as edited, translated, and explained by the eminent Keeper of
the Imperial Library at Paris, M. Natalis de Wailly.

1866.

VIII. THE JOURNAL DES SAVANTS AND THE JOURNAL DE TREVOUX.(32)

For a hundred persons who, in this country, read the "Revue des Deux
Mondes," how many are there who read the "Journal des Savants?" In France
the authority of that journal is indeed supreme; but its very title
frightens the general public, and its blue cover is but seldom seen on the
tables of the _salles de lecture_. And yet there is no French periodical
so well suited to the tastes of the better class of readers in England.
Its contributors are all members of the Institut de France; and, if we may
measure the value of a periodical by the honor which it reflects on those
who form its staff, no journal in France can vie with the "Journal des
Savants." At the present moment we find on its roll such names as Cousin,
Flourens, Villemain, Mignet, Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, Naudet, Prosper
Merime, Littre, Vitet--names which, if now and then seen on the covers of
the "Revue des Deux Mondes," the "Revue Contemporaine," or the "Revue
Moderne," confer an exceptional lustre on these fortnightly or monthly
issues. The articles which are admitted into this select periodical may be
deficient now and then in those outward charms of diction by which French
readers like to be dazzled; but what in France is called _trop savant,
trop lourd_, is frequently far more palatable than the highly spiced
articles which are no doubt delightful to read, but which, like an
excellent French dinner, make you almost doubt whether you have dined or
not. If English journalists are bent on taking for their models the
fortnightly or monthly contemporaries of France, the "Journal des Savants"
might offer a much better chance of success than the more popular
_revues_. We should be sorry indeed to see any periodical published under
the superintendence of the "Ministre de l'Instruction Publique," or of any
other member of the Cabinet; but, apart from that, a literary tribunal
like that formed by the members of the "Bureau du Journal des Savants"
would certainly be a great benefit to literary criticism. The general tone
that runs through their articles is impartial and dignified. Each writer
seems to feel the responsibility which attaches to the bench from which he
addresses the public, and we can of late years recall hardly any case
where the dictum of "noblesse obl