In a paper published in 1862, M. Sainte-Beuve--who had then, for more than thirty years, been plying zealously and continuously the function of critic--describes what is a fundamental feature of his method in arriving at a judgment on books and authors. "Literature, literary production, is in my eyes not distinct, or at least not separable, from the rest of the man and his organization. I can enjoy a work, but it is difficult for me to form a judgment on it independently of the man himself; and I readily say, _as is the tree so is the fruit_. Literary study thus leads me quite naturally to moral study." This, of course, he can apply but partially to the ancients; but with the moderns the first thing to do in order to know the work is to know the man who did it, to get at his primary organization, his interior beginnings and proclivities; and to learn this, one of the best means is, to make yourself acquainted with his race, his family, his predecessors. "You are sure to recognize the superior man, in part at least, in his parents, especially in his mother, the most direct and certain of his parents; also in his sisters and his brothers, even in his children. In these one discovers important features which, from being too condensed, too closely joined in the eminent individual, are masked; but whereof the basis, the _fond_, is found in others of his blood in a more naked, a more simple state." Hereby is shown with what thoroughness and professional conscientiousness M. Sainte-Beuve sets himself to his work of critic. Partially applying to himself his method, we discover in part the cause of his sympathy for feminine nature, and of his tact in delineating it. His father died before he was born; and thence all living parental influence on him was maternal. None of his volumes is more captivating than his "Portraits de Femmes," a translation of which we are glad to see announced.