reconcile with the
cynical tone that he habitually adopts in speaking of most existing
governments and institutions. To say the truth, we have conceived a
great affection for our friend Alexander, and feel every disposition to
glide lightly over his faults and exalt his virtues; to treat him
tenderly, in short, even as one we love. We do not expect perfection
from him, although we are anxious to believe that he approaches as near
to that angelic state as it is given to a child of clay to do. We would
pardon his recording in some detail the gracious words spoken to him by
the King of this, and the Prince of that--showing how he was treated on
a footing of perfect equality and familiarity by the mighty ones of the
earth--how they caressed and complimented him, and wore out the boots of
their aides-de-camp and chamberlains by sending after him--and how they
told him to "Venez me demander a diner," or in other words, to go and
take a chop with them whenever he could make it convenient. At all these
interesting and carefully recorded incidents we should indulgently
smile, were they narrated by any one but our much-esteemed
Alexander--the confirmed democrat, the political Utopian, the declared
disciple of the subversive school, the worthy representative, when he
gets upon the chapter of politics, of that recently discovered
zoological curiosity, the _tigre-singe_. It is the inconsistency of the
thing that strikes and afflicts us.

Of M. Dumas's very ultra views on political subjects, we have abundant
proof in the section headed "Waterloo," which is an amusing specimen of
the rabid style. The tone is pretty much the same as that of the most
violent of the French democratic and anti-English journals. We should
like to extract it all, but it is too lengthy, and we must content
ourselves with the last ten lines. Here they are, breathing saltpetre
and bayonets:--

"A quarter of a century has elapsed since that date, (June 1815,)
and France is only now beginning to understand that the defeat of
Waterloo was necessary for the liberty of Europe; but she not the
less cherishes at the bottom of her heart a poignant grief and rage
at having been marked out for a victim. On that plain where so many
Spartan-like warriors fell for her sake--where the pyramid of the
Prince of Orange, the tomb of Colonel Gordon, and the monument of
the Hanoverians, serve as mementoes of the fight--no stone, or
cross, or