embellishment and perfection the treasures of erudition amassed not only in France, but in England, Germany, and Italy. The annotations, emendations, and investigations of all the great scholars of Europe, are here collated with admirable sagacity and discrimination. A similar undertaking for the Latin classics although not nearly so comprehensive and extended in learned researches, was achieved several years ago by the bookseller Pancouke; his Bibliotheque Latine Française is generally esteemed, although many of its translations are undeserving the reputation of the collection.

France can boast a brilliant luminary in classical and archæological learning, in the person of M. Letronne, the greatest antiquarian scholar of our time, who has shed abundant streams of light on the history of Egypt and Greece, and on other dark and remote portions of ancient history. His Paléographie Egyptienne is an invaluable work; indeed, all that emanates from his comprehensive mind, even to the smallest note, is singularly instrumental in elucidating what was previously obscure and inexplicable. All those who are acquainted with his annotations and topographical observations on Herodotus, which are now annexed to the valuable translation of Count Miot de Melito, must share the admiration of the learned world for the illustrious and modest scholar. It may be observed that this new translation of Herodotus has completely thrown that of Larcher into the shade. Count Miot de Melito has consulted all the German commentators and translators, and whenever his version differs from that of the German Jacobi or of the English Beloe, he never omits to give the sense adopted by those authors. French literature is also indebted to Count Miot for the best translation of Diodorus Siculus that has yet been given, which is enriched with excellent critical observations, and with the fragments, translated for the first time, discovered by the celebrated Angelo Maïo, formerly librarian to the Vatican, and now a cardinal. Among the recent remarkable translations, we must not omit to notice that of Hippocrates by Littré of the Institute, a splendid monument to the medical knowledge of the ancients.

M. Boissonade is also one of the most profound Greek scholars of the nineteenth century; his researches on Homer and on Greek literature in general, are inestimable. Although a new translation of Aristotle by Thurot is in existence, M. Barth lemy Saint-Hilaire, Professor of Greek Philosophy in the Collège de France, has undertaken another translation, and, together with M. Ravaisson and M. Vacherot, has written divers memoirs on

FRENCH EDITIONS OF THE CLASSICS.

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the philosopher of Stagyra, which have been crowned by the Royal Institute.

Our age has also witnessed the best translation of Homer in the French language: it is by Dugat-Montbel; the text followed is judiciously adopted from the versions of Wolf and Boissonade; the translation is in prose, and is embellished by sundry valuable annotations, illustrative of ancient and modern criticism, in which Knight's profound investigations are especially discussed and analyzed. The Marquis de Fortia has also produced an excellent critical-biographical dissertation on Homer and Xenophon. The noble marquis, who is one of the most venerable worshippers of science in Europe, has recently published a work on China, the result of many years' assiduous labor. We have likewise seen of late years Æschylus ably translated and commented by Biard, Sophocles by M. Artaud, Plato by M. Cousin. The publishers, Didots, are also accomplished scholars, and the authors of an excellent translation of Thucydides and Theocritus. Finally, among the eminent productions of our time on classical subjects, we must not omit the work of M. Ozanaux, Inspector-General of the University, on the Institutions Religieuses, Sociales, et Politiques, de la République Romaine; the work entitled Economie Politique des Romains, by M. Dureau de Lamalle, author of the best French version of Tacitus; and the volume of M. Leclerc, Dean of the Faculty of Letters of Paris, Des Journaux chez les Romains.

We have seen that criticism in France has been, and is, the pursuit of some of the superior intellects that adorn the present age; yet it bears traces of frailty and want of depth. With the exception of a few eminent men, who cannot be easily imitated, criticism is in the hands of a host of writers who are affected by the moral disease of our time, we mean the want of deep faith and feeling. It is not uncommon to hear it affirmed by the present generation, that imagination can easily supply the place of faith. There cannot be a grosser or more vulgar error; it is the source, the paramount cause, of so many abortive productions. True greatness is based on consciousness. It has been observed, that the disorderly excesses of Michael Angelo and Raphael evince a total absence of faith and consciousness, and yet how great they were! But this is a deception; they merely prove the inconsistency of man: we all feel it in the depths of our heart. This inconsistency is less in our intellect than in the duality of our nature; and the lives and works of those two gigantic geniuses are instances of it. Shakspeare, no doubt, at one period

of his life, put implicit faith in love, ambition, and glory; he nevertheless passed from one faith to another in the gradation of his years. Corneille believed in heroism when he wrote his Horaces. In short, faith and consciousness are the great unfathomable sources of inspiration for all that is noble and sublime. All those whose intellect has a proneness to creation, but who are deprived of the aid of this divine grace, can never attain excellence. The want of consciousness is the leprosy of our time; but the malady will be transient. We have more than once spoken of the conquests of Christianity; it will purify the human heart; even criticism will rise exalted, pure, and strong, through it. This is no paradox. We have spoken of the state of criticism in France; and in England also, we find that, in its more popular departments at least, it has fallen of late years into lamentable degradation. But, we contend, the polemical, fault-finding, superficial, and shallow criticism of this analytic age, cannot last; it must and will give place to a deep and true spirit of synthetic exposition, founded on feeling, faith, and consciousness.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

HISTORY.

Importance of Historical Studies.-Schelling's Definition of History.-Nullity of the former Historians of France.-First Historical Works of M. Augustin Thierry-his History of the Conquest of England by the Normans-his Dix Ans d'Etudes Historiques.-M. Amédée Thierry.-M. Guizot.-M. Augustin Thierry's Account of M. Guizot's Historical Labors.-M. Guizot's Essays on the History of France-his Diffusion of Historical Studies.-Collections of Historical Memoirs and Chronicles relating to the History of France.-M. Guizot's Lectures on European Civilization and on Civilization in France-his Life of Shakspeare-his History of the English Revolution in 1649-its Merits.-M. de Sismondi-his History of Italian Republics in the Middle Ages-his Histoire des Français-Merits and Defects of the Work.-Dulaure's History of Paris.---M. Alexis Monteil's Histoire des Français des divers Etats.---Principles of the Fatalist School of Historians. ---M. Mignet.---M. Thiers.---Other Works on the French Revolution by Lacratelle, Tissot, Eugène Labaume, Montgaillard, Viscount Cony, and De Norvins. ---Parliamentary History of the French Revolution by Buchez and Roux.---M. Bignon's History of France under Napoleon.--M. de Chateaubriand's Etudes Historiques.-M. Michelet-his Memoirs of Vico---his History of Rome---his Memoirs of Luther.---Histories of Luther by Merle D'Aubigné and Audin.---Character of M. Michelet's History of France.---Glowing Style and Poetical Spirit of that Historian.--M. Salvador---his Jesus Christ et sa Doctrine.---" Life of Jesus," by Dr. Strauss.--Character of M. Salvador's Work.--Religious Investigation.

THE regeneration of history, accompanied by a general tendency towards historical studies, is one of the most prominent and agreeable features of modern France. History, whose scope is so vast, comprehensive, and philosophical, created, we may say, and fertilized by the learning of the nineteenth century, becomes a study of paramount importance in connection with the progressive ideas and high civilization of the present epoch. An intimate knowledge of past events, especially of the history of human intellect, is the primary condition on which the happiness of humanity and the perfection of future ages must depend. History aspires in our time to be the herald of peace and perfectibility among men, and the grandeur of that mission will be exalted with the course of time. We think Schelling's allegorical definition of history, in his Philosophy and Religion, a peculiarly solemn and profound expression of the science. History," he says, " is an epic conceived in the spirit of God; its two parts are the movement by which humanity leaves its centre to ex

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pand to its utmost development, and the other the movement that effectuates the return. The first part is like the Iliad of history, the second is its Odyssey; the first movement is centrifugal, and the second centripetal."

The French nation, previous to the nineteenth century, was singularly ignorant of its own history: the little that was known of its earlier existence was united with a large amount of error. Historians had mingled epochs and races in the strangest medley of confusion; they had left unexplained, because they were incapable of understanding, the origin and growth of France as a nation-evincing an insane contempt for the invaluable chronicles of the middle ages, whenever they condescended to consult them, and drawing from them a mere frigid, shallow narrative, destitute of all historical charm and interest. History being thus lifeless, thus devoid of truth and animation, it was naturally incapable of exercising any influence or power over the intellectual development of the nation. The celebrated Augustin Thierry ⚫ was one of the first to mark, in his admirable Lettres sur l'Histoire de France, the extraordinary dullness and incapacity of the French writers who had undertaken to unfold the annals of the country. He proves to demonstration the nullity of the historical labors of Mezeray, Daniel, Velly, and Anquetil-their complete ignorance of the facts they have related, mistaking constantly one tribe for another-despising the chronicles, though these were the sole sources from which they could derive information, and ever neglecting to delineate the characteristics of the sovereigns, but, above all, those of the people. These were subjects far above their capacity and understanding. This ignorance of the historians and of the nation respecting its own history, has, we believe, been productive of fatal consequences to the French people; for a sound knowledge of the past is eminently adapted to calm that impetuosity wherewith men of ardent temperaments rush towards a visionary future. What can be better calculated than an accurate conception of history to convince mankind that each epoch has its assigned place in the gradual advancement of society?-that the progress of good is necessarily slow, and that it is madness to suppose a nation and its nature can undergo a fundamental change within a brief interval? The ignorance of national history exposed the people to receive as completely new, various political theories that had often been studied and tried; it, moreover, misled them into a false and ridiculous enthusiasm.

The above consideration explains the perseverance and zeal