Select Journal of Foreign Periodical Literature

[By omitting some of the least interesting extracts from the "Livre des Cent-et-Un," we have brought within our limits the substance of two very well written articles from "The Foreign Quarterly Review," as creditable to the correct feelings as to the taste of the author. In the earlier article the first three of the volumes of the "Livre des Cent-et-Un," were reviewed; in the latter, the last five.*]

ART. I.-1. Paris, ou le Livre des Cent-et-Un. Tomes I. - VIII. 8vo. Paris. 1831, 1832. [Paris, or the Book of the Hundred-and-One.]

2. Feuilles d'Automne. Par VICTOR HUGO. Svo. 1832. [Autumnal Leaves. By VICTOR HUGO.]

3. Romans et Contes Philosophiques. Par M. de BALZAC. 2nde Édition. [Philosophical Romances and Tales.

M. de BALZAC.]

3. Euvres de CHARLES NODIER. Paris. 1832. 5 Tomes. 8vo. [Works of CHARLES NODIER.]

THE first of the prefixed works is interesting on several accounts; its origin, its subject, and the great array of names which it numbers among its contributors. It is a voluntary association of almost all the literary talent of France, for the benefit of an individual who, by his enterprise and liberality, had rendered essential services to literature, but whose affairs have, it seems, fallen into the sere, since the commercial embarrassments following on the revolution, Ladvocat the Bookseller. A hundred and one authors of all ranks and political opinions, philosophers, academicians, journalists, deputies, poets, artists, have combined in these volumes to do for the Paris of the present day what Mercier, in his "Tableau de Paris," did, or attempted to do, for that

[* A translation of selections from this work has appeared in England, under the title of "Paris, or the Book of the Hundred-and-One." 3 vols. post 8vo. It has been republished in 2 volumes, 18mo, by Messrs. Lilly, Wait, & Co., Boston.] 1

VOL. II. NO. I.

of 1783; to pass in review before us its humors, follies, and opinions, painted in colors gay or grave, sketchy or elaborate, according to the manner or mood of the artist. Such a subject, even tolerably well executed, can never be destitute of interest. And we advert to it with the more pleasure, because it affords us an opportunity of briefly noticing some of those names which have lately been rising into literary celebrity in France, in the field of poetry or novel-writing.

Whatever benefits the revolution may have conferred, or may yet have in store, in other matters, its influence on literary taste has not been favorable. The productions of the day seem rather to have become more ephemeral, their aim less dignified, their manner more theatrical and exaggerated than before. Nothing wears an aspect of permanency; nothing seems to address itself to posterity, or to have any higher object in view than that of ainusing, exciting, astonishing, if any thing could astonish,the present generation. Every thing seems hurried up with the coarse rapidity of scenes for the theatre; the temples, and fairy grots, and gloomy caves, are only made to be viewed under the glitter of gas, and after attracting for a few weeks, to be washed out and superseded by some newer but not more substantial pageant. Periods of perplexity and change, in fact, are not those in which men labor for eternity; in the suspense, the all-engrossing interests of the present, the future, like the past, is scarcely thought of. "Let us eat and drink," is then the watchword of literature, "for to-morrow we die." For the creation of those enduring works, which appeal, not to the present century, but to all, there must be confidence, tranquillity of mind, sequestration from the anxieties, and struggles, and shifts of party. There must be one clear, decided, overruling bar of public opinion to appeal to, not an endless babble of conflicting judicatories. There must be a morality fixed and immutable, based in religion, felt in its beneficent effects; not a morality of economy and expediency, always vacillating with the last theory. There must be some general recognition of religious principles, binding mankind into one, supplying some stay and leaning-place, in this incessant motion of all things around, and harmonizing all those discords of society which are at present obtruded in such jarring tones upon the general ear.

Is this to be found in France as a feature of the national mind? We fear not, and the literature of the day bears traces sufficiently evident of the chaos of opinion which prevails. Its most salient and characteristic feature is its aimlessness, its contradictory nature. It is not a professedly infidel literature, like that of the · 18th century, possessing a certain grandeur even from the unity,

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Select Journal of Foreign Periodical Literature, Tom 2