In the character of M. de Chateaubriand feeling of pride on the part of the author, the enthusiasm, if not the true genius of the for these two volumes of essays are replete poet, was blended with the aspirations, if with rancor against cotemporary literature not the fixed energy of a statesman. As a and against some of its most distinguished politician he did not possess that steadiness promoters. The pen of M. de Chateaubri

and certainty of foresight which belongs to practical and experienced minds. The positive easily escaped an imagination so quickly excited, feelings so easily carried away, and a temper truly Bretonne in its stormy pride. Generally in opposition to the reigning power, he was a friend either to the past state of things or else engaged in some visionary plan for the future. The present was always neglected. The same thing applies itself to his works, which have been compared by a contemporary to a dazzling arsenal, where you find weapons for and against every system-in favor of

and has traced in this work some very beautiful observations on Milton, but on points known to all; thereafter it becomes singularly excursive, and sundry chapters are altogether devoid of connexion and bearing. The merits of Chaucer are discussed and dismissed in a few lines; those of Spenser are treated with the like lack of ceremony. Several passages on Shakspeare are certainly very fine, although the chapter on the great bard is singularly incomplete. All cotemporary poets are neglected or omitted, with the exception of Byron and Beattie; the former is spoken of with cool

and against liberty-for and against mon-ness almost amounting to indifference. At

archy, constitutional freedom, and Bonapartism.

For example, since 1830, M. de Chateaubriand, in his pamphlets, especially in the celebrated one entitled, "Du Bannissement de la Famille de Charles X.," and in another on the imprisonment of the Duchess of Berry, approached the verge of republicanism, and joined in friendly communion with Armand Carrel and Beranger; nay, he penned on Napoleon, whom he so reviled at the Restoration, divers eulogistic pages, in which he exalts that conqueror to a level with the Hannibals and the Charlemagnes.

the same time M. de Chateaubria ad considers it fitting to find space in these essays, as before noticed, for a long paradoxical dissertation on Luther, and for equally strange digressions on M. de Lamennais, Captain Sir John Ross, &c., &c.

M. de Chateaubriand also belongs to the political school of historians by his "Etudes Historiques," in which he never omits an opportunity of instituting comparisons between early events in the history of France, and cotemporary occurrences. A rumor has been prevalent during many years that M. de Chateaubriand was preparing a history of France, and the announcemeut had caused high expectations to be entertained: great, therefore, was the surprise, when, in 1832, the "Etudes Historiques" were published. They consist merely of fragments; and he gives as reasons for not putting his former plan into execution, his advanced age, and the discouragement and lassitude provoked by again beholding a darling throne laid prostrate at his feet.

By a curious coincidence, M. de Chateaubriand, after having lived through one entire cycle of the great revolution of his country, expired almost at the moment when some

There is, however, one feeling that pervades all his works, and it is one of bitterness of lassitude of soul, and disappointed hope. At all periods of his life his favorite themes have been the ingratitude he has experienced, the chilly touch of death, the silent tomb, the very worms that are to banquet on his body. Even in the sole work by which M. de Chateaubriand establishes his claim to belong to the class of modern critics, his "Essay on English Literature," he devotes a chapter in the conclusion to the state of his own feelingstinged with that deep and gloomy discon- of the most terrible scenes of his early youth tent, and full of those expressions of bitter were renewed in the streets of Paris. Some discouragement which are to be met with in time back he visited, in a fit of despondence, all his works. This affectation of melan- the grave that awaited him, and which had choly is the more inexplicable on the part of been prepared for him by his countrymen one who has been so much and so long the on the sea-shore at St. Malo. His body favorite of fortune and of his country. In after a public funeral service at the church this so-called "Essay on English Litera- of the Foreign Missions, has now been reture," M. de Chateaubriand has in no de- moved to the city that gave him birth, and gree followed the progress of modern to the tomb which was the object of his precriticism. This is probably owing to alvious pilgrimage. MM. Victor Hugo and Ampere were to represent the French Academy at the final sepulture, and by a curious change of things, one of the candidates for the seat vacated by the illustrious legitimist, is M. Armand Marrast!

this country-will now grieve to think that the possessor of such manifold gifts has ever been wilfully unhappy; that, notwithstanding all he has achieved for fame, it is triffing when compared with what he might have effected; and that he, so great a worshipper of glory, is probably not destined to

Those who have ever sympathized with M. de Chateaubriand, who have read and meditated on the diversified effusions of his enjoy that posthumous renown which has genius-and the popularity of his works of doubtless always been the great object of fiction have insured him many readers in his ambition.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

TEMPER.

BY MRS. WARD.

"FOUND, dead and unowned, in the upper floor of No. -, Palace-street, Pimlico, the body of a female, apparently about twentyeight years of age. The only clue that can lead to her identy is a box containing clothes, some of which are marked with the Christian name of 'Florence." See advertisement, Times, 18-.

The Christian name of Florence! What old associations, deeply rooted in the heart, did that beautiful name revive! What

my Florence. How the radiant eyes smiled into mine as I gazed upon them! how the red lips seemed ready to part with the light laughter once so peculiar to them! how my heart quivered as my eye rested on the slender finger bound by the wedding circlet of pure gold! Oh, how I stood gazing till the twilight lowered her curtain over the room, and the portrait of her I had lovedhad loved and how? acquired a mysterious charm in the surrounding gloom.

memories of boyish days, passed in a lovely Suddenly the cheerful laughter of young country, whose sweet scenes had witnessed voices rang along the passage, and hurrying the happiness of two young lovers! Re- aside from the picture, I opened the door, membrances of cathedral chimes, of noisy through which sprang my children-my rooks, of the heavy waving venerable trees, Florence's children-fair, merry, healthy, of voices on the quiet gliding river, of hal- romping creatures, who came entreating lowed anthems swelling in the distance they might "sit up a little longer," to swept by me, as I sat at table after dinner, which request I was on the point of accedalone in a cottage-room, with windows ing, when the appearance of their stepmoopening on a trelliced verandah, rich in ther at the end of the corridor, proved the roses, and beyond it a velvet lawn. A lady signal of their dismissal with their nurse. moved across the lawn, gathering flowers, She-the scornful stepmother-entered ere the night dew fell: tall, and with a my little sanctum with a light. There stood lofty air, her rich garments rustling among the uncovered portrait of the unfortunate the plants, she moved majestically onwards, Florence. With what an air of haughty busied in her graceful occupation. The insolence did the lofty lady look upon it! lady was my wife.

with what bitterness she reproached me for

Rising from the table, I hurried with a retiring thus to gaze on one long since lost stealthy footstep into a little room within to me and to the world! I made no reply; my dressing-room; I closed the door, locked indeed her anger was wasted alike on me it, and trembling from head to foot, put my and the unconscious image of the chief obnand on a picture, the frame of which, ject of her wrath. The advertisement in carefully covered, leaned against the wall. the paper haunted me. Something whisI tore the covering off with a desperate and pered me that my poor Florence was the decided air, pulled up the blind shading "unknown, unowned" corpse lying in the the jasmine-wreathed window, and gazed miserable attic of a poor lodging-house. upon the portrait of her who had once been Filled with this idea, I rushed from the

presence of my angry wife, and hastened out | her son, entreated me to "be kind to poor of the house through the open windows to Florence Daveney," and we were married.

the lawn. A shower was falling, thunder pealed upon the air, and summer lightning illuminated the village. Pausing a moment, as I heard my children laughing in their nursery, 1 collected my senses sufficiently to return for my hat, and then set off towards the coach road leading to London. At the end of the lane I met the stage, as I had anticipated; it stopped, and I entered it mechanically, and throwing myself into a corner, mused moodily on the events of the last six years, which were these :

We were married! Oh words of sacred import, too frequently uttered without the slightest thought of their meaning, but associated with a world of joy or sorrow; great happiness, gone by perhaps, and oftener with bitter irremediable disappointment!

When but a boy at Winchester, Florence Daveney and I met in the neighborhood of that grave town, where churchmen held their state, and dignified old ladies walked out periodically in substantial silks. Her mother was one of those sober-minded gentlewomen, and had long been my mother's infinite friend, but until I was established in seeking. Evil passions love to feed them

his sick leave on the Continent. It was his gentleness that roused the sleeping demon of my soul.

We resolved on a foreign tour. How could Florence trust me so far from the parent who had always been her refuge and protection! and we departed, each resolved, I am sure, on making the other happy. For a time we took up our abode at Frankfort; there we met many English acquaintances, and for some weeks we were happy. My fiery and jealous spirit seemed subdued beneath the gentle influence of my wife, but it only wanted occasion to burst forth, and this a fractious temper like mine was not long as a "Winchester scholar," we had resided selves. A young relation of mine came to in another county. On leaving school for Frankfort for the recovery of his health. He college, my widowed parent did not change was a soldier, had been some years abroad, her abode; thus for some years Florence and without a home. His parents being dead, and I were constantly associated, and hav- he had resolved on spending the period of ing passed my examination, and taken a very fair degree, I made my proposals and was accepted, but not without hesitation, especially on the part of Mrs. Daveney. Whence this hesitation? I had a fair fortune, good connexions, what is considered by the world a high sense of honor, and great reversionary prospects. I was happy in my choice, and Florence loved me; but alas! my passionate and jealous temper constantly embittered the hours that ought to have been so happily spent. With what tears of anguish has poor Florence declared But the ebullitions which she had been she could never find happiness in a union for some time able to soothe or evade, or, with myself! How often have I fallen at alas! to bear, could not long be unobserved her feet, entreating her forgiveness, and by Lethbridge. They became more devowing with oaths, only too soon broken, to cided every time he visited us. At first he treat her with more kindness and respect; would leave the house without remark, how often have my unjust and violent ac- when I burst forth into violent paroxyms of cusations been met with dignified silence or rage at trifles; an open window, a creaking mild remonstrances; often too with fits of door, a stupid servant, a letter mislaidpassionate weeping, which laid the unhappy most probably by myself-or visitors, my girl on her bed for many days, and brought wife's visitors. My jealousy fell on all obher from it pale and exhausted. Even my jects alike, to whom her time was given, if mother became averse to our union. She I had a mind a mind to occupy it, no matpitied Florence from her soul, and Mrs. ter how. How was it that, loving her as I Daveney, with solemn warnings to her did, I lived but to torment her? If any daughter, implored her to dismiss me. But inconvenience arose out of my own errors, my victim's life, despite my wretched tem- I would break forth in invectives which per, was bound up in mine. Her mother startled the household, and generally wound gave her consent with a tremulous lip and up the day by blaming my innocent wife pallid face; and mine, on her knees to me, for all its mischances.

As long as Florence and I were alone, I had not a shadow of annoyance with which to quarrel, and in society, I never dreamed of giving way to my temper. I could curb it there, hypocrite and coward that I was! Even when I first grew jealous of William Lethbridge, I contrived to keep my passion within bounds till he was gone, and thenpoor, poor, Florence; God help her!

One evening, William Lethbridge came | William's lodgings. I felt sure she had in in the midst of one of these miserable gone for ever when the nurse told me how and degrading exhibitions. I had worked she had visited the children's little beds myself into a perfect fury. Florence had with a ghastly face and quivering lips, dared to remonstrate with me on giving bending over her infants in evident anway to my temper, and, angry with her, guish. She left me, and I, blind to my

angry with him for coming in so inopportunely, still more angry with myself, I became so violently excited that he took Florence's hand and led her from the room. By degrees I observed my victim quail whenever I entered her presence. I found her frequently in tears. I grew hatefully jealous of Lethbridge, and yet he and Florence never walked out together now, as they had been used to do; he did not call on us as often as of old, and when he did, his visits were constrained and short. But one morning he came with a brilliant bouquet of flowers; he found me in Florence's little morning room, whither I had followed her from the breakfast-table to torment her. My children, my sweet twins, even shrank from my scowling gaze, but looking up in Lethbridge's face, they would hold out their arms and cry to go to him.

errors, blamed her as false and vicious, whom my jealous fury had well nigh driven out of her senses.

And the world pitied me! branding her with hideous epithets. Ha! ha! so much for men's privileges! I had solaced my hours with the society of a widow whose wealth commanded every sort of pleasure and amusement. The world, whatever it might think of her, said nothing of me. Oh no! I was possessed of the rights of men. Men may seek to entertain themselves when and with whom they please, but women must not laugh beyond a certain pitch; women must not give decided opinions, even if founded on what is just and good; women must put an iron padlock on their lips, and all right thinking women will admit that they cannot be too strict in their self surveillance. Still it is a wonderful thing in the present age of refinement and professed morality, that men should have such powers of evil; that the more reckless, the more dissipated, the more careless they are of the world's good opinion, the more they

I sat down, determined to prevent all conversation between Florence and my cousin; at last I made some remark which the latter could not help noticing; some coarse allusion to men who "sneaked into other men's houses, where their presence are sought after and caressed by the very was. undesired," wishing that "people society whose laws they desecrate, while

would not interrupt my domestic circle, and hinting broadly at the folly of married women encouraging the attentions of any d-d idiot willing to throw away his time on them."

With a burning cheek, and eyes in which long subdued resentment flashed, at last Florence rose to leave the room, and William got up to depart; but I made my wife come back,-I would be heard. I said I could not be blind to the understanding that subsisted between them; to their unchecked and disgraceful attachment to each other. Alas! I did not consider how dreadful must be the comparison between my cruelty and his kindness. I sneered at what I chose to call their "wretched efforts to deceive me." I desired my cousin to leave my house, and seeing Florence approaching me with clasped hands and streaming eyes, I pushed her from me with such violence, that she was only saved from falling on the ground by William's receiving her in his arins.

the most dissolute and worthless of the sex are the most bitter against the unfortunate beings whom men like themselves have rendered frail and friendless.

Some people with violent tempers are yet susceptible of tender impulses. I have known men with the tempers of fiends, whose natural dispositions were by no means unkindly, but I was not one of these, - my jealous hate nursed itself. Lethbridge and I met: he had left Florence in the neighborhood, and returned on purpose to give me the opportunity of what is barbarously called "satisfaction." I wonder I did not take the law into my own hands and strike him down without a word, but I did not: having no victim immediately at hand on whom to wreak my vengeance,for my children had been taken from my sight by their cautious and tender nurse,I had leisure to determine on being deliberate in my revenge. "He shall not die," said I; "such vengeance eance is for those who do not know the true value of it. But I will make them miserable for life. I will

She left me that night. She left me for maim and disfigure him: he shall be an unsightly object in the eyes of the woman Florence's wishes, framed by reason and he has taken from me!"