Papin, of the steamboat; two statues to Diderot-one at Langres and one in Paris; a statue to Chanzy, a statue to Rousseau, and doubtless several others which I forget. Some people blame all this, but I think we should rather rejoice in it. It is well for a nation to do honour to its dead, to make their memory visible among men. also well to encourage sculpture, that noblest and most disinterested of all the arts. It is Neither is there any sign of abatement in the passion for exhibitions of all sorts; and if we are sometimes almost ready to cry for mercy, we must remember that nothing can be better fitted to instruct and form the taste of the public. I am not, however, prepared to include in this defence the baby show at the Champs Elysées, which was to have exhibited three thousand babies from one day to three years old, but which was forbidden by the police authorities at the request of the Hygienic Committee. But what could be more delightful or more instructive than the exhibition of pottery, enamels, and glass opened by the Decorative Arts Union at the Palais de l'Industrie? Here you may study the art of the potter and the glassworker from its origin in Egypt or in Greece down to the marvellous painted faiences. of Deck, and the splendid window-glass of Champigneulle, which almost rivals that of the sixteenth century. The exhibition of Sèvres alone is a real history of the ceramic art during the last century. It shows the rediscovery of the secret of colours supposed to be for ever lost, and the invention of new ones of incomparable beauty. Simultaneously with the Decorative Arts exhibition, M. Petit brought together in his gallery the chefs-d'œuvre which compose one of the finest and choicest private collections in Paris-a few pictures only, but all of the highest order. Here are the two masterpieces of Regnault and Fortuny, the "Salome" and the "Spanish Marriage "; two of the most remarkable landscapes of Rousseau; two of the loveliest works of Corot; Fromentin's finest picture, perhaps; a number by Delacroix, including the murder of the Bishop of Liège, the most dramatic of all his works; several Bonnats, several Ricards, several Diaz, several Meissoniers, one Nittis, one Lhermitte. Amongst all these, Regnault's "Salome" shines resplendent, and re-awakens a vain regret for that cruel and premature loss which has deprived our century of a painter who equalled Delacroix in colour and surpassed him in design. Literary production is never very active during the summer months. This year it has also suffered, like our international relations, from the cholera. It is only within the last few weeks that any new books of importance have appeared. Till then we had nothing but novels— and such novels! In addition to the licentious descriptions which disgrace most of our works of imagination, we have been offered the pleasures of scandal. Living and well-known persons are now brought upon the scene. It is, alas! to M. Daudet that we owe the worst and most notorious instances of this practice; but few of our fashionable novelists have escaped the contagion. Even M. Ohnet, M. Claretie, and the whole mob of third-class novelists, have gone with the current. I shall not quote the names of these books; they do not deserve it-though they have their qualities, their characters, their situations. There are certain well-known types which appear in almost all of them-M. Bardoux, Mme. Adam, Sarah Bernhardt; then come the foreign royalties-the Prince of Orange, the Queen of Naples, the Prince of Wales; the Court of Alexander II., and that of the Tuileries, have furnished the whole material of a recent novel. There are natures which make use of this device of the "roman à clef," as these novels are called, as a means of gratifying their private spite by caricaturing their enemies. Thus, a man who has failed at the Ecole Normale revenges himself by portraying the school and the university in colours which only show the dye of his own mind; or an actress jealous of Sarah Bernhardt tears her to pieces in a book made up of a mixture of deplorable truths and odious calumnies. Amongst all this unsavoury rubbish it is refreshing to come upon a novel like Mme. Bentzon's Tony," in which she gives us a very original sketch of a girl, surrounded by careful and interesting studies of country gentlemen and crafty peasants; and still more refreshing to find a rustic story of real literary value, such as the "Innocent" of M. Pouvillon. We had already perceived in "Césette" the fine qualities of this author, his keen observation, his perception of character, and the cleverness of his word-pictures of the scenery of South-west France. "L'Innocent "is sadder in tone than "Césette"; it has few attractive characters; but the rough natures of the riverside peasantry of the Garonne, in their conflict at once with earth and water, are drawn with a firm touch and with a breadth which was wanting in "Césette." There are some very powerful dramatic situations, and the landscape is life-like. M. Pouvillon is one of the healthiest and most original of our modern novelists. We hardly know whether to speak of M. Max O'Rell's "Filles de John Bull" as a study from the life or a work of imagination. But either way, the study is superficial and the imagination feeble. The author had made a great success with "John Bull et son Ile;" and though the book had not much in it, it contained a set of clever sketches, not wanting, some of them, in point or in veracity. He has tried to push his success, and this time he has not succeeded. He has given us nothing new or characteristic; he has sunk into triviality, and even impropriety. M. O'Rell may know Englishmen a little; he does not know Englishwomen at all. M. Ph. Daryl's "Political Life in England" is of quite another order—a serious work, in which you may find something to learn, even after you have read Esquiros and Laveleye. "Ph. Daryl" is the pseudonym of M. Pascal Grousset, to whom the Commune assigned the grotesque rôle of managing its foreign affairs. Convinced at last of the stupidity or rascality of his colleagues in the Commune, he withdrew to England after the catastrophe of May 1871, and set himself resolutely to work; and, without possessing literary talent properly so-called, he has succeeded in producing some interesting books. His novel, "Signe Meltroë, mœurs Berlinoises," though manifestly exaggerated, contains some very just observations. He has also published a French translation of Gordon's letters to his sister. Among books of history, the literary event of the winter-the fourth volume of M. Taine's "Origines de la France Contemporaine"-is just through the press. We shall be able to speak of it more at leisure in a future article; but we cannot refrain from announcing it now. M. Taine here gives us the philosophy of the Revolution, portrays its leaders, analyses the institutions it created. This volume will give rise to passionate controversies; but, like its predecessors, and notwithstanding-perhaps even because of the element of narrowness and exclusiveness in the author's mind, it will make a profound impression. It is in vain to resist ; there is such logical force in M. Taine's method, such an accumulation of facts in support of his conclusions, that you are fain to submit more or less to his ascendancy, and even, while opposing him, confess that he is partly right. No one can read the book without gaining a clearer view of the dangers which threaten French democracy, and of the errors committed by the men of the Revolution, nor without losing more than one conventional idol or unreflecting enthusiasm. M. Taine will have done for the Revolution what M. Renan has done for early Christianity; humanizing its legend, dissipating its haloes, and giving historic reality to the events and persons we have hitherto blessed or cursed according to our private opinion, not according to the "dry light" of facts. In both these works criticism can lay her hand on many a weak point, many a hiatus, many a prejudice, many an injustice; but nothing can escape their influence. They have made a decisive step in the study of two of the greatest dramas of human history. M. Chérest also has brought his stone to the pile at which M. Taine is working. His "Chute de l'Ancien Régime," the two first volumes of which have just come out, is a study of the period between the calling together of the Assembly of Notables in 1787 and the suppressions of orders and privileges in November 1789. These preliminaries, these immediate causes, of the Revolution, are analyzed by M. Chérest with remarkable moderation and impartiality, and with great soundness of erudition. M. Chérest belongs by conviction to the Conservative party; and he began his work in a spirit hostile to the Revolution, and with the idea that it would have been possible to arrive at the same result by partial and peaceable reforms. But a course of conscientious study has convinced him that the privileged orders were incorrigibly attached to the abuses which had to be removed; and that it was they themselves, by their narrow and reactionary spirit, and the king and queen by their levity and weakness and incapacity, who made the Revolution inevitable. Alongside of these works of the first importance we may notice the third volume of the Correspondence of M. Charles de Rémusat with his mother-most valuable for the light it throws on the history of public opinion during the Restoration; the third volume of the memoirs of M. de Vitrolles, even more interesting than the two former, and containing an admirable portrait of Talleyrand sketched by a master's hand; and the sixth and last volume of the Letters of George Sand. This volume contains the letters written by her during the war and the first years of the third Republic, and forms a noble completion of that correspondence which, defective as it is, presents no unfaithful image of a woman who, amidst deplorable errors and with some almost repulsive traits of character, compels our admiration by the rare elevation of her thought and the generosity of her heart. large heart that is the main thing in her; that is the final impression she makes upon you. These six volumes of letters bring us into contact not only with one of the greatest writers of our modern A France, but with one whole side of the literary and social history of the nineteenth century. The last few months have been saddened by deaths which have left a grievous blank. M. Faustin Hélie, the eminent criminalist, VicePresident of the Council of State, and M. Adolphe Régnier, an orientalist of distinction, and editor of the admirable "Collection des Grand Ecrivains de la France," were men who had reached the natural term of a long and brilliant career. Not so M. Stanislas Guyard and M. Albert Dumont. Stanislas Guyard was well known in England by all Assyriological students. In the short time he had given to these subjects he had already made himself a name; and, earlier still, his works on the Ishmaelites and on the Arabian metric system had raised him to the first rank among Arabian scholars. He was familiar with all the Oriental languages, and possessed in the highest degree the peculiar gifts of the professor. He died at thirtyeight, just as he was beginning to reap the fruits of a long and laborious training. Albert Dumont was one of the most brilliant pupils of the Ecole Normale and the Ecole d'Athènes. He had made a reputation as an author and a scholar by his published travels and his archæological works. He had been the first head of the French school of archæology in Rome, which he had himself created; he had afterwards reorganized the French school at Athens and given it a new life. Finally, in 1879, he had been placed at the head of the Higher Education Department at the Ministry of Public Instruction. In this difficult and delicate post he did the greatest service. He largely increased the number of professors, and by the creation of numerous scholarships attracted a crowd of pupils to the deserted Faculties of Science and Letters. He was projecting the establishment in France of great self-governing universities like those of Germany. Unhappily, the excessive toil to which he put himself wore him out before his time, and he died at forty-three, leaving his work unfinished. It is being faithfully carried on by his successor, M. Liard; but none the less his death has been an irreparable loss to the university and to the country. These losses have cast a gloom over the close of the year, and one scarcely has the heart to turn from these subjects of long regret and talk of theatrical novelties. And indeed there is nothing worthy of mention. Here again we have to record a loss in the death of M. Vaucorbeil, the manager of the Opera, which owes to him a period of comparative splendour. Nevertheless, he did not succeed in getting it out of the traditional rut as fully as had been hoped. He had not the courage to attempt Wagner, nor to give us the "Etienne Marcel" of M. Saint-Saens. This remarkable opera has just been given in Paris on a second-rate stage, at the Théâtre du Château d'Eau, and has met a signal success. We may mention, in conclusion, that the concerts of the Cirque d'Hiver, originated by M. Pasdeloup, who was the first to introduce the Sunday afternoon symphonic concert, are just recommencing, under the management of a talented young composer, M. B. Godard. We can but hope that the new management may show itself, like its predecessor, the faithful adherent of classic art. The other concert-halls are at the same time opening their doors, and the musical and theatrical season is just about to begin. G. MONOD. CONTEMPORARY RECORDS. NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS. THE publication of the third volume of Weiss's "Life of Christ,"* as the last addition to Clark's Foreign Theological Library, will now enable English readers to estimate the value of that work in its complete form. The two previous volumes have already been noticed in these pages, and it is doubtful whether the whole work will be very cordially welcomed among us. It is undoubtedly an honest book, by a scholar of great learning, who maintains an independent attitude of mind, and has thought out all the details for himself. But it will be too orthodox for the critical, and too critical for the orthodox, and it possesses the fatal fault of dulness. It is wholly lacking in the force and interest, the glow and fire--even in the varied suggestiveness and pathos-of Lange or Keim. Glaring as are the defects of Renan's "Vie de Jésus," and painful as are the shocks which he often gives to Christian readers, there is in many of his chapters not only an exquisite finish of style, but also an enthusiasm and a vividness which win for him a thousand readers, where Dr. Weiss will meet but few. In the theological standpoint of the writer we constantly see the coldness and the hesitations of the critic who leaves us the impressionwhich is doubtless quite unwarrantable-of one who "Fingers idly some old Gordian knot, Unskilled to sunder and too weak to cleave, A Life of Christ which shall touch the hearts of ordinary mankind may be written by one who frankly and fully accepts the creed of the Universal Church, and finds no stumbling-block in the supernatural; and even perhaps by one who, having been driven by incessant doubts into absolute denial of the miraculous, still feels the divine beauty and unique ascendancy of the portraiture presented to us in the Gospels of the Son of Man. But we do not think that the topic can be satisfactorily handled by those whose whole tone is that of armed apology who are constantly compelled to rationalize, to minimize, and to manipulate the narratives of miraculous power, and who feel themselves at liberty to accept, or to reject, or to modify each and all of the Gospels in accordance with hundreds of subjective considerations. Both these features are observable in Dr. Weiss's "Life of Christ." He by no means denies the supernatural, yet again and again it seems as if he were trying to explain it away, or at any rate to make the least of it. He deals well with the distinction between "miracles" "The Life of Christ." By Dr. Bernard Weiss. Translated by M. G. Hope. Vol. iii. London: Clark's Foreign Theological Library. |
