to a party,-Moliere spoke to society,-but SHAKSPEARE speaks to man.". "Be not," (he speaks to young poets,) "Be not of the opposition, nor of the Government. Belong, on the contrary, to society as Moliere, and to humanity as SHAKSPEARE.' ." Do fine frenzy rolling ;" but in one respect she | great enough to have its Charlemagne, surely does not imitate him, for she has not made up could not have been too insignificant to have its her mind what character she is to personify. If SHAKSPEARE. "Voltaire spoke I dared to counsel her at this awful moment, I would tell her not only now, but ever to remain as sweet and as natural as she is naturally ;— but I am not courageous enough to disturb the ponderings of her soul;—and whilst deciding what course I should take, the door between the "salle-a-manger" and the salon opens, and Madame Hugo invites us into the study. I ought to say something about the "curiosities," manifested to the people, providence explained of "wood and carved work," with all sorts of to man ;-this, this is the simple and all the "devilries" upon them in this said "salle-à-foundation of real tragedy, from King Edipus manger;" but the children were much better "But a few than the devils, or even than Shakspeare's men in each generation can even read, with inwitches, who hang over the chimney of that telligence, Homer, Dante, or SHAKSPEARE; but study or boudoir, into which, in a few minutes, I all bend before such Colossuses."...... will usher you. Madame Hugo you appear struck with! So was 1,—and so am I,—and so are all who know her. Handsome, elegant, intelligent, lively, and devoted to her husband's fame and her children's happiness, she cannot fail to attract your attention, and excite your interest. If I were to say more than this, and she heard it, or knew it, I suppose I should stand a good chance of being scolded,—and, therefore, we will merely wish her, for her husband, all the usefulness and honour they both desire; and that her children may follow the footsteps of their parents, and in all respects be like them. The large square salon has some old family, and some old palace furniture about it. Something of "mon pere," who was a "vieux soldat"and of my mother, (I mean Hugo's,) who was a "Vendéenne,”—something of the palace of the Tournelles, and the old pavilion of Henri IV.; and with all these somethings, some modern chairs and tables, belonging not to the times of "Han d'Islande," "Bug Jargal," and "Notre Dame de Paris," but to the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty five, or thereabouts. Having left the "salon," which "gives on the place," as we Frenchmen say, or which "looks over the square," as you say in England, we enter immediately the "sanctum sanctorum” of the poet, the dramatist, and the romancer, and arrive at the study, library, or boudoir. Hugo has a passion for Shakspeare. The moment you enter his "sanctum," this is quite clear to you, even just as clear as when written, recorded as it is from the xxiv page of his "Litterature et Philosophie Mêlèes" to the end, even page lxxv of the self-same introduction. His "Macbeth's witches," over his mantel-piece, is an admirable painting; and his "Notre Dame de Paris," is indebted to that picture for even a portion of the inspiration of the poet. "God can do all things," says Hugo; "all epochs and all climates are good to him. Antiquity can boast of Homer, but the middle age had its Dante. SHAKSPEARE and CATHEDRALS belong to the north; whilst the Bible and the pyramids appertain to the east........... "The age which was not run down SHAKSPEARE, to bring him to a level with Kotzebue.". “God, up to MACBETH.”. ........ During fifty years, only twelve men have written their names on the summit of Mont Blanc. But, oh, how few souls have risen to the summits of Dante and of SHAKSPEARE!!!" I have proved my statement to be correct,— have I not?—that "Hugo has a passion for Shakspeare," and he reverences the land which produced him, and the language in which his thoughts were embodied. VICTOR HUGO is thirty-two years of age. He looks quite as old as he is. He has been a hard student and a laborious writer, and he carries this in his face. To-day he is not looking very well. He suffers a good deal from irritation of the stomach and bowels, brought about by the sympathy which exists between the brain and the more animal portion of our nature. His "Notre Dame de Paris" affected his health considerably, and he has not got over the effects of over-excitement. To-day he has been sitting two hours in a bath. His medical advisers counsel him to enter a warm one, and remain in it till it becomes gradually cool. I dare say this is very able advice, but I confess to you I do not understand it. He is correcting, at the moment we are with him, the proofs of his "Litterature et Philosophie Mêlées," which Renduel is publishing to correspond with the rest of Hugo's works. Victor is admirably delineated in the portrait I sent you. I think "Deveria" has failed in his likeness, though Madame Hugo will perhaps be displeased with me for saying so. I have a great respect for her opinion; but even a greater confidence in my eye-sight. Hugo has an astonishing head. I should be afraid of his predictions if he set up for an astrologer; and many of the honest folks of our country communes, or villages and hamlets in France, would hardly dare to consult him, for they believe he has communications with the "Devil.” The old royalists who thought his "Diableries" most exquisite and wonderful, under the Restoration, now turn round and abuse him, because he has made some "progress" in his political opinions, and is not a believer in divine right, passive obedience, or non-resistance. I am not a craniologist in toto, but such heads as Hugo's, when compared with the productions of his mind, the effusions of his But we have a vast deal before us to examine and develop; his works to examine, and his sys soul, and the flights of his imagination, come lish) high, is round-shouldered, rather inclined The "Study" of Victor Hugo, or his " Sanctum," or "Boudoir," is a delicious retreat! On two large tables are spread all the medals of great men, by DAVID, in bronze,-old pictures, old books, old prints, old furniture, painted blinds, and a quiet studious light. Plenty of paper and "proofs," pens and confusion,-but no dust or dirt, no litter or evidences of inattention to the age in which we live are observable. "MICHEL CHEVALIER," who used to write so splendidly in the French Globe, on all questions of political economy-who was afterwards one of the heads of the St. Simonian family, and is now studying America on the spot, in the United States-was always one of the best-dressed men in Paris. Do you think he was a dandy? No, -indeed he was not-but he did not believe that a man of genius must of necessity be rude or dirty. So VICTOR HUGO is amiable enough to write in a lady's album,―attentive to the courtesies of life enough to do as the rest of the world do in all matters of indifference,-is polite enough, not to keep your cook waiting half an hour, when he is invited to your house to dinner, -and does not fear for his reputation as an author, because he answers you when you speak to him, and does not indulge in that real or affected absence, which led a certain English clergyman to shake hands with a passing friend through a pane of glass, which he first broke with his fist, in a fit of assumed distraction!! Real genius and real talent will not be indifferent to the courtesies of life, or to what we call even trivial occur rences. Victor Hugo you have now seen! He is no misanthorpe,-no recluse,-and not one of those who can never find time to say, "How d'ye do?" even to an old aunt, who may plague about caps and fashions. Nor is he shut up even in his imaginative and poetic literature. He is a man who examines all that is passing around him -profits from all he hears, sees, and observesand is progressing with the moral sun, which is now shining brighter than ever, in the moral firmament which is above us. This is Victor Hugo. ment, then, we must become more grave,-and as our visit to the man is at an end, we have only to do with the citizen, the poet, the dramatist, and the romancer. But stay! first of all you must have a short biography, and then a short vindication,-for Hugo has enemies as well as friends, and bats and owls will always hate the sun. But let them flap and cry away; Hugo shall continue to serve his generation, by his genius, his talents, and his patriotism. "VICTOR MARIE HUGO" was born on the 26th February, 1802, at Besancon, which was formerly an old Spanish town. His father, Joseph Leopold Sigisbert Hugo, was a colonel of a regiment, then quartered in that place; and his mother, Sophia Trebuchet, was the daughter of an "armateur," or supplyer of ships stores at Nantes in La Vendee. "Mon pere vieux soldat, ma mere Vendéenne." A weak and sickly baby, nearly in a dying condition, at the age of six weeks, it was transported, in its mother's arms, from Besancon, to the Isle of Elba, where, till three years old, it remained with its parents. Its first accents were those of an Italian idiom of the Isle; and there it vegetated till 1805, when the mother came to Paris,-lived in the Rue de Clichy, and sent young Victor to the school of the "Rue du Mont Blanc." The only comrade of those days whom he remembers, was the young "Delon," afterwards prosecuted, by the Restoration, for a conspiracy at Saumur, against that wretched government; but who subsequently died in Greece, commandant of the artillery of Lord Byron. In 1807, the father of Victor was appointed, by Napoleon, Governor of the province of " Aveluio,” and his mother, himself, and brothers accompanied their parents. The father was occupied with extirpating the bands of brigands, with which that country swarmed, and, amongst others, that of "Fra-Diavolo." From 1807 to 1809, he remained in that province; and though then only seven years of age, Victor brought away with him a thousand sensations, marvellous and striking recollections of defiles, of abysses, of mountains, of gigantic and fairy-like perspectives and landscapes, which he has never forgotten, and which were, to a certain degree, the foundation of his future mental occupations. From 1809 to 1811, Madame Hugo preserved a profound seclusion in the Faubourg Saint Jacques, and devoted her time to what she called the education of her sons. His mother was tender as a mother, but austere and reserved; her discipline was regular and imperious; she admitted of little familiarity; but there was no "mysticism" in her communications with her children. She told all, and explained all; and, aided by a former priest, but who had deserted his profession by marrying, she gave more than the elements of an education to her children. For two years, from 1809 to 1811, the Royalist Ge neral, "La Horie," who was afterwards arrested by Napoleon, and put to death, was secreted by Madame Hugo, in her residence; and during that period, he succeeded in defying the police. This fact made a deep impression on the mind of Victor; and the death of "La Horie," his father's friend, gave a mournful turn to the poetry then dormant in the soul of the young romancer. It is quite certain that the death, the cruel, unnecessary, and vengeful death of "La Horie," led the mind of Hugo, in 1814, to embrace the Royalist cause. In 1811, he left Paris with his mother and his brothers, for SPAIN, where they all rejoined their father, who had been created General,-then “Premier Major-dome" of the palace, and governor of two provinces. On the arrival of Victor and his mother at Madrid, they lodged for some time at the palace of Macerano,—and he was admitted to the "seminary of the nobility," where he remained a year. At this school of the Spanish nobility, Victor, and his brothers, were attacked by the youths of the country for their attachment to Napoleon; and in one of the political duels of boys, only ten and twelve years of age, a brother of Victor was seriously wounded. They fought with knives. In 1812, the thrones erected by Napoleon in Europe, began to crumble, because they were so erected, not for the good of the people, but to satisfy the ambition of a particular dynasty. Madame Hugo took the alarm, and returned at the end of that year to Feuillantines; bringing with her Victor and his brother Eugene, but leaving behind her eldest son, who was sub-Lieutenant, under the orders of his father. At Feuillantines, the former old priest re-commenced his labours. Tacitus and Juvenal were the masters they studied. But with the religious education of her sons, Madame Hugo but little interfered. This was a grave fault, and one cannot but signalize it. Victor's mother was "Voltairian” in her principles, -and she did not, though positive in her habits and views, think it right either to counsel them to adopt, or reject, the system and opinions of this false philosophy. This was the education of Hugo. The Italian of "Elba," and the Spanish of the "school of the nobility," were not, and never will be forgotten. The romantic scenes, and events of Avelino-his seclusion in Paris-the lessons of the old priest, and of "General La Horie"-the death of his father's friend -the duel at Madrid-and his wandering sort of life as a son of a soldier-had formed his character, and given a decided impression to his thoughts and feelings. Madame Hugo, a Vendean" by birth, became, from the moment of the execution of "La Horie," yet more Royalist, while her husband was devoted to the empire. Victor, at this time, (1814,) was twelve years old. Already he had begun " to versify,"-and "CHIVALRY, and ROLAND," was the subject of his song. The RESTORATION produced gradually a separation between his father and mother, which, during "the hundred days of 1815," led to Victor and Eugene being placed by the for mer in an institution to prepare them for the Polytechnic school, and to their being torn from the arms of their beloved mother. In 1814, and 1815, the boy Victor had become enamoured of a little girl, whom afterwards he married, and whom every evening he saw, accompanied by his mother, at the house of her parents. In those years his education had changed. His mother placed no restraint on the books he read. He studied everything, learnt geography alone, and became a young man at even thirteen years of age. This was a capital error: but his history was bound to be romantic,-and the serious and mathematical education at the Rue Saint Marguerite and College de Louis le Grand, given by order of his father, from 1815 to 1818, removed most of the evils which such prior desultory occupations as those of 1814 and 1815 would otherwise have produced. In 1816 Victor wrote a classical drama called "Irtamène," commemorative of the return of Louis the Eighteenth to France, whom, then, he regarded as the end of revolutions. In 1817 he began another, entitled, "Athelie ou les Scandinaves,”but his third act was the point at which he stopped. In the same year, a poem by Victor, entitled, "Les Avantages de l'Etude," attracted a great deal of attention; and the youth of fifteen was considered little short of a prodigy. In 1818, the father of Victor consented to both his sons not following the military or engineering profession; and the thoughts of the Polytechnic School, for which they had been educated, were abandoned. Prizes at the "Academie des jeux Floraux," at Toulouse, were gained, in 1819, for odes on the "Statue of Henry the Fourth," and "The Verguis of Verdun;" and, in 1820, the poem of "Moïse sur le Nil" obtained for him the distinguished honour of "Maître-ès-jeux floraux.” From this moment Victor became a man. The love which he bore for the "Young Girl," in 1814, grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength. The mutual families perceived the fact, but the young couple were allowed only to see each other for a moment. The "First Sigh" was the poem which immortalized his grief; and, at eighteen years of age, (a fact scarcely credible,) he wrote " HAN D' ISLANDE." Those who have read this production of the pen of the romancer, will not forget the virgin purity of Ordener, or the Kiss of Ethel, in the long corridor; and the poet's own emotions dictated, at eighteen, the scenes he delineated. His "Royalist and Religious Odes" were written when Hugo was between eighteen and twenty years of age; and during that time he edited, aided by his brother and some friends, "Le Conservateur Litteraire." The writings of Scott, Byron, and Moore he then examined and analysed. In 1821, Hugo lost his mother. This was to him a source of inexpressible grief. He had been devotedly attached to her; and his mind, already melancholy, became increasingly sad and desponding. In an obscure corner of Paris, Victor then resided alone. The Royalists offered him protection, place, and honours. He refused all; but the King inscribed his name on the pension list. This pension was due to a circumstance which reflected honour on Hugo, and not less honour on Louis the Eighteenth. At that period the former playmate of Victor, " Delon," was pursued by the police, for having been concerned in the conspiracy of Saumur. Hugo, on learning the fact, wrote to Delon's mother, and offered his apartment as an asylum. This letter was opened by the police, and placed before the King. Louis the Eighteenth, after having read it, exclaimed, "I know this young man, (Hugo,)—he acts with honour and affection to his old schoolfellowthe next vacant pension I will give him." Years afterwards, Victor learnt the particulars of this interesting event; but, as the pension of the King was granted at the moment that the first volume of "Odes" appeared, the poet attributed the royal mark of distinction exclusively to that circumstance. In October, 1822, at the age of twenty, Victor married, his first, his earliest, and his only love. In 1823, his " Han d'Islande," which had been written three years previously, was published. In 1824, his second volume of "Odes and Bal lads," and his "La Muse Francaise," obtained for him further renown. In 1825, general literature, and a journey with Charles Nodier to Mont Blanc, led to the preparation, in 1826, of an account of that interesting pilgrimage,—and to his third volume of "Odes and Ballads." In 1827, he published his "Cromwell." In 1828, his “Orientales.” In 1829, "Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné,"-" Marion Delorme," and "Hernani;”—and in February, 1830, Hernani was first performed in Paris, creating a sensation wholly impossible to be described. A preface to the poetical works of Doval,-and "Notre Dame de Paris," engaged the poet and romancer in 1831. In 1832, he produced "Le Roi l'Amuse," in 1833, "Lucrece Borgia," and "Marie Tudor,"—and in the first three months of 1834, "Litterature et Philosophie Mêlées." He is now occupied with a new "romance," which will appear in the autumn of this year. During the last nine years, the life of Victor Hugo has been unchangeable. Blessed with competency, but not affluence,-his reputation, in spite of multitudes of detractors, continued to increase, and his conduct has been grave, pure, honourable, independent, and nobly but disinterestedly ambitious. His political opinions are modified by experience and transformed by age and experience, and he loves true, full, and practical liberty. The pension of Louis XVIII. ceased when "Labourdonnaye" was minister, as Hugo refused longer to accept it ;—and when the Revolution of 1830 arrived, it found the poet free from all engagements. Hugo believed that the Bourbons could and would found in France a constitutional monarchy. He was disappointed, and he renounced them. Since the Revolution of 1830, he has sung the horrors of "The Three Days," has excited the enthusiasm of France by his "Ode to the Column of the Place Vendome ;" and has made the roof of the Pantheon ring with his funeral offerings to the memory of the dead of 1830. In 1828, General Hugo, the poet's father, expired. He left to his son a fair name, and an unsullied honour, though but small earthly possessions. Hugo has since that period had to support himself and his family by his pen; and it is a fact, that notwithstanding the unrivalled success of all his productions, whether as a poet, a romancer, or as a dramatist, he has been but ill compensated, except by an abundant harvest of renown, for the works of his genius, and the labours of his mind. Yet, who has the right to complain, when "Paradise Lost” was sold for "FIVE POUNDS?" This is the life of VICTOR HUGO! Does it require an apology? I think not; and yet that life has been attacked most bitterly, repeatedly, and, I may add, incessantly, by hundreds of enemies. Although thus I am of opinion that Hugo requires no apologist, yet as the libels of the senseless, or the enmity of jealous rivals, may have reached even the other side of the Tweed, I shall, in my next letter, examine, with frankness, the charges brought against him, and the replies which are offered to those accusations. Those replies are I think triumphant. O. P. Q. A CHAPTER ON FLOGGING BY AN OLD OFFICER. FROM my earliest childhood I have had an abhorrence for the very sound of the word flog. It has, notwithstanding, been my fate to witness this inhuman custom in various forms, and to know experimentally the abominations of birchrods, ferulæ, rattans, horsewhips, and that modern substitute for thumbscrews and racks, the cat-o'-nine-tails. I speak feelingly on the subject, when I say that I regard flogging as one of the sorest evils under the sun. My memory is singularly tenacious, and I remember every flogging I have received. This may be owing to my natural irritability of skin; for my medical attendant, during a recent attack of erysipelas, seriously assured me that he had never seen an instance of such an irritable epidermis; however, I can aver that I perfectly remember every twinge of my first sound birching. This splendid operation took place on the following occasion I was sent to a respectable academy, at Rumford, in company with an elder brother, a few days after a celebrated contest for Middlesex between Burdett and Mainwaring, in which my father, being an attaché of the Court, had given --- his vote for the Tory candidate; and when, on arrival in the playground, some of the boys requested to know, in a boyish kind of slang language, what side I was for, alluding to some kind of play, I innocently mistook the question for a challenge as to my politics, and very vehemently shouted aloud, "Mainwaring for ever!" hearty ha ha! ha! from some twenty urchins, followed this unlucky exhibition of my notions of the fitness of things in Middlesex. And as I was from that time forth dubbed "Mainwaring-forever," it is easy to believe that sundry pugilistic encounters followed my unfortunate debut. In these I was generally successful; but, neverthe-big boy, and even my brother voted that it less, I was still doomed to hear (what now became an uncouth sound to my ears) the name of the sitting member for Middlesex. At length my brother, having bestowed a drubbing on a boy whose metal was too much for me, the young rascal, in malice, accused him of the heinous of fence of employing another boy's towel to wash himself on some occasion; and, though I knew him to be innocent of the crime, he was, to my sincere sorrow, visited with a "sound flogging," as the dominie delighted to express himself, when announcing the coming torture. This was one of the cruelest exhibitions, save one, I ever witnessed. The time chosen for the execution of his sentence was after washing, previous to going to bed; when the culprit, as he was termed, was of course undressed. I perfectly well remember the very corner of the school-room in which I sat, trembling and crying for my brother's sufferings, while he was most unmercifully lashed from the shoulders downwards, till his back was one mass of bruises and bleeding wounds. The master was a clergyman, and his favourite text was anent the sparing not the rod; at least he preached every day to us boys on the subject; and never did he allow three days to elapse without practising what he preached. I slept with my brother; and when I went to bed, and more closely examined the state of his back, and reflected on the cause of his sufferings, I very strenuously urged him to accompany me in running away from the tyrant. This was decided upon; and the following Sunday morning was fixed for carrying the intention into effect. The reason of that morning being chosen, was the circumstance that the master never made his appearance on a Sunday till we saw him in the pulpit, and the usher indulged longer in bed than usual. As we thought it advisable to divide the attention of the pursuers, who, we anticipated, would follow our heels, we advised with another boy, whose grievances were the theme of the school, he having been repeatedly and brutally flogged, when we could perceive no cause; and, as his parents resided about four miles out of Epping, in the direction of the forest, it was agreed that we should all take that direction, he being acquainted with the localities. Accordingly, at the usual hour of rising, six o'clock, (it being summer time,) we three took care to be down rather earlier than any of the other boys. But when we had reached the lobby and procured our caps, a difficulty occurred, which nearly discomfited our plan of operations. The chain had not been as yet removed from the door, nor the bolts withdrawn. The key turned readily in the lock; but the bolts made a hideous squeaking noise, and the chain fell from our tremulous hands with a rattle which A brought the surly old cook up out of the kitchen. We had the presence of mind, however, to begin pelting each other with our caps,—and she, mistaking the noise she had heard for our play, after a grumble about breaking the Sabbath, descended to her under-ground abode. This untoward incident had completely cowed the would not do. It must be remembered that they had both been flogged and were under the vile influence of fear; I at that time was intact, and, therefore, perhaps, was more determined. I can only account for my temerity in this manner; for I have since been convinced that flogging is destructive of courage. Finding them hang fire in this manner, I stepped forward, saying that I at least would not stay to be flogged for nothing; and smartly opening the door, which nobody staid to close, soon found myself past the kitchen window, the last source of danger, and in a few minutes we had all cleared the town and passed the turnpike. As we anticipated that we should have but small grace, since we should infallibly be missed at breakfast, if not before, we lost no time in crossing the fields and making towards the forest, which offered ample means of concealment. Accordingly, having reached a rising ground about two miles from the town, which commanded a view of the path for about half a mile, we established a sentry to look out for the enemy, while the remainder of the party sought for a good hiding-place. About a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when we perceived our friend the usher, accompanied by half-a-dozen of the oldest boys of the school, following our track in hot pursuit. A friendly dry ditch, about forty yards from the stile, over which we knew they must pass, enabled us to conceal our noble selves, and in a few minutes we had the satisfaction to perceive our friends safely past, and making their way towards that part of the country where D. lived. Our course was now clear, and in another quarter of an hour we were in the thickest part of Epping forest, and quietly amusing ourselves by observing the deer browsing upon the greensward. Having escaped all danger of a recapture, we partook of our breakfasts with a good appetite. We had made provision for this important operation, by preserving some mutton pies, which the school pie-woman had brought for sale on the previous half-holiday; and to these we had added some biscuits and cheese. About ten o'clock, we broke cover; and D. bidding us adieu, made his way homewards, calculating on reaching his father's about noon, when the usher and his pack would be departed; while my brother and I made for the London road. We pursued our course towards the metropolis, not without some occa |