attain wealth, power, and greatness, hardly tween capital and labor; and so long as that is equalled by any other country; but her perverted the case, Russia will ever remain a colossus of iron institutions, added to the semi-barbarous condi- resting upon legs of clay. tion of her population, prevent a close union be

VOLTAIRE.

From The Athenæum.

Domestic and Monetary Affairs of Voltaire; with an Introduction on the Manners of the Courts and Salons of the Eighteenth Century [Ménage et Finances de Voltaire, etc.]. By Louis Nicolardot. Paris: Dentu.

-a

145

maintains that if justice were done, few re-
formers would escape with less than five years
at the galleys, whilst many moralists would
come in for perpetual imprisonment. Ther-
sites and Timon would grin and chuckle over
such a book.

The tone in which M. Nicolardot assaults TWELVE pounds of wax candles sold every kings and queens, from John the Fifth of Portugal throwing cudgels at the portly Domonth instead of being burnt at Potsdam black coat borrowed from a friend, and, with- minicans, who slept and snored when he went out permission, snipped and stitched into a to matins-to George the Third, who would such was the not pay the debts of his father, or those of the tight fit for a special occasion, sum and substance of the accusation at first Prince of Wales, or his own; and then to hurled by M. Nicolardot against the memory Marie Antoinette, "who forgot her majesty as of Voltaire. It would scarcely have pierced his a queen and her dignity as a woman"-all epidermis had he been alive. But his follow-this, we say, might lead a hasty reader to supers were more sensitive than the great satirist. pose that he had to do with a fierce Republican Up went the oriflamme of "Philosophy;" doing customary vengeance on crowned heads. But the Zoilus of modern philosophy does and the Author of "Studies on Great Men" was treated, without much ceremony, as an not draw his gall from that fountain. His great complaint of the eighteenth century is not that old woman. M. Nicolardot, upon this, gathered up his it persecuted the prophets, but that it perseforces; and took three years to compose the cuted the Jesuits. M. Villemain, at the Acaddenunciation of Voltaire now before us. emy, was compelled, the other day, to scold Though his conclusions were irresistible, we the Abbé Gratry, whilst granting him a prize, could not find one word to say in praise of the for complaining of the "Provincial Letters tone in which he writes or the motives by which as a mistake. This is the tendency of the day he seems to be actuated. He does not criticise in France. But M. Nicolardot knows no half He boldly maintains that the exand condemn a great writer, who exercised a measures. pernicious influence. He digs up the body of pulsion of the Jesuits was an act at once the man, and tears it with the ferocity of a monstrous, insane, and sacrilegious," and ghoul. We never closed a book with a sadder hurls at the heads of those who performed impression. The chapter in which the despair it a string of words rarely admitted into liteand physical sufferings of the philosopher of rature. This is the reason why he tells the whole truth of Louis the Fifteenth; and mainFerney at his last hour are gloated overeven if the accuracy of the details were be- tains that his "martyr" son-the only soveyond all doubt-produces a revulsion of feel-reign who has succeeded to his father in France ing that certainly does not answer its purpose. for a hundred and fifty years-was never in Voltaire exercised a wonderful influence higher glee than when killing cats on the roof over his age, which he represented whilst he of the Palace of Versailles. One king expelled, helped to form it. He was the most French of the other did not restore the Jesuits :-hence, all Frenchmen. If then it can be proved that in the highway of poetical justice, one was guilhe was a miser and a rogue (fripon), we must lotined by the mob and the other is murdered scatter to the winds all the fine phrases com- by M. Nicolardot. posed to celebrate the marvellous eighteenth

The chronicler of "The Domestic and Mocentury. This, says M. Nicolardot, is the rea-netary Affairs of Voltaire" has no notion of son that when Voltaire is attacked others cry the rules of Art. Give him a pencil, and he out. You seem to stab a figure of a bygone will paint you a portrait in which the shadow time worked in old tapestry; but you kill the shall spread over the whole face, with not a This is precisely gradation even to indicate form. There is but living man behind the arras. what our author intends. He will not separate one color upon his palette. We are sure that Voltaire from his age or from his school; and if, by involuntary obedience to the laws of he begins his undertaking by devoting some contrast, he had recorded one single favorable two hundred pages to the proof that nearly trait, he would have repented of it as of an evil action. all the great names of that great century M. Nicolardot undertakes to prove that whether they belonged to kings or philosophers were stained with every kind of vice, from Voltaire was sordid, grasping and dishonest. meanness and pilfering to sacrilege and murder Among the instances he quotes, is an anecdote all through the gamut of villany. He under-preserved by Marmontel, which surely may be ac-looked at in a more good-humored light. The takes to judge their private characters cording to the advice of another great de- philosopher was bargaining with a dealer for a stroyer of reputations, M. Veuillot-by the Pe-hunting-knife, and offered eighteen francs innal Code, as if they were on their trial; and stead of a louis, which was asked. The man

DLVI. LIVING AGE.

10 VOL. VIII.

stuck to his price, and averred that to abate a poor and despised," says Voltaire, "that I am sou would be to do wrong to his children.-determined not to augment the number. In "You have children?" exclaimed Voltaire. France every one must be hammer or anvil. "Yes, five; three boys and two girls, the I was born to be an anvil. I am determined youngest of whom is twelve years old."- to become a hammer." In other words, Vol"Well, we must see if we can get situations taire made it part of his mission to rescue litefor the boys and husbands for the girls. I rature in his person from the degrading posihave friends at court and credit in public tion it had so long occupied. M. Nicolardot offices. So, my good man, let us finish this is hereupon indignant. Then, there was that bargain. There are your eighteen francs." shabby change of name, from Arouet to VolBut all this cajolery was not effectual, and the taire! We admit it,-and confess that it hunting-knife was at length bought for a louis. strikes us as a bit of pardonable policy. Marmontel relates the incident to illustrate the Others did-and still do the same in France. perseverance of Voltaire in trifling matters: M. Sartine was originally Sardine. Lekain's most readers accept it as a whimsical illustra- family still bears the name of Cain Georges. tion of a whimsical character; but M. Nicol- M. Leclerc did not become a man of genius ardot, less charitable, finds in it one great rea- until his father bought the estate of Buffon, son for putting the philosopher in the same near Montbard. The Abbé Raynal got on by niche with Harpagon. other means. He obtained an order to say a On another occasion Voltaire, misunder- mass daily for a franc; but when he improved standing an expression of the President De his position, he passed it to the Abbé La Brosses, thought he had received a present of Porte, retaining eight sous for himself; and his fourteen loads of wood, whereas, he was really substitute soon afterwards underlet it again for expected to pay for them. The explanation four sous. These were things allowed in those was made rather disagreeably; and thereupon casy times; and Voltaire has only left himself a correspondence, not very creditable to either open to so many attacks because of his vast side, took place. The affair, which seems to activity and complete success. His books have been rather a question of self-love than brought him much; but speculation brought parsimony, was magnified at the time into a him more. He bought and sold all manner of mighty quarrel, and is repeated in all its details shares, and ventured money in the Barbary by M. Nicolardot. Voltaire, like other wits, corn trade. The result was that he built up sometimes preferred losing his credit to losing a princely fortune, and became a landed prohis joke. He refused to pay for some hay prietor; and if M. Nicolardot has succeeded which he had ordered of a peasant. "But," in showing that in the race after wealth he said the latter, "I have your word." "Ha! often ran through very dirty places, and in the you have my word? well, keep it and the hay use of it was undignified and parsimonious, likewise." The accuser registers this as a the conviction will scarcely repay the ordinary crime, and will not suffer us to laugh at the reader for the trouble of seeking it in this vast retort. It is dangerous to jest in dull com- mass of evidence. pany. "I have seen so many men of letters

sold of that valuable oil £100,000 (nearly
$500,000) worth yearly; and it is to be borne in
mind that the greater portion of this very large
yearly sum is clear profit. It was also added that
Mr. Young was the only one of many parties in
Europe who ordered and obtained this mineral
for making oil and producing gas.
eral is only obtained from a small district in
Scotland; and, from the foregoing, some idea of
its immense value, in a commercial point of
view, may be obtained.

This min

PARAFFINE. The "Scientific American" has this in reference to the recent discovery of a new valuable mineral: By the Edinburgh Witness," Hugh Miller's paper, we learn that, at a law-suit lately prosecuted in London, one of the parties, James Young, of Bathgate, on being sworn, deposed that "he manufactured and sold at the rate of 8,000 gallons a week" of the paraffine oil, which is procured from the Torbanehill new mineral. 8,000 gallons a week are 416,000 a year; and accordingly Mr. Young's counsel, Mr. Bramwell, We invite the attention of our geologists and stated that his client sold, in round numbers, mineralogists to search for minerals of the same '400,000 gallons of his oil yearly,"-Mr. Bram- character and quality in our own country. We well adding, "at five shillings per gallon." That have no doubt but they exist in some of our exis, Mr. Young stated, while his counsel repeated tensive and rich coal basins, especially in the the statement, that from the chemical works neighborhood of the cannel coal-beds in Virginia, near Bathgate, which prepare the paraffine oil Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana, and Missouri. procured from the Torbanehill mineral, there are

From The Tribune.

DEATH OF LOCKHART.

THE London journals received by the Pacific announce the death of John Gibson Lockhart as having taken place on the 25th of November. His health had been failing for the last two or three years; and in 1853, he made an ineffectual attempt for its improvement by travelling on the

continent.

nity, and a cynical contempt of every noble and generous sentiment. In a notice of the deceased, one of the leading London journals remarks:

"All the world was always aware of the sins of 'The Quarterly,' under Lockhart's management; and the best informed had cause to view them the most severely. Everybody knows what Croker's political articles were like. Everybody knows how the publisher was now and then compelled to re-publish, as they had originally Lockhart was well known in the world of let- stood, articles which had been interpolated, by ters, by several fictitious productions of consid- Croker and Lockhart (whose names were always erable merit; but his claim to distinction mainly associated in regard to the review), with libels rests on his biography of Sir Walter Scott, and and malicious jokes. In their recklessness they his connection as editor-in-chief with "The drew upon themselves an amount of reprobation Quarterly Review." He was the son of a Glas- in literary circles which thin-skinned men could gow clergyman; and originally intended for the never have endured. Now, the young author of profession of law, commenced his academic edu- a father's biography was invited by the editor to cation at the University of that city, which he send him early proof sheets, for the benefit of a completed at Baliol College, Oxford. Admitted speedy review; and the review did what it could to the Scottish bar, he made no progress in the to damn the book before it was fairly in the hands legal career, his professional fees falling short of the public. And now, the vanity of some of £50 a year. His inclination led him to a lit-second or third rate author was flattered and erary vocation, and from the first he relied for drawn out, in private intercourse, to obtain matesupport on the productions of his pen. After the rial for a caricature in the next Quarterly.' As peace of 1815, he went to Germany for purposes an able man, a great admirer of the literary merof study, and became acquainted with several of its of The Review,' and no sufferer by it, obthe distinguished authors of that country. Here served: The well-connected and vigorous and he laid the foundation for his knowledge of Ger- successful have nothing to apprehend from 'The man literature, in which he subsequently attained Quarterly; but as sure as they are old, or uncommon proficiency. blind, or deaf, or absent on their travels, or suHis first meeting with Scott was in 1818, after perannuated, or bankrupt, or dead,—' The Quarhis return from Germany. A few months after-terly' is upon them." ward, he published the work entitled "Peter's The cheerless gloom which shrouded the close Letters to his Kinsfolk," which soon became of his life, is alluded to by the same writer, showfamous for its gossipping sketches of the most ing a picture of desolation sufficiently sombre to popular celebrities then on the stage, and its gratify the most vindictive enemy: caustic satire of the writer's personal and political opponents. At a later period of life, Lockhart confessed that "it was a book which none but a very young and a very thoughtless person would have written."

In 1820, he published "Valerius, a Roman Story," which attained a certain degree of eminence, and is now regarded as an uncommonly successful specimen of the classical novel. This was followed by "Reginald Dalton," "Adam Blair," and "Gilbert Earle," which made a marked impression on the public mind, both by the vigor of their style, and their effective delineation of passion. His "Life of Burns" appeared in 1825, as a contribution to "Constable's Miscellany," and in the same year he took the place of Gifford as editor of "The Quarterly Review." Upon the decease of his illustrious father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott, he commenced the preparation of materials for his life, which in due season he embodied in the memoirs, that, in spite of numerous defects of temper and execution, form one of the most fascinating pieces of biography in the language.

"The good-will which he did not seek in his happy days, was won for him by the deep and manifold sorrows of his latter years. The extraordinary sweep made by death in his wife's family is a world-wide wonder and sorrow. Lady Scott went first; and the beloved child-Lockhart's intelligent boy, so well known under the name of Hugh Littlejohn-died when the grandfather's mind was dim and clouded. Soon after Scott's death, his younger daughter and wornout nurse followed him; and in four years more, Mrs. Lockhart. The young Sir Walter died childless, in India; and his brother Charles, unmarried, in Persia. Lockhart was left with a son and a daughter.

"As years and griefs began to press heavily upon him, new sorrow arose in his narrow domestic circle. His son was never any comfort to him, and died in early manhood. The only remaining descendant of Scott, Lockhart's daughter, was married, and became so fervent and obedient a Catholic, as to render all intimate intercourse between the forlorn father and his only child impossible. He was now opulent. An The personal character of Lockhart appears to estate had descended to him through an elder have been unamiable and repulsive. He was of brother; and he held an office-that of Auditor a sceptical disposition, a satirist, a scoffer, a of the Duchy of Cornwall-which yielded him truculent and vindictive enemy. His manage- £300 a year. He had given up the labor of ment of "The Quarterly Review" was marked editing The Quarterly; but what were opuby the absence of literary conscientiousness, a lence and leisure to him now? Those who saw fierceness of prejudice often tinged with malig-him in his daily walk in London, his handsome

countenance-always with a lowering and sar-gent's Park, with the gentle Sophia presiding. donic expression-now darkened with sadness, Comparing these scenes with the actual forand the thin lips compressed more than ever, as lornness of his last years, there was no heart by pain of mind, forgave, in respectful compassion for one so visited, all causes of quarrel, however just, and threw themselves, as it were, into his mind; seeing again the early pranks with Christopher North, the dinings by the brook at Chiefswood, the glories of the Abbotsford sporting parties, the travels with Scott (so like an ovation!) in Ireland, and the home in Re

that could not pity and forgive, and carefully award him his due, as a writer who has given much pleasure in his day, and left a precious bequest to posterity in his life of the great novelist, purged, as we hope it will be, of what ever is untrue and unkind, and rendered as safe as it is beautiful."

From Household Words. HENRY THE NINTH OF ENGLAND! A CORRESPONDENT, writing about a King who does not appear in the history of England, announces that he possesses a medal, bearing the representation in bold relief of a head, apparently that of an ecclesiastic, the circumscription being 86 HEN. IX. MAG. BRIT. FR. ET. HIB. REX. FID. DEF. CARD." On the reverse is a large cross supported by the Virgin; a lion sorrowfully crouches at her feet, with eyes directed as it seems to the crown of Britain, lying on the ground.

for the purpose of heading fifteen thousand French infantry, which assembled at Dunkirk to invade England, and to re-establish the Stuarts on the throne. But, after the battle of Culloden, the contemplated invasion of England was abandoned. Henry retraced his steps to Rome, and took orders, and seemed to have laid aside all worldly views. His advancement in the Church was rapid; for, in 1747, he was made cardinal by Pope Benedict the Fourteenth.

He lived in tranquillity, at Rome, for nearly fifty years; but, in 1798, when French bayonets drove Pope Pius the Sixth from the pontifical chair, Henry Stuart fled from his splendid residences at Rome and Frascati. His days were now

Behind, to the right, is a bridge, backed by hills and a cathedral, probably St. Peter's at Rome. On this side, the inscription is: "NON DESIDE-days of want; his only means of subsistence beRIIS. HOMINUM. SED. VOLVNTATE. DEI. AN. MDCCLXXXVIII."

ing the produce of a few articles of silver plate, which he had snatched from the ruin of his propThe manner in which this medal came into erty. Infirm in health, a houseless, almost penthe possession of an Englishman, was somewhat niless wanderer (Napoleon having robbed him singular. At the time when an English army was of his estates), he endeavored, at the age of sevserving in the Calabrias, and assisting Ferdinand enty-three, to seek refuge in forgotten obscurity. the Fourth of Spain against Bonaparte, a British George the Third was informed of the Cardiofficer happened to get separated from his regi-nal Duke's poverty and pitiable situation by the ment, and, while wandering near Canne in Basili- kindly interference of Sir John Cox Hippisley. cata, in dread of immediate capture (since he was It is said that the King was much moved by the in the rear of Massena's lines), he sought protec-distressing recital; and, in 1800, Lord Minto was tion at a handsome villa by the roadside. He was ordered to make a remittance of two thousand hospitably received by a venerable man, who pounds, with an intimation that the Cardinal proved to be a Cardinal. The curiosity of the might draw for two thousand more in the followrefugee being excited by the interest which the Italian dignitary appeared to take in the welfare of the British, he ventured to demand whom he might have the pleasure of addressing; the reply was simply: "Your King!"

ing July. It was also made known that an annuity of four thousand pounds was at his service, so long as his circumstances required it. He was spared seven years to enjoy this munificent pension, and died at Rome in 1807, in the eightyWhen the officer had recovered from his sur-third year of his age. He was buried between prise, the Cardinal presented him with the medal; and, from him, it came to the writer. It was one of those struck upon the death of Prince Charles, to commemorate the imaginary succession to the crown of England of Henry Stuart, the Cardinal Duke of York, in whom the direct line of the Stuart race terminated; and who now sheltered the fugitive soldier.

his father and brother at Frascati. His tomb, sculptured by Canova, bears as inscription, the name of Henry the Ninth.

The Cardinal Duke, down to the very day of his death, although in the receipt of a munificent pension from England, was in communication with several noblemen, who still indulged the hope of placing him upon the throne of Great It is well known that this prelate was, until the Britain. Among the Cardinal's papers were disday of his death, the secret idol of many in whom covered letters from active partisans both in Irethe last hopes for the restoration of the kingdom land and Scotland; but the English governof Great Britain to the family of the Stuarts were ment wisely took no notice of these awkward centred. He was the second son of the Pre-revelations. Had they done so, many men of high tender, and was born at Rome, on the 26th of rank and great influence would have been brought March, 1725. When twenty years of age, in the to a severe account.

much celebrated "forty-five," he went to France