nce.
He has adored nature, he has been a pantheist, he has distributed
God everywhere, to compensate for not having him in his own heart;
he has adored Greece, and rendered a sort of worship to beauty
such as the Greeks conceived it, and endeavoured to find an
enthusiasm in the arts; he has adored the south, and sung the Land
of the orange grove, because the south is the region of strong
faiths, and is repugnant to scepticism; he has adored the middle
ages, because they were ignorant of doubt, everywhere he has
sought to cure the wound of that insect which had stung his youth.
But no; his scepticism pierces through all his enthusiasm, and the
very variety of his inspirations proves his indifference. He is
neither philosopher, nor devotee, nor Christian, nor pagan, nor
courtier, nor citizen, nor of times ancient or modern, nor of the
north, nor of the south-or rather, he is all these at once. He is
the echo of nature, he repeats to us all her harmonies; but he
fails to add that utterance, which unites so well with the
harmonies of the world the utterance of his own heart. Ask of
Goethe to represent man and nature in all their variety and
extent, and he will do it. There is one thing you must not ask of
him--himself. This _self_ fails in Goethe; not the self which
knows it is a great poet, and will to be one; but that other self,
which has a thought, a principle to contend for, which, in
short, believes in something. It is there the insect stung; both
in Goethe and in Werther.

After discussing the character of modern French literature, there
remains the important question to determine, how far the state of
literature represents the state of society--how far the one is a
faithful picture of the other. Upon this subject M. Girardin concludes
his volume with some excellent remarks; but here we must also conclude
our notice of this interesting work.

LORD ELDON.

In a free country, if there ever was or will be a truly free country
besides our own, the life of every public man ought to be written. All
would supply a lesson of more or less value; and it is upon lessons of
that order that the vigour of the rising generation can alone be
trained. Undoubtedly, in the mixed qualities of human nature, there
might now and then be formidable displays; the development of the heart
might often startle the