mogeniture and the Jesuits, the latter of which was reprinted in
1880 at the last _Jesuitenhetze_ in France. His _Lettres sur Paris_ in
1830-31, and his _La France et l'Etranger_ in 1836, are two considerable
series of letters from "Our Own Correspondent," handling the affairs of
the world with boldness and industry if not invariably with wisdom. They
rather suggest (as does the later _Revue Parisienne_ still more) the
political writing of the age of Anne in England, and perhaps a little
later, when "the wits" handled politics and society, literature and
things in general with unquestioned competence and an easy universality.

The rest of his work which will not appear in this edition may be
conveniently despatched here. The _Physiologie du Mariage_ and the
_Scenes de la Vie Conjugale_ suffer not merely from the most obvious
of their faults but from defect of knowledge. It may or may not be that
marriage, in the hackneyed phrase, is a net or other receptacle where
all the outsiders would be in, and all the insiders out. But it is quite
clear that Coelebs cannot talk of it with much authority. His state
may or may not be the more gracious: his judgment cannot but lack
experience. The "Theatre," which brought the author little if any
profit, great annoyance, and a vast amount of trouble, has been
generally condemned by criticism. But the _Contes Drolatiques_ are not
so to be given up. The famous and splendid _Succube_ is only the best of
them, and though all are more or less tarred with the brush which tars
so much of French literature, though the attempt to write in an archaic
style is at best a very successful _tour de force_, and represents an
expenditure of brain power by no means justifiable on the part of a
man who could have made so much better use of it, they are never to be
spoken of disrespectfully. Those who sneer at their "Wardour Street" Old
French are not usually the best qualified to do so; and it is not to be
forgotten that Balzac was a real countryman of Rabelais and a legitimate
inheritor of _Gauloiserie_. Unluckily no man can "throw back" in this
way, except now and then as a mere pastime. And it is fair to recollect
that as a matter of fact Balzac, after a year or two, did not waste much
more time on these things, and that the intended ten _dizains_ never, as
a matter of fact, went beyond three.

Besides this work in books, pamphlets, etc., Balzac, as has been said,
did a certain amount of journalism,