Horror is his handmaid; and "thousands of liveried _monsters_ lackey him," to furnish the portraits with which it is the occupation of his life to disgust the world. Can there, think you, be a stronger proof of a diseased intellect among the _décousu_ part of the world, than that they not only admire this man's hideous extravagances, but that they actually believe him to be ... at least they say so ... a second Shakspeare!... A Shakspeare! To chastise as he deserves an author who may be said to defy mankind by the libels he has put forth on the whole race, requires a stouter and a keener weapon than any a woman can wield; but when they prate of Shakspeare, I feel that it is our turn to speak. How much of gratitude and love does every woman owe to him! He, who has entered deeper into her heart than ever mortal did before or since his day, how has he painted her?--As Portia, Juliet, Constance, Hermione;--as Cordelia, Volumnia, Isabella, Desdemona, Imogene! Then turn and see for what we have to thank our modern painter. Who are his heroines?--Lucrèce Borgia, Marion de Lorme, Blanche, Maguelonne, with I know not how many more of the same stamp; besides his novel heroine, whom Mr. Henry Lytton Bulwer calls "the most delicate female ever drawn by the pen of romance"--The Esmeralda! ... whose sole accomplishments are dancing and singing in the streets, and who ... delicate creature! ... being caught up by a horseman in a midnight brawl, throws her arms round his neck, swears he is very handsome, and thenceforward shows the delicate tenderness of her nature, by pertinaciously doting upon him, without any other return or encouragement whatever than an insulting caress bestowed upon her one night when he was drunk ... "delicate female!" But this is all too bad to dwell upon. It is, however, in my estimation a positive duty, when mentioning the works of Victor Hugo, to record a protest against their tone and tendency; and it is also a duty to correct, as far as one can, the erroneous impression existing in England respecting his reputation in France. Whenever his name is mentioned in England, his success is cited as a proof of the depraved state, moral and intellectual, of the French people. And such it would be, were his success and reputation such as his partisans represent them to be. But, in point of fact, the manner in which he is judged by his own countrymen is the strongest possible evidence that neither a powerful fancy, a commanding diction, nor an imagination teeming with images of intense passion, can suffice to ensure an author any exalted reputation in France at the present day if he outrages good feeling and good taste.