The Crusades have, however, a deeper significance than any isolated personages or events, however picturesque or imposing, ever possess. They brought two civilizations into conflict, and no events are more important than those which secure the contact of different civilizations. In contemporaneous history nothing is so suggestive of change as the wonderful return of Western upon Eastern civilization in Egypt, Syria, India, and Japan. The contact of Western with Eastern knowledge and thought in the Crusades was by no means so fruitful as that which came about through the conquests of Alexander and, later, of Rome, but it was not without great results. The Crusades established an intercourse between the East and the West, which if often hostile, has nevertheless kept an open channel for that interchange of thought and industry, which in the single department of comparative philology has made possible a marvelous advance into an unsuspected region of knowledge. The study of Sanskrit has opened an epoch in historical and literary investigation, which Professor Fiske declares will be not less fruitful in the intellectual progress of the world than was the age of the Renaissance. The Crusades united for the first time the warring States of Europe in a common purpose and a common enterprise. It accustomed the overburdened people to the thought of a higher authority than that of the special tyranny under which they happened to be born, and so prepared the way for the growth of larger ideas of authority and citizenship. The power of Feudalism was measurably weakened by the disasters which overtook successive expeditions led by the flower of chivalry, and this result made possible the unfolding of the monarchical principle which was to play so important a part in the political development of Europe. In short, the wide disturbance which these successive expeditions to the East introduced, loosened perceptibly the iron framework of feudal tyranny which held European society bound and helpless, and by gradual disintegration prepared the soil for the seeds of popular institutions. H. W. M. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. WE are not of those who think that readers are without curiosity as to the position in life, actions, and fortunes of the authors who afford them instruction or pleasure; the eagerness with which the birthplaces of men of genius are sought for and commemorated; the fondness with which their most trifling actions are dwelt upon; and the endless collections that are made of their conversations and sayings, prove that this cannot be the case. In a prefatory memoir, we can scarcely go into so many details of the life of Michaud, as, perhaps, the subject deserves. Michaud was not a mere author, whose history may be read in his works. He lived at a momentous period, and was no idle spectator of passing events; a complete life of Michaud would, indeed, swell to a history of France from 1790 to 1839.