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making every circumstance converge to one common centre of interest is comparatively disregarded. Even where the tale is short, and the action simple, he cannot abstain from frequent digression. The bent of his genius is meditative and descriptive, but not at all dramatic. With him the novel is not so much an exposition of human character and actions, as a receptacle for the introduction of sentiments and descriptions. It is a convenient framework, wherein he may place some of the most brilliant extracts, from his diary and common-place book. His novels, his travels, and his Génie du Christianisme, may, in truth, almost be considered as portions of one extensive work. Each is enriched in turn by contributions from the other; and, though the form is different, one tone and aim predominate in all. We have said that his genius is not dramatic: this is true, not only as regards his conduct of a plot, but as regards his deficiency in that quality which is still more essential to dramatic effect,-the power of exhibiting character, and placing personages vividly before us. This M. de Chateaubriand does not do. He cannot individualize his personages: they are mere vehicles for abstract sentiments, imaginary mouth-pieces for rendering to the world the opinions and feelings of the author. We never seem to know them; for never can we imagine them alive and actually before us. Their words may be eloquent and well-chosen, but they do not seem to lead us to the knowledge of any mind save that of M. de Chateaubriand. Even the local coloring which he throws around them, serves little to impress upon us any sense of their reality. Chactas, in his native woods, wearing his native dress, seems to us not an Indian, but a Rousseau-like creation, compounded of ideal attributes, an exemplification of the sentimental philosophism of Europe travestied in a savage garb. Compare Chateaubriand's savages with those of Cooper, and we feel at once the difference. The former may describe as correctly their habiliments and their ceremonies; but Cooper's Indians are living men, and we understand them as though we had known them; while Chateaubriand's seem never to have lived but in the flowery pages which narrate their deeds.

The peculiar forte of M. de Chateaubriand is description. It is this which constitutes a large part of the merit of his novels: it is this, too, which renders his Travels, in spite of their inaccuracy, peculiarly agreeable. Modern literature contains few things superior to his description of the Dead Sea, in the Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem. We may also cite the descriptions of the first view of the Holy Land, of Jerusalem, of Alexandria, of Athens, of Sunium, of the desolation of the Piræus, and of the mode of travelling in Greece. It is difficult to extract such passages.

without diminishing their value; but the following picture of Jerusalem may be offered as an example with, perhaps, least injury to its effect :

"When seen from the Mount of Olives, on the other side of the valley of Jehosaphat, Jerusalem presents an inclined plane descending from west to east. An embattled wall, fortified with towers and a Gothic castle, encompasses the city all round; excluding, however, part of Mount Sion, which it formerly enclosed.

"In the western quarter, and in the centre of the city towards Calvary, the houses stand very close; but in the eastern part, along the brook Cedron, you perceive vacant spaces; among the rest, that which surrounds the mosque erected on the ruins of the Temple, and the nearly deserted spot where once stood the castle Antonia, and the second palace of Herod.

"The houses of Jerusalem are heavy square masses, very low, without chimneys or windows; they have flat terraces or domes on the top, and look like prisons or sepulchres. The whole would appear to the eye one uninterrupted level, did not the steeples of the churches, the minarets of the mosques, the summits of a few cypresses, and the clumps of nopals, break the uniformity of the plan. On beholding these stone buildings, encompassed by a stony country, you are ready to inquire if they are not the confused monuments of a cemetery in the midst of a desert.

"Enter the city, but nothing will you there find to make amends for the dullness of its exterior. You lose yourself among narrow unpaved streets, ascending and descending, from the inequality of the ground, and you walk among clouds of dust or loose stones. Canvass stretched from house to house increases the gloom of this labyrinth; bazars, roofed over, and fraught with infection, completely exclude the light from the desolate city. A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view, and even these are frequently shut, from apprehension of the passage of a cadi. No one is passing in the streets, no one entering the gates, except now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labor, lest he should be robbed by a soldier. Aside, in a corner, the Arab butcher is slaughtering some animal, suspended by the legs from a wall in ruins: from his haggard and ferocious look, and his bloody hands, you would rather suppose that he had been cutting the throat of a fellow-creature than killing a lamb. The only noise heard from time to time in this deicide city, is the galloping of the steed of the desert it is the janissary who brings the head of the Bedouin, or goes to plunder the unhappy Fellah."

The following night-scene in the forests of America will afford a good specimen of the author's manner.

"One evening I was wandering in a forest at some distance from the cataract of Niagara. Soon I perceived the daylight fading around

me, and I enjoyed, in all its solitude, the beautiful appearance of night in the deserts of the New World. An hour after sunset the moon rose above some trees in the opposite horizon. A balmy breeze, which this queen of night brought with her from the east, seemed to precede her in the forests like her fresh breath. The solitary planet ascended the heavens by degrees; now it peacefully pursued its azure path, now reposed upon groups of clouds which resembled the summits of high mountains covered with snow. These clouds, furling and unfurling their sails, unrolled themselves into transparent zones of white satin, dispersed in light flakes of foam, or formed in the sky piles of cotton of dazzling whiteness so pleasing to the eye, that it seemed as if their softness and elasticity might be felt.

"The scene upon the earth was not less ravishing. The bluish, soft light of the moon descended. at intervals among the trees, and some rays of light extended even to the depths of the most profound shade. The river which flowed at my feet alternately lost itself in the wood, and reappeared brilliant with constellations which were reflected from its bosom. In a savannah, on the other side of the river, the light of the moon slept motionless upon the turf; some birch trees, agitated by the breeze, and waving to and fro, formed islands of floating shadows upon the immovable sea of light. Near, all would have been silence and repose, but for the falling of leaves, the passing of a sudden wind, or the hooting of the owl; at a distance, the deep roar of the cataract of Niagara was heard at intervals, which, in the calmness of night, sounded from desert to desert, and expired in the midst of solitary forests.'

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"Style" is a subject, on which, in a foreign writer, we are least entitled to pronounce with confidence, and we are bound to defer in some measure to the opinion of his countrymen. From them M. de Chateaubriand has not gained the palm of correctness; and he has in some degree offended the academical prudery of the French purists, by certain words and turns of expression which they are unwilling to recognise as orthodox. But French critics are too prone to sacrifice spirit to correctness, to subject poetry and eloquence to conventional trammels, and to question the authority for an unusual expression, rather than to consider its force. and propriety of application. Their censures must not, therefore, be received implicitly. For our own part, without considering whether any of his expressions be or be not academically correct, we will confess that for us the style of Chateubriand has a peculiar charm. We could almost read nonsense from his pen with more pleasure than sense from the pens of many others. There is a brilliancy, a clearness, and frequently a vigor in his language, which highly merit to be admired and emulated. Though confused in his reasonings, he is never confused in the exposition of his sentiments. Nothing can be more lucidly delivered than his

no-reasons and false inferences; and however much we may dissent, we are seldom doubtful of his meaning. M. de Chateaubriand has distinctly a manner of his own; but still there is not much originality in his style, as will be evident to those who are conversant with the works of Fénélon, Rousseau, Buffon, Florian, and Bernardin de St. Pierre. The resemblance is not sufficiently close to warrant a charge of direct imitation, but at least it may be said that (except perhaps in his political writings) his style has been influenced by theirs. It may be said too of his prose, as of that of Rousseau, Buffon, and St. Pierre, that it is more truly poetical than any French verse, and especially more than the verse of M. de Chateaubriand himself. He, together with sundry other French writers, seems, like Antæus, to lose his strength when lifted up from the solid ground of level prose.

The Monarchie selon la Charte, written while M. de Chateaubriand was in office, and which occasioned his expulsion, and drew upon him the attacks of the police, is perhaps his ablest political work. It contains his idea of a constitutional monarchy, such as he conceived most applicable to the existing state of Franee. The British constitution is evidently that which, more frequently than is admitted, he has taken for his model. The irresponsibility of the sovereign, the responsibility of ministers, the right of the Chambers to take the initiative in proposing legislative measures,the obligation of the ministers to submit to be questioned in the Chambers, the dependence of the ministry on public opinion and a majority in the Chambers, the indivisibility of the ministry with reference to its acts, the necessity that the press should be free, the inexpediency of a ministerial police, such are some of the most prominent principles which he unequivocally lays down.

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M. de Chateaubriand advocates with ability, both in this and other of his writings, the cause of representative government, and the necessity which it involves of consistent freedom in the other institutions of the state.

M. de Chateaubriand has been a zealous and eloquent supporter of the liberty of the press. As an author and a journalist, and one who in that capacity had suffered persecution, his feelings were interested on the liberal side no less powerfully than his judgment. On this subject he writes, not as a theorist, not as one whose imagination is affected by the distant view of some ideal good or ill, but with the intenseness and vigor of one who has taken practical cognizance of that on which he treats.

His writings on the liberty of the press, especially that entitled Opinion sur le projet de loi relatif à la Police de la Presse, are

all able, and are favorable examples of his controversial skill. They contain occasional instances of his characteristic love of generalization, some little hardihood of assertion, and much which we in England should think unnecessary; but the general principles which they involve are sound, and ably expressed, and they abound in clever expositions of the inefficiencies and absurdities of the restrictive laws which it is their object to combat.

M. de Chateaubriand's Etudes Historiques have been fully discussed in a preceding number of this journal, and we shall, therefore, add nothing on the subject of that particular work.*

M. de Chateaubriand's zeal in the cause of the Bourbons often passes the bounds of discretion, and he says many things in their praise, which a wise advocate would have omitted. He seems to

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estimate eulogy by quantity rather than by quality, to think that the more he accumulates the greater will be the effect produced, to forget that, where all is gilt, even gilding loses its attraction, and to be ignorant how commendation undeserved and unacknowledged militates against the efficacy even of those praises which are felt to be just. His "Memoirs concerning the Duke of Berri is a tissue of weak adulation, rendered less fulsome and discreditable to its author only by being offered to the dead. M. de Chateaubriand lays such stress on trifles, as to create an impression that he had little that was favorable to relate. Why else are we treated with anecdotes of the Duc de Berri's condescension in taking refuge from a shower of rain in a porter's lodge when walking with the Duchess? and another time, when no such shelter was at hand, allowing a stranger to escort them with an umbrella, pardoning his ignorance of their rank, and actually thanking him when the discovery took place? It would be great injustice to the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, who mingle constantly with their subjects in the streets, not to believe that under such trying circumstances they have frequently conducted themselves quite as well. Why are we told, as if the earth did not contain such another instance of exalted virtue, that he did not turn away a superannuated coachman without giving him a retiring pension? Why are we told that after hunting he magnanimously admitted the superior punctuality of his whipper-in? Was it praise or bitter irony to speak as follows of a prince who passed some of the most improvable years of his life in England?

"His leisure in England allowed him to devote himself to vari

"Études ou Discours Historiques sur la Chûte de l'Empire Romain, la Naissance et les Progrès du Christianisme, et l'Invasion des Barbares: suivis d'une Analyse raisonnée de l'Histoire de France." The work is reviewed without praise in the 16th number of the Review.

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