his capital. You would feel that such a wo man may call such a man her lion, and you would not think it droll."

I

Very well; since you stick to your lion, am here to speak what is set down for me. There is mon lion in the manuscript, so here goes, M. Firmin

Vous êtes mon lion! Superbe et généreux."

At the actual representation she broke faith, and substituted Monseigneur for mon lion, which (at all events from the author's point of view) was substituting prose for poetry. Nothing can be more injudicious or vain than the attempt to tone down a writer of originality or force; for the electric chain of imagination or thought may be broken by the change or omission of a word. The romantic school which delighted in hazardous effects,-in effects often resting on the thin line which separates the sublime from the ridiculous, could least of all endure this description of criticism. Dumas suffered like his friend; and their concerted secession to the Porte St. Martin was a prudent as well as inevitable step.

At this theatre Dumas was like the air, a chartered libertine; and here he brought out a succession of pieces, which, thanks to his prodigality of resource and unrivalled knowledge of stage effect, secured and permanently retained an applauding public, although many of them seemed written to try to what extent the recognised rules of art might be set aside. To take 'La Tour de Nesle,' for example, we agree with Lord Dalling, that judging by the ordinary rules of criticism, it is a melodramatic monstrosity; but if you think that to seize, to excite, to suspend, to transport the feelings of an audience, to keep them with an eye eager, an attention unflagged, from the first scene to the last-if you think that to do this is to be a dramatist, that to have done this is to have written a drama-bow down to M. Dumas or M. Gaillard, to the author of Tour de Nesle' whoever he be, that man is a dramatist, the piece he has written is a drama,—

'Go and see it! There is great art, great nature, great improbability, all massed and mingled all together in the rapid rush of terrible things, which pour upon you, press upon you, keep you fixed to your seat, breathless, motionless. And then a pause comes-the piece is over-you shake your head, you stretch your limbs, you still feel shocked, bewildered, and walk home as if awakened from a terrible nightmare. Such is the effect of the "Tour de Nesle."

Such was the effect when Mademoiselle Georges played Marguerite, and Frederic Le Maître, Buridan; and (independently of the acting) the rapid succession of surprises

makes it a masterpiece in its way. No one can doubt that these are the creation of Du

mas, along with everything else that consti

tutes the distinctive merits or demerits of

the piece. We should also say, Go and see Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle; you will follow the action with wrapt and constantly growing interest; and you will listen to sparkling dialogue, exquisitely adapted to the charac

ters.

It was as a dramatist that Dumas became famous, although his world-wide renown is owing to his romances, which he composed at headlong speed, contemporaneously with his dramas, without much adding to his reputation until 1844-45, when he published 'Les Trois Mousquetaires,' Vingt ans Après,' and Monte Christo,' the most popular of his works. There is hardly an inhabited district, in either hemisphere, in which Dumas, pointing to a volume of one of them, might not exclaim like Johnson pointing to a copy of the duodecimo edition of his Dictionary in a country-house :

'Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ?' They have remained the most popular, and remained moreover exclusively associated with his name, although the authorship has been confidently assigned by critics of repute to others, and the most persistent ridicule has been levelled at their conception, their composition, their materials, and their plan. Amongst the most mischievous assailants was Thackeray, in a letter addressed to M. le Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie, printed in the 'Revue Britannique' for January, 1847. We give a specimen :

'As for me, I am a decided partisan of the France. I like your romances in one-and-twennew system of which you are the inventor in ty volumes, whilst regretting all the time that there are so many blank pages between your chapters, and so small an amount of printed matter in your pages. I, moreover, like your continuations. I have not skipped a word of "Monte Christo," and it made me quite happy when, after having read eight volumes of the "Trois Mousquetaires," I saw M. Rolandi, the excellent circulating-library man, who supplies me with books, bring me ten more under the title of "Vingt Ans Après." May you make Athos, Porthos, and Aramis live a hundred years, to treat us to twelve volumes more of their adventures! May the physician (Médecin) whose "Mémoires you have taken in hand, beginning them at the commencement of the reign of Louis XV., make the fortune of the Apothecaries of the Revolution of July by his prescriptions!'

Innumerable readers would reciprocate in earnest the wishes thus ironically expressed, and Thackeray might have remembered

that length is more a merit than an ob.jection so long as interest is kept up. It is strange, too, that he should have hailed Dumas as the inventor of the voluminous novel, particularly after calling attention to the blank pages between his chapters and the small amount of printed matter in his pages. There is an English translation of Les Trois Mousquetaires,' in one royal octavo volume, and of 'Monte Christo' in three volumes octavo. The seven volumes

of 'Clarissa Harlow' contain more printed matter than the longest of Dumas' romances. Mademoiselle Scudery beats him hollow in length, and might be apostrophised like her

brother

'Bienheureux Scudery, dont la fertile plume, Peut tous les mois sans peine enfanter un volume.'

So does Restif de la Bretonne, one of the most popular novelists of the eighteenth century, whose 'Les Contemporaines' is in forty-two volumes.

So much for length. In point of plot, they are on a par with 'Don Quixote' and 'Gil Blas:' in point of incident, situation, character, animated narrative, and dialogue, they will rarely lose by comparison with the author of 'Waverley.' Compare, for example, the scene in 'Les Trois Mousquetaires' between Buckingham and Anne of Austria, with the strikingly analogous scene between Leicester and Elizabeth in Kenilworth.'

If Dumas occasionally spun out his romances till they grew wearisome, it was not because he was incapable of compressing them. His 'Chevalier d'Harmenthal,' which we ourselves are inclined to consider one of his best novels, is contained in three volumes. His เ Impressions de Voyage' abound in short novels and stories, which are quite incomparable in their way, like pictures by Meissonnier and Gerome. Take for dramatic effect the story told by the monk of 'La Chartreuse; or, for genuine humour, that of Pierrot, the donkey, who had such a terror of both fire and water that they were obliged to blind him before passing a forge or a bridge. The explanation is, that two young Parisians had hired him for a journey; and having recently suffered from cold, they hit upon an expedient which they carried into execution without delay. They began by putting a layer of wet turf upon his back, then a layer of snow, then another layer of turf, and lastly a bundle of firewood, which they lighted, and thus improvised a moveable fire to warm them on their walk. All went well till the turf was dried and the fire reached poor Pierrot's back, when he set off braying, kicking, and

rolling, till he rolled into an icy stream, where he lay for some hours; so as to be half frozen after being half roasted. Hence the combination of hydrophobia and pyro. phobia which afflicted him.

Where Dumas erred and fell behind was in pushing to excess the failing with which Byron reproached Scott

'Let others spin their meagre brains for hire, Enough for genius if itself in spire.'

He could not resist the temptation of making hay whilst the sun shone-of using his popularity as if, like the purse of Fortunatus, it had been inexhaustible-of overtasking his powers till, like the overtasked elephant, they proved unequal to the call. There was a period, near the end of his life, when Theodore Hook, besides editing a newspaper and a magazine, was (to use his own expression) driving three novels or stories abreast-in other words, contemporaneously composing them. Dumas boasts of having engaged for five at once; and the tradesmanlike manner in which he made his bargains was remarkable. M. Véron (the proprietor of the 'Constitutionnel') came to me and said: "We are ruined if we do not publish, within eight days, an amusing, sparkling, interesting romance." quire a volume: that is 6000 lines, that is 135 pages of my writing. Here is paper; number and mark (paraphez) 135 pages.

"You re

Sued for non-performance of contract, and pleading his own cause, he magniloquently 'The Academiapostrophised the Court. cians are Forty. Let them contract to supply you with eighty volumes in a year: they will make you bankrupt! Alone I have done what never man did before, nor ever will do again.' We need hardly add that the stipulated work was imperfectly and unequally done

'Sunt bona, sunt mediocria, sunt mala plura.'

Du Halde is said to have composed his 'Description Géographique et Historique of China without quitting Paris, and Dumas certainly wrote 'Quinze Jours au Sinai' and De Paris à Astracan,' without once setting foot in Asia. But most of his ' But most of his 'Impressions de Voyage,' in France, Italy, Spain, &c., were the result of actual travel; and his expedition to Algeria in a Government steamer, with a literary mission from the Government, gave rise to an animated debate in the Chamber of Deputies (February 10 1847), in which he was rudely handled till M. de Salvandy (Minister of Publie Instruction) came to the rescue, and, after justifying the mission, added-The same writer had received similar missions, under.

ring, whose foot was ever in the stirrup, whose lance was ever in the rest, who infused new life into the acting drama, indefinitely extended the domain of fiction, and (in his 'Impressions de Voyage') invented a new literature of the road. So judgedas he will be, when French criticism shall raise its drooping head and have time to look about it--he will certainly take rank as one of the three or four most popular, influential, and gifted writers that the France of the nineteenth century has produced.

The ideal aim of one age may become the realized possession of an age following. Nor have we any objection to an enthusiasm which knows itself, and knows the workday world. Without enthusiastic motive-power, no great moral or social enterprise was ever accomplished. But there is an Utopianism which counts its chickens before they are hatched, nay, cackles over chickens it expects to hatch from eggs that are addled. There is an enthusiasm which a writer before us, who yet avows himself an enthusiast, describes with great justice as follows:

"The besetting sin of enthusiasts, and notably of enthusiastic philanthropists, is a proneness to anticipate events, a desire to legislate as if mankind were already what it is barely con

Fund Theory of Modern Political Economy as enunciated by Mr. Mill, M.P., and Mr. Fawcett, M.P. By Francis D. Longe, Barrister-at-Law. London, 1866.

2. On Labour: Its Wrongful Claims and Rightful Dues; Its Actual Present and Possible Future. By William Thomas | Thornton, Author of A Plea for Peasant Proprietors,' &c. Second Edition. London, 1870.

3. Pauperism: Its Causes and Remedies. By Henry Fawcett, M.A., M.P., Fellow of Trinity IIall, and Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge. London, 1871.

4. Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries. A Series of Essays published under the Sanction of the Cobden Club. London, 1870.

5. Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England, and Continental Countries. By T. E. Cliffe Leslie, LL.B., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, Examiner in Political Economy in the University of London, and Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy in the Queen's University in Ireland, and Queen's College, Belfast. London, 1870. 6. Programme of the Land Tenure Reform Association. With an Explanatory Statement by John Stuart Mill. London, 1871. 7. Trades' Unions Abroad, and Hints for Home Legislation, Reprinted from a Report on the Amsterdam Exhibition of Domestic Economy for the Working Classes. By the Hon. T. J. Hovell Thurlow. Second Edition. London, 1871.

upon them institutions to which they can only be fitted by long ages of training, instead of beginning by endeavouring to educate them in

to fitness for the institutions.'*

This is excellent sense, and we could only have wished that all the Utopianisms of the writer, as well as those of all his fellow-enthusiasts' amongst contemporary economists, resembled the preceding extract in sobriety of sentiment and expression.

A former generation of political economists laid themselves more or less open to the charge of assigning to individual activity, exclusively occupied in the pursuit of wealth, the lion's share in the entire economy of nations. Thence in part the reaction which in these days we witness. Thence, in quarters where one would least have been prepared to look for them, the tendencies in a socialistic direction would have been very perceptible in some of the most remarkable economical publications of late years.

The school of political economists at present in the ascendant seem to have an implicit faith in legislative omnipotence, whenever it thinks fit to exert itself, to remodel all industrial and social relations in the supposed interest of the labouring classes. If Mr. Mill, the recognized leader of that school, is to be designated as an economical enthusiast'-or perhaps more properly as the founder and propagator of economic enthusiasm amongst the junior apostles of the philanthropic agrarianism he preaches (Mr. Thornton will scarcely rank as a junior, but rather as a senior prophet of that creed)— he has earned that designation more by the excessive exercise of the dialectical than of the imaginative faculty, and does not so much body forth to himself the forms of things unknown, as suggest to his disciples revolutions, unrealised even in imagination, of all

*On Labour,' p. 121.