Another high reputation has been lost during the last month. The two first volumes of M. Chateaubriand's works have appeared; and in spite of a general discharge of puffs from the journals-in spite of M. de Chateaubriand's present disgrace-in spite of the sinister predictions which he directs against the Bourbons, though they have made him a peer, and given him a cordon-bleu, his new novel has been thought pompously dull, and the "Itineraire à Jerusalem" has been declared an insignificant production, full of gasconades and self-conceit, and, what is worse, very heavy and insipid. It would have been greatly admired in 1810. There cannot be a stronger proof of the advancement of good sense in France during the last fifteen' years, than the failure of the publication of M. de Chateaubriand's works.

On the other hand, no time could possibly be more favourable than the present for the appearance of a good work. The families who have just quitted Paris for the country, have taken with them nothing worth reading, nothing comparable to M. de Barante's " Ducs de Bourgogne," and M. Thierry's "History of William the Conqueror," which last year helped to wile away the tedious evenings at the Chateaux.

The " Last of the Abencerages" is discovered to be merely a copy of "Zaide," a_romance which was exceedingly popular at the latter end of Louis the Fourteenth's reign, about the year 1690. Though the idea of making the French people retrograde is the favourite chimera of most of our nobility, and though M. de Chateaubriand has for several years been exercising his talents with the view of converting the French of the nineteenth century into the faithful subjects of the monarchy of the seventeenth, yet this last attempt at retrogradation has proved far from successful. This is easily accounted for. The author has chosen for his victims the very persons whose interests he intends to flatter. A young lady of noble family will admit, as far as you wish, the necessity of bringing back the French people to what they were in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth; but owing to that austerity of manners, which is now so prevalent, novel-reading is one of the greatest pleasures this poor young lady can enjoy. Now, if you give her dull novels, however much she may admire your retrograde intentions, she will have good sense enough to tell you that you have failed in your object. Such has been the fate of the "Last of the Abencerages." The four principal characters have the great fault of being perfect. This would not, perhaps, render them positively insipid, if they were described in detail, and by a succession of picturesque anecdotes. But the noble author attaches more importance to dignity of diction than to the accuracy of the ideas which he has to express. In other words, he writes the language which is employed by Cathos and Madelon in the "Precieuses Ridicules." Style seems to be the constant and earnest object of M. de Chateaubriand's attentions; and the admirers of emphatic diction will find enough to please them in the " Abencerages." The author has described in dignified language petty circumstances, such as would have shocked Racine.

M. de Chateaubriand uses very dignified phrases to express vulgar ideas. This talent will be in its proper place in the Moniteur, if there should be occasion to draw up an account of a royal ceremony in the official journal; such, for example, as the coronation of Charles the Tenth.

But the author has not observed, that extreme loftiness is only attainable in French by the rejection of words degraded by common use. Now this rejection casts at once a veil of obscurity over the language; which is a deadly fault in a novel. This is well understood by the admirable author of " Old Mortality;" and hence his perfectly easy and natural style. It is the thoughts which are grand and delicate, when in "Ivanhoe" he paints Rebecca's greatness of soul, or the pride of the Knight Templar; but the language is simple. Sir Walter Scott often repeats the same word in the same sentence. The trimness of M. de Chateaubriand's style is, perhaps, suited to a political pamphlet, especially of the royalist class. In these, the author recalls wellknown ideas to the mind of his reader. But the case is very different in a

novel; for, on perusing one page, the reader ought never to be able to conjecture the contents of the next.

You will excuse the time I have occupied in describing the causes of this last failure, which the author of the "Genie du Christianisme" has sustained. All the journals, and consequently all simpletons, have been for these two months past constantly proclaiming him the greatest genius in France. M. de Chateaubriand certainly is, of all others, the man whom our aristocrats would be most glad to see endowed with eminent talent. He is of noble birth, he is a peer, and his manners are most remote from any thing vulgar. This would make a fine picture to hang up against your Lord Byron. But notwithstanding all our boasting, perhaps the most that can be said on this subject is, that in the present times, when some talent and information is found everywhere, but genius nowhere, M. Chateaubriand falls the least under mediocrity of any of our prose-writers.

What M. de Chateaubriand has been all his life aiming at, is that moving kind of eloquence, which may be called unction, the power of impressing on those he addresses, the persuasion of his sincerity; but he has never succeeded. Bernardin de St. Pierre, when he explains the cause of the flux and reflux of the sea, in his "Studies of Nature," believes full as much what he states, as does the author of the "Génie du Christianisme," when he boasts of the Sacrament of Confirmation. But I know not how it happens in these two similar instances that Bernardin de St. Pierre frequently displays unction, and that M. de Chateaubriand always wants it. You always feel that you have to do with a very clever fellow, who is trying to humbug you.

When M. de Chauteaubriand hits upon a good idea, and does not labour too much to express it in fine language, like the Madelon of Moliere, he reaches the perfection of academic style. In its most brilliant days, the French Academy never listened to more pretty meaningless phrases than the following. He is speaking of the Spaniards.

“Il (l'Espagnol) a peu de ce qu'on appelle esprit, mais les passions exaltées lui tiennent lieu de cette lumière qui vient de la finesse et de l'abondance des idées. Un Espagnol qui passe le jour sans parler, qui n'a rien vu, qui ne se soucie de rien voir, qui n'a rien lu, rien étudié, rien comparé, trouvera dans la grandeur de ses résolutions les ressources nécessaires au moment de l'adversité."

In magnificence of style, the celebrated Buffon has nothing superior to the passage above quoted.

GENERAL CHAPALANGARRA.

In our number for the month of April 1826, an article by a foreign correspondent appeared, entitled, "Adventures of an Italian Emigrant from the year 1820 to the present day," in which the character of General Chapalangarra, (by the name of Ciapalangara) who was governor of Alicant in 1823, is unjustly aspersed. The article in question was inadvertently inserted, and with no intention on our part to injure the general, whose honour appears to us to be untarnished, for we have every reason to believe that there was no foundation whatever for the charges there brought against him, and we willingly take this opportunity of doing this act of justice to his character.

THE DUBLIN TABINET BALL.*

In the sketch which I gave of Lady Wellesley's Tabinet Ball, (and of which a continuation was announced,) I mentioned that, of the persons whom the Marchioness had assembled for the purposes of dancing and of benevolence, the Duke of Leinster was the next in importance to Sir Harcourt Lees. With the highest rank, and a magnificent estate, and with a name to which so many national recollections are painfully but endearingly allied, it must be confessed that the first peer in Ireland, notwithstanding so many claims upon the public respect, is less sensibly felt, and produces an impression less distinct and palpable, than the renowned champion of the Church. The one is at the head of the nobles, and the other of the Protestants of Ireland; and however insane the alacrity of Sir Harcourt may appear, there is something in enthusiasm, be it genuine or affected, which is preferable to the inactive honesty and the inoperative integrity of the Duke. The latter is descended from the first Norman settlers in Ireland. The Fitzgeralds gradually became attached to the country, and were designated as the ultra-Irish, from the barbarous nationality, of which, in the course of that series of rebellions dignified by the name of Irish history, they gave repeated proof. They were of that class of insurgents who earned the ignominious appellation of "Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores." I recollect to have seen their pedigree upon a piece of mouldering parchment, which was produced at a trial in Waterford connected with the royalties of Dromona, and had been brought by a messenger from the Tower in London. It was a very remarkable document. The words, "attainted," or "beheaded," were annexed to the names of more than half the members of this illustrious house.

The love of Ireland appears to have been a family disease, and to have descended to the unfortunate Lord Edward as a malady of the heart, although the sanguinary record of the virtues of his house did not include his name; but it was impossible to look upon that memorial of the scaffold, without recalling the memory of the celebrated person whose failure constituted so large a portion of his crime. It may be readily imagined, that when the Duke of Leinster returned to Ireland, after having attained his full age, in order to take possession of his estates, he was an object of great national interest. The associations connected with his name, had already secured him the partialities of the country. His frank and open air, the unaffected urbanity of his manners, the kindness and cordiality which distinguished his address, and an expression of dignified good nature in his physiognomy, brought back the recollection of Lord Edward, and gave to his young kinsman a share in the affectionate respect with which the guilty patriotism of that chivalrous nobleman is regarded in Ireland. Few were sufficiently rash to desire that the Duke of Leinster should engage in an enterprise so little likely to be successful, as that which cost Lord Edward his life. Almost all men had become sensible of the hopelessness of such an undertaking: but it was expected that, while the chief of the house of Fitzgerald would abstain from any, criminally adven

turous speculation, he would, notwithstanding, place himself at the head of the popular party, that he would rally round him the friends of the country, that he would extend to good principles the authority of his rank, and rescue the spirit of Irish whiggism from the scoff with which it had been the fashion in the higher circles to deride it. A scope of political usefulness was unquestionably given to the Duke. It would have been easy for him to raise up a legitimate and salutary opposition to the abuses of the local government, which were at that time excessive, and to have awed the viceregal despotism of the Duke of Richmond into moderation. There was enough of public virtue left among the aristocracy, to turn it to good practical account, if there had been any man capable of giving it a direction; and of all others, the young Duke of Leinster, from his paramount rank and hereditary station, seemed to be calculated to take the honourable lead. What might not a Duke of Leinster, with even ordinary abilities, and with an active, steadfast, and energetic mind, accomplish in this country? He might place himself at once in the front of a vast and ardent population, and become not only the protector of the Catholics, but the director of the whole body of liberal Protestants in Ireland. The distinctions of sect would, under his influence, be merged in the community of country, and all religious animosities give way to a comprehensive and philosophical sentiment of nationality. He would be the point of contact, at which the contending factions might meet, and cohere together. His rank and property would attract the men who profess illiberal opinions as much out of fashion as out of prejudice; while the democratic parts would find in his name and blood a sufficient guarantee for his fidelity to Ireland. Having been once associated in a stricter intimacy, it is likely that the enthusiasts on both sides would lay down a large portion of their antipathies, and acquire a feeling of forbearance towards each other. Partisanship would in a little time subside, and Catholics and Orangemen would enter into a pacific confederacy for the public good. Such a junction, formed under the auspices of a Duke of Leinster, would secure to him the respect of a wise and the fears of a corrupt administration. His opinions among the hereditary counsellors of the crown would carry a paramount authority. His voice in the senate would be that of seven millions of his fellow countrymen; Ireland would speak through him. The consciousness of the minister, that in times of difficulty and of danger the Irish people could readily find a man who would insist upon justice-who sustained by a united population, could ensure whatever he required, would instruct the most arbitrary statesman in the anticipating wisdom of concession. It is difficult to conceive a more lofty or a more useful part, than that which it would be easy for a Duke of Leinster to perform; and the facility with which this ideal picture would be realized, induces the more regret, that a person surrounded with such numerous opportunities of doing good, should have omitted the splendid occasions thrown by birth and fortune in his way. He has voluntarily consigned himself to oblivion.

It required, indeed, that he should make a sort of effort to be forgotten. He has at last succeeded in sinking out of the recollection of the public. He has, if I may so say, dived into Lethe, from which he hardly ever lifts his head. The first injudicious step which he adopted,

was the sale of his magnificent mansion in Merion Square. It surpasses any private residence in London, and rather resembles the palace of a Venetian senator, than the house of a British subject. That vast structure, upon which enormous sums had been expended by his father, was a perpetual intimation of the importance of the Duke, as long as it was called Leinster House: but after he had sold it to the Dublin Society, and its original designation was laid aside, a memorial of the family was wanting, which the Duke's political conduct was not calculated to supply. He was not contented with this disposal of his family mansion, but took a small house in Dominick-street, which he dignified with the appellation of the Duke of Leinster's Office. Many ascribed the sale of his palace (for such it might be called) to a penurious tendency; but, although the Duke is a prudent man, he is not, I believe, addicted to that most ignoble of all vices, and avarice forms no part of his character. The truth is, that the Duke of Leinster is wholly insensible to fame; and such is his aversion to publicity, that I could never bring myself to give any credit to the statement in Harriet Wilson's Memoirs, that his Grace was in the habit of standing behind her carriage. He has such a horror of the general eye, that I hold it to be impossible that he could ever have achieved a piece of such open and undisguised gallantry as the modern Aspasia has been pleased to ascribe to him. After having sold his house, the Duke retired to the woods and solitudes of Carton. There he buried himself from the inspection, and gradually dropped out of the notice of the country. Having a turn for mechanics, he provided himself with a large assortment of carpenter's tools, and beguiled the tedium of existence with occupations by which his arms were put into requisition. There is not a better sawyer in the county of Kildare. As you wander through the forests on his demesne, you occasionally meet a vigorous young woodman, with his shirt tucked up to his shoulders, while he lays the axe to the trunk of some lofty tree, that totters beneath his stroke. On approaching, you perceive a handsome face, flushed with exercise and health, and covered with perspiration. Should you enter into conversation with him, he will throw off a few jovial words betwixt every descent of the axe; and, if he should pause in his task for breath, will hail you in the tone of good-humoured fellowship. He sets to his work again; while you pursue your path through the woodlands, and hear from the ranger of the forest that you have just seen no less a person than his Grace himself. In the midst of these innocent employments, the Duke of Leinster passes away a life which ought to be devoted to higher purposes. It is with the utmost difficulty that he is occasionally dragged out of his retreat, and consents, some once a year, to fill the chair at a public meeting. But he takes no part in the deliberations or the measures of popular assemblies, for which he entertains an unaffected distaste, and hurries back to his domestic occupations again. The result has been, that he not only holds no place in the public estimation beyond that which his private virtues confer upon him, but he is without any influence at the Castle. Shortly after Lord Wellesley came to Ireland, the Duke called to pay his respects to his Excellency, who sent him an intimation, that he was at the moment too busily engaged to see him, but that, in case he called again, he should be happy to receive his Grace.