deep root. Persons secluded from the world, | entail upon it a long series of sufferings and on the contrary, the inhabitants of country misfortunes; after which rest, peace, and places living in their family circle, might de- happiness are recovered in the bosom of rive benefit from a well-written book; the virtue. Rousseau pays, at the expense of authors therefore of works on morality ought the tumults of stormy passion, a high tribute to have these last in view. The desire of to the serenity produced by a virtuous life. Rousseau to give to works of imagination Is there in this a moral sense?

such a tendency, and to exercise thus a salu- The story is simple and so well known tary influence on public education, shows at that it need not be long dwelt on here. The once a spirit infinitely at variance with that daughter of virtuous parents is seduced by a which then prevailed in France. Did he ac-man of inferior condition to her own, and complish what he promised? Is his compo- they will not sanction their union. The sition to be considered as moral or immoral ? lovers are painted in the most attractive This is what we are about to examine. colours, and the author tries even to throw Let it not be forgotten, that Rousseau liv- the charm of innocence over their criminal ed in France during the eighteenth century. love, and to find excuses for her in the imHe formed his opinions of the morality of prudence of her mother, who had allowed the age according to what he saw around them to associate, in circumstances, and in him, and in accordance with that, he esti- the blindness of passion. Truth and moralimated the duties of a moralist. If his sys-ty, however, do not suffer by this attempt, for tem was sometimes erroneous, it was not so it is the spectators and not the actors themmuch his fault as that of his age. Hence it was, that he who loudly proclaimed that it was a crime to disturb an established creed by imprudent inquiries, indulged himself in bold opinions on the dogmas of Christianity; dreading lest the universal impiety both in France and other parts of the continent, joined to a false philosophy, should wither all religious sentiment in the human heart; and deeming, at the same time, that it was allowable to save the root of the tree at the expense of its branches. In the same way, the melancholy aspect of public morals seemed to urge him to rescue at least so much out of them as was most vitally connected with the existence of society.

selves who thus look upon the drama; since the maiden feels her degradation, and the lover knows that he is a vile seducer whom the law may visit with rigorous justice. Their of painful trials, aggravated yet more by peace is gone; they pass through an ordeal who is the chief personage, separated from remorse. This is the mere prologue. Julia, her lover, but not from love, at length arrives and the novel at the critical point of its at the critical moment for her happinessmorality. The first is now to be decided, the second to be made manifest. On one side of the misguided Julia stand, virtue, duty, filial piety for her father; for the mother, the cause of her daughter's aberration, has just died; on the other her faithful and unhappy lover, and "Had Heloise," says he, "had nothing to re- love with all its allurements. To which side proach herself for, her example would be much will Julia pass? She had been weak, she less instructive. In times of the greatest cor- was degraded, but in the arms of guilt she ruption, people still admire a perfect morality, felt her degradation, and therefore did not as this excuses them from adopting it as a model irrevocably fall a victim to it. Lord Edward, of their conduct, and thus at an easy rate, by the friend of her lover, proposes their elopemere idle reading, they satisfy the remnant of their taste for virtue. Sublime authors! make your models a little less exalted if you wish to see them imitated. To whom do you extol a perfect virtue! Talk to us rather of that which may yet be recovered; perhaps some one may be found who will profit by such an example." Finally, he regrets that he did not live in an age when he must have burnt his work. With this conviction, Rousseau chose for the subject of his work, not that virtue which had never parted, but that which rising after a fall, makes amends for a fault committed in youth, by sacrifices of the heart, of all life, in the strict fulfilment of duties. His theme is that passion and crime disturb existence, and

Preface to the Nouvelle Heloise.

ment, and offers a safe and splendid asylum for their love. But Julia must then desert her father, and she refuses the offer. Her father urges her to marry a man whom she does not love; her heart shrinks; but she complies with the request of her parent. The sacrifice appears to her as a just expiation by an offending daughter; the just punishment of a guilty child. But then comes the wonder. No sooner has Julia broken the last illusion of love, than what she had viewed as her death-stroke becomes a new life to her. In the atmosphere of virtue and of the recovered affection of her father, and in the esteem of her husband, she feels that she is rising from her degraded state, and that she has been born into a new existence. Henceforth the life of Julia is like a clear stream

emerged for ever from its muddy source. it may do more harm than the second can do A virtuous wife, she confesses to her husband good. If it be so, this is not the author's the fault of her youth, and gains his entire fault. If in the first part he has shown pasconfidence without diminishing his affection; sion and its follies in the most favourable she is a sensible and enlightened mother, an form, he has also painted in yet more attrac affectionate daughter, and a woman fond of tive colours virtue and happiness, derived domestic life. Full of religion, she lives without a shade of error, and dies a victim to her maternal piety; and her very death cures at length her husband of his false philosophy; he is vanquished by such a life and such a death which can be those of a Christian only.

now.

from the strict fulfilment of duties and the charms of a retired and respectable life. With perfect good faith he has imparted the richness of his talent to both sides of his picture. The question therefore seems to be, is it good for young people to read novels at all? and this question has been long since answered in the negative. A work of passion, composed with a purely moral view, does not suit youthful minds yet untried by experience. Besides the unfavourable influence which all novels may be suspected of exercising over the soft minds of the young, is it fair to overcast with gloom their light hearts, and to convulse them with storms unsuited to their age? No one knew better

too that "La fille chaste n'a jamais lu des romans ;" and the very title of his novel, and his preface to it, are proof sufficient that he never intended it for a work on education for the young. But when the question is no longer, whether it be proper to read novels, but whether all novels without exception shall be read, it is then desirable to distinguish between the monstrous compositions of the present day and this of Rousseau, which being run through rather than read, or read by young people, may give cause for scandal; but which being read by persons of matured judgment will stand the test for morality, and rank with the works described by Julia herself. "I know not," says she, "of any other mode of appreciating the books I read, than of observing the state of mind into. which they bring me; and I cannot imagine what kind of merit a work can possess if it does not inspire its readers with the love of what is good."

Is it necessary to say anything more to prove the moral tendency of such a picture? Unquestionably a woman always virtuous would be a more perfect model. The beauideal of woman is a life pure and transparent in both her conditions of maiden and wife. No spot should be perceptible on that crystal, in order that virtue, like a golden sunray, might irradiate the whole of its many coloured surface. Such perfection alone constitutes the mischief of this than Rousseau, who said that most beautiful of nature's types which bears the name of woman. But descending from this absolute idea to the melancholy exceptions in corrupt society, it must be conceived that it was a good thought of the philosopher to exhibit a picture of suffering in crime, and of peace by a return to virtue. The utmost extent of palliation that we offer for Rousseau's tale is, that it was the work of a dark moral period, and that he painted a woman rather better than women then were, and certainly better than the monstrous school The structure of such a story in England would necessarily involve its exclusion, since a higher morality precludes his Julia from interest, and his own depravities would assuredly at present banish the author from the pale of civilisation-depravities of the most heartless character, though of course countenanced by that frightful school into which Rousseau had entered unaware of its exact tendency under their instruction, for example, his children were systematically placed one after the other in the Enfans Trouvés. And though La Nouvelle Heloise possess their sickly sentimentality, yet "The Confessions" contain scenes of the most revolting debauchery of the school of Candide openly expressed; and to them may be traced in a degree the naif modern school, who say anything and speak of doing anything without disguise. No doubt the sentimental Rousseau would have shuddered at the depravity of his literary as well as physical offspring, but it does not rid him of their parentage, any more than Sin's deformity precludes her relation to Satan.

Now having once more awakened the eloquent voice of Rousseau, it may be well to point out the difference between the reform of which he dreamed, and of that preached by the French writers of the present day. A bold Utopist of the eighteenth century, he saw corruption of morals only in the capital amongst the higher classes and the philosophers. He wished therefore to limit it to these cankered members of society, and to preserve to the classes not yet deprived of moral worth and of faith the possession of their treasure: to teach them not to aspire to the follies and dazzling misery of those placed in higher stations: to make them acThe principal objection usually made to quainted with their own dignity and happithe Nouvelle Heloise is, that the first part of ness. This was what he sought to express

by his exaggerated phrase of returning to the and trample him under his feet. Or he might state of nature. Between the position he as- probably restrain himself for a time, feign sumed and that of the present reformers, there oblivion, and then we should hear of his lies an impassable gulf. The Jacobins sleepless nights spent in holding councils soon found out this, and the remains of Rous- with himself by what means he might most seau, placed in the Pantheon by the revolu- effectually wound the old man's heart. Pertionists, were cast out from it as those of an haps he would take a fancy to punish him in aristocrat. The evil, however, went on in his paternal affection by murdering before creasing; and the wrecks of morals, upon his eyes his daughter, and his own once bewhich he built his Utopia, are now exposed loved one. After all, this would be nothing to the battering engine of the Littérature extraordinary, for in the Littérature ExExtravagante. As he made use of a novel travagante we have met with yet more ingeas a popular means by which to recommend nious contrivances. According to the docthe worth of social duties and conjugal fideli- trines of this school it would seem that all ty, so the moralists and philosophers of the the sacred duties of man must be reduced to present day have also chosen the same form the two extremes of love and hatred. to bring the same objects into universal con- The subject of modern novels is not, as tempt, as irrational and incompatible with the with Rousseau, the weakness of a young inliberty of man. This is the beginning and experienced girl, for this would not excite the end-the fundamental idea of the so justly any interest. Their writers look for somecalled Littérature Extravagante, or Mad thing more at war with morality and decenLiterature. In fact, Rousseau with his ser- cy. Madame Sophie Gay's novel "Un Mamons on social duties and conjugal virtue, riage de l'Empire," for instance, is generalwhich he considered as the pillars of human ly considered quite an innocent book, yet the society, would be now regarded as a Rococo following are its incidents. A rich young of the first order, the appellation given to heiress is compelled by Napoleon, in pursuwhatever does not chime in with the present ance of his "système de fusion," to marry an fashionable notions; which last, in their turn, officer in the army, the scion of a noble famihave received the apt name of "décousu." ly. Owing to the French custom, which Will it be admitted for a moment that any dispenses with the necessity of young ladies society can possibly endure of which the educated in convents or in a public institution members do not acknowledge any kind of becoming previously acquainted with their duty? Or by what ingenuity will it be destined husbands, who are chosen by the proved that society can be benefited by the parents (in the present case by the emperor,) banishment of those high principles by which there is nothing new in the couple in question man's actions are subjected to the immutable laws of morality, by which alone deep wounds may be healed and reconciliation be effected between those who have injured each other during the course of life?

knowing nothing of each other before their marriage; but that which is new, and entirely the invention of Madame Gay, is, that they remain strangers even after it. Nevertheless they love each other, though owing to some One beautiful episode in the Nouvelle odd circumstances, they cannot come to a Heloise is that of the intimate friendly inter- mutual understanding. They quarrel in course in the castle of Clarens between the consequence without any apparent cause, lover of Julia and the old baron, her father. and the young wife carries her ill-humour St. Preux has not forgotten that it was the (la bouderie et le dépit) so far that she allows baron who deprived him of his beloved Julia, herself to have a child by the friend of her and who gave her to Wolmar. Neverthe- husband. Strange to say, this remarkable less his first grief being subdued, he lives couple are soon after reconciled, and the child friendly with him, has indulgence for his of the friend is adopted by the injured husband. prejudices, and respect for his years. Let Some slight reminiscences however disturb us now suppose the same subject treated by the heroine, but fortunately the child dies, and a modern French novelist. What a vast thus nothing remains (in the opinion of the field would have been open to him for show- authoress) to prevent her from being considing that hatred and revenge are exalted vir- ered as a pattern wife and a most virtuous tues-the imperative duties of every man woman.* who knows how to respect himself. With what contempt would the age of the old man * It would seem at first that this novel is but another be assailed! What declamation should we edition of La Nouvelle Heloise. They differ, howhear against aristocracy! We should be-ever, widely Heloise, half-mad, passion" begone," hold the mad St. Preux with the rage of failed before marriage, and repented for it during lion, of a tiger, of a hyena, rail against the sins from ill-humour, and feels quite easy about it, the remainder of her life; whilst the other heroine father of Julia, plunge a poniard in his heart, being in addition a married woman.

a

but as a man behind his age (stationaire), in short a rococo.

But the task of advocating the absolute emancipation of woman from all moral and social obligations, and the destruction of the The playwright Scribe labours to prove marriage, tie, has devolved upon Madame that in order to enjoy peace and happiness Dudevant, the well known George Sand. at home, a man must have an unfaithful wife, The heroines of her novels, Indiana, Rose, otherwise quarrels and ill-humour will emand Blanche, are yet but poor samples of bitter every hour. But the most frightfully this theme in comparison with her Lelia. important part of all this is, that these The two leading characters of this novel are cynic jests and obscene pictures are so many Lelia herself, a woman placed on the lowest conclusions derived from the doctrine of the degree of the social hierarchy, and Trenmor, equality of man and woman. Not only have a gambler by profession, who having been clubs been established, having this as their convicted of fraud, and condemned to the watch-word, and not only do popular novelists gallies, is again at large after having under- boast of advocating this reform as an act of gone the punishment. It is impossible to justice, but they even find amongst the misread without supreme disgust their disquisi- guided public many to applaud them. The tions upon social questions of the highest im- controversy is carried on in the name of reaportance. Two of the most degraded mem- son, and who would be willing to contradict bers of society, and outcasts from it, they suc- what is brought forward as reasonable. Whilst cessively attack every one of its laws, all of this war for the pretended rehabilitation of which they have themselves violated. An woman is carried on, the novel writers have openly avowed hostility to marriage, borne found out that in a certain state of civilisation out by a divorce from her husband, the adop- many shameful actions do not bring dishonour tion of male attire, a cigar in her mouth, a upon men, and have hence come to the conwhip in her hand, and her conversation with clusion that the same holds good with regard young men carried on in the familiar terms of to women. But logic and reason are by no tu and George, have invested the talent of means one and the same thing, and nothing Madame Dudevant with a kind of apodecti- can better prove this than the consequences cal authority, and given to her works a moral drawn from the principle of the equality of political cast. According to her system some man and woman, which consequences are, violent passion usually seizes upon married for the most part, only so many satires upon women, very frequently mothers of a family. reason. This doctrine of theirs by equalizWhen her first youth has passed away, and ing only degrades both. With regard to her children are growing up, the superannuat- shame, for instance; there are some emotions, ed heroine begins to perceive that maternal as timidity, which are disgraceful in man but affection is not sufficient for her. She there- not so in woman, and vice versa. It may be fore sets about looking for the ideal of her more justly affirmed that, as in many other soul, and has usually little trouble in finding things, there should exist an equilibrium, but it. Then begins a struggle, but not with a not an equality, between the sexes. The desense of duty, not with attachment to husband sire on the part of woman to enjoy the rights and children, not in the least!—but a struggle of man, is as rational as it would be for man with society, because a Mariette has happen- to wish to acquire all feminine charms. ed to marry a respectable man, and not a Providence has bestowed its gifts impartially proletaire or an adventurer, who alone knows on both sexes, but has granted to each differhow to love. From Madame Dudevant's writings it would appear that if the institution of marriage be permitted to exist at all, society should contrive a kind of noviciate from which it would be permitted to withdraw, several probatory degrees of marriage. The self-styled emancipators of woman, Other authors, as Bibliophile in his novel, the asserters of her rights, whether male or Vertu et Temperament, try to prove that a female, will accomplish nothing beyond chaste woman is naturally bad, but that a disso- reducing that beautiful creation of maiden, lute one must necessarily possess a tender heart wife, and mother, to a mere impure being. and the most exalted sentiments. Bibliophile The French novels of the present day are however has accidentally committed a strange but narrations of the metamorphosis of woman inconsistency. The lover of one of these ten- into that vile type; representing, as it were, der-hearted personages cannot bear her noble a second fall of Eve from tasting a new fruit actions, and blows out his brains in conse- of knowledge. Warning and animadversions quence; but it is only fair to state on the on these French doctrines are the more called other hand, that the author represents the for at present, inasmuch as the contagion has young man as not a genuine jeune France, already begun to spread amongst ourselves.

ent qualities. Besides, Christianity nearly two thousand years ago, secured to woman as much social equality as is compatible with her destiny; to go beyond this is an unreasonable attempt, and pregnant with evil.

In addition to Mr. Owen's mad theories, fe-dustry the least appropriate and the least exmale authors have also raised their voices; pected means of deceiving the public into some demanding for women equal political making common cause with crime, and this rights with men; others trying to prove, not is, in fact, the cardinal sin of the extravagant the equality of woman to man, but her school. superiority to him, and setting forth how she has been invariably oppressed by him. Some too come forward to teach woman her mission, of which, it is to be concluded, she has known nothing up to the present day. Learned authors, beware of what you are about; you are perhaps unconscious that your voices may be as tempting unto evil as that of the first seducer of our parents. Eritis sicut Deus.

Had

Whilst Victor Hugo was endeavouring to discover some new secret of art, which only ended in bringing forth a monster, a powerful rival to him arose in the person of A. Dumas. The latter also, like V. Hugo, be gan his career better than he has continued it, as if the French atmosphere at present were poisonous to talent, rendering dizzy every brain. His first drama, Henri III, is full of truth and beauty, for which it is The fatal influence of such a low standard vain to look in his subsequent compositions. of morality may be best exemplified by the "La Tour de Nesle" is full of exaggerated works of Victor Hugo. His "Cromwell" horrors; and in his pieces, Antony, Angela, and "Hernani," dramas of considerable Thereza, and Richard D'Arlington, rape, merit, deserve to be excepted from the incest, and murder, are the every-day occu Littérature Extravagante, but not so his pations of the crowds that frequent the drama of Marion Delorme, and all his subse- boulevards of Paris and the saloons. quent compositions. Victor Hugo, a poet, these two men, with their superior talents, is at the same time a theorist, and he has followed a right course, they might have made up a particular system for himself, ruled the spirit of their age. But they chose which, not relying on the sagacity of his rather to become its slaves. Their servility readers to discover, he has developed in the is conspicuous in all their works. When, prefaces to his dramatic works. He says for instance, V. Hugo declares to an applaudplainly that the surest way of producing ing audience, "that the Countess of Shrewsdramatic effect consists in mixing up with bury" has the honour to marry a workman, physical or moral deformity, no matter how not because he is an honest man, or a skilful great, abominable and vile, some pure and mechanic, but merely because he is a worksublime sentiment, and the result of this con- man, it must be confessed that no courtier trast will be the making such physical or ever more unblushingly flattered his master. moral deformity appear interesting, touching, Their sole aim seems to be to invent connay almost lovely. In accordance with this tinually new modes of flattering the public; theory Marion Delorme, a degraded woman, it is with the view of pleasing the public that appears on the stage purified by a bit of they blacken all the former history of their love; "the author," these are his own words, nation, at the same time that they represent "will not bring Marion Delorme upon the this same public and the whole present stage without purifying the courtesan with a generation as inflamed with some mad fury little love."* and shameless cynicism, and tormented as with The horrid dwarf, Triboulet, a court so many ulcers in its social organisation— jester and minister to the king's profligacy, by perjury in marriage, adultery, incest, deis the model of a good father. The abomi- sertion of children, &c. Can there be, in nable Lucretia Borgia is the affectionate fact, any natural sympathy between society mother of a son born of incest. His three in a certain state and deformity and crime? dramas, Marion Delorme, Le Roi s'amuse, For the honour of man we would rather and Lucrece Borgia, were compos d ex- think that this is but the aberration of these pressly to develope this theory, of which, to two misguided minds. speak in the most moderate terms, it can only be said that it is the theory of a quack rather than of a poet. He degrades all the sentiments which ought to remain for ever sacred, and violates all sympathies both of nature and reason. He strives to beautify what is deformed, and seeks out with the utmost in

Whilst Victor Hugo and Dumas drag upon the stage all the turpitude they can rake up from the ancient history of France, Paul Lacroix, under the pseudo-name of Bibliophile Jacob, does the same in his historical novels, as La Danse Macabre, La Loi des Ribaud, &c. Like his predecessors forty years ago, Bibliophile during this reign of literary terrorism may be said to guillotine all the history of ancient France. He tears from the grave the misfortunes, the prejudices, the ignorance, every loathsome detail of the