respect to technical science, fortifications, &c.; in the fifth (1650 to 1790), this progress continued, and tactics were greatly improved as well as strategy; the sixth period (1790 to 1850), is remarkable for the rapid development of every branch of warlike art and science, both theoretical and practical. These conclusions are arrived at after a spirited historical review of the different periods. This introduction the author promises to follow up with a complete work.
An interesting correspondence of the period of the thirty years' war has been discovered by M. Welchoff, Councillor of State, in an old travelling trunk in the archives of the Aulic chamber of Celle, in Hanover, that did not appear to have been opened since the papers were deposited. It comes down to the date of the battle of Breitenfeld, and includes letters from Pappenheim, Gustavus Adolphus, and other leaders of the time, with the rough draughts of the letters of Duke George of Brunswick, Luneberg, to whom the whole collection probably belonged. A similar discovery was lately made by M. Dudik, commissioned by the government of Austria to search the libraries of Sweden for material of this kind, in Stockholm and Upsal. The history of the thirty years' war has therefore to be rewritten.
Albion and Erin, is the title of a little volume, containing the choicest songs of Moore, Byron, Burns, Shelley, Campbell, and Thompson, with selections from Percy's Reliques, each piece being accompanied by a faithful and elegant translation into German, printed on the opposite page. For American students of German, or German students of English, nothing better could be desired. (Sold by Rudolph Garrigue, Astor House.)
The thirteenth meeting of the Association of German Philologists, Teachers and Orientalists, was opened at Erlangen on the 1st of October, and continued four days, about one hundred and eighty members being present. Böckh of Berlin, Thiersch, Halm and Spengel of Munich, Gerlach of Basle, Grotefend of Hanover, Krüger of Brunswick, were among the most distinguishedgelehrten. There was even one member from Russia in the person of Prof. Vater of Kasan. Austria and Electoral Hesse were not represented. Professor Döderlein was president, and Professor Nagelsbach vice-president. The president opened the general session with a discourse upon the position and value of modern philology. In the meeting of October 2d, Wocher of Ehrinegn read an essay on phonology, or the essential significance of sounds; and Beyer of Erlangen, another on an antique statue in the Munich collection which had been supposed to represent Leukothea, but which he demonstrated to be Charitas. In the exercises of the third and fourth day were included an essay by Böckh on a Greek inscription, one by Döderlein on an ode of Horace, one by Nagelsbach on a passage of the Iliad, and one by Gerlach on a subject from Roman antiquities. The whole, however interesting to advanced scholars, had little to attract or satisfy the mass of intelligent persons.
The third volume of G.Weil'sGeschichte der Chalifen(History of the Califs), has appeared in Germany, where the second was published three years since. This volume brings the history down into the period of the crusades, and gives us the exact life of men of such proportions as Haroun Alrashid, and Saladin. In ordinary cases when history enters the field where romance has achieved its most brilliant successes, it must be written with the utmost power not to seem pale and lifeless by contrast, but here the simplest narrative would have all the charm of fancy. For the rest Mr. Weil is fully equal to his subject; and throws a flood of light upon its more recondite features. His work is an invaluable addition to our means of knowing the history and natives of the Orient.
Die Deutschen in Böhmen(The Germans in Bohemia), is pleasant reading for those who like to study the manners and peculiarities of foreign countries in some detail. It also has its value for the political student who would make himself acquainted with the intermixtures and relations of the different races in Central Europe. It treats the subject in its geographical, statistical, economical and historical bearings, as well as in respect to manners, customs, and modes of life. (Prague, 1851.)
We are indebted to the Messrs. Westermann, of this city, for the ninth and tenth parts of Dr.Andree'sadmirable work, entitled,Amerika, of which we have before spoken at length. These parts conclude the first volume, of 810 octavo pages, printed with an elegance which, among us, is not generally attributed to German books. This volume is devoted to North America, and these two parts, are divided into chapters upon:—the New England States; the Middle States; the Southern Atlantic States; the South on the Gulf of Mexico; the Western Slave States; the Non-slaveholding, West and North; the Far West, and the Pacific Coast. Each state and territory is treated with extreme clearness and comprehensiveness, and with a correctness that seems astonishing, when we consider that the book was written in Germany. This volume is dedicated to Dr. Hermann E. Ludewig, of this city, in three or four pages, giving an account of the motives which induced Dr. Andree to write the work; we translate the dedicatory paragraph: "This book, honored sir, I dedicate to you. The literature of North American history is greatly indebted to your valuable labors; for these ten years no small part of your time has been devotedly spent in disinterestedly aiding, by advice and assistance, our emigrating countrymen on their arrival in New-York. In your new country, which you understand so keenly and so profoundly, you are still a cultivator of German science, holding your old fatherland in appropriate honor. You are in America a worthy and most estimable representative of German culture and German integrity. Receive friendly this inscription, and the cordial greetings I send you beyond the sea!" We trust the other volumes of this work may speedily appear: the second will be upon Mexico and Central America, and the third upon South America.
Spinoza'sTractatus Politicusis the subject of a work recently published at Dessau, by J. E.Horn. The author defends Spinoza's political ideas as of a practical nature, and not at all connected with the analogous theories of modern German metaphysicians. The work is the result of much thought, and of all the industry which seems to belong to every scholar of Germany.
Another work on Spinoza, is by ProfessorZimmermannof Olmütz, and is entitled,Uber einige logische Fehler der spinozistischen Ethik. It attempts to prove at length that the syllogistic method of the great Jew can only be correct on the supposition that in substance the idea and the reality are coincident, which supposition Spinoza himself expressly affirms. The radical fault of this method, according to the Professor, is the application of mathematical demonstration to things not susceptible thereof. On the whole this publication adds little to the treasures of philosophy.
Another, and a valuable contribution, to the almost infinite Gœthean literature, has appeared in Germany, in the second volume of J. W.Schafer'slife of the great poet. It begins with the year 1786, and comes down to the death of the modern Shakespeare. Its materials are drawn from the writings of Goethe himself, and from the published letters and memoirs upon separate portions of his life. The Italian Journey is the subject of a special disquisition. Goethe's political opinions are also discussed in connection with his behavior during the war of independence. Finally, we have the man in his old age, when his leading feature of character is said to be universality of mental activity. The style of the book is clear and condensed, and its fairness and impartiality a subject of laudation.
A third volume ofGoethe'sCorrespondence with Madame von Steinhas been published in Germany. It is no less interesting than the preceding, whether as a collection of letters, or as a revelation of the character and private history of the greatest man in German literature. The assertion that Goethe was really a man of cold and heartless nature, and that the warmth of feeling and freshness of sentiment displayed in his poems was merely fictitious, is entirely refuted by this correspondence.
A collection of poems, byWolfgang von Goethe, the son of the great poet, was published by Cotta, of Stuttgart, in October last. We have not seen the book, but the publisher's advertisement is quite apologetic, and indicates that the name of the father has not insured the inheritance of his genius.
A new work entitledDas Brittische Reich in Europe(The British Empire in Europe), has just appeared at Leipzig, in which the progress and power of England are compared with those of the United States. The author, HerrMeidinger, is an admirer of the present policy of England, and exhibits at length the statistics of the advance made by the country under that policy. A statistical survey of the religious and moral condition of Ireland, which forms a part of the work, has also been printed as a separate book.
Students of middle-age antiquities may find a bone to gnaw inDat Spil fan der Upstandinge(The Play of the Resurrection), just published with annotations by HerrEttmullerat Quedlinburg. This is said to be greatly superior to the mass of the religious dramas of the time; it has a genuine unity and is not disfigured by the admixture of buffoonery with the awful realities of New Testament history. It is in the Low German dialect, and dates from the fifteenth century.
A good history of French literature has been published in German by ProfessorKreysigof Elbing. It is designed for a schoolbook, and evinces both learning and fairness.
A valuable contribution to German history has been brought out at Berlin, byKurd von Schözer, under the title ofDie Hansa und der Deutsche Ritterorden in den Ostseeländen(The Hanseatic League and the German Knighthood in the Baltic provinces). The author has not merely exhausted the old chronicles of his subject in the archives and libraries of Germany, but has wrought up his materials into a living narrative, full of romantic interest as well as historical instruction.
A Catholic writer, CountEichendorff, has published, at Leipzig,Der Deutsche Roman des 18ten Jahrhunderts(German Romance in the 18th century), in which the subject of romance literature is treated in its relation to Christianity, but not in a thorough or profound manner, and with too much dogmatism, and apparent prejudice. His idea is, that there is no Christianity outside of the Catholic Church, and that all novels which are not Catholic are unchristian.
Madame Blaze de Buryhas just published at Bremen, in Germany, a novel, entitled,Falkenburg, which was issued at the same time in English by Colburn, in London. The German copy is the work of the authoress herself. She resides, at Paris, as the wife of the well-knownlittérateur, Henri Blaze. This novel is certainly a cosmopolitan production—written as it is, in German, by an Englishwoman, married to a Frenchman, and residing at Paris.
The history of religious organizations is enriched by ProfessorRichter'sGeschichte der Evangelischen Kirchenverfassung in Deutschland(History of the Constitution of the Evangelical Church in Germany), which has just appeared at Leipzig. The work is highly, and, we doubt not, very justly commended.
An elaborateLife of Sir Robert Peel, with a collection of his speeches, has been published in German, by HerrKunzel. It is a warm tribute of admiration for the English statesman, and for that process of very gradual reform by which England is distinguished. (Brunswick, 2 vols.)
Dr.Zimmermann, whose excellent history of the Peasants' War deserves to be better known to English readers, has just published, at Darmstadt, a history of the English Revolution, which he dedicates to all parties of the German people, and which we doubt not all parties may profitably study.
A history of Norway has been published at Leipzig, in a neat little volume. It brings the narrative of that country down to the present time, dividing it into seven periods, and giving a succinct account of each. The history of Andreas Faye serves as the basis of this work.
We gave in these pages, a few months since, an account of the labors and sufferings of the Hungarian traveller and ethnographerReguly, who spent ten painful years among the Finnish tribes of Northern Europe and Asia, with a view to ascertain the ancient of the Magyars. Reguly is now hard at work at Pesth arranging for publication the immense mass of materials gathered on this long expedition, and meanwhile another savan, John Jerney, has just published in two heavy quartos the result of a journey he made for the same purpose during 1844 and '45, in Southern Russia. His work is interesting rather from its information on collateral subjects than because he has cleared up the main problem which his explorations had in view. His conclusion is that the Magyars are of Parthian origin.
In the present attention to recent Magyar history, a useful aid may be found inUngarn's Politische Charaktere(The Political Notabilities of Hungary), just published at Mayence. It contains the biography of forty-eight different persons. Its author is a warm admirer of Kossuth and his policy.
A collection of the speeches, proclamations, &c., of that sentimental tyrant, Frederick William IV. of Prussia, has just been published at Berlin. It includes all the productions of his Majesty from March 6, 1848, to May 31, 1851, and will be useful to trunk-makers and future historians.
In the present interest attaching to Arctic voyages,Schundt'sBilder aus dem Norden(Pictures from the North), collected in a journey toward the North Pole, in the year 1850, is worth looking into. (Jena, 1851.)
Prof. J. E.Kopphas published, at Vienna, a volume of documents on the history of the Swiss Confederation.
The success in Europe of GeneralBem'splan of teaching history and an exact chronology, attracted the attention of intelligent friends of education in Massachusetts, at whose suggestion Miss E. P.Peabodyhas prepared a system of the same sort for American schools. The plan was not one superseding the necessity of study, but guiding it, and rendering it effective. It requires a very careful attention, which may be slighted either by scholar or teacher. It saves time, indeed, by rewarding labor, and by making the everlasting review of the ground unnecessary, fostering by means of the senses what is attained. Miss Peabody, in the appendix to the tables of chronology which form the manual of this system, has aimed to give some general hints to teachers, opening out before them a more generous method of studying history than has been usual in our schools and colleges.
The French democrats and socialists bring out this year the usual variety of Almanacs for the propagation of their doctrines among the people. TheAlmanach du Travailcontains articles by Agricole Perdiguier, cabinet-maker and representative in the National Assembly; M. Perdiguier is understood to be the original hero of George Sand'sCompagnons du Tour de France; several other well-known literary and political characters also contribute; the publication of the work is the enterprise of an association of printers and engravers. TheAlmanach du Villageis published by thePropagande Démocratique Européene; its editor is M. Joigneaux, a representative, and Pierre Dupont, the democratic poet, is among the contributors. TheAlmanach Populaire de la Franceis a more elaborate publication, and boasts a larger circle of writers; Pascal Duprat, Alphonse Esquiros, André Cochut, Fr. Arago, and Victor Schoelcher, are among them. TheAlmanach des Opprimés, by Hippolyte Magen, is a Voltairian production, devoted to ridiculing the Catholic clergy and the saints of the calender in a style of utter irreverence for their sacred character, and even for their integrity and respectability as individuals. TheRépubilique du Peupleis simply a democratic almanac, but its ability is remarkable. Arago, the astronomer Carnot, who possibly will be the candidate of the democratic party for President, Colonel Charras, Michel (de Bourges), Alphonse Karr, and others of the old moderate republican party are contributors. It is adorned with neat engravings; among them is a portrait of Dupont, the poet.
A well-known publicist,M. Croce-Spinelli, has just issued at Paris an essay on popular government, under the title ofL'Arche Populaire. It treats principally of the French constitution, whose faults are said to be—1st, that it confides too much in aristocracy and too little in democracy; 2d, that the legislature may render itself independent of the people by whom it is elected, and betray their interests: 3d, that the authority of the President is too great, and is even dangerous to the development of democratic ideas and forces. The author concludes his work with the plan of a constitution which he thinks will be free from these defects.
TheAsiatic Societyof Paris announces the publication of a collection of Oriental works, with French translations, without commentaries, but with very copious indexes. The majority will be Arabic, and, with few exceptions, hitherto unknown to Occidental students generally. The prices will be made very low, it is hoped not higher than those of ordinary French books. This will be accomplished by introducing them as text-books into the schools in Algiers, Egypt, and Constantinople, where French is taught, and thus securing a large sale.
A publication worthy of the utmost praise is theRevue de l'Architecture et des Travaux Publiques, published at Paris, under the editorial care ofM. Cesar Daly, one of the most learned and accomplished architects in Europe. This review, which is now in its ninth year, is issued monthly, with the utmost elegance both of typography and engravings. The number for October contains articles on the following subjects:—the preservation and restoration of the Cathedrals of France, the Church of St. Paul at Nismes, Stereochromy, the Museum at St. Petersburg, Chinese Monuments discovered in Ireland, the Public Garden and Swimming School at Bordeaux, &c., &c.; it has four large engravings. The work treats every branch, historic and practical, of architecture and engineering, and should be in the hands of every architect and engineer, and in the library of every man of taste whose leisure and meditations lead him to the study of the beautiful and useful arts. It may be procured in Paris at the low rate of 40 francs a-year.
A book well suited to the times is Dr.Figuier'sExposition et Histoire des principales Découvertes Modernes, which has just appeared at Paris in two small volumes. It treats of photography, the serial and magnetic telegraphs, etherization, galvanoplasty and chemical gilding, aërostatics, lighting by gas, Leverrier's planet, gunpowder, and gun-cotton. With respect to the glory of discovering photography, Dr. Figuier restores it to M. Niepce, of Chalon-sur-Saone, proving that he originated the conception, and that Daguerre did nothing more than perfect the process. Singularly enough, M. Figuier omits the steamboat and railroad from the discoveries whose history he so carefully and conscientiously records, but even with these omissions his work is valuable and interesting both to the savan and the ordinary reader.
The editors of theRevue des Deux Mondes, at Paris, have made up a very useful manual of the history of the year 1850, under the title ofAnnuaire des Deux Mondes, which is sold by Balliére, in Broadway. It contains an account of the political events, the international relations and diplomacy, the administration, commerce, and finances, and the periodical press and literature of every country which possesses those products of civilization. The constitutions and affairs of Italy, Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, England, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, Greece, United States, Mexico, the South American Republics, and even of the African and Asiatic races, are discussed with moderation and an effort for impartiality, which is laudable, if not always successful. The most recent statistics are given with reference to every country; and, as a book of reference, it will be found very useful.
TheCalvin Translation Society, which for the last ten years has been issuing, at irregular intervals, a complete and very handsome edition ofCalvin'sworks, in English—to make about fifty octavo volumes—will have to add to them a new collection of hisLetters. It appears that the government of Louis Philippe committed the preparation of the Unpublished Letters of the great Reformer to ProfessorBonnett, who had been dismissed from the College of Nismes for speaking too highly of Luther. He travelled in France and Switzerland, at the expense of the Government, in order to collect the letters. After the revolution, the influence of the Catholic clergy was such that the new minister of Public Instruction found a thousand difficulties in the way of accepting the labor of M. Bonnett, and the subject was finally referred to a committee, who reported in favor of the publication; yet, to split the difference with the clergy, they, on pretence of a saving of expenses, ordered that some of the less important letters should be omitted, and that the Latin and French letters should be published together in the same volume. The number of Calvin's unpublished letters in the collection is 497; of these 190 are in French, and 307 in Latin.