Ir is some time since we had a gossip about French literature and littérateurs. The fact is, that, since the blessed days of February drove crestfallen monarchy from France, and began the pleasant state of things under which that country has since so notably flourished, literature has been at a complete stand-still in the land beyond the Channel. We refer especially to the light and amusing class of books it has been our habit occasionally to notice and extract from. With these the revolution has played the very mischief. Feuilletons have made way for bulletins of barricade contests, for reports of state trials, for the new dictator's edicts and proclamations. The rush at the Cabinets de Lecture has been for lists of genuine killed and wounded, not for imaginary massacres, by M. Dumas' heroes, of hosts of refractory plebeians, or for the full and particular account of the gallant defence of Bussy d'Amboise, against a quarter of a hundred hired assassins-all picked men-at-arms, and all setting on him at once, but of whom, nevertheless, he slays twenty-four, and only by the twenty-fifth is slain. And, by the bye, what pity it is that a few of our friend Alexander's redoubted swordsmen could not have been summoned from their laurel-shaded repose in Père la Chaise, to avert the recent catastrophe of the house of Orleans. Just a brace and a half of his king-making mousquetaires would have done the trick in a trice. Rumour certainly says that, in February last, a tall darkcomplexioned gentleman, with a brannew African Kepi on his martial brow, a foil, freshly unbuttoned, in his strong right hand, and a yell of liberty upon his massive lips, was seen to head a furious assault upon the Tuileries, at a time when that palace was undefended. Ill-natured tongues have asserted that this adventurous forlorn-hope leader was no other than the author of Monte Christo; but of this we credit not a syllable. It is notorious that M. Dumas is under the deepest obligations to the ex-king of the French, to whose kind and efficacious patronage (when Duke of Or

leans) his first very sudden, very brilliant, and not altogether deserved success as a dramatist was mainly due. Equally well known is it that the popular writer was the favoured and intimate associate of two of Louis Philippe's sons-the Dukes of Orleans and Montpensier. Take, in conjunction with these facts, M. Dumas' established reputation for steady consistency, gravity, and gratitude, and of course it is impossible to believe that he ever acted so basely to his benefactors. But, even admitting republican predilections on his part, his love of liberty would assuredly prevent his constraining those well-known stanch supporters of the right divine, Messrs Athos, Artagnan, and Company, who, if set down in Paris in 1848, would have played the very deuce with the young republic. The giant Porthos would have stridden along the boulevards, kicking over the barricades as easily as he raised, singlehanded, the stone which six of the degenerate inhabitants of Bellisle were unable to lift, (Vide "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne;") whilst the astute Gascon Artagnan would have packed General Cavaignac in a magnified bonbon-box, with air-holes in the lid, and Copahine-Mège or Chocolat-Cuillier on the label; and would have conveyed him on board a fishing smack, there detaining him till he pledged his honour that the king should have his own again. And, upon the whole, and whatever budding honours and civic crowns M. Dumas may anticipate under the genial reign of republicanism, it would have been more to his present interest to have stuck to monarchy, and led his legions to its rescue. Under the new regime his occupation is gone; his literary merchaudise vainly seeks a market. Paris, engrossed by domestic broils and political discussions, by its anarchy, its misery, and its hunger-nolonger cares for the fabulous exploits of Gascon paladins, and of privates in the Guards, who make thrones to totter, and armies to fly, by the prowess of their single arm. But M. Dumas is not disheartened. When the drama languishes, and the feuilleton

grows unproductive, he falls back upon the Premier-Paris. When readers are scarce for twelve-volume romances, and plays in ten acts and thirty tableaux cease to draw, he starts upon a fresh tack-proposes enlightening the public on politics, regenerating France through the leaders of a newspaper. We were greatly amused by his advertisement of the journal, intended to act as lantern to this shining light of the new political day. "Ourtaskis easy"—these were its concluding words" Dieu dicte, nous écrivons!" Setting aside the slight profanity of this startling assertion, one cannot but admire the characteristic modesty of the self-conferred secretaryship. We are assured, however, that M. Dumas has been found far less able and attractive at the head of the column, than he was in his old place at the foot of the page.

The disjointed times being decidedly unfavourable to belles lettres, we were scarcely surprised at the first non-arrival of the monthly parcel, in which our punctual Paris agent is wont to forward us the literary novelties of the preceding thirty days. On a second and a third omission, we grew uneasy, and suspected the Red Republicans of abstracting our packages in transitu; but absolved the democrats on receipt of advice, that if the books did not arrive, it was because they were not sent; and that, if they were not sent, it was because there were none, or as good as none, to send. At last a case has reached us-half the usual size, but containing, nevertheless, the French literature of the entire summer. A poor display indeed! The pens of the novelists have shrivelled in their grasp; their plump goosequills have dwindled into emaciated tooth-picks. Instead of the exuberant eight-volume romance, with promise of continuation, we have single volumes, meagre tales, that seem nipped in the bud, blighted by the breath of revolution. No author, not already involved in one of those tremendous series with which French writers have lately abused the public patience, now cares to exceed a volume or two. M. Sue, having got into the middle of the seven capital sins, is fain to flounder on through the ocean of iniquity; but his pen flags, evidently affected

by the discouraging influence of the times. M. Dumas has brought out the final volume of "Les Quarante Cinq," a romance which we may observe, en passant, is a scandalous specimen of what the French call faire la ligne-doing the line, writing against paper, upon the Vauxhall principle of making the smallest possible substance cover the utmost possible surface. It is pity to see a man of remarkable talent, which M. Dumas really is, thus degrading himself into a mere mercantile speculator, lumbering his books with pages upon pages of useless and meaningless dialogue if dialogue

that is to be called, of which the following stuff is a specimen :

"You are the Chevalier d'Artagnan."

"Then let me pass."
"Useless!

"Why useless?

"Because his Eminence is not at home."

"What! His Eminence not at home! Where is he then?" "Gone." "Gone?" "Yes."

"Where?" &c., &c.

This is taken at random, from the volume last published of the Vicomte de Bragelonne, in which romance the marvellous and Crichtonian musketeers, brought forward again, when hard upon threescore, show less sign of suffering from the march of years than does the narrative of their adventures from its unconscionable protraction. Much more than half the book is made up of such wearisome conferences as that above-cited, where the interlocutors carry on a sort of cut-and-thrust conversation, with an economy of words explicable by the fact that in a French feuilleton, or volume, one word of dialogue makes a line, as well as ten. With the assistance of his secretary, M. Maquet, and of his son, Alexander the Younger, M. Dumas gets through a prodigious amount of this sort of trash, at once productive to his pocket and damaging to his reputation; and then, when he finds publishers beginning to grumble, and the public detecting the device, and rejecting the windy repast, he applies himself in earnest, and produces something

exceedingly good, of which he is quite capable, if once he gets the spur. It is to the necessity of thus occasionally redeeming his reputation, that we are indebted for the few really praiseworthy romances he has written for the Chevalier d'Harmental, for the earlier portion of the Mousquetaires, and for his master-piece, Le Comte de Monte Christo. His enemies and libellers have asserted, that the first-named of these books was written by M. Maquet, and only fathered by Dumas; but the assertion is absurd, and is belied by the book itself, replete with that vivid animation which characterises whatever Alexander writes. Moreover, the man who could write such a novel would have no need to purchase the name of M. Dumas. He would not lack a publisher, and his reputation would soon be made. We believe the fact to be, that Maquet is a sort of industrious drudge, employed by Dumas to rummage chronicles, and to collate and write down historical incidents and facts, for his employer to distort and expand into romances. For, as an historical romance writer, M. Dumas is utterly without a conscience. By him characters and events are twisted and turned as best suits his convenience. "I have twenty years' work before me," he is reported to have said, "to illustrate French history." Heaven knows what sort of an illustrator he is! We would advise no one to take their notions of French historical personages from M. Dumas' novels, or from his history either-for he writes history also, at times, and the only doubt is, which is the greatest fiction, his history or his romance. But for the titles, it were not always easy to distinguish between them. It were unfair, however, whilst quizzing his absurdities, to lose sight of his merits. These are numerous and remarkable. His spirit and vivacity of style are extraordinary; and we can call to mind no living writer superior to him for invention. Monte Christo is his masterpiece. It is indeed a very striking and amusing book. With defects that forbid our calling it a firstrate romance of its class, it is yet far more entertaining than many that claim and obtain the title. The readers of the Journal des Debats well remem

ber the eagerness with which each successive feuilleton was looked for, during its appearance in that paper. We ourselves abominate the feuilleton system, by which one is a year or two reading a book, imbibing it by daily crumbs, like the lady who eat her pillau with a bodkin. We waited till the work was complete, and then read it off the reel,-not at a sitting, certainly, considering the length, but early and late, in bed and at board. And being somewhat fastidious in matter of novels, it is evident Monte Christo must have great attractions thus to carry us at a canter through its interminable series of volumes. Its chief fault is the usual one of its author-exaggeration. We are sure M. Dumas is one of those persons who love to dream with their eyes opento build themselves palaces in fairyland, to arrange gardens after the fashion of that of Eden, to furnish the most preterperfect of apartments with the most fabulous of furniture, to hang diamonds on their trees, and a roc's egg in their drawing-room. His airconstructed castles find a site in the pages of his romances. The right way to read them is to forget as fast as possible the improbabilities and impossibilities. The supernatural being out of vogue, he does not give to Edmund Dantes the lamp of Aladdin, but (which is quite equivalent) a few double handfuls of precious stones, whereof the smallest specimen is caught at by a Jew for a thousand pounds; whilst one of the largest, hollowed out, forms a convenient receptacle for a score of pills, as big as peas, which it is the Count's custom to carry about with him. With the aid of this incalculable wealth, Dantes pursues his grand scheme of revenge upon the persons to whom he is indebted for fourteen years' undeserved imprisonment in the dungeons of the Chateau d'If. Gold being the universal key, all doors fly open before him: nothing is impossible to the man who scatters millions upon the path leading to the goal of his desires. Take the treasure for granted, and still there is much exaggeration to get over; but there are also many truthful touches, many finely-drawn characters. How exquisitely tender are some of the scenes between the

paralytic and his granddaughter; how capital and characteristic the interview between the old Italian gambler and the young French thief, when they are paid by the Count to consider each other as father and son! this romance there is none of the make-weight dialogue so lavishly interpolated in most of the same author's works. In style, too, and description, M. Dumas here rises above his average. His style, always lively and piquant, is usually loose, unpolished, and defaced by conventionalisms the Academy would hardly sanction. In Monte Christo he has evidently taken pains to do well, and the result is the best-written book he has yet produced.

We

But we lose sight of our parcel, as yet but half unpacked. Here is a volume of the Député d'Arcis, (another of the continuation family,) heavy stuff, seemingly, by Balzac; and this brings us to the end of the continuations. With these exceptions, the French writers who have not altogether left off writing, have at least kept within circumscribed limits. Here we have a volume from M. Méry of Marseilles, a clever, careless writer, not much known in England; another by the authoress of Consuelo; two more from M. Alphonse Karr; a couple from that old sinner, Paul de Kock, who is not often so concise, having superadded, of late years, to his other transgressions the crime of long-windedness; a brief Sicilian sketch from M. Paul de Musset. turn aside a heap of political matter, of no great merit or value; a few pamphlets, of some talent, but fugitive interest, by Girardin and others; a ream of portraits and caricatures; a few more novels whose authors' names or whose first pages condemn them; Mourir pour la Patrie, and some other revolutionary staves, bad music and worse words, and the box is empty. We sit down to peruse the little we have selected as worth perusal from the pile of printed paper. La Famille Alain, by Karr, is the first thing that comes to hand. We have read the greater part of it already, in the French periodical in which it first appeared. M. Karr is rather a favourite of ours. There are many good points about his novels, although he is, perhaps, less popular as a novelist than as the

writer of a small monthly satirical pamphlet, Les Guèpes, The Wasps, which has existed for several years, with varying, but, upon the whole, with very great success. M. Karr's wit is of a peculiar order, approaching more nearly to humour than French wit generally does. There is an odd sort of dryness and fantastic naïveté in some of his drolleries, quite distinct from what we are accustomed to in the comic writings of his countrymen. With this the German origin to be inferred from his name may have some connexion. There is also a Germanic vagueness and dreaminess in some of his books, although their scene is usually on French ground, frequently on the coast of Brittany, a country M. Karr evidently well knows and loves. One of his great recommendations is the general propriety of his writings. Of most of them, the tone and tendency are alike unexceptionable, and some are mere "simple stories," which the most fastidious papas-who deny that any good thing can proceed from a French press, and look upon the yellow paper cover with "Paris" at its foot as the ineradicable mark of the beast, the moral quarantine flag, betokening uncleanness which no amount of lazaretto can purge or purify— might with safe conscience place in the hands of their blooming artless sixteen-year-old daughters. The fact is, that people will read French novels

so long as they are not audaciously indecent, immoral, or irreligious-because the present race of French novelists are far cleverer and more amusing than their English brethren. And although some French novels are offensive and abominable, it is not fair to include all in the black list, or to deny that a great improvement has taken place since the period (the early years of the reign of the first and last King of the French) when the Paris press was clogged with indecency and infidelity. We should be very sorry to put Mrs George Sand's works into the hands of any young woman; we would insult no woman, of any age, by commending to her notice the obscene buffoonery of De Kock; but neither would we condemn the whole flock for a sprinkling of scabby sheep. There are many French writers of a very different stamp from the two just

named; and M. Karr is one of the better sort. The tale now before us is a Norman story, possessing better plot and incident than many of its predecessors; for in these respects, this author-from indolence, we suspect-is often rather deficient. We need hardly tell our readers that the Norman is noted for his cunning, and for his litigious propensities, as the Gascon is for his boasting and vanity, the Lorrainer for his stolidity, &c., &c. In La Famille Alain, the characteristics of the province, and the casualties of the peasant's and fisherman's life, are cleverly illustrated. Tranquille Alain, surnamed Risquetout, from certain bold feats of his earlier years, lives by the seaside on the produce of his nets. His family consists of his wife Pélagie, his sons and daughter, Cæsar, Onesimus, and Berenice, and of his foster-daughter Pulcherie. With respect to these magnificent names, M. Karr thinks it necessary to offer some explanation. "I am not their inventor," he says, "and they are very common in Normandy. There is not a village that has not its Berenices, its Artemesias, its Cleopatras. I know not whence the inhabitants originally took these names. Perhaps they were given by dames of high degree, who took them from Mademoiselle de Scudery's romances, to bestow them on their rustic god-children, and they have since remained traditional in the country." The book opens with the christening of a new fishing-boat, to build which Tranquille Alain has borrowed a hundred crowns of his cousin Eloi, miller and usurer. In France, as elsewhere, and especially in Normandy, millers have a roguish reputation. The loan is to be repaid, part at the beginning and part at the end of the fishing season, with twenty crowns interest. But the season sets in stormy and unfavourable; the fish shun the coast; and at the date appointed for the first payment, the debtor is unprepared with either principal or interest. At last the wind lulls, and the angry waves subside into a long sullen swell. Risquetout and his sons put to sea.

"Towards the close of day, as the boats reappeared on the horizon, Eloi Alain came down from Beuzeval, and waited their arrival upon the beach.

They had taken a few whitings. Onesimus was proud, because almost all the fish had been caught on his line.

"Risquetout, who had started that morning rather prematurely, without waiting till the fine weather had thoroughly set in, had a feeling of fear and embarrassment at sight of the miller. "Have you caught any thing?' said Eloi. Will you

"A few whitings. come and eat some with us?'

"Eloi made no answer; but when the lines and fish had been taken out of the boat, and the boat had been washed and hauled up upon the shore, he followed the three fishers to their home. Pélagie also felt uneasy at sight of Eloi; she asked him, as Tranquille had done, if he would eat a whiting, to which he replied,

"Not to refuse you.'

"Then, as they changed the fish from one basket to another, he took up two, and kept them a long time in his hands, repeating, 'Fine whitings these, very fine whitings!' until Pélagie said:

"You shall take them home with you, cousin.'

"Eloi answered nothing; they sat down to dinner; he found the cider not very good, which did not prevent his drinking a great deal of it.

"Well, Tranquille,' said he, at last, 'it is to-day you are to pay me the hundred and twenty crowns I lent you.'

"Neither the intrepid Risquetout, nor any of his family, dared to observe that the loan was not of one hundred and twenty crowns, but only of one hundred crowns, for which a hundred and twenty were to be paid back.

"True,' said Tranquille Alain, 'true; but the same reason which prevented my paying you the other day, prevents me to-day; to-day only have we been able to put to sea.

"I am sadly inconvenienced for these hundred and twenty crowns I lent you, cousin. I had reckoned on them to employ in an affair-I had taken them from a sum I had in reserve-and here I am, distressed for want of them.'

"I am sorrier for it than you are, cousin, but a little patience and all will go well.'

"Tranquille did not dare say that