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belonging to the House of Orleans after they should cut themselves loose from the revolution of February, and he re- the impracticable Legitimists, for the sisted the decree for the confiscation of purpose of forming an alliance with the that property with all the powers fur- Conservatives of the Left. His friends nished by the law. To the sons and the did not agree with him at the time, and grandsons of his master he is equally he resigned his position; but they have devoted, and he may be called their political man of business. Had M. Bocher been minister of the interior, all the administrative machinery would have been guided by the Comte de Paris and the Duc d'Aumale. But the plainness of that fact would have made any disaster embarrassing to those superlatively prudent princes, and so M. Bocher again pleaded ill-health. It is not necessary for us to believe that he is smitten with any other malady than political caution.

now come to share his apprehensions and his wishes. The Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier, in fact, has done more than any other man on the Right to bring about the present alliance between the Republican and the Royalist divisions of the Conservative party. Hence the Left was peculiarly pleased when he accepted the ministry of the interior, and the "Chislehurstiens," as the Bonapartists are sometimes called, were depressed in a corresponding degree. But at this stage The next choice was the Duc d'Audif- of the negotiations the marshal came fret-Pasquier, and on the Right side of into the field with a veto. It may be the Assembly there is no man who would that M. Buffet was jealous of the duke. be so acceptable to the Republicans. Or it may be that the president resents His high rank, his wealth, his devotion the advances which the duke has made to the House of Orleans, and his great to the Republicans, or that his old conability soon gave him one of the fore- nection with the Empire makes him most places among the Royalists. He angry at the attacks on the system. Or was one of the most ardent Fusionists, perhaps he has yielded to solicitations and he had a large share in the first from his minister of war, General Cissey, negotiations between the Orleanists and who is a Monarchist, and with whom he the Legitimists. On the Orleanist side refuses to part. Or General Bourbaki, he took the chief part in the making of the commandant of Lyons, and other that compact which seemed to promise Bonapartist generals who are still persuccess until the very day when it was mitted to retain high places of command, shivered to pieces by the Comte de may have stated to the marshal that their Chambord's famous letter. When he authority would be dangerously diminread the epistle, he is reported to have ished if the Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier said that it was a catastrophe. He then were to be minister of the interior. Or, helped the Duc de Broglie to form a as rumour states, the duke himself may breakwater against Radicalism by means have insisted on the dismissal of those of the Septennate; but his clear judg- generals. At all events, the marshal ment told him that the chances of a distinctly told him that he could not be monarchical restoration had gone by for permitted to become minister of the years, perhaps forever. His mind was interior, and offered him a minor portchiefly influenced, however, by his pas- folio. That change was made the more sionate hatred of the Empire. As pres- insulting by the fact that the duke did ident of the commission which investi- not seek office, but had it thrust upon gated the contracts for the army, he him. His parliamentary position would gathered an immense mass of facts to also forbid him to accept any of the less illustrate the foulness of the corruption important offices, and we dare say that that had stained the Imperial system, the consequence was some plain-speakand he used it with splendid effect in the ing, for his many good qualities are speech which bade the Emperor give marred by a highly explosive temper. France back her legions. His detesta- Nevertheless the ministry of the interior tion of the Empire has led him to the falls to M. Buffet himself, and the Duc side of the Republic, not because he d'Audiffret-Pasquier will take his place likes it, but because he believes that no as the president of the Assembly. Nor other form of government can save the was he the only person at whom undercountry from falling into the hands of M. hand intrigue made a dead set, for there Rouher. A year ago he had the courage was also an attempt to exclude M. Walto tell that fact to the members of the lon, or at least to keep him away from Right Centre, of which he was the presi- the ministry of public instruction. M. dent, and he boldly recommended that Wallon has high claims to that portfolio.

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He has for many years been a professor | 1848 with real loyalty as minister of the at the Sorbonne, and he has published interior. As such he was the right-hand historical works of considerable value. of General Cavaignac, and he used all His history of our own Richard II. is a the influence of his office to debook of sterling worth. Being the author feat Prince Louis Bonaparte in the of the amendment which smoothed the memorable contest for the presidency. way for the Senate Bill, and having taken | He said that he wished the people to an active part in the negotiation between choose a man, and not a name. Such was the two Centres, he could not have been the ability of M. Dufaure, that the victor excluded without a show of ingratitude. offered him the same post, and he acAs he is also a good Catholic, he might cepted it; but he soon found it neceshave seemed a suitable minister of pub- sary to part from the prince and at last lic instruction even to the devotees of he was driven from political life by the the Right. But he does not happen to coup d'état. Going back to the practice of agree with Bishop Dupanloup's condem- the bar, he held the very foremost place. nation of the university, and he would There is perhaps no greater lawyer in resist the attempt to give clerical sem- France, and there is certainly no greater inaries power to grant degrees. So the advocate. He is also one of the few lawredoubtable prelate went to Marshal or yers who are equally eminent in the art of Madame MacMahon with a complaint political discussion. The National Asthat the Church was in danger, and a sembly contains far more eloquent men, vigorous effort was made to trip up M. but he has the reputation of being the Wallon's heels. Had the marshal been best debater, and such at least would be as much of a churchman as he is of a the judgment of an English audience. soldier, it might have succeeded, but for His business-like style, his disdain for the present M. Wallon is safe. ornament, his brevity and directness of mem-statement, his command of facts, and his power of hard-hitting make him such an opponent as Mr. Gladstone himself would find formidable. Although about seventy-five years old, he is a man of immense physical vigour. His Republicanism is of the same kind as that of M. Léon Say, but it is united to a keener, or at least a louder hatred of Radicalism. He has never forgiven the excesses of 1848. But M. Gambetta and his friends find an ample compensation for M. Dufaure's sarcasm in his iron will and his determination to have his own way. When he was vice-president of the Council, under M. Thiers, it was sometimes difficult to say whether he or M. Thiers was the ruling spirit. At least he drove M. PouyerQuertier out of the Cabinet, in spite of the favour which M. Thiers showed to that champion of protectionism, because M. Pouyer-Quertier had dared to criticise in public the prosecution of Janvier de la Motte. The marshal will certainly not be able to browbeat the sturdy lawyer. M. Dufaure has, perhaps, the student's instinctive contempt for mere fighters, and there is a report that he intends to keep the marshal in his own place. At least he will not let the ministry of justice be used to cover Legitimist evasions of the law or Bonapartist plots, and that is an ample satisfaction to the Radicals for the bitterness with which he chastises their follies.

The cabinet contains four new bers besides M. Wallon. M. Buffet we described last week. M. De Meaux, the minister of agriculture, is a relative of Montalembert, and an ardent Catholic. M. Léon Say, the minister of finance, is well known in England. He possesses many of the aptitudes for dealing with economical subjects which distinguished his relative, Baptiste Say, and his advancement has been helped by the fact that he owns part of the Journal des Débats. Down to the fall of the Empire he was an Orleanist; but like M. Thiers and M. Casimir Périer, he soon came to believe that a Conservative republic was the only form of government which could be set up, or which could stand in the present state of France. He is now a staunch, if not an ardent Republican; and the clearness of his head, his eminence as a man of business, and his power of incisive speech, make him a valuable leader of the Left Centre. It was to him that the Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier came with the request that the Left Centre should join the Right in setting up a monarchy, but M. Léon Say dismissed him with the answer that the plan signified revenge for the principles of '89.

The ablest man in the ministry, however, is neither M. Léon Say, nor even M. Buffet, but M. Dufaure. Like M. Léon Say, he was once an Orleanist, and indeed he held office under Louis Philippe; but he served the Republic of

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191

Good Words,

Blackwood's Magazine,

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Spectator,

Saturday Review,.

VIII. AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF COLERIDGE, Academy,

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For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY.

WAITING.

WAITING! For what? Shall I ever know? Or shall the new years creep drowsily by Till my death-day comes; shall Í never know why

I was born, and must live out my life of woe?

Is the whole of my lifetime merely a pause 'Twixt my birth that was, and my death to be?

Must I always follow, and never be free? Am I only effect? Can I never be cause?

Or am I but a link of the weariful chain

Of life, and the sequence of things gone by? I am forced to live, for I cannot die, But my life is empty and all in vain.

Yet sometimes I hear my spirit, elate

At the thought of the glorious deeds to be done,

Cry: "Strike! 'Tis the time!" But, in

answer, one —

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From The Fortnightly Review.
ENGLISH TO ITALIAN
LITERATURE.

THE DEBT OF

arms, and the churchman turned for precedents and precepts. The nations of the North, still torpid and somnolent

To an Englishman one of the chief in their semi-barbarism, needed the maginterests of the study of Italian literaturenetic touch of Italy before they could is derived from the fact that between awake to intellectual life. Nor was this England and Italy an almost uninterrupt- all. Long before the thirst for culture ed current of intellectual intercourse has been maintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italy has formed the dream-land of the English fancy, inspiring poets with their most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, and implanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, ingrafted on our more imaginative Northern nature, has borne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, and the poets of this century.

possessed the English mind, Italy had appropriated and assimilated all that Latin literature contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought and fancy of the modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the possession of the scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men of letters found the spirit of the ancients infused into a modern literture; models of correct and elegant composition existed for them in a language easy, harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their own.

The importance of this service, renIt is not strange that Italy should thus dered by Italians to the rest of Europe, in matters of culture have been the guide cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, and mistress of England. Italy, of all digesting, and reproducing the classics, the European nations, was the first to Italy made the labour of scholarship produce high art and literature in the comparatively light for the Northern nadawn of modern civilization. Italy was tions, and extended to us the privilege the first to display refinement in domes- of culture without the peril of losing tic life, polish of manners, civilities of originality in the enthusiasm for erudiintercourse. In Italy the commerce of tion. Our great poets could handle courts first developed a cultivated society lightly, and yet profitably, those masterof men and women. In Italy the princi- pieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the ples of government were first discussed weight of which, when first discovered, and reduced to theory. In Italy the zeal the genius of the Italians had wavered. for the classics took its origin; and To the originality of Shakespeare an acscholarship, to which we owe our mental cession of wealth without weakness was training, was at first the possession of brought by the perusal of Italian works, none almost but Italians. It therefore in which the spirit of the antique was followed that during the age of the seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in Renaissance any man of taste or genius, addition to this benefit of instruction, who desired to share the newly-discov- Italy gave to England a gift of pure ered privileges of classic learning, had to beauty, the influence of which, in refining seek Italy. Every one who wished to be our national taste, harmonizing the initiated into the secrets of science or roughness of our manners and our lanphilosophy, had to converse with Italians guage, and stimulating our imagination, in person or through books. Every one has been incalculable. It was a not unwho was eager to polish his native lan- frequent custom for young men of ability guage, and to render it the proper vehicle to study at the Italian universities, or at of poetic thought, had to consult the least to undertake a journey to the prinmasterpieces of Italian literature. To cipal Italian cities. From their sojourn Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, the in that land of loveliness and intellectual artist, the student of statecraft and of life they returned with their Northern military tactics, the political theorist, the brains most powerfully stimulated. To merchant, the man of laws, the man of produce, by masterpieces of the imagi

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