edifying. Quite true. But in justice we ought, in excitements of this nature, to look closely and see what the real cause of the public concern is; and if concern in the issue of a scandal be not a very high order of intellectual activity, it is at least immeasurably better that it should be this than merely a morbid love for prurient details. And let us say that the disposition to find in every act of our neighbors the baser motive is not elevating to him who indulges in it, nor is it calculated to exercise an influence for good upon the community.

THOSE Who know Victor Hugo's manner of political disquisition and prophecy will shudder to think what is coming. We are threatened with a perfect inundation of glittering generalities and epigrammatic highfalutin in the shape of political memoirs. Victor Hugo does nothing, at least with the pen, by halves. His literary schemes are as elaborate and full of complex structure as a military engineer's plan of siege. He, therefore, lays out a scheme of discouraging proportions; nor will he be able to relate his part in French politics in less than three good-sized volumes. We already have his prologue, which is the shape of an essay on "Right and the Law," in which the illustrious Academician seems bent on persuading Frenchmen that right is one thing and law another, and that, if they want to do right, they must hold the law in slight esteem and scant obedience. Following close upon this super- transcendental thesis, which has the tone of one conjuring mankind to resolve to be perfect, and so abol14 ish all necessity for law, we shall be confronted with three volumes of memoirs, entitled, respectively, "Before Exile," "During Exile," and "After Exile." Modern French history, then, is to be marked by epochs of Victor Hugo's own career. Instead of saying that such and such a thing occurred in the reign of Louis Philippe, it will be proper to say that it occurred "Before the Exile." And we must believe that "During Exile" the current of French politics ran dark and turgid enough. Why will not men of real -genius be content with the fame which that genius achieves in its own proper sphere?

There is no doubt of Victor Hugo's illustrious rank among men of letters in his generation. The author of "Notre-Dame" and

Les Misérables" and "Hernani" and "The Terrible Year" ought to be content with the mmortality which these bring, without seekng new worlds to conquer. As poet and ropancer he is sometimes extravagant, too ften hyperbolical; but here, at least, he is h an element where he is strong and great. he moment that, with a strange fatuity, he ters the political arena, and imagines him

a statesman, he becomes stilted, visionty, wild, and, we had almost said, nonsensi

It is sad that such a man as Victor Hugo ould be laughed at; but, every time that

he makes an incursion into political by-ways, he exposes himself to ridicule. And he seems to be the one Frenchman whom ridicule neither dismays nor silences. He insists upon it that he is created to be the constitutionbuilder to "the parliament of man, the federation of the world; " being sure that, if only his scheme be adopted, the war-drum would throb no more, and the battle - flags would be furled. Hugo, like Carlyle, is bent on being a school-master of mankind; and the good-natured world, considering the glory of their writings, will, no doubt, "grin and bear it." They have, perhaps, earued the right to be chartered libertines of political pedagoguery.

MR. CHARLES READE finds time, amid his literary labors, to make frequent diversions as a social reformer. He is a vigorous rival of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Every thing be says and does is thoroughly Readesque in energy and pungency. Now, he has been running a tilt against an institution called "The Dogs' Home." It was founded as a charity. Stray dogs, mas

shop and the shambles. Humanity got dismayed at the mountain of dogs, and retreated. Trade saw its chance, and shot into the vacant place. The iron egotists who rob a poor creature of its life to sell its skin shall not pass for soft sentimentalists while I can wag a pen. The crying hyena is a new trader, and I resist him in the name of dog and man.' It is certainly a good work to expose impos. ture, and strip the garment of charity from what seems to have become a mere money. making operation; but we fear that Mr. Reade will have to give over novel-writing altogether-which would be a sore grief to his thousands of readers-if he sets about unearthing all the trading wolves which go about appealing to public sympathy in the innocent garb of wool. However, one such exposure is a worthy deed, and Mr. Reade has proved himself as efficient a champion of the dog as he is skillful in " wagging a pen."

Literary.

welcomed to this canine retreat and hearthstone. Thence they were doled out to such people as wanted a faithful follower and domestic policeman. But, being for the most part ugly creatures, mongrel in breed and without the advantages of a liberal educa. tion, there were few demands upon the supplies of the " Home." Mr. Charles Reade, hearing suspicious things of the "Home," made a private tour of inspection thither; and the result is one of his crisp, sharp, and witty letters to a London paper. He says that the dogs are confined in seldom-cleaned cages, are poorly fed, and kept like canine felons. Nor was this the worst. He found out that after a certain time the undemanded dogs were ruthlessly killed to save their board. "So swift to shed blood," says Mr. Reade,

was 'home, sweet home." They were sacrificed because they could not "sell all in a moment, like a hot roll."

Mr. Reade goes on to tell the world what he knows about dogs, the sum of his information being that the half-bred dog is "often a handsome animal and generally a more intelligent one than the thorough-bred." He finds, however, that "if the dog captured is a retriever, hound, or even plain Pomeranian, his chances of living a week are small; and if he is half as great a mongrel as the Anglo

Saxon race, he is pretty sure to be murdered in a week, that 'home, sweet home' may save his biscuit and sawdust, and sell his skin." Between the policeman, who is given a reward for every stray dog he captures, and the "Home," which sells the dogs or kills them for their hides, the system has become a sheer commercial speculation. "Humanity," says our Society F. T. P. C. A. of one, "started a dogs' home; trade has grafted the

say of Tennyson's "Queen Mary" is, that it is really a drama. Many of the modern so-called dramas are nothing more than poems, or "studies of character," broken up into dialogue and cast in dramatic forms, but impossible of representation on the stage, and, in fact, never intended for it; but Mr. Tennyson's characters really act, his scenes appeal to the eye and not to the imagination, and the drama itself, probably, will be seen in its true proportions only when seen on the stage. We do not mean by this that it takes its interest in any degree from the " surprises," "business," "gags," and carpentry, which are supposed to be indispensable to the acting play; but the dialogue is too vigorous, direct, and personal, for the full flavor to be caught by merely reading it; the action is rapid, and great pains have evidently been bestowed upon the pictorial accessories. Few dramas in the language, indeed, afford finer opportunities for the magnificent scene-painting which forms one of the achievements of the modern stage-Whitehall Palace, Lambeth Palace, the Guildhall, the Tower, London Bridge, Westminster Palace, the Houses of Parliament, all would call for representation-and provision is made for at least three street-pageants of a particularly impressive description.

The action of the drama covers the entire period of the reign of "Bloody Mary," opening with the entry into London which occurred just subsequent to her accession to the throne, and closing with the proclamation of Elizabeth by the Lords of the Council. Of the dramatis persona, there are no fewer than forty-five, besides "Lords and other Attendants, Members of the Privy Council, Members of Parliament, two Gentlemen, Aldermen, Citizens, Peasants, Ushers, Messengers, Guards, Pages, etc.;" but out of the

* Queen Mary. A Drama. By Alfred Tennyson. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co.

crowd the figures of Queen Mary, Elizabeth, Philip of Spain, Gardiner, Archbishop Cranmer, Cardinal Pole, Simon Renard (the Spanish Embassador), and Sir Thomas Wyatt, stand forth conspicuously prominent, while the story takes its essential unity from the life of Mary herself.

The first act is a long one and decidedly business-like, being occupied chiefly with positing the several leading characters, and twining together the threads of the subsequent story; but even thus early we come upon the main-springs of the drama-Mary's infatuation for Philip, the opposition of the English to her marriage with him, and the persecuting tendencies of the Roman Catholic revival. Scene v. of this act, in which Mary communes with herself over the miniature of Philip, shows it to her attendants and questions them regarding it, and avows to Gardiner her unalterable determination to have Philip and none other, is one of the most successful in the play; but it is too long to quote entire, and its parts are too interdependent to be separated.

The whole of the second act is devoted to the "Kentish insurrection," headed by Sir Thomas Wyatt, which came so near costing Mary her throne, and the complete defeat of which enabled her to triumph over all opposition, and to carry out her pet plans of marrying Philip and reëstablishing the Romish worship in England. This act is spirited and dramatic, and contains some of the most skillful writing in the play.

Before the third act opens an interval of a year or more has elapsed, during which Wyatt and Lady Jane Grey have been beheaded, Elizabeth consigned to prison as a 66 suspect," and the queen married to her Philip, who by his haughty bearing and insolent Spanish airs has already awakened bitter hostility against himself both at court and among the people. In this act the story makes rapid progress. Pole, as Papal Legate, absolves England from the guilt of heresy, and takes her back once more into the fold of Holy Church; under the pressure of Gardiner and Bonner-Mary being a willing coadjutor-the baleful enginery of religious persecution is set in motion, and Elizabeth is partially reinstated at court. In the closing scene Philip, disgusted with the English climate, and tired of a wife whom he had never loved, and whom he had accepted only from motives of state policy, is on the point of leaving England. This scene is long; but, as it summarizes in a manner the controlling motif of the play, we venture to quote a considerable portion of it:

Ay, but, my lord, you know what Virgil sings, Woman is various and most mutable.

PHILIP. She play the barlot! never. RENARD. No, sire, no, Not dreamed of by the rabidest gospeler. There was a paper thrown into the palace, "The king hath wearied of his barren bride." She came upon it, read it, and then rent it, With all the rage of one who hates a truth He cannot but allow. Sire, I would have you

What should I say, I cannot pick my words-
Be somewhat less-majestic to your queen.
PHILIP.

Am I to change my manners, Simon Renard,
Because these islanders are brutal beasts?
Or would you have me turn a sonneteer,
And warble those brief-sighted eyes of hers?
RENARD.

Brief-sighted though they be, I have seen them, sire,

When you perchance were trifling royally With some fair dame of court, suddenly fill With such fierce fire-had it been fire indeed It would have burnt both speakers.

Ay, and then?

PHILIP. RENARD. Sire, might it not be policy in some matter Of small importance now and then to cede A point to her demand?

PHILIP.

Well, I am going.

RENARD.

For should her love when you are gone, my liege,

Witness these papers, there will not be wanting

Those that will urge her injury-should her love

And

have known such women more than

one

Veer to the counterpoint, and jealousy
Hath in it an alchemic force to fuse
Almost into one metal love and hate-
And she impress her wrongs upon her Coun-
cil,

And these again upon her Parliament

From off his neck to mine. We meet at Brus sels.

But since mine absence will not be for long.
Your majesty shall go to Dover with me,
And wait my coming back.
MARY.

To Dover? no,
I am too feeble. I will go to Greenwich,
So you will have me with you; and there
watch

All that is gracious in the breath of heaven Draw with your sails from our poor land, and pass

And leave me, Philip, with my prayers fo
you.
PHILIP.
And doubtless I shall profit by your prayers.
MARY.
Methinks that would you tarry one day mor
(The news was sudden), I could mould my
self

To bear your going better; will you do it!
PHILIP.
Madam, a day may sink or save a realm.
MARY.

A day may save a heart from breaking, too.
PHILIP.
Well, Simon Renard, shall we stop a day?
RENARD.
Your grace's business will not suffer, sire,
For one day more, so far as I can tell.
PHILIP.

Then one day more to please her majesty.
MARY.

The sunshine sweeps across my life again. Oh, if I knew you felt this parting, Philip As I do!

MARY.

I am a byword. Heretic and rebel
Point at me and make merry. Philip gone!
And Calais gone! Time that I were gone too?
(Sees the paper dropped by POLE.)
There, there! another paper! said you not
Many of these were loyal? Shall I try
If this be one of such?

LADY CLARENCE.

Let it be, let it be. God pardor me! I have never yet found one. [Aside. MARY (reads). "Your people hate you as your husband hates you.' Clarence, Clarence, what have I done? what sin

Beyond all grace, all pardon? Mother of God,
Thou knowest never woman meant so well,
And fared so ill in this disastrous world.
My people hate me and desire my death.
LADY CLARENCE.

No, madam, no.

MARY.

My husband hates me, and desires my death. LADY CLARENCE.

No, madam; these are libels.

MARY.

I hate myself, and I desire my death.

We have little more to add. What we have already written will suffice, we trust, to give the reader a tolerably accurate idea of the scope and quality of the work. To characterize such a performance might savor of presumption; while it would certainly be fruitless to follow the example of the London Times (referred to last week), and institute a comparison between poets who have so little in common, even when they essay the drama, as Shakespeare and Tennyson. It is enough to say that "Queen Mary" is worthy of its author's fame; that its vigor, dramatic fire, simplicity of diction, and freedom from all effort at merely rhetorical effects, will surprise those whose knowledge of Tennyson is founded chiefly upon his later work, in which the singer has almost been lost in the artist; and that it will undoubtedly take a foremost place among the literary achieve

ments of our time.

PROFESSOR J. E. CAIRNES, of University College, London, is now generally recognized as the leading living exponent of the orthodox school of political economy-the school founded by Adam Smith, and of which the late J. S. Mill was, perhaps, the most distinguished expositor. Whatever he chose to say, therefore, on politico-economical questions, would be entitled to respectful consideration; but, independent of this, his little collection of lectures on "The Character and

Logical Method of Political Economy" (New York: Harper & Brothers) fills a place in the popular literature of the science that has been occupied by no previous book. It is not a systematic treatise on the principles of political economy; much less is it a complete survey of its phenomena and laws; but it stands alone in the precision with which it defines the nature, objects, and limits of economic science, and the method of investigation proper to it as a subject of scientific study. For this reason it is admirably adapted to serve as an introduction to the study of the science, or as the close of a course of reading when the time has come to coördi

nate, systematize, and classify the ideas that have been accumulated in the reader's mind.

Professor Cairnes thinks that the present state of instability and uncertainty even as to fundamental propositions in political economy, which has retarded and almost arrested the growth of the science in recent years, is owing partly to a want of precision in its definitions, but chiefly to an attempt on the part of many professed expounders of the science (the French school especially) to extend its boundaries so as to include in it all the various phenomena presented by society. Besides the controversies which this has caused, and the difficulty involved in thus grouping together phenomena which have no scientific relation to each other, the result has been to divert political economy from its proper field, the laws of the production and distribution of wealth; to a consideration of social interests and relations generally, in the discussion of which its exponents have taken sides and become the apologists or assailants of institutions which it was their business simply

to analyze. As a consequence of these attempts to represent political economy in the guise of a dogmatic code of cut-and-dried rules, a system promulgating decrees, sanctioning one social arrangement, condemning another, requiring from men, not consideration, but obedience, it has awakened the repugnance, and even the violent opposition, not only of those who have all along regarded the science as " dismal," "unchristian," and "inhuman," but of that vast mass of people who have their own reasons for not cherishing that unbounded admiration of existing industrial arrangements which is felt by some popular expositors of so-called economic laws. The main object of Professor Cairnes in these lectures is to bring back the science to

its rightful limits, which, as we have already said, are the laws of the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth, and to show that, within these limits, it is a true science, dealing with phenomena only, and not intruding at all upon the domain of morals, or either indorsing or condemning social arrangements or industrial schemes. The argument in which this proposition is enforced is a beautiful example of lucid, forcible, and convincing reasoning; and though the chain is too closely welded to be easily unlinked, we cannot refrain from quoting a single paragraph, bearing upon the points we have just mentioned:

"For those who clearly apprehend what science, in the modern sense of the term, means, this ought sufficiently to indicate at once its (political economy's) province and what it undertakes to do. Unfortunately, many who perfectly understand what science means when the word is employed with reference to physical Nature, allow themselves to slide into a totally different sense of it, or rather into acquiescence in an absence of all distinct meaning in its use, when they employ it with reference to social existence. In the minds of a large number of people every thing is social science which proposes to deal with social facts, either in the way of remedying a grievance, or in promoting order and progress in society: every thing is political economy which is in any way connected with the production, distribution, or consumption of

wealth. Now I am anxious here to insist upon this fundamental point: whatever takes the form of a plan aiming at definite practical ends-it may be a measure for the diminution of pauperism, for the reform of land-tenure, for the extension of cooperative industry, for the regulation of currency; or it may assume a more ambitious shape, and aim at reorganizing society under spiritual and temporal powers, represented by a high-priest of humanity and three bankers-it matters not what the proposal may be, whether wide or narrow in its scope, severely judicious or wildly imprudent-if its object be to accomplish definite practical ends, then I say it has none of the characteristics of a science, and has no just claim to the name. Consider the case of any recognized physical science-astronomy, dynamics, chemistry, physiology— does any of these aim at definite practical ends? at modifying in a definite manner, it matters not how, the arrangement of things in the physical universe? each case the object is, not to attain tangible results, not to prove any definite thesis, not to advocate any practical plan, but simply to give light, to reveal laws of Nature, to tell us

Clearly not. In

what phenomena are found together, what ef fects follow from what causes. Does it follow from this that the physical sciences are without bearing on the practical concerns of mankind? I think I need not trouble myself to answer that question. Well, then, political economy is a science in the same sense in which astronomy, dynamics, chemistry, and Its subject-matter physiology are sciences. is different; it deals with the phenomena of wealth, while they deal with the phenomen of the physical universe; but its methods, it aims, the character of its conclusions, are th same as theirs. What astronomy does fo the phenomena of the heavenly bodies; whi dynamics does for the phenomena of motion what chemistry does for the phenomena chemical combination; what physiology do life, that political economy does for the ph for the phenomena of the functions of organ nomena of wealth: it expounds the laws cording to which these phenomena coer with or succeed each other; that is to say, expounds the laws of the phenomena wealth."

In one lecture the Malthusian doctrine

population, and in another the theory of r are very carefully analyzed and explain but the entire book is one which we can ommend warmly to all students of polit economical questions. The fact that lectures were delivered some seventeen ye ago does not in any way lessen their v -the problems of that time are the p lems of to-day-and, besides the introdu of entirely new topics, extensive cha have been made throughout in the form treatment.

MRS. FRANCES ELLIOT is already k to readers of the JOURNAL, by her "Ror of Old Court-Life in France," as a for vivid, and graceful writer, with a di taste for the picturesque and persona of history and an equally decided tales brilliant, pictorial, and somewhat go description. Her latest work, "Th ians" (New York: D. Appleton & Co.) its chief interest from the same tast qualities. Though, in form, a story is exceedingly slight, and the ters are types rather than persons;

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object of the book being to picture the Italian society of the period, with its proud' old nobility, whose very names have an historic sound, and whose traditions link the present with the middle ages, but whose fortunes are grievously decayed, and its nouveaux riches whom the new order of things and the increasing importance of wealth have lifted to a social prominence which the hereditary caste bitterly resents but is obliged to tolerate. Mrs. Elliot has lived long in Italy, she writes from abundant knowledge of her subject, and her delineations have a "truthful seeming" quality which one hesitates to call in question; yet we cannot help hoping that the picture is exaggerated, and that the author has been led by her preference for the salient and the striking to select the exceptious and ignore the rule. Every generous mind throughout the world has been in hearty sympathy with the awakening and growth of the new Italy; but what can be hoped of a nation of whose society the following can be truthfully written? For it must be remembered that these "golden youth "" are but the =product, the illustration, the expression of the social life in the midst of which they are bred:

"Beside Count Nobili some jeunesse dorée of his own age (sons of the best houses in Lucca) also lean over the Venetian casements. Like the liveried giants at the entrance, these laugh, ogle, chaff, and criticise the wearers of Leghorn hats, black veils, and white headgear, freely. They smoke, and drink liqueurs and sherbet, and crack sugar-plums out of crystal cups on silver plates, set on embossed trays placed beside them. The profession of these young men is idleness. They excel in it. Let us pause for a moment and ask what they do-this jeunesse dorée, to whom is committed the sacred mission of regenerating an heroic people? They could teach Ovid 'the art of love.' It comes to them in the air they breathe. They do not love their neighbors as themselves, but they love their neighhors' wives. Nothing is holy to them. 'All the world for love, and the world well lost,' is their motto. They can smile in their best friend's face, weep with him, rejoice with him, eat with him, drink with him, and-betray him; they do this every day, and do it well. They can also lie artistically, dressing up imaginary details with great skill, gamble and sing, swear, and talk scandal. They can lead

...

graceful, dissolute, far niente life, loll in carriages, and be whirled round for hours, say the Florence Cascine, the Roman Pincio, and the park at Milan-smoking the while, and raising their hats to the ladies. . . They are ready of tongue and easy of offense. They can fight duels (with swords), generally a harmless exercise. They can dance. They an hold strong opinions on subjects on which they are crassly ignorant, and yield neither o fact nor argument where their medieval sages are concerned. All this the Golden Youth of Italy can do, and do it well.

"Yet from such stuff as this are to come he future ministers, prefects, deputies, finanfers, diplomatists, and senators, who are to egenerate the world's old mistress! Alas, oor Italy!"

Alas, indeed! for this is not the worst of Enrica, the heroine, is the only pure oman in the book; and her innocence is reserved first by a childhood and youth ent in almost conventual seclusion, and af

terward by an absorbing affection for the man who in the end wins her hand. The story of this affection is entirely unexceptionable, but the social background on which it is thrown is a perfect Vanity Fair of folly, hypocrisy, and vice.

Mrs. Elliot, as we have said, has a marked talent for description, and in the present work finds ample opportunity for indulging it. The old city of Lucca, as it nestles in the valley of the Serchio; its massive edifices, half palace and half fortress, relics of the old warlike times when the lords of Lucca struggled with Florence and Pisa for supremacy in Italy; its famous historical achievements; its venerable nobility, contrasting oddly with the modern insignificance of their town; its festivals and civic ceremonials; its fêtes and balls; the country around, with its oliveplantations, chestnut-forests, and cornfields; the peasants, beggars, village gossips, and priests-all are brought before us with a vividness that leaves little to be demanded of the reader's imagination. An actual visit to Lucca could hardly add much to the knowledge which we seem to have gotten of the picturesque old city and the life of its inhabitants.

Without being exciting, "The Italians" is a book which it is not easy to lay aside unfinished, and we can testify from experience as to the facility with which it induces one to sit into the wee small hours.

A WRITER in Cornhill on "Ballad Poetry closes his paper with the following comments in regard to a few recent poets as ballad-writers: 66 Almost every poet, whether English or German, who fiourished at the close of last century or in the early years of this century, shows a profound sympathy with the feeling that gives life to the old ballads. In our country this sympathy directed the poetical course of Scott, dominated the genius of Coleridge and of Wordsworth, influenced in a considerable measure the rhythmical efforts of Southey, and moved with a secret but irresistible force many a smaller poet, who, if there were still, as in days of the troubadours, a minstrel college, would be entitled to a certificate of

merit.

"Of all modern writers, Scott retains, we think, in the largest degree the force and picturesqueness of style which distinguish the old minstrels. His description of Flodden Field, while exhibiting an artistic skill unknown in earlier times, has the spirit and movement, the directness and heartiness, which delight us in the balladists, and, as a writer in the Times has lately remarked, his "Bonnie Dundee" is, of all Jacobite ballads, "one of the most spirited and soul-stirring." In "Young Lochinvar," a modern version of an old story, Scott gives another fine specimen of rapid and vigorous narrative which would have delighted the wandering singers of an earlier age. Lord Macaulay, too, caught with singular felicity the strain of the ballad-singers, and there is not a school-boy in England who has not read, we had almost said who cannot recite, "The Battle of Naseby," or the glorious story of

"How well Horatius kept the bridge

In the brave days of old."

"And in some of the poets who have lately passed away, as well as in others who are happily still able to receive our love and homage,

there are similar signs of affection for the ballad. Mrs. Browning displays them frequently, although it must be acknowledged that the high effort exhibited in her verse is generally opposed to the directness and simplicity demanded from the balladist. Mr. Browning is never more picturesque, more vigorous, more able to stir the pulses, than when he surrenders himself to the emotion of the ballad. Truly says a writer in the Spectator, that Mr. Browning's ballads are among his most spirited poems. "They throb with a keen, sharp pulse of tense energy and excitement, which makes the eye and heart of his readers converge on the one point of sight of his narrative, and never dare to withdraw themselves till that point is reached." These ballads are by no means the finest works produced by the poet, but they are the most popular, and even persons who obstinately refuse to admire Mr. Browning's poetry will do justice to "The Ride from Ghent to Aix," and to the noble story of "The Breton Pirate, Hervé Riel." The poet-laureate, too, has given us some charming examples of what a writer of the highest culture and of exquisite taste can produce in this direction. So have Mr. Rossetti, Mr. Kingsley, the late Sidney Dobell, and other poets, who are all more or less indebted to the ballad-singers of earlier days.

"There is a mighty difference, of course, between the ballad of literary culture and the ballad produced in an untutored period, but the " one touch of Nature" makes the resemblance stronger than the diversity; and no one who reads Lady Anne Lindsay's "Auld Robin Gray," or Mr. Rossetti's "Stratton Water," can doubt that the inspiration which gave birth to the rude minstrelsy of a rude age is as potent as ever. Indeed, it would be possible to make a charming selection of ballads-Mr. Palgrave would call them "ballads in court dress"-dating from the beginning of the century, and among them might be included a number of humorous pieces from the pen of Mr. Thackeray and other well-known writers, which would impart a racy flavor to the volume. The element of humor is rarely perceptible in the old ballad, but in the ballad produced by men of letters it is a frequent characteristic, and many an admirable specimen is to be met with in the recent literature both of England and of America."

M. ARSÈNE HOUSSAYE, who is himself credited with an ambition to secure a place among the Forty Immortals, makes the following reference, in his last letter to the Tribune, to the recent elections at the Academy: "There has just been a duel at the Academy. People said even in the eighteenth century, 'The French Academy is an illustrious company where they receive men of the sword, men of the church, men of the law, men of the world-and even men of letters.' At present the Academy is an illustrious company where they receive nothing but politicians. Therefore, before the duel of which I am speaking the Academy had given the chair of Jules Janin to M. John Lemoinne, and editor of the Journal des Débats, a courteous gentleman, who will recall under the cupola of the Institute the appearance and the wit of PrévostParadol, who was minister of France among you. Rivarol, who was not an academician, said, 'To be one of the Forty you must have done nothing;' but he added, 'You must not carry this too far.' M. John Lemoinne has made no books, but he has fought valiantly against darkness and prejudice. I give him my vote. My son, who is also an editor of the Debats, assures me that he was the only candi