violated, prevents our being hurried away by the delusion. Whereas, had the romance-writer kept clear of the consecrated ground of history, and contented himself with merely assigning, for his own convenience, a remote period to his action,-had he never invaded the circle of our most settled associations, we should have permitted him without a murmur to exercise the most despotic caprice over the fortunes and destinies of his story, and the credence which real history claims from us, would have been undividedly rendered to his fiction.

If these remarks apply to a story of the fourteenth century, how much more strongly will they apply to incidents and characters which belong to the fifth? What avails it, that the Author has toiled three times successively through Gregory of Tours, or grown pale over the chronicles, and codes, and acta sanctorum of this obscure epoch? Farewell to all the appropriate graces and characteristic charms of fictitious composition, if they are to be supplied from the common-place books of historical compilers. What does the reader care about strict adherence to dates and chronologies, which the writer, himself kicks away, when they happen to impede or retard him? A picture of the state of Gaul at the period of the Me rovingian invasion, is indispensable to a general history of France; and the reader submits with as good a grace as he can, to the necessity of wading through details whose dull monotony, is rarely broken by the interposition of great counsels or splendid achievements. But in works addressed to the fancy and the heart, or, if addressed to the understanding, incapable of reaching it unless by those avenues, they are wretchedly mis employed. They are drag-chains upon the wheels of the ima gination: they check and embarrass the march of the fiction. Nor does history itself fare at all better from a union with fiction so ill assorted and unnatural. Occasional separations of bed and board are requisite to keep them in peace with each other. The Author is obliged to place both chronology and fact on the bed of Procrustes, and to stretch and mutilate them at his pleasure.

Such would have been our decided opinion as to this mixed species of composition, even had the Julia Severa of M. Sismondi not appeared, as if to illustrate and confirm them. But the learned Writer gives them a most undeniable sanction in his own apology for the imperfections of his work.

Les héros du roman, Félix, Julia, Sévérus, sont de pure invention. L'action de Volusianus, qui forme le noeud en quelque sorte de tout le drame, et l'expédition de Theudéric, sont également imaginaires. Ce sont des choses qui pouvaient être, mais nous ne savons pas qu'elles aient. été. Les autres événemens publics sont en general fondès sur l'histoire.

Je ne me suis, je crois, écarté de la chronologie qu'a l'égard de Saint Senoch, dont la retraite dans la tour de Loches fut postérieure peutêire d'un demi-siécle a lépoche qu je l'ai mis en scéne."

But Felix, Julia, and Severus are not merely personages purely imaginary: they are as much personages of the eighteenth as of the fifth century, and are, in fact, little more than those common beings, beset with difficulties, struggling with misfortunes, tortured by suspense, agitated with hope, or inflamed with love, that constitute the regular dramatis person of a romance. Yet, it would be doing M. Sismondi great injustice, were we reluctant to admit, that measuring the execution of his work by the ordinary aim of the novelist, he has shewn himself by no means incapable of furnishing entertainment to those who are addicted to that sort of reading. Amusement is what they expect; and Julia Severa will not cheat their expec tations. They will probably yawn over the passages which are purely historical, and devote to the infernal deities the Vandals, the Suevi, the Silingi, and the Burgundians; but they will feel a wakeful solicitude for the loves of Felix and Julia, and tremble at the dangers which menace them, when, with a com mand over the terrific that does not fall far short of Ann Radcliffe herself, the Author encloses them in a subterraneous cavern, and, after a lingering and hopeless separation, brings them again miraculously together.

A much higher and a much purer praise, however, is due to M. Sismondi. His characters are not, like Rousseau's, the creatures of a diseased imagination, or moral paradoxes imbodied in the human form. He does not inflame the passions, nor undertake to teach young ladies to be chaste by images of frailty and impurity, or young men to respect the rights of hospitality by examples of treachery and hypocrisy. He attacks superstition, but respects religion; and there is not in the whole extent of his novel, a single passage which breathes à questionable sentiment, or inculcates a dangerous lesson. He does not, indeed, astonish us by the enraptured eloquence of that extraordinary writer. He does not paint the conflicts of love in colours as warm and captivating as those of St. Preux, when he was wandering among the rocks of Meilleraye. But, for a novel-writer, and a Frenchman, no mean portion of commen dation is included in these negatives.

We shall now proceed to give a short summary of the story, extracting occasionally a few passages as favourable specimens of the style and manner of this elegant Author. It is not often, indeed, that we deem ourselves warranted in dedicating so large a space of our journal to works of this class of litera

ture. But the talent and reputation of M. Sismondi will justify a slight departure from our rule.

In the year 492 of the Christian era, Felix Florentius, the hero, took possession of his vast estates betwixt the Loire and the Cher, the donation of the emperor Majorian to Sylvia Numantia his mother. Noviliacum, the villa, or, as it would now be termed, the chateau of these domains, was yet uninjured by the incursions of the ferocious and predatory tribes who had successively overrun that part of the country. The condition upon which the investiture of the lands had been granted, being that of cultivating its soil, the first cares of Sylvia had been directed to the peopling it with persons capable of tilling it; and she had availed herself of the universal anarchy of the times, to collect together a number of slaves and several wandering families, who would otherwise have perished by famine in the vast and dreary forests of Gaul. They were a remnant of the Celtic inhabitants, and spoke the language, and wore the dress of Celts. These, with two military colonies, consisting of veteran soldiers who had retired from the imperial service, completed the establishment of Sylvia. She was accompanied to her retreat by a grammarian and a priest, whose office it was to assist in the education of Felix, and to initiate him in sacred and profane letters.

Felix, like other heroes of romance, displayed an early aptitude for his studies; and having acquired all the manly and polite accomplishments of the age, he is introduced to the reader's acquaintance, in his twenty-sixth year, on his return from Constantinople, where he had sojourned to execute the last sad duties to his father. It is not long before the heroine also makes her appearance. A few months after the arrival of Felix at Noviliacum, a number of fugitives appeared on the opposite bank of the Loire, imploring succour. They had been driven by an incursion of Franks from the vicinity of Chartres, which the barbarous invaders had burned, after having slaughtered thousands of the inhabitants. Among the party who had fled the battle-axes and sabres of the Franks, was Julia, the daughter of Julius Severus, senator and Count (a Roman dignity) of Chartres, who was then at the court of Clovis at Soissons, soliciting his guarantee and protection from the violence which had long hovered over that unhappy city, and cherishing ulterior views of uniting his daughter in marriage with that sovereign.

We need not hint to those of our readers who are versed in the ordinary modes of heroes' losing their hearts to heroines, that the conquest of Julia over Felix was soon accomplished. It was therefore natural that he should endeavour to assist the

Count of Chartres in his project of securing the Roman province of the Gauls, and thus establish an insuperable claim to the hand of his beauteous daughter. His vast possessions, equally distant from Orleans and Tours, suggested to him the necessity of concerting with the governors of those cities,Numerianus, an imbecile and contemptible character, and Volusianus, the archbishop of the latter province.

On his return from Orleans, where the indolence and yoluptuousness of Numerianus rendered all serious discussion concerning the common danger futile and ineffectual, he arrives at the cave of Pan; one of the few remnants still existing of the pagan superstition of Rome, where he has an interview with a solitary Sybil, the only inhabitant of its desolate ruins.

La façade du temple était absolument démolie; l'intérieur était comblé de ruines, d'où s'élevaient des hautes tiges de eigue, tandis que le lierre tapissait les murs lateraux. Mais la muraille du fond était encore debout; elle servait d'appui à une espéce de hangard qui 'avait été batti derriére, et ou des fragmens de colonnes, des archi traves, des marbres sculptés avec soin, servaient à soutenir un toit de chaume. C'est la que vivait Lamia, que Félix trouva assise de vant sa porte, mais qui s'éleva à son approche avec un respect qui n'était pas sans dignité.

• Lamia était deja courbée par l'âge, mais les traits prononcées de son visage, n'indiquaient aucune faiblesse ses yeux enfoncés, sa peau sêche et jaune, et sa maigreur avait quelque chose d'effrayant, Cependant le mouvement seul de sa physionomie commandait l'attention: ses yeux s'animoient comme elle parlait; il y avait alors une sorte d'inspiration dans ses regards, et dans le son de sa voix une assurance, une emphase d'expression qui contrastoient avec sa misére. Ses habits avaient aussi quelque chose d'étrange: des couleurs éclatantes, des étoffes précieuses, s' y trouvaient mèlées des haillons, et Félix croyait vaguement y reconnâître quelques parties des vêtemens que dans tous les anciens tableaux on voyait aux prêtresses des temples.'

Meg Merrilies and the half inspired witches of the Waverley school, seem to have been present to the imagination of M. Sismondi, when he drew this picture. We insert the colloquy in the course of which the hero learns that Julius Severus adhered to the interdicted religion.

"Ma bonne mère," lui dit Felix en l'abordant, "l'obscurité s'approche, et j'aurais besoin d'un guide pour me conduire."

"L'obscurité est déjà sur nous," repondit Lamia, en fixant sur lui ses regards perçans," et j'ai recondult a la vraie lumière plusieurs de ceux qui s'égaraient."

"Je craignais qu'à votre âge vous n'eussiez pas la force de me reconduire à Noviliacum."

Lamia avait supposé d'abord que les paroles de Félix étaient

figurées, et que pour demander une chose défendue par les lois, il avait employé un langage équivoque, qu'il pût rétracter au besoin mais voyant que c'était vraiement un guide qu'il demandait, elle reprit. Je parle d'un temps ancien; à présent vous voyez bien que jene dois plus songer à m'éloigner de ma demeure."

Cette vie solitaire, et ces réponses excitèrent la curiosité de Flo rentius. Il porta ses regards sur sa miserable démeure. Il crut y remarquer l'autel du temple, et le simulachre du dieu qui y avait été adoré, et distinguer aussi la coupe des libations et la hache des sacri fices. Curieux d'examiner cette partie des ruines, il se préparait à y descendre. Lamia l'arrêta." Ne profanez pas, incredule, ce dernier séjour des dieux que vous avez chassés de leurs temples; ne cherchez point à pénetrer des mystéres que vous n'adorez plus; redoutez la vengeance de ce Pan, qui dissipa les armées de vos pères. Les lois de Théodose ont declaré coupable du lèse-majesté, et condamné à mort, ceux qui offrent des sacrifices aux dieux de nos pères. Sans doute vous n'en voulez pas à la vie d'une vielle femme; sans doute vous n'avez pas appris en Gréce, à cette école d'Athénes ou notre religion est encore professée par tout ce qu'il y a de philosophes et de litterateurs illustres, à épier les adorateurs des dieux antiques pour les perdre? Mais alors, pourquoi vous rendre complice de cette action, qui pour vous est un crime, pour nous une vertu ?”››

In answer to some inquiries of Felix concerning the rites of the prohibited superstition, the old lady proceeds:

Vous autres grands remarquez à peine l'existence du pauvre; comment sauriez vous s'il a des opinions? Sans doute il reste parmi nous de sectateurs des anciens dieux de Rome; il en reste aussi des dieux des druides. Mais ou sont aujourd hui les villages d'ou sortaient autrefois les joyeuses processions des Lupercales? ruinés comme ce temple qui me couvre de ses débris."

"Vous êtes prétresse?"

Ils sont

"Je le suis. Et il n'y a pas si long temps qu'un homme, votre égal en rang, qu'un comte est venu au milieu de ces ruines, bruler. l'encens devant la statue du dieu, et consulter l'oracle. Connaissez vous Julius Sévérus?” ” Tom. I. pp. 119–126.

The old hag leaves him still in doubt whether his daughter: had been educated in the same faith; an apprehension which threw dismay and alarm over all the dreams of love and hope which he had so fondly cherished.

The ambitious and haughty character of Volusianus, the archbishop, is well drawn.

L'aspect de Volusianus était vénérable, mais il inspirait autant de crainte que de respect. Sa taille était élevée, et son corps, quoique épuisé par les jeûnes et les veilles, était droit et comme inflexible; son teint était jaune, ses joues creuses, sa tête etait ombrageè d'une abondance des cheveux noirs et courts; l'âge, qui avait marqué ses traces sur tout le reste de sa figure, ne les avait point blanchis, et ce

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