clared open war against religion
and morality. We must, however, return to these men in the following
period.

Holbach for a whole quarter of a century had regular dinner-parties
on Sundays, which are celebrated in the history of atheism. All those
were invited, who were too bold and too out-spoken for Geoffrin; and
even D'Alembert also at a later period withdrew from their society.

Grimm, whose copious correspondence has also been published in the
nineteenth century, gives minutes and notices of all the memorable
sayings and doings that served to entertain and occupy the
polite world in Europe. Grimm also entertained and feasted these
distinguished gentlemen. He was not at that time consul for Gotha, or
employed and paid by that court or the Empress Catherine to collect
Parisian anecdotes, neither had he then been made a baron, but was
merely civil secretary of Count von Friese. Both J.J. Rousseau and
Buffon belonged at first to these societies; but the former, in great
alarm, broke off all intercourse with the people who then played the
first parts in Paris, and the other quietly retired.

[Footnote 1:
Mon Henri quatre et ma Zaire,
Et mon Americaine Alzire,
Ne m'ont valu jamais un seul regard du roi;
J'eus beaucoup d'ennemis avec tres-peu de gloire.
Les honneurs et les biens pleuvent enfin sur moi
Pour une farce de la foire.--_La Princesse de Navarro_.]

* * * * *

THE ATHENAEUM UPON HAWTHORNE.[2]

The London _Athenaeum_, of the 15th June, has the following remarks
upon the last work of NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE:

"This is a most powerful and painful story. Mr. Hawthorne must be well
known to our readers as a favorite of the _Athenaeum_. We rate him
as among the most original and peculiar writers of American fiction.
There in his works a mixture of Puritan reserve and wild imagination,
of passion and description, of the allegorical and the real, which
some will fail to understand, and which others will positively
reject,--but which, to ourselves, is fascinating, and which entitles
him to be placed on a level with Brockden Brown and the author of 'Rip
Van Winkle.' 'The Scarlet Letter' will increase his reputation with
all who do not shrink from the invention of the tale; but this, as
we have said, is more than ordinarily painful. When we have announced
that the three characters are a guilty wife, openly punished for her
guilt,--her tempter, whom she refuses to unmask,