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Chambers, to be one of the most humiliating facts that ever was recorded. To us and all the rest of the world it is one of the most alarming. Is there then in France a powerful party which can approve, and in the Cham bers a large section which can applaud, such sentiments? The fact is undoubted, and the inference is inevitable. If that party should get into power, Europe can find security in nothing but in her armies. From such men, professions and promises would be but empty sounds, and treaties but waste paper. But we have too much respect for France, to believe that she can ever again desire to have her national honour intrusted to their keeping. We cannot believe that a nation which, whatever may be the errors or the weaknesses of its character, is pre-eminent for its intelligence, its gallantry, and its chivalry, will continue, when the excitement produced by misrepresentation has passed away, to countenance, still less to identify itself with, delinquencies which would have disgraced a Chinese mandarin, or a petty chief in the deserts of Africa. We thank God no British Minister, either in or out

of office, dares to propound such doctrines to the British Parliament; and melancholy and distressing as is this spectacle which the French Chambers have afforded, while such statements were not only listened to, but cheered, we derive from it this consolation, that in whatever else the French nation may excel us, we, at least, can claim this superiority, that no man in England would venture, even in private, to defend a disregard of public faith and principle, even far less profligate than that which has been applauded by nearly one-half of the French Chamber of Deputies. Europe will appreciate the difference, and we verily believe, that we have gained more by the high principle and morality which has characterized the proceedings of the British nation and of its government in these discussions, than even by the brilliant success which has attended our arms in Syria, where the British navy has shown the world that peace has but added to its power, and that whenever war may call it into action, it is ready and able, as heretofore, to assert for England the dominion of the seas.

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCIV.

FEBRUARY, 1841. VOL. XLIX.

Contents.

HISTORY OF FRANCE. BY M. MICHELET,

HINTS TO AUTHORS; SECOND SERIES. No. II. ON THE ORI

PAGE

141

GINAL,

154

MEMOIRS OF STROMBECK. THE KINGDOM OF WESTPHALIA,
SYRIA,

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THE SECRET SOCIETIES OF ASIA. THE ASSASSINS AND THUGS,
THE DISINTERMENT. BY B. SIMMONS,

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Song sung AT THE SYMPOSIUM IN THE SALOON, 8TH JANUARY 1841,

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TEN THOUSAND A-YEAR. PART XV.,

249

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, george street, AND 22, PALL-MALL, LONDON.

To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed.

SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.

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WE have already noticed two of M. Michelet's works, his “Memoirs of Luther," and his " Origines du droit François." On those occasions we endeavoured to describe the character of this author's mind, and by so doing to account for the fact, that with immense erudition, with an imagination powerful enough not merely to sustain and to quicken, but really to wing the weight of his learning, with a style peculiarly rhythmical and varied, so much so as to escape entirely from the cold prim propriety and polished point of French prose almost into all the graceful fluctuations and transitions of blank verse, and with an animation in his descriptions wellnigh lyrical, he has, despite these rare qualities, failed to gain a general popularity, and is only fully appreciated by the few.

Further to explain the cause of his very limited success with the public, we must mention that M. Michelet's intellect is cast completely in the mould of the German school of literature. Of that literature, however, the prominent feature is the prominent vice, which pervades and surmounts all its excellences, and divests them of their proper virtue. Philosophy, poetry, history, metaphysics, are all mixed together-made to interpenetrate one another, by writers of this school. Because there are links of sympathy, so to speak-abstruse relations, between all these things, these authors would, to borrow an image from music, regard them all but as variations of each other, and

VOL. XLIX. NO. CCCIV.

play them all together as one grand piece of orchestral harmony. Hence confusion, a confusion rich in original thoughts and perceptions, is the distinguishing feature of this literature.

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To express the same remark in other words; the intellect, we would say, of other nations, in its graver pursuits, is classifying or separative; that of Germany is collective. man authors, for the last half-century, have been driving together, from all points of the compass, the most diverse, deep, curious, and unsorted matter. The circumscriptions by which every distinct subject has been hitherto surrounded, they would break through; and, having set no new limits to mental excursions and enquiries, all that they think, all that they feel, all that they write, has a width and multiplicity of view about it, that is perfectly bewildering. They may have, and we are persuaded they have, in all their speculations, an inward consciousness of, and passion for truth; but this consciousness, and this passion-if it cannot reach its object, handle it, discriminate it, measure it, even if erroneously, at all events distinctly-constitutes, with reference to religion, fanaticism, and with reference to philosophy, mysticism. Mysticism, then, is the word that describes the German genius.

We are not disinclined to think, nevertheless, that this school of literature, vicious as in its present state it is, may become, in process of time, more valuable than the purer school which it aims at superseding. It may,

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it is not improbable, furnish a platform whence new progress, almost new discoveries, in moral philosophy may be made. The old moulds of thought being broken up, new ones more comprehensive may be formed. When Lord Bacon appeared in the world, the whole domain of mind was in the utmost disorder, though wildly and luxuriantly prolific. Much the same sort of disorder in moral questions, seems at this more enlightened period about to emerge; and as the great man we have just named set confusion in order formerly, so perhaps some new Bacon-one of those stupendous intelligences who, amidst immense new complications, can see and grasp new wholes, and arrange them into parts and divisions-may, when the modern confusion has gained its due height, arise to perform the same work on it. We say this, because we have observed that the mysticism of which we have spoken is not confined to the land to which it owes its recent origin, but has more or less affected the mind of all advanced nations; and because it is evident that the philosophy, not scientific but moral, which has been ascendant since the sixteenth century, is universally felt to be not large enough. Whether with respect to the history, or the politics, or the social life of the actual age, its measure cannot measure any one of them. Whilst, then, we repudiate the German literature in its present vagrant, adventurous, breaking up, intermingling processes, as vague, resultless, and perfectly unsatisfactory, we look forward to its future developments with some de gree of expectation, that out of them new intellectual prospects, as clear and fair as they promise to be extensive, may expand.

These observations arise naturally out of the perusal of M. Michelet's volumes. They possess all the characteristics of the German school which we have briefly described, and more especially one which gives to that literature much of its prospective value. M. Michelet's work widens greatly the domain of history. Instead of confining himself to the limits of former historians, in narrating events, and depicting the salient action of society, he has included within his design literature, religion, law, art, language, manners, and opin

ions. He has besides made an effort to seize what may be called the poetry of social life, and to put upon it a philosophic significance. Those subjects-such as chivalry, under its most romantic aspects, superstitious habits and practices, legendary lore, costume, and all that is pictorial in communities which historiographers have hitherto handed over to poets, he would regard as his prime historic matter. And doubtless these subjects in the history of man should occupy a prominent place; in the history of politics, of the movements of states, however, they have hitherto occupied no place at all. To give, then, to the historic canvass amplitude sufficient to embrace, as it were, the story of human nature as well as of national affairs, is surely a noble tendency of the mind. More than a tendency, the attempt to do this cannot yet be called. Michelet and his German contemporaries have not accomplished their purpose. They hardly, in fact, discern it. The feeling of their purpose is on their works, but not its execution. The material with which they would deal is so subtle, so full of spontaneous ignition, that it is most difficult, if not impossible, to analyse it, to reduce it to principles, or to bring it under any classification. The consequence is, that, in their treatment of it, they appear but to delineate the eccentricities of humanity. Sketchy pictures form all the result of their labours. Pictures of this kind, lavishly interspersed amidst graver and more stately details, abound in M. Michelet's volumes; and under them, these details the old staple substance of history-are sometimes wellnigh hidden. They are, as it were, imbedded, or imbowered, in a thick foliage of fanciful conceptions. Indeed, in the work before us, the grand march and sequence of prominent events are touched upon, rather than dwelt upon; or, to soften this expression, we would say that M. Michelet has written a dissertation upon French history ra ther than a history of France.

His work we pronounce to be, notwithstanding, a highly original, yea more, a most delightful production. The historic muse of our author is not, it is true, arrayed in a robe of sober grain. Her tread is not firm, her gait and demeanour are not equal and collected, she wears a parti-co

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