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FRENCH AUTHORESSES.* No. I. G. SAND. 



IT is a common subject of lamentation with (t the gentle craft'* oi 

 French novel writers, that the world of fiction is come to a stand 

 that the capacities of our present state of society for awakening ficti- 

 tious interest fall below zero, and that ordinary life drags itself so 

 slowly and so sluggishly along, that the writer who would be really 

 entertaining must seek elsewhere for materials for the construction 

 of his narrative ; and yet authors tire not, printing-presses tire not, 

 but why purchasers tire not is to us a subject of serious astonishment. 

 Every day sees a new aspirant come forward with some device newer 

 and quainter than those of his less lucky predecessors " and spawn 

 his quarto and demand your praise." 



In this reckless profusion of literary labour, it is curious to observe 

 the wild gambols and fanciful eccentricities in which the human in- 

 tellect has been pleased to disport itself in order to win an approving 

 smile. Some delight to rake into the rubbish of antiquity, the obso- 

 lete and quaint follies of times of ignorance and superstition, and 

 affront the majesty of common sense with an impudent catalogue of 

 deeds of impiety and bloodshed ; others laboriously examine all the 

 causes of human misery, the tragic machinery of the globe, and the 

 invisible influences that rule the destinies of man, viz. the passions of 

 his own heart, and point their morals with the appalling characters 

 " Despair ;" others, again, bathe their imaginations in seas of gore, 

 and turn forth their man of blood, stained with every crime that can 

 degrade human nature, as an object of our special admiration and 

 esteem. 



From the nervousness and fatigue arising from the contemplation 

 of these over-laboured artificial exhibitions, which subject the mind 

 to all the trials of the Epicurean in the gloomy dungeons of the 

 pyramids, it is pleasing to turn for repose to the perusal of a work 

 composed in a milder and gentler spirit, like that which forms the 

 subject of our present article. France has been always distinguished 

 for the literary talents of her daughters, and the admirers of L'Espi- 

 nasse and De Stab'l may be compelled to admit that the claims of the 

 present generation of spinsters to literary excellence are well vindi- 

 cated by the lady who delights in the unpretending cognomen of 

 G. Sand. 



We own we are partial to the writings of the gentler sex. They 

 are marked by a smooth and copious flow of thought, an unbroken 

 and unlaboured continuity highly flattering to our feelings of order 

 and harmony. They do not tease us with those abrupt transitions, 

 those sudden dartings from point to point, and those compact and 

 logical coherences that we meet with in the writings of men. If the 



* Rose and Blanche, a Novel. Paris. 



