The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-16 00:00:00

. LITERATURE.
BOGUE'S EUROPEAN LIBRARY.
HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION,
By M. Mignet.—IIISTORY OF Tli COUN •
PER-REVOL 47,7 710 N IN ENGLAND. By Ar-
mand Carrel.—LlVES OF MICHEL ANGELO
AND RAFFAELLO. By Duppa and Dequincy.
'With a continuous regard not only to what is cal-
culated to be popular, but likewise to what is certain
to be instructive and entertaining, Mr. Bogue con-
tinues this important and valuable serial with unabated
industry and unstinted enterprise. We at first
conjectured that the title of the series would prove
rather ostentatious than suitable. The publication
has continued to remove that false impression from
the moment of its first appearance. Every volume
issued has a peculiar interest of its own, a peculiar
value, and a peculiar excellence. Sometimes it is
critical, sometimes biographical, but it is most his-
torical. And the history is no mere compilation of
periods with which the veriest tyro'is familiar, for if a
work is ever issued at all partaking of this cha-
racter it is invariably one of conspicuous worth, either
by the eminence of its author or the excellence of
his production. Above all, the price is singularly
trifling. For what would formerly have only pur-
chased a pamphlet or a magazine, the subscriber
receives a composition fit to be enshrined upon his
bookshelves for frequent consultation, and for not un-
frequent reperusal. Besides this, the paper is good,
the typography clear and readable, the printing of
the neatest description, and the binding of an elegant
simplicity. The merits of the miniature history
of the ever-memorable and, in all respects ever-
glorious "Revolution in France," by M. Mignet,
require no detailed celebration. We know no
small history so solid, so compact and so shrewd.
Every sentence contains the greatest possible amount
of information in the fewest possible words. Mignet
has none of the amplification of Thibaudeau, he is
devoid of that surprising passion of enthuiasm which
imparts so much of animation to the pages of Thiers,
and which, whether he is writing of Danton or Na-
poleon, elevates him to the dignity of a Hero-wor-
shipper—a man capable of appreciating all the subli-
mities and goodnesses, all the heights and the depths,
all the harmonies and the contradictions of those great
names which history has invested with immortality.
Still, though without these most estimable qualities,
Mignet possesses others of the highest importance—
calmness, penetration, lucidity, and a comprehensive
benevolence. The goddess before whose throne he
makes his reverent genuflections is Liberty. The
human tribunal whose authority he can alone
admit is the people. He abhors tyranny as
he does war, and loaths fanaticism, whether
religious or political, more than either the vice of
despots or of warriors. In Carrel we have a similar
disposition and a congenial spirit, only more purified
from the acerbities incident to one plunged into the
consideration of complicated and tumultuous scenes.
With a valour like that of Bayard, Armand Carrel,
the accomplished and chivalrous editor of the
National newspaper, had the simplicity of
a child and the tenderness of a woman.
So loving and forgiving was the nature of
Carrel that we can almost picture him to ourselves
weeping over the nameless grave of the young Saint
Just—that youthful terrorist who, with the black Hair
floating over his shoulders, and his beautiful counte-
nance inflamed with emotion, used to be the voice of
Robespierre in the Tribune of the Convention, and
the arm of Robespierre among the battalions of the
northern army. We can almost imagine Carrel weeping
over the grave of Saint Just seeing that he more fully
than any one else, would have recognised that the
crimes of the young terrorist originated in his affection
and loyalty for the people, and in his passionate
idolatry of freedom. He would have seen that the
sentiments which fanaticism had contorted into a
cruel and almost diabolical brutality, were in the
abstract divine, and sprung from nature. So
exquisite, so benignant, so elevated was the soul
of Armand Carrel, who was born at Rouen on
the Bth of May, 1800, and who was shot dead in
a duel by M. de Girardin, in the Bois de Vincennes,
near Paris, on the 22d of July, 1836 : Emilie de Gi-
rardin being the editor of La Presse, and Armand
Carrel editor of the National. It is pleasant to think
that over the humble tomb erected to this noble-
hearted republican in the churchyard of St. Mande,
his memory will be perpetuated to posterity by the
admirable bronze statue from the chisel of David
(d'Angers), " representing Carrel standing erect, the
right arm extended before him, his head slightly
thrown back, in the haughty attitude he bore when
he evoked the shade of Marshal Ney before
the House .of Lords." That famous apostrophe, " de-
livered in a sonorous, vibrating, and solemn voice,"
is justly characterised by the writer in the Galerie
des Contemporains Illustres, as "une des plus mag-
nifiques efforts d'eloquence dans ce temps-ci." As an
utterance from that same mind, this narrative of
" The Counter-Revolution in England " is thrice
welcome, especially as it is, tor every English-
man, invested with a national ,interest. We
observe that Carrel, like all preceding his-
torians of the epoch of the Protectorate, is
tainted with the same blundering misapprehension
of Oliver's character, which Mr. Carlyle has so
nobly vindicated within the past twelvemonths. The
former says that his Highness's career was blurred
by "that most odious and degrading of all human
vices, hypocrisy." We are afraid, from this expres-
sion, that Mr. Carlyle would include Armand in that
category of false writers which he has scorned under
the soubriquet of " Dryasdust," and that he would
place this history of the counter-revolution
among " the old blockhead books." In so doing,
as far as Oliver Cromwell is concerned, he would
be right. But not further. There is the impress of
a
firm, candid, generous, man-loving, God-loving
spirit in the pages of this volume. It can win its way
without the penny-trumpet of puffery. Of the
companion biographies of the two greatest painters
and one of the greatest geniuses the would ever saw,
namely of Raffaello—the divine Raffaello—and
Michael Angelo, by M. M. Duppa and De Quincy,
nothing whatever need be said, saving that the
translations are mostly accurate, and here and there
extremely graceful. The original biographies, of which
these are the reprints, have already acquired more
than an European celebrity. They are beautiful
versions of the careers of two extraordinary men.
We are surprised at one contradiction which has
crept into the life of Raffaello, and we know not
whether to attribute that contradiction to a misappre-
hension of Mr. Hazlitt, or to a flaw in the French
volume. The matter is this. In the elegant me-
moir of Raffaello, written by M. Quatremere
de Quincy, in the Biographie Universelle we re-
member perfectly well that he denies the story of
that great artist having visited Florence during the
residence there of Leonardo da Vinci ; indeed, he goes
so far as to undertake to prove the impossibility of an
interview between them, by making out an alibiin
the case of Raffaello. Yet in page 205 of the present
volume, we find these words put into the mouth of the
same Quatremere de Quincy :—" There is no mention
anywhere of an intimacy between them (da Vinci and
Raffaello) at Florence ; but it is certain that they were
both resident there at the same time." There is a
beautiful medallion likeness of Michael Angelo as a
frontispiece. Mr. Bogue has made a noble endeavour
in his "European Library" to diffuse some really
useful knowledge among the multitude.