From which it follows, that above fifty-riods of time and for different parts of five per cent. of this large proportion of France, but is equally found in other counnatural children belong to classes suffi- tries where exact statistical records are ciently independent to provide for their kept. comforts in private domiciles.

duces a specific physiological effect, varying ing literature and the arts, as well as poliin a determinate manner the sex of the tics and miscellaneous intelligence. In a offspring? We must leave this curious certain sense it may be said to have a higher question to the faculty to explain. Mean-intellectual tone, and although no single while we must assure them that they are absolutely excluded from taking refuge in the doubtfulness of the fact itself. The evidence is quite incontestable.

French journal can be truly said to be as perfect a vehicle of general intelligence as one of the leading morning papers of London, yet this deficiency is more than compensated by the facility with which the various journals are accessible.

The feuilleton is a department of French journalism which has no corresponding branch in the English press. Here the writings of many of the most eminent men of letters of the day, more especially the authors of fiction, first are offered to the world. Here are also found literary and dramatic criticism, reviews of the arts, and a general record of the progress of mind.

If the intellectual condition of the population of the French metropolis can be inferred from the amount of intellectual food provided for them, and apparently enjoyed and voluntarily consumed, it must be admitted to have attained rather an high standard. The first, most obvious, and most abundant source of mental information, is the daily press. Journalism is carried to an extraordinary extent in Paris. Not only is the number of newspapers considerable, but the average circulation is The number of journals which thus form much greater than that of the London jour- channels of popular information in Paris nals. They are issued at a much lower alone, is about forty; half that number beprice, and much more extensively read.-ing daily papers for politics and general The annual subscription to the principal intelligence. daily papers is only forty francs, equal to thirty-two shillings, British. These papers are published daily, including Sundays, and consequently their price is little more than one penny. But small as this cost is, the Parisian rarely incurs so much; nor would a single journal satisfy his thirst for information. He requires to see the journals of all parties, and to hear all sides of the question. This object is attained easily, economically, and agreeably, by the Cabinets de Lecture or reading rooms, above three hundred of which are established in Paris. The admission to these is three halfpence. Here all the journals of Paris, great and small, all the periodicals of the day, the popular romances and pamphlets, and other works of current interest, are provided.In many of the better class of these estab- Of all the class of public professors comlishments, the English and other foreign ing under the title of adult instructors, papers are found. Every Parisian above Arago is, perhaps, the most remarkable, the rank of the mere working class resorts and we might even extend the comparison to these rooms, and makes himself au curant beyond the limits of France. The well on the subjects of the day. Besides these known felicity of Faraday gives him a high sources of daily information, he has his rank in this species of teaching. But he café, to which all Frenchmen resort morn-yields to Arago in the eloquence of laning or evening, and where all the principal journals are provided.

The intellectual taste of the Parisians is manifested, in a striking manner, by the desire they show for attendance on public lectures, in every department of literature and science. Such discourses are accessible gratuitously in various parts of Paris, and delivered by professors eminent in the various departments of knowledge. Among these ought to be especially mentioned the lectures on astronomy delivered throughout the season by Arago, at the royal observatory, and those on mechanical philosophy, given on Sundays, by the Baron Charles Dupin, at the Conservatoire des arts et metiers. Each of these professors is attended by audiences of six or seven hundred persons of both sexes and all ages, from the youth of sixteen upwards.

guage, and what may be called the literary qualifications of the instructor. If Arago had not been a member of the Academy of Sciences, he might have preferred a fair claim to admission to the Academy of Letters (L'Academie Française).

The aim and object of a Parisian journal are somewhat different from those of an English newspaper. It is less the vehicle of advertisements, or of mere gossip, such as accidents and offences, than the As a member of the Chamber of Depulatter. It is more discursive, and affects ties, Arago has assumed his seat on the more the character of a review, embrac-extreme left, the place of republican

opinions pushed to their extreme limit.- ple in France, is the drama. Whether the He is a violent politician, and will go every counteracting evils which attend theatrical length with his party. He rarely, however, entertainments preponderate over the means mounts the tribune; never except on ques- of mental improvement which they offer, is tions on which his peculiar acquirements a question on which some difference of are capable of throwing light. Whenever opinion will, no doubt, prevail. However he does, the chamber is hushed in the most this be decided, the state in France reprofound and respectful silence. There gards the drama as a national object, as are no interruptions, either of approbation the means of sustaining and fostering an or dissent, such as even the most eminent important branch of French literature, and, parliamentary speakers are accustomed to. in a word, as a department of les beaux arts, The members listen with inclined heads and as well entitled to protection and encourageinquiring countenances. The strangers' ment as painting or sculpture. galleries are filled with respectful and There are within the barriers of Paris anxious spectators and hearers. The sta- about twenty-four theatres, permanently ture of the savant is above the middle size, open; most of them nightly, including Sunhis hair is curled and flowing, and his fine day. Several of these are directly supportsouthern bust commands the attention. His ed by the state, receiving an annual subvenforehead and temples indicate force of will tion of greater or less amount, and being conand habits of meditation. The moment sequently subject, in some degree, to govhe opens the subject of his speech, he be- ernment control. In defence of the moral comes the centre to which every look is effect of these places of public amusement, directed, and on which all attention is fixed. it must be said that none of them present If the question is complicated, it becomes the offensive and revolting scenes which are simple as he utters it. If it be technical, witnessed in the saloons and upper tiers of it is resolved into the most familiar. If it boxes of the English theatres. In fact, that be obscure, it becomes luminous. The class of persons who thus outrage decency, ignorant are astonished that what seemed in the place of public amusement in Engunintelligible has become suddenly self- land, dare not show themselves in any theaevident, and the dull are charmed with the tre in Paris. In that respect, at least, there consciousness of their awakened powers of is a wholesome stringency of police regulaperception. The gesture, the pantomime of tions. In the audience part of a Paris theathe orator are captivating. Flashes of light tre there is, in fact, nothing to offend the seem to issue from his eyes, his mouth, and eye or the ear of the most fastidious moraleven from his fingers! He varies and ist. relieves his discourse by the most lively digressions and well-pointed anecdotes immediately arising out of the subject, which adorn without over-charging it. When he relates facts, his language has all the graces of simplicity; but when he unfolds the mysteries of science, and developes some of the wonders of nature, his speech rises, his style becomes elevated and figurative, and his eloquence corresponds with the sublimity of his theme.

The principal theatre of Paris, and that to which the state attaches the most importance, is the Academie Royale de Musique, commonly called the grand opera. It is here that the art of dancing is cultivated; in connexion, however, with the higher class of opera. Notwithstanding that the prices of admission are considerable, and the theatre accommodates two thousand persons, and is generally filled, yet such is the splendor with which musical entertainments are produced, that the entire receipts do not amount to any-thing near the expenses of the establishnient. The annual subscription allowed by the state to this school of music is above thirty-five thousand pounds sterling.

The versatility of Arago, and his vast fund of peculiar information, always ready in his memory, and available for felicitous application, remind us of the qualities of his friend Lord Brougham. Like the latter, Arago is a linguist, a politician, a man of letters. He is perpetual secretary of the A second theatre, called the Opera ComInstitute, in which office he has produced ique, is also devoted exclusively to the adremarkable eloges of some of his most emi-vancement of music, and receives an annual nent contemporaries, among whom may be grant of £10,000. mentioned Volta, Fourriere and Watt.

One of the principal avowed instruments for the intellectual advancement of the peo

The great school of French dramatic literature is the Theatre Français, where the works of Racine, Corneille, Voltaire, Mo

sense.

liére, and the other great dramatic writers, tracts, and you are only required to find are kept continually before the public, sup- your own paper. The number of readers ported by the best living artists, among who avail themselves of this privilege is whom Mademoiselle Rachel at present holds enormous. the first place. This theatre is supported While means so ample are thus presented by an annual grant of £8,000, notwithstand-for the improvement of the understanding, ing which it is now tottering on the brink opportunities for the cultivation of taste, and of dissolution, and must come to a suspension the refinement of the imagination, are not if the state do not intervene. less profusely supplied, and still more eagerExclusive of these, all the other theatres ly and extensively enjoyed by all classes, are private enterprises, conducted indepen- including even the most humble of the opedently of government, and generally attend-ratives. To be convinced of this, we have ed with profitable results in a financial only to make a promenade of the magnifiThe character of the dramas repre-cent collection of Versailles, or of the musented at them is very various, and in some seum of the Louvre, on any Sunday or holiinstances exceptionable on the score of day, when the working classes are freemoral tendency; not more so, however, Those who in London would be found at than those of the minor theatres in London. the gin-shop, or at the smoking bazaar, are Among the means of intellectual advance- here found familiarizing their eye with the ment enjoyed by the Parisians, we ought productions of Raffaelle, Titian, Paul Veronot to omit the mention of the public libra- nese, the Poussins, or Claude, or wanderries, of which above twenty are open to the ing among the antiquities of Italy, Greece, public daily. It is impossible to refrain and Egypt. It is not an overcharged estifrom contrasting these admirable institu- mate to state, that on every festival day, tions with similar public establishments in with favorable weather, not less than fifty London, not only as to the facilities which thousand of the lower orders of Paris enjoy they offer to the public, but as to the extent themselves in this manner. to which the public avail themselves of the benefits which they present. If the number of daily readers at such institutions be any indication of the intellectual advancement of the people, then assuredly our French neighbors have greatly the advantage of us. To perceive this, it is only necessary to look into the salle de lecture of the Bibliothéque Royale any morning, and call to your recollection the reading-room of the Nor requiring so much deeply learned and library at the British Museum. Is the dif- difficult research among the cramp, ancient ference to be ascribed to the different state black letter records, in the strange dialects of mental advancement of the people or to the of our early history, which is hardly withrestrictions imposed on the admission to the in the compass of female accomplishment use of the latter library? If this last be to (though a Dacier were the agent), Miss any extent the cause, the sooner these re- Strickland, coming down to the later times, trictions are removed the better. In Paris has (here especially) been fortunate in havthe public libraries are open without any ing her diligent labors rewarded by the restrictions whatever. You have no per-opening of a new and hitherto little, if at all, mission to ask, no introduction or recom-consulted sources of information. Her biomendation to seek, no qualification to attain graphy of Mary Beatrice of Modena, the —not even a name to acknowledge. What Queen of James II., is accordingly one of ever be your condition, rank, country, lan- the best which we owe to her pen. With guage, or garb, you are free to enter these unconcealed Jacobite feelings, she has probinstitutions; write on a paper, which is pro-ed the statements of Burnet and other wrivided for you, the titles of the works you ters, the bitter opponents of James and his wish to consult or to study, and, without consort, the uncompromising enemies of further inquiry or delay, they are handed their religion, and the supporters of a revoto you by porters, who are in waiting for ution which drove them from the throne of the purpose; you have convenient seats these realms. That such parties would and tables in rooms well ventilated in sum-grossly misrepresent them is but in human mer and warmed in winter, with ink for ex- nature. A change of dynasty invariably im

LIFE OF MARY BEATRICE OF MODENA.

Lives of the Queens of England. By AG-
NES STRICKLAND. Vol. IX. 8vo, pp. 429.
Colburn.

ing of the community, she hastened back on the wings of love and fear to St. Germains, and found his majesty in great need of her conjugal care and tenderness. She gives the following simple and unaffected account of his sufferings and her own distress, in a confidential letter to the abbess of Chaillot, dated 28th

plies the monstrous character of that which has been overthrown. Macbeth, Richard, Charles I., and James II., are but varied types of the class; every foible and vice exaggerated, and every merit and virtue denied. The vanquished are not immediately dangerous; the victorious are the dispen-of November: "Although I quitted you so sers of favors and rewards. But years roll hastily the other day, my dear mother, I do not on, when both are alike powerless for good repent of it, for the king was too ill for me to have been absent from him. He was suror evil; and then Prince Posterity asserts He his claim to some acquaintance with the prised, and very glad to see me arrive. has had very bad nights, and suffered much for truth. Opinions are balanced, facts are three or four days; but, God be thanked, he is canvassed, documentary evidence is con- getting better, and has had less fever for some sulted, private correspondence is retrieved days, and yesterday it was very slight. I am from the dust of muniment chests, compar- astonished that is was not worse, for the disisons are instituted, and philosophy in the ease has been very bad. Felix (one of Louis XIV.'s surgeons) says that it was of the same consideration of all the data is applied; nature with that which the king his master had and lo! another picture starts from the can- in the neck about two years ago. It suppuvass, just as in the elder productions of the rated three days ago, but the boil is not yet fine arts the skilful cleaner so often discov- gone." Thus we see that King James's malers the original beneath the counterfeit daub ady was not only painful, but loathsome-even which has been painted over it. Thus has the same affliction that was laid on Job, sore Miss Strickland made out a very different boils breaking out upon him. Yet his faithful portrait of Mary of Modena from that which consort, five-and-twenty years his junior, and still one of the most beautiful women in Euhas been handed down from the Eighty- rope, attended on him day and night; and, uneight; and has also rubbed off as much as restrained by the cold ceremonial etiquettes of she could of the dirt with which the like-royalty, performed for him all the personal duness of her royal husband has been obscured. ties of a nurse, with the same tenderness and The antagonist in principle may in turn ac- self-devotion with which the patient heroine cuse her of prejudice on the side of her sub-of domestic life occasionally smooths the pillow of sickness and poverty in a cottage. ject: be it so; we are not in the humor to re- She had been his wife above a quarter of a vive the political question of disputed succes- century, and borne five children to him!]' sion, nor the polemical question of religious faith. Of these royal personages, it must This mention of Chaillot leads us to the truly be said, that they sacrificed all to their source whence Miss Strickland has derived honest convictions; and martyrs, at least, the most interesting new traits in her work. cannot be charged with selfish ambition and After the abdication, whilst living on the hypocrisy ;-of many of those who con- hospitality of Louis XIV., the piety and detrived their fall, and rose upon their ruin, votedness to the rites of the Romish Church it is impossible to say as much. Enough. grew and increased with the royal pair, till With the bias to which we have alluded it finally all but absorbed their existence. the writer pursues her course from begin- The queen often retired to the monastery ning to end; interspersing her narrative of Chaillot to perform her rigid devotions; with many flattering personal notes, and and besides her correspondence with the committing repetitions on some points (such abbess, which is preserved, one of the nuns, as the beauty of the queen, and the disparit seems, kept a diary of her sayings and ity of age between her and her husband) more frequently than could be needed. Thus, in regard to the latter circumstance, we think it must be mentioned twenty times in the earlier pages of the volume, and yet towards the conclusion we have it again and again—as when James was sick at St. Germains, near the close of his days:

In the November of 1699, Mary Beatrice was alarmed, during one of her annual retreats to Chaillot, by a rumor that the king her hus band was seriously indisposed. Without tar rying for the ceremonies of a formal leave tak

doings, to both of which Miss S. has had access. Through the liberal kindness of M. Guizot, she has also been freely admitted to consult the Archives au Royaume de France, the depository of many a curious and important revelation; and Edinburgh registers of events, and other contemporary channels, have been traced to a considerable extent, so as to unite the memoir into a very complete whole; though two finishing chapters of her majesty's life are deferred to the next volume. Of the Chaillot papers we are told in the preface: