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covered, for an instant, all his wonted elastic- | courtesan, with the fantastic and half-crazed ity, dashing gallantly and almost naked into "Hernani," joint productions of Hugo's drathe deadly strife, and turning the tide of matic muse, the latter written in eight, the battle by such deeds as alone can speak home former in twenty-seven days' time. These, to the breasts of the fatalist Mussulmen. with Alfred de Vigny's almost literal transA picture commemorative of the scene was lation of "Othello," were the startling foreto be painted by Gorodet, wherein the gene- runners of the portentous change contemral was to figure as the leading character, plated in the hitherto tame and classic drama and with all the pictorial deference due to of France, by these bold disciples of the his complexion and athletic form. The pic- English Shakspeare, the man who, in Dumas's ture was painted; the terrific game of revolt, reckless language," has next to God created with its rush, and shock, and bloodshed, was most largely." The temperament of Dumas, admirably simulated, but with a shameless savoring so remarkably of those well-fed violation of historic truth, General Dumas conditions advocated by Cassius in his first was omitted—at whose intimation or request memorable dialogue with Brutus, enabled it is by no means difficult to divine. The him to take as well as keep the lead in the republican general (thus is Dumas, senior, dramatic race; while certain ungallant ferocever designated by his dutiful son) hence- ities evinced in his flirtings with the historical forth stood aloof, sharing in none of the muse, and summed up in the following coarse glories of the imperial campaigns. The truth and brutal apology: Qu'il est toujours peris, he remained unemployed and unpensioned, mis de violer l'histoire pourvu qu'on lui fasse maugre his early services to the state; thus un enfant, at once supply us with a key to maintaining, perforce, no doubt, those pre- his peculiar process, as well as mode of suctensions to unflinching republicanism on cess. His sentiments on poetical training, as which his son dwells with such ostentation, drawn out in connection with the humorous and to which, ever and anon, even he lays portrait of one of his fellow-laborers in the such ludicrous claims. Thus descended and romantic vineyard, are too preciously sugorganized, blessed, that is, with a constitu- gestive to be omitted in so personal a sketch tion and animal spirits which have fallen to as this. "De Vigny," says Dumas, in the the lot of few writers, Dumas's first and ear- 14th volume of his " Memoirs," date of remliest feat was the high dramatic position he iniscence, 1829, "had not much imaginawon by his historical drama of "Henri III.," tion, but great correctness of style. He was performed on the 13th February, 1829, on known by the romance of Cinq Mars,' the highest stage in Paris, and in presence which would have met with slender success, of his patron, the Duke of Orleans, with if it appeared now, but which, at that time a whole knot of diplomatists and titled of literary dearth, had great vogue. Bepersonages. Up to this date, and for a year sides Cinq Mars,' De Vigny had written or two longer, Dumas held the very subor- delightful little poems, five or six, among dinate situation of copying clerk in the office which Eloa' and 'Dolorida.' In short he of the Palais Royal, a situation to which he had just published a very moving elegy on had been preferred by reason of an excellent two hapless youths who had committed suihandwriting, which, in the language of Ham- cide at Montmorency, within earshot of the let, did him most yeomanly service, the ball music. De Vigny was a singular man, more so, as he then had no other staff or polite, affable, affecting the most complete reed to lean upon for support, being burden- immateriality, which was in perfect harmony ed with a mother, but poorly bred, and most with his charming, small-featured, and intelimperfectly educated. His triumph on the lectual face, and head of curling fair hair. first stage, the Theatre Français, was shortly De Vigny never touched the ground but after repeated on the second, the Theatre de when absolutely necessary; when his wings l'Odéon; while the sale of the manuscript were folded, and he happened to take his of "Henri III." for six thousand francs, and stand on the craggy peak of some mountain, that of "Christine" for twelve thousand, nat- it was a piece of condescension on his part urally struck our adventurous dramatist as towards humanity. What particularly surtwo very remarkable achievements. The prised Hugo and myself was, that Vigny banner of the romantic host now flutters in seemed not in the slightest degree subthe breeze, and bore, within a few months ject to those coarse necessities of our naafter, the additional emblazonments of "Mar- ture which certain amongst us (Hugo and ion Delorme," the first of the lamentable myself were among these) satisfied not series of dithyrambic plays in honor of the merely without shame, but even with a

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certain sensuality.

ed it to the poet, with a bon pour l'exécution.
The plan transformed into a play was read,
always in presence of the same assembly;
and one with a pencil, another with scissors,
a third with a compass, a fourth with a ruler,
set about the work of emasculation, so that
the comedy, drama, or tragedy, was pruned,
clipped, and cut on the spot, not according
to the author's notions, but in accordance
with those of Messrs. So-and-so, very con-
scientious folks, no doubt, all men of note
and wit among themselves, good professors,
honest men of science, respectable philolo-
gists, but sorry poets; who, instead of allow-
ing their friend to soar aloft under the influ-
ence of a powerful afflatus, clung desperately
to his legs, lest he should take his flight into
regions beyond the ken of their purblind
vision." Were our author's statements at all
times trustworthy, it would be no uninterest-
ing study to mark the dawn of his own
expanding intellect, to witness, above all, by
what obstinate and persevering labor he con-
trived to break through all but the Cimme-
rian ignorance under which, even by his own
avowal, he suffered at the outset. Here,
however, we are compelled to think, from
what we know of his mental tendencies, and
despite his ever-recurring assertion on the
question of deep and sustained application,
that his studies were pursued for the nonce,
and that his acquirements, be they of what
seeming order or magnitude they might,
sometimes fell short of, though they also
occasionally outstripped, the exigencies of the
moment. Of this latter assertion we possess
a rather burlesque confirmation, furnished by
a late courteous passage-at-arms between our
dramatist and the respectable editor of that
widely-known periodical, La Revue des du
Mondes. At a period when Dumas was still
thought a literary chieftain, and while his
name yet enjoyed that share of literary influ-
ence it has since so justly forfeited, M. Buloz,
(the name of the above-mentioned editor,)
aware of that gentleman's ready and un-
questioned powers of handling, supplied him
with certain learned notes on Palestine, re-
questing he would therefrom gather and get
up for his review a series of attractive and
interesting articles, by the title of "Impress-
ions de Voyage au Sinai." This our author
set about digesting with his usual celerity,
sending in, among other imprimatur proof-
sheets, one containing rather a novel piece of
information, couched in the following terms:

None of us had ever detected De Vigny at table. Dorval, who for seven years of his life had spent several hours a-day in his company, confessed to us, with an astonishment almost bordering on terror, that he had never seen him eat any thing but a radish!" Dumas's visible preference of the showy or slapdash process, so perfectly in unison with his instincts, is so cleverly worded in the onslaught he makes on Casimir Delavigne as a successful poet and dramatist, that we can not forbear giving the passage almost in extenso. It is has a subsidiary value besides, being, like the preceding quotation, indirectly illustrative of our author's constitutional creed in all questions of literary power or produce. "I knew C. Delavigne well as a man, and have studied him a good deal as a poet. I never felt much admiration for the poet, though I entertained the highest esteem for the man. As an individual, and barring indisputable and undisputed literary honesty, C. Delavigny was a man of mild, nay, polite address. His head, much too large for his small person, struck one as disagreeable at first sight; though his large forehead, intelligent eyes, and the benevolent expression about his mouth, soon obliterated first impressions. Though a man of much wit, he was of those whose wit flows only pen in hand. His conversation, gentle and affectionate, was tepid and colorless; as he had nothing grand about his gestures, nothing powerful in the tones of his voice, so he was deficient in power and grandeur of language. Standing in a drawing room, he attracted no attention; to have noticed him at all, one would have required to know he was C. Delavigne. One of his special characteristics, and in our opinion a most unfortunate one, was his submission to the ideas of others, which could only proceed from want of confidence in his own. He had (rather a strange fact) created round him a sort of Admonition Office, or Checking Committee, whose business it was to see that his imagination should not go astray! a somewhat superfluous precaution, as Delavigne's fancy stood more in need of the spur than the bridle. The consequence of such dereliction of his own will was, that Delavigne, when his talent was in all its strength, and his fame at its highest, could venture on nothing either of or by himself. The idea hatched in his brain was submitted to the committee before assuming either shape or plan. The plan again, when terminated, was "La pile de Volta, ce minerai qu'on a second time laid before the committee, which trouve dans les entrailles de la terre !" This commented, discussed, corrected, and return-blundering excess of information, Buloz

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states, he had the singular good fortune to dear a gem, too costly a pearl, to be won or
remark in time, and kindly erase, in expecta- worn by one in a hurry to live, and live in
tion of the writer's everlasting gratitude. To splendor. Not Falstaff's obesity and passion
the editor's unmitigated surprise, M. Dumas, for sack were more insuperable bars to his
instead of testifying thankfulness for such climbing the heights of honor, than is Du-
timely interference, warmly protested against mas's love of opulence and vulgar display to
the irreparable injury done to his mineralog- his breasting the steeps of originality. Ac-
ical discovery-so amazingly and so amus cordingly we see him stoop at a cheaper and
ingly did he, Dumas, ignore even the exist- surer quarry-the place of improvisatore and
ence of the naturalist Volta; so ingeniously caterer for the pleasures of the multitude.
did he expound, or rather impound, that The situation was vacant; he assumed its
philosopher's pile or galvanic battery! When functions at once, and entered on the mani-
reminded by Buloz, in a late angry discussion, fold duties of the office with a readiness, fa-
of this most unlucky trespass on the domains cility, and fertility of resource perfectly un-
of science, Dumas indignantly repelled the paralleled. It is true there were detractors,
charge, as far as the obnoxious fact was con- nay, even contemners of the office; what
cerned, though he had no hesitation in admit- then? The official snapped his fingers in the
ting the general reproach of uncommon igno- face of the hypercritical, or calling up a
rance. The admission had its advantages; braggart air, challenged them to a trial of
what it took from the extent of his informa- conclusions. He could build a novel or run
tion, it added to that of his intellect; thereby up a five act play in less than a week, and
superinducing among groundlings the flatter- while thus employed, eat, drink, digest, and
ing belief, that if Dumas stood so high in the sleep, besides supplying some half-dozen
rolls of fame, the secret must lie, not in the papers with feuilletons, harrowing, or divert-
nature of things, but in the independent qual-ing, to order. Which of all, or any, of his
ities of his indomitable personality. The
seven or eight hundred volumes which bear
his name attest the wonderful fact, that, as
some men eat and drink, so does Alexandre
Dumas write; nay, they may be adduced as
an argument in favor of velocity being as
much a criterion of power in the sphere of
mind, as steam in that of mechanics. This
celerity, however, this most agile skimming
of the streams of fiction, says but little in
favor of depth. It may tell magnificently of
continuous speed, but it is the speed of the
swallow-sixteen hours on the wing-a pro-
digious exertion of the muscular power,
unquestionably, but then unfortunately dis-
played in the pursuit and capture of flies!
Dumas must have long since awakened from
the glorious dreams of excellence which at
one time allured his aim and animated his
pen. He must be painfully conscious of the
grovelling level to which he has brought his
once aspiring faculties. Yet who will assure
us of this? Who will assert that the man
has any such consciousness, or that the indis-
tinct and occasional glimmerings he has of
his debasement are aught else but so many
dim yet useful lights enabling him to discern
more surely the primary and earthly point-
ings of his nature; the better to collect, mass,
and centre the remains of a once divine affla
tus in the pursuit of notoriety, in the gratifi-
cation of necessities whose princely propor-
tions are but a miserable offset to their more
than plebeian meanness? Originality is too

disparagers could perform the like? The
office had its disagreeables, no doubt, disa-
greeables involving the twin exhibition of the
kindred and cognate faculties of quack and
buffoon. What then? Was he not devoted
heart and soul to the people, and the peo-
ple's cause? And wherein consists devoted-.
ness, if not in self debasement in presence of
the idol? But let this self-denying servant
of the multitude speak for himself; let him
mount the stage, and expound his mission,
part at least of the paramount duties of his
office. " Lamartine," says he, " is a dreamer,
Hugo, a thinker, 1 a vulgariser. What is too
subtle in the dream of the one, a subtlety
which sometimes prevents its being approved;
what is too deep in the thought of the other,
a depth which prevents its being understood,
I take possession of, I the vulgariser. I
give body to the dream of the one; [
give perspicuity to the thought of the
other; I serve the public up the twofold
dish, a dish which from the hand of the first
would not, from its excessive lightness, have
been sufficiently nutritious; from the hand of
the second, owing to its excessive heaviness,
would have given the public a surfeit; but
which, seasoned and presented by mine,
agrees with the generality of stomachs, the
weakest as well as the strongest." If he is
thus skilful in cooking and serving up his
friends for the public digestion, he is not less
eminently so in serving up himself; nor does
the extent to which he carries the feast at all

1855.]

ALEXANDER DUMAS.

seem to cloy the appetite of his admirable guests. Page upon page, volume upon volume of his memoirs appear, and are swallowed like savory morsels. It is true, the culinary artist spares neither sauce nor condiment; and when the pieces de resistance, namely, his own joints, hot or cold, threaten to become either too tough for public mastication, or too stale for the public nostrils, he throws in a variety of sweet-smelling hors d'œuvre, in the shape of made dishes from Byron, or Scott, or Goethe, with a world of garnish in the way of flourishing table-talk, concerning battles, campaigns, revolutions, adventures, and hairbreadth escapes by flood or field, all tending to his own honor and personal glorification; for, be it remarked, Dumas, deeming himself a model of a man, thinks, with Terence, that nothing human he may choose to introduce into his memoirs, however remotely connected with himself, can be styled irrelevant. Nevertheless, in the midst of much that is utterly vapid in these memoirs, there is much also of life, and The portraits of his bustle, and movement. early literary contemporaries, those at least dashed off at a sitting-we except the frothy attempts at apotheosis in the case of romantic associates are sometimes graceful, often humorous, always captivating. His indiscretions are not at all times of a very enor mous nature, unless, indeed, he shows up His own idiosyncrasy peculiarities of others. is best gathered from the general tone of the narrative, and from his braggadocio habits of thought and expression, rather than from any real wish to initiate bis reader into the more offensive arcana of his physical or moral experiences when these are decidedly nauseous, the author drops a speaking hint, etches a tell-tale line, and the intelligent reader, whether suffused with shame or pale with disgust, can still fancy he detects, despite the affectedly abrupt retreat, the consequential delinquent's thick-lipped smile of complacency. Dumas is eminently an improvisatore. From the most chance medley of dates, from the most insignificant face, the most unmeaning character, he can extemporise reminiscenses, extract colors for his pållet, matter for his page, and amusement for Death itself can neither shroud nor shield its victim. He invades the silence of the tomb, evokes the sullen or consenting shade, extorts or exorcises his secret, and again remands him to his frightful durance. The painter or the engraver Johannot, we know not which (both brothers are now deceased), was the first of our contemporary VOL. XXXIV.—NO. III.

his reader.

the

353

dead to instance this resurrectional faculty.
Dumas accidentally mentions the name, and
straightway feels it incumbent upon him to
fore summons him from the regions of shade,
tell the story of the artist's life. He there-
and, when the first mist naturally attendant
upon all unearthly visitants has partially
cleared away, and given the pale face of the
while he, in wizard guise, re-weaves the
spectre to view, Dumas adjures him to listen
chequered web of his destiny. The spectre
stands calm and voiceless; Dumas pompously
recapitulates the items of the sorrowful past,
throws them into shape; and when the fancy
portrait is finished, gravely calls upon the
spirit to signify assent, which it is said to do
by gathering its cold and tiny breath into a
long, dismal, and whistling oui; whereupon
the poor ghost is unceremoniously dismissed
to the realms of the dead, and the picture
confidently held up to the admiring gaze of
the idiot multitude-the conjurer so seem-
ingly unconscious all the while, with what
indescribable ease he can merge into the
thaumaturge, the worker of miracles; how
admirably nature has gifted him for the part
not unwillingly assume, did not the temper
of a literary Cagliostro-a character he might
warn him of the impossibility of clearing ex-
of the times and the public mind sufficiently
penses.

It is an observation of Franklin's,
that, in reading the life of any great man, you
are sure to meet with a greater than he; one
endowed, that is, with every element of
or mercilessly struck down by fate. The re-
grandeur, but unfortunately either stranded
mark will hardly apply to the memoirs of
Dumas, whose great or greater men do but
swell his train, or, in more intelligible lan-
guage, usefully increase the bulk and num-
ber of his volumes. Hugo is, it must be al-
lowed, the object of much fulsome adulation.
The details even of his nonage are dwelt and
But this proceeds from another
expatiated upon with most lackadaisical ten-
derness.
motive than that of getting up a foil to the
ness; a motive which brings out one of the
advantage or disadvantages of his own great-
With all his boasted love of opposi-
least heroic features of this roystering come-
dian.
tion, and despite the lion's skin, from the
folds of which he has occasionally affected
to peep with a certain fierceness on public
men and measures, Dumas has never been
able to attract from any body of individuals,
of attention necessary to constitute the re-
his creditors perhaps excepted, that degree
ally serious opponent. To mask this grievous
deficiency, he at times becomes actually bois-

23

terous in honor of those who have won the palm of political martyrdom. Not that he ever attempts publicly to advocate their opinions. This, he well knows, would be overshooting the mark, as it would be immediately followed by an official call for silence, from a quarter his promptly quiescent submission to which would be but a lamentable index of the nature of his status, and the value of his personal utterings. He has, therefore, recourse to rhetorical fence; and, as he is not unskilled in the art of playing off politics for sentiment, so he very naturally, when necessary, reverses the process, playing off sentiment for politics. Thus, by indulging in the loudest of pæans possible, whenever

the name of the exiled poet Hugo crosses his pen, he maintains with the most perfect impunity as regards the powers in being his swashbuckler look, while in the case of his banished friend he evinces the greatest generosity, showing how firm and unshaken he can be in all his attachments. This, in the eyes of the undiscerning, ever in the majority, enables him to assume a rather becoming attitude, on the graces of which he can afford to speculate, for the time being, with tolerable decency. Should the tide of democracy once more rise, such devotedness empowers him to take it at its very first swell, and ride majestically into port with the air of one whose political party is again in the ascendant.

From Tait's Magazine.

THE JEWISH SUBJECTS OF THE CZAR.

MUCH interest was awakened, a short time ago, by an account in the daily papers of a visit paid by Sir Moses Montefiore to what were called his Russian co-religionists among the prisoners of war brought home by our ships. The interest felt would no doubt have been greater still, had the history of the Jewish communities to which these individuals belong been better known. This history, in a consecutive form and in a philosophical spirit, remains to be written; but in the meanwhile a few jottings relative to the past and present condition of the Jews among whom Russia recruits her fleets and her armies, may prove acceptable.

lowed to sojourn for any length of time in Russia proper; and it was not until Poland was brought under subjection to the Russian Tzars, that the latter ever counted any Jewish communities among their subjects. Poland, on the contrary, may be considered the home of the Jews in Europe; for in that country their numbers amount to that of a nation, and they hold a position which, however degraded it be, gives them a certain weight in the State, and could under present circumstances be filled by no other class. In every town throughout the countries which once constituted the independent kingdom of Poland, all handicrafts, with the exception of The indiscriminate application of the name that of the smith and the carpenter, all of Russian to the various peoples under the branches of trade, be it en gros or en détail, dominion of the Tzar, is one among the many are in the hands of the Jews; and no busiindications of how imperfect a knowledge we ness, be it of the most important or the most have hitherto had of the true constitution of insignificant nature, can be transacted without the colossal empire with which we are at their aid. Through the mediation of a Jew present engaged in so close a struggle. In the nobleman sells the corn grown on his no case is the denomination more inapplicable estate to the skipper who exports it; and than in that of the Israelites who live under through the mediation of a Jew the serf the sceptre of the Tzars, but who have never sells his pigs and his fowls to the consumer been tolerated on Russian soil. From the in the town. Through the mediation of a early times this people was denied the right Jew the upper classes engage their servants, of establishing themselves in the Russian and sometimes even the tutors and governdominions, and to this day they are not al- esses for their children; and through the

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