in general, they excel in softness, depth, and beauty the productions of Faber, John Smith, or Valentine Green, and can scarcely be considered inferior even to the productions of Mac Ardel. Many Irishmen attained to great eminence in the art of engraving in mezzotinto, which, we may observe, was first practised in England by Henry Luttrell, a native of Dublin. "I shall here affirm," says an English writer, "that if our sisterkingdom had produced such great men, in the other branches of the fine arts, as she has in mezzotinto engraving; she might say to Italy, I too have been the mother of immortal painters.' This, however, it should be added, was written before Ireland could boast of Maclise, Mulready, and Danby. Notwithstanding the impetus which the fine arts have of late received by the establishment amongst us of the government schools of design, and although numbers of presumptuous dilettanti are to be found in our cities, the grossest ignorance still prevails relative to the history of art in Ireland. Of this, perhaps, no stronger evidence can be given than the statement publicly put forward in print, that the first portrait of a lord lieutenant engraved in Ireland was that of our late vice-roy, the earl of Clarendon: while another writer, apparently acquainted with the history of the fine arts on the Continent, but unmindful of Algarotti's axiom, that "ogni scrittore dee stare nel suo paese,' assures us, in an equally dogmatic manner, that: "it was owing to the establishment of the Art union, that a copper-plate printing press was for the first time set up in Dublin." By similar displays of ignorance of their country's history have the so-called literary classes of Ireland earned for themselves abroad the degrading character of being according to Camden's paraphrase of Cicero-"strangers on their own soil and foreigners in their own cities."

ART. IV.-MODERN FRENCH NOVELS.

1. La Chasse Au Roman-par Jules Sandeau. Paris, 1848. 2. Le Centilhomme Campagnard-par Charles de Bernard, 5 tomes. Paris, 1846.

3. Le Dernier Irlandais-par Elie Berthet. Paris, 1852. 4. La Belle Drapière-par le même, Paris.-Translation by Frank Thorpe Porter. Duffy: Dublin, 1852.

5. Clovis Gosselin-par Alphonse Karr. Paris, 1852. 6. François le Champi-par George Sand. 1848.

SYDNEY SMITH, in his queer, half grave, half laughing humour, tells us,." There used to be in Paris, under the ancient régime, a few women of brilliant talents, who violated all the common duties of life, and gave very pleasant little suppers;" and having shown how all the scandals of the regency have come down to our age, in the pages of gossiping writers such as Grimm, the French Boswell, and of Madame D'Epinay, he laments that we should peruse such books, but adds, "if all the decencies and delicacies of life were in one scale, and five francs in the other, what French bookseller would feel a single moment of doubt, in making his election?" There was, and indeed there is, much justice in these observations of the witty canon, but it happens unfortunately that the men and women, who rave in a pious and virtuously indignant horror, at the mention of French novels, fancy that all the French women 66 violate all the common duties of life," and that, therefore, a picture of French life, must be a picture of sin and dissoluteness. No one can doubt that amongst a certain class of persons in this country, French novels are read, and openly read, of so bad a tendency, that no virtuous woman in Paris, would either place them upon the table of her boudoir, or read one single line of their contents. But this proves nothing for those maudlin purists, who brand all the light literature of our neighbours with the stigma of immorality. English and Irish, men and women, buy an objectionable class of foreign novels, for the same reasons that they buy French gloves, French waistcoats, French boots, or chocolate bon bons, simply, because they are more agreeable, and more piquant than can be procured in London or Dublin. Our argument is, not that all French novels are harmless, but that very many

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French novels are particularly good. We assure the reader, that whoever can read Telemaque without a dictionary, and chooses to take a little trouble, will find abundance of books of fiction, in the language of that work, distinguished by the qualities that mark excellence, in every variety of that department of literature, if the undersigned are allowed to be such.

An interesting story. The final purpose never lost sight of, and proposed at an early stage of the narrative, plot simple but agreeably diversified by dialogues and descriptions, and imbued with the local colour of the time, the place, and the state of society of the period.

Descriptions of scenery and characters, dialogues and other adjuncts, helpful and proportioned to the story, and not over charging it, like a profusion of unskilfully applied lace, hiding the colour, and quality, and cut of the garment.

A healthy tone of unforced morality, so that the author need be at no loss either for moral observations throughout, or to point his particular moral at the end.

Wit, or at least genial humour, when appropriate to the occasions that present themselves; triumph of the good, over the evil principle, so that when even poetical justice, like the ordinary justice of real life remains blind, and the virtuous characters are unsuccessful, and the vicious prosperous at the denouement, there must be still a lively impression of the mental misery, ever waiting on vice, and the consolation of the truly good and religious under the most uncheering prospects.

An absence from the picture, of horrible, disgusting, and vicious images. Generally, a prevalence of light over shade, and, in consequence, more attention and time given to the cheerful, pleasing, and humorous characters, incidents, and descriptions, than to their opposites; one chief light and shade, instead of a succession of sharply defined masses of both, without any interposing breadth of harmonious middle-tint, or keeping, or aerial perspective, as we observe in old engravings.

Dramatis personæ not too numerous, and (omitting other essential qualities) if the denouement is to be tragic, the numbers killed so moderate, that the survivors may be able to inter them without too much inconvenience to themselves.

In the variety of works of fiction, some of the above properties are necessarily absent or modified, as the painter who

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delights in presenting the storm tossed billows of the angry firth, with the barks hanging on the edge of the yawning chasm under the gloomy sky; or in pourtraying the solemn interior of an old cathedral, with only a few portions brought out into strong relief, by the sun beams streaming in through the painted glass, while the greater part remains in clear middle grey tones, relieved by dark warmly tinted shadows; or again, as he who seated in the inner recess of a long retiring sea cavern, fills his canvas with rugged rock and dark deep cavities, save where the ripples of the waves at the mouth, flash glittering along the greenish azure of the sea; as each of these artists uses the same colours, but in very different proportions and combinations, as Fielding or Jutsum, when they bring before our delighted eyes the lovely bits of old grassy banks, and gaps through broken hedges, and winding lanes, with the clear and transparent shade thrown across them by the high hedges of softly tinted trees, while all the open green spots, bask in the warm sunshine; so the true artist in fiction, is allowed the choice of many modes or styles, but all the parts of his composition should be then developed in unison therewith. object he aims at should be visible, and he must make his readers sympathise with his favoured characters and with himself, in desire for its attainment; as a traveller whose evening resting place is to be a lodge on a distant hill, never lets his eye wander from it for any length, or suffers it to dwell with too much interest on the intervening valleys, little eminences, copses, or low lying meadows, except to trace the course of his path through these different temporary resting places. These are the characteristics of all good French novels, and begging the virtuous reader to take some comfort from our assurance, that the mass of young ladies in France, are no more likely to have their minds poisoned by the profusion of bad works in their native tongue, than the daughters of our Irish and English nobility, to be corrupted by the perusal of "Reynolds's Mysteries of the Court;" we will proceed to the consideration of the works we happen to know, and, knowing to approve. We begin with the Chasse au Roman of Jules Sandeau. We will not inflict on the lazy English reader, an analysis of his peculiar style and genius; let him form his own judgment from the extracts here presented :

"About the year 1788 there lived in Paris a young man named

Valentine. He was twenty years old, reasonably witty, and had for patrimony an uncle by whom he was idolized.

"He was indeed the jewel of an uncle, this good Mr. Flechambault-a real comedy uncle.-It is a pity that the species is so common on the stage and so scarce in real life.

With his nephew's weal solely in view, he had declared at the death-bed of his sister, that he would never marry; and he kept his word in spite of a strong inclination to that state.

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"Thanks to his allowance, and the celibacy of this worthy man, Valentine might sleep, as they say, on both ears. Though not living in great style, he still saw good company among whom he passed for an accomplished cavalier, particularly in the eyes of mothers duly informed of the amount of his expectations. While discussing the question of a profession, his uncle had said to him do whatever you please; and on due reflection Valentine had decided on doing nothing. Rich and generous, he had many friends; without talent, or superiority of any kind, he had not a single enemy. To these advantages were annexed others, despised indeed by poetry, but appreciated at their full value by prosaic reality. He enjoyed robust health, and a good appetite, and availing himself of the relations between his uncle, a long established fitter-out at Nantes, and the American captains, he never smoked other than Havannah cigars. Now may I not ask was there ever a lot more worthy of envy; and yet much was wanting to complete our hero's happiness.

"Even as a miserable little worm is able to spoil the fairest fruit, a bias of the mind is sufficient to trouble a life the most serene, to destroy felicity the most perfect. We shall see, by and by, how this young man had come to despise the pleasures and comforts that lay, as it were, under his very hands."

Mr. Flechambault had long since resigned commerce, and settled in his little farm of Cormiers at some distance from Nantes, on the banks of the Sevres. It was here that Valentine grew up, the object of so much love and solicitude, that he never thought of asking himself whether he were an orphan or

not.

"At eighteen years he was a handsome and good young man, knowing very little Greek or Latin, but a fearless rider, managing his horse like the Lapithae, and being the joy of his uncle, who saw no obstacle to his dearest wish, which was, that Valentine should become the husband of the daughter of his dearest old friend Varembon.

"Mr. Varembon and Mr. Flechambault were friends of the old school. Their attachment is still as proverbial at Nantes, as that of Orestes and Pylades, Euryalus and Nisus, or Damon and Pythias. I will give but one example of it, but that one is worth a thousand. Having discovered, unknown to each other, that both were in love with the same lady, they embarked secretly in different vessels, each