OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENCE.

LONDON, 3d November, 1863.

OUR publishing season has fairly set in, and the promises of the last few weeks are bearing goodly fruit, all the more welcome from the lot of unripe trash which we have had to swallow, perforce, in the shape of works of fiction, during the summer and autumn months, for want of more wholesome literary pabulum. I have now lying before me, like "four-and-twenty fiddlers, all in a row," discoursing most agreeable harmony, Mr. Froude's first two volumes of his "History of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth," in which he uses the Simancas manuscripts as authority, although freely admitting that ambassadors, generally, glean little of secret matters that can be relied on, but making an exception in this matter to the ambassadors of Philip the Second of Spain, because that king was Elizabeth's only foreign ally, and as brother-in-law of the queen, and a Roman Catholic, he still had many private friends at the English Court, even among the privy councillors, who were of that faith. Most valuable, however, are the Hatfield manuscripts, the state papers of Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and of these Mr. Froude has made most careful and diligent use.

Dr. Vaughan has published the third and concluding volume of his "History of the Revolutions in English History," embracing the entire period from the accession of the House of Stuarts to the beginning of the present century. To speak of such a book till one has carefully perused it, would be idle. A glance shows it to have been even more carefully compiled than its predecessors, and yet, every here and there, dipping into the volume and not reading it consecutively, there appears considerable room for controversy, according to the political spectacles of the reader. Mr. James E. Doyle has completed his "Chronicles of England, B. C. 55-A. D. 1485." The work, as it lies on the table, is the most exquisite specimen of cloth binding I have ever seen, the design reflecting the highest credit upon the taste and archæological knowledge of Mr. John Leighton, to whom our binders are much indebted for his endeavors, for several years past, to drive out the butter-stamps from further use, which, till lately, had usurped the place of anything like artistic display in our cheap binding. As to the interior of the book, the paper and the printing are perfection, and the volume is illustrated, from the designs of Mr. Doyle himself, with numerous plates, executed in the style of colored illuminations of the infancy of printing, and printed by Mr. E. Evans in colors by his new process. As a whole, this process is a complete success, and the illustrations are all but equal to the painted miniatures one finds in the vellum copies of the productions of the presses of Verard, Eustace, and Du Pré, of which the Meermann copy of the "Chroniques de Froissart" is so perfect an example.

Mr. Gilchrist's "Life of William Blake, 'Pictor Ignotus,' which, since Mr. Gilchrist's death, has been run through the press by Messrs. Dante and William Rossetti, is another very beautiful book, in two volumes roy. 8vo., with fac-similes of Blake's "Illustrations of the Book of Job," on a reduced scale, and numerous other cuts, as interesting as an Art-biography as it is beautiful, the cloth binding also deserving all praise. Mr. Gladstone has been speaking at the laying of the foundation-stone of the Wedgwood Institute, at Burslem, of the possibility of uniting Beauty with Utility, and it is pleasant to find that, as far as bookbinding is concerned, we are, at length, progressing in that direction. I am led to make this remark because the seventh of my "four-and-twenty fiddlers" is a new

edition of De Foe's "Robinson Crusoe," with one hundred illustrations by J. D. Watson, printed in quarto on toned paper, and bound in cloth, the gilding in compartments, in the style which Herring introduced, and Lewis perfected, a book, in every way, now sure to verify Mr. D'Israeli's dictum, in speaking of De Foe's masterpiece, as "the favorite of the learned and unlearned, of the youth and the adult." Then, there is a duodecimo edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress," looking, in its coating of green, and its gilding in compartments, medallions, and centre, like some Venetian Aldus or Florence Giunta, a Dante or Petrarca, so closely is the style of the binding of that period made to do duty for the cheap literature of ours.

Captain Knight's "Pedestrian Journey in Cashmere and Thibet" is a most interesting book, the author being not only a good traveller, but a really good English traveller, a man who writes in unpremeditated, colloquial language, puts down all he sees and hears, measures the ruins which come in his way, and gives pictures of them in his book; just such a man as Kinglake was when he wrote "Eothen," such a man as Pausanias might have been had he lived in our day.

Charles Bennett's "Book of Blockheads" is intended for juveniles, and that is the reason, I suppose, that he has engrafted the Erasmian notion of the "Praise of Folly" upon the child's colored alphabet of years gone by, instead of inventing something new. I am afraid that half the fun of the thing lies in the title-page: "The Book of Blockheads; How and what they shot, got, etc.; How they did, and what they did not." However, it is nicely got up, and there is no lack of humor in the "Gobbi," which form the illustrations. Mr. Bennett also illustrates "The Story of Mr. Wind` and Madame Rain," translated from the French of Paul de Musset by Emily Makepeace; but insufferably dull after reading Grimm's "Gammer Grethel," of which one of my fiddlers is the translation by Edgar Taylor, with the illustrations by George Cruikshank and Ludwig Grimm; or Grimm's "Household Stories," capitally illustrated by two hundred cuts by E. H. Wehnert, a rising artist in this peculiar line, which is another.

Of works of fiction, there is Miss Kavanagh's "Queen Mab," praised, it would seem, by the reviewers because of the author and the publisher, but which, had it appeared under Mr. Newby's auspices, and without a name, would have found no mercy, for it deserves none, at their hands; "The Heiress and her Lovers," by Georgiana, Lady Chatterton, trash from beginning to end; "Janet's Home," in two volumes, a book which the "Row" would have nothing to do with; and a lot more of a like stamp.

We have a new edition of Coleridge's "Friend," edited by his son Derwent; "Miscellanies," by Wilkie Collins, in 2 vols.; a fifth volume of "Theodore Parker's Works ;" and "Current Gold and Silver Coins of all Countries," by L. C. Martin and Charles Trübner, with metallic fac-similes of the coins. Your obedient servant,

N.

OUR CONTINENTAL CORRESPONDENCE. PARIS, October 16, 1863. WE, writers for the press, are frequently disconcerted by the course of events, which bear us away with them, let our embarrassment be never so great. We address ourselves to a task and make some progress to its achievement, but before we can write finis on the ended labor we are wrested from the undertaking, and forced to some new duty. I began to give you an outline of M. Littré's life, and

had sketched many passages of it, when the meetings of the Academies and several other incidents which brooked no delay, wrenched me from my subject. Is it too late in the day to gather up those broken threads and joining them to the remnant reel on to the end of the skein? The object of the sketch is so extraordinary a man and is destined to occupy so high a place, and exert such great influence on French literature, that I venture to continue the epitome of the story of his life.

I left him taking his seat in the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. Soon after this event, this learned company assigned to him Fauriel's place in the Committee of the Histoire Littéraire de la France. You may find valuable notices from his pen in the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third volumes of this history. His notices are upon medieval physicians, glossographers, novels, poems, and other branches of Troubadours' poetry. Nine years before he was elected as M. Fauriel's successor, that is, in 1836 he made his first appearance in the "Revue des Deux Mondes." In 1855 he was appointed one of the writers of the "Journal des Savants," to which he proved a frequent contributor. He has ever since 1852 contributed a great many literary articles to the "Journal des Débats." He was one of the earliest contributors to the "Revue Germanique," a periodical founded by M. Nefftzer, a German gentleman long and favorably known here as one of the editors of "La Presse," and now as the chief editor of "Le Temps," and by M. Dollfus, a wealthy member of the eminent manufacturing firm of Mulhausen, in Alsace, to introduce to Frenchmen the advance in letters Germany continually makes, wild as her wanderings frequently are. M. Littré contributed to this magazine some poetical translations of Schiller, which he made as long ago as 1823-24. M. Sainte-Beuve, speaking of these metrical versions, says: "Like the scholars of the sixteenth century, M. Littré knows everything, does everything. Poetry is only one of the very lightest forms of his application; it is one of the rare recreations he allows himself; it is the mark of the amateur in his character." All these literary excursions (if, indeed, a word associated with ideas of fugitive, pleasureseeking jaunts may be applied to arduous labor successfully prosecuted) were made without detriment to his standing in the medical profession. Far otherwise! When M. Baillière (no incompetent judge, for he has been above thirty years the leading publisher of medical works on the Continent) determined to bring out a new edition of Nysten's "Dictionnaire de Médecine, de Chirurgie," which has for long been his property, he asked M. Littré to edit it. A strange story is connected with this edition. It was used during the recent election held by the French Academy to militate against M. Littré's election. An anonymous pamphlet was thrust under every door charging M. Littré with palming upon the medical profession his own crude, shallow ideas and immature knowledge for those of Nysten-a name possessing great weight of authority for knowledge and judgment. So the Academy was called upon to reject him for an infidel and a knave! M. Littré a knave! Such are the extremities to which passion flies in her moments of frenzy! The truth of his connection with the Dictionary has been told by M. Sainte-Beuve in a few words. M. Baillière had Nysten's Dictionnaire radically changed, and he wished to drop even Nysten's name, since nothing whatsoever of this medical man remained in the book, except the original idea of such a publication and the form in which it appeared. M. Littré successfully opposed this change of title. "No!" said he, "you must leave the name of the

first editor upon the title-page. We must not obliterate all traces of those men who have gone before us." M. Baillière yielded to M. Littré's earnest delicacy and respect for the grave. M. Littré next edited and annotated Mueller's great work on Physiology and wrote for it a preface. He had previously announced the publication of Mueller's book in Germany by an essay "De la Physiologie," which appeared in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" (April 15, 1846). The essay and the edition (which appeared in 1851) commanded the applause of the medical world here. He brought out in 1853 a second edition of the translation of Strauss' "Life of Jesus," which first appeared in 1839. The second edition was augmented by a labored preface which was written to demonstrate what he called the law of religions, and in which he only showed how foolish wise men become when they would explore regions which man cannot so much as enter. The Scriptures are filled with consolatory and profound reflections, but it may, perhaps, be said that the canon does not contain a more consoling or a deeper reflection than the familiar text: "Except ye make yourselves as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." All of His children are equal in our Father's eye; the ploughboy is in no wise inferior to Newton when both would contemplate the way to salvation. It is a striking commentary upon man's dull comprehension of spiritual things to see that, while every person knows that the mightiest monarch shrinks with the beggar into a common equality of corruption and impotence as soon as they enter the chambers of Death, so many educated persons should be found ready to believe that the monarch of the intellectual world is able to make the doctrine of Final Causes his own subject. I shall believe it when I see Cæsar sweep into the realms of Death with the majesty and port which awed Roman slaves, and command with his sceptre and purple acts of homage from the grisly king who there holds his dusky court.

Gro

In the interval between these two editions Auguste Comte had poisoned M. Littré's mind. I use the term poisoned advisedly, for I remember that M. Littré has described himself, at the appearance of the first edition of his translation of Strauss' shallow work, as a sceptic, and as having in the time which passed away before the appearance of the second edition advanced to "a stable doctrine;" and I hold the ancient's opinion. You remember that Plutarch says: "It is better to believe in no god at all than to believe in a god marred with every low vice. It is better to disbelieve altogether in Jupiter than to believe in a drunken, licentious, thieving Jupiter." You may immediately proceed to write what you please on virgin vellum; the labor is greatly increased when, before writing a line, you are first obliged to efface the grotesque figures with which the vellum is covered. tesque indeed were the figures which Auguste Comte traced on M. Littré's mind. They were the pigments of "La Philosophie Positive." Never syren fascinated more completely an unwary_traveller than this dreamer fascinated M. Littré. The latter called the former master, literally sat at his feet, received for mysteries above the reach of ordinary mortals the drivelling of the master, and when he stumbled into good sense the scholar exaggerated the meaning and, like the monomaniacal commentators of Shakspeare, spun endless conclusions from it. This association with Auguste Comte has been extremely prejudicial to M. Littré; for the former has not the advantage of distance of time and that historical elevation which lapse of years almost always confers, and which give venerable airs to a great many madmen and fools whose lucubrations

from Horace, the invariable point of departure, the alpha and the omega of men of taste; the writer begins and ends with Horace, and in the interval the writer, an intelligent and polished gentleman, who expresses himself in an easy but rather drawling prose, makes an instructive review and journey; he does not once go beyond a delicate empiricism. One finds it hard to believe that both persons speak of the same subject, and write on the same theme. For, of a truth, the things and the work were looked on and conceived in a different spirit. Oh! if I did not restrain what a pretty comparison I could draw between M. Patin, the writer of the preface of the Academy's Dictionary, and M. Littré; an opposition of their two minds, of their qualities, of their attemper! Can't you see from where you stand the parallel and the antithesis? M. Patin, a man of taste, with all his delicacy, but with all his effeminacy too, and with all the weakness and negligence which attend or suit with that word. M. Littré, a man of science, of method, of comparison, of argument, of vigor, and even of rigor. The former of a gentle, easy-going temperament, early kneaded with the pulp of antiquity; then nourished with the bread of strong men of every sort, with the generous juices of doctrines, all spring and all nerve. I and some of my friends indulged in a pleasant dream. Instead of opposing one to the other, instead of instituting between authors or works a parallel and a contrast which is henceforward inevitable, and of which the public will be anything but an indulgent judge, I desired to unite, to melt together, to combine the advantages without the defects. The Dictionaries being really different, and the great historical Dictionary of the French Academy scarcely begun, I and several others said that the Academy and M. Littré might very well, and without embarrassing each other in the least, become profitable to each other. That which predominates in the Academy, and which is styled by the fleeting name taste, that which is sometimes produced and flashes in hap-hazard and amiably free-and-easy conversations might be not altogether useless to the severe but rather absolute mind of M. Littré. And especially the intellect of a new member, rigorous, exact, and more learned (without flattery), more sure of his knowledge in these matters than we of the Academy generally are, might have been to us of use and daily assistance. Alas! it was written that this should be only a dream, and that no author-I mean author of authorityof a Dictionary should ever belong to the French Academy. The Academy in ancient times expelled Furetière for having ventured to undertake such rivalry; it refused to admit the learned Ménage, who likewise was guilty of the same crime. It has refused M. Littré. This enables the profane malicious to say that men are not insensible, even in companies composed of excellently well-bred folks, to something like professional jealousy. I and some others were desirous of averting this disagreeable rumor. But what could we do? The question of atheism came up very opportunely (Deus ex machina) to disarrange and embarrass-or relieveevery conscience. M. Littré's Dictionary advances rapidly; number follows number. We may even now say the work is completed; at all events the manuscript as far as the letter P is ready for the printer, and the whole will be finished by the end of 1865. In four, or, at most, in five years the public will possess the whole work."

As you may readily imagine, M. Littré accomplishes an enormous quantity of labor every dayor rather every four-and-twenty hours, for his heaviest tasks are performed at night. His day is filled with examination of authorities at the great libra

ries, in winter with his duties as a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, of the Academy of Medicine, and of the several other Academies to which he belongs; in summer with gratuitous medical advice among his poor neighbors, although, profound as is his medical knowledge, he never prescribes in a grave case unless he has a physician, the graduate of some authorized faculty, with him. He modestly dines at half-past six o'clock, and as soon as the meal is ended he begins to work. He labors until late at night; since he has been preparing the manuscript of his Dictionary for the press, that is, for the last five years, he has never gone to bed before three o'clock in the morning. He rises about nine o'clock A. M. He labors with his wife and daughter by his side until they retire, and their conversation, carried on in a low tone, does not disturb him. He has for many years lived in very humble and contracted lodgings in the Rue de l'Ouest, No. 48. M. Michelet lives a few doors below him. M. Renan lives hard by, M. Jouffroy, the sculptor, lives at no great distance, and immediately around the first corner lives M. Sainte-Beuve. The beautiful garden of the Luxembourg lies in front of his windows. As soon as the lilac begins to bloom he and his family quit Paris for the country. His rural retreat is even more modest than his town residence; it is an humble cottage at Mesnil-le-Roi (not far from Maisons Laffitte), and about twelve miles from Paris on the Rouen railway. He lives there just as he lives in town; but every year he takes a holiday of one month, when he lets "Euclid rest and Archimedes pause," and he hies to the sea-shore with his family. This vacation is always an absolute rest from books; but for this annual breathing time he must long ago have succumbed to his life of labor; as it is, his constitution has been greatly impaired. He confesses he has no talents except, perhaps, for languages, and he pretends to be a slow worker, but M. Sainte-Beuve declares that "despite all he says his facility is great. His best articles are those he has thrown off in one piece. I am told that among the numerous articles by which he contributed to the 'Dictionnaire de Médecine,' in 30 vols., the article "Coeur" was dictated by him to a secretary in a night's sitting." Such is in faint outline a very extraordinary man, who has already accomplished a great deal, notwithstanding all the shackles poverty gyved him with, notwithstanding the loss in mere mechanical labor in a daily newspaper office of those golden hours of early manhood, when the brain seethes with ideas, and the heart feels capable of any labor let it be never so Herculean. If his life be spared he will, after terminating his Dictionary, give us some still noble works. Keep your eye on him. Read whatever comes from his pen.

An interesting discovery has been made in London by M. Edouard Fournier. It is nothing less than seven volumes of manuscripts in Beaumarchais' handwriting, containing a manuscript of "Le Barbier de Seville," a manuscript of "La Mère Coupable," with a great many variantes in Beaumarchais' own writing, a manuscript of "Le Faux Ami," which Beaumarchais subsequently brought out as "Les Deux Amis;" nine or ten pieces never heard of before, consisting of comedies (one in three acts), operas, comiques, etc.; and there was besides a volume of songs, a volume of literary correspondence, a volume of diplomatic correspondence, and a volume relating to the mysterious affair between Beaumarchais and the Chevalier d'Eon. The French Comedy, which possesses in its archives a very extensive collection of Beaumarchais' manuscripts, at once purchased these seven volumes, and they are now here.