DEAR SIR, A new society of men of letters, under the title of the Asiatic Society, held its first meeting here on the first of this month, under the presidency of M. le Baron Sylvester de Sacy, well known for his extensive and profound acquaintance with the languages of the East. The object of this society, which counts among its members some of the most illustrious names in French literature and in the state, is the propagation of the study of the languages of Asia. They be gan on this occasion by adopting the rules and regulations which are to conduct them in their future labours, and by the preliminary operations indispensable for the constitution of the society. M. de Sacy pronounced a discourse, distinguished by the most profound views and most ingenious observations, on Oriental studies, and on the advantages which must result from their progress to religion, history, the useful arts, and diplomacy. M. Remusat afterwards read the first chapter of his Translation of a Chinese novel, entitled The two Cousins. This novel, which appears to give a faithful picture of Chinese manners, will probably be admired by those who seek in works of this kind for some thing else than incredible adventures, extravagant sentiments, and other abuses of the imagination, too prevalent in the romantic productions of these times. The Duke of Orleans has declared himself the Protector of this society.

Paris,

could ever have been sele a gaudy show of dissipation hibited in Paris on this occasion. this public fete is another striking proof how customs, ceremonies, and institutions, may continue to flourish when the original purpose for which they were established is gone by and forgotten. At the western extremity of the Bois de Boulogne, which is the Hyde-Park of Paris, close on the bank of the river Seine, an Abbey was founded in the 13th century, by Isabella, sister of Louis IX. commonly called Saint Louis, which obtained the name of Longchamp. On the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, in Holy-week, it has long been a custom in the Roman Catholic church to perform an evening service, called Tenebræ, which is composed in a great measure of the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah, and other mournful passages from the Prophets, and the Book of Psalms, in allusion to the sufferings and death of Christ. Some of the first musical composers in Italy and other countries, have exercised their talents on different parts of this fine church-service. As the Operahouse and the other Theatres used to be closed formerly in Paris during Holy-week, the nuns of the Abbey of Longchamp were in the habit of getting the principal female singers of those public places to sing the office of Tenebræ in their church; whose performances, joined with the vocal music of the nuns, and aided by various instruments, formed, as you may easily imagine, a delightful concert of sacred music. All the first people in Paris used to flock to the church of Longchamp to assist at the Tenebræ ; and though the Abbey is now so completely destroyed that scarce a vestige of it remains, yet the custom still continues, of driving for three days together through the Champ-Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne, with no other object than that which takes our London fashionables to Hyde-Park on a Sunday. However, the Parisians look to the arrival of this fete with all the anxiety of impatient pleasure, and seem to enjoy it exceedingly; while a person of a serious and religious turn of mind, cannot help regretting, that the antusements of a people should be

In a former letter I gave you some account of a sort of public fete, which takes place here at Shrovetide, or on the three days preceding Lent, which in Paris are called les jours gras, and of which you have preserved a memorial in your public ball on Shrove Tuesday, called Fastens-e'en. The Parisians have a similar fete on the three last days of Lent, which is called la fete de Longchamp, and it fell this year on the first week of this month. A foreigner, or a person ignorant of the origin of this public ceremony, would be quite at a loss to imagine how the Holy-week-the most solemn time of the year, expressly marked by the church for the most awful and penitential exercises as a preparation for Easter,

of religion,

so ill-timed, and sadly discordant with the spirit and injunctions of their established religion.

In a sort of puffing advertisement, of a new literary enterprize, under taken by Ladvocat, a bookseller in the Palais-Royal, under the title of Collection des Chefs-d'œuvre des Theatres Etrangers, it is said that the work has as great success in the rest of Europe as in France; it has just obtained the most distinguished mention dans l'excellent Edinburg Magasin de Blak, wood. I think I see you stretching out your neck through one of the garret-windows of the Temple of Fame, and drinking with your ear, as Horace says, the intoxicating buzz of applauding nations.

The celebrated historian of the Italian Republic, Sismondei Sismondi, has lately published a novel, entitled Julia Severa, or The Year 492. In order to judge this novel with impartiality, it would be sufficient to copy the advertisement of the author, in which he indicates the object he wished to attain, and expresses his apprehensions of having failed. What he feared is positively what has happened. Mr Sismondi allows himself, that at his age, and in a life perfectly serious, it is rare for a man to possess the qualities which give life to works of imagination. His book will justify his advertisement. We find no ima gination either in the events, the style, or the characters; nevertheless, it is not the work of an author without ta lent, and much less without learning; and grave persons, who read novels, will regret less than frivolous cha racters the time they have given up to the perusal of Julia Severa.

Mr Sismondi had, till now, occupied himself with writing history, and had given himself up to serious researches, in order to set up a system under the appearance of profound impartiality; for science is useful for many purposes, and even to make the past affirm what may flatter or shock present ideas. He avows that he of ten regretted that he was obliged to remove from his narrations, details of manners, and social situations, which, exhibiting men in the habits and prejudices of the times in which they fived, might have thrown a great light on historical events. But then, he must have done like the historian Mezeray, who, at the end of each

reign, places a chapter entitled Manners and Customs, which certainly is very interesting, and contributes not a little towards the explanation of the events of the reign following.

T

This method probably appeared too simple to Mr Sismondi; and that he might not leave unemployed the knowledge he had acquired, but which could not enter into the recital of memorable deeds, he conceived the project of writing novels in which he could paint the prevailing manners at the different epochs of French history, which he is now writing, and of which he has already published some valumes. Historical romances, you know, have long been made up with the names of real personages, placed in the midst of adventures in which they certainly could never have recognized themselves, either with respect to conduct, ideas, or language. Of this we have examples in the voluminous novels of Calprenede and Mademoiselle de Scudery.

But novelists manage better now; they invent the personages, but they place them in real circumstances, in the midst of known sites; they cast them among the memorable epochs of history, and thus go back to manners, the picture of which is delightful in proportion with the recollections it awakens. It is the manner of Walter Scott, and Sismondi is far from rejects ing the wish of imitation. On the con trary, he avows it, and is only afraid he may not resemble the model he has chosen. Walter Scott is a poet-Sis mondi is a historian; and you can directly conceive, that when an author who has always exerted his imagination, and an author who has always exerted his judgment, both consent to descend from their high rank, to class themselves among the writers of novels, the poet must have over the historian a superiority which puts aside all idea of comparison. To the historian, fiction must always be a secondary object; and it is an observation of all times, that when fiction does not entirely subjugate the mind, it fatigues it.

M. Sismondi might have made this reflection himself, when he thought it necessary to give his novel the second title of The Year 492. What connexion is there between Julia Severa, an imaginary person, and the year 492? At this period, the countries long govern

ed by the Romans had lost even the idea of being able to defend themselves; and notwithstanding, the empire could no longer protect them. The Vandals, Sueves, and Huns, had several times ravaged Gaul; the Visigoths and Burgundians were established there; the Franks, led by Clovis, were forming establishments in it, with the desire of subduing those who had preceded them. Of ancient institutions nothing remained but the forms; the ancient laws fell away before the violence natural to conquerors; ancient manners disappeared in proportion as the laws lost their action; and those who preserved some sort of power, sought a compensation from the weak, for the evils imposed upon them by the strong. The world was in a state of pillage, but without regularity; it was a period of disasters, instead of one of happiness and glory; in a word, the barbarity of savages, and that barbarity which re-appears on the fall of empires, formed a frightful contrast with the remains of civilization that were still preserved in some families, proud of their past dignity, and irritated at the meannesses they were forced to commit in order to soften the conquerors whom they despised. Certainly a picture of the manners of this epoch might prove as interesting, if taken from the circumstances of private life, as it is in reality, in historical narration; but domestic details, which time has covered with a veil difficult to take up, can only be successfully recalled to mind by giving them a poetical colouring, The imagination easily lends itself to recitals which put it in motion; but it is impossible to delight it by a pic ture of a state of society where all is suffering, or make it take an interest in personages who have no action over the events in the midst of which they are placed.

This, you see, is the principal defect of the work of Sismondi, considered as a novel. His personages are passive; though nothing of what happens to them should happen, still they would be in the same situation in which the author takes them and leaves them. It is not because Julia loves Felix, and that she fears to become the wife of Clovis, that she is not even presented to that king, but because motives, over which these two lovers have no influence, overturn the

obstacles which Had they remaine their lot would have They do not even travel consent. An irruption of drives Julia to the spot where she to meet and to love Felix; when they are united, they are carried off and separated by some monks, who make them the sport of their own projects, and at length bring them back to the place they took them from, so clumsily, that one is vexed at the author for using such feeble contrivances.

As the year 492 presents an epoch of social dissolution; as Gaul seemed more particularly destined to feel the misfortunes which accompanied the fall of the Roman empire; as, in this accumulation of disasters, the writer could imagine no possible cause of salvation for that part of the world, so interesting to Europe as the country of the Gauls and Franks-the ancestors of the French-what motive could have induced M. Sismondi to take this epoch for that of his novel? Were it not that he is a philosophical historian, the answer would be difficult; but there is no doubt that his intention was to represent the clergy as alone possessing a great power over the minds of men; as the only class capable of opposing political views to the violence of the barbarians, and of struggling with ability against the power of the conquerors, even so far as to make them subservient to the independence of the countries they had just vanquished. This design, executed in a poetical manner, so as to enchant the imagination, would have been happy, and would doubtless have presented some grand dramatic effects. Sismondi has treated it quite in a philosophical way; and though he relates events placed in the year 492, one may affirm that his work recalls to mind much more ideas familiar to the writers of the 18th century, than the prevailing ideas in the times of Clovis, of Saint Remigius, and the first successors of Saint Martin of Tours. Walter Scott would not have conceived his subject in this way; if he chose to paint scenes of burlesque ignorance, of stupid credulity, which may have found place amidst the religious enthusiasm of that epoch, he would have reserved them for the secondary personages, that he might be gay with perfect safety of conscience,

and serious in events. Never imagined to make reasonable as to be unake any active part in the and while incessantly agitated by interests foreign to them, to oppose nothing but the moderation of their character to all the agitations around them. Heroes of this kind belong much more to an age of sophisms, than to one where every thing was in action. Berthelemy made Anacharsis travel, in order to present a picture of the manners and customs of Greece; Sismondi seems to have turned out Julia and Felix, merely that he might find an occasion to relate, in his way, what was passing between Chartres and Orleans, and Örleans and Chartres, while Clovis was meditating at Soissons how he might become King of France.

But if the author is feeble in the romantic part of his work, as a historian he has every advantage. The picture he gives of the court of Clovis has a fine effect; the various interests which crowded around that prince are well explained, and, what is better, are put in action with much art and truth. The plunder of the town of Chartres by the barbarians; the ter ror of the grandees between the enemy who is advancing and their revolted slaves, who considered that enemy as their deliverer; the depopulation of the country hurried on by the absence of protecting laws, still more than by the sword of the conqueror; the despair of the laborious classes wrought into rage; the effects that are the result of it: all these descriptions are interesting; and, though the style of the author wants animation and harmony, yet, as it is always clear by the force of thought, it is read with pleasure wherever it goes along with the subject, whenever the author for gets he is a philosopher and is merely

a narrator.

If this work is successful, M. Sise mondi will probably fulfil the engage ment he has made with the public, to delineate the picture of the private manners of some other epochs of French history in some new novels.

On the 24th of this month, the anniversary of the landing of Louis XVIII. at Calais, the Royal Institute held its annual meeting of the four

Academies of which it is composed It being the turn for the Academy of Sciences to preside, M. Gay-Lussac took the chair, and opened the meeting by a discourse on the advantages of the sciences. Though the subject is by no means new, the learned President was listened to with pleasure, and several passages, equally remarkable for justness of thought and elegance of expression, were much applauded.

M. Sylvestre de Sacy read a report on the competition for the prize founded by the late Comte de Volney. The object of this prize is " to excite and encourage every attempt to continue the method invented by Comte Volney for transcribing the Asiatic languages into European letters regularly organized."

The committee had invited the competitors to examine "what are the means of realizing the plan of the tes tator; within what limits the application of it should be circumscribed; what direction should be given to the work; and finally, what are the pro bable results to be expected from it.”

Four Memoirs were addressed to the Academy of Sciences; two of them, by two German authors, appeared equally worthy of the prize, which was divided between them; one is M. Schever, keeper of the royal library at Munich, and the other M. Schleiermacher, librarian at Darmstadt.

M. Delombre succeeded M. de Sacy. It was his business to assign the prize founded by M. de Monthyon for the work most useful to morals; and lively applause burst forth when he proclaimed the name of Mad. Guizot, author of L'Ecolier or Raoul et Victor, a novel in four volumes 12mo. The Academy was not less gallant towards another lady, Mad. Belloe, author of the Bibliotheque de Famille, who received a medal of encouragement.

After a discourse rather long, rather cold, rather dry, by M. Dupin, respect ing the influence of commerce on the learning and civilization of modern nations, M. Quatremere de Quincy, of the Academy of Fine Arts, amused and instructed the audience by a dissertation full of ingenious reflections, lively anecdotes, and happy sayings. The dissertation turned on "the reciprocal mistakes of painters and poets, caused either by the ignorance of what

belongs in common to their respective arts, or by the confusion of their peculiar properties."

The meeting was terminated by a very fine Ode, recited by M. Raynouard, author of the tragedy of the Templiers, on the devotedness of Malesherbes, one of the defenders of the unfortunate Louis XVI.

The subject of the prize founded by Volney, which will be adiudged in the meeting of the 24th of April next year, is "the composition of an alphabet fitted for the transcription of Hebrew, and all the languages derived from the same source, including the literal Ethiopian, the Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Sanscrite, and Chinese. This alphabet must have for its basis the Roman alphabet, the signs of which will be multiplied by slight accessories, without their configuration being essentially altered; each sound must be represented by a single sign, and each sign reciprocally must be exclusively employed in expressing a single sound. The author will endeavour, as much as possible, to render the new alphabet proper for transcribing at the same time the orthography and the pronunciation of the above-mentioned Asiatic languages."

The prize is a gold medal of 1200 francs (£50.) The Memoirs addressed to the Academy must be written in French, and will not be received after the 15th of next January.

The following anecdote is an additional proof, if any were wanting, how much the originality of our countrymen has amused the Parisians:-An Englishman, who had fallen into a very bad state of health, was ordered by a celebrated French physician to travel for five or six months, and to go from 15 to 20 leagues every day if his strength permitted it. At the end of six months, the patient calls on his physician, who finds him in the most flourishing state of health, and asks him where he comes from. "From Versailles," says the Englishman."From Versailles !" replies the doctor. "Why, I told you to travel at least a thousand leagues."-" I have obeyed you punctually, and have travelled over every one of them," rejoined the Englishman; "but as I like very much the restaurateurs at Paris, the French opera, and the Italian buffa, I made my arrangements accordingly. Every morning I set out in a carriage and

went to Versailles, where, as soon as I arrived, I got to another and returned to Paris,-off again, and back as quiek. Here is a written account of my travels, you will find that I have been going about for six months, that I have travelled above a thousand leagues, have faithfully followed your prescription, am in perfect health, and have never missed one opera or buffa!"

The Musée for the exhibition of the productions of modern artists, after having been adjourned from one epoch to another during a twelvemonth, was opened on Thursday last at ten o'clock in the morning. A considerable crowd of amateurs and connoisseurs rushed immediately into the vast saloons of the Louvre, to examine, judge, criticise, praise, and admire the masterpieces of the artists, and, above all, to enjoy the satisfaction of being the first to give their opinion of them. In this rout of spectators, in this hurlyburly of divers opinions, expressed sometimes with confident ignorance, some times with wonderful sagacity, always with ardour, it is impossible to give that decided attention to the grand compositions which adorn this exhibition that they deserve. All real pleasures, and especially those derived from the fine arts, require a little reflection, and cannot be judged with precipitation. Almost all the information, therefore, that I can venture to give you at present concerning this exhibition, amounts merely to some topographical details concerning the saloons in which they are placed. The great difference of this exhibition and that of former years in this respect is, that the great gallery of the Louvre has been preserved entire for the an cient paintings; none of them have been displaced or taken down. Thus the public can enjoy at once the an cient and the modern riches of this temple of the fine arts; the present manner may be compared with the preceding ones; and one may judge at once what is the progress and amelioration of art in some respects, what is its inferiority and decline in others. The greatest part of these modern paintings are placed in the galleries which look on the courts of the Louvre, and in that of the Grand Colonnade. It must be confessed, however, that this new arrangement is much more favourable to the public than to the artists. The light is infinitely better