The Sun.
London, England, 1830-09-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

FRANCE IN 1829-30. BY LADY MORGAN.
2 VOLS.--LONDON, 1830.
Lady Morgan has as usual made an enter-
taining book out of a subject by no means pro-
mising, either in point of novelty or interest.
Of France, up to the 24th of last July, we have
most of us a tolerably distinct notion ; it is of
France, as it will henceforth flourish—Of re-
generated
France, freed from ever from the vilest
of all vile Governments, and consequently changed
Considerably for the better as a nation, that the
public will be anxious to read. Of this France,
Lady Morgan, we hope, will one day be tempted
to give us an account ; for so keen an observer
of national manners, habits, and so forth, and so
attentive a searcher into character, the subject will
teem with interest, especially as it will have the
charm of comparative novelty to recommend it.
But in our anxiety to become acquainted with future
France, we must not forget the past, which Lady
Morgan, in the volumes before us, has made to
appear in a very enviable and captivating shape.
Her sketches of character, place, and incident,
which arc numerous, are full of freshness and
reality, and have been evidently written down
on the impulse of the moment. The most in-
teresting chapter in the work is beyond all com-
parison, the one which contains the biographical
sketch of the celebrated veteran republican La-
fayette, who, from the concurrent testimony of
all parties, friends as well as foes---if such a man
can have a foe—comes as near to our old heroic
recollections of the patriotic character as it flou-
rished in the young days.of Greece and Rome,
as the imperfect limits of human nature will
permit. Next in. interest to this chapter,
which every one will read and admire, is the
postscript, which contains a rapid and glowing
description • of the three days' fighting at Paris.
Lady Morgan has penned this in quite a CO?i
amore spirit, and infused much of her own
enthusiastic sanguine temperament into it. Of
Sir •C. Morgan's share in the work we really
cannot say much. HiS metaphysics are awful.
inflictions, and not to be contemplated without a
shudder. As for reading them, it is impossible.
The article on the Public Journals of France
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fie
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into society, should have made himself more in-
timately acquainted with the state of the Parisian
taellrlesadtyh ek
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beyondtPrsepsi thwAcisitte'tprdteles'feeelclttast,tiemrFrance is a delightful
work, gay, sparkling, piquant, metaphysical, and
now and then dashed with a touch of pathos, and
a sprinkling of affectation. Its greatest fault is
the constant use of French idioms, which is a
nuisance at once vulgar and conceited. We
conclude with a specimen of Lady Morgan's
best style of writing :
" Years and hours are no certain measures of the du-
ration of life. A long life is that in which we live every
hour, and feel that we do so. It is a life made up of
Vivid,. rapid, and varied sensations, the parents of lasting
impr, simians, and of prolific combinations of ideas ; a life
in which the feelings are preserved fresh by past associa-
tions, and the fancy exercised by a quick succession of
images; a life which, whether it makes us feel the bless-
ings or the burtbens of existence still gives the full con-
sciousness that we do 'live, breathe, and have a being.'
All that is not this, is nothing,—or at best the raw ma-
terial of life, unworked and unenjeyed : it is the charcoal
and oyster shell, substantially identical with the diamond
and the pearl, but wanting in the lustre and polish which
confer on them their rarity and value.
" The quantity of sensations and ideas we have crowded
into a petty space of time, since our arrival in Paris, is
well worth twenty years of ordinary existence. The old
friendships revived, the new ones founded, and the changes
impressed on every object and institution of taste, feeling,
and opinion, during the interval of our absence, have left
no breathing time for reflection. I have not yet found
leisure to register a single impression for my own amuse-
ment, or haply for that of the world, which, it must be
allowed, is not very difficult to amuse.
" Still the bright Aurora of my return to the lend of
my predilection has not risen cloudless : a mist has passed
across the glow of its horizon ; and the light of the bril-
liant welcome, which has been given me in this capital of
European intellect (like the sunshine of the month that
brought me here), has been sullied by a tear, which no
sunshine can dry at its source, or restrain from falling.
6"l'he morning of my arrival, I took up my old Paris
visiting book for 1818, to look for addresses, to despatch
cards to old acquaintances, and notes to friends, after the
Parisian fruition. The find name that met my eye was
one which made me shudder, and feel, as I had felt whets
I broke the black seal of the letter which so unexpectedly
announced the decease of its owner. Well might that
distinguished name present itself the first upon the list.—
The first hand that was wont to hail our return to France,
was Denen's ; the first cordial smile that gave us the
warm assurance of a welcome was his. Other hands were
now extended, other smiles beamed. now as brightly ; but
his were dimmed for ever !
66 The brightest aspect of the national character in
other times, and under other institutions, was preserved
and presented in the person of Damn. Kind, courteous,
coithal, gay, witty, and learned, he was not only the most
agreeable and. instructive of companions, but the moat
obliging end serviceable of friends. Ills brilliant and va-
ried conversation was a book in which men tnight read
strange things.' The page, minister, and gentiThonime the
la chombre of Louis the Fifteenth, the friend of Voltaire,
the intimate of Napoleon, the traveller and historian of
modern Egypt, the director of the Mutate of France, when
Pietist, author, artist, antiquarian,
Paris was the museum of the world,---as courtier, diplo-
he had passed the
ordeal of the greatest changes, the most violent transitions,
the world had ever seen ; and he hail passed them with
principles unshaken and feelings unworn. All this was
Drawn; but though he were not all, or any of this, still
he suited ene-1 suited hint. The same -firth s made us
laugh, the same crimes made us sad. There was between
us that sympathy, in spite of the disparity of years and
talents, which, whether in trifles or essentials,---between
the frivolous or the profound,—makes -the true basis of
'hove ties, so sweet to bind, so bitter to break I As I
thew my pen across his precious and historical name, I felt
as if I was throwing earth on his grave