Accordingly, they contract with popular writers for a name and a date, which are forthwith printed in large capitals at the head of their leading columns. Thus, one journal promises its readers six volumes by M. Dumas, to be published in its feuilleton, to commence on a day named, and to be entitled _Les Femmes_. The odds are heavy, that Alexander himself has not the least idea what the said six volumes are to be about; but he relies on his fertility, and then so vague and comprehensive a title gives large latitude. Moreover, he has time before him, although he has promised in the interval to supply the same newspaper with a single volume, to be called _Un Homme Fort_, and to conclude the long procession of _Fantômes_, a thousand and one in number, which now for some time past has been gliding before the astonished eyes of the readers of the _Constitutionnel_. Other journals follow the same plan with other authors, and in France no writer now thinks of publishing a work of fiction elsewhere than at the foot of a newspaper. To this feuilleton system, pushed to an extreme, and entailing the necessity of introducing into each day's fragment an amount of incident mystery or pungent matter, sufficient to carry the reader over twenty-four hours, and make him anxious for the morrow's return, is chiefly to be attributed the very great change for the worse that of late has been observable in the class of French literature at present under consideration. Its actual condition is certainly anything but vigorous and flourishing, and until a manifest improvement takes place, we are hardly likely again to pass it in review. FOOTNOTES: [21] A large gold coin, then worth nearly a hundred French livres. Dies Boreales. No. V. CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS. _Camp at Cladich._ SCENE--_The Pavilion._ TIME--_After breakfast._ NORTH--TALBOYS--SEWARD--BULLER. NORTH. I begin to be doubtful of this day. On your visits to us, Talboys, you have been most unfortunate in weather. This is more like August than June. TALBOYS. The very word, my dear sir. It is indeed most august weather. NORTH. Five weeks to-day since we pitched our Camp--and we have had the Beautiful of the Year in all its varieties; but the spiteful Season seems to owe you some old grudge, Talboys--and to make it a point still to assail your arrival with "thunder, lightning, and with rain." TALBOYS. "I tax not you, ye Elements! with unkindness." I feel assured they mean nothing personal to me--and though this sort of work may not be very favourable to Angling, 'tis quite a day for tidying our Tackle--and making up our Books. But don't you think, sir, that the Tent would look nothing the worse with some artificial light in this obscuration of the natural? NORTH. Put on the gas. Pretty invention, the Gutta Percha tube, isn't it? The Electric Telegraph is nothing to it. Tent illuminated in a moment, at a pig's whisper. TALBOYS.