They were brought, and the weapons crossed.

Maurice Alhoy being somewhat nervous, and a little overawed by the truly intrepid mien of his adversary, lost command of hand altogether, when Dumas began

Defend yourself, corbleau! wrist firmer: a victory over an opponent of your force would not be worth gaining-oh!' cried he in affright, letting fall his sword.

In order to punish his vain boasting, Alhoy had slightly wounded him in the shoulder.

What's that for?' added he, forgetting himself for the moment, "it was not mentioned in the programme.'

Mirecourt, feeling a sort of remorse at last for his merciless treatment of his foe, relents, and tells something to his credit :

"Our hero, notwithstanding his faults, has sincere admirers and enthusiastic friends. M. Porcher, the illustrious director of the claque, is of the number. One day he gave a splendid dinner to the great Mousquetaire. The wine sparkled, and the most delightful gaiety reigned from one end of the table to the other. Porcher alone kept looking at his glass without approaching it to his lips. It must be acknowledged, however, that he had already emptied it very often, and had now reached the maudlin stage. What is the matter with you, my dear friend?' said Alexander. Am I really among the number of your dear friends?' sighed the renowned dispeaser of venal applause. How can you doubt it?" Well, I don't, but still there is one thing that gives me great trouble.' Ah! what

My heavy sorrow is this, you never say thou to me: just theme once. My poor Porcher! with the greatest pleasure! Stake hands, dear friend, and lend me a thousand crowns.'"

With some degree of inconsistency, Mirecourt seems disposed to enhance the merit of Dumas Fils in the proportion of the disparagement of Dumas Pere. Besides his qualities of a writer of genius and talents, he represents him as a sincere, honorable young man, living within his income, keeping his father within some bounds, and helping him out of his difficulties. In the Cure for the Heartache, Hodge, after relating to his sister the misdeeds of their extravagant father, and mentioning how his own good example was entirely lost on hin, gravely asks her, as a case of conscience, whether he would be justified in giving the immoral old boy a licking. Dumas Fils supports sister and mother, and gives what he can to charitable purposes,

For closer acquaintance with this great practitioner see our review of the Memoirs of Dumas.

but never lets the idea of the licking cross his mind. It may be supposed, from the character of his works, especially the earlier ones, that his life in one respect has been far from correct. Our lenient critic throws out hopes that there will be a decided improvement in his works to come, as he is Christian at heart and studies the Scriptures. Amen, say we.

However our author may relax in his dislike to Dumas, his feelings towards Emile de Girardin exhibit a most determined personal hatred; and, therefore, he is not so mach to be trusted in his statements concerning his cha

racter.

His portrait, serving for frontispiece, exhibits a Napoleon when in good humour. So he is an anomaly, if his veins are filled with poison instead of blood, as insinuated by his critic. Circumstances connected with his birth, and the after neglect or dislike of his parents, have given a misanthropic tinge to his character. He considers every office beneath him but that of prime minister; and his political creed has been re-modelled a dozen times. The facts adduced by Mirecourt, such as ordering his own immediate release from prison, when he might have kept him there at pleasure, do not bear out his theory to our satisfaction.

If he dispraises the husband to the utmost stretch of language, he makes up in his unqualified admiration of Madame, née Delphine Gay, a lovely compound of perso nal beauty, grace, goodness, conversational powers, and poetical gifts. Any person who has read or seen acted her delightful dramas, or read her tales, too few in number, alas or her lively and picturesque sketches of Parisian life, social, political, literary and artistic, from about 1836 to 1848, under the name of the Chevalier de Launay, will bear out the critic as far as evidence is before themselves. Mirecourt evidently grudged her to her selfish lord. Literature has had a great loss by her too early death.

One of Mirecourt's grievances against the editor of La Presse arose from his rejecting Marion D'Lorme unless 8gned Alex. Dumas.

We must find space for the unhappy duel between Girardin and Armand Carrel, judging that a simple recital of an incident so contrary to the spirit of Christianity is nearly as good as a sermon. The account is from Le National, Carrel's paper:-July 1st, 1836.

"The direct explication which had place between M. Carrel and M de Girardin let nothing in the power of the seconds to bring about a reconciliation. Having reached the ground, the Bois de Vincennes, M. Carrel advanced towards M. de Girardin, and said, Monsieur, you have threatened me with a biography: as the chance of the day may be against me you will probably fulfil your promise; but if you write it in an honest spirit you will not find either in my private or public life anything unbecoming a man of honor. Is it Monsieur? It is, Monsieur' replied M. de Girardin.

not $0,

It had been decided that the combatants should be placed at a distance of forty paces, and that each was then at liberty to walk forward ten steps. M. Carrel advanced that distance with a firm and rapid pace; then, raising his pistol and taking aim he fired at his adversary, who had only advanced three paces. The two dis. charges were nearly simultaneous, but M. Carrel had fired first. M. de Girardin cried out I am hit in the thigh;' 'and I in the groin,' said M. Carrel.

He had still strength enough left to walk to a bank at the edge of the avenue, and sit down. His second, and Dr. Marx his friend, ran up to him. M. Persat (proprietor of Le National) burst into tears. 'Do not weep, my good friend,' said Carrel; this ball has given you quittance. This was an allusion to a legal process to come off on the next day."

They carried him to St. Mandé, to the house of M. Peyra, an old comrade of the Ecole Militaire. Passing near M. Girardin, M. Carrel addressed him: Are you suffering much, M. Girardin?' I would be rejoiced if your sufferings were no greater.' 'Adieu, Monsieur, I bear no ill will to you.'

Carrel was not deceived as to the dangerous character of his Wound. He requested that they would bear him directly to the cemetery after his decease; no priest, no church. Such was his short and definite direction.

The next day Armand Carrel was dead. Had his last hours been consoled by religion, his posthumous reputation would surely have sustained no loss. It is a pity that republicanism and impiety are such near neighbours."

Mirecourt handles George Sand with delicate touch, passes alightly over the unsound portions of her career, and gives all homage due to her great powers. She has not taken his biography, however, in good part at all; and he complains that she even adds a year or two to her age, in order to enjoy the pleasure of a contradiction. Still he will not have the public to be too fastidious as to the self-restraint, &c. of those who write or act for their amusement. them be satisfied that his heroine for the moment is what Ninon de l'Enclos once boasted herself to be, viz.: ạn

honest man.

Let

He quotes from the Lettres d'un Voyageur, a passage

which we repeat for its beauty. All the world knows that Aurora Dudevant is a native of Berri, and that she was brought up in that rough province under the wing of an energetic grand-mother.

"Oh! who amongst us does not fondly recollect the first volumes which he has tasted or devoured! Has not the very cover of an old book, found mantled over with dust, on the sheif of a neglected bookcase, retraced the sweet outlines of the picture of your youthful years! Have you not seen rise before you, the wide meadow bathing in the warm rays of the evening, where you perused it for the first time! Oh! how quickly fell the night over the enchanted leaves, and how cruelly the fading twilight made the characters dance in confusion on the darkening pages !

It is all over the lambs are bleating; the sheep have gathered to the fold; and the cricket has taken possession of the huts and the plains: you must depart.

The road is stony, the plank is narrow and slippery, the side path rough. You are covered with perspiration, but all is useless: you arrive too late, they have commenced supper. It is to no purpose that the old servant, who loves you so much, has delayed to ring the bell as long as she could. You must endure the mortification of sitting down last, and the grand-mother, relentless in etiquette even in the depth of her secluded farm, administers a tender reproach in a mild, sorrowful tone, which affects you more sensibly than a severe reproof.

But when at night, she asks you for an account of how the day was spent, and you acknowledge with a blush, that you forgot the time reading; and being required to produce the book, you draw out, with a trembling hand, Estelle et Nemorin, Oh, then the old lady cannot help smiling. Take courage; your treasure will be restored, but mind, never be late for supper again.

O, happy days! O, my dark glen! O, Corinne! O, Bernardin de St. Pierre ! Ye willows by the river, my vanished youth, and oh! my poor old hound, who never missed the supper-hour, but answered to the ring of the distant bell by a hungry and sorrowful howl!"

Charles Nodier, with whom we spent some pleasant moments in Les Mémoires de Alexandre Dumas, Méry, the exaggerated type of our Theodore Hook, Victor Hugo, Beranger, Alfred de Vigny, Arsène Houssaye, Francis Wey, Baron Taylor, Paul Feval, and other estimable writers meet with warm though judicious welcome in the pages of Les Contemporains. The degree of blame administered to Paul de Kock and Balzac is very slight, compared to the kindness with which they are treated. How Balzac could have spent much time in collecting materials for his Comedy of Human Life, we are unable to under

stand, with the following programme of his daily occupa

tion before us.

"Balzac has been the most assiduous worker of modern times. We must refer to the monks of the middle ages to find the same zeal, the same assiduity, the same patience. He goes to bed at half-past five, soon after taking dinner, rises at 11 o'clock, or mid-night, wraps timself in a sort of monk's gown, and works away till 9 o'clock in the morning. His servant, François, then brings in his breakfast, takes up the proofs, and Balzac, drawing out his watch, says to him, with the gravest air imaginable, I give you ten minutes to take these to Charenton. Charenton (the locale of the printing office) is two lagues distant, but that does not frighten François. His stereotyped answer is ten minutes! very good! off I go. Balzac resumes his writing after breakfast, and works till three o'clock; then takes a country walk till dinner, immediately after which he retires to rest, to resume the same process on awaking.

Balzac sketehes a romance as a painter does a picture. His first outline, even of the longest of his stories, never exceeds forty pages. He flings every leaf behind him without even paging it, for fear of being tempted to make corrections; and the next day he receives the proofs, furnished with enormous margins. The forty pas vield a hundred in the second proof, two hundred in the third, cd so on to the end of the story. This mode of proceeding throws the unfortunate compositors into despair; finding their work of yes. ter lay buried under a mountain of corrections and additions. It is as, an irregular expansion of lines from a common centre, a syste of fireworks; the rockets crossing and encircling each other, tag to the right, to the left, ascending, descending, knocking their heads together, and inflicting head-aches innumerable. the compositor's time-tables, two hours of Balzac make one day."

In

If we can believe his indulgent critic, Balzac, despite the uncommon penetration into character apparent in his writings, was a very Oliver Goldsmith in all matters where Worldly wisdom was requisite. Unable to dupe a simpleton, we was himself the most facile of that unhappy class. He Was ever labouring to diminish a heavy amount of debt, and aly augmented it with every new literary speculation. We give him much credit for never allowing his nieces to ad his books. He enjoyed his release from his grim creditors but a short period; and now Dumas, his relentless te during life, will pull down the moon, if not allowed by the widow to raise a monument to his memory, with this mscription, "To BALZAC, BY HIS RIVAL, DUMAS."

We must find room for an extract from the sketch of Frederick Lemaitre. He made his debut at the Ambigu, in l'Auberge des Adrets, and was very badly received. He felt that