International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850Various
Science
International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 8, August 19, 1850
Various
Art -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
EMILE GIRARDIN states in his journal that he paid for the eleven
volumes of Chateaubriand's Posthumous Memoirs as they appeared,
piecemeal, in his _feuilleton_, the sum of ninety-seven thousand
one hundred and eight francs. They occupied a hundred and ninety-two
_feuilletons_, and cost him thus more than a franc a line. Alfred de
Broglie has made these memoirs the test of a paper entitled "Memoirs
de Chateaubriand, a Moral and Political Study," in the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_. It is a severe analysis of the book and the man. He concludes
that Chateaubriand was one of the most vainglorious, selfish and
malignant of his tribe. He, indeed, betrayed himself broadly, but
surviving writers, who knew intimately his private life--such as St.
Beuve--have disclosed more of his habitual libertinism. The Radical
journals, and some of the Legitimists, turn to account the portraits
left in these memoirs of Louis Philippe, Thiers, Guizot, and other
statesmen of the Orleans monarchy. They are effusions of personal and
political spite. Chateaubriand hated the whole Orleans dynasty, and
has not spared the elder Bourbons.
* * * * *
GUIZOT has been for thirty years in political life, many of them
a minister, and was long at the head of the government of Louis
Philippe, but is now a poor man. Recently, on the marriage of his
two daughters with two brothers De Witt, the descendants of the great
Hollander, he was unable to give them a cent in the way of marriage
portions. This fact proves the personal integrity of the man more
than a score of arguments. Not only has the native honesty of his
character forbidden him to take advantage of his eminent position
to gain a fortune, but the indomitable pride which is his leading
characteristic, has never stooped to the attractions of public plunder
or the fruits of official speculation. Guizot is not up to the times,
and hence his downfall, but future historians will do justice alike to
his great talents and the uprightness of his intentions.
* * * * *
One of the best works yet produced on the History of Art, is by
Schnaase, of Düsseldorf. The first three volumes have been published
and translated into French and English, and have met with great
success in both those languages. The fourth volume is just announced
in Germany. Artists and other competent persons at Düsseldorf who
have seen the proof-sheets, speak in the highest terms not only of its
historical merits, but of the excellence of its criticisms.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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