selves the
passions of another; we do not wait, as it were, to try them on; to make
experiment how we, with all our dispositions, natural and acquired,
should feel in the supposed predicament.

It is far from our intention to give a full and methodical account of
the lectures of M. Saint-Marc Girardin, the perusal of which led us to a
reconsideration of some of our critical principles. They are far above
mediocrity, distinguished by strong sense and vivid expression. Their
principal feature is the just and animated protest they contain against
the literary taste of the present day in France; a taste for the
perverted, the horrible, the monstrous; a taste that welcomes Victor
Hugo with outstretched arms, and retains but a frigid recollection of
Racine. With this literary taste is intimately connected an unhealthy
and feverish condition of the moral sentiments, against which the
lecturer directs his most eloquent attacks; so that his book may be
commended for its sound ethical as well as critical instruction. The
circumstance that the lectures were delivered before the University of
Paris, renders this strain of remark still more appropriate and useful.

Such a strain of remark, based as it is upon general principles, cannot
be useless in our own country; although we do not suspect that the same
perverted taste which meets its reproof in these lectures is common
amongst us. Were we called upon to describe the malady under which our
countrymen labour in respect to literary taste, we should describe it as
a state of torpor and lethargy, rather than of virulent disease. It is
indifference, more than any morbid taste, which an imaginative work
would have to struggle against in this country. There is little
necessity here to guard the public against any species of literary
enthusiasm; certain writers of very dubious merit may be extensively
read, but they are not esteemed. It is only necessary to listen to the
conversation that goes on around us, to be convinced that the extensive
circulation of a book has ceased to be a decisive proof even of its
_popularity_. We seem too idle, or too busy, to give attention to a
thoughtful literature which is not at the same time _professional_--and
we have too much good sense amongst us to admire the sort of clever
trash we are contented to read and to talk about. For something in
leisure hours must be read. A book must be had, if only as a companion
for the sofa, if only to place in the h