devoted to the fair, impetuous, it is true, and irritable, but with the reserved vivacity of a young officer who, even when most excited, maintains good breeding and never stoops to brutality. All these characters are models of polite address, and show a knowledge of the world never at fault. Head, in Racine, the first dialogue of _Oreste_ and _Pyrrhus,_ and the whole of the part of _Acomat_ and of _Ulysse;_ nowhere is greater tact or oratorical dexterity apparent; nowhere more ingenious compliments and flatteries, exordiums so well poised, such a quick revelation, such an ingenious adjustment, such a delicate insinuation of appropriate motives. The wildest and most impetuous lovers--_Hippolyte, Britannicus, Pyrrhus, Oreste,_ and _Xipharès_ --are accomplished cavaliers who turn a madrigal and bow with the utmost deference. However violent their passions may be, _Hermione, Andromaqne, Boxane,_ and _Bérénice,_ preserve the tone of the best society. _Mithridate, Phèdre,_ and _Athalie,_ when expiring, express themselves in correct periods, for a prince has to be a prince to the last, and die in due form. This drama might be called a perfect picture of the fashionable world. Like Gothic architecture, it represents a positive complete side of the human mind, and this is why, like that, it has become so universal. It has been imported into, or imitated by, along with its accompanying taste, literature, and manners, every court of Europe--in England, after the restoration of the Stuarts; in Spain, on the advent of the Bourbons; and in Italy, Germany, and Russia, in the eighteenth century. We are warranted in saying that at this epoch France was the educator of Europe; she was the source from which was derived all that was elegant and agreeable, whatever was proper in style, delicate in ideas, and perfect in the art of social intercourse. If a savage Muscovite, a dull German, a stolid Englishman, or any other uncivilized or half-civilized man of the North quit his brandy, pipe, and furs, his feudal or hunting or rural life, it was to French _salons_ and to French books he betook himself, in order to acquire the arts of politeness, urbanity, and conversation. [Footnote 1: Foster-brother, school-companion, or other intimate of this class.] VIII.