go against him by default. The fact is, that nothing can
be more meagre and uninteresting than his account of the great public
transactions in which he was engaged. He gives us hardly a word of
new information respecting the proceedings of the Committee of Public
Safety; and, by way of compensation, tells us long stories about things
which happened before he emerged from obscurity, and after he had again
sunk into it. Nor is this the worst. As soon as he ceases to write
trifles, he begins to write lies; and such lies! A man who has never
been within the tropics does not know what a thunderstorm means; a man
who has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract; and
he who has not read Barere's Memoirs may be said not to know what it
is to lie. Among the numerous classes which make up the great genus
Mendacium, the Mendacium Vasconicum, or Gascon lie, has, during some
centuries, been highly esteemed as peculiarly circumstantial and
peculiarly impudent; and, among the Mendacia Vasconica, the Mendacium
Barerianum is, without doubt, the finest species. It is indeed a superb
variety, and quite throws into the shade some Mendacia which we were
used to regard with admiration. The Mendacium Wraxallianum, for example,
though by no means to be despised, will not sustain the comparison for a
moment. Seriously, we think that M. Hippolyte Carnot is much to blame in
this matter. We can hardly suppose him to be worse read than ourselves
in the history of the Convention, a history which must interest him
deeply, not only as a Frenchman, but also as a son. He must, therefore,
be perfectly aware that many of the most important statements which
these volumes contain are falsehoods, such as Corneille's Dorante, or
Moliere's Scapin, or Colin d'Harleville's Monsieur de Crac would have
been ashamed to utter. We are far, indeed, from holding M. Hippolyte
Carnot answerable for Barere's want of veracity; but M. Hippolyte
Carnot has arranged these Memoirs, has introduced them to the world by
a laudatory preface, has described them as documents of great historical
value, and has illustrated them by notes. We cannot but think that, by
acting thus, he contracted some obligations of which he does not seem
to have been at all aware; and that he ought not to have suffered any
monstrous fiction to go forth under the sanction of his name, without
adding a line at the foot of the page for the purpose of cautioning the
reader.

We will conten