in which I recognised _one of the elegant chased gold toothpicks_ which men carried in those days. I saw at once that poor _Coeur-de-Lion_ was done up." In spite of the toothpick, _Coeur-de-Lion_ refuses a leap, whereupon his master hurls away the singular spur, leaps from his saddle, draws his hunting-knife, and plunges it to the hilt in the horse's breast!--with which taste of his quality, we bid a long farewell to the Marquis de Foudras. It were strange indeed if the name of Dumas did not more than once appear on the numerous title-pages before us. We find it in half-a-dozen different places. The amusing Charlatan, who, in the first fervour and novelty of the republican regime, seemed disposed to abandon romance for politics, has found time to unite both. Whilst writing a monthly journal, in which he professes to give the detailed history of Europe day by day--forming, as his puffs assure us, the most complete existing narrative of political events since February 1848--he has also produced, in the course of the last twelve months, some twenty-five or thirty volumes of frivolities. Thus, whilst with one hand he instructs, with the other he entertains the public. For our part, we have enjoyed too many hearty laughs, both with and at M. Dumas, not to have all inclination to praise him when possible. In the present instance, and with respect to his last year's tribute to French literature, we regret to say it is quite impossible. He has been trifling with his reputation, and with the public patience. Since last we mentioned him, he has added a dozen volumes to the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_, which nevertheless still drags itself along, without prospect of a termination. A tissue of greater improbabilities and absurdities we have rarely encountered. Certainly no one but Alexander Dumas would have ventured to strain out so flimsy a web to so unconscionable a length. Are there, we wonder, in France or elsewhere, any persons so simple as to rely on his representations of historical characters and events? The notions they must form of French kings and heroes, courtiers and statesmen, are assuredly of the strangest. We doubt if, in any country but France, a writer could preserve the popularity Dumas enjoys, who caricatured and made ridiculous, as he continually does, the greatest men whose names honour its chronicles. Besides the wearisome adventures of Mr Bragelonne and the eternal Musketeers, M. Dumas has given forth the first three or four volumes of a rambling story, founded on the well-known affair of Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace. Then he has completed the account of his Spanish rambles, which we rather expected he would have left incomplete, seeing the very small degree of favour with which the first instalment of those most trivial letters was received. In the intervals of these various labours, he has thrown off a history of the regency, and a historical romance, of which Edward III. of England is the hero. The latter we have not read.