280 M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 



This great poet of modern France, a just admirer of the talents of 

 the author of Attala, trusted that he would avail himself of his return 

 to defend the cause of the newly-risen monarchy, or at least would 

 seek to calm the agitation of a country torn by greedy and entirely 

 selfish factions. Judge of Beranger's astonishment and regret 

 at having so unsuccessfully penned his splendid invitation, when 

 Chateaubriand, immediately on his return to Paris towards the end of 

 1831, set about depreciating the administration of one so capable as 

 M. de Perrier, and in terms so violent that we should blush to repeat 

 them ; for on reading this rabid effusion we sincerely believe that 

 vanity had entirely turned M. de Chateaubriand's brain. Since this 

 period he has lived in retirement, and no mention has been made of 

 him, excepting in consequence of an article penned by him on 

 Shakspeare, and published in the Revue de Paris a kind of pseudo- 

 criticism, so entirely anti-Shakspearian that it would seem to have 

 been dictated by Voltaire. In the present day to write against 

 Shakspeare in France is more than a fault nay, amounts almost to 

 a crime ; for he justly inspires there the liveliest enthusiasm and ad- 

 miration. 



After having thus given a brief memoir of Chateaubriand, more 

 particularly as connected with the politics of his country, we address 

 ourselves to the more pleasing task, and one more strictly within our 

 province, of criticising his literary merits as the author of the " Essay 

 on English Literature.'' This work, to which are appended considera- 

 tions on the genius, men, and revolutions of his times, proves to us, 

 unfortunately, that M f de Chateaubriand writes at the present day 

 under the influence of necessity; and we need go no further in proof 

 of this than to refer our readers to the last chapter of the work before 

 us for a literal confession, totidum verbis, of the fact. OJi ! male- 

 suada fames! After reading the work through with attention, we 

 cannot allow that it has been rightly entitled (and it is unconnected, in- 

 complete, and quite unsatisfactory) ; but still we cannot agree with 

 the sweeping censure and unlimited abuse passed on the author and 

 the book by the reviewer in the Athceneum of July last. Our own way 

 of thinking does not fall in with that of M. de Chateaubriand any more 

 than that respectable reviewer's ; but" in deciding the merits of a 

 literary work we would carefully distinguish the writer from the po- 

 litician, and not "condemn the productions of his imagination because 

 we disapprove of his parliamentary speeches. The reviewer in the 

 Athenceum was, apparently, unaware of the fact, which may be fully 

 relied on, and which accounts also for the want of connection between 

 the chapters of the Essay namely, that the whole is a mass of loose 

 and unconnected fragments, written at different times and thrown 

 aside, which the publisher, partly out of a delicate regard to the 

 author's necessities, partly as a trading speculation, abstracted from 

 him by gentle force, and published in spite of his scrupulous objec- 

 tions. Chateaubriand has been condemned by the English with some- 

 what of illiberality, not ibecause he has severely criticised the great 

 writers of our country (for he has generally spoken of them with 

 more praise than Johnson, Warton, and other native biographers), 

 but because he, a foreigner, has dared to open his lips on the subject 



