FOOTNOTES:

"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni:Nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol jungit, ab urbe."

And, ah, how earnestly did he plead for peace, and truth, and justice! As far as I understood him, he wished to benefit by his policy in affairs both the south and the north. I remember, in speaking to me of free trade, he expressed the opinion that the course he recommended would benefit the north as well as the south. This he did not merely assert, but sustained with frequent argument. In his conversation there was a remarkable blending of fact and theory, of a knowledge of the past and an insight into the future.

Mr. Calhoun was a philanthropist in the most liberal sense of the word. He desired for man the utmost happiness, the greatest good, and the highest elevation. If he differed from lovers of the race in other parts of the world, with regard to the means of obtaining these results, it was not because he failed to study the subject; not because he lacked opportunities of observation and of obtaining facts; nor because he indulged in selfish prejudices. From every quarter he gleaned accessible information, and with conscientious earnestness he brought his wonderful powers of generalization to bear on the subject of human happiness and advancement—his pure unselfish heart aiding his powerful mind.

The good of the least of God's creatures was not beneath his regard; but he did not believe that the least was equal to the greatest; he did not think the happiness or elevation of any class could be secured by a sentiment so unphilosophical. The attempt to reduce all to a level, to put all minds in uniform, to give all the same employment, he viewed as chimerical. He said that in every civilized society there must be division of labor, and he believed the slaves at the south more happy, more free from suffering and crime, than any corresponding class in any country. He had no aristocratic pride, but he desired for himself and others the highest possible elevation. He respected the artisan, the mechanic, and agriculturist, and considered each of these occupations as affording scope for native talent. He believed the African to be most happy and useful under the guidance of an Anglo-Saxon; he is averse to hard labor and responsible effort; he likes personal service, and identifies himself with those he serves.

Mr. Calhoun spoke of the great inconsistency of English denunciations of American slavery, and said that to every man, woman, and child in England, two hundred and fifty persons were tributary. Although colonial possessions and individual possessions are by many regarded as different, he considered them involved in the same general principle. In considering the rights of man the great question is not, Has a master a right to hold a slave? but, Has one human being a right to hold another subordinate? The rights of man may be invaded, and the idol Liberty cast down, by those who are loudest in their philanthropic denunciations respecting slavery. Is there as much cruelty in holding slaves, even under the most unfavorable circumstances, as in selling into bondage a whole nation?[4]Let the brave chiefs of the Rohillas answer from the battle-field. Let cries reply from the burning cities of Rohilcund. Let the princesses of Oude speak from their prisons.

Close observation, prompted by a kindly heart, had brought Mr. Calhoun to the opinion that the Africans in this country were happier in existing circumstances than they would be in any other; that they were improving in their condition, and that any attempt to change it, at least at present, would not only be an evil to the country but fraught with suffering to them. A state of freedom, so called, would be to them a state of care and disaster. To abolish slavery now would be to abolish the slave. The race would share the doom of the Indians. Although here nominally slaves, as a general thing they enjoy more freedom than any where else; for is not that freedom, where one is happiest and best, and where there is a correspondence between the situation and the desires, the condition and the capacities? May we not say with the angel Abdiel:

"Unjustly thou depravest it with the nameOf servitude, to serve whom God ordains,Or Nature. God and Nature bid the same,When he who rules is worthiest, and excelsThem whom he governs. This is servitude,To serve the unwise."

Mr. Calhoun found the local attachment of the slaves so strong, their relation to their owners so satisfying to their natures, and the southern climate so congenial to them, that he did not believe any change of place or state would benefit them.

These, as nearly as I can recollect, were his opinions on the subject of slavery, and were expressed to me in several conversations. Sentiments similar to these are entertained by many high-minded and benevolent slave-holders. That this institution, like every other, is liable to abuse, is admitted, but every planter must answer, not for the institution—for which he is no more accountable than for the fall of Adam—but for his individual discharge of duty. If, through his selfishness, or indolence, or false indulgence, or severity, his servants suffer, then to his Master in heaven he must give account. But those who obey the divine mandate, "Give unto your servants that which is just and equal," need not fear. In the endeavor to performtheir duty in the responsible sphere in which they were placed by no act of their own, they can repose even in the midst of the wild storm which threatens devastation to our fertile land; they can look away from the judgment of the world, nor will they, even if all the powers of earth bid them, adopt a policy which will ruin themselves, their children, and the dependent race in their midst; they will not cast a people they are bound to protect on the tender mercies of the cruel. In their conservative measures they are, and must be, supported at the north, by men of liberal and philosophical minds, of extended views, and benevolent hearts. But I have said far more on this subject than I intended, and will add only that those who do not, from personal observation, know this institution in its best estate, cannot easily understand the softened features it often wears, nor the high virtues exhibited by the master, and the confiding, dependent attachment of the servant. Often is the southern planter as a patriarch in olden times. Those who are striving to sever his household know not what they do.

Well may we who live in these troubled times exclaim with Madame Roland, the martyr of the false principles of her murderers, "O Liberté! O Liberté! que de crimes on commet en ton nom!" This she said, turning to the statue of liberty beside the scaffold. Liberty unrestrained degenerates into license. There may be political freedom without social liberty. Says Lamartine, speaking of the inhabitants of Malta, "Ils sont esclaves de la loi immuable de la force que Dieu leur fait; nous sommes esclaves des lois variables et capricieuses que nous nous faisons."

A few years' residence on this soil might teach even a Wilberforce to turn in his philanthropy to other and wider fields of action.

Of Mr. Calhoun's character as a master much might be said, for all who knew him admit that it was exemplary. But we need not multiply examples to prove his unaffected goodness, and I will repeat only a circumstance or two, which, by way of illustrating some subjects discussed, he incidentally mentioned to me. One related to a free negro, formerly a slave in Carolina, but then living in one of our northern cities, who came to him in Washington, begging him to intercede for his return to Carolina. He represented his condition as deplorable, said that he could not support himself and family by his trade, (he was a shoemaker,) and that not being able to obtain sufficient food or fuel in that cold climate, they were almost frozen. "When I told him," said Mr. Calhoun, "that I would do all I could for him, he seized both my hands in his and expressed fervent gratitude." At another time, speaking of a family whom his son designed to take to Alabama, he told me that the mother of the family came to him and said she would prefer to stay with her master and mistress on the plantation, even if all her children went with master A. Mr. Calhoun added, "I could not think of her remaining without either of her children; and as she chose to stay, we retained her youngest son, a boy of twelve years."

Mr. Calhoun required very little of any one, doing more for others than he asked of them. He seemed to act upon the principle that the strong should bear the burthens of the weak. In sickness he feared to give trouble, and unless his friends insisted, would have little done for him. "Energetic as he was," said a near relative, "he would lie patiently all day, asking for nothing." His sensibility was of the most unselfish nature. Some months before his death, and after he left Fort Hill the last time, he said he felt that death was near, much nearer than he was willing to have his family know, and added that he wished to give all the time he could spare from public duty to preparation for death. While suffering from increasing illness at Washington, still, as he hoped to return again to his family, he was unwilling, though they anxiously awaited his summons, that they should be alarmed, saying he could not bear to see their grief. No doubt his conscientious spirit felt that his country at that critical moment demanded his best energies, and that he should be unnerved by the presence of his nearest friends; and loving his own family as he did, and so beloved as he was by them, he serenely awaited the approach of the king of Terrors, and suffered his last sorrow far from his home, cheered only by one watcher from his household.

There was a beautiful adaptation in his bearing—a just appreciation of what was due to others, and a nice sense of propriety. I have had opportunities to compare his manners with those of other great men. His kind and unaffected interest was expressed in a way peculiarly dignified and refined. Some men appear to think they atone for a low estimate of our sex by flattery. Not so with Mr. Calhoun. He paid the highest compliment which could be paid to woman, by recognizing in her a soul—a soul capable of understanding and appreciating. Of his desire for her improvement and elevation he gave substantial proofs. Although Fort Hill was five miles from the female academy he never suffered an examination to pass without honoring it with his presence. He came not for the sake of form, but he exhibited an interest in the exercises, and was heard to comment upon them afterwards in a manner which showed that he had given them attention. He never reminded you that his hours were more precious than yours. The question may be asked how could he, amid his great and stern duties, find time for attention to those things from which so many men excuse themselves on the plea of business. But he wasted no time, and by gathering up its fragments, he had enough and to spare. I have before said that his kind acts were his recreations.

Were I asked wherein lay the charm which won the hearts of all who came within his circle, I could not at once reply. It was perhaps his perfectabandon, his sincerity, his confidential manner, his childlike simplicity, in union with his majestic intelligence, and his self-renunciation—the crowning virtue of his life: these imparted the vivid enjoyment and the delightful repose which his friends felt in his presence. It was often not so much what he said as his manner of saying it, that was so impressive. Never can I forget an incident which occurred at the time when a war with England, on account of Oregon, seemed impending. He arrived in Charleston during the excitement on that subject. He was asked in the drawing-room if he thought there would be a war. He waived an answer, saying that for some time he had been absent from home and had received no official documents; but as he passed with us from the drawing-room to the street door, he said to me in his rapid, earnest manner, "I anticipate a severe seven months' campaign. I have never known our country in such a state." War has a terror for me, and I said, "Oh, Mr. Calhoun, do not let a war arise. Do all you can to prevent it." He replied, "I will do all, in honor, I can do," and paused. A thousand thoughts seemed to pass over his face, his soul was in his eyes, and bending a little forward, as if bowed by a sense of his responsibility and insufficiency, he added, speaking slowly and with emphasis and with the deepest solemnity, as if questioning with himself, "But what can one man do?" I see him now. No painting or sculpture could remind me so truly of him as does my faithful memory. But I will not dwell on the subject, for I fear I can never by words convey to the mind of another the impression which I received of his sincerity, and of his devotion to his country and to the cause of humanity. How he redeemed his pledge to do all that he, in honor, could do, his efforts in the settlement of the Oregon question truly show. When next I saw him I told him how much I was delighted with his Oregon speech. In his kindest manner he replied, "I am glad I can say any thing to please you."

The last time I saw Mr. Calhoun, you, my brother, were with me. You remember that his kind wife took us to his room, and that you remarked the cheerfulness and affability with which he received us, although his feeble health had obliged him to refuse almost every one that day. We shall see him no more, but his memory will linger with us.

To you I would commend him as an example. Read his letter to a young law-student. As you are so soon to enter the profession of law, such a model as Mr. Calhoun may be studied with advantage. While I would never wish any one to lose his own individuality, or to descend to imitation, I believe that one gifted mind leaves its impress on another; while I would not deify or canonize a mortal, I would render homage to one who united such moral attainments to so rare a combination of intellectual gifts; while it is degrading to ourselves and injurious to others to lavish unmerited and extravagant praise, it is a loss not to appreciate a character like his, for it ennobles our own nature to contemplate the true and the beautiful.

Although it is said that our country is in danger from its ideas of equality, and its want of reverence and esteem for age, and wisdom, and office, and talents, and attainments, and virtues—and this feature of the American character is so strongly impressed that Mar Yohannah, the Nestorian bishop, said in my presence, in his peculiar English, "Yes, I know this nation glory in its republicanism, but I am afraid it will become republican to God"—yet it is a cheering omen when a man like Mr. Calhoun is so beloved and reverenced. I think every one who was favored with a personal acquaintance with him will admit that I have not been guilty of exaggeration, and "will delight to do him honor."

The question naturally arises, to what are we to ascribe the formation of such a character? There must have been causes for such effects. Whence came his temperance, his self-denial, his incorruptible integrity, his fidelity in every duty, his love for mankind, his indefatigable efforts for the good of others, and his superiority to those things which the natural heart most craves? Mr. Calhoun's childhood was spent among the glorious works of nature, and was sheltered from the temptations which abound in promiscuous society. He was the son of pious parents, and by them he was taught the Bible, and from that source undoubtedly his native gifts were perfected. I have understood that from early life he was an advocate for the doctrines of the Bible, as understood by orthodox Christians. I have been told by relatives of his who were on the most intimate terms with him, that for some time before his death his mind had seemed to be much occupied with religious subjects, and that he too often expressed confidence in the providence of God to leave any doubt as to his trust in Him. An eminent clergyman, now deceased, said in conversation with another, that he had often conversed with Mr. Calhoun on the subject of religion, and had no doubt as to his piety. I have remarked his reverential air in church, and have known him apparently much disturbed by any inattention in others. He never united with any church, and it is my opinion, formed not without some reason, that he was prevented, not by disregard to any Christian ordinances, but from personal and conscientious scruples with respect to his qualifications. He was a man who weighed every thing with mathematical precision.

Although open as day on topics of general interest, he was reserved in respect to himself.I do not recollect ever to have heard him speak egotistically, for his mind seemed always engrossed by some great thought, and he appears, even at the close of life, to lose all personal solicitudes in his anxiety for his country. In one of his last letters he says, "But I must close. This may be my last communication to you. My end is probably near, perhaps very near. Before I reach it, I have but one serious wish to gratify—it is to see my country quieted under some arrangement (alas, I know not what!) that will be satisfactory to all and safe to the south." His country's peace, and quietness, and safety, he did not see; he perished in the storm; and there are many who knew and loved him who cherish the hope that he is removed to a higher sphere of action—that his noble spirit has meekly entered into the presence of its author, and that in the starry courts above he will receive an inheritance "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away."

When I saw the elaborate preparations which were made here in Charleston for his funeral, knowing his simple tastes and habits, and his benevolence, I was at first pained, and I thought he would not have sanctioned so much display. I feared too that solemnity would be lost in pageantry. But it was not so. There was nothing to jar upon the feelings of the most sensitive. All was in perfect and mournful harmony. Silently and reverently his sorrowing countrymen bore his remains from the steamer where they had reposed, under a canopy wearing its thirty stars, and when the hearse, so funereal with mournful drapery and sable plumes, entered the grounds of the citadel, deep silence brooded over the vast multitude; noiselessly were heads uncovered, banners dropped—not a sound but that of the tramp of horses was heard; statue-like was that phalanx, with every eye uplifted, to the sacred sarcophagus. If there was too much of show, it was redeemed by the spirit that prompted it: the symbols, significant and expressive, as they were, faintly shadowed forth the deep and universal grief; the mournful pageantry, the tolling bell, the muffled drum, the closed and shrouded stores and houses, gave external signs of wo, but more impressive and affecting was the peaceful sadness which brooded over the metropolis while it awaited the relics of the patriot, and the deep silence which pervaded the vast procession that followed to the City Hall, the subdued bearing of the crowd who resorted thither, and the solemnity expressed on every face—for these told that the great heart of the city and commonwealth wept in hushed and sincere sorrow over "the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle."

One day and night the illustrious dead reposed in state in the draped and darkened Hall. An entrance was formed by the arching palmetto, that classic tree, under whose branches Dudon the crusader was placed, when slain in Palestine. On that tree—"altissima palma"—his comrades placed his trophies. With a spirit as sad as that of the crusaders when under the verdant foliage of the palm they mourned the noble Dudon, did those who loved our champion pass beneath that arch, dark with funereal gloom. The sarcophagus was within a magnificent catafalque; the canopy rested on Corinthian columns; the bier was apparently supported by six urns, while three pearl-colored eagles surmounted the canopy, holding in their beaks the swinging crape. Invisible lamps cast moonlight beams over the radiated upper surface of the canopy. Through the day numbers resorted to this hallowed spot, and at night vigils were held where the dead reposed. When morning came the chosen guards carried the remains of the great leader to the church. The funeral car was not allowed to bear these sacred remains to the tomb, but they were borne by sons of the state, with uncovered heads. Well might those who saw all these things feel that Carolina would never be wanting to herself. The body was placed upon the bier, surrounded by significant offerings, pure flowers and laurel-wreaths. A velvet pall, revealing in silver lines the arms of the state, the palmetto, covered the sarcophagus. Above it was a coronet woven of laurel-leaves, like that which crowned Tasso. Then, in that church, where columns, arches, and galleries were shrouded in the drapery of wo, the funeral rites were performed—the mighty dead was placed in his narrow tomb.

Peerless statesman, illustrious counsellor, devoted patriot, generous friend, indulgent husband and father, thy humble, noble heart is still in death; thy life was yielded up at the post of duty; thou hast perished like a sentinel on guard, a watchman in his tower. "Thou wast slain in thy high places." Clouds gathered thick and fast about thy country's horizon, and even thy eagle eye failed in its mournful gaze to penetrate the gloom which hides its future from mortal eye. Thy work is finished—peacefully rest with thine own! Thy memory is enshrined in the hearts of those for whom thy heart ceased its beating. Thy grave is with us—

"Yet spirit immortal, the tomb cannot bind thee,For like thine own eagle that soared to the sun,Thou springest from bondage, and leavest behind theeA name which before thee few mortals have won."

In reviewing the character of Mr. Calhoun, we find a rare combination of mental and moral qualities—a union of contrasts. He had genius with common sense, the power of generalization with the habit of abstraction, rapidity of thought with application and industry. His mind was suggestive and logical, imaginative and practical. His noble ideal was embodied in his daily life. He was at once discursive and profound; he could soar like the eagle, or hover on unwearied wings around a minute circle. Hemeekly bore his lofty endowments; his childlike simplicity imparted a charm to his transcendent intellect; he united dignity with humility, sincerity with courtesy, decision with gentleness, stern inflexibility with winning urbanity, and keen sensibility with perfect self-command. He was indulgent to others, denying to himself; he was energetic in health, and patient in sickness; he combined strict temperance with social habits; he was reserved in communicating his personal feelings, but his heart was open on subjects of general interest; he prized the regard of his fellow-beings, but was superior to worldly pomps and flatteries; he honored his peers, but was not swayed by their opinions. Equal to the greatest, he did not despise the least of men. He did not neglect one duty to perform another. In the Senate he was altogether a senator, in private and domestic life he was as though he had never entered the halls of the nation, and had never borne an illustrious part in the councils of his country.

FOOTNOTES:[4]VideMacaulay's article on Warren Hastings, in the Edinburgh Review.

[4]VideMacaulay's article on Warren Hastings, in the Edinburgh Review.

The history of literatures, like that of nations, has presented its varieties as well as its curiosities, and both alike furnish similar though not identical features.

1st. Families and clans are traceable equally in each development, and the movements both of literatures and races have displayed a corresponding monotony and eccentricity, convergence and divergence, in proportion as they have progressed along the beaten track of opinion or performed outpost duty as the corps of guides.

2d. Not only is this family likeness obvious in the general characteristics of ethnography and authorship, but the laws of lineage and the hereditary transmission of qualities are as strongly marked in one case as in the other. Letters as well as races have their hereditary sceptres and coronets; but whereas, in the latter case the fleshly heir of the great of other days may chance to be unworthy of his sires, the spiritual sonship of the patrician writer is stereotyped upon each line and lineament of his nature.

3d. Nor is the connection between words and peoples confined to a law of analogy running through them both, but they have reacted upon and moulded each other in a manner curious to relate, and races and letters have mutually made and unmade each other.

4th. The Indo-Germanic people have left monuments of their sinewy energy in the psycho-physical characteristics of affiliated races and tongues, and individual family likenesses may be readily traced between groups of thinkers and dreamers on the banks of the Ganges, in the Academy, and at Weimar. Again the mystical semitic world, groaning beneath the weight of an overwrought ideal, and lacking the ballast of science and patient thought, has ever and anon given birth to prodigies and monsters of cabalistic or Gnostic extravagance.

5th. To follow the currents of peoples and tongues, the great subdivisions of the Teutonic and Romance tribes and literatures, their virtues and vices have stamped its present physical and moral character on the face of modern Europe. The Teutonic, representing strength and depth in word and work, has been the stronghold of emancipation in life and thought, yet tinctured with the savageness and chaos of unpolished and disordered nature. The Romance, fettered by the rhythm of Latinity, has yet possessed that voluptuous wealth of the ideal and that graceful tracery of thought and wit which have been denied to the other. The antagonism of the Catholic and Protestant mind is the result of this contrast, which has, moreover, been pictured in the tertian fevers of French revolution and in the mystical skepticism of modern Germany.

As certain races, so also certain families of writers, have in thought transcended the bounds of the existing and actual, and thrown out from their brain an ideal past, present, or future, beyond the horizon, and free from the flaws of their experience. Thus, whilst the followers of Tao-tse were in China seeking for the drug of immortality, the Greek and Roman poets and historians were dreaming of a golden age that cast its radiance over the past, or of that fabled Atlantis and those sweet Islands of the Blest in the far west—dreams and fables that have been somewhat justified by modern discovery. Again sacred voices mingled with these aspirations, and the semitic bards and seers pronounced in their oracles an Eden for the past and a millenium for the future of man.

Nor were these views confined to the old world, for the followers of Columbus found, among the cannibals of the gulf, the traditions of a fountain of eternal youth, and later travellers were regaled with gorgeous stories of El Dorado and his empire—traditions and stories that seemed to point, however obscurely, to the Sitzbath and Californian riches.

There has likewise been a class of writers broad-cast through the nations who have sought to mend the present and make the future by holding the mirror to contemporaneous deformity, or painting the perspective of an earthly elysium with the rainbow tints of hope. Negatively or positively, directly or indirectly, these men had, in common, faith in the regeneration of humanity. Utopias are the familiar homes of such minds, either because they have a cast in their eyes, or because they are more clairvoyants than the vulgar herd. In the spring-time of our race, a Plato reflected on the poetical extravagancies of his day, and refracted the rays of golden fancy in the enchanted land of hisRepublic. The Hebrew seers in like manner, whilst they apply no measured castigations to the money-changers who converted the temple of God into a den of thieves, love to soar in sublimest rhapsody above the valley of dry bones and the shadow of death cast around them, and to indulge in visions of a vernal future, when earth should smile in the sunshine of infinite love, when the wolf should dwell with the lamb and the leopard lie down with the kid, and a little child should lead them. Affiliated members of this extensive and venerable company of cynics and seers have ever and anon in the current of ages lifted a frowning brow above the troubled waters round about them, and with the same breath that swept like a tempest over the wintry waste, their cradle and their home, have given utterance to strains of harmony that told of summer skies to come. Tracing the tides of the children of men in their eccentric ebbings and floodings, a little crew of rovers may be ever seen ploughing the world of waters, true to their principle of keeping aloof from the gulf-stream. Europe has been the chief nursery of these rovers, whose voices, though few and far between, have risen above the storms of evil passions howling about them, and have echoed through the ages. Thus a Rabelais could laugh the knell of monkery, and with his stentor voice, rich booming from the classic world of Nature, that had slept during the dark ages, could crack the babel of spiritual usurpation, and restore the balance of power between the seen and the unseen. A Cervantes in like manner could, in the fulness of time, inflict death-wounds with a stroke of his pen on a superannuated chivalry, and thus, by negatively giving acoup de grâceto the past, pave the way for an age of prose. Later in the day a Swift appears, in the heart of a rotten age, himself infected with the leprosy, yet he smites the idols of his time, of Stuart progeny, Lust and Lucre, and converts his fables into a house of correction for a nation's vices. The Tale of a Tub contains a stream of lustral water, and Gulliver is no mean adept at the photographic art. The Dean hath taught us how the "positive" fictions of a madman's brain may indirectly be a school to the nations at all times and in all seasons.

Poesy has mixed its plaintive strains in the lamentations and oracles of insane or inspired reformers, and the aberration or illumination of a kindred spirit breaks forth in the wizard words of a prophet or a bard. Some favored scions of the royal priesthood and chosen generation of whom we speak seem to mingle these various and heterogeneous ingredients, the cynic's lash with the seer's lamp, mathematical squares and compasses with the conjurations of the diviner. Their proportions, both harmonious and deformed, bespeak their consanguinity with an extensive family, whose branches are scattered through broad lands, and are not confined to a single variety of the human race, though the quality and quantity of theiresprit de corpsmay be especially predicated of the Caucasian race.

There are sovereign natures that bespeak the choice blood of rival and remote races mingling in their veins, and which may claim kinsmanship in opposite and conflicting clans of teachers. We have Indo-Germanic minds, whose massive substance is relieved by the arabesque of the Semitic style of thought, and which, though stamped with the characteristic mould of their parentage, fling aside much of its speciality, and stand forth as magnates in the universal aristocracy of humanity.

An example of a rich nature cast in this mould has been presented of late years in France, in the person of Charles Fourier. Though indelibly French, he is still more human, and though Teutonic elements enter largely as component parts of his frame, and the Romance genius has cast its sunshine tints over his canvas, yet has he bravely shaken off the chains of generic and specific modes of thought and sight, and the priestly hieroglyphs and geometry of Egypt are seen to blend with Persian dualism and the prophetic wand of Hebrew seers in his pages. Nay, the mantle of Mohammed might seem to have fallen on his capacious shoulders, to judge from the strangely glorious flights of his fancy, and the tangible solids of his elysium. Thus the nations would appear to have converged towards and centred in this brain, and to have dropped in their pearls or their paste, as the case might be. Exaggerating the mathematical precision of French thought, it is yet tempered in a manner somewhat uncommon, by the most wholesale picture-writing on which man ever yet ventured. The flaming double-edged critic's sword is sometimes changed in his hands, after a manner wonderful to relate, into an Esculapian staff, which farther suffers a frequent conversion into Mercurian caduceus and Bacchanile Thyrsus, and at another time assumes the proportions of Midas's wand. Never was such a many-faced Janus seen in the flesh as this man, who exceeds Proteus and Hindoo avatars in multiplicity combined with unity.

The bitter laugh still curls our lips, elicited by his merciless satire, when the tears of pity come coursing down our cheeks, as he touches with magic finger the most godlike fibres of the soul. Luxuriance, bordering on levity, follows fast a sense of justice and of truth, that might have put a Brutus and an Aristides to the blush. National contrasts, harmonies, and deformities, all seem reflected in this representative man.

Yet it would be a very partial view that represented Fourier as nothing better than an expletive particle added to the genealogical list of idea-mongers, or a mosaic of valuablerelics in earth's cabinet of curiosities. Though his pen inflicts wounds both broad and deep, yet a balm is ever at hand. Not satisfied with performing amputations for the good of the body corporate, he is a professor of the healing art, and affects to have discovered an elixir that shall wipe away all tears, by causing pain and sorrow to flee away. I do not profess to judge of the merits of the case, but one feature distinguishes Fourier from critics, reformers, and prophets, who are gathered to their fathers. He is ascientificexplorer, and the plans that he has designed for the future structure of humanity, from the high order of architecture and mechanics which they exhibit, discriminate him from the vulgar herd as an originator, and place him in the category either of eminent scientific adventurers or inventors. Daring and caution shake hands at every page, and seem exhausted by his pen. The Archimedian lever found a resting-place in his brain, and sundry of his thoughts seem not inapt to upheave the world.

If Laplace deserves credit as the creator of a Mechanique Celeste, Fourier has equal claims to gratitude as the first and only propounder of a rigidly scientific system of mental mechanics. Though Pythagoras might smile complacently at his harmonies and sacred numbers, and Plato clap his hands on seeing so worthy a disciple of his Republic, yet the fiery Frenchman is but too apt to run counter to the past, and give a slap in the face to the wisdom of the fore-world. Though hope and faith ever brighten his pages, we could wish at times for a larger infusion of charity, to neutralize the gall in which his pen was dipped. Yet he nobly vindicates his claim as a reformer by the lash he applies with no measured hand to injustice, falseness, and hypocrisy, under whatever guise they may appear.

On the original publication of this work, in German, at Berlin, we gave in theInternationalsome account of it; and we avail ourselves of the notice in theAthenæumof an English translation of it which has just appeared in London, to give some of its best passages. In the capital of a nation which, above all others, has been wont to project its gravest interests into the circles of fashion and gayety, the period included between 1817 and 1848 must have been rich indeed in matter for observation of all kinds, by the foreigner admitted to its saloons. With Waterloo at one end of the line, and the overthrow of Louis Philippe at the other, what a world of change lies between!—what unexpected turns of fortune, each throwing some new tint on the chameleon-play of social existence! We may not expect a lady's eye to see more than its outward features. But these alone, in such a scene and period, are themselves enough to give some permanent historical value, as well as a present attraction to the survey, if only taken with common feminine intelligence.

It is true that the retrospect is not actually so rich as the above dates would imply.—Connected notices of what might be seen in Parisian circles do not extend beyond the first seven years of the period in question. Afterwards, there is nearly a total hiatus, except in the two departments of music and painting—anecdotes of which are continued almost to the close of the Orleans dynasty. Of the persons and events which otherwise filled the scene from 1828 downwards, theReminiscencesare wholly silent, or only introduce one or two figures by anticipation while dwelling on the period of the Restoration. The volume ends, indeed, with a story, in which some of the very latest exhibitions of somnambulism serve to introduce a Spanish romance, founded, it may be, on a basis of fact, but evidently dressed up for effect by one not well enough acquainted with the Spain of this century to give to the composition a probable air. But here the display in the Parisian saloon is merely an occasional overture to the melo-drama that follows; and we learn next to nothing of the new faces and new fashions which the writer may have seen during the second half of the term included in her title. What is now published, therefore, can only be taken as a fragment—destined, perhaps, to be further completed at some future time.

The work appears anonymously; and it might be uncourteous to pry into the condition of the writer, beyond what it has pleased herself to reveal. This is to the effect that she came to Paris, unmarried, and hardly out of her teens, from some part of Germany, in the second year of the Restoration, and, at first, was chiefly conversant with the circles of thehaute finance. We afterwards hear of her marriage, of journeyings and absences, and see her in contact with various circles, but, above all, with painters and musicians; intimate also with Henriette, the daughter of the celebrated Jewish philosopher, Mendelssohn. She left Paris, she further says, before the explosion of 1848. More of her personal history she does not tell—and we shall not take the liberty of guessing.

Her notes are penned without any attempt at order; and make no pretence to dive far beneath the surface of what she saw in the world. They contain such light, lady-like reflections as one may fancy taken down without effort from the kaleidoscope of Paris life, in its balls,soirées, and promenades; and such anecdotes of notable things and persons as were current in ordinary company—many of which are well known, having been already reported by others. Here and there a graphic trait, or a remark above the level of commonplace, gives token of more lively intelligence, but the general character of thereminiscence is merely gossipping—just on the ordinary level of such observations and ideas as prevail in the common talk of the saloons. It is only when she touches on the fine arts, especially on music, that the lady displays decidedly clever notions of her own. Gleanings of this easy kind, from any lesser field than Paris, might hardly have been worth preserving; here, the abundance of matter is so great, that even the most careless hand returns from that strange harvest with some gatherings of value.

Among these we shall dip here and there, without attempting more order in selection than the author herself has observed in arranging her notes. Each may be read by and for itself without any disadvantage whatever.

In no respect, perhaps, does the Paris of to-day differ more from that of thirty years since than in the article of domestic comfort. After praising Madame Thuret, one of the financiallionnesof the Restoration, for her attention to neatness, the lady adds:—

In Paris generally there was a marked contrast to this; as well as to the Parisian cleanliness of present times. In those days, even the dwellings of people of competent means, there was not a trace of comfort. I have a lively recollection of what happened when one of the younger partners of M. Thuret gave a ball soon after his marriage. Although the youth was rich, and had married a wealthy young lady, the young couple, according to the Parisian custom of the time, lived with their parents; who, rich as they were, desiring to be richer still, had let out their splendid hotel up to the fourth story. In this fourth story the whole family lived together. After the Parisian finery, I was not less struck with the Parisian filth of those days; and, in truth, I should vainly try to paint my amazement on finding myself compelled, while ascending the staircase, which was actually plastered with dirt, to hold up my dress as high as possible in order to appear tolerably clean in the ball-room.

But if modern Paris has improved in this respect, it has, on the other hand, we are told, lost far more in the chapter of manners. The generation born during the first Revolution still preserved some of the older style of social bearing; but, in the present descendants, we may now vainly seek for any of the graces that once gave to France her European credit for politeness.

The French, after lording it over the capitals of Europe for so many years, were impatient to the last degree of the retribution which the allied armies brought to their own doors in 1816. Even a returningémigrécould not restrain his rage on finding that—

foreigners held the fortresses, and that he had to submit his passport for aviseto Prussian, Russian, or English authorities; and he lost all command of himself at the idea of the prostration of thegrande gloire Française.... The same wrath at the occupation of France by foreign troops—an occupation which lasted for hardly three years—whereas the French had ravaged Germany for full twenty, from the siege of Mentz to the battle of Leipsic, was then felt in Paris by all classes. Every little theatre on the Boulevards played some piece referring to it in all therefrainsurging the foreigners to be off at once; all the print-shops were full of caricatures of the English and Russians. The German soldiers, by-the-by, were, without exception, called Prussians. At that time there was less hatred expressed towards the Russians; in the theatres even the people would point with curiosity to Lostopchin, the author of the conflagration at Moscow. The hatred of the Russians grew much more decided under Nicholas. Alexander, on the contrary, was personally popular. Strictly speaking, the Prussians were detested; while the English, on the contrary, served as a perpetual butt for ridicule and wit. Their language, gestures, dress, afforded a complete series of dramas and caricatures.

This soreness of France under a very light application of her own Continental system, brings to mind an anecdote from the papers of the time, which is worth preserving:—

When the Prussian army entered Paris, one of its officers made particular interest to be quartered in a certain hotel in the Faubourg St Germain, the residence of a widow lady of rank. On taking possession of his billet, the Colonel at once haughtily refused the apartments offered him; and, after a survey of the premises, insisted on having the best suite on the first floor, then occupied by the lady of the house herself. She protested and entreated in vain—the Colonel was harsh and peremptory,—the lady had to abandon her sitting-room, boudoir, and bed-room, and content herself with the chambers intended for the officer. From these, however, she was as rudely dislodged on the next day, the Colonel demanding them for his orderly, and the lady had at last to creep into a servant's garret. This was not all. On first taking possession of his rooms the officer had summoned themaitre d'hotel, and commanded a rich dinner of twelve covers for the entertainment of a party of his comrades. They came—the cellar had to yield its choicest wines; the house was filled with bacchanalian uproar. The orgy was repeated both on the next day and on the next following. On the morning afterwards the officer presented himself before the lady of the house. "You are perhaps somewhat annoyed by my proceedings in your hotel?" "Certainly," was the reply, "I think I have cause to complain of the manner in which the law of the strongest has been used here, in defiance of the commonest regard due to my sex and age. I have been roughly expelled from every habitable room in my own house, and thrust into a garret; my servants have been maltreated; with my plate and provisions and the best of my cellar, you have forced them to wait on the riotous feasting of your comrades. I have appealed to your generosity, to your courtesy, but in vain. I protest against such conduct. It is unworthy of a soldier." "Madam," replied the Prussian, "what you say is perfectly true. Such conduct is brutal and unbecoming. I have the honor to inform you that what you have justly complained of for the last three days is but a faint copy of the manner in which your son daily behaved himself in my mother's house in Berlinfor more than six monthsafter the Battle of Jena. From me you shall have no further annoyance. I shall now retire to an inn. The hotel is entirelyat your own disposal." The lady blushed, and was silent.

We can hardly choose amiss among the portrait sketches. Here is the Princess of Chimay, once celebrated as the fair Spanish Cabarus—or Madame Tallien of the "18th Brumaire." After giving up a name which she had no legal right to bear, she married the Count Caraman before he succeeded to a princely title. In 1818, this heroine—

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