the ancients took care not to despise dreams; let us imitate the ancients; and since Atala's buskins were red, let us go and risk one forty-sous piece on that color.

It would be difficult to say if the experiences actually collected by the great representative of the bourgeois class of Paris in the cafés and restaurants in that city of strange silhouettes, really do present any thing much

more than the sarcastic writer of the Mémoires de Bilboquet has imagined for him.

By the side of fools [says the bourgeois physiologist] there are in this world quarter fools, third part fools, and half fools, who live with one another, seeking one another's society, and carefully eschewing that of less or greater fools, considering themselves particularly happy in the possession of a moiety of human reason, by the side of others who have only a third or a fourth part. They are like those poor afflicted patients who complacently

comfort one another at Eaux Bonnes: those who

have only one lung and a half looking with pity have only one lung and a half looking with pity not unmingled with contempt upon those who have only one, and sometimes even the half of one.

I have dined assiduously every day [we are at a loss to discover whether the epithet assiduously applies to the eating or the attendance] for more than two years at Very's. I used to arrive at the same hour and to take my place at the same table. I had for neighbor for some months an Englishman, who was as punctual and as regular as I was. One day my neighbor bade me good-bye. "I am going," he said, "to embark, to make a little tour round the world." At the expiration of eighteen months, on his return to Paris, he found me, as if by appointment, at the same hour at the same table. He had been around the world, whilst I had scarcely moved from the same place. Nevertheless, by dining for long periods at a

time at different restaurants, I have been able to make the grand tour of human intelligence, and especially of those four thousand opulent and idle men of whom Byron speaks, who pass the whole of their lives in running after pleasures of five minutes' duration, and for whom the world is

made.

The Parisian sometimes boasts of his native eccentricities, but it will infallibly be found that when he wants to depict an excessive case he selects an Englishman for his type. The above is by no means the only instance of Dr. Véron's national failing that way.

I was introduced [he relates] at the Count Torreno's, former Minister of Queen Christina's, and who died of carbuncle at Paris, to an Englishman and his wife, who were immensely wealthy, and only resided a few days in Paris, travelling the remainder of the time in France; they loved nothing but the bottle, and never left the table till they had lost their senses. In their travels, their only object was to seek for rich slopes and hill-sides, and their

sojourn in a place was regulated by the quality and the renown of the growths of the vine.

drunk

The bourgeois physiologist distinguishes between what he calls ivrognes (sots?) and soulards (drunkards?). This amiable couple, who disdained even Paris for the slopes of the Dordogne, were soûlards, not ivrognes. But he says he has known many soulards, chiefly jeunes grand seigneurs' (" his friends,) says the memorialist of Bilboquet, "are always the most distinguished men and women of his time,") who got brutalized upon brandy or absinthe. Those who get upon absinthe attain a pitch of folly so singularly developed, that it is known as the folly of the Absinthiers. One of these unfortunates used to say: "I never taste what I eat, I only taste what I drink." "During my directorship of the Opera," says Dr. Véron, "I was intimate with one of these drunken young lords. He used to give the same orders to seven or eight hackney carriages, so that he should be accompanied by seven or eight vehicles to a pot-house outside the barrière, where he would pass the night in drinking brandy and brutalizing himself amidst drunken companions."

The Doctor goes on to remark, that drunkenness is not merely a vice, it is also a disease; and a change of habits cannot be suddenly brought about without danger. A certain prelate had arrived by slow and imperceptible degrees at the point of drunkenness every night, and that by himself and at his

studies. In order to effect a cure which should be as agreeable as the slow stumbling into the vicious habit had been, he adopted a very ingenious plan. He changed his glass for a silver-gilt cup, and every night he dropped into it one drop of wax, thus gradually diminishing the capacity of the cup and the quantity of wine consumed. The difficulty still presented itself of not making up for the deficiency of size in the cup by filling it up more frequently, but such critical inquiries would manifestly spoil the effect of the drop-of-wax story.

I exchanged [M. Véron relates] little acts of politeness with an Englishman who appeared to me worthy of study. He sent me his card; his name was surrounded by bottles, opera-dancers with outstretched calves, flowers and birds, all delicately engraved. He lived at the Hotel Meurice, and he often gave dinners to Englishmen, his friends, which began at eight o'clock at night, and finished at eight in the morning.

His father, the possessor of one of the largest fortunes in England, had also one of the finest collection of birds in the country. The son had,

like the father, only two passions-wine and ornithology. He asked me one day to breakfast; nothing was put on the table but hard-boiled eggs of the rarest birds, from the egg of a partridge to that of a swan. Í breakfasted as one ought to breakfast, for I did not breakfast at all.

This story had probably no better foundation than that the Englishman, wishing to present his visitor with a rarity, had some plovers' eggs served up, (the artist being responsible for their being hard-boiled,) and which the inventor of the pâte pectorale, not being familiar with, at once pronounced to be the eggs of all the rarest birds that are known.

I was acquainted [he adds farther on] for a long time, having met him at a restaurateur's, with a half-idiot, whose repartees were often very original and witty. One day he came into the Cafe Anglais. "I am very tired," he said to me; "I have been walking ever since eight o'clock this morning," And taking a bottle of Bordeaux from his pocket, he added: "Here is some excellent wine which you must taste; all the world knows that wine improves by travel, and I have been carrying it about ever since eight o'clock this morning."

It was the same semi-idiot who interrupted the performers, in the midst of a first representation at the Théâtre Français, by rising up in his box and saying to the public: "You must agree with me, gentlemen, that it is very unfortunate that the author of this new piece has not an income of fifty thousand, francs; he might then, perhaps, be induced not to write such pitiable productions."

Here is another highly-colored portrait of an imaginary Englishman:

His fortune was immense; he had no family or connections; he was a bachelor. Life weighed heavily upon him; he had no vices, no tastes to pander to. This man sought my confidence, and I trembled for the moment lest it was to disclose a projected suicide; but it was not so. "I have found," he said, "a means of supporting existence; I have conceived a plan, to accomplish which will carry me to the confines of old age. I have had three travelling-carriages built, the arrangements of which I myself have planned. I have set myself the task of collecting, in labelled bottles, the waters of all the streams and rivers in the world; but I shall have, unfortunately, the pain of dying before my collection is complete." Was not this a very intelligent and felicitous mode of disposing of a large fortune?

As intelligent and as felicitous, we will venture to say, as it is true! Like the falls

from which Bilboquet rose up with only an increase of fame in early life, so this utterly incredible story is followed by two others still more extravagant: one of an Englishman who travelled in search of pipes and cigars; another, of a rich, generous, handsome, and intellectual (!) wanderer, also from outre manche, who studied the petites affiches, to place all advertisers for situations, as dames de compagnie, dames de confiances, and even cuisinieres, into so many appartements de petit bourgeoise. What a collection he must have made! These are capped by a third monstrosity - he, however, a rich French financier. He could not get himself to admire any but horlogeres-the feminine for watch or clockmakers. And to such an extent did he carry this perverse passion, that his watch, like his brain, being out of order, he could never get it repaired, as he was afraid of visiting the establishment of an horloger--the masculine for horlogère--for fear chastisement for his many interferences with the works within--the internal domestic arrangements!

of

summary

Well may the Doctor say, "A truce to these pictures of the rich, the idle, and the luxurious, who are but a disgrace to humanity." If Dr. Véron had any title to be the Juvenal, the Martial, or the Petronius of his day, there might be some excuse for such portraits depicted as belonging to actual society; but there is neither wit nor fancy, neither point nor satire, in the extravagances thus presented to us. They are simply foolish and licentious; and, what is more, we feel morally certain they have no better foundation than half an hour's idle talk; foolish projects broached at a café or a restaurant, never intended even to be put into practice, and yet recorded in these veracious Memoirs as things that have actually taken place! "Formerly," says the author of the Memoirs of Bilboquet, "the poet addressed himself to Apollo, to Mercury, to Jupiter, to Vesta, or to any other mythological fetish; I shall address myself to the farmer-general of the Place de la Bourse: thou only, O great man, shall I invoke! Prepare your placards, write out your most miraculous advertisements; and if that colossal gudgeon which is called the public does not bite at the hook of thy eloquence, we shall for ever despair of the stock-exchange and of civilization.'

A NOBLE life, and a doctrine large in its conception, fruitful in its results, invite our attention to Geoffroy St. Hilaire, whose name is familiar to every zoologist, but whose works have fallen into a neglect only to be accounted for when we remember how little the world at large cares for abstract speculations, how little the majority of men of science care for more then scientific details. Compared with the renown which his great rival, Cuvier, gained so rapidly, so extensively, and held so long undisputed, the fame of Geoffroy is curiously insignificant; and although the vast capacity, the brilliant literature, and effective services of Cuvier, will always deserve historical recognition, yet to one who estimates great conceptions at their true value, Geoffroy will always be considered as a thinker in the science of which Cuvier was little more than an expositor. In saying this, we are far from desiring to say any thing in depreciation of Cuvier, for the petty purpose of exalting his rival. No admirer of Geoffroy would underrate the man Geoffroy so highly prized. The two men were essentially different; each admirable in his sphere; but the sphere of the one was more readily appreciable, because on a lower level. Lest our estimate be thought unjust, we refer to De Blainville, who, in his "Histoire des Sciences de l'Organization," with all his admiration for Cuvier's capacity, refuses him a first place in the history of the development of science,-refuses to acknowledge him as the representative of an epoch:

Le service qu'il a rendu, c'est de résumer tous les travaux des savants de l'Europe, en y joignant ses propres observations; mais il n'a introduit aucun principe dans la science; toutes ses théories sont fausses, et même assez généralement abandonnées pars les hommes qui font marcher la science, pour n'être même plus jamais cité dans les ouvrages faits par eux.-Tom. iii., p. 405.

Eloge Historique d'Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Par M. Flourens. Paris: 1852.

† See the characteristics of the two intellects, Westminster Review, October, 1852; Art. "Goethe as a Man of Science."

It is otherwise with Geoffroy: he introduced new and great conceptions, which guided the successive labors of inquirers, who verified, modified, and extended them, working under the impulsion given by him, even when not conscious of his influence. In a future article we may have occasion to show some of the fruits of Geoffroy's influence; for the present we confine ourselves to a narrative of his life, and a brief exposition of his doctrine, the materials being furnished us in his own works, and in the beautiful monument of filial piety which a remarkable son has raised to an illustrious father: "Vie, Travaux, et Doctrine scientifique d'Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire."

Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire was born at Etampes, 15th April, 1772, "d'une famille honorable, mais peu fortunée." From another branch of this family, the Académie des Sciences, in the eighteenth century, possessed three members, the most celebrated of them being also an Etienne Geoffroy, born exactly a century earlier, 1672. He also was professor at the Jardin des Plantes, and, to complete the coincidences, was the author of the "Table of Chemical Affinities," in which the relations of different bodies were conceived very much in the spirit, and sometimes even in the very terms, of the celebrated "Théorie des Analogues." These affinities alarmed the orthodox, somewhat as Geoffroy's views alarmed the orthodox of a later day: the chemists thought these affinities were "des attractions déguisées ;" the zoologists thought the theory of analogues "led to pantheism.' Innovations always "lead" to somethinggenerally Atheism.

In spite of the scientific glory of his race, he was destined for the Church. But during the long winter nights and soft summer evenings, Geoffroy was wont to listen to his grandmother's recitals of "the days when she was young;" and in these stories the names of the St. Hilaires who had been illustrious were

The "Eloge," by Flourens, though founded on this work, is occasionally inaccurate, but worth reading for its charming style.