usations of being too severe, and too indulgent, towards them; from
which he concludes, that he cannot have widely departed from the tone
which truth and impartiality would prescribe. This is a conclusion which
authors are very apt to draw; they very conveniently dispatch their
several critics by opposing them to each other. But this conclusion may
be drawn too hastily. Two contradictory accusations do not always
destroy each other, even when they are made by judges equally
competent. The inconsistency may be in the author himself, who may, in
different portions of his work, have given foundation for very opposite
censures. In the present case, although we have already intimated that
M. Reybaud writes with a spirit of fairness and candour, we cannot admit
him to the full benefit of the conclusion he draws in his own favour,
from the opponent criticisms he has met with. There are individual
passages in his work which it would be difficult to reconcile with each
other, and which invite very different criticisms. On some occasions he
appears to attribute a certain value to these tentatives at social
reform, and intimates that they may probably be the precursors, or may
contain the germ, of some substantial improvement; whilst at other
times, he scourges them without pity or compunction, as a species of
moral pestilence. He seems not to have been able, at all moments, to
defend himself from the _vertige_ which possesses the personages of whom
he is writing; like a certain historian of witchcraft, whom we have
somewhere read of, who had so industriously studied his subject that a
faith in the black art imperceptibly gained upon him. The narrative goes
on to say, that the unfortunate historian of witchcraft attempted to
practise the knowledge he had obtained, and was burned for a wizard. But
there the analogy will certainly fail. M. Reybaud soon recovers from the
visionary mood, and wakes himself thoroughly by inflicting the lash with
renewed vigour upon all the other dreamers around him.

This shadow of inconsistency is still more perceptible when speaking of
the lives and _characters_ of his socialists. Sometimes the reader
receives the impression that an egregious vanity, an eccentric ambition,
and perhaps a little touch of monomania, would complete the picture, and
sufficiently explain that conduct, of a hero of socialism. At another
time his enthusiasts assume a more imposing aspect. St Simon sacrificing
his fortune, abju