Only a year ago two volumes of M. Doudan's correspondence were given to the public--they received notice in these pages,[10] it will be remembered--with a conditional promise of more in case the first should be duly appreciated. Fortunately, these letters were widely read and heartily admired, so that now we have this third volume, with further selections up to the year 1860, and the promise of the speedy appearance of a fourth, to contain letters after that date and Doudan's essay on the "Revolutions of Taste." There need be no fear in any one's mind that all the best letters were taken for the first publication, and that the editor has been obliged to swell the pages of this volume with Doudan's hasty, uninteresting notes. Far from it: everything that Doudan wrote had, as some one has well said, the flavor of perfection: he never wrote letters as one writes prize essays, cramming into some of them all his wit and wisdom, leaving his less fortunate correspondents to content themselves with the meagre statement of facts. All the qualities that were to be noticed in the volumes that first appeared are to be found here; and they are qualities of the rarest sort. His method of expressing himself is simply delightful, his French is most charming, and his wit and humor must fascinate those who are capable of appreciating anything outside of mathematical exactness of statement. Critics have been by no means unanimous in his praise: some have complained that he wrote his letters with the direct intention of pleasing--not so much those to whom the letters were avowedly sent as deceived posterity. The only reason for this ill-natured supposition would seem to be that the letters were too good for private correspondence; which is a strong argument in favor of reading them. Others--and they are French critics--despise him because he was a friend of the duc de Broglie, but in the course of time this will doubtless be forgiven him. Some, too, object to his humor. M.G. Monod, for instance, who is a very intelligent man, says in the _Academy_ that Doudan "makes fun of everything, even when fun is quite out of place. Even in the most tragic occurrences he finds occasion for wit." But, after all, it is a way humorists have: the only remedy for such levity would seem to be decapitation or solitary confinement in prison without pen, ink and paper. Some are so captious that they say Doudan was too delicate and refined a critic for the crude world he lived in. But what is the use of a critic who praises what is worthless, and has no word of encouragement for what is good and deserving of praise? The value of a man like Doudan is that he rises above the common herd by the exactest discrimination: he never follows the multitude in adoring false gods, but is true to his own delicate taste. If common sense is the power of applying the judgment to trifles as well as to important matters, good taste in