Michelet is a man of very great research, and of very general information. True learning, however, is research and information well digested. Such digestion his partial organization does not admit of. With him, every thing takes the nature of his peculiar preconceived ideas, and his materials, instead of affording him healthy nutriment, promote only a most undue secretion of bile. As to his style, it is unique. It arrests the attention, but too often it is only the singularity of the expression, and not the merit of the thought which does so; too often we find little but words, words, words; too often what at first seemed striking proves, on examination, to be poor and commonplace. His style has been compared to that of Carlyle, and, in so far as it is abrupt and out of the way, with reason; but beyond this there is no likeness. The French writer is far inferior in originality and vigor to the English. As was said of an imitator of Dr. Johnson, "He has the nodosity of the oak, without its strength; the contortions of the sibyl, without her inspiration." Add to this, that a kind of maudlin sentimentality pervades all his writings, and gives them a sickly look and an air of affectation.
As a professor, Michelet does not shine. He is a bad lecturer, not having the art of conveying his ideas orally. He wanders sadly from his subject. His elocution is painful. Nevertheless, his lecture-room is always crowded long before the appointed hour. The reason is, that he holds a kind of political club. We were present on one occasion last year. The vast hall was filled to the ceiling. Students sang revolutionary songs. One read some verses. A hiss was heard. "Who hissed?" "I did." "Sortons." They were going to fight a duel. A gentleman of some five-and-thirty years made a conciliatory speech. They resolved not to fight a duel. More verses, noise, and tumult—all this in the presence of ladies, a number of whom occupied the lower benches. The professor entered—a thin, pale man, with grayish, ill-arranged hair, through which he passed his fingers at times. Shuffling to his chair, he seated himself, and then stretched his arms across the table before him, clutching it on the other side with one hand, as if he were afraid somebody was about to take it from him. The first half of his lecture was a reply to some newspaper attack on him; he said, however, that it was contrary to his usual practice to notice such things in that place, and we hope it was. The rest of the lecture was on education. Education should not be called education, but initiation—that was all. Not a word of history. Tremendous applause as he concluded.
FREAKS OF NATURE.
The celebrated Hunterian Museum in London contains, perhaps, the largest collection of natural curiosities, especially in the department of anatomy, in the world. One of the most striking specimens, described in the catalogue, is the skeleton of a boy, born in Bengal some seventy years ago, remarkable for the singular conformation of his head. The description states that the child was healthy and was more than four years old at the time of its death, which was occasioned by the bite of a poisonous snake. When born, the body of the child was naturally formed, but the head appeared double, there being, besides the proper head of the child, another of the same size, and to appearance almost equally perfect, attached to its upper part. This upper head was upside down, the two being united together by a firm adhesion between their crowns, but without any indentation at their union, there being a smooth continued surface from one to the other. The face of the upper head was not over that of the lower, but had an oblique position, the centre of it being immediately above the right eye. When the child was six months old, both of the heads were covered with black hair, in nearly the same quantity. At this period the skulls seemed to have been completely ossified, except a small space on the top. The eyelids of the superior head were never completely shut, but remained a little open, even when the child was asleep, and the eyeballs moved at random. When the child was roused, the eyes of both heads moved at the same time; but those of the superior head did not appear to be directed to the same object, but wandered in different directions. The tears flowed from the eyes of the superior head almost constantly, but never from the eyes of the other except when crying. The superior head seemed to sympathize with the child in most of its natural actions. When the child cried, the features of this head were affected in a similar manner, and the tears flowed plentifully. When it sucked the mother, from the mouth of the superior head the saliva flowed more copiously than at any other time, for it always flowed a little from it. When the child smiled, the features of the superior head sympathized in that action. When the skin of the superior head was pinched, the child seemed to feel little or no pain, at least not in the same proportion as was felt from a similar violence being committed on its own head or body. A fuller account of this remarkable case may be found in the "Philosophical Transactions," by those who like to seek it.
The crowning curiosities in this collection, however, are not named in the catalogue, though they stand in two small bottles, on a mahogany pedestal, in the centre of the smaller room. To a man with a soul for identicals, they must offer great attraction, for they are two portions of the small intestine of the Emperor Napoleon, showing the presence of the cancerous disease that killed him. These post-mortem relics were removed by a French surgeon who assisted in opening the body of the deceased conqueror, and were given by him to Barry O'Meara, who presented them to Sir Astley Cooper. They offer scientific and historical evidence of the cause of the great man's death. Some time ago a card leaned against the bottles, explaining the nature of their contents, but more than once a French visitor to the place became excited, and even violent, on seeing the relics of their venerated chief. One day a perfect scene occurred: "Perfide Albion!" shrieked a wild Gaul, whose enthusiasm seemed as though it had been fed upon Cognac. "Perfide Albion!" again and more loudly rang through the usually quiet hall. "Not sufficient to have your Vaterloo Bridge, your Vaterloo Place, your Vaterloo boots, but you put violent hands on de grand Emperor himself. Perfide! perfide! perfide!" he yelled again, and had he not been restrained, would have run a Gallic muck among the bones and bottles, that would have been recollected for many a day. From that time the pathological record of Napoleon's fatal malady has been unnumbered, and—to the million—unrecognizable.
LAND, HO!—A SKETCH OF AUSTRALIA.
"Land, ho!" cried the look-out. Blessed sound to the weary landsman!—a sound associated with liberty and society, a walk on turf, a dinner of fresh meat and green vegetables, clear water to drink, and something to do. The dark line in the horizon was Terra Australis, the land of my dreams. As we approached more near, I was not greeted, as I had hoped, by sloping shores of yellow sands, or hills covered with green pasture, or clad with the bright-colored forests of southern climes; but far above us towered an iron-bound coast, dark, desolate, barren, precipitous, against which the long, rolling swell of the Pacific broke with a dull, disheartening sound.