of Englishmen from becoming subscribers; [sults. Jules Janin, who writes everywhere for although it does not effect the articles and on everything, on what he does as well of science, yet these alone escape its influ- as on what he does not understand, is hardence; history, literature, and philosophy, ly the sort of writer one would most trust in have a Catholic coloring which is not ac- the pages of a Cyclopædia. One would ceptable to Protestant readers. doubt his accuracy and sincerity. One Apart from these considerations, the work would believe nothing on his word. He is on the whole a creditable and useful one. could not be quoted as an authority even in Some articles are insufficient, as is the case Grub street; one would as soon believe the with all Cyclopædias: some of them elabo- Quarterly Review.' In spite of this we rate and worthy of all praise. Alienation' pronounce his biographies wonderful. With is excellent; so is 'Accouchement ;' so also a keen eye for the salient characteristics, he is Abbaye.' Voltaire has no justice award- gives you but few details, and they all tell. ed him. Is M. Philarète Chasles really in- With a rattling, somewhat wordy style, he sensible to the greatness of that astonishing is never dull, never obscure. Reckless writer, or is he merely following the preju- enough as to facts, he is never careless as to dices of the party to which he belongs? effect. You may detect him in a hundred The article Sublime' is contemptible, blunders without disturbiug his effect one being a few illustrations, without the least single iota. He does not care for dates philosophical inquiry. The article Art,' and literal facts; he cares only for results. by Buchez, will find great favor in the eyes The life of Lesage has been attempted a of the party he addresses, but in the eyes of hundred times; it has been written only no other mortals. once, and that once by Jules Janin. Compare his introductory memoir to the illustrated edition of Le Diable Boiteux,' with every other memoir, and the graphic force with which it is executed will call forth your admiration. So also we would ask you to interrogate yourself as to what sort of an idea you have of the author of 'Le Barbier de Seville?' Then read Janin's account of Beaumarchais : Some of the biographies appear to us to be very nearly models of Cyclopædia articles; brief yet satisfactory. It has been well said that Who narrates The stature of a man, his gait, his dress, The color of his hair, what meats he loved, Writes a biography! But who records The yearnings of the heart, its joys, its pangs, Its stores of memory which the richer grow man, Its trust in heaven, despite of man-writes fiction Get a new Lexicon.". "Of all the fame, nay more, of all the noise which this man once made, what now remains? nothing but some long, licentious, withered comedies, which are now painful to behold; like vice when it has grown old and wretched, with no other refuge than the truckle bed of an hospital. That Beaumarchais who wore out his life in over throwing authority, and overthrew it indeed because in his time it hung upon a breath; And who that has ever toiled through the what has this revolution profited him? dull monotony of facts which most writers Alone amongst the revolutionists of the deem biography, can help being struck with eighteenth century, Voltaire still lives and the graphic impression conveyed by the reigns; he is the master, the chief of that Beaumarchais of Jules Janin in this Cyclo- rebellion of wits whose names have been pædia? We do not say that it is unexcep- absorbed in his fame. The most famous tionable; we do not fancy that it could not satellites who aided him to make a name, have been still further improved by the rig- have hardly any share in his glory; they orous statement of all facts and dates; but have all fallen into obscurity, Beaumarchais we ask, is not the image of the man clear- as well as the rest. Beaumarchais is now ly presented? In those seemingly careless only represented by an old woman, once lines there is more matter than in pages of the Countess Almaviva, by a cunning and ponderous dullness priding itself on facts. Instead of facts he gives you a distinct impression; in the place of dates he gives re* Gerald and other Poems.' By J. W. Marston, Esq. ill-bred servant named Susanna, and by a fat, grisly, wrinkled old man called Figaro, a bad go-between without credit, living from hand to mouth by selling old clothes. Such is the intellectual, philosophical, and moral lumber of a man who overturned as many things as Voltaire, and who perhaps made more noise than Voltaire, that is to say, made a great deal too much. sed his door against Beaumarchais. Beaumarchais persevered; he sent the councillor a gold watch, set with brilliants, and a hundred and fifteen louis. At this price, "Beaumarchais was born at Paris in the Goezman listened to the pleader, but when year 1732; he died in the year 1799. He the day arrived, Goezman gave judgment thus traversed all that troubled portion of against Beaumarchais, who then rememthe 18th century, of which he was one of bered the line from the Plaideurs: Mais the coryphees. He witnessed the birth, rendez donc l'argent! And effectively growth, and extinction of the French re- the watch, the brilliants, and a hundred volution, and escaped its dangers by a louis were returned to him. Beaumarchais miracle, and the remains of that good for- claimed the fifteen louis which still retune which attended him through life.-mained due. The councillor Goezman, Beaumarchais was a child of chance; his instead of returning the money, prosecueducation was chance, his life was all ted Beaumarchais for libel. Beaumarchais chance, so were his wit, his talent, and his style. What he says of his Figaro might be said of himself, Enfant trouvé ! Enfant perdu, docteur! And doubtless, had heaven so willed it, Beaumarchais would have been the son of a prince. Unfortunately heaven did not will it. defended himself valiantly. He instantly set to work, and with inexhaustible humor recited all his adventures with M. and Madame Goezman, namely, three useless visits on Friday, the 2nd of April: one useful one the next day, the 3rd of April, thanks to Madame Goezman; on the 4th of April an audience promised but not granted; on the 5th of April, the day of the report, an audience granted by the wife, refused by the husband, and a hundred louis placed in hef hands, a watch set with brilliants, and fifteen louis which Madame Goezman not choosing to return, Beaumarchais is threatened with M. de Sartines and M. de la Vrillière; and Gcezman like a fool laying his complaint in the hands of the president, the procureur-géneral is commissioned to inquire; and the sieur Baculard-Arnaud, lying, accuses the sieur Beaumar chais. And thus Beaumarchais goes on confiding all to the public, and it may be imagined how much this amused the spectators, and what pleasure they took in seeing the parlement Maupcou treated in this fashion. All around Beaumarchais applauded him; his irony and anger were excited; Goezman and his wife were devoted to the infernal regions; the corrupt judge was everywhere pointed at. "Before he became a comic poet he commenced, like Figaro, by being a musician. He gave music lessons to Mesdames, the daughters of Louis XV., virtuous princesses who, without sufficient foresight, granted their all-powerful protection to this clever intriguer; Beaumarchais taught them the guitar, Figaro's instrument. And thus the musician became a courtier; the courtier soon became litigious; the litigious man ushered in the comic poet; the comic poet preceeded the sellers of guns to the American insurgents. He did every thing, he used every thing, he was by turns rich, poor, glorious, proscribed, carried in triumph, shut up in Saint Lazare, glorified, and treated like a bandit by M. Bergasse, who was an honest man. All his life is contained in his Memoires Judiciaires; he there shows himself not without art, but without paint, such as he saw himself, a little handsomer, perhaps, than he really was. In these memoirs are to be found all that the most creative and remorseless There was a chapter in these memoirs fancy can say of any one, on the spur of the entitled Confrontation de moi à Madame moment. This affair which occupied all Goezman,' which was a real comedy, in Europe, was originally a bagatelle. Beau- which you saw Beaumarchais and Madame marchais, who had worked with Paris Du- Goezman move, and heard them talk. But verney, found himself in Paris Duverney's the public feared that it would end too soon; debt at the death of the latter. The heirs the public might certainly have trusted claimed 150,000 francs of Beaumarchais; Beaumarchais for making the most of Beaumarchais, on his side, claimed 15,000. scandal. The unfortunate fifteen louis Whilst the cause was pending, Beau- were never allowed to drop. They were marchais, like Figaro, endeavored to the watchword in this great battle. And see his judges: A-t-il-vu mon secrètaire, when he had replied to the wife, he began ce bon-on gar-arcon la ? One of the to reply to the husband; he heaped phycouncillors of the parlement Maupeou clo-sical on moral proofs, and thus dragged the OCTOBER, 1844. 18 parlement Maupeou through the mud. | jesting on every thing sacred; only when he And when nothing more could be made placed himself on the stage, he no longer out of the male and female Goezman, he called himself Beaumarchais but Figaro. allowed the parlement to pass sentence, "Once his name altered, he struts about and by that sentence the parlement Mau- the stage with as much freedom and impupeou again injured itself, for it gave the dence as if he ran no risk of being recogright to neither party. But the public had nized. He first shows He first shows us Figaro, like long judged the cause in Beaumarchais's Beaumarchais, the child of his own works, favor. The cause was heard and won; a poet, a musician, playing the guitar, livtown and court sided with Beaumarchais; ing from hand to mouth, laughing at the the Prince de Conti himself, who was ex-great man who pays him, practising all tremely jealous of his prerogative as prince trades, even the least honorable ones, for a of the blood, invited him to dinner; he called living, flattering aloud the nobles whom he Beaumarchais a great citizen, a new expres- secretly maligns, a leader of intrigues, a sion which was a whole revolution in itself. chatterer, necessitous, clever, always on his "This lawsuit gave Beaumarchais a love guard against first impulses, for the sole of lawsuits. He was already accustomed reason that first impulses are almost always to them, his style also; success had render- good; such is this newly-invented hero ed him quarrelsome. He therefore consid- In order to make him more presentable ered himself very fortunate when his sec- and attractive, Beaumarchais gives Fiond lawsuit commenced against M. Ber- garo the handsomest dress of all Spain. gasse the advocate, who prosecuted him in The Barbier de Seville is but the first act the name of the sanctity of the marriage of this long story. Be patient! You will state; Beaumarchais was accused of hav- soon see all the persons whose amours, pasing aided in the seduction of Madame sions, hatreds, fears, ambitions, and hopes, Kornmann. This time the accuser was Beaumarchais presents to you, busy in an not a Goezman, but an upright and honest endless drama, complicated by the strangest lawyer, belonging to that courageous young details. bar which already foreboded the French "The Mariage de Figaro' is therefore revolution; one of those lawyers whom the second chapter of the immortal story, Fabre d'Eglantine has so spiritedly and suc- of which the sieur Beaumarchais is the cessfully drawn in the Philinte: 'Go, fetch hero. What a chapter! what a long and me a lawyer. Moreover, since the Goez- incredible philippic against the whole of man affair, France laughed less, France at society! what a jesting leveller is Figaro! last understood she was marching to her hat wonderful audacity was required, evruin, and then Beaumarchais had to plead er to imagine that such a play should be with a stronger antagonist, and more than publicly represented under a monarchy once the man of wit was crushed by the which remembered Louis XIV. and King emphatic eloquence of the adverse barris- Louis XV. And what perseverance and ter. Beaumarchais no longer had so many will of iron necessary to get such a piece laughers on his side. performed under a king who was an honest "He then threw himself into comedy man, to whom excesses of all kinds caused with renewed vigor. He possessed all the as much repugnance as terror. King Louqualities which make, not a comic poet, is XVI., to whom the piece had been read, but an inventor of scenes, acts, dialogues, expressed himself frankly on the subjectand imbroglios; his was a bantering imag- Be certain,' said he, that this piece will ination caring little for truth. He would never be played! This man sneers at evwillingly have exchanged all dramatic im-ery thing. To be consistent, the Bastile probabilities for a bon mot; he had a con- should be pulled down, if such a comedy fused notion that his comedy had not long were publicly acted.' Louis XVI. was not to live, and therefore wrote it in haste. To aware of the truth of what he said. He commence and finish his dramatic career was a weak and respectable man, who fore(we do not reckon his melodrama of saw evils, but knew not how to prevent Les deux Amis') he had the assistance of them. The king was borne down by the one person, which was himself; he repre- exacting and witty body of nobles, who sented himself such as he was; daring to insolence, witty to shamelessness, skeptical to impiety, despising the world and despising himself more than any thing in it, thought themselves invulnerable, and who did not choose to appear to fear dangerous writings, like the common people. Moreover, after having at first authorized the Old performance of the Mariage,' the king thus. All French society clapping its withdrew the permission he had granted; hands to encourage the comic poet, who to which Beaumarchais replied that he dragged it through dirt, shame, infamy, and would have his piece performed in the insult. All the authorities of society are choir of Notre Dame. And Beaumarchais compromised in this fatal drama. First aphimself was not aware how truly he spoke. pears a priest, mixed up with all this unAt last, in spite of the king, in spite of all cleanliness, flattering, cringing, a trader in the right-minded men in France, at least love, and sneered at. The nobleman is the of all those who knew or could foresee the laughing-stock of his servant, himself ridifuture, the piece was played with a scan- culing law, justice, morals, and marriage, dalous success, which has no equal in the ridiculing himself and every one else. annals of the theatre. The day preceding The lady appears on terms of friendship this terrible and solemn one, the Theatre with the servant, who is her rival, burning Français was half filled with people who with a secret flame for a boy of fifteen, an spent the night there. Monsieur, the king's adulteress in her heart before being one with brother, was present at the first performance her body. The judge shows himself corin a public box. The king, however, anx- rupt and a corrupter, a poor foolish creaiously waited for the piece to be played. ture, ignoble in appearance. None are He hoped, he said, that it would be damned. spared in this satire on the world. The A vain hope. As if success did not al- peasant Antonio is drunk; his niece is a ways attend the demolishers. The piece girl almost ruined by her own folly. was lauded to the skies. It was listened Marcelina, who has lost a child, is only to with unanimous delight! If there is placed there to make us laugh at the feelany thing madder than my play,' said Beau- ings of maternity. Doctor Bartholo holds marchais, it is its success.' The piece out his cheek to receive the slap aimed at had all the effect of a revolution. Court science. Childhood itself, even childhood, and city flocked to it, and it may be ima- that pure and holy innocence which Juvegined with what delight. Some great la- nal orders should be so respected, is placed dies wished to go in private boxes. Beau- there also to be the victim of immoral pasmarchais replied that his play was not written for prudes. Prudes, if you please; but Cherubino, half naked at the countess's feet, is hardly less immoral, seen from a public than a private box. One young man wrote to Beaumarchais to ask for a ticket, even were he to die afterwards. Yes, it is a strange and incredible thing in the annals of a civilized people, that an entire society, the patient work of eighteen centuries, the treasure of morals which nations must amass, but which they, alas! amass but seldom, should be thus remorselessly sacrificed. And sacrificed to what? To a piece of buffoonery, a scandal, an immoral story of love and adultery. Yes, that was all; on one hand, the Mariage de Figaro;' on the other, the monarchy of Louis XIV.; -on one hand, the wit of Beaumarchais; on the other, the genius of Bossuet. Oh! what would Bossuet have said had he been present at such a scene! Oh! what would the stern Cardinal Richelieu have said had he been told that one day, and that at no distant period, the King of France himself would not, and could not, venture in his own kingdom to prevent the performance of a stage play! A strange thing! Oh! the wondrous blindness of nations that are ruining themselves. To ruin themselves sions. Poor child! his heart is filled with bad passions; he is already made a vicious creature, sighing, and his heart beating for every woman, whoever she may be; Madame Almaviva, Susanna, Fanchette, he pursues them all, even old Marcelina. Poor child! they pass him from one to the other like some frivolous toy. And all these vices have been portrayed in the same drama, solely to amuse the crowd for five hours every evening. "They all came panting, curious, greedy to be present at this immoral spectacle. And whilst these imprudent men clapped their hands at this debauch of wit, they did not hear the shaking of the falling throne; they did not hear that revolution roaring in the distance; they did not hear the murmurs of the people of '9, who meant to take these members of French society at their word: the people was coming to clutch them in the midst of this joy, this license, these ecstacies, these past vices, and to plunge them into what an abyss! into what despair! into what a revolution!" This is a striking picture, but an exaggeration. Beaumarchais was able to overturn the monarchy of Louis XIV. and Bossuet, only because France would no longer submit to the burthen. Beaumarchais was applauded, because he spoke out the convictions of the people. Beaumarchais was powerful, because he was applauded. There was a point in his satire; there was wit in his attack on society; but this wit would have only raised a passing smile, had not all society been in a state of fermentation and ready to applaud any and every expression of its hatred to established ideas. In the same way Siéyes became powerful, because he first put the question which all his contemporaries were endeavoring to bring into shape. What is the tiers-etat? he asked. To ask such a question was to produce a revolution. But if the men of our day look back upon the comedies of Beaumarchais and the pamphlets of Siéyes, we are unable to comprehend their prodigious success; the wit of the one seems forced and exaggerated; the logic of the other trivial and narrow. Comedies and pamphlets were things of the day; and passed away with the circumstances which gave them birth. Not that Beaumarchais' comedies are, theatrically speaking, contemptible; far from it. They have wit, banter, situation, and lively plots. They may be read with amusement; they will bear representation. But they seem very poor and feeble comedies to have produced such tremendous enthusiasm. above all the wit he has displayed in the Mariage de Figaro;' it is a pity that there is something to blame even in that. "Beaumarchais' style, like the rest of him, is an affair of chance. He writes by chance; but when chance favors him, he often writes very well. He strains too often after the final dart; but when he has found it, he shoots against every thing with indefatigable liveliness. The speech on cal umny is a masterpiece of that materialist style which embodies all things, and dresses up a thought like a living person. Had Beaumarchais come into the world twenty years later, he would doubtless have been one of the active minds of the deliberating assemblies; and no doubt, after destroying every thing on his passage, he would have stopped short like Mirabeau, like him terrified by the ruins he had heaped up. How unfortunate that those dangerous minds arrived just in time to succeed. "What more remains to be told? Beaumarchais' literary existence terminates with the Mariage de Figaro.' He endeav ored, it is true, to carry out this fatal history, and ended with adultery the drama he had begun with an elopement. The mère coupable had none of the success of la Comtesse Almaviva. The ladies regretted their Cherubino's being killed, the men felt no As a specimen of Beaumarchais' talent, pity for the woman of a certain age bewailwe think the memoirs infinitely superior to ing with so many tears the follies of her his comedies. They have the same liveli- youth; Figaro grown old and steady no ness, the same audacity, the same personal- longer amused any one. The style of ity, and greater force. Besides, the talent Beaumarchais, left to himself, appeared to is shown to greater advantage in creating all, what it really was a trick in which such amusing scenes out of a law suit, than in creating amusing scenes out of an imaginary story, the imbroglio of which is borrowed from the Spanish stage. The confrontation with Madame Goezman is alone worth all the Mariage de Figaro.' grammar and logic have to perform all sorts ་ venom. "It must, however, be acknowledged that Beaumarchais' great success was not wholly called Tarare.' 'Tarare' is again' Figaunmerited. This man had wit equal to his ro,' or rather Beaumarchais singing buraudacity. Even in his animosity he had a lesque verses. This man soon grows old; certain good-humored smile, which render- he and all the persons he has created. ed him still more dangerous. He had ma- The revolution, with its iron hand, crushed ny kinds of courage, as he proved in Spain this mind, retaining only its to a certain Clavijo, who had promised to marry his sister. In this circumstance, Beaumarchais gave proofs not only of wit and courage, but of a great deal of good feeling. He came frankly to the assistance of a poor afflicted woman, whom he protected in this struggle against the seducer who knelt before him. There are people who place this action of Beaumarchais' far Beaumarchais, seeing that no one in France, not even himself, had time to be witty, endeavored to take to business again, and lost in it a large portion of his fortune. His supply of sixty thousand guns to America, which paid him only with flattery, and his edition of Voltaire's works, were deplorable speculations. And as he no longer succeeded in any thing, ennui seized him, and |