A WISH having been expressed by the publishers of this work to have a collection of my Miscellaneous Essays, published at different times and in different periodical works in Great Britain, made for reprints in America, and selected and arranged by myself, I have willingly assented to so flattering a proposal. I have endeavoured in making the selection to choose such as discuss subjects possessing, as far as possible, a general and durable interest; and to admit those only, relating to matters of social contest or national policy in Great Britain, which are likely, from the importance of the questions involved in them, to excite some interest as contemporary compositions among future generations of men. And I should be ungrateful if, in making my first appearance before the American public, and in a work hitherto published in a collected form only in this country, I did not make my warmest acknowledgments for the liberal spirit in which they have received my writings, and the indulgence they have manifested towards their imperfections; and express at the same time the pride which I feel, as an English author, at the vast and boundless field for British literary exertion which is afforded by the extension of the Anglo-Saxon race on the other side of the Atlantic. If there is any wish I entertain more cordially than another, it is that this strong though unseen mental bond may unite the British family in every part of the world, and cause them all to feel as brothers, even when the time arrives, as arrive it will, that they have obtained the dominion of half the globe.

Possel House, Glasgow,

Sept. 1, 1844.

}

A. ALISON.

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ALISON'S ESSAYS.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, MARCH, 1832.]

IT is one of the worst effects of the vehemence of faction, which has recently agitated the nation, that it tends to withdraw the attention altogether from works of permanent literary merit, and by presenting nothing to the mind but a constant succession of party discussions, both to disqualify it for enjoying the sober pleasure of rational information, and render the great works which are calculated to delight and improve the species known only to a limited class of readers. The conceit and prejudice of a large portion of the public, increase just in proportion to the diminution of their real information. By incessantly studying journals where the advantage of the spread of knowledge is sedulously inculcated, they imagine that they have attained that knowledge, because they have read these journals, and by constantly abusing those whom they stigmatize as offering the light of truth, they come to forget that none oppose it so effectually as those who substitute for its steady ray the lurid flame of democratic flattery.

It is, therefore, with sincere and heartfelt joy, that we turn from the turbid and impassioned stream of political discussion, to the pure fountains of literary genius; from the vehemence of party strife to the calmness of philosophic investigation; from works of ephemeral cele brity to the productions of immortal genius. When we consider the vast number of these which have issued from the European press during the last fifteen years, and the small extent to which they are as yet known to the British public, we are struck with astonishment; and confirmed in the opinion, that those who are loudest in praise of the spread of information, are not unfrequently those who possess least of it for any useful purpose.

It has long been a settled opinion in France, that the seams of English literature are wrought out; that while we imagine we are advancing, we are in fact only moving round in a circle, and that it is in vain to expect any thing new on human affairs from a writer under the English constitution. This they ascribe to the want of the bouleversement of ideas, and the extrication of original thought, which a revolution produces; and they coolly calculate on the catastrophe which is to overturn the English government, as likely to open new veins of thought among its inhabitants, and pour new streams of eloquence into its writers.

Without acquiescing in the justice of this observation in all its parts, and strenuously asserting for the age of Scott and Byron a decided superiority over any other in British history since the days of Shakspeare and Milton, at least in poetry and romance, we must admit that the observation, in many departments of literature, is but too well founded. No one will accuse us of undue partiality for the French Revolution, a convulsion whose principles we have so long and so vigorously opposed, and whose horrors we have endeavoured, sedulously, though inadequately, to impress upon our readers. It is therefore with a firm conviction of impartiality, and a consciousness of yielding only to the tone of truth, that we are obliged to confess, that in historical and political compositions the French of our age are greatly superior to the writers of this country. We are not insensible to the merits of our modern English historians. We fully appreciate the learned research of Turner, the acute and valuable narrative of Lingard, the elegant language and antiquarian industry of Tytler, the vigour and originality of M'Crie, and the philosophic wisdom of Mackintosh. But still we feel the justice of the French observation, that there is something "English" in all their ideas. Their thoughts seem formed on the even tenor of political events prior to 1789: and in reading their works we can hardly persuade ourselves that they have been ushered into the world since the French Revolution advanced a thousand years the materials of political investigation.

Chateaubriand is universally allowed by the French, of all parties, to be their first writer. His merits, however, are but little understood in this country. He is known as once a minister of Louis XVIII., and ambassador of that monarch in London, as the writer of many celebrated political pamphlets, and the victim, since the Revolution of 1830, of his noble and ill-requited devotion to that unfortunate family. Few are aware that he is, without one single exception, the most eloquent writer of the sent age; that independent of politics, he has produced many works on morals, religion, and history, destined for lasting endurance; that his writings combine the strongest love of rational freedom, with the warmest inspiration of Christian devotion; that he is, as it were, the link between the feudal and the revolu

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