d confidently follow? Has he the genius and the will to solve the
problem before him, to reconcile liberty with authority? Posterity alone
will be able to pronounce with unanimity. For ourselves, we must answer
in the negative. We do not denounce him, we believe it absurd to
denounce him, as a conspirator or a usurper. If he was a conspirator,
France was his accomplice. There cannot be a doubt that the nation not
only was ready to accept him, but sought him; not indeed for his
personal qualities, not as recognizing its appointed guide, but from the
recollections and the hopes of which his name was the symbol. We
acknowledge, too, his obvious abilities; we acknowledge the material and
economical improvements which his government has inaugurated. But we
fail to see the "moral Louvres" which he has opened; we fail to see in
his character any evidences of the moral power which can alone inspire
such improvements; we fail to see in his reign any principle of
"initiation," save that which the Ruler of the universe has implanted in
every system and in every government. Yet we concede the right of others
to think differently on these points, without being suspected of moral
obtuseness or obliquity. Especially can we comprehend how a patriotic
Frenchman should choose to accept all the conditions of his epoch, and
embrace every opportunity of aiding in the task of correction and
amelioration.

* * * * *

We are unwilling to emerge from our subject at its least agreeable
angle. Our strain, however feeble, shall not close with a discord. And
indeed, in looking back, we are pained to perceive how slight is the
justice we have been able to render to the rare combination of powers
exhibited in the works we have enumerated. We have left unnoticed the
wonderful extent and accuracy of the learning, the compass and
profundity of the thought, the inexhaustible spirit, ever preserving the
happy mean between mental languor and nervous excitement. In these
twenty-seven volumes of criticism, scarcely an error has been detected,
scarcely a single repetition is met with; there is scarcely a page which
a reader, unpressed for time, would be inclined to skip. Where you least
agree with the author, there you will perhaps have the most reason to
thank him for his hints and elucidations. Is it not then with reason
that M. Sainte-Beuve has been styled "the prince of contemporaneous
criticism"? His decisions have been ac