I

"I have made a vow to the Madonna, as you know, never to see you; this is the reason why receive you in this profound darkness. I wish you to understand that if ever you force me to see you in broad daylight, everything between us will be at an end. But, in the first place, I do not choose you to preach before Anetta Marini.'

My angel, I will never preach again before any one. I only preached in the hope of seeing you.'

Do not speak thus; remember that it is not

allowable for me to see you.'

of Fabricio and Clelia form one of the finest | Great Revolution of 1789, which permanentsatires in the book. When the following in-ly altered the tone and limited the social terview takes place, Fabricio is archbishop of effects of despotism, great or small. Although Parma, a popular preacher, and supposed (as oppression and corruption may be as rife as is the lady) to be living in the odor of sanctity. ever, and inquitous sentences may be proHe is admitted into an orangery, and finds cured as easily in the actual Naples as in the himself before a barred window. A hand is Parma of the novelist, the modern tools and extended to meet him, and a soft voice an- satellites of tyranny are more rogues than nounces, C'est moi: fools; they are no unhesitating believers in right divine; their reverence for white staves and gold sticks is founded rather on calculation than on faith; and they no longer (except a few of the very silliest) talk of themselves, even amongst themselves, as privileged to indulge their vices at the expense of the non-noble classes with impunity. We doubt whether at any time since the commencement of the nineteenth century, a clever woman like the Duchess would have treated as an absurdity the notion of a del Dongo being prosecuted for killing a Giletti, or whether been induced to sanction Fabricio's elevation any Pope within living memory would have to the archbishopric. Every objection of this sort, however, might have been obviated by carrying the plot back to the period when Dubois received his cardinal's hat, or even to that when Talleyrand was made a bishop, and when a gentleman was expected to suppress the insolence of the canaille by the infliction of instant death. Thus, Edgeworth relates in his "Memoirs," that once when he was riding with a lady in the south of France, some coarse expressions were addressed to her, or in her hearing, by a peasant, whom Edgeworth forthwith horsewhipped and rolled into the ditch. Shortly afterwards he found himself coldly received by the aristocracy of the neighborhood, and learnt, on inquiring the cause, that he was thought to have been wanting in proper spirit, and that it was his duty to run his sword through the fellow's body on the spot.

[Here we request permission to overleap a space of three years.]

"The Marchioness had a charming little boy, about two years old, Sandrino, who was always with her, or on the knees of the Marquis, her husband. During the long hours of each day when she could not see her friend the presence of Sandrino consoled her; for we have to confess a thing which will seem odd north of the Alps, she had remained faithful to her vow; she had promised the Madonna never to see Fabricio; such had been her very words, consequently she never received him but at night, and there was never a light in the apartment.'

Balzac insists that the Count Mosca is meant for Prince Metternich, and that for Parma we should read Modena. Beyle denied that he had copied any living or contemporary original, male or female. He argues that his scene could not have been laid in one of the great courts on account of the details of administration. "There remained the little princes of Germany and Italy. But the Germans are so prostrate before a In the "Promenades dans Rome," and in riband, they are so bêtes. I passed many the " Correspondance Inédite," may be years amongst them, and have forgotten found authentic examples by the dozen of their language from contempt. You will crimes committed under the influence of see that my personages could not be Ger- jealousy, in which the criminal invariably mans. If you follow this idea, you will had public opinion on his side. Beyle's exfind that I have been led by the hand to an perience of Italian society, as it existed in extinct dynasty, to a Farnese, the least ob- the first quarter of the present century, if scure of these extincts, by reason of the not to the present day, had satisfied him that General, his grandfather." "I have in Italy no offences against good feeling and never seen Madame Belgioso. Rossi was a morality were so unnatural as to lie altoGerman. I have spoken to him a hundred gether beyond the bounds of probability; times. I learnt The Prince' during my and he constructed this singular tale from exresidences at St. Cloud in 1810 and 1811."amples which had doubtless passed before his Schiller, in "Cabal und Liebe," and Les-eyes. But be has caricatured Italian deprav sing, in "Emilia Galotti," have each painted ity. Although parallels should be found for a petty despot, with the resulting demoral- every individual act of villany, meanness, or ization of all within his sphere, in still immorality, there is no getting over the imdarker colors; but they wrote before the probability or the repulsiveness of the uni

versal corruption of the dramatis persone as uous by the glitter of his weapon and the a whole. Not one of them has the smallest vigor of his stroke. Merimée awards him consciousness of a principle, or of a well- the honor of having, so to speak, discovered defined difference between right and wrong. Italian music for the Parisian amateurs. The best, or (more correctly speaking) the Saint Beuve, another high authority, says least bad, are mere creatures of impulse; that Beyle, after having smoothed the way and it may fairly be made a question whether for the due appreciation of Cimarosa, Mozart, such a society could have been held together and Rossini by the French, was equally sucunder such a government, even with a cessful in clearing the horizon for the brilliant friendly and powerful despot to prop it up. galaxy of writers who, during the last quarter In fact, Beyle seems to have invented a race of a century, have formed the pride and orof men and women to square with his own nament of literature in France. When he theory of materialism, and to have shaped came to the rescue, the Romanticists were his story with an exclusive view to their out-numbered and hard-pressed. Whoever idiosyncrasy. Much ingenuity has been dis- dared to transgress the unities of time and played in contriving forced scenes for the place, or to depart in the slightest degree development of their peculiarities, whilst from the prescriptive standards of orthodoxy strokes of refined irony, witty remarks, and in language, morals, manners, or dramatic clever sketches, are found in sufficient num- action, was hooted down or proscribed; ber to give a tempting flavor to the book; whilst the Academicians, forming a compact but the plot drags and bewilders, and the body of literary policemen, and backed by characters inspire no interest, because they want vitality, and because (like Swift's Yahoos) they are an outrage on nature and on truth. The intended moral of the book is thus stated by the author:

"From all this, the moral to be drawn is, that the man who approaches the Court, compromises his happiness, if he be happy, and in every case makes his future destiny depend on the intrigues of a femme de chambre. On the other side, in America, in the republic, one must bore oneself all day long with paying serious court to the shopkeepers of the street, and become as stupid as themselves; and there, no opera!"

In the concluding sentence spoke the true genius, the mocking, penetrating, and Epicurean spirit of the man.

the most influential journals, stood prepared to enforce or execute the decree. Their ground, however, was every way untenable, and they were soon thrown into confusion by the logic, sarcasms, and well-applied anecfrom the controversy, a bare statement of the dotes of Beyle. At this distance of time question will be enough.

"Romanticism," says Beyle, "is the art of presenting a people with the literary works which, in the actual condition of their habits and modes of faith, are capable of affording them the greatest possible amount of pleasure. Classicism, on the contrary, presents them with the literature which afforded the very greatest possible amount of pleasure to their great-grandfathers."

Then, after showing that the very dramatists set up as models for the moderns by the classicists, were essentially romanticists in their day, he continues:

"The Abbé Delille was eminently romantic for the age of Louis XV. His was poetry made for the people, who, at Fontenoy called, hat in hand, to the English, Gentlemen, fire first.' That is certainly very noble, but how can such persons have the affrontery to say that they admire Homer? The ancients would have laughed outright at our notion of honor. And this poetry is expected to please a Frenchman who was in the retreat from Moscow."..

It is one of the common whims or tricks of Fame to reward the pioneers and champions of progress in an inverse ratio to their deserts. When their victory over error or prejudice is complete, the struggle is speedily forgotten, and their services, sometimes their very names, are forgotten too. The rising generation, who have been wont to regard the presence of Victor Hugo and Scribe among the illustrious Forty as a thing of course, and who have crowded to the Français to see Rachel in Angelo or Adrienne Lecouvreur, will find it difficult to believe that "The romanticists do not advise any one to less than forty years since the armchairs of imitate directly the dramas of Shakspeare. the Academy would have been deemed des- What should be imitated in this great man is, ecrated by such occupants and the national of which we live, and the art of giving our conthe manner of studying the world in the middle theatre profaned by such performances. But temporaries precisely the kind of tragedy of the fact was so, and the complete change which they are in want; but which they have which public opinion in France has under- not the audacity to claim, terrified as they are gone on this class of subjects is owing in no by the reputation of the great Racine. By acslight degree to Beyle; who, in the first cident, the new French tragedy would strangely grand assault on classicism, led the forlorn resemble that of Shakspeare. But this would hope, and made himself honorably conspic-be merely because our circumstances (in 1823)

are the same as those of England in 1590. We them, the apartment would come down. Alas! also have parties, executions, conspiracies. That gentlemen, why was it not my good luck to inman, who is laughing in a salon whilst reading habit it the day before you set to work?" this pamphlet, will be in prison in a week. The other, who is joking with him, will name the jury that will find him guilty.”

It was by acting on this theory, by adroitly striking the chords in unison with the public mind, that, shortly afterwards, Alexandre Dumas attained the height of popularity by "Henri Trois" and "Antony," in which not only all the old stage proprieties, but proprieties which can never become obsolete, were systematically infringed.

The "Correspondance Inédite," on which we have already drawn largely for our biographical sketch, contains numerous specimens of criticism, observation, and description which go far towards justifying the estimate of the writer's intimate friends when they pronounce him to be better than his books. Unluckily, most of his letters, like his controversial writings, relate to bygone topics, or to publications which have fallen into oblivion or quietly settled down into their proper places, and either way have ceased to inspire interest enough to give zest to a commentary. The following passages, however, possess the double attraction of being both pointed and characteristic. He is mourning over the extinct race of grand seigneurs.

66

Beyle's History of Painting in Italy," which he transcribed seventeen times, fell still-born. His essay "De L'Amour,” as we are candidly informed in the preface to the new edition, shared the same fate. Yet, despite his paradoxes and caprices, he must have been a very entertaining and instructive cicerone; and, too frequently imbedded in masses of broken thought and incomplete theory, more than one specimen of his hap piest manner will be found in this neglected volume upon Love. Take, for example, the introductory part of the story, entitled “Le Rameau de Salzbourg.'

"At the mines of Hallein, near Salzbourg, the miners throw into the pits that have been abandoned a bough stripped of its leaves: two or three months afterwards they find it entirely The covered with brilliant crystallizations. than the claw of a titmouse, are incrusted with smallest branches, those which are not larger tals. The primitive bough is no longer to be an infinity of little glancing and glittering crys recognized. The miners never fail, when the sun is bright and the air perfectly dry, to offer these branches of diamonds to the travellers who are about to descend into the mine."

We omit the description of the party with whom the author visited these mines. All that is necessary to know is, that one of his companions was a beautiful Italian.

"I am not one of those philosophers who, when a heavy shower falls in the evening of a sultry day in June, are distressed by the rain "During our preparations for the descent, because it threatens injury to the crops, and, for which were long, I amused myself with observ. example, to the blossoming of the vines. The ing what was passing in the head of a goodrain, on such an evening, seems to me charming, looking, fair-complexioned Bavarian officer of because it relaxes the nerves, refreshes the air, hussars, who, although very handsome, had and, in a word, makes me happy. I may quit nothing of the coxcomb about him, and, on the the world to-morrow: I shall not drink of that contrary, appeared to be an homme d'esprit; wine, the blossoms of which embalm the hillocks it was Madame Gherardi (familiarly called the of the Cote d'Or. All the philosophers of the Ghita) who made the discovery. I saw him eighteenth century have proved to me that the falling in love at first sight with the charming grand seigneur is a very immoral, very hurtful Italian, who was beside herself with pleasure at thing; to which I answer that I am passionately the thought of our soon finding ourselves five fond of a grand seigneur, high-bred and gay, hundred feet under ground, and was a thousand like those I met in my family when I learnt to miles from the thought of making conquests. read. Society bereaved of these beings, so gay, Before long I was astonished at the strange concharming, amiable, taking nothing in the trag-fidences which the officer made to me unconical vein, is, in my point of view, the year de-sciously. I warned Madame Gherardi, who, prived of its spring.'

but for me, would have lost this spectacle to "I seek for pleasure every day, for happiness which perhaps a young woman is never insenas I can. I am fond of society, and I am grieved sible. What struck me most was the shade of at the state of consumption and irritation to insanity which unceasingly increased in his rewhich it is reduced. Is it not very hard on me, flections. He kept finding in this woman per who have but a day to pass in an apartment, to fections more and more invisible to my eyes. find it just then occupied by the masons, who Every moment what he said painted with less are whitewashing it; by the painters, who drive resemblance the woman he was beginning to me away by the intolerable smell of their var-love. I said to myself, the Ghita cannot be the nish; finally, by the carpenters, the noisiest of all, who are hammering away with all their might at the floor? All these vow that, but for

cause of all the transports of this poor German. For example, he began praising her hand, which had been affected in a singular manner by the

the nervous fluid by the legs, and not by the heart. After which, forsooth, they presume to talk of feminine delicacy, and to despise Spain and Italy. Nothing, on the contrary, can be more free from occupation than the young Italians; the motion which would deprive them of their sensibility is disagreeable to them. They may walk half a league occasionally as a painful security for health: as to the women, a Roman beauty does not take in a year as much exercise as a young miss in a week.”

small pox, and had remained very pitted and exercise, complete their three or four leagues a very brown. day, as if man were created and placed on the How to explain what I see? said I to my-globe to trot. In this manner they consume self. Where find a comparison to elucidate my thought? At this moment, Madame Gherardi was playing with the branch covered with crystals which the miners had just given her. There was a bright sunshine: it was the third of August, and the little saline prisms shone as brilliantly as the finest diamonds in a well lighted ball-room. . . . I told the Ghita, The effect produced upon this young man by the nobleness of your Italian features, by those eyes such as he never saw before, is precisely similar to that which the crystallization has produced on the little branch which you hold in your hand and think so pretty. Stripped of its leaves by the winter, it was surely nothing less than dazzling. The crystallization of the salt has covered the blackened bough with these diamonds, so brilliant and so numerous that, except in a few places, we can no longer see the branches as they are.'

686

Well, and what is your conclusion?' said

Madame Gherardi.

"That this bough,' I replied, 'faithfully represents the Ghita, such as she is seen in the imagination of this young officer.'

"That is to say, that you perceive as much difference between what I am in reality and the manner in which this amiable young man regards me, as between a little branch of dried elm and the pretty aigrette of diamonds which these miners have presented to me!'

"Madame, the young officer discovers in you qualities that we, your old friends, have never seen. For example, we should never perceive an air of tender and compassionate bonté. As this young man is a German, the first quality of a woman in his eyes is bonté, and forthwith he reads the expression of it in your face. If he was an Englishman, he would endow you with the aristocratic and "lady-like" air of a duchess; but if he were I, he would see you such as you are, because for many a day, and to my misfortune, I can imagine nothing more fascinating.'

Beyle might have learnt that a young miss exercises her mind as well as her body; and it is a strange perversity of morals to claim the palm of feminine delicacy" for women, who (if we may trust their eulogist), are trained to become languishing or capricious mistresses instead of faithful wives or intellectual companions, and taught that intrigue, not duty, is and ought to be the chief business and grand object of their lives. shall conclude our extracts with an anecdote and a shrewd remark.

We

“Ought not the true pride of a woman to be placed in the energy of the sentiment she inspires? The courtiers of Francis the First were joking one of the queen-mother's maids of honor about the inconstancy of her lover, who, they said, had no real love for her. A short time afterwards this lover was taken ill, and reap peared at court dumb. One day, at the end of three years, when the same persons were expressing their astonishment at her loving him still, she said to him, 'Speak; and he spoke."

"It not unfrequently happens that a clever man, in paying court to a woman, has done no more than make her think of love, and predis pose her heart. She encourages this clever man, who gives her this pleasure. He conceives hopes. One fine day this woman meets the man who makes her feel what the other has described."

says

It is a redeeming feature in Beyle's charThe thought may have occurred to others, as when Congreve's Mirabel says to Milla-acter, to be set against a host of errors, that, mant,-"You are no longer handsome when in what he terms his affairs of the heart, he you have lost your lover; your beauty dies of his feelings, and the constancy of his atwas remarkable for the delicacy and depth upon the instant: for beauty is the lover's There was one woman," tachment. gift; 'tis he bestows your charms; your Merimée, "whose name he could never proglass is all a cheat." But the theory was never so fully developed, or so gracefully ex-1836 (he was then fifty-three), he spoke to nounce without trepidation in his voice. In pressed; and Beyle's carelessness, as well as his unreasonableness in complaining of not being understood, may be estimated from the fact that this story, which is the keynote of the book, was discovered amongst his papers, and first appeared in the posthumous edition. He has an odd theory to account for the leged insensibility of English women:

me of his love with profound emotion. An affection, which dated very far back, was no reasonable, and he was as madly in love as at longer returned. His mistress was growing twenty. How can you still love me?' she al-Beyle, she is as young as when we first met. asked; I am forty-five.'-' In my eyes,' said Then, with that spirit of observation which never left him, he detailed all the little symptoms of growing indifference that he had

"In England the wealthy classes, tired of staying at home, and under pretext of necessary DCXVI. LIVING AGE. VOL. XII. 42

remarked.

After all,' he said, her conduct | brated sculptor applied for permission to take is rational. She was fond of whist. She is a cast of it for a statue of Mirabeau. fond of it no longer so much the worse for me if I am still fond of whist. She is of a country where ridicule is the greatest of evils. To love at her age is ridiculous. During eighteen months she has risked this evil for my sake. This makes eighteen months of happiness that I have stolen from her.'

Beyle, always too stout for elegance, grew corpulent as he advanced in years, and his portrait, as sketched by his friend M. Colomb, does not convey the impression of a ladykiller. But his brow was fine, his eye lively and penetrating, his mouth expressive, and his hand cast in so fine a mould that a cele

The utmost space we feel justified in devoting to this remarkable man is exhausted, and we cannot now notice any other of his works. We will merely add one observation which is equally applicable to all of them. They belong preeminently to what he calls the class of insolent works, which require and compel readers to think; and if (as many apprehend) the prevalent fashion for cheap literature should end by deteriorating the article and lowering the popular taste, there will be some comfort in reflecting that it has occasionally rescued from unmerited neglect the name and writings of a man of thought, observation, and sensibility, like Beyle.

DOES A CIRCLE ROUND THE MOON FORETELL 16 feet. Stem and stern are to be alike, and BAD WEATHER?- As a rule, a circle round the the form of the hull is not one calculated for moon indicates rain and wind. When seen with a north or north-east wind, we may look for stormy weather, especially if the circle be large; with the wind in any other quarter we may expect rain; so also when the ring is small, and the moon seems covered with mist. If, however, the moon rise after sunset, and a circle be soon after formed round it, no rain is foreboded. Here (Kuik, Netherlands), we have this prov-six inches thick, and the outside protected with

erb:

"Een kring om de maan

Die kan vergaan;

Maar een kring om de zon
Geeft water in de ton."

"A ring round the moon
May pass away soon;
But a ring round the sun
Gives water in the tun."

Another version obtains among seamen,

"Een kring om de maan

Dat kan nog gaan;
Maar een kring om de zon

Daar huilen vrouw en kind'ren om."'

"A ring round the moon

May soon go by;

But a ring round the sun
Makes wife and child cry."
[From the Navorscher.

quick sailing. The bottom is flat, and without a keel, so as to float in as little water as possible. The bilges are full, and the topsides tumble in considerably. There are to be two decks, on the lower of which the armament will be placed, consisting of twenty guns of the largest calibre. The hull will be built of iron in the usual way, but between decks will be lined with teak-wood

iron plates about four inches thick, so as to render the sides shot-proof, and secure the men at the guns from the effects of pointblank shot. The draught of water, when ready for sea, is expected to be about eight feet, but will probably be more. The measurement tonnage will be about 2,000; and the propelling power is a screw, actuated by non-condensing engines of 200-horse power. Messrs. Napier are also making a second pair of engines of the same description for a battery at present building at Newcastle.

A MEMOIR OF AMELIA OPIE, by Cecilia Lucy Brightwell (Religious Tract Society), contains more particularly the record of Mrs. Opie's religious character and history, as exhibited in the later period of her life. This memoir is not s mere abridgement of any part of the "Memorials" of Mrs. Opie by the same biographer, but, passing briefly over the earlier years of her life and her literary career, it dwells on her character as a Christian woman. New matter, including letters and extracts from correspondence, NEW IRON FLOATING BATTERY.—The iron appear in this memoir, which is a very pleasing floating battery which R. Napier and Sons have and instructive piece of religious biography. Of begun to build at Glasgow, and are to complete her last days a full and very affecting account by the middle of April, is to be about 200 feet is given. A portrait is prefixed to the memoir. long, with a breadth of 45 feet, and a depth of Literary Gazette.

Notes and Queries.