214 FOREIGN CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS 



whom there were a few from Paris, but no Academicians. From the 

 provinces many attended. 



The more than usual number of speeches having been duly delivered, 

 the meeting proceeded to the election of officers and the appointment of 

 committees of — 1. Natural History ; 2. Natural Philosophy, Mathematics, 

 and Agriculture ; 3. Medicine ; 4. Antiquities and History ; 5. Literature 

 and the Fine Arts; 6. Political Economy. The space we usually assign 

 to subjects of this description will not allow us to go seriatim through the 

 several subjects discussed in learned dissertations. The inquisitive 

 reader will find them all in the work itself, to the number of 35. A few 

 instances will, however, suffice to bear us out in our observations on the 

 political tendencies of these French meetings. It was suggested that 

 the attention of the Government, as well as of learned bodies, should be 

 called to the neglected condition of the breed of cattle. A medical man 

 of the name of Lafosse proposed that in order to eradicate the race of 

 ** Charlatans," medical men should form a guild ; but this proposition 

 met with an indifferent reception, from the horror the French entertain 

 for all corporations. In the same paper the Government was censured 

 because it did not, after the cholera had ceased, call upon the profession 

 to publish the remedies which had been found more or less, or not at all, 

 efficacious. For the forwarding of Archeeology, the Government should 

 transplant from the provinces to the capital ingenuous youths to pursue 

 the study of public muniments. The advancement of belles-lettres being 

 also an object of this meeting, there was no deficiency either of poets or 

 poems ; but the object of human inquiry, which appears to have been most 

 inviting, was the '* Economie Sociale," by which, we presume, political 

 economy is to be understood, A Monsieur Jules Lechevalier proposed 

 that the Congress should take into its serious consideration the question 

 of free trade and rail-roads — in fact, every branch of commerce received 

 from these acute philosophers the consideration it deserved — colonization, 

 the establishment of country banks, companies for bringing into cultivation 

 lands which no plough had ever up-turned, institutions to promote arts 

 and trades, with many &cs. &cs. We cannot forbear noticing a circum- 

 stance showing that the characteristic gallantry of the French displays 

 itself no less at a learned Congress than in a drawing-room. A Madame 

 Cauvin was present at this meeting, and read a paper on botany. 



Nouvelle Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus recules jusqu^ a la 

 revolution de Juillet. 



The prospectus states *' the Chronicles of St. Denis formed the ground- 

 work of the first history of France, by Robert Goguin, after whom 

 appeared NicoUe Gilles, and to him succeeded Belle-foret, Duhaillau, 

 Mezeray, Velly, and Anquetil.'* These historians, as they follow each 

 other in regular succession, display features degenerate, deceptive, and 

 colourless, just in proportion as they have deviated from the common 

 parent. The present undertaking promises to disinter [exhumer'] not 

 create history — to view the passed with the eyes of a contemporary, not 

 with those of a modern. These magnificent expectations are to be 

 fulfilled under the direction of a certain Monsieur Henri Martin, who 

 has been preparing himself, says the prospectus, for the arduous task by 

 the composition of historical romances. Now to us it appears that this 

 species of preparation is not exactly that which would form an historian. 

 The approaching publication of this work has been trumpeted forth in 

 a style of extravagance and pretension, which excite some misgivings as 

 to tne excellency of its execution. 



