Although M. Guizot appears to be as busily engaged as ever in politics, the advertisements of the booksellers would induce a belief that his whole attention is given to literary studies. He has just published Etudes Biographiques sur la Révolution de l'Angleterre, which, with his sketch of General Monk, he says, "form a sort of gallery of portraits of the English Revolution, in which personages of the most different characters appear together—chiefs or champions of sects or parties, parliamentarians, cavaliers, republicans, levellers, who, either at the end of the political conflicts in which they were engaged, or when in retirement towards the close of their lives, resolved to describe themselves, their own times, and the part they played therein. In the drawing together of such men," he adds, "and in the mixture of truth and vanity which characterize such works, there is, if I do not deceive myself, sufficient to interest persons of serious and curious minds, especially among us and in these times; for in spite of the profound diversity of manners, contemporary comparisons and applications will present themselves at every step, whatever may be the pains taken not to seek them." The studies here collected we suppose are not new; they are doubtless the articles which the author contributed to the Biographie Universelle and other works before he became a minister—perhaps, as in the cases of his "Monk" and "Washington," with scarcely a word of alteration. The work is, however, interesting. The period of English history to which it refers has been profoundly studied by Guizot, and it would probably be impossible to select a mode of treating it that would admit of more effective or attractive delineation. The life of Ludlow appears as the first of the series.
French Literature tends in a remarkable degree towards monarchical institutions. Guizot and his associates publicly advocate the Restoration. M. Cousin has published a new argument against Republicanism, and M. Romieu, whose curious book, which men doubted whether to receive as a jest or an earnest argument, The Era of the Cæsars—in which he declared his belief that the true and only law for France is force—is before the public again, in a volume entitled Le Spectre Rouge de 1852. He predicts the subversion of all order, and such terrible scenes as have never been witnessed even in France, unless some one bold, resolute, scorning all "constitutional" figments, and relying solely on his soldiers—some one who shall say L'état c'est moi! shall save France. A Cromwell, a Francia, or in default of such Louis Napoleon—any one who will constitute himself an autocrat, will become the saviour of France!
The Count De Jarnac, formerly secretary and chargé d'affaires of the French embassy in London, has published a novel which is well spoken of, entitled the Dernier d'Egmont.
A French traveller in upper Egypt has collected for the Parisian Ethnological Museum copies of many curious inscriptions upon the walls of the great temple of Philæ. Among others, there is the modern one of Dessaix, which the Parisians think "reflects the grandiose simplicity of the Republic." "The sixth year of the Republic, the thirteenth Messidor, a French army commanded by Bonaparte descended upon Alexandria; twenty days after, the army having routed the Mamelukes at the Pyramids, Dessaix, commanding the first division, pursued them beyond the Cataracts, where he arrived the thirteenth Ventose of the year seven, with Brigadier-Generals Davoust, Friant, and Belliard. Donzelot, chief of the staff, La Tournerie, commanding the artillery, Eppler, Chief of the twenty-first Light Infantry. The thirteenth Ventose, year seven of the Republic, third March, year of J.C., 1799. Engraved by Casteix." The last date, however, strikes us as a base compromise to the temporal prejudices of the world, on the part of the author of this "simple and grandiose" inscription.
M. de Saint Beauve has published in Paris some hitherto inedited MSS. of Mirabeau, consisting of Dialogues between the great orator and the celebrated Sophie (Madame de Monnier), written when Mirabeau was confined in the fortress of Vincennes, principally, it seems, from the pleasure he had in reflecting on the object of his passion. He gives an account of their first meeting, the growth of their love, and their subsequent adventures, in the language, no doubt, as well as he could recollect, that had passed between them, in conversation or in letters. There is not much that is absolutely new in these papers, or that throws any peculiar light on Mirabeau's character, but nothing could have been written by him which is without a certain interest, especially upon the subject of these Dialogues. Circulating-library people had always a morbid desire to see illustrious personages while under the influence of the tender passion.