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de la Vie Privée,' and 'Les Scènes de la Vie de Province,' by M. DE BALSAC! A few other works, such as Thiers's History of the Revolution,' and the Memoirs of the Empress Josephine,' were probably the different class of books' ordered on the remonstrance of the clergyman.

We give none of these individual cases for more than they may be fairly worth-it is on their disproportionate number and common tendency that we rely; but we cannot but think that the occurrence of these last circumstances at this particular period of our long task is at least a curious coincidence.

We have now done with examples. If our readers should at first sight be inclined to think that we have produced too many, we beg leave to assure them that we have made a comparatively sparing use of the quantity of materials which we had at hand; and if we ourselves have any doubt, it is whether our selections ought not to have been still more copious.

The state of society in a great and extensive country is not to be estimated by a few insulated circumstances,-by half-a-dozen licentious works, or a dozen atrocious crimes :—our own literature has been polluted by bad books, and our own judicial annals are stained with frequent and atrocious guilt; and we regret to say that we have seen, of late, some symptoms amongst our recent English novelists of the influence of the Parisian press; but the evil never has been so great, nor so extensive, and, above all, never so encouraged by public acquiescence, much less approbation, as to justify any conclusion to the general disadvantage of the public morals of England. As to France, prior to the great overthrow, the same observation might, in principle, be made; although, from a variety of circumstances there was in the high places a greater laxity both of morals and manners, which the fatal example of Louis XV. encouraged, till even the virtues of Louis XVI. could not arrest it, and which went on increasing, till,-combining moral depravity with political disaffection,—it ended in the Revolution.

That the Revolution should have corrupted the generation which acted in and was educated under it was to have been expected; but we had, prior to the insurrection of July, 1850, believed that religion and morals were making-slow, we were aware, but we hoped-gradual and steady advances in the public mind. Nor do we yet altogether abandon that consolatory opinion; though undoubtedly the outburst of profligacy which has disgraced the last five or six years shows that the moral regeneration of France had been neither so extensive nor so stable as we had hoped, and convinces us that, if there be not some means found

found to stem the flood of impurity, it will in its progress sweep away whatever of decency and piety may still exist, and will carry the brutalized nation back to the days of Hebert and Gobel, of the Goddess of Reason, and the Spectacle de la Nature.* We say the flood, because that expresses the idea which we wish to convey that it is not accidental or occasional circumstances that could alarm us, but the breadth, the depth, the strength, the impurity of the torrent. We should have thought little of one GEORGE SAND, but there are fifty-of one LELIA, but there are a hundred-of twenty adulteries, suicides, or murders, but there are a thousand; and all suddenly concentrated into a space. of time so narrow, as never before we believe, in the annals of the world, was disgraced by even a tithe of such horrors.

We must beg leave to repeat that, in attributing a large share of this increase of profligacy to the July Revolution, we are not indulging in what may be called our own peculiar prejudices: the facts we have already quoted sufficiently disprove any such imputation-but we have other evidence-from a quarter which with some persons may go farther than any assertion of ours-to the same effect. The essential distinctions of that class of novels which we have been considering are, first, the extreme laxity of female morals which it exhibits; and, secondly, the extreme grossness with which such instances are detailed. Now, let us see what, in a laudatory article on M. de Balsac's works, the Revue des Deux Mondes, one of the most popular, we believe, of the French critical journals, says on this very point.

M. de Balsac made a lucky hit towards establishing his popularity with women (sur la femme), by adapting his novels to their feelings at the moment when they were awakened and excited-after the emancipation of July-by the pictures and promises of the St. Simonists.'

Our readers are aware that the doctrines of the St. Simonists go to relieve women from the obligations of personal continence and matrimonial fidelity.

• There was evidently something of etiquette and reserve as connected with the condition of women, which has fallen and disappeared under the blows of the July Revolution. Nothing may have been substantially changed in their condition, but it has received a new development, and delicate matters have been more plainly spoken of (l'on a parlé plus crûment). St. Simonism-M. de Balsac-and the ILLUSTRIOUS WRITER under the title of George Sand, have all been, in their several ways, the instruments and organs of this change-a change, if not actually in female morals (mœurs), at least in the description

* A dramatic exhibition during the first Revolution, of which the reader can— or perhaps we should more truly say, cannot-imagine the depravity. Suffice it, as a specimen, to say the actors and actresses were at no expense for a wardrobe. VOL. LVI. NO, CXI. and

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and representation of those morals.'-Revue des Deux Mondes, Ser. 3, vol. iv. p. 441.

This admission, that the July Revolution has worked a great and sudden change in the moral condition of women in France, by emancipating them from 'etiquette and reserve'--that is, in one word, from modesty-is all that we require. Whether it has operated by creating a deeper profligacy, or whether it has only emboldened that which already existed, to exhibit itself with such universal effrontery is, as far as regards public decency, of no great consequence; we believe that it has acted in both ways; but in either case, the admission of the writer in the Revue des Deur Mondes justifies our anxiety as to the state of female morals in France, and we need hardly add, that in a civilized country the corruption of female virtue is the worst and most irretrievable of all corruptions.

We hope we may not be misunderstood-above all in France. Neither M. de Balsac, nor his critics, will persuade us that the great mass of French society can be inoculated with this contagion; we know, in our private experience, such a majority of favourable instances of domestic morality and social happiness, that we are justified in drawing like satisfactory conclusions as to the great body of the people; but, as we lately said of the great body of the people during the Reign of Terror, the numerical majority was innocent; but the active, reckless, profligate, and victorious minority gave its own character to the astonished age and the subjugated nation. This is probably the real state of the present question as to the national morality.

We can assure our neighbours that we write in no spirit of national prejudice, and still less with anything like national hostility. We not only love and respect France for herself-for the peculiar qualities which render her, under a good government, one of the most amiable, and powerful portions of the great human family; but we feel that we have great common interests with her. In her welfare and prosperity we shall cordially rejoice, for we needs must share; and if she is destined again to become the prey of political and moral disorder, our grief for her misfortunes will be sincere, for it will be mingled with apprehension for our own.

Our best, we had almost said our only, hope of her being saved from a catastrophe of which we see so many various symptomslight and grave-is, we confess, in the personal character of THE KING. We know not whether he was quite blameless in all the circumstances which have led to the present alarming state of affairs; we incline to believe that he was; but we are satisfied that he is now desirous, and we trust that he may be able, to arrest the mischief-He is a man of talents, of courage, and of virtue; his

whole

whole life has been a series of trials, through which he has passed always with respectability, generally with honour; he has been at good son-a good husband-a good father-a good prince-and, we trust we are justified in adding, a good Christian; he was so in his youth, and no man ever lived, we believe, whose experience was more calculated to strengthen religious convictions. If we are not mistaken in his character, and if it shall please God to continue to preserve his life and to fortify his heart, there is still hope for France and the European world.

ART. IV.-History of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France, from the Year 1807 to the Year 1814. By W. F. P. Napier, C.B., Colonel H. P. 43rd Regiment, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Military Science. London. 1828-1834. Four vols. 8vo. Volume the First.

WE

E must apologize for having so long deferred to notice Colonel Napier's History of the War in the Spanish Peninsula.' We are willing, however, to persuade ourselves that the public will not reject the excuses we have to offer for this apparent neglect of a work which has in various ways excited so much attention. We have to observe, in the first place, that although the fruits of Colonel Napier's labours began to appear so far back as March, 1828, there remains still a part which has not attained to maturity. Those volumes even which have been published have followed one another, as was to be expected in such an undertaking, at long intervals; and to have measured by its first specimens a work which promised to be of very considerable extent, and to have recorded opinions respecting it, which in its more advanced state we might find grounds for altering, would neither have been fair towards the author, nor just to the public, nor judicious with respect to our own character. Four volumes having appeared, however, bringing down the history of the war to the spring of 1812, and the earlier part of the work having reached a third edition, these motives for delay no longer exist. But, besides the above apology for the seeming tardiness of our proceedings, we beg leave further to observe, that a work of this class ought not to be treated with the same degree of haste with which we are sometimes obliged to treat literary productions of a lighter and more ephemeral nature. The stream of historical knowledge belongs to posterity as well as to the existing generation, and it is one amongst the many important duties of criticism to watch with especial care against its pollution at the foun

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tain-head. For Alii quoquo modo audita pro compertis habent; alii vera in contrarium vertunt; et gliscit utrumque posteritati. These considerations will be sufficient, we are persuaded, to bear us harmless, with all lovers of truth, for the delay which has taken place in our entering upon the examination of the work before us. Colonel Napier explains, in a preface, his motives for undertaking to write a history of the war in the Peninsula. Several authors,' he says, have written largely touching that fierce struggle,' but

'truth being the legitimate object of history, I hold it better that she should be sought for by many than by few, lest, for want of seekers, amongst the mists of prejudice and the false lights of interest, she be lost altogether. That much injustice has been done, and much justice left undone, by those authors who have hitherto written concerning this war, I can assert from personal knowledge of the facts. I have endeavoured to render as impartial an account of the campaigns in the Peninsula as the feelings which must warp the judgment of a contemporary historian will permit. I was an eye-witness to many of the transactions which I relate; and a wide acquaintance with military men has enabled me to consult distinguished officers, both French and English, and to correct my own recollections and opinions by their superior knowledge.

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The original documents which the work contains will suffice to give it interest, although it should have no other merit. Many of these documents I owe to the liberality of MARSHAL SOULT, who, disdaining national prejudices, with the confidence of a great mind, places them at my disposal, without even a remark to check the freedom of my pen.'-Preface, p. viii.

But after so wide a promise, we are a little disappointed to find the object of the book limited thus:

'I cared not to swell my work with apocryphal matter, and neglected the thousand narrow winding currents of Spanish warfare, to follow that mighty English stream of battle which burst the barriers of the Pyrenees, and left deep traces of its fury in the soil of France.'-Preface, p. ix.

Figurative language has the defect of not conveying, always, a very precise meaning. When Colonel Napier states his intention of neglecting the thousand narrow winding currents of Spanish warfare,' we are at a loss to understand him. War cannot be unilateral; but overlooking the inaccuracy of the phrase, is it not somewhat unaccountable that the historian of a war, originated by the Spanish people, waged chiefly upon Spanish ground, and having for its first object the independence of the Spanish nation, should profess to neglect the thousand currents of Spanish warfare'? Would it not have been more natural, and far more satisfactory, that he should have shown the connexion of these thou

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