they reach the last and fatal one, called the chamber of death." At the bottom of this last room is a square of net-work, immensely strong, called the leva, exactly fitting to the four sides of the net-walls. This can be raised and lowered at pleasure. The object of forming these numerous chambers is, that one troop of fish having entered and advanced into the second chamber, the first is opened to admit new-comers.

When every thing is in readiness, the nets being fairly set, two watchers are placed at the opening of the first chamber to announce the entrance of the fish. The men lean over the edge of the boat, having a tarpaulin spread over their heads to screen them from the sun and to throw a shade on the water, on which they drop a little oil from time to time to render its surface smooth. By such means, they are enabled to see what is passing in the blue depths below.

Every three hours the watchers are relieved. Whenever a troop of fish is discovered, they immediately, but as silently as possible, close the entrance to the nets; the tunnies go round and round till they come to the opening in the second chamber, and so on until they arrive at the chamber of death. A signal is then hoisted which, when discovered alongshore, is responded to by a red flag being run up on the castle-tower.

Sometimes for hours, sometimes even for days, the fish remain in the central divisions of the nets, and will not go to the last, as if they knew the fate that awaited them there. There is no known means either of forcing or enticing them forward-they must be left to themselves.

I have now to describe my own experience in the sport of "taking" tunnies.

I say

"sport," because it can scarcely be termed elsewise, and all the real work is finished up long before the catch.

I had come from Palermo to Solanto direct by rail; had passed through the countrytown of Bagaria, famous for its groups of palatial villas; and had halted at Solanto, merely because this was the terminus of the route. The harbor lies east of the settlement, and just here is the tonnara. I had not been in Solanto more than six hours before securing a passage to the fishing-grounds - and this by the courtesy of the proprietor himself.

The graceful, three-masted launch put off from the shore at the moment when the red flag on the castle-tower announced that fish were in the chamber of death. She fairly bounded over the waters, propelled by six young oarsmen, and we were soon at the scene of action.

The movable floor of net-work (leva) was being rapidly hauled to the surface of the water. The fishermen were uttering loud cries of joy as their well-practised eyes already perceived in the blue depths their monstrous prey in great numbers.

Ere long the scene became painfully exciting. We could see the imprisoned victims rushing wildly round and round, trying to escape, and casting the water, lashed by their struggles into foam, high into air. At length, when the net was within six or eight feet of the surface, it was made fast at the

four corners, and the battle began. Each man seized his sharp-hooked weapon, and, plunging it into the fish, dragged them, with loud shouts, alive into the boats. Blood spouted in great quantities from the wounded creatures, covering the men, and reddening the waves for a long distance round. The butchery continued till all were taken; the efforts of two or three men being required to secure each fish, as they are all very strong. Once out of the water, however, they soon die.

The feat of taking tunnies is always a novel spectacle. People of all ranks take the greatest delight in the scene, and come from long distances to witness it. They do not call it fishing, but killing, as in fact it is. The boats are towed toward the shore, and the fish are sold to dealers from all the neighboring towns and villages, some buying one fish, some two or three, according to the population to be supplied.

I first beheld the tunny-fishing on the 17th of May, and there were just seventeen fish in the net. They were sold on the beach for a sum equal to about twenty dollars. This large price was obtained because the previous hauls of the season had been scant.

In June the greatest activity prevails. From the 1st of the month to the 13th, the date of his birth, prayers are offered up daily to St. Anthony. He is entreated to implore from Almighty God a plentiful take of fish; and, as in the height of the season the tunny fetches not more than a cent a pound, it may be imagined what a boon it is to people eating little or no meat. Immense quantities are salted down, and form the winter provision; while a considerable portion is exported.

The tonnara of Solanto is one of the best on the coast of Sicily, from its position, having a large gulf before it, into which the tunny is sure to come. The fish which remain unsold on the beach of Solanto at the ringing of the "Ave Maria" (at sunset), are taken in boats to Palermo. By sea, the voyage is about ten miles, and is not unfrequently attended with difficulty and danger-the Cape Zaffarana having to be doubled, where boats and cargo together are sometimes lost.

When a large haul is secured on a Saturday morning, a large quantity is sent off to Naples by the steamer, which always leaves on that day. The evenings of Saturday and Sunday are always devoted by the family of the proprietor to amusement, in which the fishermen and their daughters are allowed to have a share. A dancing-master, accompanied by two musicians, is brought from Palermo, who generally sets the company dancing interminable quadrilles.

It is a real, live dance, you may be sure, composed of the figures of the ordinary quadrille, caledonian, and lancers, mixed up together, the master calling out in bad French each evolution that has to be performed, and inducing a perpetual movement. All the village-girls dance the polka, waltz, and mazurka, on the evenings in question. They are permitted to come with their fathers and brothers to see the dancing-the gentlemen of the household choosing one of them from time to time for a partner. Very often seɣ

eral of them are called upon to make up the number for an English country-dance. At

other times they will dance the tarantella to the music of the tambourine, their favorite instrument.

The tonnara at Solanto formerly belonged to the kings of Naples, one of whom often superintended it in person, and amused himself for hours sitting on the shore, bargaining for his fish with the dealers.

The average profit obtained may, for the last five years, be reckoned at a thousand a year. Sword-fish are sometimes taken in the net with the tunny, or alone. These are not dragged into the boats with hooks, but are carefully towed ashore after them. Their flesh, which is quite superior to that of the tunny, is sold; but the roe is preserved for the private eating of the proprietor, by whom it is considered a great luxury.

On St. Peter's day, the 29th of June, the tunny-fishery ends. The nets, that have formed the chambers, are cut, sink to the bottom, and are allowed to perish. The leva, which is the strongest part, as it has to support the whole weight of the fish, as it is raised through the water at every successive haul, is carefully laid away, and, with some slight repairs, serves for other years.

As I have previously intimated, these fisheries form a great boon to the poorer classes of Sicilians. Some explanation will make this assertion more intelligible.

In the first place, the manner of living and eating of the Sicilians forms as great a contrast to our American ideas as can well be imagined. People, both the rich and the poor, eat what we would never think of placing on the table. For instance, one day, at Palermo, I was forced to partake of a dish of snails, boiled with some green herbs and tomatoes. My host, a Sicilian nobleman, and his family sucked the snails out of their shells with delight. I swallowed two, out of polite

ness.

In the spring broad beans are eaten-raw, after dinner. The wild, bitter, and unsavory asparagus, which grows wild in the fields, is also eaten raw. Other vegetables are boiled, after which the water is replaced by a plentiful supply of lemon-juice and olive-oil. During the winter months, good veal from Sorrento is brought over by the steamboats from Naples to Palermo, and is bought up at a high price by the gentry. The native beef is always eaten stewed, or in the form of sausagemeat; otherwise, it would be too hard for any teeth or digestion. The want of good meat, however, is compensated by macaroni, of which the Sicilians are greater eaters even than the Italians.

Every one begins dinner by eating a large plateful, piled as high up as it can be handed to him; and, as it is prepared with extremely strong cheese, oil, tomatoes, and a kind of very bitter fruit, fried in slices, it is a portion formidable for any man or woman to get through with. When such is the ordinary fare in a palace, it may easily be imagined what it must be among the poor; and one can well understand the enormous benefit bestowed on them by the tunny-fishery.

GEORGE L. AUSTIN.

THE FRENCH SHAKE

OF

SPEARE.

all modern authors of eminence none, perhaps, is less known to English and American readers than Honoré Balzac. While the works of Hugo, Dumas, and Sue, are as familiar to us of the English tongue as those of Scott or Dickens, few, remarkably few, have any intimate acquaintance with the productions of the greatest of French fictionwriters.

With these few, however, he has earned a reputation surpassing not only that of every other novelist, but one entitling him, in their estimation, to a niche beside that of the myriad - minded Shakespeare. High as such praise is, we do not think it unmerited; although we are bound to state that it is beyond the meed accorded him by his own countrymen; for Balzac, so widely read and generally admired in France, and the recipient of unbounded laudation from foreign readers, is nevertheless no such extraordinary prophet in his own land. He is scarcely rated the equal of Scott by French critics, who are either undecided in their estimates, or apparently unaware how great a genius was the author of the "Comédie Humaine." Doubtless this lack, or reserve of appreciation, arises, in a great measure, from the fact that the great novelist's productions are markedly unequal-a serious defect according to French taste-and present an unfavorable contrast in this respect to the harmonious uniformity, and what a modern thinker names the "animated moderation" of the Waverley novels. The comparative ignorance with us of the works of the author under discussion must be attributed solely to the absence of adequate translations. A few exist that make readable books, but they convey no idea of the fire and force of the originals. Miss Mitford, the authoress, doubted, we know, whether Balzac were not too good for the taste of English novel-readers. The reason for this doubt she does not give, and it certainly is not self-evident. All our cultured people are novel-readers, and, judging from the popularity of Thackeray-the writer approaching the nearest to Balzac we have there is no reason whatever to believe that, if it were possible to reproduce the exact coloring and value of the language of Balzac in our vernacular, his works would not meet with due appreciation. But, unfortunately, the characteristic intensity of his works, which, as Dryden said of Shakespeare's plays, make us not only see but feel what is written, is as untranslatable as the quaintness of Hawthorne, or the rich, exuberant drollery of Dickens. Balzac's style, it is true, is far from faultless. It is often involved, labored, and obscure. We miss the clearness and transparency that distinguish the masters of French prose; but then, in comparison, words from his pen seem to possess a vividness, a sharp significance, and shades of expression, that are entirely lost in the effort to render them into another idiom. Nowhere can be found a more striking proof of Buffon's dictum, that the style is the man, than in Balzac's pages. They teem with the ardor, the audacity, the marvelous vigor, of the writ

er, and are worth a perusal even if but for the evidence they furnish of what the French language is capable of as an effective vehicle of thought.

Our author's aim, as is well known, was to construct, with his various studies, a monumental work-one that would exhibit every side and phase of human nature. Such an intention is bewildering and ambitious in the extreme, and that it should so nearly have been realized is amazing. He held that the works of an author, to acquire permanence, ought to possess continuity or relationship, and be grouped about some great parent idea. He does not profess to be a reformer, or to labor for the progress of humanity; he is merely an artist and demonstrator. Starting with the fundamental principle that human nature is one and the same, he arrives at the conclusion that man is neither good nor bad. Races differ only in surface traits. We are not only what the sun and wind make us; but also what our avocations and pursuits shape us into. We are, moreover, victims of circumstances and inherited temperaments. Yet, Balzac has not, nor does he pretend to have, any theory of life. He simply desires to represent it in its numerous and varied aspects and stages, to depict the phenomena of virtue and vice, or to trace the growth of a passion, diagnosing and discoursing pathologically the while. Here are puppets: he describes their appearance, their antics, the wires that move them; and leaves others to draw inferences and weave fine-spun conjectures as to their destiny. Naturally he is impartial as becomes a scientist, and exhibits no bias for race or sect. Aloof like Humboldt, his clear vision shows him all faiths as simply different growths of the same Godplanted germs of thought. He accepts the condition of things; takes men and women as he finds them; and then, with merciless scalpel, skillfully dissects and lays bare all the hidden springs, multifarious convolutions, and minute folds of their hearts. The French

call him a painter of mœurs. This comprehensive term means not only the morals but the manners and customs of a people as well. But he is, beyond this, a poet and moralist; furthermore, a psychologist and physiologist. It is to be regretted, in respect to the latter capacity, that it appears so frequently in evidence, and in a manner better befitting a medical treatise than books of polite literature.

In faith, a fatalist with a sincere reverence for religion; a cynic, with a loving admiration of the virtuous; in short, an eccentric and incongruous man is this Tourangeau—this fougueux son of soft and voluptuous Touraine, the birthplace of Rabelais. Well and thoroughly as he knows others, he does not know himself. In a letter written by him, and recently brought to light, he says: "I have the most singular character I know of. I study myself as I might another within my five feet ten. I contain all incoherences and contrasts possible. . . . Is this kaleidoscopic nature owing to the Fates placing in the soul of those who pretend to paint the affections, and the heart, all these affections, whereby they may force their imaginations to reveal what they wish to paint and is the power of observation but

a species of memory proper to assist the imagination? I begin to believe it."

This confession is but the revelation of the source of power in all true poets, who, as was said of Otway, "find Nature in their own breast”—feeling all, and seeing all, that they sing, while observation furnishes but the clews to hidden reminiscences, seemingly, of a preëxistence. It is this faculty, in a high degree-this wonderful insight, or power, as it were, of projecting one's individuality into another, and knowing intuitively every impulse, idiosyncrasy, and mood of the paragon of animals under every possible combination of circumstances-that has earned for Balzac the title of the French Shakespeare. True, the genius of the novelist never soars to the Parnassian height of his prototype; his pinions sweep a lower level, not from weakness, though, for, while Shakespeare commands a great share of our admiration on the score of sublimity, Balzac stirs us more deeply. And yet none of his tragedies are reddened with blood; he makes no use of dagger or bowl, but works with humbler and more effective tools-selfishness, depravity, the tyranny of base passions, and the tortures occasioned by their reaction on noble natures, furnish his catastrophes. His victims are not driven to coarse butchery; the preparation for their sacrifice is simple but appalling in its systematic simplicity, seizing one like the terror inspired by sanding the deck of a man-ofwar before an engagement, or the suggestive display of surgical instruments on an operating-table.

Is not this direct, penetrating, dramatic power explained by the author's nationality? While it is extremely difficult to generalize intelligently on the character and genius of any nation, especially of so heterogeneous a one as the French, that has produced such antipodal leaders of thought as Calvin and Voltaire, it is evident that this admixture of Celtic, Latin, and German blood furnishes men of a more practical and analytical cast of mind than the pure Teutonic race. To the latter we accord a greater luxuriance of imagination and love for the mystical, the abstract, and the sublime; while the former approximate more to the accurate Greeks. They crave clearness and symmetry rather than the gorgeous floridity and complexity of Gothic taste. This is evident in their schools of philosophy and art. We would not select a Frenchman to paint au Annunciation, or an allegory of any kind. He has no inclination to indulge in ecstatic mysticism or evolve beings from his inner consciousness; but no one can surpass him in limning life, palpitating and actual. Hermann Melville remarks somewhere that the only picture he ever saw that approached a correct delineation of the capture of the whale was one painted by a Frenchman, and adds that the French are the artists to paint life and action. Notable examples of this fidelity to Nature are observable in the battle-pieces of Vernet and in the canvases of Gérôme. Contrast those two great animal - painters, Landseer and Rosa Bonheur. What an impression of posing, prepared elegance, statuesque quiet, combed and brushed beauty, the fine pictures of Sir Edwin give you in

comparison with the vivid, unkempt, breathing nature of the work of his female rival!

A

Not only has Balzac in perfection this talent of realistic reproduction, but also the one wherein consist the highest expression of art, to wit, that of making the ideal real; and, furthermore, in a superlative degree, the power of exciting absorbing interest and playing on the emotions with minutiæ. chance expression, the disposition of a garment, the furniture of a room, or the description of a physiognomy, reveal more than pages of dialogue. Details that would appear trivial or be tiresome, from a less able writer, are invested with interest and importance by the magic of his narration. It may be observed that he does not possess the genius of inspiration spontaneously developed, if there be such a thing, but the one that grows from patience and persistence, from natural gifts untiringly trained and perfected. Else, how account for the amazing difference between his early works and later ones, and for the occasional feebleness perceptible even in his masterpieces? In no other author will greater contrasts be found. His faults are many. Apart from the defects in style before mentioned, we are at times shocked by incongruities, improbabilities, and sensational passages, that remind one of the efforts of a dime-novelist. In "La Cousine Bette," for instance, a work of wonderful power, incidents are introduced, at the close of the story, unworthy even of a hackwriter. It seems as if it were impossible to sustain the imagination truly poised at such a white-heat of inspiration. Shakespeare, that "wild, irregular genius," likewise is accused of losing himself in excesses-excesses, in truth, that are but the outflow of an exuberant genius rioting in its own richness, but that, nevertheless, betray the author into the slough of extravagance and bombast. Frequent and glaring inequalities of this kind in Balzac's productions constitute, doubtless, the chief reason, as we have before stated, why he has not been installed in his due and proper place in the Pantheon of belles-lettres celebrities by the fastidious literati of his native land. Among these, Sainte-Beuve is noticeable as being but grudgingly and faintly commendatory.

In drawing a parallel between Shakespeare and Balzac, we do it mainly on their profound knowledge of human nature, and on their intensity, meaning by the latter quality the power that gives edge to thought, and, so to speak, graves communicated ideas. In this latter attribute, however, we maintain that Balzac is the superior. Read, or witness, the most effective of Shakespeare's plays, "Othello," for instance; you will be charmed and delighted with the elegance, the brilliancy, the majesty, of the rhetoric; but the plot fails to seize you, and the fate of the gentle Desdemona causes not a painful heartthrob. Compare "King Lear" with "Le Père Goriot," both masterpieces and tragedies whose plots are founded on filial ingratitude. In them may be fairly gauged the effect produced by the different treatment of their subjects by the respective authors. In the play, as we all know, we have an old king who, deceived in a test instituted by him to

ascertain the degree of his children's affection, divides his kingdom between two unworthy daughters, and discards and disinherits the only true and loving child. The former soon reveal their natural dispositions, and their father, driven away by their unkindness, wanders off and vents his anger and disappointment in maledictions on his unnatural offspring. In the novel, Père Goriot is a retired corn-factor, a widower, who has divided his wealth, the fruit of life-long industry, between two idolized daughters, merely reserving a small annuity for his support. The daughters have been enabled, by means of their munificent dôts, to wed, one a banker and the other a nobleman, and thereby occupy conspicuous positions in the fashionable circles of Parisian life. The father, a worthy man of commonplace mind, and with but one passion-love for his children-retires contentedly to a third-rate boarding-house in the Latin quarter. The only pleasure he craves are short visits occasionally to his daughters in their grand houses, and he is supremely happy if he has but received a smile of recognition from either of them as she rides by in her dashing equipage, while he is taking a stroll in the Champs-Elysées. Presently, the daughters are discovered making surreptitious visits to their father in his humble lodgings. Not impelled thither by affection, however, but to get money, called for by the exigencies of their extravagant and equivocal lives. To satisfy them, the old man gradually surrenders the little he has retained. He stints himself, retires to a garret; he would give his life-blood to gratify them. The daughters, faithless wives and fashionable demireps, are insatiable, and torture him with their selfish rapacity. Briefly, their conduct at length breaks the old man's heart, and he dies in want and penury, unattended, save by two students, his fellow-lodgers, while, at the same hour, his daughters are displaying their plumage at a grand ball.

The mise en scène, as it may be called, of this tragedy is absolutely perfect. The minute description of the phases of the old man's illness, and the professional enthusiasm of the students in the "case," are admirable specimens of technical skill. There is a masterly touch of Nature in the transient revulsion of feeling-the one cry of execration on his daughters, when, for an instant, the bitterness of desertion overcomes the self-delusion he so steadfastly cherishes of their affection for him; while the depiction of filial heartlessness in contrast with all-absorbing parental love is, we will venture to say, as to power and effect, unsurpassed, if equaled, in the whole range of known literature. It is true that Balzac, in order to heighten the contrast, has yielded too much to a tendency to exaggerate, and the love of the father is surcharged. This is a great imperfection. Nevertheless the probabilities of the story and its consistency with human nature are better maintained than in "King Lear." Goriot was an uxorious husband and a foolishly-fond father. His affection for his offspring is of so extreme a type, so passionful, that we can hardly wonder that the fruit thereof is found in the egotism and indifference of the spoilt children, and that the lat

ter, brought up in such unwise, doting indulgence, develop into the cold ingrates that they are. In Lear we are surprised that so philosophic a monarch should not have had some inkling or knowledge of his children's dispositions-sufficient, at least, to prevent his being so grossly misled in the absurd test instituted by him, especially when we consider how cruel Regan and Goneril inherently were, and how candid and loving was Cordelia. Hence we are naturally disposed to look upon the father's misery as but a just retribution for his conduct toward his true child. While, therefore, our sympathies are greatly blunted, if not destroyed, by Lear's foolishness and injustice, and all we mind of him is the splendor of his apostrophes, the unmerited suffering and slow lingering agony of poor old Père Goriot wring our hearts, and furnish a picture of filial ingratitude hideous enough to burn an impress on our memories as ineffaceable as the remembrance of a murder witnessed in childhood. Shakespeare is far more of a poet than dramatist. Adherence to legends trammeled him in the construction of his plays, and their plots fail to seize or satisfy the auditor, lost in admiration of the sweetness, beauty, and grandeur of the language. Balzac, on the contrary, is more of a dramatist than poet, and yet-it would be singular to relate, were it not also the fate of Dickens, Thackeray, and other eminent novelists-he failed signally in his attempts to write for scenic representations. His play "Quinola," brought out at the Odéon, was utterly damned the first night, and Léon Gozlan relates à propos of this, that when Balzac was sought by his friends after the luckless performance, he was found fast asleep and snoring in the stagebox! It is a common error to assume that excellence in any branch of literature presupposes equal talent in a cognate one. Macaulay asserted that, judging from the

Roger de Coverley" papers, Addison could have written, had he so chosen, a novel surpassing any existing in the English language. We see no reason to accept this dictum. The aptitudes of genius are so multiform and subtly complex, that we have no more right to expect that a first-class essayist would make an equally good romance-writer, than that an eminent painter could be as great a statuary. Instances where both are combined in one individual may be cited, it is true, but such instances are extremely rare exceptions.

In "Eugénie Grandet," commonly called the author's masterpiece, although inferior in power to several of his other productions, we find him occupied in delineating the most admirable traits of female character; for again, like our great bard, he possesses an intimate and complete knowledge of woman's nature. And what varied creations does his gallery contain! What perfect types of pure girlhood; of tender, loving mothers; of patient, suffering spouses, life-long martyrs; and, on the other hand, what wicked sirens and depraved demons! One marvels that the same mind could have traced such extremes of vice and virtue, as if omniscience like this could only proceed from a supernatural, perhaps an uncanny, source. It is

no less the subtilty than the suppleness of Balzac's genius that amazes us. At one moment we are charmed by the revelation of an exquisite bit of sensibility in the heart of the old parasite Cousin Pons, or by an effusion of angelic tenderness in the deformed spouse Madame Claes, and then terrified by an exhibition of the abysses to which certain passions draw their slaves. When our au

thor ascends to burn incense before the shrine of some exalted exemplar of piety, rectitude, or self-sacrifice, he does it so holily and with such genuine reverence that we are convinced the devotee is a totally different being from the one who but lately led us to the portals of hell, and stood with Mephistophelean malice derisively exhibiting the antics of the imps of darkness; for, let us avow it, Balzac's inspiration seems to contain at times a breath of Tartarean flame, and to proceed from a wisdom born of the serpent.

As a satirist he is incomparably great. We find nothing of the trifler in him—no elegant persiflage or delicate irony wreathes his pen. He is a robust, ferocious Juvenal, driving, with fearless audacity, his blade into every social sore, or boldly tearing the veils from vice and exposing its hideousness with a freedom that causes loathing. The depiction in "Le Cousin Pons" of the odiousness of cupidity, of the harpy-like rapacity engendered by love of money, is enough to cause a shudder of horror at the very sight of gold, as if it bore contagion, and its possession might infect one with a moral gangrene. No more impressive lesson was ever read.

Balzac founded a new school of novelists. Not only in his own country does he number disciples and imitators by the score, but his influence has spread to other lands. A most noteworthy example of this may be found in the pages of Thackeray. The evidence is perceptible in the works of this eminent author that he was a close student of Balzac. Their intellects were akin, and though Thackeray, as he expressed it, had "no brains above his eyes"-in other words, but little imagination-and was inferior in depth and power to his teacher, yet he surpassed him in that satiric humor which forms the chief charm of the author of "Vanity Fair." Not that Balzac is devoid of the vis comica so lavishly bestowed upon his countrymen, as the gross Rabelaisism of his "Contes Drôlatiques sufficiently attests; but, singular to remark, we miss in him that delicate raillery and playsparkling like salt in fire," characteristic of nearly all the best writers of his nation. His word-painting is unsurpassable; his pages abound with felicitous epigrams and profound aphorisms-gleam, too, with similes of rare poetic beauty-but of wit, pure and simple, there is a comparative absence. Even his jests carry a formidable sting, and the nimble, sarcastic gayety of a Le Sage or a Molière seems unsuited to his aggressive and trenchant nature. Here is he decidedly inferior to Shakespeare. Indeed, that supreme order of wit which consists of apt conceits blended with philosophic humor is the chief glory of Shakespeare's genius. Others have equaled, some say surpassed, him in sublimity and poetic grace.

ful wit,

While on the subject of the influence of

Balzac on contemporary literature, we may mention that it has seemed to us that we discover evidences of it in the finest novel that has appeared since "The Newcomes." We allude to "Middlemarch." We may be mistaken in this conjecture, but at least there is certainly a coincidence of inspiration in the delineation of Rosamond Vincy which recalls word for word the correct and superfine characterization and method of the great French novelist.

We have not presumed in this short paper to present an exhaustive or even an elaborate criticism on the works of Balzac. Our object has been simply to touch upon the salient points of his genius as they strike an ordinary observer. It may be too soon to set that extraordinary novelist on his proper pedestal; but when time shall have softened the asperities of prejudiced criticism, and weighed with calm judgment his claims to fame, he will stand, in spite of his defects, second to none on the head-roll of literary celebrities whom France has produced, and ranking as far above Molière as Shakespeare does above Fielding.

JOHN S. SAUZADE.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

WE

E see with regret that the peculiar weapons of the political newspapers have been borrowed by novelists and dramatists, who, under the pretext of serving public morals, cystallize into art the noisome scandals of the hour, and endeavor to create amusement by exaggerations that darken the shadows and distort the features of our political life. It is very certain that the elevation of politics is not to be secured by making fiction and the drama vehicles of coarse satire upon those who fill public places. It is of course very important and desirable that corruption, inefficiency, and vulgarity among officials should be held up for public scorn, but care must be taken how this is done, lest the purpose in view be defeated. While it is right enough to denounce, with all the force that language is capable of, the misdoings of public men, yet generalizations that assume a universal defection because of the iniquities of a few, are apt to be very hurtful. And it is just generalizations of this character that the novel, the satirical poem, and the drama, are prone to exhibit. These satirical delineations are written more to amuse than to awaken indignant judgment, and really debauch public taste and tone by familiarizing the people with pictures of successful effrontery and vulgar chicanery. There is but one way that literature can serve the cause of morals, and this is by awakening disgust for evil and setting examples for emulation. Pictures of depravity may be actually alluring, even while given in the name of virtue. If we laugh with a vulgar schemer, we half-way indorse his sinful ways; if we are amused by the devices of a rogue, we have almost lost our detestation of his roguery; and if we te h ourselves to believe that trickery and deceit characterize whole classes of men, we shall be prone to look upon these vices as necessary weapons in the warfare of the world.

We believe it can be shown that political corruption in this country has steadily developed in almost an exact ratio with the increase of indiscriminate censure of public men. Originally scandal and loose accusation were principally the weapons of mendacious or hot-headed partisans. It was a sort of legitimate thing in political warfare to defame the character of an opponent to the utmost. The result was, that very soon a sort of natural selection began. Men of high tone and principle refused to be targets for indiscriminate dirt-throwing, and gradually gave place to those less sensitive and less scrupulous, until now in too many instances public office is filled by men who frankly accept the situation by practising all the roguery their accus

If,

accusation and the calumnious innuendo are the evils that we ought to take up first in order, if we hope to get our politics back to a state of purity. Not that we should cease to make uncompromising warfare upon corruption wherever discovered, or for an instant abate the severity of punishment for all offenders; but in order that good men may assume public responsibility, we should punish those who wrongfully accuse as well as those who wrongfully do.

Just so long as political calumny is confined to the partisan press, we can do something toward restricting its influence, but if art and literature are to make common cause with the vulgar partisan, the public mind will soon be wholly demoralized. The partisan scandal is directed toward individuals, while the literary or dramatic characterization is made typical of a class. The picture we sometimes see in the novels and plays of the day, of a vulgar, ignorant, declamatory, and scheming Congressman, enters the public imagination as a sort of photograph of the whole class. People, no doubt, detest the picture a good deal at first, but they laugh at it a good deal more, and in the end cease to be concerned in the disreputable facts which it portrays. It may be asserted in defense that satirical pictures of vice have been common in all ages, but it cannot be shown, we think, that they have ever accomplished any good. If they have brought shame and confusion on a few individuals, they have more than balanced this good by an undermining of the public sense of evil-by substituting an attitude of derision and mirth for the high one of righteous anger. Literature and art are designed for intellectual enjoyment, but what intellectual pleasure can be derived from some of our recent political novels, which only serve to amuse those coarse minds that can laugh at extravagant and overdrawn pictures of depravity?

Ir was perhaps in a wholly beneficent spirit that our Park Commissioners furnished all the small town-parks with an abundance of seats for the weary visitors to these green inclosures. But, like many other charitable devices, the result has wofully defeated the good intentions of those kind-hearted gentlemen. The park-seats, instead of proving a feature of attractiveness, have been the means of rendering these public resorts unmitigated nuisances, so that ladies can no longer promenade or linger in them with any sense of security. The reason of this is that the seats draw to the parks nearly every idle and dirty vagabond of the town. Bleareyed and bloated topers, ragged and vicious tramps, soiled and untouchable wretches of all kinds, gather in these places, and stretch themselves upon the ever-ready seats-some of them sleeping off a debauch, and others closely watching every passer-by, as if with some malicious intent. A slightly better class-that is, a class just above begging and vagabondage-go there to smoke their rank pipes, to eject their filthy tobacco-juice right and left over the promenade, and to help to their full degree to render the places noisome and offensive. Of course there are many better people interspersed among these, but the vagabonds are quite numerous enough to render the parks just what we have asserted them to be-great nuisances to a large class who would otherwise like to enjoy them. Now, the remedy for this evil is to remove the free seats, and substitute therefor chairs at a small charge, after the custom generally adopted in Europe. The idea of perfect democracy in our public places is no doubt very fine in theory; although why it is specially democratic to provide free seats in a park more than free seats in an omnibus is not so clear; but, if free seats means loungingplaces for all the worthless wretches of the city, the parks have lost one essential democratic feature-they have ceased to be places of resort for the whole people, inasmuch as the reputable class are practically excluded