of these years; but, in return, he has maintained his position; and while the brilliant star of Lamartine is eclipsed, and the portentous but vapory blaze of Louis Blanc has exhaled, the farthing candle of the retired sage remains unextinguished and visible. Of course, when we speak of obscurity and farthing candles, we allude to Michelet only in his character of a public man--a character which can scarcely be said to belong to him at all. In other respects, he is sufficiently distinguished. His learning is considerable; his reasoning is generally specious; his style is almost always singular. As a thinker, if not very profound, he is often very original; as a rhetorician, he makes up by his earnestness what he lacks in eloquence; so that, if he does not carry his readers along with him, he at all events secures their attention; and, as a professor, he bears a reputation which, though not perhaps very enviable, is very great. Of the two families from which he springs, the one was from Picardy, the other from the Ardennes; both were of the peasant class. Be it remarked, however, that the English word _peasant_ does not adequately render the French word _paysan_; _yeoman_, perhaps, would be nearer the mark, for a French _paysan_ may be comparatively a rich man, and he is almost always the owner of the land he tills. His paternal family, however, left the country, and settled in Paris, where, after the Reign of Terror, his father was employed in the office which printed the "Assignats." Printing at that time was a thriving trade, and the elder Michelet having found means to establish a press of his own, seemed in a prosperous way when his son was born. The future historian first saw the light in 1798--a dim religious light, for the hot assailant of priestcraft and Jesuitism was born in the church of a deserted convent, then "occupied, not profaned, by our printing-office; for what is the press in modern times but the holy ark?" The fortune of the family flourished but for a short time. In 1800 it received a severe blow by a measure which suppressed a great number of journals, and in 1810 it was totally ruined by a decree of Napoleon, which limited the number of printers in Paris to sixty, suppressing a great number of the smaller establishments, and, among others, that of the Michelets. It seems, however, that they found means to print (it was for behoof of their creditors) some trivial works of which they possessed the copyright. They worked themselves, unaided. "My mother, in bad health, cut, folded, and sewed the sheets; I, a mere child set the types; my grandfather, very old and feeble, undertook the severe labor of the presswork, and printed with his trembling hands."