A pleasing feature in the Fauborg St. Germain portion of Parisian society, one most worthy of imitation by ourselves, is the assembling of talented, titled and agreeable individuals for the purpose of social and intellectual entertainment among themselves at little expence, and with no obligation of lavish expenditure in entertainment or decorations. When invitations are distributed on this side of the water, thousands are expended on costly meats and wines, profusion of plate is ostentatiously paraded, apartments are transformed into leafy thickets, and lights innumerable are reflected from diamonds and pearls. Guests get a nod or bow from their negligent though anxious entertainers; they are stewed in the high-born mob at a temperature of 85°; they are crushed to a pan-cake in the progress to the supper room; ices hiss on their parched tongues; the bare necks and shoulders of ladies meet deadly chilling draughts as they rush forth in desperation; and galloping consumptions shortly overtake them in the race of dissipation. They can only get comfort by railing at their entertainers; and this is the recompense to these hapless heads of families, for heavy expense, for worry and anxiety, and for the temporary upsetting of all domestic comfort.

We may naturally look for a greater demand on the mental resources of a Parisian lady hostess from her select evening society, in the absence of such agremens as wait on the social reunion just described. Herself and her guests feel it a matter combining duty with pleasure to bring out all their stores of wit, fancy, and anecdote to entertain each other, and make the evening pass pleasantly; and from this good intention and the natural sprightliness of their character, an electrical current of animation and satisfaction is diffused through the party. It is not unnatural to suppose that if the English and French matrons took pen in hand next morning, there might be seen in the comparison of their productions, an instance of the balance of gifts bestowed on the human kind. The one exhausted by the evening's efforts and excitement, producing only a cold lifeless sketch of what she has so much enjoyed; the other having been a mere stewardess, and noter of what was going on, producing from her stores of comparison and observation, a living image of what is so vividly present to her own perception.

Thus, comparatively few actors have produced good works of fiction or acting plays, however intimately they may have felt and represented the various moving passions; or few great

statesmen have written standard histories; or great generals have left us enduring pictures of their campaigns. It is one thing to be interested in an animated, witty, or humorous conversation, and bear your part therein to the delight and admiration of the company, and another to present afterwards a lively counterpart of what took place; so materially do the relations of the parties to each other, the temporary circumstances of place and time, and the characters and talents of the individuals present, contribute to the effect produced. In like manner, the grand or striking result of some chemical experiment. depends on the presence, the proportion, the mode of combination, and the peculiar properties of many differing ingredients. Hence the great disproportion in number between those continental ladies who have been, or now are, perfect presiding goddesses of salons, and of those who may be cited among the standard writers of their age. The disproportion is also evident on our side the channels, but in an inverse ratio.

The lady cited at the head of our article, a close observer, and a most vivid delineator of the follies, fashions and manners of her day, a paragon of beauty and accomplishments, a perfect mistress in presiding over, and delighting a select reunion of talent, wit, and agreeability, and the author of successful dramas and novels, is no more. George Sand, like her German sister, the Countess Hahn Hahn, has resigned her perilous trade, and devoted the remains of her life to the service of her Creator;* and of the really inspired women of genius living, we can quote few besides Mine. Charles Reybaud, Mme. Léonie D'Aunet, and Mlle. or Madame Marie Aycard, if the writer who bears the name is indeed of the gentler sex. Now omitting the female writers who have been called away in our own days, Miss Edgworth, Miss Ferrier, Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Inchbald, Miss Baillie, Miss Austen, Lady Blessington, Miss Bronté and sisters, L. E. L., the Misses Lee, the Misses Porter, Miss Mitford, Miss Pickering, and others for whom space should be found, there are still living and delighting our generation with their writings, Mrs. Burbury, Mme. Blaze de Bury, Miss Bunbury, Mrs. Crowe, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Ellis, Lady Fullarton, Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Gascoigne, Mrs. Grey, Mrs. Gaskill, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Howitt, Miss Jewsbury, Miss Kavanagh, Lady Morgan, Mrs. Marsh, Miss Mulock, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. Oliphant, Lady Emily Ponsonby, Miss Pardoe, Lady Scott, Miss Sewell, Mrs. Smedley, Mrs. Stewart of Cork, Mrs. E. M. Stewart, the

Such a report has prevailed here for some time at all events.

Baroness Tautphoeus, Mrs. Trollope, Miss Wallace, Miss Yonge, the authoresses of Mount St. Laurence, The Flirt, Whitefriars, The School for Fathers, Kathie Brand, The Wreckers, Lady Granard's Nieces, The Henpecked Husband, The Lady of Glynne, The Old Chelsea Bun House, Tender and True, and many others whose bead roll would be too long for the reader's patience.

As a large proportion of French works of fiction make their first appearance in the Feuilleton form, of the generally evil character of which no reader of the Irish Quarterly Review need be reminded, it may well be supposed that a French Miss Mulock, a French Mrs. Hall, or a French Miss Edgeworth, would feel loth to commit the pure offspring of their minds to the companionship of such vile associates as the Arthurs and the Antonys of Sue, Dumas, and Co. Even if they were inclined to run the risk, it is not likely that they would be welcomed by a public accustomed to the ranting, the indecency, and the convenient moral philosophy of the reckless or diverting vagabonds, to whom they have become habituated.

In the comparative scarcity of harmless works for the Gallic novel-reading public, it is pleasant to know that there is a variety of cheap, entertaining and useful books got out for the behoof of youthful readers in Paris, Tours, Cambrai, and other provincial cities, under the patronage of the Archbishops.

In our last two articles on French literature, Mirecourt's determined enmity to Emile de Girardin was slightly handled, and mention made of Mme. Girardin, and the esteem in which she was held by our critic. Since his biography was published, Parisian society and Parisian literature have been deprived of one of their fairest ornaments by death. Her biographer and admirer thus enters on his pleasing task.

"Do you recollect the wondrous tales of our infancy, where the fairies seated round a cradle, endowed the newly born princess with the rarest qualities of head and heart, and gave her in addition, fortune, worth, grace, and beauty?

"Madame de Girardin had for godmothers every one of these beneficent fairies; she was born on the

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Ah, too curious reader! now we have you with mouth open, and ears cocked. Do you know what you resemble in thus ferreting out every one's age? you are the exact image of a Lord Mayor's valet or a president of the chamber. I am quite tired of your inquisitiveness. "You are the sole cause of all the annoyances that beset us. Mile. Dejazet will never forgive us, for blabbing her birth-day; Mme. George Sand has found our conduct so inexcusable that she has

added a year to her age to convict us of falsehood. Paul de Kock belches out fire and flames. He swears he is only thirty years old, and will furnish the proofs. Théophile Gautier enters his protest, and declares that he wrote Mademoiselle de Maupin, on his nurse's

knees.

"Once for all we renounce the registry, and refuse to listen to its treacherous revelations. The age of a woman is written on her countenance, in her eyes, in her smile; and the smile, the eyes, and the countenance of Mme. de Girardin are just twenty-five years old.

"Before uniting her destiny to that of the too celebrated journalist whose biography has caused us such woes, our heroine was known by fame to the whole kingdom of France. The pure and delicious poems of Mlle. Delphine Gay fell from Parnassus in streams of sweetest honey. Daughter of a poetess, she was hushed to sleep with rhythm, and learned, while yet an infant, to make the lyre-chords vibrate in unison."

Delphine Gay, daughter of Sophie Gay, was born at Aix la Chapelle, and baptized (it is said) on the very tomb of Charlemagne. Her mother, who was a wit, a poetess, and a novelist into the bargain, and moreover, wife of the receivergeneral of the district, indulged in some witticisms at the expense of the prefect one evening; the good things were repeated to the subject of them next morning; and it being a clear day, the telegraph brought the dismissal of her husband in the course of two hours. Women of talent are sometimes dear of purchase; the bon mots of Mme. Sophie Gay cost her family five thousand pounds yearly income.

The family all came to Paris, and their house was the centre of a galaxy of wits, actors, poets, and painters.

"They chatted, they laughed, they danced, they played; for the mother of our tenth muse was a Cordon Bleu in the science of colored pasteboard.

"Now and then when the cards were unpropitious, she dealt them in such haste to her friends, that they occasionally got a slap on the face from the Queen of Spades, or the King of Diamonds.

"The game being over they recited verses; and here our heroine obtained her first triumphs. She was applauded by all the celebrities of the day. Her early developed talents and unaffected grace rendered her the idol of her mother's circle. At fourteen years of age she was of the most radiant beauty. Her large mild eyes full of charm, her fair hair magnificent in its profusion, her large alabaster forehead,her little mouth, precious casket with its rows of pearls, her skin of milky whiteness, all combined to render her a prodigy of fascination."

In 1822 she sent her first essays in verse to the academy; and a pension of five hundred crowns was settled on her by Charles X. She went under her mother's guardianship into Italy, was conducted in triumph to the capitol like another

Corinne, and recited verses to an admiring and enthusiastic crowd. She refused a very advantageous match in order to be at liberty to return to Paris; and was rewarded in part, by the applause and greeting of all that the city could muster of talent and high birth on the occasion of her recitation of some verses in the Panthéon, then just after being enriched by the frescoes of Baron Gros. "She might fancy herself for the moment queen of France."

"This epoch of her life was one long scene of delight, a poetic feast for each day and every hour of the day.

"At the commencement of 1830, the conquering charms of Delphine had harnessed to her chariot, more suitors than had beset poor Penelope in the days of old. This flight of turtle doves afflicted with its presence every saloon where the tenth muse made her appearance; and when Summer came, the more adventurous took flight to the leafy shades of Villiers-sur-Orge, where Mme. Gay pos sessed a little country house. Almost all the poetical pieces of Delphine before her marriage, are dated from this retreat. always loved the solitude and quiet of the country."

She

She became the wife of M. de Girardin in 1831; and according to this gentleman's implacable foe, Eugène de Mirecourt, her talent, which erewhile was signed with a stamp of naïve sensibility and seraphic candor, seemed at once to lose its distinctive characteristic, as if the dark influence of the journalist had fallen like a mantle over the muse, and the spotless dove had contracted some of the qualities of the vulture. About 1834 or 1835 she wrote Le Lorgnon and La Canne de M. Balzac. Her husband found fault with this mode of employing her time; but the praise and the Louis-d'ors won by her labors, overpowered her conjugal fears; and in a spirit of contradiction she published Le Marquis de Pontanges and Marguerite. Her present biographer insinuates that Emile, by virtue of his privileges as head of the family, insisted on the honest publisher paying into his (Emile's) own hand the price of these works, wishing thus to disgust her with her occupation, for she had not the pleasure of purchasing even a pincushion with the produce of her labours. The moral he draws from this circumstance is, that a man may be a successful speculator, cover the dead walls of Paris with advertisements in letters a yard long, turn every thing to profit, and still have a very middling knowledge of human nature.

"If it sometimes happens to Mde. de Girardin to shew herself slightly paradoxical, she makes up for the defect by a profound and