Part 30 (2/2)

”We have to announce the third and last volume of Eugene Sue's _Fernand Duplessis_, wherein the memoirs of a husband are recounted with a license which only a French public could permit. Perhaps the worst thing in Sue is not his positive pa.s.sion for what is criminal and odious, so much as the way in which he always contrives to render the good people odious. Much as we reprobate his pictures of vice, we think them less offensive than his pictures of virtue. How a man so essentially vulgar-minded could ever have attained the position he had once!”

M. ALFRED VILLEFORT has published at Paris a treatise on literary and artistic property in an international point of view. It not only discusses the question as a matter of principle, but gives the history of the negotiations and treaties which France has made in that respect with the nations.

Among the pleasant books recently published in France is a.r.s.eNE HOUSSAYE'S volume of stories, _Les Filles d'Eve_, very piquant and French in its treatment. A translation is announced in this city by Redfield.

The literary event of the month at Paris is the publication of the third volume of LOUIS BLANC'S _History of the French Revolution_. Of all the works written upon that memorable epoch, none is more marked by originality of thought and power of treatment than this, and we can only hope that the present volume, which we have not yet seen, may prove equal to its predecessors. Its table of contents is as follows: Att.i.tude of Property toward the Revolution, Att.i.tude of the Gospel toward the Revolution, Tableau of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, First Labors of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, Administration of Necker, People Starving, Treasury Empty, A New Power, Journalism, Faction of the Count de Provence, The Fifteen Complots, The Women of Versailles, The King brought to Paris, The Court at the Tuileries, Munic.i.p.al and Military Organization of the Bourgeoisie, The Wealth of the Clergy Denounced, War of the Bourgeoisie on the Clergy, The Authority of the Parliaments Discussed, War of the Bourgeoisie on the Parliaments, The Ambition of Mirabeau, Complots of the Luxembourg, New Organization of the Kingdom.

The _Leader_ mentions that Mr. Blanc undertakes to _prove_ that Egalite was not at the bottom of those conspiracies with which his name has been a.s.sociated, but that the real culprit was the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII.

M. EDMOND TEXIER, one of the most fresh and agreeable of that race of literary b.u.t.terflies, the _feuilletonists_ of Paris, is publis.h.i.+ng a large work upon that great capital, which promises to be as readable as its exterior is splendid. It is to be ornamented with some two thousand engravings on wood, representing all the prominent and famous public edifices and places which not only figure so largely in history, but are so splendid in themselves. The t.i.tle of M. Texier's work is the _Tableau de Paris_. It appears in parts.

The publication of the magnificent work, the _Catacombs de Rome_, for which the French National a.s.sembly voted $40,000, will shortly commence, under the direction of a commission nominated by the Government, consisting of Messrs. Ampere (now in the United States), Ingres, Prosper, Merinice, and Vitel, all members of the Inst.i.tute. The work will contain exact copies of the architecture, mural paintings, inscriptions, figures, symbols, sepulchres, lamps, vases, rings, instruments, in a word, of every thing belonging to, or connected with, the primitive Christians, which by the most diligent search, exercised during many years, have been brought to light in the catacombs of ancient Rome. Its enormous price, between $250 and $300, will, however, keep it out of the hands of all but the wealthy. Another work on the same subject and of similar character is announced in Rome, under the direction of the ecclesiastical government.

A volume purporting to contain thirty hitherto unpublished Letters of Sh.e.l.lEY, appeared a few weeks ago from the press of Moxon, in London, edited by Robert Browning. It appears from an article in the _Athenaeum_ that these--letters, and many others recently sold to publishers and autograph collectors, are forgeries. The book referred to is of course suppressed. The _Athenaeum_ inquires:

”From whom did Mr. Moxon buy these letters? They were bought at Sotheby & Wilkinson's, at large prices. From whom did Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson receive them for sale? 'We had them from Mr. White, the bookseller in Pall Mall, over against the Reform Club.' Off runs the gentle man-detective.

'From whom did you, Mr. White, obtain these letters?' 'I bought them of two women--I believed them to be genuine, and I paid large prices for them in that belief.' Such are the words supposed to have been spoken by Mr. White. The two women would appear to have been like the man in a clergyman's band, but with a lawyer's gown, who brought Pope's letters to Curll.

”It is proper to say thus early that there has been of late years, as we are a.s.sured, a most systematic and wholesale forgery of letters purporting to be written by Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, and Keats,--that these forgeries carry upon them such marks of genuineness as have deceived the entire body of London collectors,--that they are executed with a skill to which the forgeries of Chatterton and Ireland can lay no claim,--that they have sold at public auctions, and by the hands of booksellers, to collectors of experience and rank--and that the imposition has extended to a large collection of books bearing not only the signature of Lord Byron, but notes in many of their pages--the matter of the letters being selected with a thorough knowledge of Byron's life and feelings, and the whole of the books chosen with the minutest knowledge of his tastes and peculiarities.

”But the 'marvel' of the forgery is not yet told. At the same sale at which Mr. Moxon bought the Sh.e.l.ley letters were catalogued for sale a series of (unpublished) letters from Sh.e.l.ley to his wife, revealing the innermost secrets of his heart, and containing facts, not wholly dishonorable facts to a father's memory, but such as a son would wish to conceal. These letters were bought in by the son of Sh.e.l.ley, the present Sir Percy Sh.e.l.ley--and are now proved, we are told, to be forgeries. To impose on the credulity of a collector is a minor offence compared with the crime of forging evidence against the dead, and still minor as, in one instance, against the fidelity of a woman.

”The forgery of Chatterton injured no one but an imaginary priest; the forgery of Ireland made a great poet seem to write worse than Settle could have written; but this forgery blackens the character of a great man, and, worse still, traduces female virtue.

”Mr. Moxon is not the only publisher taken in. Mr. Murray has been a heavy sufferer, though not to the same extent.

Mr. Moxon has printed his Sh.e.l.ley purchases; Mr.

Murray--wise through Mr. Moxon's example--_will not_ publish his Byron acquisitions.”

These forgeries seem to us to have been very clumsily executed.

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