Perhaps,' I answer'd with a playful air, -But thou remember'st not how then I smiled- O! slay me not! respect a mother's throes, O, what a dreadful thought it is to die! Is real bliss to what we fear of death." P. 264. Frequent use has been made of the stores of French literature lately opened to us. We suspect that Mr. Bland has a great predilection for the French wits. He seems to be familiar with the productions of Du Fresnoy, and Baraton, and Chardon, and Moncrif, and does not hesitate to avail himself of the miscellaneous nature of the illustrations, by introducing them in an English dress, as often as any similitude of thought or subject allows. Two valuable recent publications have contributed whatever was wanting to make us thoroughly acquainted with the taste in writing and conversation which prevailed among the Parisian beaux esprits of the last century. The anonymous treatise De la Littérature Française pendant le 18me Siècle, describes the result of their hours of seriousness and study; and Baron Grimm's more desultory work has supplied all that remained to be learned respecting their movements in private life, when no part was to be acted, no VOL. III. New Series. 36 character to be kept up; in their jests and quarrels, in their parties and retirements. "Nam veræ voces tum demum pectore ab imo From this source Mr. Bland has gleaned two or three happily expressed trifles which are not above the level of what we expected from the heartlessness and frivolity which characterized what was called la société of the French metropolis. The following are favourable specimens of the peculiar character of French sprightliness. The original of the portrait in the first is to be seen in every circle of all societies. "Avoir l'esprit bas et vulgaire, Dire seulement--Je suis belle." "To have a talent base and low, "Le premier jour du mois de Mai "The morning of the first of May P. 174. To me was happier far than any." B. P. 376. On a Statue of Cupid. "D'aucun Dieu l'on n'a dit tant de mal et de bien On earth their influence from above, "Yet, for whatever joy we bless, Or for whatever pain we flout him, Who knows not what to say about him." M. P. 401. We have noticed several instances where, in our opinion, the sense of the original has been misconceived. "And thou, O lamp, bear'st witness to her alter'd vow," P. 7. Conveys to the English reader no idea of the turn in the Greek. 46 λυχνε, συ δ' εν κόλποις αυτόν δρας έτερων.” The idea in the last line of the following stanza is very poetical, but, in our conception, very different from that conveyed by the original. "The bath, obsequious beauty's smile, And slope the path that leads to death. « Οίνος και τα λοετρα και η περι Κυπρίν ερώη, Allusion has been made to the immortality of Cleombrotus, the Ambraciot, from the time of Cicero to that of Milton. The force of the celebrated epigram of Callimachus on this subject, is quite lost in the paraphrastic translation of the concluding line. 56 αλλα Πλατωνος εν, το περί ψυχής, γραμμ' αναλεξαμενος. "But Plato's reason caught his youthful eye, P. 113. The desultory and miscellaneous nature of the notes which form so large a part of this volume, opens a wide field for remark, but our extracts have been already so considerable, that we cannot venture upon them. Briefly, however, we may observe, that amidst much ingenious and amusing criticism, there are to be found in them a laborious trifling which occasionally fatigues us, and an effort altogether disproportioned to the effect meant to be produced. Were this part of the work reduced to half its present bulk, (and we hope that opportunities will not be wanting,) we might then expect to receive a volume of which the illustrations should not be unworthy of the text. De L'Allemagne. Par Madame la Baronne de Stael-Holstein3 vol. 8vo. [From the Edinburgh Review.] Most of our readers know that this work was suppressed at Paris about three years ago, after having passed through a rigorous examination by censors. The history of the examination and suppression, and the letter from the minister of police, given in the preface, are extremely curious. They are characteristical of Napoleon's government, and documents for the general history of tyranny over literature. But it is the smallest distinction of this work, that it is the first of suppressed books. On other occasions, the circumstances of the publication would be the most interesting part of the book; but the intrinsic and permanent importance of Madame de Staël's work immediately brings us to the consideration of the subject. Till the middle of the 18th century, Germany was, in one important respect, singular among the great nations of Christendom. She had attained a high rank in Europe by discoveries and inventions, by science, by abstract speculation as well as positive knowledge, by the genius and the art of war, and, above all, by the theological revolution which unfettered the understanding in one part of Europe, and loosened its chains in the other. But she was without a national literature. The country of Guttenberg, of Copernicus, of Luther, of Kepler, and of Leibnitz, had no writer in her own language whose name was known to the neighbouring nations. German captains and statesmen, philosophers and scholars, were celebrated: but German writers were unknown. The nations of the south, indeed, seemed to slumber. Those of the Spanish peninsula formed the exact contrast to Germany. She had every mark of mental cultivation but a vernacular literature. They, since the Reformation, had ceased to exercise their reason; and they retained only their poets, whom they were content to admire, without daring any longer to emulate. In Italy, Metastasio was the only renowned poet; and sensibility to the arts of design had survived genius. But the monuments of ancient times still kept alive the pursuits of antiquities and philology. The rivalship of small states, and the glory of former ages, preserved an interest in literary history. The national mind retained that tendency towards experimental science, which it perhaps principally owed to the fame of Galileo; and began, also, to take some part in those attempts to discover the means of bettering the human condition, by inquiries into the principles of legislation and political economy, which form the most honourable distinction of the 18th century. France and England abated nothing of their activity. Whatever may be thought of purity of taste, or soundness of opinion, in Montesquieu and Voltaire, Buffon and Rousseau, no man will dispute the vigour of their genius. The same period among us was not marked by the loss of any of our ancient titles to fame; and it was splendidly distinguished by the rise of the arts, of history, of oratory, and (shall we not add?) of painting. But Germany remained a solitary example of a civilized, learned, and scientific nation, without a literature. The chivalrous ballads of the middle age, and the efforts of the Silesian poets in the beginning of the 17th century, were just sufficient to render the general defect more striking. French was the language of every court; and the number of courts in Germany rendered this circumstance almost equivalent to the exclusion of German from every society of rank. Philosophers employed a barbarous latin, as they had throughout all Europe, till the Reformation had given · dignity to the vernacular tongues, by employing them in the service of religion; and till Montaigne, Galileo, and Bacon, broke down the barrier between the learned and the people, by philosophizing in a popular language. The German language continued to be the mere instrument of the most vulgar intercourse of life; Germany had, therefore, no exclusive mental possession; for poetry and eloquence may, and in some measure must be, national; but knowledge, which is the common patrimony of civilized men, can be appropriated by no people. A great revolution, however, at length began, which, in the course of half a century, terminated in bestowing on Germany a literature, perhaps the most characteristic possessed by a European nation. It had the important peculiarity of being the first which had its birth in an enlightened age. The imagination and sensibility of an infant poetry were singularly blended with the |