promised herself intense pleasure from such an assembly. Every one was astonished at her wish to wander about in the midst of such a crowd; but is not the incognito a very strong enjoyment to the great? Mademoiselle de Fontaine amused herself by imagining all the citizen figures; she saw herself leaving in more than one bourgeois heart the remembrance of an enchanting look and smile; already laughed at the affectations of the dancers, and cut her pencils for the scenes with which she expected to enrich the pages of her satirical album. Sunday could not arrive soon enough to satisfy her impatience. The company from the Pavillon Planat set out on foot, in order not to betray the rank of the persons who meant to honour the ball with their presence. They had dined early. The month of May favoured this aristocratic escapade by one of its finest evenings. Mademoiselle de Fontaine was quite surprised to find under the rotunda some quadrilles, formed of persons who appeared to belong to good society. She certainly saw here and there some young men who appeared to have employed the savings of a month to shine for one day, and discovered several couples whose too frank gaiety was decidedly not conjugal ; but she had only to glean instead of to reap. She was astonished to see pleasure dressed in muslin so very like pleasure robed in satin; and the bourgeoisie dance as gracefully, and sometimes more so, than nobility. Most of the dresses were simple and worn gracefully. Mademoiselle Emilie was even obliged to study the various elements which composed this assembly before she could find in it a subject for pleasantry. But she had neither the time to devote herself to her malicious criticisms, nor the leisure to hear many of those queer sayings which caricaturists joyfully collect. The haughty creature suddenly met in this vast field with a flower (the metaphor is an appropriate one), of which the brilliancy and colours acted on her imagination with the prestige of a novelty. We often look at a dress, a hanging, a blank paper, with so much carelessness, as not to perceive on them at once a stain, or some dazzling spot, which later sud denly strike our eye, as if they only Seated on one of the rough chairs tageously displayed by well-made boots. He wore none of those ignoble trinkets with which the dandies of the garde nationale, or the Adonises of the counter, adorn themselves. Nothing but a black riband, to which his eye-glass was suspended, hung over his well-cut waistcoat. Never had the fastidious Emilie seen the eyes of a man shaded by such long and curled lashes. Melancholy and passion dwelt in this countenance, rendered more manly by an olive complexion. His mouth seemed always ready to smile, and curl the corners of two eloquent lips; but this disposition, far from indicating gaiety, rather betrayed a species of sad sweetness. There was too much thought in the head, too much distinction in the person, for any one to say,-There is a handsome man! You desired to know him. On seeing the unknown, the most perspicacious observer could not have avoided taking him for a man of superior talent, whom some powerful interest attracted to this village festival. composition of the French warriors received by Ossian. Emilie thought she recognised an illustrious English lady, who had recently come to inhabit a neighbouring country-house. Her partner was a boy of fifteen, with red hands, nankin trousers, a blue coat, and white shoes, which proved that her love of dancing did not make her fastidious in the choice of her partners. Her movements did not correspond with her apparently delicate health; but a slight red tinge was already beginning to colour her pale cheeks, and her complexion was becoming brighter. Mademoiselle de Fontaine approached the quadrille, in order to examine the stranger when she returned to her place, while the vis-à-vis repeated the figure. But the unknown advanced, leaned towards the pretty dancer, and the inquisitive Emilie distinctly heard these words, although pronounced in a voice at once gentle and decided, This mass of observations only cost Emilie a moment's attention, during which, this privileged man, submitted to a severe analysis, became the object of secret admiration. She did not say to herself, "IIe must be a peer of France !" but, "If he is noble, and he must be so Without finishing her thought she suddenly rose, and went, followed by her brother the lieutenant-general, towards the pillar, while appearing to look at the joyous quadrilles; but by an optical artifice familiar to women, she did not lose one single movement of the young man whom she was approaching. The unknown politely gave way to the new-comers, and leant on another column. Emilie, as piqued by the stranger's politeness as she would have been by an impertinence, began to talk to her brother in a much shriller tone than good taste allowed; she moved her head, multiplied her gestures, and laughed without much cause, less to amuse her brother than to attract the attention of the imperturbable unknown. None of these little artifices succeeded. Mademoiselle de Fontaine then followed the direction of the young man's eyes, and perceived the cause of this indifference. In the midst of the quadrille before her, was a pale young girl, similar to those Scotch deities whom Girodet has placed in his immense "Clara, my child, do not dance any more." Clara pouted her lips, nodded in token of obedience, and ended by smiling. After the quadrille the young man took all the precautions of a lover, throwing a cashmere shawl over the girl's shoulders, and placing her on a seat sheltered from the wind. Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who saw them get up and walk round the enclosure, like people about to depart, soon found means of following them, under the pretext of admiring the scenery from the garden. Her brother lent himself with arch good nature to the caprices of this rambling walk. Emilie then perceived the handsome couple getting into an elegant tilbury, which a livery servant on horseback was taking care of. At the moment the young man sat down, and endeavoured to equalise the reins, she obtained from him one of those looks which one carelessly bestows on large crowds; but she had the feeble satisfaction of seeing him look back two different times, and his companion imitated him. Was it jealousy? PUBLIC PATRONAGE OF MEN OF LETTERS. OUR literary men have not yet assumed, it is said, that position in society so pre-eminently due to them. Mr. Cobden, in the spirit we hope of a true prophet, foretels their future advancement. The destinies of the French nation are directed by literary men-by Guizot, who is in place, and by Thiers, who is out of it. Our literary men have no such rank in England. In short they have no rank or position at all. They are a scattered race, working in knots, or cliques, or single-handed, and exist as a body by name alone. The onehalf are unknown, except by reputation, to the other half; and while other classes combine and at times cabal to extend their reputations, the most influential race of men, the directors of the minds and passions, and even prejudices of the people, are scattered throughout the three kingdoms, often at war with and too often unknown to one another. This should not be! Literary men should no longer live aloof; they should combine in one common cause, the advance of their own respectability and standing in society, the growth of good letters, and the interchange of ideas. The sea of politics keeps too many apart. The editor of the Quarterly holds no communication with the critics of the Edinburgh, or the editor of The Times with the writers of the Morning Chronicle. The author of the Lays of Ancient Rome thinks very little of the editor of Boswell, and the editor of Boswell of the editor of the Lays. The sentiment is reciprocal. There is, therefore, very little hope of anything like an interchange of ideas between these doughty personages. They might meet and be perhaps more civil to one another than Dr. Johnson and Adam Smith were, but civility is all that would pass the shrug of dislike would follow the bow of common politeness, and they would part only to renew hostilities. The critics are a very numerous race, and literary men too often live on one another. Other grades and classes of intellectual men are without critics by profession, but litera ture cannot do, it would appear, without them. The corruption of an author is, we are told, the generation of a critic, and there is too much reason to believe that the saying is a true one. A disappointed poet seeks consolation in criticism— he has no other joy than to retaliate, while the successful critic is afraid to append his name to any publication of his own for fear of the mousing owls that haunt the purlieus of his trade. Yet jealousy is by no means a prominent feature in the literary character. Your Fellows of the Royal Society and Royal Academicians are still more jealous, but as few of them can write a style fit to appear in print they want a ready outlet for their venom. The pen is a fearful weapon. The opportunity of saying a good thing, of resenting an unfair criticism, or of pulling down a man of genius to your own level, are too tempting to be resisted. With young men this is too often the casc-they aim at notoriety in this way, and lull disappointed ambition with the satisfactory feeling of inflicting a stab in the dark. The critics, we have said, are a prolific people, and we are, perhaps, to impute their number, and in some respects their existence, as a class, more to a want of combination among literary men than any particular appetite on the part of the public for the sour produce of the "ungentle craft." The forty artists who are Royal Academicians stand firm to one another, through good and through evil report. An ill-natured or even severe criticism upon an individual member is viewed as an aspersion upon the whole body. This is in some degree the secret of the extraordinary influence of that well-organized association. It is one part of a member's creed to believe that the forty Royal Academicians are the forty best artists in the country, and that the best artist out of the Academy is the individual who will be elected a member on the next vacancy. This is a happy state of things; and what is the result?--that the rank of Royal Academician carries an appendage of respectability with it. But the literary man has no such rank, he has no class to uphold him, he has no distinction to aspire to, he has no lay benefice to hope for. We look for our artists in the ranks of the Royal Academy, for our men of science in the ranks of the Royal Society, for our physicians in their College, for our lawyers, if not already ennobled, on the benches of their respective Inns, and for our authors in the columns of the daily, weekly, and monthly. Who are our literary men? The question would seem by many to be very easily answered. But each would answer for his set, and you would hear of classes, composed somewhat in this way-1. Moore, Rogers, Hallam, and Macaulay; 2. Wordsworth, Wilson, Lockhart, Milman, and Wilson Croker ; 3. Talfourd, Bulwer, Dickens, and Jerrold, with Tennyson and Monckton Milnes, Henry Taylor, and Mr. Browning. not restricted. A society of forty of the best authors making common cause with one another, might treat with contempt the onset of the gadflies of criticism without; while every vacancy that occurred would afford an opportunity of strengthening your ranks and quieting the clamour of the ablest of your assailants. Good authors need no protection from criticism. Your Milbournes and Dennises wither and rot of their own accord if left unnoticed. We would suggest the formation of a society of forty of the best authors, for a very distinct and different reason. We wish to bring our literary men together, to give them collectively that standing in society which a few of them individually possess, and to shew our own people, and our continental neighbours as well, that a society of literary men in England is no common body, that they are aware of their own strength, and can maintain that influential station in established society so pre-eminently due to them. The history of letters in England is not without a record of several attempts at combination among literary men, but so imperfectly matured or inauspiciously started that it is perhaps unfair to speak of them as anything more than the mere spectres of attempts. Authors have been, and we believe are, still a friendly, even a convivial race. Your meetings at the Mermaid with Shakspeare and his "fellows," your suppers in the Apollo with Ben Jonson and his "sons," your late hours with Dryden at Wills', and still later at Button's with Addison and Steele, are among the most pleasing memories preserved to us of days gone by. It is not, however, to meetings of this kind that we wish to do more than refer at present. We allude, more particularly at this moment, to the formation of the Literary Club, the incorporation of the Royal Society of Literature, the establishment of the Athenæum Club, and the institution of the late Literary Union. But a union of literary men is not so hopeless as it at first would seem; a good writer will outlive an unfair criticism, "I never knew," says Dr. Johnson, "a man of merit neglected; it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success." Look at the history of opinion, as written in the Edinburgh Review; read its early and its after criticisms on Wordsworth and Southey, on Coleridge and Lamb, on Byron and on Moore. The silly Mr. Wordsworth of its early volumes is the philosophical poet of its later numbers. It has had to do penance for its early mistakes, and its penance has been accepted. Lord Byron forgave, it is said, Mr. Brougham, and the author of Lalla Rookh lives in friendly intercourse with the Dennis of his early lucubrations. Literary resentments are not, therefore, so lasting as they would seem. But, then, there is this obstacle to the formation of a society of literary men. Criticism, as a profession, must necessarily cease. This, however, is not, let us hope, so formidable an obstacle as it at first would seem. A society of authors must have a limitation of numbers. Academy is honourably efficient on The Royal account, and the Royal Society is notoriously defective because it is this The Literary Club, or the Club, as it was first called, was founded by Samuel Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was Johnson's original intention that the number of the club should not exceed nine, but Samuel Dyer, "the learned Mr. Dyer," as Johnson calls him- who had been for some years abroad, made his appearance amongst them and was cordially received. The members met one evening in every week at seven for supper, and generally continued their conversation till a late hour. The club soom became distinguished, new members were admitted, and in the eighth year of their existence the supper was changed to a dinner. There was as yet no limitation in the number of members, but a limitation was found necessary, and it was resolved that the Club should never exceed forty. All elections took place by ballot, nor could it be said that the selection was an unfair one, when the Club had amongst its members the distinguished names of Burke and Fox, Gibbon and Goldsmith, Colman and Garrick, the elder and the younger Warton, Boswell and Sheridan, Adam Smith and Sir William Jones, Stecvens and Malone, Bishop Percy, Sir Joseph Banks. But the Club, strictly speaking, was hardly a literary club; for among the forty we find many distinguished by birth and station alone, and others who could make but slender claims to literary distinction. We are, however, to bear in mind, that this was a club framed for convivial purposes, and for an interchange of ideas over a glass of wine, not a society or academy formed solely of literary men, and for the encouragement of literature. The Club fell off when Johnson died; and though still in being, may be said rather to exist than flourish. Mr. Hallam is the last name of literary eminence on its list. "The Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom," as it is called, is an establishment of twenty years' standing, with a royal charter and numerous pretensions. One of its foundation objects was the assignment of honorary rewards for works of great literary merit; a second and a much higher object was the establishment of a list of Royal Associates, ten in number, and each in the receipt, from the Society, of one hundred guineas a-year. The idea of this Society originated, it is said, with King George IV. The king certainly supplied out of his own privy purse the annual contribution of one thousand guineas for the ten Royal Associates, and one hundred guineas for the medals assigned as honorary rewards to authors of distinction. The ten Royal Associates were the poet Coleridge; Dr. Jamieson, the author of the admirable Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language; Malthus, who wrote on Population; Mathias, the author of the Pursuits of Literature; the Rev. Henry John Todd, the editor of Johnson's Dictionary; Sharon Turner the historian; Mr. Roscoe of Liverpool; the Rev. Edward Davies, Mr. James Milligen, and Sir William Ousely. Two medals were distributed annually; nor would it be easy to find fault with the selection of the individuals to whom they were awarded. The two first medals were assigned to Mitford the author of the History of Greece, and Signor Angelo Maï, librarian to the Vatican. The medals of the second year were awarded to Major Rennell, author of a Memoir on Hindostan; and Charles Wilkins the editor of the Bhagvat-Geeta. Of the third year, to Professor Schweighauser, the editor of Appian, and Professor Dugald Stewart; of the fourth year, to Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Southey; of the fifth year, to Crabbe and Archdeacon Coxe; of the sixth year to William Roscoe and le Baron Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, a writer of repute on Persian antiquities; of the seventh, to Washington Irving and Mr. Hallam, the historian of the Middle Ages. There was a good deal of talk about the Royal Society of Literature, and what it was to effect, before it came into actual existence. Sir Walter Scott calls it, in a letter to the then Secretary of State (Lord Sidmouth), "a very ill-contrived project," and one which can only end "in something very unpleasant.""Let men of letters," he says, "fight their own way with the public, and let his Majesty honour with his patronage those who are able to distinguish themselves, and alleviate by his bounty the distresses of such as, with acknowledged merit, may yet have been unfortunate in procuring independence. The immediate and direct favour of the sovereign is," he adds, "worth the patronage of ten thousand societies." Scott's objections apply, it must be understood, to the principles |