What is very remarkable, and is just the reverse of what might _a priori_ have been expected, the point in which romance writers in general fail, when they undertake history, is in giving sufficient life and animation to their narrative. Like race-horses, they seem in general incapable of carrying any considerable weight. They would break down under the panoply which a steed of Norman or Flemish extraction can sustain without difficulty. Their imagination is only kindled when it is at liberty to roam at will over a world of their own creation. Confined to the narration of actual events, limited to the delineation of real character, cramped by the description of actual scenes, their powers fail, their ardour is weakened, their fire is lost. A mind comparatively prosaic, subject to such burdens, speedily out-strips them even on their own element; and the scholar with his authorities kindles the imagination to an extent which the poet with his verses can hardly excel. Witness Livy's pictured pages--Gibbon's historical descriptions. Yet minds of the most elevated cast have occasionally, though at long intervals from each other, succeeded in uniting the historic and romantic arts. Homer's Iliad is the annals of the Siege of Troy in verse; his Odyssey, the versified Travels of Ulysses; and in the recent "Histoire des Girondins" by Lamartine, we have convincing proof that it is possible to unite the most ardent and enthusiastic poetical mind with the research, knowledge of character, and dramatic power, requisite to make the most interesting tragic annals.