her with the tender passion, that she
was sure she never could experience it herself.

I have been reading _la Chronique du Temps de Charles IX_, by Prosper
Merimee, and a most interesting and admirably written book it is. Full
of stirring scenes and incidents, it contains the most graphic pictures
of the manners of the time in which the story is placed, and the
interest progresses, never flagging from the commencement to the end.
This book will be greatly admired in England, where the romances of our
great Northern Wizard have taught us to appreciate the peculiar merit
in which this abounds. Sir Walter Scott will be one of the first to
admire and render justice to this excellent book, and to welcome into
the field of literature this highly gifted brother of the craft.

The French writers deserve justice from the English, for they
invariably treat the works of the latter with indulgence. Scott is not
more read or esteemed in his own country than here; and even the
productions of our young writers are more kindly treated than those of
their own youthful aspirants for fame.

French critics have much merit for this amenity, because the greater
number of them possess a peculiar talent, for the exercise of their
critical acumen, which renders the indulgence of it, like that of the
power of ridicule, very tempting. Among the most remarkable critics of
the day Jules Janin, who though yet little more than a youth, evinces
such talent as a reviewer as to be the terror of mediocrity. His style
is pungent and vigorous, his satire searching and biting, and his tact
in pointing ridicule unfailing. He bids fair to take a most
distinguished place in his profession.

Spent last evening in the Rue d'Anjou, where I met the usual circle and
----. He bepraised every one that was named during the evening, and so
injudiciously, that it was palpable he knew little of those upon whom
he expended his eulogiums; nay, he lauded some whom he acknowledged he
had never seen, on the same principle that actuated the Romans of old
who, having deified every body they knew, erected at last an altar to
the unknown Gods, lest any should by chance be omitted.

This habit of indiscriminate praise is almost as faulty as that of
general censure, and is, in my opinion, more injurious to the praised
than the censure is to the abused, because people are prone to indulge
a greater degree of sympathy towards those attacked than towards those
who are commended.