Monsieur de Vigny more chaste, cold, and sentimental, has not in his romance, the quickness and the vigour of M. Mérimée, but his characters are of a higher order, and more minutely delineated.

The high spirit and weak character of Louis XV-his eye brightening in the battle and wandering in the council-the stern and ruthless composure of his minister-(the dark side of his nature perhaps rather overcharged) the chivalry, the sentiment, the daring, and “allfor-love" of the young Cinq Mars-whose pale countenance, melancholy and absent when not lit up by enterprize, and large black eyes and long brown hair follow you from his first appearance at his paternal chateau, until his last upon the scaffold—the light and varying shade of love, ambition and coquetry which flit across the character of the young Duchess of Mantua -(to obtain whose hand is young d'Effiat's (Cinq Mars) sole object of action)—a princess who had loved in solitude, and is afterwards exposed to the flatteries and fascinations of a court-all these various subjects for the ar

ful scenes over which Italy cast the shadow of her mysterious mask?—the propriety of that period for which he is writing. He paints, however, rather the warmth of passion than the subtleties of depravity; and, exciting the imagination, does not deprave the heart.

tist are drawn, not perhaps with a powerful, but with a fine and delicate hand; and this romance upon the whole succeeded as the most popular imitation of an inimitable novelist.

To those who wish to see the ancient capital with its innumerable steeples and stately spires, with "its guardian giantess and her tiara of towers," with its miraculous hotel that could lodge twenty-two princes of the quality of the Dauphin-with its gibbets and its pillories which flourished and abounded in the place of that" one miserable guillotine," which now occupies a dishonoured corner of the Grève-and to those who wish to see this dark creation peopled with a motley crowd of Bohemians, students, knights, priests and executioners-the romance of Notre Dame' may be taken up with safety and laid down with satisfaction.

In spite, however, of the vigorous and peculiar style, the vivid colouring and dramatic effect of different parts of this remarkable production, its chance of being more than a popular tale of the day is destroyed by its evident struggle after an unnatural originality, and by all the faults and absurdities of M. Hugo's late dramatic compositions.

The lover, whose devoted passion should

charm and touch you, appears under the monstrous shape of one of those hideous excrescences that decorate a gothic church-while the graceful and delicate heroine, when delivered up to her executioner, trembles in his hand—not like an aspen or a rose leaf-but, strange to say-like a galvanized frog!

These romances, however, of the historical school were works of power, and would have had more followers and more success, but for the circumstance I have mentioned; viz: the popular style of history of itself; for where history is written on the principle of being amusing, historical romance supplies a vacuum which is not likely to be long in vogue.

Of the school of Rousseau, Madame de Stael and M. de Châteaubriand are the only popular followers; though Madame de Thérèse in "Jerome" and "l'Indienne," has produced two eloquent and touching stories, which deserve to be noticed, were it only for the elegant correctness of their style, their frequent profundity of thought and their absence from all offensive affectation. M. de St. Beuve is also well calculated to have succeeded in the metaphysical novel, had he not, in a composition of which I shall presently give a specimen, sullied the wings of his genius by the dirty and

licentious details through which he has directed his course.

In the school of manners, Paul de Kock stands unrivalled-his subjects are low-his language unclassical, and without eloquence -but the persons he describes are true portraits -and the passions he gives them, go through their natural workings. He is by Le Sage what the low farce writer is by the comedian. The characters you are shewn are those you would meet with in the omnibus; but they are living portraits, and types of their class. Nor is there any French writer of fiction now living, so likely to have a place with posterity, as one whom many of his tinselled and affected contemporaries pretend to despise.

I now approach a school-if school it can be called-which belongs to none of the orders I have just described. It does not refer to history-it does not describe manners, nor unfold the natural mystery of the human mind. The objects of its idolatry, insomuch fulfills the Jewish commandment, that they are neither taken from things in the earth, nor from things in the heavens above the earth, nor from things in the waters under the earth. They are creatures which we never saw by day, nor ever imagined by night, except under the influence

of some unhappy nightmare, more incoherent and extravagant than usual.

All keeping of character, all conduct of plot, all decency of manners, any thing which the novelist of later times has studied to observe, the novelist of this extravagant sect studies to violate.

To write a calm criticism on such literature would be an impertinence. I have therefore endeavoured, by adopting, not a new-but a generally fortunate device-to display with the levity they merit, those absurdities and indecorums which have acquired a certain reputation; and I must beg my reader-who will see by notes annexed, that I have taken almost verbatim from novels much in vogue, the language and situations I make use of-to attribute to me nothing in the following pages, save the desire to cover such want of nature, taste and decency, with all the censure and ridicule it deserves.