ence as to be devoid of intelligent impulse to action-they are sensitive, and nothing more. Be this so or not, we pass on to that condition of animal existence in which sensation is accompanied by the gift, the original gift, of intelligence, and this we call instinct. But the intelligence which the creature needs, or will need, does not appear to be always given originally; it grows with the creature's growth, and at the time, and for the time when it is needed; it grows not as a consequence of being sought for by the creature, but as a consequence of certain developments in the animal organisation. Let it then be admitted that the creature has, in one way or the other, the intelligence which his place in the scale of being requires. What is further included in the admission? Wherever there is a latent power to know, there must be an end to serve as often as it is called into activity, and in a brute creature the evident end is this that what is painful or otherwise hurtful to its being shall be avoided, and what is pleasurable or otherwise beneficial shall be secured. Such an end requires an impulse to action coincident with the intelligence, and we cannot but assume the impulse to be instant and immediate in the case of original instinct; but in the case of intelligence which grows with the creature's growth, the impulse to action will not occur till the intelligence is sufficiently mature to produce it. This impulse to action is, with regard to brute creatures, expressed by a term hardly suited to it when we call it emotion: desire and aversion, fear and expectancy, anger and complacency, love and hate, seem to imply a foundation in rational intelligence; yet something approaching them cannot but be observed in the higher orders of brutes, and these, in addition to their intelligence, original or superinduced, are their motives to action. In this further statement there is nothing which will not at once be admitted by an experienced observer of the brute creation; but the admission does not carry us beyond the intelligence of habitude. We have nothing yet of the intelligence of reason, however we may sometimes come across facts that bear its outward features. At this point, then, we have to ask whether -while we willingly yield to the instruction of physiology so far as we have gone, namely, in accounting for brute intelligence, and so much of human intelligence as man holds from sources in common with brutes— whether we must accord to physics a license to pass still onwards, and take up the ground hitherto appropriate to metaphysics?

Metaphysics! it is the first time, Reader, that the term has crossed our path, although we have glanced at the learning which usually bears the name-learning which, from its hitherto unsuccessful issue, I have allowed you to call vain and unprofitable. Can I, in continuing to use the term as a peg on which to hang certain inquiries into the validity of the science which has borne the name,- -can I hope for other issue than all inquiries in this department of learning have hitherto found? May I be permitted to try? Allow me, first, to fix the term to, a sense which is often assigned to it, and which it will readily bear as its proper sense; and keeping to this sense, let my reader await with me the consequences. Let us say that physics relate to things in nature-things that we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell; or, having seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted them, we find to arise through the causes we have traced, unbidden by the things that originally acted on the outward senses. Physics will thus include all that we both perceive and conceive; the latter word

being restricted to a sense it is not always forced to bear, but which, for our purpose, it will be convenient it should bear-namely, to comprehend all things that, not being really perceived, have been perceived, and are capable of being perceived again, or in their nature are deemed capable of being perceived; for thus, as is desirable, we shall include in the domain of physics the things which fancy combines out of realities, as well as the things which fancy has not meddled with. Such being the domain of physics, where is that of metaphysics-of things which, according to the literal interpretation of the word, lie beyond-out of nature? Are there such things? And if there are, whence do they derive their existence, or how do they exist? My answer is ready, but I hear my reader exclaim, "Ohe! jam satis." Let him be a thinker with myself on what I have thus far put before him, and perhaps my next essay may find him disposed to go still onward with me in the course we have begun.

MODERN FRENCH HISTORIANS.

NOTHING is more curious than the backward movement which has been going on in French literature during the past few years, and the disputes to which apparently well-recognised historical facts gave birth. The Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Great Century could not be alluded to without at once entailing quarrels and abuse. One furious writer, who constantly rages against everything connected with modern enlightenment, boldly declared that Louis XIV. acted very wisely and rightly in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the friends and defenders of tolerance wrote most earnestly against him, as if they were defending a contemporary fact. On another occasion an abbé poured out his Dominical gall in a pamphlet, in which he demanded in the name of his religion and Church that the study of the old classics should be abolished from schools as godless rubbish, and at once a pen-and-ink warfare began, into which the whole of the French clergy were gradually drawn. Soon after began a dispute about the Middle Ages, which had long been consigned to a literary limbo, and in which one party saw a model of development and government, the other only bigotry and reaction. But the explanation for this may be easily found: French authors are unable to write what they would wish with that freedom necessary for a satisfactory result, and they vent their spleen on M. de Persigny by attacking one another.

An interesting history might be written about French literature under the Empires and the Restoration. Before the Revolution authors were under strict police control. We must not forget that Father Daniel was accused of high treason, because in his History of France he omitted four of the Merovingian kings, and Fréret did penance in the Bastille for his daring assertion that the old Franks were not a nation, but a federation. The Revolution removed none of the obstacles in the path of historians, and the Empire which, as Thierry wittily observed, held a

state monopoly of history, ordered the official continuation of President Hénault's poor" Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire de France," and of the Abbé Velly's "Histoire de France." During the Restoration authors fared no better, and the censorship absolutely prohibited Augustin Thierry's treatise on the time of the Merovingians, under the pretext that he had maliciously lopped off five hundred years from the age of the French monarchy. But history could not be impeded by police regulations, and ere long it rent all the red tape bonds that held it. Original memoirs and documents were sought out and cleansed from the dust that covered them; chronicles, poems, medals, portraits, all were cross-questioned: in a word, a renaissance on a small scale commenced. The middle long contemptuously treated, regained their honour and repute, and the whole learned world went mad on Gothicism. Never during their existence as a nation have the French displayed greater reverence for their history, and perseverance in the restoration of monuments than from 1818 to 1848.

ages, so

Since the last revolution, however, great changes have occurred. The events of the years 1848 to 1852, which let the history of France slip from the straight path, and altered its apparently logical progress, embarrassed the historians, and they held their hand. A great change, too, had taken place in the nation. With the development of commerce and industry, a taste has been aroused in them for increased expenditure, though we fear that the publishers derive the least profit from it. The present state of literature in France is unparalleled. Such books as the Memoirs of Leotard, or of Rigolboche, are sold by thousands or tens of thousands, while a publisher turns with pious horror from any manuscript of respectable calibre. We will not assert that books do not appear: on the contrary, more are now produced in Paris than ever was known, but they are no food for strong men. History made easy, and immoral romances, such is the pabulum offered the rising generation of France. Under these circumstances we have thought it would not be beside the question if we cursorily ran through the list of French historical writers, and showed our readers the nature of the works on which the next history of France will require to be based.

There was a time when Augustin Thierry could write, without fear of contradiction, that "France possessed no national history." The great question was who should undertake such a task, which demanded a combination of powers and qualities rarely found in an individual. Several distinguished men, therefore, divided the labour between them; the brothers Augustin and Amédée Thierry taking up the oldest period of French history, in which they made some valuable discoveries, while Guizot, Ampère, Villemain, and several others, undertook special departments. Bolder than these, Michelet and Henri Martin set to work writing the complete history of their nation.

MICHELET has now all but terminated his "Histoire de France," which he has constantly begun and left off again. The first six volumes (1833-1845) contain the history of the oldest period and the middle ages they are written in the romantic style prevalent at the period, and may be regarded as the author's masterpiece. In the seventh volume, entitled "Renaissance," Michelet assumes a perfectly different tone, and speaks contemptuously of the middle ages. The liberal way in which

Michelet confesses his error, certainly redounds to his honour, still, it is a pity that he did not adhere to his original plan. When he began his history he was not mixed up with the commotions of parties and journals, which took scarcely any notice of his work: he was regarded as a fanatic writer, and christened the "hierophant of historiographers." Aroused from his contemplative life by a dispute with the Catholic party, his passionate temper hurled him into the bitterest polemics. His bold demeanour cost him many friends, and the minister of worship threatened to deprive him of his professorship at the College de France. This was pouring oil on the flames, and Michelet at once sought support from the extreme party. In his "Histoire de la Révolution Française," a painfully bitter tone is perceptible, and this was carried into the other volumes of his great historical work. Though his descriptions are always peculiar and lively, there is an exaggerated straining after effect, and he passes almost without transition from the most poetical style to the coarsest language. Indeed, he appears to have an indescribable delight in seeking out and employing cynical and improper language, as witness his characters of Mary Stuart, Marguerite de Valois, and Catherine de Médicis. We are bound to say, on the other hand, that he is most impartial in his abuse of Guises and Valoises, Catholics and Huguenots, Leaguers and Frondeurs ; in short, all France of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is morally guillotined. If Michelet complains against the harsh verdicts passed on him (as he does against the Doctrinaires, for instance), he ought to confess that he is measured by his own wand. At the close of the tenth volume he says plainly, "This history is not impartial," and we might overlook this, were he not at times purposely and prematurely severe. His descriptions frequently do not agree with what he tells us in cooler blood about the same persons or others connected with them.

The eccentric medley of good points which easily degenerate into faults, and of faults which often possess the charm of beauties, justifies the most contradictory opinions about Michelet. However much we may protest against his fashion of writing history, we cannot close our eyes to the fine thoughts, pointed remarks, witty suggestions, and admirable qualities scattered through his writings. The most striking thing about Michelet is, however, his individuality; his pen follows the changes of his temper, and appears to be governed by his digestion. This individuality is the spice of his writing, but it is also his greatest injury, for he pleases the reader or displeases him personally, just in the same way as we feel an instinctive attachment or revulsion for a person for which we are quite unable to account. When we have read the last six volumes of Michelet's history, we are full of the impressions the spectacle has left upon us: we have been present, so to speak, at the representation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on the stage: the feasts of the Borgias, Savonarola's martyr death, the merry life at Fontainebleau, the gloomy apartments of the Escurial, the roof of the Sistine Chapel, Luther's writing-cell, Albert Durer's workshop, the Parisian marriage of blood, the menagerie of Henri III., the murder of Henri IV., Richelieu's cabinet, Corneille's tragedies, the accouchement of Anne of Austria, the sleeping apartments of court ladies and nuns, under Louis XIII., all this we see vividly, and yet have no distinct general idea of those two

centuries. The Renaissance, the Reformation, the League, and the Fronde show us their stormy scenes, but do not reveal their mysteries. Although Michelet fails in his general representation of history, he can describe in the most masterly manner concrete things; and that quickness of temper which renders him unfitted to contend with abstract ideas is most serviceable to him when he has to introduce a character, describe a landscape, or explain a work of art. In such instances he displays an astounding wealth, an inexhaustible store of images and parallels, which he dispenses with profuse liberality, but always with the instinctive tact of the true artist. It is just the same with the colours he employs they are at times glowing and dazzling, but never false or offensive to the eye. As regards his portraits, we may safely assert that since Saint-Simon no Frenchman has drawn them so vividly and correctly. In his last six volumes we find them in every variety: fulllengths in gala costume, miniatures, and even profiles, drawn with a couple of bold strokes, but of all extraordinary similitude, because the characteristic feature is eagerly sought and brought out. An artist himself, Michelet has a fine feeling for works of art; and this picturesque, descriptive talent, and constant reference to domestic history, form the greater part of his originality, and render him worthy of a place among the first writers of the age.

HENRI MARTIN has recently completed his "Histoire de France," in sixteen volumes, and the merit of the work consists in its being written after a regular plan; and while containing the result of much personal research, has appropriated the labours of other historians. It is, in fact, merely a new edition of a former work, five times crowned by the French Academy, and which appeared completed; but the last volume had scarce come out ere the author determined to remodel it entirely. Henri Martin evidently rivals his master, Augustin Thierry, and has many of the qualities that go to constitute a good historian: morally regarded, his love of truth and desire for accuracy become in him timidity and passion. Though indefatigable in his researches, his conscience never appears satisfied, and his work is overladen with references, which is much like giving the reader the dross from which the gold has been extracted. Henri Martin is the produce of that mental movement which took place in French literature in 1820, and is in action to this day. The parliamentary age was certainly a glorious one for France, especially the first half of it, which produced so many orators and poets, philosophers and historians: men such as Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Augustin Thierry, Cousin, Thiers, Royer-Collard, Villemain, and Guizot. The French still live on these names, and through them maintain their literary reputation in Europe. Strangely enough, the same men whom the revolution of July tore from literary pursuits and introduced to a political life, the February revolution sent back from politics to literature. Deprived of all sympathy with affairs of state, they live in great retirement amid a very limited circle of friends: as silent observers of the present order of things, but by no means as idle lookers on. On the contrary, they wield the pen diligently, and any mental movement still existing in France emanates chiefly from them. The events which deprived them of their honours and offices have fortunately left them their courage, their talent, and their love of work. After forty years have elapsed they again find