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    for ' men of the pen * which you are so eager to preach ? When , true literary men are considered as public enemies , they retire into silence and leave their places to be occupied by unscrupulous scribblers and half-educated adventurers . What a picture of Ze SHcle Imperial is drawn in Hs simplicity by this Imperialist ! The ordinary run of stage literature is fit only for the admiration of drunken bachelors . Even the Scene Frangaise is invaded by " gipsydom , vice , and slang , and by shameless adultery . " Elsewhere we have " pictures of the

    private life of prostitutes . " Romances are fabricated from " the same mud , " &c . In other columns we find details which we need not repeat , and -which all tend to show M . Granier ' s determination to represent French literature as fallen so low that civilization and public morality are in danger . It must not be supposed , however , that this writer is completely conscious of the value of his affirmations . After all he has said he cannot refrain

    from declaring that " literature contains no parties , that it contains only men of talent , of wit , of taste , and good education ; " and will take , no doubt , some early opportunity of showing that this drunken and debauched mob whom he paints as furnishing France with its intellectual food , is at the head of the thinking world , and the admiration of all intellects . His violence is partly the natural violence of the pamphleteer and the libeller . Of course the truth that most high intelligences in France have retired from the scene and made way for greedy and corrupt mediocrities is too apparent to fail to strike even him . But he is not aware that he has assisted to produce this result ; and if it be true

    that his imperial master has encouraged him to undertake the regeneration of literature by means of this weekly sheet , with its alarming proportion of white paper , it will be a curious fact in Napoleonic history . The undertaking , however , is already a failure . The cry of ' Silence a I ' orgie' drew all eyes at first j but so would the cry of c Silence' from any gay gentleman to a drowsy cathedral congregation . There is nothing orgiastic about French literature at present . It is simply flat and timid—the necessary product of the regime it is under . M . Cramer ' s Re ' veil will awaken nobody , and has already ceased to be the subject of conversation in Paris .

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    HANOVER JEWELS AND COBTJRG TITLES . The Court newsmen are strutting about like heralds or drum-majors , for they are once more in season . Everybody has been thrown into a flutter by the anticipation of right royal doings . Sir R ' obeUt Carden has employed two notable dusteaters to dig for precedents that may qualify him to enunciate , in historical fashion , the congratulations of London * The bell-ringers all over England are making ready for a metallic din which may being down a fall of snow . St . James ' s Palace has been disturbed , washed , painted , decorated , carpeted , and prepared for a crush of painted lilies and gilded gold ; at the theatres tragedy and comedy will celebrate a " sweet event , and during a fortnight , at least , people will be talking of the royal bride , Honiton lace veils , the Prussian prince , weddingcake—that should be of consolidated Hybla honey with ruby plums—and the delicate trousseau , the still more delicate bridesmaids , and that pretty toilctte-scrvicc' of coral and silver with winch so many simple folks have been disappointed . Your Princess Royal , these rural loyalists say , should dip her fingers in a moonlike bowl of gold with diamond edges . They know not that royalty has a taste for comfort , and that the Queen docs sometimes walk from one room into another without a

    crown on her head , a globe in one hand and a scoptro in the other . Nevertheless , tho public instinct ia right . Thcso superior beings , who dwell in palaces , aro wonderfully susceptible on the subject of jewels , literally and metaphorically . They love jowols on tho neck and jewels on tho name , — carcanots and titles . It is not in Hanover only that they watch witli glowing oyoa for the return of the diamonds from London ; wistful glancos will follow tllG . fl nark liner treasure . Wo keen our Recralia . of

    Coarse , and they burn and glitter in a dirty room at the Tower not loss ignobly than the sixteen cvowns Of tho Kremlin , and we have our Mountain of Light , tho tribute of India , popularly supposed to bo worn , like a Cyclops * oyo , in tho middle of tho Qubjsn ' s forohoaa j but somo doarly-boloved goma are going—rose-diamonds of many fuoots . " ofton w » m at state-balls , and now to bo parted foe over firom tho head , ncok , and arms of Victoria . l ? orhaps , too , t \\ a young lady of sweot seventeen who is to

    be married on Monday week mar haye wgbett over some of her favourites , included ia the odious Hanover bequest- We are forced to Make restitution , but it is satisfactory to know that we can do it as spitefully as we please . When an ambassador came to Kublai Khan , demanding for his master a certain emerald , the King , having no Lord Wens : keyi > al'e to consult , cut off the envoy ' s head , put a pebble in the mouth , and sent that back as att aaswer . Perhaps Isabella of Spain , if asked for her emeralds , which are the finest in Europe- —ft beautiful contrast to the purity of her complexion— " -might

    object in terms equally despotic and decisive ; but we are in the power of Equity , and what three judges declare we should do must be done . If there were not another emerald in Peru , or diamond in Brazil ; if no red ruby were ever to come again from Golconda , or rose rub y from Balachan ; if the sapphires of the Orient—with the six-rayed stars in their burning hearts—were exhausted , still the verdict has been given for Hanover , and that majestic court has not been disappointed by the result of its squabble over the jewels of great George II . Town and country gossips have been supplied with a topic ; rash journalists have valued the condemned

    jewels at a million sterling ; and no one is dissatisfied , except , perhaps , if it might be reverentially hinted , the lady who will have to purchase ' a new set . ' And that suggests a question . Semi-official prints have already promised , on the part of the public , to atone for the grasp of Hanover , by making up the loss . Does that mean a grant of 100 , 000 / . ? The economists must look to it . We can easily imagine Sir Cornewall Lewis , with Roman dignity , asking for a vote to purchase for Her Most Gracious Majestt an apartment of octahedral crystals , or to commission some Shylock to travel in search of Peruvian emeralds and amethysts from

    Ceylon ; but even with the glitter of state balls and banquets dazzling their memories , we can scarcely believe our legislators to be so courtly as to spend , a hundred thousand pounds sterling in jewels for the Queen , when one of the old crowns at the Tower might be picked to pieces , without shaking the Constitution to its base , or torturing the historical sympathies of the public . Prince Albert , moreover , has his little question . He is now Prince Consort . Oblige him b y saying ' King Consort . ' He has given us his all—himselfand can no more ; and why begrudge him a mere title , if only to spite his cousins on the Continent ?

    Field-Marshal his Royal Highness the Prince Consort , however , Chancellor of one University , Ranger of certain parks , Colonel of certain regiments , Governor and Constable of Windsor Castle , recipient of sundry allowances , emoluments , and circuitous incomings , may be said to occupy not an unpleasant position . He stands with his hand on the back of the throne , and surely that is near enough . ' King-Consort' is a compound title with a Spanish colour , and we doubt whether the English nation understand it . They would think of the spectre which ' the likeness of a kingly crown had on . ' They would imagine they saw ermine and purple over the scarlet uniform . In fact , they would dislike it . Jealousy is , of course , a vicious passion , but when millions of Englishmen are likely

    to be jealous , in a public , and not in a personal sense , it is simply judicious to avoid irritating exhibitions . We are not assuming that the scheme has been really hatched , but just now we are Court newsmen ourselves , and are bound to ' have reason to believe * that ' Her Majesty , ' a few days ago , took Lord Palmeuston aside and asked him what the people would think of a King-Consort P To which the Premier may , or may not , have replied ; indeed , it is possible that the question was never asked . But wo have no doubt of this , that if we have to _ choose between baying the diumonds and sanctioning tho title , by all means let tho strong-boxes of Bondstreet bo sent down to the palace , and the bill presented to the faithful Commons .

    We do not belicvo that the rumour has been set afloat without justification . Tho scheme has not now been heard of for the first time . It is credited by those who can discriminate between faot and " ^^ i pT ^ Batrit"ia'"imp ; oasible-to- ~ put -faith--in-the report that the change in Prince Albert ' s title will bo almost immediately announced . Tho Queen mid her advisers have not hitherto boon accustomed to tako steps sO rash , arrogant , and provocative of popular suspicion . Surely , the nation pays adequate homage to tho royal family . There is fo be a marriage m St . James ' s Chapel within a few days , and what congregations will afterwards assemble to worship tho purple velvet and tho plnoe where tho

    Prince and Ptinces * stood f We are tittt dwellers in Oriental fairyland , and do not build our queeil palaces of chalcedony with onyx roofs , corneftaff pillars , and lamps of clustered opal ; we cannot seat H . R . H . on the throne of Alraschtd , and put a tower of gold on his head , but we pay our royal family proper respect , and we ask in return onlydecent consideration .

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    FRENCH HISTORIANS . The translation of an article recently published ia the Edinb-urtib Review on M . Henri Martin ' s History of France , is aeeompanied in the last number of the Revue Brifanniqtte by a letter from the historian , who complains , with some reason , that his opinions have been misprepresented . or misunderstooa in several particulars . The Reviewer , after a rapid but able view of the labours of MM . Thierry and GinzoT , and observations more or less correct on MM . SisMoiTDr , Michele * , and Theers , addresses himself to his more immediate subject . " If /* he says at once , " an historian earns immortality br flattering the prejudices of the nation and of each fraction of the nation whose annals he relates , M . Henri Martin has already attained his end . '' There would be more truth in this observation if it had been general , not particular . Nearly all French literarymen find it necessary , or , at any rate , think it necessary , to be the flatterers of their readers , and aft amusing ; list might be made out of the various forms of adulation constantly employed . M . Henri Martin shares this fault in common withmost of his contemporaries , but is , perhaps , guilty in a less degree than many . Whilst looking upon his own

    country as the centre of the universe , and identifying as a matter of course the progress of France with the progress of humanity , he does not absolutely ignore all foreign civilizations ; and it is worthy of remark that no French writer , with the exception of M . Micbhelet , has more energetically condemned the reckless and impotent attempts made by Charles VIII . and his immediate successors upon Italy . He had a right to expect , therefore , not to be sin g led out especially for blame as foTgetting everything but the interests of French ambition .

    M . Henri Martin , whose work as an entirety more than deserves its reputation , elearly shows , in his answer to the Edinburgh Reviewer , what a careful reader of his history should have perceived , that the praise he attributes to the early French kings is not that of endeavouring to extend their dominions- indefinitel y in every direction , but of bringing together in one body politic a number of scattered membersnaturally united , but scattered accidentally . He takes for granted that , as it were from all time , a certain number of people inhabiting a certain extent of territory had received a call to conglomerate into what was to become the French monarchy . The

    truth of this supposition may be disputed—indeed , it seems an evident hallucination;—but a writer who looks at history from that point of view is very far from deserving the charge of being an indiscriminate advocate for conquest . He looks upon the French nation as homogeneous , and would , we think , like to see Europe divided into nations according as it is divided into races—which would make a strange revolution in our maps , and would leave France m a position rather too pre-eminent . He would , no doubt , give Italy to the Italians , Hungary to the Hungarians , Poland to the Poles—a scheme which Liberals in England , who can go no deeper than that

    rabbits should be rabbits , and hares hares , will cheerfully accept , without remembering that the necessary consequence is Ireland to the Irish , Scotland to the Scotch , Wales to the Welsh , and India —to the Hindoos , as the French say , without explaining what they understand by India , and where we are to find the two hundred million of Hindoos who are now , they imagine , fighting for their liberty . Naturally , M . Henri Martin would refuse to discuss whether the ancient inhabitants of the Isle of France are tho same in origin as the

    Flemish , the Alsaoians , tho Provencals , and the people of B

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 16, 1858, page 63, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2226/page/15/