seek for, and it is possible to find, a beautiful style for the expression of physiological and geometrical truths. If there are mathematicians and naturalists who declaim when they ought to demonstrate, that is a mis fortune for which style is not responsible; a misfortune, too, that would not happen if all mathematicians and naturalists had a true respect for style. M. Planche's remarks on the manner of the old writers are always clever and interesting. As where he shows how, from Froissart to Montaigne, his native tongue faithfully reflects the passions and opinions of: his native country. Thus, in the chronicler of the fourteenth century, the expression is picturesque, animated, capricious, irregular, warlike: the syntax that governs its evolutions resembling the tactics employed in governing the troops of the Black Prince-being, that is to say, lavish of means, prodigal, improvident, and averse from choosing the nearest road. The language of Philippe de Comines, again, is more sober in respect of imagery, more careful of its resources, more skilfully managed; but then its prudence not unfrequently merges in mere cowardice." It too often denies itself the tumultuous sympathy which, in Froissart, overflowed in glowing and thronging waves; it suppresses the drapery, nor does it ever attain to the exact design of the form. It is a language that smacks of trade and the counting-house, fit for colporteur, spy, or usurer, often ambiguous in its very precision. It has lost its epic vigour; it has forsaken the battle-field for the privy council of Louis XI.; it is no longer chivalric, but cittish." With Montaigne, the French language assumes another guise; it is imbued with Græcisms and Latinisms, but with such skill and address, that it has the brightness of steel without losing the pliancy it had gained under the hammer in coming out of the furnace. In Hellenising, it still remained Gallic. It knows right well whither it is wending, but is none the less ready to take a devious route.. At once naïve and sententious, it brings together imagination and reason with wonderful harmony; it has both the inspirations of poetry and the illuminations of philosophy. It gives itself up to the portrayal of human sentiment, as though emotion were its one sole theme; yet when the time comes to knit together in close-bound sheaf all the scattered ears of fruitful thought, it is equal to this new task: it is as rich for the artist as it is clear for the thinker. However, the syntax of Montaigne, suffice as it might for the capricious reflection of the Essais, undergoes a marked transformation at the hands of Pascal. The diction takes a severer and more exact outline. The combination of words aims at something more than the mere expression of the general or particular, abstract or concrete idea-it aims at conciseness. Syntax, from the lips. of Pascal, proclaims a sumptuary law, and banishes from the language all effeminate coquetry; allows itself no other elegance than the severe; gathers up the sweeping train of rhetoric, and forbids to language any trespass beyond the pale of thought. This implacable austerity is softened and subdued in the Esprit des Lois and the Essai sur les Mœurs for though the diction of Montesquieu and Voltaire is as well wrought as that of Pascal, it is more lightly armed, and often wears coat of mail instead of cuirass.-In this manner M. Planche traces the variations of the French language, and shows how, in the course of five centuries, it has steadily and sensibly progressed in clearness and pliability-becom ing more limpid, more transparent, in each new phase of its existence. Unsparing, therefore, are his strictures on those contemporaries whose style threatens a relapse or decline in this progressive development. On Eugène Sue, for example, who "seems to treat the language with absolute contempt, overleaping all the laws of style à pieds joints;" and the "unexampled" sallies and somersaults of Delavigne; and the grammatical solecisms that bristle in Lamartine's Jocelyn-where sometimes pleurs are feminine, sometimes the indicative alternates with the imperfect tense, at three lines' distance, and the singular number replaces the plural, to accommodate the rhythm, and neuter verbs are transfigured into verbs transitive, as occasion may require. M. Planche's own style ought to be something rich and rare, for self-vindication against angry and very numerous retorts; and on examination it will be found to have a power, scientific arrangement, and artistic finish, which warrant its master's right to sit in judgment upon others. His criticisms on works of Art eloquently enforce the canon, that painting and sculpture, in the hands of eminent masters, have always been an interpretation, never a literal copy, of the model. Take these arts, he says, at the most splendid epochs of their history, and you will never find them separated from interpretation, that is to say, from the ideal. Form and colour, as employed in representing the human model, are made to not literally reproduce, but-render it intelligible, now by exaggerating, now by effacing certain particulars. If literal fidelity to nature is the dernier mot of human art, then are Phidias and Raffaelle far below the figures of Curtius. If the genius of the artist is in exact proportion to the allusion produced, then is coloured wax, clothed in serge, very superior to the metopes of the Pantheon, and the frescoes of the Vatican. Honestly to affirm that nature, servilely copied, is the highest expression of art in painting, sculpture, and poetry, is, M. Planche contends, to convict oneself of having never had a glimpse of, much less made a study of, the laws of imagination, whether in the domain of conscience, or in that of the works of art which all men of culture, with one consent, declare beautiful. To support the doctrine of realism in art, is, he asserts, to misapprehend the very cause of that admiration which works of beauty produce; it is to remain blind to the beautiful; it is to proclaim one's utter incompetence in the entire province of æsthetics. True, a careful study of the real is indispensable to him who would "invent" something in marble, on canvas, or in the language of poetry; but this study, however complete, is only a means to, not a guarantee of, invention. Imagination, as M. Planche defines it, is neither mere vision nor recollection; it is something of both these, but also something more than both; it is to perceive that which is not, that which never has been, that which yet might be; it is to gaze, face to face, on the idea descried with. lively faith; it is to believe as sincerely, for some moments, in the heavenly apparition, as in the world which surrounds us. His æsthetical essays are, in short, rich in arguments for the doctrine maintained, as Sir Bulwer Lytton remarks,† by every true critic in art, from Aristotle and Pliny, from Winkelman and Vasari, to Reynolds and Fuseli, that Nature is not So this green writer may pretend, at least, THE REMONSTRANCE. BY ALFRED A. WATTS. I THINK it's but fair when Philander forgets, Just rights for herself; so I'll thank you to pay Don't offer excuses! Don't vow that you thought Such pleas won't avail, for you very well know But repair your misdeeds, while there's time, for, depend If in this shameless way you betray 'em ; Who bets ladies gloves and don't pay 'em? And if paying your wager you still should disdain, "The great painter," says Sir Edward, "like the great author, embodies what is possible to man, it is true, but what is not common to mankind. There is truth in Hamlet, in Macbeth, and his witches; in Desdemona; in Othello; in Prospero; and in Caliban; there is truth in the cartoons of Raffaelle; there is truth in the Apollo, the Antinous, and the Laocoön. But you do not meet the originals of the words, the cartoons, or the marble, in Oxford-street or St. James's." Again: "The idea is not inborn; it has come from an intense study. But that study has been of the ideal that can be raised from the positive and the actual into grandeur and beauty." He adds, that the common-place public scarcely understand the idealising principle, even in art. "For high art is an acquired taste." † Dryden's Prologues. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: OR, ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF OUR GRANDFATHERS. BY ALEXANDER Andrews. COFFEE-HOUSES AND THEIR CLUBS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. COFFEE and chocolate-houses were the favoured resorts of wits, politicians, gamblers, quidnuncs, and men about town in general; not, perhaps, so much for the purpose of sipping coffee or chocolate as for a lounge, for reading the papers, hearing the news, talking politics, and playing at cards. The daily papers, it would seem, were to be perused for a fee of a penny, for the Guardian (No. 160, September the 14th, 1713*), says of a testy old coffee-house politician, "He here lost his voice a second time in the extremity of his rage, and the whole company, who were all of them Tories, bursting out into a sudden laugh, he threw down his penny in great wrath, and retired with a most formidable frown." We have already alluded to a few of the leading coffee-houses, and we may now glance at the characteristics of their respective visitors. Thus: in 1724, "White's Chocolate-house" was celebrated for its piquet and basset clubs; "Littleman's Coffee-house" for its sharpers and high playing at faro; "Tom's" and "Will's" coffee-houses were also frequented by gamesters; the "Cocoa-Tree" and "Ozinda's" by Tory politicians; the "Saint James's" by Whigs; the "British Coffee-house" by the Scotchmen in London; "Youngman's" by officers; "Oldman's" by stockjobbers of an inferior grade; "Garraway's" by the better class of citizens and traders; "Robin's" by foreign bankers and ambassadors "Jonathan's" by stockjobbers; and " Button's," " Child's," and "John's" by authors. At a later period, the "Grecian" was the resort of politicians, and "Dolly's Chop-house" of wits. The "Chapter Coffee-house," in St. Paul's-churchyard, was frequented by authors and critics, who formed themselves into knots and coteries, each occupying a box, and criticising public men, manners, and works. In 1795, Alexander Stephens says, one box to which he belonged was occupied by Dr. Buchan, the author of the "Domestic Medicine," Sir Richard Phillips, founder of the Monthly Magazine, Alexander Chalmers, Doctor Busby, Macfarlane, Doctor Fordyce, Gower, Berdmore, Towers, and other minor celebrities. "White's Chocolate-house," "Will's Coffee-house," the " Grecian," and the "Saint James's" have been immortalised by the Tatler. From the first were dated "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment;" from Will's issued the poetical department; the Grecian furnished "the papers on learning;" and the foreign and domestic news was gathered at the Saint James's. The "parlour of the Grecian" is also alluded to by Addison as being at that time the forum of political discussionists; and "Button's Coffee-house" is made immortal as the gathering-place of the * The Daily Courant, the first daily paper, appeared in 1702. Spectator's Club, and by the recollections of its lion's-mouth letter-box, always open for communications from correspondents. Here Addison, Steele, Pope, Tickell, Ambrose Philips, Carey, Davenport, and Colonel Brett spent their leisure hours-Button, the proprietor of the coffee-house, having been a servant to the Countess of Warwick, Addison's wife. Garraway's has been enshrined by Swift in the lines descriptive of the class of persons by whom it was frequented: Meantime secure on Garraway cliffs, These were the stockbrokers and jobbers of Change-alley, and full of them, no doubt, was Garraway's during the memorable South-Sea speculation. 66 The visitors to these coffee-houses at length began to form themselves into clubs-literary, political, convivial, or eccentric. Dean Swift, always up to his ears in political controversy, founded a club in 1712, called the Society of Brothers," consisting of the men of rank and talent among the Tories, meeting first at the Thatched House, which, on account of its high charges, was abandoned for the Star and Garter, and finally settling at Ozinda's Coffee-house; but, on this club splitting on the rocks of party, he organised one of a more literary character, dubbed the "Scriblerus Club," of which Harley Earl of Oxford, St. John Viscount Bolingbroke, Arbuthnot, Pope, Gay, and himself were members, one of the objects of which was to produce a satire upon the abuse of human learning; but this club was destroyed by the dissensions between Oxford and Bolingbroke. About the same period, or rather in 1710-11, there sprang up the "October Club," thus described by Swift: "A set of above a hundred Parliament men, who drink October beer at home, and meet every evening at a tavern" (the Bell, in King-street, Westminster) " near the Parliament, to consult affairs, and drive them on to extremes against the Whigs, to call the old ministry to account, and get off five or six heads." We are indebted to "A Humorous Account of all the Remarkable Clubs in London and Westminster" for the following list of clubs in existence in 1745: The Virtuoso's Club; the Knights of the Golden Fleece; the Surly Club; the Ugly Club; the Split-farthing Club; the Mock-heroes Club; the Beaux Club; the Quack Club; the Weekly Dancing Club; the Bird Fancier's Club; the Chatterwit Club; the Small Coal-man's Music Club." To these we may add the Kit Cat Club (on staunch Hanoverian principles, which met at the house of Kit Cat, a cook in Shire-lane); the Beef-steak Club. The latter club was founded by Sheridan the elder, in 1753, and presided over by the celebrated and eccentric Peg Woffington, the actress, and frequented by members of Parliament and courtiers. There were also the Pandemonium Club, held in Clarges-street, May-fair; the Blenheim Club, held at the Blenheim Tavern, Bondstreet; the Mitre Club, at the Mitre, in Essex-street, Strand. The Mitre Club was founded by Doctor Johnson, the landlord of the house at which it met having been servant to his friend Thrale. A |