"Fantine," therefore, comes before us, externally, as the most desperate of bookselling speculations. The publisher, far from drinking his wine out of the skull of his author, is in danger of having neither wine nor ordinary cup, and is forced into the most reckless _charlatanerie_ to save himself from utter ruin and complete loss of the generous fluid. Internally, "Fantine" comes before us as an attempt both to include and to supersede the Christian religion. Wilkinson, in a preface to one of his books, stated that he thought that "Christendom was not the error of which _Chapmandom_ was the correction,"--Chapman being then the English publisher of a number of skeptical books. In the same way we may venture to affirm that Christendom is not the beginning of which _Hugoism_ is the complement and end. We think that the revelation made by the publisher of "Les Misérables" sadly interferes with the revelation made by Victor Hugo. Saint Paul may be inferior to Saint Hugo, but everybody will admit that Saint Paul would not have hesitated a second in deciding, in the publication of _his_ epistles, between the good of mankind and his own remuneration. Saint Hugo confessedly waited twenty-five years before he published his new gospel. The salvation of Humanity had to be deferred until the French saviour received his eighty thousand dollars. At last a bookselling Barnum appears, pays the price, and a morality which utterly eclipses that of Saint Paul is given to an expectant world. This morality, sold for eighty thousand dollars, is represented by Bishop Myriel. The character is drawn with great force, and is full both of direct and subtle satire on the worldliness of ordinary churchmen. The portion of the work in which it figures contains many striking sayings. Thus, we are told, that, when the Bishop "had money, his visits were to the poor; when he had none, he visited the rich." "Ask not," he said, "the name of him who asks you for a bed; it is especially he whose name is a burden to him who has need of an asylum." This man, who embodies all the virtues, carries his goodness so far as to receive into his house a criminal whom all honest houses reject, and, when robbed by his infamous guest, saves the life of the latter by telling the officers who had apprehended the thief that he had given him the silver. This so works on the criminal's conscience, that, like Peter Bell, he "becomes a good and pious man," starts a manufactory, becomes rich, and uses his wealth for benevolent purposes. Fantine, the heroine, after having been seduced by a Parisian student, comes to work in his factory. She has a child that she supports by her labor. This fact is discovered by some female gossip, and she is dismissed from the factory as an immoral woman, and descends to the lowest depths of prostitution,--still for the purpose of supporting her child. Jean Valjean, the reformed criminal, discovers her, is made aware that her debasement is the result of the