Voltaire, had little welcome for the invasion of the barbarians, as the writers of the new school were called: "I have said that Mademoiselle Mars had no sympathy with our literature, but I must add, that as she was one of the most honorable artists in the world, once the performance began, once the burst of applause or censure saluted the standard under which she fought, even if she were privately adverse to it, she would have perished rather than recoil a step; she would suffer martyrdom before denying (I will not say her faith, our school was not her faith) but her oath. However, to arrive at this the author had to pass through fifty or sixty rehearsals; and all the rough remarks, the disdainful grimaces, and the pin-pricks, he had to endure in this purgatory, were incalcu lable. Note, that in the theatre, the conference between actor and author took place across the foot-lights, so that not a word was missed by the thirty or forty artists, musicians, directors, stragglers, messengers, lamp-lighters, and firemen. The presence of this audience, glad enough at all times of a little relaxation from the ennui of the rehearsal which would be afforded by a lively discussion, contributed a great deal to disturb the good humor of the high contracting parties, and to instil a certain acerbity into these telephonic communings of the stage and the orchestre. The lady stopped in the middle of a speech addressed to Firmin, Michelot or Joanny, requested leave to speak a word to the author, advanced to the edge of the orchestre, shaded her eyes with her hand, and pretended to look out for Victor, though she knew well enough where he was. 'M. Hugo, is Monsieur Hugo there?' 'Here I am, Madame, at your service.' Mr. Hugo, am I to repeat this line, Vous êtes mon Lion superbe et généreux ?' Certainly, Madame.' And is it that you approve the phrase, You are my Lion?'' I thought it would do, Madame, or I would not have written it.' Then you are determined not to do without your Lion?' I do, but do you, Madame, find me a better word and I will substitute it.' It is not my part but the author's to provide the text. Still it appears so strange to call Mr. Firmin there, My Lion.'' Ah, that is because in playing Dona Sol you still wish to remain Mademoiselle Mars. Had you been really the ward of Don Ruy Gomez de Sylva, a noble Castilian dame of the 16th century, you would not be conscious of Mr. Firmin in Hernani: you would see a terrible outlaw chief, who made Charles V. tremble, even in his capital: you would then feel that such a woman might call such a man, her Lion,' and then the expression would seem less droll.' Very well, as you are decided about your Lion, let it remain; my part is to speak what is written: My Lion is in the manuscript; I will say My Lion; it is all one to me: proceed, Firmin, Vous êtes mon Lion, superbe et généreux ;' and the rehearsal went on. Next day at the same passage, Mademoiselle Mars approached the footlights, looked out for the author, and a second portion of the conference of the day before took place, with some slight variations. Then came on the scene of the portraits, a dialogue of sixty-six verses between Charles V. and Ruy Gomez, which Dona Sol listens to, mute and motionless as a statue, but takes no part, till the king calls his guards to arrest the duke, and then, flinging off her veil, and throwing herself between the duke and the guards, she cries, Roi Don Carlos, vous étes—Un Mauvais Roi.' This long silence and immobility had always annoyed Mademoiselle Mars. Accustomed to the traditions of the comedy of Moliere, or the tragedy of Corneille, she was extremely averse to the stage business of the modern drama, and, in general, was not sensible to the ardour of movement, nor the poetry of stillness. The result was, that poor Dona did not know what to do with herself during these weary sixty-six verses. Her manoeuvres as to the approach, shading her eyes, looking out for her victim, being assumed, M. Hugo, what am I to do while Messrs. Michelot and Joanny are talking?' 'You are to listen, Madame.' 'Ah, but it is very long: could you not cut off twenty verses of their twaddle?' Madame, I have already shortened it by twenty verses.' 'At least contrive that I may have something to do.' Your presence, Madame, is the only thing necessary: the discourse you listen to, affects the life or death of your lover; the situation is surely strong enough to make you wait, impatiently without doubt, but still silently, to the end.'Well, certainly, it is very long: the audience will naturally ask-What is Mademoiselle Mars doing there so long, with her hand on her bosom? it is not worth while to make her stand still, with her veil down, and not speak a word during the full half of an act.' Madame, the audience will say that under the hand, not of Mademoiselle Mars, but of Dona Sol, her heart is throbbing;-that under the veil, not of Mademoiselle Mars, but of Dona Sol, her cheeks glow with hope, or blanch with fear: that during the silence, not of Madem. oiselle Mars, but Dona Sol, a storm is gathering which will burst on the king in these words, very strange in the mouth of a subject to her sovereign, Roi, Don Carlos, vous êtes-Un Mauvais Roi,' and believe me, Madame, this will satisfy the public.' 'Well, well, let it be so, but I am a fool to perplex myself about it; if the audience hiss, it will not be me, as I will not be saying a word: well, Michelot, well Joanny, let us continue, Roi Don Carlos, &c. I hope you are satisfied, Mr. Hugo. Quite content, Madame;' and with imperturbable serenity, down sat the baited poet." Still Victor had not the patience of Job; he was an author not a saint, so taking a quiet opportunity, he represented to the lady that this teasing operation, so often renewed, was not worthy of artist or of author; that if Mademoiselle Mars was an artist of genius, Victor Hugo was an author of genius, and that he was obliged, unwillingly, to demand formally her part. This proposition took her by surprise. She no longer objected, and filled the rôle to the enthusiastic admiration of every one. But the great Alexander, who forms our present subject, is too long behind the scenes. If we can believe his own assertions, Mesmer, or Balzamo are unfit to compete with him, when he exercises his magnetic powers. Some pages in his twelfth volume are taken up with his exploits in this way. They are not worth inserting here, as being of the ordinary type so familiar to the world. One only will we mention, and that in the abstract-the clairvoyant being a young girl of eleven years, daughter of Mons. D. of Auxerre, and the following is the substance of the revelation, which is given in answer to appropriate questions. We live under a Republic: a republic is a participation of equal rights among the people, without distinction of rank, birth, or fortune. These subjects are above my ordinary comprehension, but God permits me (now) to understand them. Our present government will hold some years. Neither Lamartine nor Ledru Rollin will be able to consolidate it. We shall have a President. Then Henry V. will return with the general acclaim of the people.-(By the way, the Seeress entirely forgot about the intervening empire.) He will come from Italy into Dauphiny, and one day the people will say, "Henry V. is in Grenoble." There is a citadel in Grenoble on an eminence, and the town is at its base. There are two rivers in Grenoble, the water of one, greenish, of the other whitish. The king is of the middle height, and somewhat corpulent-has a brown complexion, and his hair is cut in the fashion of the angels in Mademoiselle Marie Dumas' sketches. He halts in walking. He passes from Grenoble to Lyons. Some shots are fired in his progress from Lyons to Paris. He enters Paris by the Faubourg St. Martin. The Queen shall die of consumption. Then, as he came to the throne by the voice of the people, he will marry a daughter of the people." Search me out," he will say, "a young girl living at 42 Faubourg St. Martin; I saw her standing on a step; she wore a white gown, and waved a green branch to welcome me." The future queen is daughter of an upholsterer, her name is Leontine. Two sons will be born. The eldest shall be neither Henry nor Charles (these being unlucky names in French history)-he will be named Leon. Henry V. will reign ten or twelve years, and will die of a pleurisy, caught by drinking cold water at a spring while hunting in the forest of St. Germains. Alexander Dumas the younger will have warned him of this prophesy, and his consequent danger before hand, but in vain. (The elder Alexander is a republican in his tastes, but the younger a staunch royalist.) Leon the first will succeed-and I am too fatigued to tell you any more. Having brought his Memoirs up to the eve of the Revolution of 1830, he leaves us waiting for a still more exciting period of literature and of politics. Our task is concluded by absolute want of space; indeed, these thirteen volumes would furnish materials for a political and chronological history of Europe, from before the first French revolution to the year 1829; an anecdotal chronicle of the great people of her courts and camps; an abstract of French literature, with biography of French writers; essays on the comparative merits of German, French, and English dramatic and romantic productions, and particularly as forming comparisons between the classic and romantic schools; and, to conclude, a delightful volume of Dumas' experiences when a boy, of French country and forest life. Some specimens of the grandiloquent appear in odd places in our extracts, but we must add, that in their English dress their full and perfect proportions are sometimes lost; and little bits of profanity which occur in the original have been omitted. Our readers will have perceived that our hero is so much exalted (in his own mind at least) in personal and mental gifts, above the vulgar crowd, that these expressions in his mouth are only a natural product and emanation of his psychology. He has arrived at so sublime a point in self-estimation, that he is a thorough believer in the reality of his own inventions. We have been forced into a more cordial feeling for the subject of our paper as we proceeded in our task, chiefly by the evidence of the good nature, and deficiency of personal spite or envy in Dumas' disposition. Besides, if we take into account the incessant and brain-wearing labor of the man who has, with some assistance, produced by his own account, seven or eight hundred volumes, and also the entertainment, harmless in general, which he has thus afforded to the listless multitude of romance readers who, if they had not such excitement, would surely have had recourse to excitement of a worse kind— if we take these into account, we repeat, let us shew indulgence to his foibles; earnestly hope that he may mitigate the painful intensity of his dramatic situations; acquire a habit of saying morning and evening prayers, and finally recollect that, though he is the first of living French romance writers, he is but a man after all, and as such, merely dust and ashes. Then will we wish, with honest Hajji Baba, that his shadow hold its own, and that he live a hundred years. We shall return to the future volumes of this autobiograpy as they appear. may may ART. II.-BARRY, THE HISTORICAL PAINTER. DURING the summer of the year 1848 the paintings and sketches of William Mulready were exhibited in the rooms of the Society of Arts, and as we gazed upon the walls whereon James Barry portrayed those noble conceptions of his glorious genius-devoting six years to the labor of love, dressed in poor, mean clothes, and supporting life upon a beggar's foodas we saw the pictures of the living painter hanging beneath those of the greater dead, even whilst proud of our two fellow-countrymen, we thought bitterly of the fate of each, and fancied that mediocrity, with its skipping smartness, is a better gift than genius with its leviathan, but sometimes erratic sweep. Men have gone down, broken in heart and blasted in reputation, to the drunkard's grave-men who might have been kings of minds, witching the nation by the spell of fancy, or ruling it by the sceptre of thought, have passed from the world with fame unmade, bartering the glory of the future for a wanton's smile-the soul of genius soaring to the skies, yet restrained by the soft white arm of a woman, more binding than chains, more firm than iron-men have squandered existence round the gambler's board, and the mind which might have been but second to Newton's, has been wasted in ealculations upon the rolling of a die, or the turning of a cardyet all those minds were fraught with genius, glowing with fancy, gleaming with intelligence, and their loss is the loss of the world, "Who shall tell what schemes majestic Perish in the active brain? Ne'er to be restored again ?" Too truly, the loss is ours; and, amongst all the bright intelligences clouded by death, there is not one whose powers were so completely squandered as those of James Barrysquandered through the arrogance of his own genius. It has been said that the glutton "digs his grave with his teeth;" as truly might it be written that Barry murdered his genius by his pride. Better for him had the god been weaker in his nature; better for him if, like Smollett's Pallet, he had "strutted in a gay summer dress of the Parisian cut, with a bag to his own gray hair, and a red feather in his hat :" thereby he would have escaped that spirit of emulation, fermenting |