my friend, with what grief and terror I shall lay me down beneath the ground! If you love me as I do you, do not quit me any more for an instant: help me to die. If you are near me, I shall think I am but going to sleep.'

"Crébillon, pale and shuddering, took his son and laid him in his cradle. He returned to his wife, embraced her, and in vain sought for words to divert her attention, and lead her to less sombre thoughts. He persuaded her with difficulty to go to rest: she slept but little. He remained silent before the bed praying in his soul; for he believed, perhaps, more than Charlotte in presentiments. Finding that she was at last asleep, he lay down himself. When he awoke in the morning he found Charlotte, in a partially-raised position, watching his sleep. He was terrified at her worn, pale look, and the supernatural brilliancy of her eyes: as easily moved as an infant, he could not restrain his tears. She threw herself despairingly into his arms and covered him with tears and kisses. It is over (she said, in a broken voice); see, my heart beats too violently to beat long; but I shall die uncomplaining, for I see well, by your tears, that you will remember me.'

"Crébillon rose and ran for his father-in-law. Alas! (said the poor apothecary)-the mother, who was as good and fair as the daughter, died at twenty-six. It was the heart that killed the mother and it will kill the daughter.'

"All the celebrated physicians were called in; but, before they had agreed on a course of treatment, Marie Charlotte Péaget quietly expired at eleven o'clock the following evening. Crébillon, inconsolable, was not afraid of ridicule in weeping for his wife: he mourned for her for half a century—that is to say, until the end of his life. For the space of two years he was scarcely seen at the Comédie Française. He had the air of a man of another age, so much did he seem a stranger to all that was passing about him. It might be said that he still lived with his beloved Charlotte. The once loved dead live in our hearts: he saw and conversed with her incessantly. After fifteen years of mourning he was surprised in his solitude talking aloud to Charlotte, relating to her his vexations, reminding her of their happy days. Ah! Charlotte, they all talk to me of my fame; but I think only of thee.'

"Crébillon, the son, who never displayed a single good impulse in his books, can he never have thought of his mother?-she who addressed these sublime words to his father-'If you are near me when I die, I shall think that I am but going to sleep. We may almost believe so. According to a letter of the tragic poet, the author of the 'Sofa' was a good son, who came and smoked a pipe with him once a week."

An attempt was made to introduce him at court, but he neither liked the king nor did the king like him. Vexed, however, at his reception he went back to his old quarters in the Marais, taking with him only an old bed and table, and an extra arm-chair "in case (as he said) some honest man should come to see me." After much unworthy opposition

he was, at length, in his old age received into the Academy. He pronounced his inaugural discourse in verse-an unprecedented proceeding-and even this was pardoned; but his success was too late: his beloved wife could not share it with him his son was an unworthy debauchee, and he was alone in the world. For years he wrote nothing, and during this period of inaction a very singular anecdote is related of him. He composed a whole tragedy (in rhyme of course), and committed it to memory without writing a line. Calling together a few of his brother academicians, he recited his work (his memory it need hardly be said was prodigious), and finding them all mute, he said—" I see that you do not admire my drama: had I written it, I should have had the trouble of throwing it into the fire: as it is, I have nothing to do but to forget it, which is much easier." Of the younger Crébillon, called the "Gay," little need be said. His reputation as an author is already gone-if, indeed, he can be supposed ever to have had any. As a writer of infamous romances-too bad, morally, even for the age of Louis XV., and of no literary merit whatever-oblivion is the happiest doom which can befal him; but there is a circumstance connected with his life which is worth mentioning here, because it shows how similar was the state of taste and morals on both sides of the channel.

"There happened to him (says M. Jules Janin), a piece of good luck, which he had not even imagined in a novel. He was a prey to all the well-grounded anxieties which gave so many charms to the literary life of that time, when, one morning, an English lady requested to see him. She was young, pretty, rich, and of good family, who had been seized with a violent passion for Les Egarements du Cœur et de l'Esprit. She gave her fortune and her hand to Jolyot de Crébillon the younger."

The Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy tell us in their turn-" One day he saw the arrival of a handsome lady who told him, among other things, that she had read the Sofa; that she felt for him, M. de Crébillon, the author of so fine a work and royal censor, a sentiment of admiration, esteem, and unconquerable love; that she had come from England on purpose to ask him in marriage; and that she was the eldest daughter of Lord Stafford, which was the exact truth in every particular. As she was a single woman, she became Madame Crébillon in the course of a fortnight."

"It was not (says Grimm), until after the death of this tender heroine that the circumstances of a marriage so ro

mantic were known: thus everything in the world is ruled by chance. The author of a licentious tale inspires an ardent passion in a noble lady, who is willing to cross the sea in search of him; and the lover of the new Héloise, of all lovers the most passionate and most faithful, is compelled to marry his servant-maid." But we will hear our author's account of the matter given in words attributed, and probably not without reason, to the younger Crébillon himself.

"It was in 1740. One day in the afternoon I was engaged in literary labour when my valet informed me that a lady, closely veiled, wished to see me. I went to meet her with a kind of presentiment. Mon Dieu! sir (she said to me, when seated on the sofa of my little saloon), nothing can be more simple. I have come from London to offer you my hand.'

"Though habituated to all sorts of strange adventures, I confess I must have exhibited great surprise. Fortunately the lady had raised her veil. I had already remarked her grace and distinction. Madame, you see me confounded by so much happiness: although marriage has never been among my habits, permit me to throw myself at your feet and kiss the hand you deign to offer me. In fact I threw myself, completely bewildered, at the feet of Miss Stafford. Madame, will you explain......?'-'Nothing is more simple. My fortune is in my own hands. I had resolved to bestow it only with my heart; but where to bestow my heart was the difficulty. I have waited and I have sought. I should have waited and have sought still, had I not met with one of your works. You recall, without doubt, for you have infused in it so much of yourself, Les Egarements du Cœur et de l'Esprit, a delicious book, which has but one fault, which is that the heart has too much head. After having read it twenty times, I ordered my horses, embarked at Dover, took the post at Calais, and arrived yesterday at Paris. I lost an entire day (for I should have seen you yesterday) in recruiting myself, and in finding you out. Heaven be praised! you are there such as I imagined you, young, witty, and distinguished.'

"Thus spoke Miss Stafford. I was so little prepared for an adventure of this nature that I knew not what to say. I gazed into her beautiful eyes, sparkling with love and pleasure. Another in my place would have imagined that he was the dupe of an adventuress without heart or money; for my part I felt at once that Miss Stafford was really Miss Stafford-that is to say, one of the handsomest, richest, and most adorable young ladies of Great Britain.

:

"We were not married until after a delay of six weeks. Miss Stafford wrote to her father, who was only softened at the fifth or sixth letter he ended by yielding, not because I was the author of celebrated works, but because I was the son of M. Crébillon, a Burgundian gentleman, member of the French Academy, author of Electre and Rhadamiste."

Of the death of this worthless man nothing is known-not

even the period at which it took place; and soon afterwards that frightful reaction-that terrific sequel to the vices and follies of an entire century-banished from men's minds the literature which had sprung up in this decomposition of society. We cannot but see that France is still writhing in the throes of that tremendous struggle. The crimes of the eighteenth century are not even yet expiated-now that another age has more than half passed; nor dare we look forward with much hope to any speedy re-establishment of peace in that country. The perusal of a work like this cannot fail to awaken in the serious mind many wholesome reflections on the nature and consequences of national sin. There were some righteous men and some pure women even then, or the judgment would have been both more severe and more abiding; but, looking at it as it is, there is enough to stir up our minds to a remembrance of our national duties. A bad man, living in a bad age and writing a bad book, may thus be made instrumental in doing us much good, and may show us how useless is glory without virtue, and how contemptible is affectation without genius; and now, as we have been led to speak very strongly, and as we would not have blame laid on the wrong shoulders, we must repeat our thanks to Mr. Bentley for a book which tells us more (and tells it with more credibility) of the private and social life of that godless and corrupt age, the eighteenth century, than any other accessible work with which we are acquainted.

ART. IV.-The Life of Dante Alighieri. By Count C. DE BALBI. Translated by Mrs. H. Bunbury. Two Vols., Octavo. London: R. Bentley. 1852.

DURANTE, or, according to its popular abbreviation, Dante Alighieri, was born, as became a poet, in the merry month of May, 1265, in the city of Florence. The family was old Roman by descent. Its members in politics were of the Guelph faction-that is, opposed to the rule of the German Emperors in Italy. The father of Dante was a judge of some repute. His mother was a certain Donna Bella who, previous to the birth of her immortal boy, dreamed that he was born under a laurel-tree, was nurtured on its berries, and was finally transfigured into a peacock! The gravida mater was confident that she was about to produce a poet and a proud one.

The precocity of the boy Dante was as remarkable as that of Tasso. The former did not, indeed, attempt to instil ethics into his wet-nurse; but he fell desperately in love not many years after she had committed him to manly keeping and school discipline. Ere he had yet accomplished his ninth year, he met at the festival of the new spring a fair girl whose scarlet robe and inexpressibly bright eyes first awoke the spirit of life in the hitherto silent chambers of his heart. The pretty child was the Beatrice Portinari on whom he has shed the most glorious immortality that ever could be conferred by poetry. For her sake he first essayed to build the lofty rhyme. The sonnets of the amorous boy circulated through Italy and won admiration from all her gifted children of song, save one Dante da Marione, who sarcastically bade the youthful aspirant take physic to cure his madness, and whose cynicism was well punished in after days, and according to the fashion which Alighieri loved.

In the mean time, the son of Donna Bella waxed in beauty and happiness. His utmost desire was to win a smile from the blooming Beatrice as she glided by him in the streets. At church she was the saint to whom he paid an involuntary adoration of gazing. His rapt fixedness of look was accepted by another fair girl who stood at Beatrice's side as especially intended for herself, and the crafty poet took advantage of the error. He made of the lady who stooped too readily to pick up the worship that was not designed for her what he calls his screen. He did not wish that either the name of Beatrice or the story of their loves should be sullied by the public breath of discussion; and he addressed to his screen a world of ardent poetry that was meant only for her that stood laughing behind it. This singular style of love-making lasted for years. Through childhood and youth, till the one reached. womanhood and the other wore his hair upon his lip, sonnets and canzones continued to tell of Dante's passion. They were the songs of all true lovers and of many who were not; and just as the enamoured youth of France trilled to their trembling lutes the songs that the selfish Abelard had penned to celebrate his passion for the too confiding Héloise-just so by Tiber, by Arno, and by Po, maidens in bowers and lovers on quiet lagunes or at the foot of rope-ladders, made the very air harmonious with the breathings of Dante's immortal verse set to more mortal music. And so Alighieri wrote, and so contemporary lovers sung whose ladies listened nothing loth, even as Beatrice, to the metrical protestations of her adorer. He seems to have had no other object than the celebration of