humanity. Paris should be, in fact, not merely a great and beautiful city, but a great and beautiful book. With us there is no moral tone. We give instructions for the stomach, the feet, the hands, the whole body, in truth, but nothing for the soul. Children are inquisitive, and they would naturally be eager to learn to read, that they might know the meaning of the writing on the wall, and would thus become true men and worthy citizens, even while at their plays."

This plan, if thoroughly carried out, will doubtless be attended with complete success. The metropolis will resemble a Belshazzar's feast, with the part of Belshazzar omitted; Moses and the prophets will appear again in spite of Bishop Colenso; and M. Alexandre Dumas, the younger, will deliver long lectures upon the Seventh Commandment to large and enthusiastic congregations. Paris will become wholly virtuous, and there shall be no more cakes and ale. Theodore Parker shall dwell with Confucius, and Theophrastus shall lie down with Tom Paine; Seneca and Solomon and M. Renan together, and Marcus Aurelius shall lead them. A new millennium is about to dawn upon the world, and M. Alexandre Dumas, fils, is our fortunate guide, Joshua-like, to lead us into the land of milk and honey for which our despairing souls have long yearned. "Oh, wherefore have these things been hid? Wherefore have these gifts had a curtain before them?" Happy are the Parisians, and thrice

happy are we, who live in the days of this new and pregnant revelation! How little could we imagine the source from which it was to come! But yesterday we could believe nothing; now we can believe everything. Thanks to the virtuous Dumas, Peter and Paul will still hold their own, and not be obliged to resign their seats to the author of "Les Apôtres," while the Christian religion will not yet be annihilated.

CHAPTER IV.

PARIS AND THE MUSES.

THE literati of Paris have been quite active of late, even for them, and its inhabitants are not likely to perish for want of mental food, such as it is. The bookstores are teeming with a hundred new novels and plays, and a thousand notices of more to come. Whatever other imputation may be cast upon the French writers of to-day, no man who has the slightest regard for truth, will undertake to charge them with indolence. They work with a will, and the results are prodigious. When the prophetic wisdom of Solomon led him to say "Of making many books there is no end," it is very possible that he had the French littérateurs in mind at the time. Really, the grand climax seems to be approaching, if it be not already reached, in our day. The deluge of printed matter which Paris alone has rained down during the last quarter of a century, from the eight hundred volumes of Alexandre Dumas, senior, to the solitary bantling of Charles Baudelaire, which a prudish government so ruthlessly throttled, ere it had well made its way out of the egg, has been vast enough to cover the whole

world and swallow it up, ark and all, were it not for the beneficent aid of the pastry-cook and the trunk-maker. Let the shelves of the Imperial Library in this city, groaning under the weight of over 2,000,000 books and pamphlets, bear witness, at least as far as they go, to the truth of this.

It is the inborn misfortune of every Frenchman to think that he can do anything whatever that any one else can. His natural vanity and ambition are always leading him to try his hand at something that will make him conspicuous. This result, to be sure, often follows, but not in the way he had expected. It is said that Lord Brougham, in his younger days, being pressed for money, prevailed upon Mr. Jeffrey, then editor of the "Edinburgh Review," to advance him a thousand pounds, which he was to repay in contributions to that periodical. He was as good as his word, and actually, within six months, wrote the whole of two successive issues, or one entire volume. The articles covered a wide variety of subjects, and ranged from an elaborate treatise on the political economy of ancient Greece, to a comprehensive review, on seven closely printed pages, of the state of lithotomy at that time. This was very fair for an Englishman, especially for one who had ordinarily so many projects on hand as the Great Reformer, but nothing to the omniscient audacity of a Frenchman. He would not merely be glad to write on these subjects, but would jump at a chance of inventing a new theory of

political economy and putting it into execution, or of performing the somewhat difficult and hazardous operation above referred to, himself. If both failed, as they would be likely to, he would simply say "mais la conception était magnifique," and not allow his serene magnanimity to be disturbed for an instant. It is, very naturally, in literature that this weakness finds its broadest development. Every subject of Napoleon thinks he has a natural genius for writing, and considers it as easy to make a book as to make love, or stir the fire. This is easily tested. Place a pen in his hand and you will prove the truth of it. It is like turning the cock of a full reservoir. An abundant stream at once flows forth. It may be pure and clear; it may be the stalest of all stale water. It may burst out like a vigorous jet, enlivening and beautifying all around; it may be a turbid current, thick as lava and slow as mud; but the supply never for a moment ceases, and it will continue to run on till the force of circumstances compels it to stop. It never would stop, if it depended on the author himself, but luckily no man can go on writing and publishing forever, if the public don't mind him, unless he has means to pay for the publication of his works himself, and so a providential limit has been put to all such performances. When a French novelist, however, has once secured the ear of the people, he uses his advantage to the utmost. He works day and night without cessation while he lives, and leaves behind him not only