EDITOR'S PREFACE. The first publication of the work originated in the conviction of those enlightened friends of a healthy popular literature, William and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, that "this full account of the respectable literature of France, drawn up from an extensive and minute knowledge of the subject, might help to promote a good understanding between France and England." That a similar object may be attained in regard to France and the United States is the wish of the American publishers, whose late reprint of Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature has been so successful as to inspire a hope that the present encyclopedical survey of French Literature will also be acceptable to the community. The labors of the American editor are altogether unpretending. He has ventured to correct such occasional infelicities of expression as might be expected from a foreigner writing in English. In some cases he has left untouched words and phrases which he might not have chosen himself, but which had obviously been selected by the author on the strength of recognized authorities. Obliged to write the Notes under circumstances beyond his control and quite unfavorable to careful literary composition, he has aimed to exhibit as clearly and briefly as possible a number of facts which, he believes, may be considered reliable. It will at once be seen why a large space is devoted to those writers whom the events of February have rendered unusually conspicuous. The volume is furnished with a likeness of one whose triple renown as poet, orator, and historian, while illustrating the intimate union in France between letters and politics, has increased his glory as the hero-statesman of the Third French Revolution. The engraving from which this mezzotint is taken was copied, it has been conjectured, from a portrait of Lamartine by his wife. Although the original was painted some years ago, it gives a better idea of his countenance and air than any of the prints which have lately appeared. The thanks of the editor are due to Mr. Folsom of the Boston Athenæum, Mr. Forbes of the New York Society Library, Dr. Harris of the Library of Harvard University, Mr. J. H. Buckingham of this city, and, in particular, to Rev. Dr. Williams of New York, for extending to him facilities, more fruits of which he would gladly have presented, if his limits had allowed. Library of the Am. Acad, of Arts and Sciences, | W. S. C. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. I HAVE endeavored in the following pages to give a succinct and clear outline of the intellectual progress of France in the nineteenth century. I do not pretend to have written a treatise on the subject. My purpose has merely been to point out several departments of literature and intellectual development which mark the national progress, hoping to induce the reader to turn to our modern literature itself for further information. I have been led to my task by a conviction that the English public is liable to be misled, with regard to French literature, by the injustice of a partial, capricious fame, and by the venality of the public press; and that a candid resumé of the subject was desirable for the sake of both nations. Many years of methodical assiduous reading, and researches in the fields of other literatures, have in some measure prepared me for my undertaking; but I am only disposed to claim credit for the feelings with which I have approached it. Though France has been the subject of afew works of late years, it may be said that none give the ensemble of the national progress, intellectual, moral, and political. They are either exclusively political, giving endless and useless details on the Revolution of 1830; or consist of a few extracts from the most popular novelists and dramatists; or pretending to give an account of Parisian manners and society, merely convey the knowledge that is to be gathered in the streets, the cafés, and boarding-houses. We live in an age of cheap fame. A sort of literary machinery exists, of which the patent paper-mill, the power-press, the newspapers, magazines, and reviews, the reading clubs and circulating libraries, are some of the principal springs and levers, by means of which almost anything in the shape of a book is thrown into a sort of notoriety, miscalled reputation. Those who habitually take unfavorable views, seeing a frequent display of superficial acquirements, are apt to infer a decline of sound learning, and look back with a sigh to what they imagine to have been the more solid erudition of former days. But such notions, with respect to foreign literature especially, are generally the offspring of prejudice and imperfect knowledge. There have been pretenders in science and literature in every age of the world; and we must not suppose, because their works and their names have perished, that they existed in a smaller proportion formerly than now. If those of the present day seem more numerous than formerly, it is only in proportion to the increase in the entire numbers of the reading and writing world, and becau£. the hand of time brushes away the false pretensions of former days, leaving real talent and sound learning the more conspicuous for standing alone. And, again, notwithstanding the unbroken sway of false lore, the line of the truly wise and soundly learned has also been preserved entire. I am firmly convinced that there is at the present day more patient learning, true philosophy, fruitful science, and various knowledge, than at any former times. By the side of the hosts of superficial pretenders, in every department, there is a multitude of devout lovers of truth, whom no labor can exhaust, no obstacle discourage, no height of attainment dazzle ; and who, in every branch of knowledge-sacred and profane, moral, physical, exact, and critical—have carried and are carrying the glorious banner of true science into regions of investigation wholly unexplored in older times. It is this class of men, as far as it exists in France, and as far as it can be distinguished by the judgment of a contemporary, whom I have presumed to group together, and to characterize in the following pages. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. ix This nearly terminated moiety of the nineteenth century has witnessed the commencement of the regeneration of France. An intelligent class of independent citizens and husbandmen has sprung up on the ruins of a decayed landed aristocracy; and the consequence has been an elevation of the intellectual, and, with the political, the social and moral character of the people. To describe this great change may be said to form partly the leading object of my work, which I now lay before the English public, with an earnest hope that it will help to make my country more loved and esteemed. Science and letters, it has been remarked, are of no country; but rather they are of every country. They form a chain of common interest and sympathy between state and state, even when these are so unfortunate as to be engaged in hostile conflict. Let me hope that, by extending the knowledge of French literature in England, I may be strengthening the ties of amity between the two countries, and placing more and more distant the sad day which should see them again as they were in the days of the Republic and Empire. Educational Institution, Twickenham. |