Now I have, and a most curious study they are. Indeed I am not sorry, as Mr. Wedmore thinks one would be. They are curiously, interestingly, almost enthrallingly bad. Couched for the most part in a kind of Radcliffian or Monk-Lewisian vein--perhaps studied more directly from Maturin (of whom Balzac was a great admirer) than from either--they often begin with and sometimes contain at intervals passages not unlike the Balzac that we know. The attractive title of _Jane la Pale_ (it was originally called, with a still more Early Romantic avidity for _baroque_ titles, _Wann-Chlore_) has caused it, I believe, to be more commonly read than any other. It deals with a disguised duke, a villainous Italian, bigamy, a surprising offer of the angelic first wife to submit to a sort of double arrangement, the death of the second wife and first love, and a great many other things. _Argow le Pirate_ opens quite decently and in order with that story of the _employe_ which Balzac was to rehandle so often, but drops suddenly into brigands stopping diligences, the marriage of the heroine Annette with a retired pirate marquis of vast wealth, the trial of the latter for murdering another marquis with a poisoned fish-bone scarf-pin, his execution, the sanguinary reprisals by his redoubtable lieutenant, and a finale of blunderbusses, fire, devoted peasant girl with _retrousse_ nose, and almost every possible _tremblement_. In strictness mention of this should have been preceded by mention of _Le Vicaire des Ardennes_, which is a sort of first part of _Argow le Pirate_, and not only gives an account of his crimes, early history, and manners (which seem to have been a little robustious for such a mild-mannered man as Annette's husband), but tells a thrilling tale of the loves of the _vicaire_ himself and a young woman, which loves are crossed, first by the belief that they are brother and sister, and secondly by the _vicaire_ having taken orders under this delusion. _La Derniere Fee_ is the queerest possible cross between an actual fairy story _a la_ Nordier and a history of the fantastic and inconstant loves of a great English lady, the Duchess of "Sommerset" (a piece of actual _scandalum magnatum_ nearly as bad as Balzac's cool use in his acknowledged work of the title "Lord Dudley"). This book begins so well that one expects it to go on better; but the inevitable defects in craftsmanship show themselves before long. _Le Centenaire_ connects itself with Balzac's almost lifelong hankering after the _recherche de l'absolu_ in one form or another, for the hero is a wicked old person who every now and then refreshes his hold on life by immolating a virgin under a copper-bell. It is one of the most extravagant and "Monk-Lewisy" of the whole. _L'Excommunie_, _L'Israelite_, and _L'Heritiere de Birague_ are mediaeval or fifteenth century tales of the most luxuriant kind, _L'Excommunie_ being the best, _L'Israelite_ the most