It

any scruples which might arise towards no principle, key, or rudiment, no rule or the close of his life, and tempt him to introduction, which, once understood, can commit the precious and patiently-col- lead even the most luminous or studious lected treasure to the flames. The ques- mind from one event to another. tion he puts to the abbé implies not so must therefore be taught, and fearlessly much absolution for past, as full and ple- pursued through every maze and involunary indulgence for future severity; and tion of vice, or crime, or folly. Evidently the abbé, if we are to judge from the gene- our author is not one of your angelicoral tenor of the memoirs, must have sub- Jesuitical natures, whose purblind eye scribed to his wish, less, no doubt, as a shrinks from the contemplation of unveilretrospective penance for his own early ed truth, and who would rather vegetate editorship of "Anacreon," than from the forever in hoodwinked and blissful ignorpromptings of an ascetic spirit, which ance, than withdraw the garment which made severity the primary law of his now covers the nakedness of past or present. stern and unbending nature. From all We are bound, says the vigorous and this we may easily gather that Saint- manly critic-we are bound to be charitaSimon's religion was partly his own, partly ble to ourselves as well as to others; we that of his time- his own, as far as its are bound to seek the benefit of instrucinward sanction guided and strengthened tion, to avoid being dull, stupid, and everhis sense of honor and justice; that of lasting dupes. Are we, he argues, to rehis time, in as far as its outward and tra- coil from a knowledge of the history of ditional practice might be deemed suffi- the Guises, the kings and the court of their cient to protect the sinner against the times, for fear of learning their crimes consequences of certain peccadilloes. In and abominations? of the Richelieus and other words, his religion was sincere, and Mazarins, for fear of being made acquainttherefore entitled to respect, though not ed with the commotions caused by their quite so enlightened as might have been ambitions, the vices and faults exhibited anticipated. He was but too frequent in in the cabals and intrigues of their times? his visits and sojournings at the Trappe, Shall we be silent on the subject of Condé, whose abbé he probably considered in the to avoid knowing his revolts and their light of a religious empiric, skilful in all attendant consequences? Or the subject individual cases, but having no call to in- of Turenne and his relatives, not to witterfere with the system or soul in general. ness the most signal acts of perfidy most He therefore unscrupulously indulged all immeasurably rewarded? Must we have his deep-seated prejudices and moral an- no idea of Madame de Montespan, lest tipathies, with an understanding that the we should come to know the sins which thing was regulated, or that at stated and were the cause of her rise? None of particular periods there might be a ghostly Madame de Maintenon, and that portent reckoning, after which he was once more her reign, for fear of a knowledge of the at liberty to give the rein to his artistic infamies of her early life, the ignominy and all-pervading passion. All this may and calamity of her greatness, so disassavor of littleness, but it is a littleness trous to France? Let us, he adds, renwhich does anything but detract from der to the Creator a more rational worthe lofty opinion we at once entertain of ship, nor purchase the salvation which the his intellect, when, breaking through Redeemer has won for us by absolute the cobwebs of superstitious scruples, he brutishness or unattainable perfection. grapples personally with the question, and He is too good to require the one, too proves, in his own sustained and massy just to require the other. Let us know, style, that no fancied Christian charity has therefore, as far as in us lies, the value of a right to stand between the reader and men and the price of things: our main historical truth. The secret springs of study, in the midst of a world carefully history must, he urges, be laid bare, other- and everlastingly masked, should be to wise facts and events are alike unintel- make no mistake. Let us understand ligible. History is not, like science, a that knowledge is always excellent, and thing to be created or evolved with in- that the good or evil lies in the use we fallible certainty in the vast recess of make of it. Having thus swept before some capacious brain, where the discovery him what Johnson in his impatience would of one principle or degree of evidence in- have called the "cant" of charity, the variably leads to that of another. It has author concludes with the statement that

contemporary history, when left to ripen | own darling caste and hobby. The bourfor a generation or two under lock and key, has all the dissecting advantages of the past, as it attacks and unmasks none but the dead, or those so long deceased that none alive can take any personal interest in them.

suddenly recalled the unhappy poet to a consciousness of the frightful well into which his fatal absence of mind had plunged him. From that hour forward, neither Madame de Maintenon nor the king ever spoke to or looked at the wretched Racine, who, in most courtier fashion, died of his sottise rentrée just two years after! This tells wonderfully. Unfortunately, to use the elegant simile coined by the wisdom of the nation, it puts the saddle on the wrong horse. The thing is now known to have occurred to that tough, outspoken fellow Boileau, who committed the sottise in precisely similar circumstances, in spite of every hint and look his polished and warning friend could give him to the contrary, and who was, moreover, coarse enough to outlive it so long, that he died only in 1711, twelve years after poor Racine, whose demise therefore remains to be otherwise accounted for.

siége est fait," Saint-Simon, who had closed all written accounts with his own particular world, must have felt little temptation to mar the economy of his carefully-copied pages by hurriedly recording the exploits of a new and literary world. He does, it is true, make supercilious mention of Arouet, as he calls him, the son of a notary who had been his own and his father's, saying, he was exiled to Tulle for some very satirical and impudent verses. The verses, which were not Arouet's, though ascribed to his precocious malice, were directed against the memory of Louis XIV., and therefore naturally enough attracted Saint-Simon's attention. He does him the honor of a second mention for a second copy of satirical verses, of which he was equally guiltless, and for which he was sent to the Bastille. He states, he should not have thought it worth his while to mention such a trifle, had not the author become a Saint-Simon's memoirs, though long person of consequence in a certain society, considered as state papers, and therefore as well as poet and academician by the jealously guarded, have at various times name of Voltaire, a name assumed by the appeared in printed fragments, and as freadventurer to disguise his own! He is quently been read in manuscript. Duclos equally brief, though by no means so dis- and Marmontel were acquainted with dainful, in his mention of Racine, Boileau, them, as is evident from their historioMolière, and Lafontaine. He thinks highly graphic labors. Madame du Deffand had of Racine; who, as he says, had nothing them from the Minister Choiseul, (Yorick's of the poet in his manner, but tout de old acquaintance,) and conveyed her iml'honnête homme-everything of the honest pressions to her friend Horace Walpole, man; that is, gentleman of the period. that other man of memoirs, thus: "We And yet he is unwittingly the cause of a read after dinner" (November 21, 1770) very popular error as regards this illus-the Memoirs of M. de Saint-Simon,' and trious poet, who is, in consequence, be- I cannot but regret your absence : you lieved to have died of that singular men- would feel unspeakable pleasure." And tal malady known in France by the name in another letter, (December 2,) that "the sottise rentrée-a species of slow and sponta- style is abominable, the portraits badly neous combustion, occasioned by taking a done, and the author no man of wit !" silly or awkward slip too much to heart. In the following year (1771,) she writes Saint-Simon, in fact, gravely relates, that how désespérés, how distressed she is at Racine, (the second most polished and being unable to procure him a perusal of handsome man in the kingdom, taking those memoirs; she has just finished the King Louis himself to be the first,) being last volume, which has given her infinite asked by his majesty why comedy had so pleasure: "il vousmettrait," says she, "hors much declined of late, adduced as a rea- de vous!" ("It would put you beside son the practice of representing superan- yourself with delight.") Voltaire, too, nuated old pieces-among others, the in- had had a glimpse of them, and towards significant and disgusting plays of Scarron. the decline of his life had, as he says, conMadame de Maintenon, the relict of that ceived the project of refuting all those facetious author, reddens to the tip of her passages in Saint-Simon's still secret menose, not so much at hearing the reputa-moirs which had been prompted by prejution of her first husband so rudely attacked, as at having his name so awkwardly mentioned in presence of his royal successor. The king looked at a loss what to say, so there was a dead silence, which

dice or hatred. Voltaire had too much experience, and a little too much of the author's own peculiar character, not to pounce at once on what was really objectionable in the formidable memoirs. But,

while he thus attempted to forestall pub-chette has fairly committed himself. In a lic opinion, he must have been equally con- first circular, or premiére note, as he judiscious how dangerous a rival they would ciously terms it, we have a rather interestbecome to his own " Siècle de Louis XIV.," ing account of the various editions hitherto and how easily such pictures as Saint-Si- published, or in course of publication. mon's, when brought to light, would dark- And as all these are mere reïssues of that en the most brilliant sketches of a merely of 1829, the errors and deficiencies of the temporary nature. Numerous extracts first are naturally repeated, and, as might appeared between 1788 and 1791, and be expected, reasonably increased. To subsequently, in 1818, but miserably gar- correct these errors and supply these debled, and though uniformly allowed to be ficiencies, recourse has been had to the extremely interesting, were as uniformly manuscript, now in possession of Saint-Sistated to be badly written! The age had mon's lineal descendant, and the task of evidently degenerated, as the cavilling collation pursued with such searching accuspirit and bald rhetoric of Voltaire alone racy and success, as to supply the aboveruled in the literary ascendant. The edi- mentioned premiére note with such an tion of 1829, in twenty-one octavo volumes, overwhelming list of blunders, misprints, was the first signal reparation made to the and misnomers, as amply to justify the mangled and mutilated author. And yet enterprising firm of Hachette & Co., were the reparation was far from complete. A they even to entitle their publication not whole gallery of portraits (that connected merely an original, but the original ediwith the Spanish council on the accession tion; l'édition princeps des Mémoires du of Philip of Anjou to the throne of Spain) Duc de Saint-Simon. In all probability, was suppressed. Impertinent liberties, too, the undertaking will be carried out on a were taken with the author's text, on the scale of liberality commensurate with its plea that a grandee could know nothing importance and deserved popularity. No of grammar; while, to crown the whole, a fewer than three distinct editions are anvery poor portrait of the author's father nounced: the first, a beautiful tall 8vo flourished on the frontispiece, instead of edition, in 20 volumes, price 300 francs; that of the son; a substitution flattering the second, a handsome ordinary-sized 8vo enough, no doubt, to the filial piety of edition, also in 20 volumes, price 80 francs; Saint-Simon, or that of such a man as the third, a neat 18mo edition, in 12 volMontaigne, who used to say he wrapped umes, price 24 francs. For the two first himself up in his father every time he put and highest priced of these, we profess unon the old gentleman's cloak, but which qualified admiration, but reserve all our could not, by any stretch of imagination, tender sympathies for the third and lastbe supposed to excite much rapt enthusi- sympathies enhanced by a glance at the asm in a purchaser who bargains for the long receding vista of our own reading effigy of the son, and not for that of the past, portions of which are so many grievfather. Thanks to a praiseworthy spirit ous blanks occasioned by the exclusively of competition, we are now about to be aristocratic tendencies of our great bibliopresented with an edition positively au- polists, throwing ourselves and the public thentic and complete, both of the works at large some quarter of a century in arrear and portrait. To this the publisher Ha- of every valuable and standard publication.

BALMORAL CASTLE.-The furniture of the building-its situation, and its associathe new castle is of a very peculiar char- tions. Another peculiarity is the absence acter. All the rooms are alike, that is, all of paint on any of the internal doors; withthe curtains, draperies, and coverings of out any exception, of all these the wood is the apartments are of one pattern, though perfectly au naturel, though it is very differing in the costliness of the fabric. highly polished; and thus the aspect The design is a tartan, with a red and of the old feudal castle is maintained white check; and it is extraordinary how in connection with every possible degree well this harmonizes with the character of of modern comfort.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

NEWSPAPERS.