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WE hail the appearance of M. Weiss's book with pleasure, though it is not exactly the sort of work which we should have wished. We shall say presently, how we have been to a certain degree disappointed by the general tenor of his history; still it is but fair to mention at first the merits which give a real value to these volumes, and render them worthy of an attentive perusal.

The history of the French Protestant refugees, whom religious persecution scattered over Europe, and even on the opposite shores of the Atlantic, is one of the most

* 1. Histoire des Réfugiés Protestants de France depuis la Revocation de l'Edit de Nantes jusqu'à nos jours. Par M. CH. WEISS. 2 vols. 12mo. Paris: 1853. 2. History of the Protestants of France, from the Commencement of the Reformation to the present Time. Translated from the French of G. de FELICE, D.D. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1853. [A neat translation of M. Weiss's able work, with a valuable appendix, presenting the history of the Huguenots in America, has been made by Mr. H. W. Herbert, and published, in 2 vols., by Messrs. Stringer and Townsend, of New York.-ED.]

VOL. XXXII. NO. IV.

interesting episodes in the annals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Here was a subject ready for a living picture, with much unity in it and as much diversity: thousands of exiles, stamped with the same national features, cast abroad in the same storm into different regions, and exposed to perpetual vicissitudes of fortune, until they are at last assimilated with the hospitable populations who have afforded them a shelter. Yet the subject, attractive as it may seem, had not been treated as a whole before the attempt of M. Weiss. Separate portions of it had, indeed, been supplied at long intervals by competent writers. Thus as far back as 1690, we meet with an excellent description of the establishment of the French refugees in the electorate of Brandenburg, written by one of the leading men in the rising colony, Charles Ancillon, the son of David, an eminent pastor of Metz, who had been generously welcomed by the Great Elector, and whose family, during many generations, proved a most precious accession to their new country. A century later, from 1782 to 1800, two masters of the

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