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L'Amour Maternel. He gained, besides, several academical prizes. The poetry of Vigée is not held in great estimation; it is affected and unnatural, and the leaven of the satire rather insipid. The following epigram, in form of an epitaph, was addressed by him to the National Institute:

"Ci git qui fit des vers, les fit mal, et ne put,
Quoique étant sans esprit être de l'Institut."

One of the members replied:

"Vigée écrit qu'il est un sot
Pense-t-il qu'on le contredise?
Non, l'épithète est trop précise.
Et tout Paris le prend au mot."

Vigée had not even the credit of being original, for Piron had said before him:

"Ci git Piron qui ne fut rien,

Pas même Académicien!"

Fontanes is a writer of undoubted excellence, both in prose and poetry. His funeral eulogy of Washington is well known in America. His poetical works are, a translation of the Essay on Man; Le jour des Morts, in which he asserts the reverence due to the sepulchre, and Le Verger, with an Epitre sur les Paysages, in which he has shown himself the worthy rival of Delille. He has left also an epic poem, yet unpublished, upon Greece, entitled La Grèce sauvée, which is spoken of in terms of high praise by his fellow members of the Institute.

The celebrated Abbé Maury was too much engaged in active politics, to attend to the business of an author. Being a smooth and plausible courtier, he usually found means of welcome to the reigning party; nor is it supposed that his honesty was any obstacle to his preferment. In former times, he was the champion of the Bourbons; and under the imperial government, the most ardent flatterer of Napoleon, who loaded him with honours. His treatise upon the Eloquence of the Pulpit, the only extensive work he has published, sustains the high opinion that was entertained of his genius and abilities. Bernardin de St. Pierre, without being an imitator of his illustrious favourites, has combined in a great measure, the vivid and animated style of Rousseau, with the elegant simplicity of Fenelon. His Studies of Nature, though they abound in scientific errors, every where delight by pleasing descriptions, and amiable philosophy. His Paul and Virginia, and Indian Cottage, are placed, by general consent, amongst the most justly popular productions of the French language.

In the department of novels, the French mostly give themselves the credit of superiority to other nations; but when we call to remembrance such names as Fielding, Richardson, Smollett, Goldsmith, and Sir Walter Scott, it may be difficult, even VOL. I.-NO. 2.

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taking the inimitable Le Sage into the account, to assent to the validity of such a pretension. Of the novels of Madame Cottin there are three, Malvina, Mathilde, and particularly the Exiles of Siberia, which are generally admired. The talents of Madame de Staël are of a much higher order, and have placed her unquestionably in the van-guard of the female writers of her country. The merits and defects of her Corinna, and also of Delphine, are so well known as to require no commentary. In her Germany she has taught us, better than any other foreign critic, to appreciate German literature. Her Influence of the Passions, and especially the chapters on love and friendship, are nobly written; and her Considerations upon the French Revolution, is, in many respects, a very useful and brilliant work. She has also courted the Muse; and her Epistles in verse, particularly that upon Napoleon, bear an honourable testimony to her poetical talents.

There is much good poetry in the collection of Madame Dufresnoy's elegies, whom the critics place, without hesitation, on an equality with Madame Deshoulières. Lantier has displayed erudition, in an amusing, but rather frivolous dress, in his Voyage d'Anténor, which he designed as a complement to Barthélémy's Anacharsis. He has besides published several comedies, and lately a poem in eight cantos, called the Troubadours, or the Recreations of an Octogenarian Poet. As an example of his style, which is easy, familiar, and agreeable, we will extract a few lines from the prologue of the seventh canto:

"Qu'a-t-on appris à l'age de cent ans?
Rien; le savoir n'est que pure ignorance-
Et qui de nous, à l'heure de la mort,
Peut avouer qu'il fut heureux et sage?
Infortunés! nous arivons au port,
Sans gouvernail et battus par l'orage
Que si Descartes avait pu vivre encore
Deux fois les ans du bon homme Nestor,

Sans doute il eût, prenant un meilleur guide,
Chassé du ciel ses légers tourbillons,
Qui vont courant les hautes régions,
Et mieux instruit eût rétabli le vide.
Que si Buffon eût vécu plus long-temps,
Sans doute il eût réformé ses romans,
N'eut pas borné, dans la mathématique,
De notre globe et la course et les ans ;
N'eût pas surtout, pour créer des enfans,
Imaginé sa matière organique,

Et Poquelin d'un chef d'œuvre nouveau
Eût enrichi notre scène comique

Et moi, chétif, si je vivais encore

Un siècle ou deux, peut-être, en travaillant,
En corrigeant, ajoutant, effaçant,

Je pourrais bien, faire éclore

Mais; brisons-là de ridicules vœux;

Les grands esprits sont-ils les plus heureux ?”

Boissy d'Anglas, the revolutionary orator, published, a year before his death, Les Etudes Littéraires et Poëtiques d'un Vieillard: this collection is made up of two poems, one upon Bougival, his place of residence, and the other upon Charity, with some fugitive poetry and fragments of a history of literature. Ginguené, by a single fable, has given himself rank amongst the French fabulists; and his Literary History of Italy is a work of great merit, which is regarded as classical by the Italians themselves. By his Discourse, Sur les peines infamantes, Lacretelle gained in his youth, in Paris, the academical prize; and has since, by numerous writings, illustrated difficult and important points of French legislation. Aignan has given a new translation of the Iliad and Odyssey in French verse, which is thought superior to that of Rochefort. Among the prose translations of Homer, the French critics allow the first place of merit to Lebrun's, and the second to Bitaubé's, and bestow high praises upon that lately published by Dugas-Montbel. Amongst the tragedies of Aignan, the best is Brunehaut. Chaussard published anonymously Les Fêtes des Courtisanes de la Grèce, a well written work, abounding in curious anecdotes; there is also an ode upon Industry, and some other poetical trifles by the same author. Marchangy, author of La Gaule Poëtique, has obtained a considerable reputation by his Tristan le Voyageur, in which he has described the present generation, its vices, prejudices, and follies, with much wit and vivid satire. It is not necessary that we should say much in this place of Volney. His travels into Syria and Egypt, the French call the most excellent production of the kind in their language; his Revolution of Empires they recommend as a chef-d'œuvre of reasoning and eloquence, and his Ruins they extol with still more emphatic admiration.

General Foy, from the battle of Fleurus to that of Waterloo, where he fell dangerously wounded, had displayed on all occasions great magnanimity and valour; and, recommended by these qualities, was elected, at the re-establishment of the Bourbons, to the Chamber of Representatives, where he defended the rights of his constituents and companions in arms, with uncommon and unexpected eloquence. His discourses have been recently published in two volumes, and are highly creditable to the talents and patriotism of the orator. On the question to reduce the pay of the Legion of Honour, his speech begins thus:

"During a quarter of a century, all our citizens have been soldiers; since the return of peace, our soldiers have resumed their station as citizens; recollections, feelings, hopes, all were common, and still remain common between the army and the mass of the people. Thus, the voice which is raised from this tribune, in consolation of unhappy virtue, is heard even in the remotest hamlet; and when the name of honour is pronounced, there is an echo that bears it to the extremi. ties of the nation."

In the heat of a discussion, one of the anti-revolutionary members, interrupting him in a haughty manner, demanded his meaning of the word aristocracy. He replied: "Aristocracy, in the nineteenth century, is the league of those who would consume without producing, reap without sowing, and occupy the offices of state without competency to fill them. This is my meaning of aristocracy." His antagonist made no reply, and he resumed his discourse amidst the applauses of the audience. In all debates he took part with the people, and by his skill in legislation, and the military frankness which characterized his brilliant eloquence, he became extremely popular. At his death, which happened the last year, more than ten thousand Frenchmen and foreigners followed him to the grave, with their heads bare, though torrents of rain descended upon them during the whole of the obsequies.

Thus far we have spoken of those writers who have died during the present century: we are now to pass in review those who are still living, and the measure of whose fame, we may hope, is yet to be enlarged. François de Neufchateau made verses at a very early age, which procured him some compliments from Voltaire. His Pamela, imitated from Goldoni, is said to be superior to the original. There is, of the same author, a didactic poem, Sur les Tropes, and also a discourse in verse, detailing rules of poetic recitation. Another veteran of the present age, Andrieux, has published a few good comedies; Les Etourdis, Le Trésor, and La Comédienne, with some philosophic tales, that can be praised for easy and natural versification; and we may expect soon from the same author, his Cours de Littérature, which he is now delivering with great celebrity in the College of France. An excellent analytic course of literature, confined to epic and dramatic poetry, was published some years ago by Lemercier, who has since figured with great distinction as a poet. The best poems of this writer are Alexandre, Homère, and the Théogonie Newtonienne, in which he has attempted, after the example of Pope in his Rape of the Lock, but with less success, to introduce a new mythological machinery. His dramatic reputation began with his Moses and Agamemnon, in which there is great vigour of style, but neglect of harmony. Of his subsequent productions, the most meritorious are Louis IX., Charlemagne, and Clovis, The following pathetic verses are from the latter the complaint of Clovis in his old age:—

"Eh! moi-même en ce monde où trainer ma misère ?
Comme en un froid cercueil, vivrai-je sur la terre,
Où mon lit est tout prêt pour le dernier sommeil,
Qui seul promet au juste un consolant réveil ?
Dans ce triste univers ma carrière est remplie ;
Irai-je au loin, montrant ma vieillesse avilie,

Mendier dans les cours les vengeances des rois,

De mes honteux chagrins leur porter tous les poids,
Les lasser des clameurs de ma stérile rage,

Et d'un front sans couronne étaler tout l'outrage?"

The verses upon woman, in Charles VI., inspired by the care and friendship of Odelle, in his misery and melancholy, are finely turned:

"Je me perdais sans toi, guide aimable et fidelle.
O femmes! de vos soins adorables effets!
La vie humaine entière est due à vos bienfaits.
A l'heure du déclin, comme dès la naissance,
Votre sexe est l'appui de notre double enfance;
Et de nos jours sereins prolongeant le flambeau,
Berce encor nos douleurs aux portes du tombeau:
Vos secours, votre sein, et vos bras nous attendent.
Quand nous a fui l'amour, et même l'amitié,
Dieu, pour nous, dans vos cœurs, met encore la pitié.
Anges de charité dans les pieux asyles,

Qu'au lit des rois souffrants vos vertus sont utiles !"

To the pieces already named, we may add Frédégonde, Brunehaut, Jane Shore, and Les Martyrs de Souli, all of which hold a high rank in the French Repertory. His comedy Le Corrupteur, in five acts, and his dramas of Christopher Columbus, and Plautus and Pinto, have considerable merit. The most fantastic piece that we have seen any where, is his Panhypocrisiade, or infernal spectacle of the sixteenth century! Lemercier is always fond of being thought original, and to gratify this vanity has introduced into many of his pieces unnatural conceits, quite unworthy of his talents. He has lately given to the world a translation of the heroic songs of the sailors and mountaineers of modern Greece, which, in many respects, are deserving of attention. They serve to prove that the spirit of Pindar, as well as that of Leonidas, still survives the ravages of the Vandals and Moslems.

The French owe their first collection of the Romaic or modern Greek poetry to M. Fauriel; and M. Stanislas Julien has translated into prose the Διονυσον Σαλωμον Ζακύνθιον ύμνος εις την ελευθερίαν. This dithyrambic is composed of one hundred and fifty-eight stanzas, with alternate rhymes, masculine and feminine. He has also translated the Patriotic Lyre of Greece, a Romaic ode of Kalvos de Zante, which is equal in poetic merit to the wellknown warlike ode translated by Lord Byron.

A. V. Arnault commenced his literary career by Marius à Minturne, which has had eminent success. His other best pieces are, Blanche et Guiscard, Les Vénitiens, and Germanicus, published in 1817; all of which hold a high rank upon the French stage. The soliloquy of Marius, issuing from the forests and swamps of Minturnæ, is eminently beautiful. It is as follows:

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