WE had recently the Cooks of Paris, in a handsome volume, with portraits; The Journals and Editors of Paris, in another volume, and now one Paul Lacroix, sometimes called bibliophile Jacob, has announced a History, Political, Civil, Religious, Military, Legislative, Judicial, Moral, Literary, and Anecdotic, of the Shoe and the Bootmakers of France. He treats of the ancient corporations, their discipline, regulations, and of the fraternities, with their obligations and devices, sketching the whole history of La Chaussure. Shoemakers have been well represented among the famous men of all nations, and the craft may be proud of Hans Sachs, Jacob Boehme, Gifford, Bloomfield, Drew, Holcraft, Lackington, Sherman, William Carey, George Fox, and a hundred others, besides the heroes of Monsieur Lacroix.

GUIZOT AND THIERS--the most eminent living statesmen of France, as well as her greatest living historians-were for a long time connected with the Paris journals, and each made his first appearance as a writer in criticisms on the Fine Arts. For several years the former published series of articles on the exhibitions of the Louvre, which were remarkable both for artistic knowledge and literary verve. The latter also published in 1810 a pamphlet on the exhibition in the Louvre, which excited great sensation-more, however, from its having a political tendency than for its critical importance.

MR. MIGNET, whose condensed History of the French Revolution is best known to American readers in the cheap reprint of Bohn's Library, and which in Paris has passed through numberless editions-will soon have completed his Bibliophile Jacob LACROIX, we see by the History of Mary Stuart, which is destined, probParis papers, has also discovered a comedie-ably, to supersede every other in the French ballet by Molière, written in 1654, and never language. Mignet is perpetual Secretary of the included in any edition of his works. It is Academy of Moral Sciences, and was for many entitled Le Ballet des incompatibles, and ap-years head of the department of Archives in pears to have been written by order of the the Foreign Office. As a man of letters and Prince de Conti, and acted before him by Mo- a sedulous inquirer, no French author enjoys lière himself and other persons of the Prince's higher reputation. circle. That it remained so long unknown is explained by the circumstance of a few copies LAMARTINE has just published in Paris The only having been printed for the favored spec- History of the Restoration, from 1814 to 1830, tators. The plot is described as ingenious, in eight volumes. The work has been composed and the verses not unworthy of the author. hastily, and probably by several hands, for moIt is known that when the Prince de Conti ney. The poet has also published The Stone presided over the states of Languedoc in Cutter of Saint-Pont, to which we have before 1654, he invited thither Molière and his com-referred-a new book of sentimental memoirs: pany. He professed so much admiration for they pall after two administrations. the actor that he offered him the confidential situation of secretary, which was declined; THE Histoire des Races Maudites et les but it seems natural enough that he should Classes Réprouvés, by Francisque Michel and have shown his gratitude by composing one Edouard Fournier, publishing at Paris, with of those entertainments which cost him so lit-illustrations, has advanced to the twentieth tle trouble. This Prince de Conti was at one time so passionately fond of theatricals that he made it his occupation to seek out subjects for new plays, but at a later period he wrote a treatise in which theatres were severely condemned on religious grounds, and Molière himself was personally and violently attacked.

AMONG the new biographical works announced in Paris, is one on the Life, Virtues and Labors of the late Right Rev. Dr. FLAGET, Roman Catholic Bishop of Bardstown and Louisville, Kentucky. The author is a clergyman, who accompanied the late Bishop in one of his last missions to Europe. Bishop Flaget died at the age of eighty-seven.

M. XAVIER MARMIER, whose visit to the United States we noticed some months ago, has published his Letters on Canada, the United States, Cuba, and Rio La Plata, in two volumes-constituting one of the most agreeable works ever published in Paris upon this country. We shall soon, we believe, have occasion to review a translation of the Letters, by a New-Yorker.

number. The whole is to contain a hundred numbers, forming three volumes.

M. MICHELET, the well-known professor of history in the College de France, has incurred a vote of censure from his associates on account of his lectures to the students, which, we infer from notices of them, are quite too republican and socialistic to be approved by the directors of affairs.

A NEW work, by M. Theophile Lavallée, entitled L'Histoire de Paris et ses Monumens from ancient times to 1850, has just been published at Paris, with illustrations by M. Champin. It is warmly commended by the Débats.

MULLIE, of the University of France, has published in two large octavos, a Biographical Dictionary of the Military Celebrities of France, from 1789 to 1850.

A SECOND edition of the new Life of the great Chancellor D' Auguesseau, by M. BOUILLE, has been published in Paris. The book continues to be praised.

time, a production written for a temporary and local excitement, he ordered its suppression.

THE LIFE OF CALVIN, by Paul Henry, has been translated from the German by the Rev. Dr. Henry Stebbing, of London, and we have the first of the two octavos of which it consists, from the press of Robert Carter & Brothers. So much inexcusable ignorance, so much perverse misrepresentation, so much insolent lying, may be found scattered through modern literature, respecting the great Genevan, that Dr. Henry deserves well the thanks of the christian world for exhibiting the chief facts of his history, so plainly that every partisan knave who would repeat the old slanders, shall be silent hereafter for very shame. John Calvin was unquestionably subject to the infirmities of our human nature; so was John Milton; but the inherent and indefectable greatness of these two men was such, that they dwell apart like stars, in glory scarcely approachable by mortal virtue or intelligence. John Calvin and John Milton were in an extraordinary degree the authors of modern institutions of liberty, and it would be difficult to decide which has most merit of this praise. The late Albert Gallatin was wont to say that when we celebrated our condition on the fourth of July, we should first drink to the memory of John Calvin, and then to the immediate authors of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Gallatin did not hold to all the dogmas of Calvin, but he could not speak of the creatures

A ROMANCE AND TALES, said to have been written by NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, when he was a youth, are announced for publication in the Paris Siècle. Though the Siècle is a very respectable journal, and it engages that these compositions are perfectly authentic, and shall be accompanied by proofs of their genuineness, we do not believe a word of the pretence of their authorship. It is a fact, however, not unworthy of note, in a psychological point of view, that the earliest development of Napoleon's ambition and powers, before a fit field of action had been opened to them, was in a literary form. At the age of fifteen, when at the royal school at Paris, he voluntarily prepared a memoir upon the luxury and expense attending education at that place, in which he urged the propriety of the students adopting hardy habits and a simple fare, and enuring themselves to such toils and exposure as they would encounter in war. In 1787, at the age of eighteen, at Valence, he gained, anonymously, a prize proposed to the Academy of Lyons by the Abbé Raynal, on the question, "What are the principles and institutions best adapted to advance mankind in happiness?" In this essay he defined happiness as consisting in the "perfect enjoyment of life according to the laws of our physical and moral organization:" and the forcible views, well adapted to the temper of the times, and the vivid style of writing, attracted much attention. When he was emperor, he was one day conversing with Talleyrand about this essay, and the latter, a few days after, took oc-like Dyer, for example-who employ their casion to present it to him, having procured it from the archives of the academy at Lyons. The emperor took it, and after reading a few pages, threw it into the fire, saying, "One can never observe every thing." Talleyrand had not taken the precaution to transcribe it; but it has been said that Louis Bonaparte had had it copied, and that it is now in print. About the same time he began a history of Corsica, which he dedicated to the Abbé Raynal, by whom he had been noticed and caressed. He corresponded with Paoli in relation to it, and was in treaty with M. Joly, a bookseller of Dole, for its publication. Raynal, who read the manuscript, advised its completion; but some change of purpose prevented its being finished, and it is now lost. During his residence at Auxonne, in 1790, Napoleon wrote Calvin is now being born into a new life, as and printed a letter to Buttafoco, the Corsi- it were; the critics and printers of each particcan deputy for the nobles in the National As-ular language are as busy with him as the Engsembly. It is a brilliant and powerful piece lish have been with Shakspeare. His amazing of argument and invective, strongly on the wit, and genius, and learning, are found as atrevolutionary side. It produced a marked im- tractive and powerful now as they were three pression, and was adopted and reprinted by hundred years ago. And this life of him by the patriotic society at Ajaccio. While at Henry, embodying whatever of contemporary Marseilles, in 1793, Napoleon wrote and pub-records is most needful for the illustration of lished a political dialogue, called " The Supper his writings, will be likely to have a large sale of Beaucaire"- -a judicious, sensible, and able with every class of historical students, as they essay, intended to allay the agitation then ex-discover that the popular and partisan notions isting in that city. A copy of it was brought of him are untrue. Certainly no one should to him in later days, but seeing no advantage in attempt to form an opinion of Calvin without reviving, under the circumstances of a different thoroughly acquainting himself with Henry.

pennyworth of wit to prejudice the vulgar against him, without some signs of scorn. We can never forget his merciless characterization of a malicious feeble-mind, who in a book entitled A Monograph of Moral Sense, declared that Calvin never had enough humanity in his nature to select even one verse by the Evange lists for pulpit illustration,-though the Reformer really preached some folio volumes of commentaries upon the Gospels, preached from them as much as he did from any other portion of the Bible. This person-his name was Smith--was not more reckless of truth than it has been the fashion for anti-Calvinists to be, when writing of that great man and his doctrines, which they seem to have thought could be put down by petty libels.

IN Paris, M. MILLER, librarian to the Assembly, has made an important discovery among some old Greek MSS. of a lost work by Origen. The Journal des Débats describes the original work as being in ten books; the first of which is already known to the world under the tile of Philosophumena. The last seven books have just been printed at the university press in Oxford, under the editorial direction of M. Miller, who went to England for that purpose. They make an octavo volume of about three hundred and fifty pages. The Débats says the work is “a refutation of heresies, in which the author endeavors to prove that the heresiarchs have all taken their doctrines from the ancient philosophers :"-a very curious task for Origen to perform, since he was himself chiefly remarkable for the mixture of Zeno, Plato, and Aristotle, which he compounded with his Christianity. But apart from its controversial interest, the recovered manuscript will throw new light on the opinions and practices of the Neo-Platonists, and on the manners and customs of ancient times. Discoveries like this point out the necessity for a larger and more combined action of learned societies in the search for ancient manuscripts. Origen's Stromata might even yet be completed: and it is not to be supposed that all the existing fragments of his Hexapla were collected by Montfaucon.

FROM Constantinople we learn that very important discoveries of ancient Greek MSS. have been made, in a cave, near the foot of Mount Athos, bringing to light a vast quantity of celebrated works quoted by various ancient writers, and hitherto deemed entirely lost. They furnish, according to the accounts in the journals, an extensive list of proper names calculated to throw great light upon many obscure periods of history. Among these vo-" lumes, it is said, some are calculated to give a complete interpretation of hieroglyphic writing -the di-coverer having already successfully applied them to the interpretation of the inscriptions engraved on the obelisk of the Hippodrome at Constantinople. This may be quite true, but such statements are to be received with some suspicion.

A LITERAL prose translation of Homer, by Mr. T. A. Buckley, has just appeared in London. No prose version will cause any just notion of the spirit of Homer. Of the half dozen metrical translations published recently, we think that of our countryman Munford the best. Henry W. Herbert has given us parts of the Iliad in admirable style. No one, however, has yet equalled old Chapman-certainly not Pope nor Cowper. The most successful translation into a modern language is unquestionably the German one by Voss. Mure and Grote have written the ablest dissertations in English upon the Homeric controversy, but they are not poets, and could not if they would translate the great bard.

R. P. GILLIES, a contemporary of the great authors of the last age, has published in three volumes Memoirs of a Literary Veteran. More than half a century spent in the society of the lions of literature, could hardly fail to furnish a store of amusing anecdotes, and a sprinkling of interesting information. Mr. Gillies has also this advantage over many collectors of similar reminiscences, that he was not only an author among authors, but that his social position in early life gave him access to the best circles. Scott, Wordsworth, Campbell, the Ettrick Shepherd, Rogers, Galt, Maginn, Haydon, and many more names of interest, figure frequently in his pages. Upon the whole, however, his work is tedious, and quite too much occupied with matters that can be entertaining only to his most intimate associates. Gillies was one of the early contributors to "Blackwood," and figured as "Kemperhausen" in the Noctes Ambrosiana. He was also the originator and first editor of the Foreign Quarterly Review, and was one of the first to make German literature familiar in England.

Ir appears that only the Harpers' edition of Lord HOLLAND'S Reminiscences is complete. The London copies are full of asterisks, marking the places of cancelled passages. The cancellings, it was suggested, were occasioned by the interposition of Lord John Russel. A correspondent of The Times, however, (understood to be Mr. Panizzi of the British Museum,) came out with a denial, saying "his lordship never saw a word of the Reminiscences till after they were published, and that no responsibility whatever could attach to him. I speak thus," he adds, “of my own knowledge, and beg to inclose my name as a voucher for the truth of this statement." The Athenæum thinks that if Mr. Panizzi had said " printed" instead of published,” his voucher would have been less rashly ventured, as "Lord John did see the work before it was actually published, but not before it had been actually printed; and here, if we be not misinformed, arises a somewhat amusing contretemps, which is likely to render the cancels ineffectual. Lord John, in fact, had not the opportunity of interfering until the work had been so far published to the world that an uncancelled' copy, with all the passages since sought to be suppressed, had been dispatched to America beyond recall. The next American mail will, doubtless, supply us with the whole of the suppressed passages."

THE meeting of the British Association, at Ipswich, is to commence on Wednesday, July the 2d, and extend over seven or eight days. The secretaries have received the names of several hundred intending visitors, among whom are Lucien Buonaparte, Sir R. Murchison, Sir H. de la Beche, Sir W. Jardine, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir David Brewster; Professors Daubeny, Silliman (of America), Owen, Ansted, and the celebrated naturalist, M. Lorrillier, a relative of the late Baron Cuvier.

Or the new book on Man's Nature and De- | his exquisite wit, his abounding humor, his natural velopment, by Miss Martineau and Mr. Atkin- and manly pathos-in these no writer of narrative son, the Westminster Review for April says: fiction has ever approached him. "Strange and wonderful is the power of selfdelusion! Here we have two clever well-informed people, persuading themselves that they experience extraordinary raptures mingled with the most exquisite philosophic calm, from believing that unconscious matter is the cause of conscious thought, that the truest human affection is nothing worthier than the love of a spoonful of nitric acid for a copper halfpenny, and that annihilation is the most satisfactory end of human life. From such views both the intellect and the heart of man will recoil with well-founded disgust-his logical powers will perceive the absurdity of the argu-monopolize all the appliances and means of popu ment, and his taste and affections will lead him to exclaim with Wordsworth:

-Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn:
So might I standing on this pleasant lea
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus, rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.'

"The new lights promised by our authors turn out to be chiefly composed of very old-fashioned rays of darkness, and, after a careful perusal, many will come to the conclusion that the way to be a modern philosopher, is to quote the ancients, praise Bacon, and talk bosh.'"

NEW EDITIONS of the works of Fielding and Smollett, profusely illustrated by Cruikshank and Kenny Meadows, will soon be published by Stringer & Townsend. These great classics will never cease to be read with the keen

est relish by all the English race. The London publishers of the present edition of Fielding observe in their advertisement:

While, therefore, nothing can be less likely than that the fame of Fielding should ever be suffered to die, or that, as long as literature exists it can ever diminish, nothing can be more proper than to attempt to extend his popularity-a consummation inevitably to be effected by producing his works at a price accessible, and in a form attractive, to all classes. The late Rowland Hill once observed, that it was not fitting that the arch-enemy of mankind should have all the best tunes to himself. In a like spirit it may be remarked, that it ought not to be permitted to inferior writers to

larity that art can bestow. Accordingly, the proprietors have secured the hearty and zealous cooperation of Kenny Meadows. It would be invidious, and from the purpose, to institute a comparison between this gentleman and his contemporaries; but it may be asserted that no living artist has shown an equal versatility of genius, which points him out as the man best fitted to trace the many-colored life of Fielding. From the illustration, almost page by page, of Shakspeare, where is the man but would have shrunk! but that work of our artist has secured not merely an English, not only a European reputation, but a world-wide celebrity. The proprietors are assured, that from the hand of Kenny Meadows such an edition of Fielding will proceed as we have not yet seen, and shall not hereafter see.

OF Mr. JOHN BIGELOW's work on Jamaica, (published a few weeks ago by Putnam,) the London Examiner of April 5th, remarks:

"It contains the most searching analysis of the "It is altogether unnecessary to enlarge upon present state of Jamaica, and, moreover, the most the genius of Henry Fielding. There is no man sagacious prognostications of the future prospects in the brilliant history of English literature, with of the island that have ever been published. Mr. the single exception of Shakspeare, to whose ge- Bigelow is an accomplished, acute, and liberal nius has been paid the homage of a more general American. As such, an eye-witness and a partiattestation. Calumny and misrepresentation- cipator of the greatest and most successful colothe offspring of envy and malice-these, in his nial experiment which the world has ever seen, day, he had to endure or to deride, and these, he is, necessarily, a better and more impartial with their authors, have long sunk into oblivion. judge of the subject he treats of than any EnglishThe greatest of his contemporaries knew and acman of equal capacity and acquirement. Mr. Bigknowledged his transcendent merit, and since his elow makes short and easy work of planters, atdeath, there has not been one man of genius whose tornies, book-keepers, sophistries, and Stanleys. opinion of Fielding is recorded, that has not spok- In doing so, his language is invariably that of a en of him with veneration and delight. Dr. John-man of education and a gentleman. He might son, spite of a personal enmity, could not but con- have crushed them with a sledge-hammer, but he cede his extraordinary powers. Lady Mary Wort-effects his purpose as effectually with a pass or ley Montague reluctantly confessed that cousin two of a sharp and polished broad-sword." Fielding' was the greatest original genius of the age; the fastidious Gray was charmed with him; THE publication of a translation in the Boand the more fastidious Gibbon has left his opin-hemian language of Lamartine's History of the ion on record, that the illustrious house of Haps- Girondins, has been recently prohibited at burg, from which Fielding was descended-its Prague by the Austrian authorities. name erased, its towers crumbled,-will be forgotten, when the romance of Tom Jones shall flourish in eternal youth. If Coleridge classed him, as one of the true immortals, with Shakspeare, Goëthe could not, nor was willing to contest, that he was so; if Byron could cheer his heart and refresh his mind with his pages, so can, and so does, Wordsworth. In a word, the matchless drawing of his characters, which are not likenesses from life, but copies from Nature-the one being a shallow art, the other a profoundly creative power-ship.

MACREADY, in retiring from the stage, had more honors showered upon him than ever before sweetened the leave-taking of any hero of the buskin: among them, this dedication of George Sand's latest publication, Le Château des Désertes, which is now appearing in La Revue des Deux Mondes:

to set forth certain ideas on Dramatic Art, I place under "To W. C. MACREADY:-This little work, attempting the protection of a great name, and of an honorable friendGEORGE SAND."

anced by our loss of fellowship with nature. We cannot all have our gardens now, nor our pleasant fields to meditate in at eventide. Then the function of our architecture is, as far as may be, to replace these; to tell us about nature; to possess us full of tenderness like her, and rich in portraitures with memories of her quietness; to be solemn and of her; full of delicate imagery of the flowers we can no more gather, and of the living creatures ever you felt or found this in a London street; if now far away from us in their own solitude. If

THE first volume of The Stones of Venice, by Mr. RUSKIN, has been republished by Mr. Wiley, and we trust it will have a very large sale in this country, which was never in greater need of instructions upon any subject than it is now upon that of architecture. In all our cities there is remarkable activity in building; the surplus wealth of the American people is largely applied for the increase of the magnificence of town and country residences-for the most part so ignorantly applied, that the Ge-ever it furnished you with one serious thought, or nius of Architecture might almost be frightened from our shores by the spectacles reared here to vex and astonish the next ages. To bring about a reform, to lead the way for rationalism, in the noblest of the practical arts, Mr. Ruskin has approved himself worthy by his previous works. The Stones of Venice will increase the fame won by his Modern Painters." The Literary Gazette says:

"It is a book for which the time is ripe, and it cannot fail to produce the most beneficial results, directly and indirectly, on our national architecture. The low condition into which that has fallen has been long felt. Mr. Ruskin has undertaken to lead us back to the first principles of the art, and, in doing so, to enable every reader who will bestow the necessary attention to his exposition, to discover for himself the causes of this decline, and to master the principles, by attention to which, the significance and dignity of the art may be restored. The subject is one of the widest interest; but it has been so hedged about with technical difficulties as to debar from its study all who had not more leisure, more perseverance, and more money, than fall to the lot of the majority of even cultivated minds. At once popular and profound, this book will be gratefully hailed by a circle of readers even larger than Mr. Ruskin has found for his previous works. He has so written as to catch the ear of all kinds of persons: Every man,' he says truly, has at some time of his life personal interest in architecture. He has influence on the design of some public building; or he has to buy, or build, or alter his own house. It signifies less, whether the knowledge of other arts be general or not; men may live without buying pictures or statues; but in architecture all must in some way commit themselves; they must do mischief, and waste their money, if they do not know how to turn it to account. Churches, and shops, and warehouses, and cottages, and small row, and place, and terrace houses, must be built and lived in, however joyless and inconvenient. And it is assuredly intended that all of us should have knowledge, and act upon our knowledge, in matters in which we are daily concerned, and not be left to the caprice of architects, or mercy of contractors."

any ray of true and gentle pleasure; if there is in your heart a true delight in its green railings, and dark casements, and wasteful finery of shops, and feeble coxcombry of club-houses, it is well; promote the building of more like them. But if they never taught you any thing, and never made you happier as you passed beneath them, do not think they have any mysterious goodness of occult sublimity. Have done with the wretched affectation, the futile barbarism, of pretending to enjoy; for, as surely as you know that the meadow grass, meshed with fairy rings, is better than the wood pavement cut into hexagons; and as surely as you know the fresh winds and sunshine of the upland are better than the choke-damp of the vault, or the gaslight of the ball-room, you may know that the good architecture which has life, and truth, and joy in it, is better than the bad architecture, which has death, dishonesty, and vexation of heart in it from the beginning to the end of time.

"To show what this good architecture is, how it is produced, and to what end, is the object of the present volume. It is, consequently, purely elementary, and introductory merely to the illustration, to be furnished in the next volume from the architectural riches of Venice, of the principles, to the development of which it is devoted. Beginning from the beginning, Mr. Ruskin carries his reader through the whole details of construction with an admirable clearness of exposition, and by a process which leaves him at the close in a position to apply the principles which he has learned by the way, and to form an intelligent and independent judgment upon any form of architectural structure. The argument of the book hangs too closely together to be indicated by extracts, or by an analysis within the limits to which we are confined."

We perceive that the work of which the first volume is here noticed, is to be followed immediately by Examples of the Architecture of Venice, selected and drawn to measurement from the edifices, by Mr. Ruskin: to be completed in twelve parts, of folio imperial size, price one guinea each. These will not be reproduced in this country, and as the author probably has little advantage from the American editions of his works, we trust that for his "Those who live in cities are peculiarly depen-benefit as well as for the interests of art, the dent for enjoyment upon the beauty of its archi-Examples will be largely imported.

tectural features. Shut out from mountain, river, lake, forest, cliff, and hedgerow, they must either find in streets and squares food for pleasant conTHE new play written by Sir Edward Bultemplation, or be drawn into indifference by meanwer Lytton, as his contribution towards the ingless, ill-proportioned, or unsightly forms. We fund raising for the new Literary Institute, is are forced, says Mr. Ruskin, for the sake of ac- in the hands of the literary and artistic amacumulating our power and knowledge, to live in teurs by whom it is to be enacted, and rehearcities; but such advantage as we have in associa-sals are in progress. The first performance tion with each other, is in great part counterbal-will take place probably in June.