De l'Aristocratie Anglaise, de la Democratie Américaine, et de la libéralité des Institutions Françaises. Par CHARLES FAREY. Second Edition. Paris. 1843.

THE author tells us, that this book has been much eulogized; that the first edition was soon exhausted; and that a noble British peer wrote a reply, controverting the author's claims for the superiority of French institutions over those of Great Britain; all which reasons combined, have led to the publication of the present edition. It is not our intention to come to the rescue of the noble lord, whoever he may be, for indeed we learn for the first time, and only through M. Farey's book, of the controversy to which the author alludes. We have no objection, not the least, that M. Farey should succeed in persuading his countrymen of the excellence of their institutions; nay, we should heartily lend him our assistance; but it must be on the condition that he will not misrepresent the state of English society. M. Farey thinks that the Feudal system still weighs heavily upon England, and that the middle classes are without political influence. His proofs are drawn from certain ceremonials, such for instance as that attending the coronation, upon which his reasoning is as just, as if he drew his notions of British laws from the judges' horsehair wigs. He denies in fact, the whole spirit of modern improvement, because a resemblance still exists to what is past; the boy has not become a man, because the boy still speaks with a human tongue, and sees through human eyes. He, in fact, makes the mistake which most Frenchmen do, who think that no political good can be effected, except through violent revolution; and he expects the coming of the crisis, which as to put an end to Feodality in England. Will it be credited in England, that this author, who vaunts the popularity of his book in France, advances as a grave proof of the existence of the Feudal system in England, that the Queen's ministers, when called upon to attend at Windsor, feel honour in putting on servants' livery coats, with livery buttons? We translate literally from page 35.

"Those who would feel surprised to see free England in the 19th century, thus adhere to feudal customs, will be still more surprised when they learn, that the Queen's ministers, called to Windsor at the Queen's accouchement, put on the uniform (in good French, the livery,) of Windsor palace, and that gentlemen, possessors of a million of revenue, felt honoured at being allowed to carry upon their coat-buttons the initial letters of a prince of the royal blood; as in France, valets have upon their buttons the first letter of their master's name."

And a little further down, page 36, he asks, if after such instances" England has a right to be boasting of her habeas corpus." It may be confessed, however, that the habeas corpus is not dear at a button, n'en déplaise à Monsieur Farey.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.

FRANCE.

Paris, 18th March. THERE is a review here, little known, and not highly appreciated, called Le Biographe Universel,' containing biographies of the men of the day, which are now and then republished when likely to interest. Some weeks since, when it was believed Guizot might retire, and before Messieurs Passy and Dufaure had signified their intention to hold aloof from any new-formed ministry, one of these pamphlets appeared and disappeared with a rapidity unintelligible to those who had not the key to the enigma. The biography was that of Salvandy, whose silence on the important debate was, it seems, personally requested by royalty. It was said to be by his own hand, his style being recognised in it, and the signature being that of his private secretary. The same whispers aver that Count Molé sent for Salvandy, and said it might possibly fall to his lot to form a ministry; and that, notwithstanding every conviction of his capacity and usefulness, it would be impossible to name him for a coadjutor, did the biography remain in circulation. The pamphlet was therefore bought up, and is now not to be had. But one of the rare copies already sold, having fallen into our hands, we make a few comments on it, that our readers may learn how M. Salvandy has been unfairly appreciated hitherto, and may contradict, by the genealogy given, on such excellent authority, those idle stories, which gave him a somewhat too clerical origin.

"In the unfortunate times, wherein the kings of England counted among their fiefs the fairest French provinces, an Irish family, named O Salvandy, itself exiled from a lately conquered country, and no doubt captive beneath the Black Prince's banners, found itself transplanted into Guyenne."

This is the first sentence which adds another and rather foreign looking comrade to the list of royal O's, which are Ireland's patrimony. "The best manner of praising such men," goes on the biographer, "is to recount their lives;" and this is accordingly done by him through 210 pages of closely printed octavo. We have not the least idea of attacking any portion of M. Salvandy's life; but rather wish to excuse Molé, by pointing out why he decided that a minister, holding in his hand such a story of himself, by himself, would lay the ministry open to that terrible battery of ridicule, so potent in France, that it is perhaps the only battery she fears!

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When he was eight years old,' Rousseau's precept, la seule habitude à contracter serait de n'en point avoir,' took possession of his mind, and became a law to him. At eleven years old he had, as yet' advanced in life without any determined object. But it was then that a sentence spoken before him, to the purport that extraordinary children commonly disappointed when they grew to men, induced him to eschew his mode of study, irregular heretofore. With sagacity rare at his age,'

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he decided that under a military monarchy, he should best find his level in a military career! Educated at the Lycée Napoleon (College Henry IV.), he one day, in his enthusiasm and admiration of the emperor's style, invented and read aloud a bulletin de la grande armée. Become an officer, he was at Mayence pointed out to the emperor himself, who fixed upon him such a look, as it seems was worth recording. At twenty years of age, commencing to write as a politician, he hesitated between all the conflicting parties, feeling in himself something of each. He had at this time a precocious sagacity, a knowledge of men and things, usually the fruit of observation and experience. In 1815, under the influence of his indignation, he wrote La Coalition et la France.' This was more than a good book: it was a good action— an event.' This book was seized. He took it quietly. Louis XVIII. had desired him to withdraw his opposition to its seizure. Then there was his letter to Wellington. The Duc de Richelieu interfered when he was about to publish his letter to the Duke of Wellington, after the attempt made on the duke's life by the assassin to whom Napoleon left a legacy, in the small gratitude of a great man. The letter desired the duke to live, that the rising generation might, in the plains of Zama, avenge the insult received at Thrasimene.' There were two more pamphlets, which ensured the unhoped-for' passing of the loi de recrutement. Louis XVIII. at last proved himself master' on his own territory, by naming the poet Salvandy of his Conseil d'Etat!! And this is the account, by Salvandy, of Salvandy's career.

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Novels, pamphlets, Madame Salvandy, receive the same unqualified praise. As to Salvandy himself, he is applauded in all senses; politically, morally; as having instinct and reasoning powers' to a supreme degree; as having love of order and liberty, progress, stability, moderation; verily, we cannot give the whole list of his perfections. Their name is Legion. Ás to his talents as a novelist, if he has not all the power which belonged to Walter Scott, his Alonzo has a serenity and calm which may suggest comparison to some broad road, smooth and symmetrical, without ruts or jolting.' As for the book called 'Twenty Months; or, the Revolution of 1830,' it so struck the illustrious Göthe, that on his bed of death, and when his sight had failed, it was read to him by his daughter, and when at last his mind was no longer capable of following its ideas, he bade her approach it to his lips, that, kissing it, he might bid human thought adieu; soon after he expired.'

But we have said enough. Salvandy has had his merits, and not few; but we find it difficult not to meet fatuity such as this, with a little innocent laughter.

GERMANY.

Leipsic, March, 1843.

THE presence and the counsels of Alexander von Humboldt have been sadly wanted of late by the Prussian king. It is to the absence of this

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distinguished man in Paris during the last three months, that the extraordinary change wrought in the feelings of the people towards their sovereign, and the general gloom which has fallen on the hopes of the most distinguished men of letters in Prussia, are, in my opinion, mainly ascribable.

The dismissal of Professor Hoffmann of Fallersleben from his professorship in Breslau, and without the usual pension, in consequence of his political poems, belongs to a class of acts which form their own commentary. In the same category we may include the exclusion from the Prussian states of the 'Leipsic Universal Gazette,' which had often rendered Prussia good service, when warring with its own Catholic population. But the odium does not attach so much to the act as to the mode of its enforcement. It may be even reasonably doubted whether the conduct of Prussia in interdicting the transit of the journal, and thus cutting it off from the other states where it was desired, has not shed rather an unfavourable light on the indifference of Prussia to the interests of the League, when its own interests seem affected. The suppression of the Rhenish Gazette,' which is to cease from the 31st of March, also tends to swell the general amount of popular dissatisfaction. The re-imposition of the censorship on caricatures, after its extinction so recently and pompously announced, is in many ways characteristic. The singular discrepancy between the royal order of the 24th of December, 1841, alleviating the evils of the censorship, and the law promulgated on the 13th of February last, imposing fresh restrictions, and handing over the Press to a perpetuity of arbitrary government, is very far from a realization of the hopes awakened by the monarch's popular harangues! Such acts, also, as the recent cabinetorder, forbidding the future promotion of two officers holding judicial situations, in consequence of an article opposed to the spirit of the projected Divorce Bill having been inserted by one in a law magazine edited by the other, savour in no small degree of the worst kind of arbitrary power. How pitiable is it that the king should be unable to foresee, in the present state of Germany, the spirit which all this has a tendency to make formidable!

The friends of monarchy and order throughout Germany had sincerely hoped that the occasion of the recent marriage of the Crown Prince of Hanover would have been embraced for putting an end to the sufferings of the state prisoners locked up in dungeons since the unfortunate affair of 1833. This hope has been cruelly disappointed. With the exception of Dr. Eggeling, who seems indebted for his liberation to other causes than royal clemency, and Dr. Plath, none of the many persons at present confined for political offences have been set at liberty. Even Eggeling has been placed under the odious surveillance of the police for the rest of his life, and Plath must at once leave, and never again re-enter the kingdom. The University of Göttingen is rapidly sinking under the present régime. As Dahlmann, the last of the seven exiled professors has been lately provided for by an appointment to a professorship at Bonn, the society formed throughout Germany to assist

these political martyrs with pecuniary aid in their immediate wants, has announced its approaching dissolution, as being no longer necessary; and its intention of handing over the undisposed-of residue of its funds to Dr. Jordan, a literary martyr no less deserving of support.

Leipsic is in itself a little republic; and as the centre of the German book trade, and the great literary mart whither the products of German mind are always sure to find their way, it may be called, in one sense at least, a republic of letters. The mildness of the Saxon censorship, and the facilities of publishing, have induced many popular writers to take up their residence here. The 'Literaten-Verein,' also, presenting a formidable array of distinguished names, forms a species of rallying point for patriotic exertions. The musical fame of Leipsic is about to be still further elevated by the erection of a Conservatory of Music, under the direction of Mendelsohn Bartholdy, assisted by several highly distinguished professors. The publishing activity is as flourishing as ever. I have only to point to the edition of English popular writers, in course of publication by the eminent printer, Tauchnitz, of this city, to establish any man's faith in miracles. Each volume, comprising the contents of three ordinary English volumes, neatly and correctly printed on admirable paper, and embellished with a good steel engraving, is published at the almost incredibly low price of one shilling and sixpence! The collection will embrace most of the standard English authors. The works of Byron, Moore, Dickens, Bulwer, and Marryat, have already appeared. The extraordinary popularity of English writers in Germany necessary to the success of such an enterprise, is flattering to both countries. As a matter of curious literary history I may mention the fact, that of this edition of Mr. Dickens' works four thousand copies have been already sold. Amongst other more important literary undertakings, a forthcoming new edition of the German and English Dictionary, compiled by the indefatigable Dr. Flügel, the United States' Consul at Leipsic, should be mentioned. I believe the new edition will contain many thousand words and phrases not included in the last. A new and much improved edition of Brockhaus's "Conversations-Lexicon,' being the ninth issue of that important work, is also in course of publication; and a journal on the same plan as the illustrated papers of London is about to appear under the title of Illustrirte Nachrichten.'

Before concluding, I may allude to the abolition of the British consulship in this city. Shortly after the accession of the present ministry to power, the gentleman who filled the office of consul was recalled, and the office itself abolished. England is now the only kingdom unrepresented here. It may perhaps be reasonably asked, whether an efficient and intelligent agent might not be employed with advantage in this nucleus of German trade-the emporium from whence the east is supplied with the manufactures of the West, and the point where the whole of England's German trade centres.