the State. Philosophy is shewn by self-control, by reducing things to their just value, by never suffering feeling or sentiment to get the mastery of reason. Madame de Sévigné was the child of impulse, tremulous as an Eolian harp to every passing breeze: she lived au jour le jour for the objects of her affection: she was wrapped up in her family and friends: she was never in advance of her age: she had no ambition: and if (which we doubt) she was ever attracted by glory, she gave up for her daughter what was meant for mankind. In the first Arctic expedition under Ross, when the ships were icebound, private theatricals were got up by the officers for the amusement of the crew, one of whom, disgusted at what he thought the cold applause of a comrade, exclaimed, I call it philosophy, by God.' It must be from the same spirit of enthusiasm that the term 'philosopher' has been applied as a term of praise to Madame de Sévigné. The history of the famous Letters, including the times and manner of publication, is one of the most curious things relating to them. Epistolary excellence was not confined to Madame de Sévigné. Several of her female contemporaries rivalled her. Sainte-Beuve instances Madame de Coulanges, along with whom he might have named Madame de la Fayette; and Walpole says that, when he first fell in with Madame de Maintenon's letters, they made him jealous for his favourite. This may account, in some measure, for the little care taken of them by her correspondents; and she kept no copies. Bussy alone estimated them at their true value from the first: enlightened, doubtless, by their association with his own. The two cousins never came to a permanent breach, because they felt that they understood each other better than any one else understood either of them. When they clashed, it was like flint and steel, striking out sparks. Even when he persisted in writing to her in a manner which she disapproved, she could not make up her mind to forego the pleasure of the correspondence, but simply gave him warning that she would shew all his letters to her aunt. She told him, 'Vous êtes le fagot de mon esprit,' i.e., the fire-lighter or fire reviver. Portions of their correspondence were published in his 'Mémoires' in 1694. Bayle, then at work on his Dictionary, was so struck by her share of it, that he wrote to a friend at Paris to inquire about her, saying, 'I see nobody who doubts that the letters of Madame de Sévigné are better than BussyRabutin's. This lady had a great deal of sense and wit. She deserves a place amongst the illustrious women of our age. I should be very glad to know something of her history; I would willingly willingly put her into my Dictionary.' He did not carry out this resolution; and thirty-one years elapsed before any more of her letters were unearthed. Then they began to come out mysteriously and by driblets. First, 'Lettres Choisies de la Marquise de Sévigné à Madame de Grignan sa Fille,' published in 1725 by a printer of Troyes; no named editor; a volume of seventy-five pages, containing thirty-one letters or fragments of letters. Secondly, two volumes with the same title, in 1726, reprinted twice within the year, as well as an edition containing forty-three letters more, both by known, although not named, editors.* Eight years afterwards came the edition by the Abbé Perrin in six volumes, extended to eight volumes in 1754. The Abbé took strange liberties with his text, altering and suppressing at will; yet the learned and polite world were obliged to rest satisfied with the Letters in this unsatisfactory state, till the appearance of the first Monmerqué edition of 1843. That, so garbled and mutilated, they fascinated the most fastidious critics of the eighteenth century, is a decisive proof of their inherent excellence : 'You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will, 'Then you have undone yourself with me,' writes Walpole to Mackintosh, 'is evidently copied, not only by her worshipper, Walpole, but even by Gray: notwithstanding the extraordinary merit of his matter, he has the double stiffness of an imitator and of a college recluse.' The main sources of their popularity may be the anecdotes, the historical sketches, the traits of character and manners, the witty sayings and fine reflections, that abound in them; but their distinctive charm to the amateur is their freshness, their vivacity, their high-bred ease and grace, the colloquial flow of the language-her art of pleasing without ever once thinking about itson art de plaire, et de n'y penser pas-of interspersing the simplest domestic details with sparkling turns and fancies, like the princess in the fairy tale who could not comb her hair without strewing the floor with pearls. They are conversation in Brunet Manuel du Libraire,' 1864. But see Walckenaer, vol. iii. p. 344; and the Notice prefixed to the abridged edition of 1870. Perrin was the first editor who had the consent and co-operation of the family. writing, writing, which (we agree with M. Suard) all letters from absent friends or relatives, with no definite end, should be. We almost fancy that we hear her talk as we are reading them, and we become attached to her as to a companion who brightens or lightens every topic that we touch upon. How well we can picture to ourselves her meeting her German friend the Princesse de Tarente (who was constantly in mourning for some scion of royalty) in colours, and saying to her with a curtsey, Madame, je me réjouis de la santé de l'Europe: or orally concluding her account of the exiled Stuarts at St. Germain with the remark, Pour le Roi d'Angleterre il y paroît content, et c'est pour cela qu'il est là:' or leaning her head upon her hand as she lets drop, 'There may be so great a weight of obligation that there is no way of being delivered from it but by ingratitude.' Her story of the Archbishop of Rheims (Tellier) might be told with good effect at a dinner-table : 6 The archbishop was returning at a great pace from Saint-Germain -with a rush like a whirlwind. If he thinks himself a great lord, his people think him a still greater. He was rattling through Nanterre, tra, tra, tra. They meet a man on horseback, gare! gare! gare! The poor man wishes to get out of the way: his horse does not, and so the coach and six horses knock the poor man and the horse head-over-heels, and pass over them, so completely over them, that the coach was overturned and turned upside down (versé et renversé); whilst the man and the horse, seeing no fun in having their bones broken, get up again as if by miracle, remount, the one upon the other, and take to their heels, and are running still, whilst the lackeys, and the coachman, and the archbishop himself are bawling after him: "Stop the rascal! stop him! Give him a hundred lashes." The Archbishop, in telling her the story, said: 'If I had caught that scoundrel, I would have broken his arms and cut off his ears!' Her reflections on the death of Louvois sound like spoken eloquence : 'He is no more then, this powerful and superb minister, whose moi occupied so much space-was the centre of so many things! What interests to disentangle, what intrigues to follow, what negotiations to conclude!... "O my God! a little time yet! I want to humiliate the Duke of Savoy, to crush the Prince of Orange: one moment more." No, you shall not have a moment, not one!' We do not doubt her when she says, 'J'écrirais jusqu'à demain mes pensées, ma plume, mon encre, tout vole.' Yet whilst her thoughts, her pen, her ink are flying-whilst she is covering covering the ground at an archiepiscopal pace, she scatters maxims which Rochefoucauld or Vauvenargues would have meditated on for months without improving them : 'Les longues maladies usent la douleur, et les longues espérances usent la joie! 'On n'a jamais pris longtemps l'ombre pour le corps: il faut être, si l'on veut paraître. Le monde n'a point de longues injustices!' Had Johnson read this when he laid down that, when the world thinks long about a matter, it generally thinks right? She wrote of de Retz: Mon Dieu, qu'il est heureux! que j'envierais quelquefois son épouvantable tranquillité sur tous les devoirs de la vie! On se ruine quand on veut s'acquitter !' Sir James Mackintosh, after finishing the perusal of her letters, sets down in his Journal: 'The great charm of her character seems to me a natural virtue. In what she does, as well as in what she says, she is unforced and unstudied: nobody, I think, had so much morality without restraint, or played so with amiable failings without falling into vice. Her ingenuous, lively, social disposition gave the direction to her mental power. She has so filled my heart with affectionate interest in her as a living friend that I can scarcely bring myself to think of her as being a writer, or as having a style; but she has become a celebrated, probably an immortal, writer, without expecting it she is the only classical writer who never conceived the possibility of acquiring fame. Without a great power of style, she could not have communicated those feelings to others. In what does that talent consist?' Want of space would prevent our speculating on this question were we ever so much inclined to it. But there is little use in analysing any talent or genius which is confessedly inimitable. 'We expect,' said Lord Macaulay, 'to see fresh Humes and fresh Burkes before we again fall in with that peculiar combination of moral and intellectual qualities to which the writings of Walpole owe their extraordinary popularity.' We expect to see. fresh Madame de Staëls, fresh Mrs. Somervilles, fresh Georges Sands, fresh George Eliots, before we again fall in with that rich and essentially feminine organization to which the letters of Madame de Sévigné owe their extraordinary charm. ART. ART. VI.-1. Natural Laws of Husbandry. By Justus von Liebig. London, 1864. 2. Reports of the Rivers Pollution Commission. 1870-72. 3. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. 1869. THE HE enormous corn-imports, and the continually rising prices of those kinds of farming produce which cannot be readily imported, demand an examination of the state of our agriculture, and may, perhaps, justify an attempt to point out the causes of the increased cost of produce and of the diminished growth of corn. A quantitative analysis of our past and present corn-growth cannot be obtained, but there is ample evidence to shew that the production of grain reached a culminating point immediately after the repeal of the Corn Laws, and that it has subsequently steadily declined, the yearly average growth having been about three million quarters of wheat less in the past ten years than in the ten years ending 1851; while the value of the increase in corn-imports, including nearly 5 millions of quarters of wheat, has been about 20,000,000l. a year at the average prices. The agriculture of the United Kingdom maintained, so far as wheaten bread is concerned, an average of about five millions less in the past ten years than in the ten years ending 1841, taking six bushels of wheat per head as the accepted standard of consumption, instead of the old eight-bushel standard which was established on data collected in the last century, when less meat and vegetables were consumed than at the present time.* We * The accuracy of these conclusions may be tested by the following tables :Average Yearly Importation into the United Kingdom of Wheat and Flour (calculated as Wheat), in Quarters, and of other sorts of Corn, for the Ten Years preceding each Census. Wheat and) flour Qrs. Other sorts) of corn 340,000 460,000 630,000 435,000 2,748,000 3,981,000 6,717,000 Table |