of age was married on the 12th May, 1814, to a fair bride of only eighteen, of whose society he grew weary in a few weeks. By way of a change he went off by himself to his farm in Touraine, and shortly afterwards projected a voyage to "the ancient Lusitania." The tender remonstrances and loving appeals of his young wife at last succeeded in inducing him to renounce this design, and after a while, as one of his biographers remarks, he became "acclimatised to a matrimonial life."

Under the first Restoration and during the troublous scenes of the Hundred Days Courier kept aloof from politics. At the beginning of the second Restoration he was favourably regarded by the returned exiles as one who had long since broken with the Empire; but his constitutional opinions soon gave umbrage to the ultra-Royalists, who were taking an unwise revenge for their long exclusion from power. Towards the close of 1815 he happened to be in Touraine, and, as he wrote to his wife, dined on one occasion in the company of Chouans, Vendéens, and ultra-Royalists, who had toasted her health :

:

"There were two priests there," he continued, "both of whom got tipsy. One of them had to conduct a funeral service, which was the first thing that escaped his memory. On returning home, at ten o'clock at night, he found that the corpse and the mourners had been waiting for him since noon. He at once

busied himself with burying the body. He chanted at the top of his voice, and set the bells ringing-a hideous uproar. The other, who was farther gone than his neighbour, wanted to fight me. Being told that I had a young and pretty wife, he indulged in several hussar-like jokes, which greatly diverted the company.

Many of the Royalist priests, indeed, had acquired the license of camps, and were a disgrace to their sacred calling. Men of that stamp were little calculated to command the respect of their parishioners, and seldom concerned themselves to act as peacemakers between the hostile fac

tions into which rural France was then divided. Scarcely less mischievous was the insolence of the mayors and other municipal officers, whose petty tyranny inflicted much serious suffering upon the helpless peasantry. As soon as it was known that Courier no more held with the Royalists than with their predecessors, he became a butt for all sorts of annoyance and spoliation. His trees were cut down and carted away by individuals to whom he was able to bring home the trespass and robbery, but the mayor took them under his protection, and no redress could be obtained. Others filched away entire roods of land, or withheld their rents, and the law, when set in motion by one of the disaffected, was powerless to coerce the evildoers. All this greatly disquieted Courier, not merely on his own account, but through his generous sympathy with the weak and unfriended.

It was not enough for him to unburden his mind to his wife. He felt that humanity and patriotism alike required of him to do something for his harassed and down-trodden neighbours. Under this conviction he wrote his memorable Pétition aux Deux Chambres,' dated the 10th December, 1816, a brilliant little pamphlet of ten pages. The clear statement of facts and incidents that outraged the commonest feelings of humanity, the fearless and uncompromising tone, the pungent, incisive diction-all combined to create a sensation through all classes of the Parisian world, and ministers were forced to acknowledge that they had strained to the utmost the forbearance of the nation, and that it would be necessary henceforth to temper the zeal of their subordinate agents. M. Decazes, the Minister of the Interior, is supposed to have been far from displeased at the check so unexpectedly inflicted upon his ultra-Royalist colleagues and the Court, untaught by the lessons of adversity. In any case, it is certain that such rigorous proceedings were thenceforth discountenanced, though too much license was

still allowed to rural and municipal authorities.

No one seems to have been more surprised than Courier himself at the success of his first essay as a political writer; but, instead of immediately pursuing the path that invited him onward to popularity and usefulness, he turned aside to translate that not very edifying tale commonly known as 'The Ass' of Lucian which was subsequently published in 1818. A serious attack of illness, which well-nigh proved fatal, followed by the death of his father-in-law, whom he sincerely esteemed and loved, reduced him to such a state of physical prostration that the management of his property devolved upon his wife, who ever afterwards kept it in her own hands. While suffering in mind and body Courier unwisely offered himself as a candidate for one of the three vacant chairs at the Academy. His canvass was hopeful, and he secured the promise of a considerable number of votes. Nevertheless, he was unanimously rejected. He felt the disappointment keenly, and had not the good sense to hide his feelings. Irritated by the impertinence of some second-rate journal, which had reminded him that to become an Academician something more was needed than Greek, he dashed off a truculent undignified letter to the Academy, in which he not only stooped to pick up the challenge of the journalist, but ungraciously sneered at his more fortunate rivals. This unwise effusion naturally did not increase his reputation, but a better reception was accorded to his ten letters to the editor of the 'Censeur,' all full of the keenest irony and caustic humour. In the first he plunged, as usual, headlong into his subject :

"You compassionate us peasants, and you are so far right that our lot might undoubtedly be better. We are at the mercy of a mayor and a garde-champêtre, whose tempers are easily disturbed. Fine and imprisonment are no trifles. But bear in mind that in the olden time we could be killed for five sous parisis: that was the law. Any noble who killed a villein was bound to cast five sous upon the

grave of the deceased; but liberal laws are seldom rigorously enforced, and, for the most Nowpart, nothing was paid for killing us. adays, it costs a mayor seven and a half sous for stamped paper merely to put a workingman into prison, and the magistrates interfere. Inquiries are instituted, and then only is judgment pronounced, conformably to the good pleasure of the mayor or the prefect. Does it seem to you, sir, a small thing what we have gained in the course of five or six hundred years? We were subject to forced labour, to arbitrary taxation, we could be killed at pleasure; now, we can only be thrown into prison."

In an evil hour for himself he next ventured to publish 'Le Simple Discours de Paul Louis, Vigneron de la Chavonnière, aux Membres du Conseil de la Commune de Veretz.' It is one of the most forcible pamphlets that ever proceeded from his pen, and was written in opposition to a project for purchasing by voluntary subscription the domain and château of Chambord, to be presented to the infant Duke of Bordeaux. The sum of fifteen hundred thousand francs was, nevertheless, wrung from the servility of the rural communes, and the domain of Chambord became once more an appanage of the Crown. For his part Paul Louis Courier was brought to trial upon a charge of having outraged public morality by maintaining that the vicinity of a Court is bad for the peasantry of the district. Being found guilty he was sentenced to two months' imprisonment and a fine of two hundred francs, time, however, being allowed him to arrange his private affairs. His letters to his wife from Ste. Pelagie are very touching, and evince a tenderness of heart scarcely in harmony with his usual deportment. In prison he became acquainted with Béranger, to whom he oddly enough alludes as "the man who writes pretty songs." The song-writer employed his compulsory leisure in publishing a collected edition of his poems, ten thousand copies of which were sold in a week!

On the expiration of his term of imprisonment Courier returned to his

des

home in the country, vowing never again to come within the clutches of the public prosecutor. For some time he adhered to this prudent resolution, but the old Adam was not to be so easily cast out, and in 1822 appeared his Pétition à la Chambre 6 Deputés pour les Villageois que l'on empêche de danser.' For this clever brilliant trifle he was again summoned before the tribunal, but escaped with a reprimand. This second experiThis second experience, however, made him more cautious for the future, and thenceforth he published his political papers with so much secrecy that not even his most intimate friends were aware to what press he had recourse. His industry appears to have been stimulated by the obstructions placed in his way, but the hour of repose was at hand. In the early months of 1824 he brought out his wonderful 'Pamphlet des Pamphlets,' which proved the crowning-stone of his literary reputation. This brilliant effusion, the last as well as the most powerful of the political writings of Paul Louis Courier, has been characterised as "the song of the swan." Nothing short of the translation of the entire pamphlet would give an adequate idea. of the vigour and eloquence of this remarkable production. According to one of his editors, "it is the definition, the theory, the apotheosis of pamphlets." Armand Carrel is still more enthusiastic, and describes it as "a fragment of irresistible fascination, the style of which, from one end to the other, harmonising with the impulse of a most capricious and daring inspiration, may be quoted as an example in our language of what is most refined as taste and most marvellous as art."

After spending the months of Janu ary and February, 1825, in Paris, Courier made his last journey to La Chavonnière, leaving his wife in the

capital. It was apparently his intention to dispose of all his landed property a (small estate, in truth) and withdraw entirely from country life, devoting himself thenceforth to literary pursuits. Whatever may have been his plans they were frustrated by his violent death on the 10th April, within a few paces of his own house. Five years afterwards a peasant and a young girl deposed that, while concealed in a thicket, they saw three men approach Courier, one of whom tripped him up, whereupon another fired at him and killed him on the spot, the third merely looking on. The first assailant having died in the meantime, and the actual murderer, Courier's own garde-champêtre, lying at the point of death, the two hidden witnesses, no longer afraid of evil consequences to themselves, came forward and told what they had seen. The dying man confessed the truth of their statement, but died without disclosing the motive that had prompted him to kill his master, and apparently without revealing the name of the third accomplice. The murder thus remained still hidden in mystery, nor does it appear that any great trouble was ever taken to investigate the

case.

Courier has been called the Rabelais of politics, the Montaigne of the present century, the successful rival of Pascal; and no doubt there are many points of resemblance between him and those illustrious writers. But in his case pre-eminently does Buffon's saying hold good-the style was the man himself. The touches of grim, often grotesque, humour, the keen, biting sarcasm, the classical illustrations, the intolerance of wrong, the scorn for all that is mean and ignoble, the untameable love of independenceall that was Courier's own, and marked him as a man distinct from his

fellows.

JAMES HUTTON.

WHO now reads Johnson? At times we will read about him, when some one of our great geniuses good-naturedly lectures on the poor dead bones. Here and there one will furbish up a dull page with one of those historic impertinences, those exercises in tossing and goring (the phrase is Bozzy's) which will sometimes prompt the ungrateful thought, how much does the memory of Samuel Johnson owe of its enchantment to distance? But to read him to read those writings which were once as the voice of an oracle: the Rambler' ("Pure wine, sir!" said the old man) and its successors, the Adventurer' and the Idler'; or 'Rasselas'; or 'The Vanity of Human Wishes (which gave Sir Walter Scott, as he vowed, more pleasure than any other poetical composition he knew); possibly even the 'Lives of the Poets '-that, we suspect, is a task very few of us have a mind for now.

·

It is not perhaps surprising. The qualities which attract readers to-day were not Johnson's; and his is not a name of that pre-eminent lustre with which readers with a care for their literary reputation must at least profess to be familiar. His capital distinction as a writer is one not now universally prized-the distinction of common sense. Even his criticisms, grossly and provokingly unjust as they so often are, at their very worst, as has been well said, mean something, which does not seem to have been invariably the first aim among critics of later times. But when this distinction has been duly set to his credit, there remains little, if anything, likely to bring Johnson into fashion again. 'Rasselas,' to be sure, is as empty of incident and as full of talk as any modern novel; and were the Happy Valley in Kensington, and Imlac an art-critic or a magazine-philosopher,

the tale might still serve. But the local colouring (to use one of our pretty, popular phrases) puts it so hopelessly out of court. Those impossible Abyssinians! As well expect to be stirred by the passage of the Vapians through the equinoctial of Queubus! And for the "solemn yet pleasing" humour humour which Macaulay found in those reflections on the passing scene which the old man sent out week by week from his lonely garret (a sort of writing which one might have fancied likely still to keep fresh), that is least of all to our taste. Solemn enough in truth should we find it. He prided himself on writing trifles with dignity; but that is not the way we have decided that trifles should be written. Nay, on this side he seems himself to have anticipated the verdict of posterity. "As it has been my principal design,' he confessed in the Rambler's farewell to his readers, "to inculcate wisdom or piety, I have allotted few papers to the idle sports of the imagination. Some, perhaps, may be found of which the highest excellence is harmless merriment; but scarcely any man is so steadily serious as not to complain that the severity of dictatorial instruction has been too seldom relieved, and that he has been driven by the sternness of the Rambler's philosophy to more cheerful and airy companions." That is enough; and we pass on to the cheerful and airy company that Count Paul Vasili and others of his kidney provide for us-companions who, at least, cannot say with the Rambler that they have "never complied with temporary curiosity," and that in their writings "no man can look for censure of his enemies or praise of himself."

It is not then surprising that Johnson, as a personality probably the most familiar to us of all dead men, should yet remain one of the Great Unread.

To

Yet it is a pity. Though the world he looked on was a narrow and a bounded world, within its limits his vision was exact and keen. One cannot say of him that he 66 saw life steadily and saw it whole; yet the side of life he knew he saw steadily enough, and judged acutely. It is when (in vain concession to those who fretted under his dictatorial instruction) he travels out of his familiar round to laugh, somewhat hoarsely, at the whims of a world he was neither of nor among, that he becomes really tedious. borrow a well-known metaphor of his own, it is like a dog walking on his hind-legs; it is not well done, but we marvel that it is done at all. The question of precedence between him and Addison was a favourite subject of discussion in his own day. Futile as they almost always are, no question of comparison between two writers was ever so futile as this. Though handling the same class of subjects, and employing the same form, the method of Addison and the method of Johnson are as far apart as the method of Thackeray and the method of Dickens. A glance at those papers in which the Rambler and his fellows have essayed to tread in the footsteps of the Spectator will show the dullest reader how wide a gulf separates the creator of Sir Roger de Coverley from the creator of Squire Bluster. Cut his words anywhere, said Emerson of Montaigne, and they will bleed. One may say the same of any page of the Coverley papers. They are as fresh, as full of life to-day as on the morning they were sent to the press, and it is hard to conceive that the day will ever come when that rich humanity will be still and cold. Turn over the pages which tell the tale of the Busys and of the Club of Antiquaries, and one might fancy oneself at Cairo unwrapping the mummy of that Pharaoh whose heart was hardened not to let the children of Israel go. It is the same with the more imaginative papers, the allegories and tales and fantastic pieces generally; with the story of Hilpah and Shalum compared with the story of

Aningait and Ajut, or the transmigra tion of Pug the monkey compared with the Revolution of a Garrett. But most striking of all is the contrast between those papers in which Addison played with his inimitable grace and lightness round the humours of fashion, of female fashion especially, and those in which Johnson, with a hand heavy as the bludgeon which was to answer the threats of the author of Ossian,' essayed to dissect the manners of a society which he came to know only late in life and then but very superficially. Sir John Falstaff, as Macaulay happily says, never wore his petticoats with a worse grace. And no one, it must in fairness be owned, could have been more conscious of this. than Johnson himself. Reams have been written on Addison since the 'Lives of the Poets' were published, but never has his peculiar charm been more pertinently praised than in the pages there devoted to him. It is impossible to read from the paragraph beginning, "As a describer of life and manners, to the end, without feeling sure that so acute and just a critic must have felt his own withers not a little wrung.

But there was one phase of humanity which Johnson knew to the finger-tips. The changes and chances. of a literary life, its foibles and its vanities, its sorrows and its pleasures, he knew as hardly one before or since has known them to record them. The strange sad story of Grub Street he had by heart from the first page to the last. It was familiar to him both by learning and experience. Literary biography was his favourite reading, and naturally enough this was the subject on which he wrote best. There are still, let us hope, a few to whom the Lives of the Poets' are not all unknown; but buried here and there among the unexplored pages of the 'Rambler,' and its still less remembered successors, are many papers treating of the same subject, and treating it with a fund of good sense, of wisdom, of pity, and of humour which it is sad to think no one now