e crying evils of the community to
which the author belongs; a work that may have been written for
money--with the mere object of book-making--to bamboozle the million, to
inspire it with cock-like crowing; certainly, with no hope of
regenerating France, of removing one feather's weight from the load of
calamity to which her people, in common with the people of all the
nations of the earth, are mysteriously doomed.

We do not pretend to understand the motives which have carried M.
Michelet to his task; neither can we distinctly discern the object which
it is his purpose to reach. His book is divided into three parts, which
are again subdivided into chapters. There is a great appearance of
connexion, and indeed an affectation of logical cohesion in the
structure, but there is really and essentially no union whatever of the
several divisions. Part I. is styled, "_Of Bondage and Hatred_;" Part
II., "_Enfranchisement by Love--Nature_;" and Part III., "_Friendship_."
Each part is an essay, complete, so to speak, in itself, more or less
distinct; intelligible at times, but as often vague, dark, and
paradoxical; most satisfactory where it treats of simple, well-known
facts--least successful where it deals in the crudest theories, which
are not tedious only because they are ridiculous and amusing.

The spirit that pervades the entire book is that of intolerable
conceit--individual and national. We can pardon the author of _The
History of France_ much, but we will never forgive in him a vice that
has ceased to be supportable in the most ignorant of his countrymen. It
is impossible to conceive a philosopher and scholar so irritated and
perverted by thin-skinned vanity as M. Michelet appears throughout this
volume; and indeed we cannot do his intellect the injustice of supposing
him to believe the jargon that has fallen from his pen. The heart, we
fear, rather than the intellect, is at fault, when he who has the ear of
the people approaches it with accents that inflame its lowest passions,
rather than correct and guide, and bring to usefulness and good, its
best and noblest instincts.

Every thing is perfect in France; nothing is perfect elsewhere. This is
the theme of the song which M. Michelet circulates throughout the
empire. The people are nevertheless wretched, in poverty, and in
bondage; they are doomed to evil government; their social state is one
of tyranny and cruel persecution. An historian, sprung from the people,
ha