40 Miranda d'Aragon ; a Tale (if the Inqtiisition. [[July, 



them to save her from the hands of the executioner ! But the timid 

 populace remained quiet. In the mean time, prompted by the grand 

 inquisitor, the guards sprang forward and attempted to separate the 

 father and daughter. But her tender hands were riveted round his 

 neck. In a fainting voice she cried — " Kill me ! ah ! kill me, my 

 father !" Miranda imprinted on her pale forehead his first — his last 

 paternal kiss, and drawing forth his dagger pierced the trembling vic- 

 tim to the heart ! She sank on the ground ! — From her bleeding corse 

 was torn another victim, who, despairing of her release, had, on resolv- 

 ing to perish with her, arrived but in time to witness the sad catastrophe 

 of a daughter imploring death as a boon from the hand of him who 

 gave her life ! S. B. 



ON THE rOPULAK LITERATURE OF FRANCE. 



It is a common-place remark, that revolutions in literature are no 

 les's frequent than those in politics, and that it is not less subjected to 

 the capricious dictates of fashion than painting, music, all the imita- 

 tive arts, even dress, whose strange and ejjhemeral changes baffle all 

 attempt at analysis. This proposition, as applied to the history of 

 France, apjiears completely established by tlie facts and writings, from 

 the origin of the fabliaux and the Romandf. la Rose, to those later days, 

 when the despotism and literature of the empire fell with its glory. It 

 was then that the symbols of unity, the dogmata of passive obedience 

 and adulation, reflected from the poHtical on the moral world, gave 

 way to that burst of frantic independence which English waiters have 

 qualified as intellectual eccentricity. 



It is not here our object to seek to appreciate this change by the merit 

 of its productions. We have only to draw from it, as from those which 

 have preceded it, this deduction, that old age affects books even more 

 rapidly than men. With a few exceptions, easily enumerated, there are, 

 in fact, but few writers who do not survive their works. Twenty-five 

 years is the utmost mean of immortality they can promise themselves. 

 The most successful then obtain an honourable place in libraries, where 

 they are treated like those gothic pieces of furniture which the beauty 

 of their workmanship preserves from destruction, and which are col- 

 lected and preserved, unused, by the curious. 



Are all the productions of the press inevitably subjected to these 

 vicissitudes } Do the lower classes of them take part in this progres- 

 sive movement } Does what may strictly be called national literature 

 take its colour from popular literature ? The impartial examination of 

 the strange productions, a selection from which Ave shall present to the 

 reader, will answer these questions by proving the immense difference 

 which exists between these two species of literature. No one in France 

 has hitherto bestowed any attention on the bibliography of the lower 

 classes, which, however, is deficient neither in interest or importance, 

 since the aphorism — " Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what 3'ou 

 are," might be applied with much more propriety to the reading than 

 to the food of the people. No researches, not the slightest notice has 

 been made on this subject, which appears to have been thought unwor- 

 thy the attention of the busy idleness of the academies. From Sorel to 

 La Harpe, all the critics have affected not to be aware that their porter 

 could read, and that their cook sought news of missing forks and strayed 



