most whilst subterraneous demons responded Corsica, or the South of France, alwith a yell of triumph as they bore though he now and then dashes at away the spiritual part of Captain Parisian society. With this he has George.” unquestionably had ample opportunity "It is to be seen in any history of to become acquainted, for he is a France, how La Noue left La Rochelle, welcome guest in the best circles of the disgusted with civil wars and tormen- French capital. Still we must hope ted by his conscience, which re- there is some flaw in the glasses proached him for bearing arms against through which he has observed the gay his king; hrow the Catholic army was world of Paris. The “Vase Etrusque compelled to raise the siege, and how is one of his sketches of modern French the fourth peace was made, soon life, in the style of the “Double Méfollowed by the death of Charles IX. prise," but better. It is a “Did Mergy console himself? Did amusing and spirited tale, but unneDiana take another lover? I leave it cessarily immoral. Had the heroine to the decision of the reader, who thus been virtuous, the interest of the story will end the romance to his own would in no way have suffered, so far liking." as we can see; and that which attaches By his countrymen, M. Mérimée's to her, as a charming and unhappy short tales are the most esteemed of woman, would have been augmented. his writings. He produces them at This opinion, however, would be intervals much too long to please the scoffed at on the other side of the cditor and readers of the periodical Channel, and set down as a piece of in which they have for some time English prudery. And perhaps, inappeared,--the able and excellent stead of grumbling at N. Mérimée Revue des Deux Mondes. Once in for making the Countess Mathilde the eighteen months, or two years, he mistress of Saint Clair—which nothing throws a few pages to the public, compelled him to do-we ought which, like a starved hound to whom thankfully to acknowledge his modea scanty meal is tossed, snaps eagerly ration in contenting himself with a at the gift whilst growling at the nig- quiet intrigue between unmarried gardliness of the giver : and the persons, instead of favouring us with publisher of the Revue knows that he a flagrant case of adultery, as in the may safely print an extra thousand " Double Méprise," or initiating us copies of a number containing a novel into the very profane mysteries of by Prosper Mérimée. Now and then, operatic figurantes, as in “Arsène M. Mérimée comes out with a criti- Guillot.” Even in France, where he cism of a foreign book. His last was is so greatly and justly admired, this a review of " Grote's Greece," and he last tale was severely censured, as has also written a paper on “ Borrow's bringing before the public eye phases Spanish Rambles. A man of great of society that ill bear the light. erudition and extensive travel, he is Fidelity to life in his scenes and thoroughly master of many languages, characters is a high quality in an and, in writing about foreign countries author, and one possessed in a high and people, steers clear of the absurd degree by M. Mérimée; but he has blunders into which some of his con- been sometimes too bold and cynical temporaries, of respectable talents and in the choice and treatment of his attainments, not unfrequently fall . subjects. “ La Partie de Tric-trac,” His English officer and lady in and “L'Enlèvement de la Redoute,” Colomba are excellent; very different amongst his happiest efforts. from the absurd caricatures of English- Both are especially remarkable for men one is accustomed to see in their terse and vigorous style. We French novels. He is equally truth- have been prodigal of extracts from ful in his Spanish characters. A great “Charles IX.”—for it is a great favoulover of things Spanish, he has fre- rite of ours—and, although well known quently visited, and still visits, the and much esteemed by all habitual Peninsula. In 1831 he published, in readers of French novels, it is hitherto, the Revue de Paris, three charming we believe, untranslated into English. letters from Madrid. The action of But we shall still make room for most of his tales passes in Spain or are THE STORMING OF THE REDOUBT. а 6 “I rejoined the regiment on the sensibly my thoughts took a gloomy evening of the 4th September. I turn. I said to myself, that I had not found the colonel at the bivouac. At one friend amongst the hundred thoufirst he received me rather roughly; sand men covering that plain. If I but after reading General B's. letter were wounded, I should be in an hosof recommendation, he changed his pital, carelessly treated by ignorant manner, and spoke a few obliging surgeons. All that I had heard of words. He presented me to my cap- surgical operations returned to my tain, who had just returned from a memory. My heart beat violently; reconnoissance. This captain, whom and mechanically I arranged, as I had little opportunity to become ac- species of cuirass, the handkerchief quainted with, was a tall dark man, and portfolio that I carried in the of hard and repulsive physiognomy. breast of my uniform. I was overHe had been a private soldier, and whelmed by fatigue, and continually had won his cross and his epaulets on fell into a doze, but as often as I did the battle-field. His voice, hoarse so, some sinister idea awoke me with and weak, contrasted strangely with a start. Fatigue, however, at last gos his gigantic stature. They told me the upper hand, and I was fast asleep he was indebted for this singular when the reveillé sounded. We voice to a bullet that had passed formed up, the roll was called, then completely through his body at Jena. arms were piled, and according to all "On hearing that I came from the appearance the day was to pass school at Fontainbleau, he made a quietly. wry face, and said, 'My lieutenant " Towards three o'clock an aid-dedied yesterday.' I understood that camp arrived with an order. We rehe meant to say, “You are to replace sumed our arms; our skirmishers him, and you are not able.' A sharp spread themselves over the plain ; we word rose to my lips, but I repressed followed slowly; and in twenty it. minutes we saw the Russian pickets "The moon rose behind the redoubt withdraw to the redoubt. A battery of Cheverino, situate at twice cannon- of artillery took post on our right shot from our bivouac. She was large hand, another on our left, but both and red, as is common at her rising; considerably in advance. They opened but that night she seemed to me of a vigorous fire upon the enemy, who extraordinary size. For an instant replied with energy, and soon the rethe black outline of the redoubt stood doubt of Cheverino disappeared behind out against the moon's brilliant disc, a cloud of smoke. resembling the cone of a volcano at “ Our regiment was almost prothe moment of an eruption. tected from the Russian fire by a “An old soldier who stood near ridge. Their bullets, which seldom me, noticed the colour of the moon. came in our direction for they pre“She is very red,' he said; “'tis a sign ferred 'aiming them at the artillerythat yon famous redoubt will cost us passed over our heads, or at most sent dear.' I was always superstitious, earth and pebbles in our faces. and this augury, just at that moment, " When we had received the order affected me. I lay down, but could to advance, my captain looked at me: not sleep; I got up and walked with an attention which made me for some time, gazing at the im- pass my hand two or three times over mense line of fires covering the my young mustache, in the most caweights beyond the village of Che- valier manner I could assume. I felt verino. no fear, save that of being thought to “When I deemed my blood suffi- feel it. These harmless cannon-balls cient cooled by the fresh night air, I contributed to maintain me in my returned to the fire, wrapped myself heroic calmness. My vanity told me carefully in my cloak. and shut my that I ran a real danger, since I was eyes, hoping not to re-open them till under fire of a battery. I was endaylight. But sleep shunned me. In- chanted to feel myself so much at my ease, and I thought with what pleasure I should narrate the capture of the redoubt of Cheverino in the drawing-room of Madame de BRue de Provence. "The colonel passed along the front of our company and spoke to me. 'Well!' he said, 'you will see sharp work for your first affair.' "I smiled most martially, and brushed my coat-sleeve, on which a ball, fallen about thirty paces from me, had sent a little dust. "It seems the Russians perceived how small was the effect of their round shot, for they replaced them by shells, which could reach us better in the hollow where we were posted. A tolerably large fragment of one of these knocked off my shako and killed a man beside me. "I congratulate you,' said the captain, as I picked up my shako. 'You are safe for to-day.' I knew the military superstition which holds the maxim Non bis in idem to be as applicable on a battle-field as in a court of justice. I proudly replaced my shako on my head. An unceremonious way of making people bow,' said I, as gaily as I could. Under the circumstances, this poor joke appeared excellent. 'I congratulate you,' repeated the captain; you will not be hit again, and to-night you will command a company, for I feel that my turn is coming. Every time I have been wounded, the officer near me has received a spent ball, and,' he added in a low voice, and almost ashamed, all their names began with a P.' "I affected to laugh at such superstitions. Many would have done as I did-many would have been struck, as I was, by these prophetic words. As a raw recruit I understood that I must keep my feelings to myself, and always appear coldly intrepid. "After half an hour the Russian fire sensibly slackened; then we emerged from our cover to march against the redoubt. Our regiment was composed of three battalions. The second was charged to take the redoubt in flank on the side of the gorge; the two others were to deliver the assault. I was in the third battalion. "On appearing from behind the sort of ridge that had protected us, we were received by several volleys of musketry, which did little harm in our ranks. The whistling of the bullets surprised me: I turned my head several times, thus incurring the jokes of my comrades, to whom the noise was more familiar. All things considered,' said I to myself, " a battle is not such a terrible thing.' "We advanced at storming pace, preceded by skirmishers. Suddenly the Russians gave three hurras, very distinct ones, and then remained silent, and without firing. 'I don't like that silence,' said my captain. 'It bodes us little good.' I thought our soldiers rather too noisy, and I could not help internally comparing the tumultuous clamour with the imposing stillness of the enemy. of "We rapidly attained the foot of the redoubt the palisades had been broken, and the earth ploughed by our cannonade. With shouts 'Vive l'Empereur !' louder than might have been expected from fellows who had already shouted so much, our soldiers dashed over the ruins. The I "I looked up, and never shall I forget the spectacle I beheld. great mass of smoke had arisen, and hung suspended like a canopy twenty feet above the redoubt. Through a gray mist were seen the Russian grenadiers, erect behind their halfdemolished parapet, with levelled arms, and motionless as statues. think I still see each individual soldier, his left eye riveted on us, the right one hidden by his musket. In an embrasure, a few feet from us, stood a man with a lighted fuse in his hand. I shuddered, and thought my last hour was come. "The dance is going to begin,' cried my captain. 'Goodnight.' They were the last words I heard him utter. "The roll of drums resounded in the redoubt. I saw the musket muzzles sink. I shut my eyes, and heard a frightful noise, followed by cries and groans. I opened my eyes surprised to find myself still alive. The redoubt was again enveloped in smoke. Dead and wounded men lay all around me. My captain was stretched at my feet; his head had been smashed by a cannon-ball, and I was covered with his blood and brains. Of the whole company, only six men and myself were on their legs. "A moment of stupefaction followed this carnage. Then the colonel, putting his hat on the point of his sword, ascended the parapet, crying Vive l'Empereur!' He was instantly followed by all the survivors. I have no clear recollection of what then occurred. We entered the redoubt, I know not how. They fought hand to hand in the middle of a smoke so dense that they could not see each other. I believe I fought too, for my sabre was all bloody. At last I heard a shout of victory, and, the smoke diminishing, I saw the redoubt completely covered with blood and dead bodies. About two hundred men in French uniform stood in a group, without military order, some loading their muskets, others wiping their bayonets. Eleven Russian prisoners were with them. "Our colonel lay bleeding on a broken tumbril. Several soldiers were attending to him, as I drew nearWhere is the senior captain?' said he to a sergeant. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders in a most expressive manner. 'And the senior lieutenant?' 'Here is Monsieur, who joined yesterday,' replied the sergeant, in a perfectly calm tone. The colonel smiled bitterly. You command in chief, sir,' he said to me; 'make haste to fortify the gorge of the redoubt with those carts, for the enemy is in force; but General C. will send you a support.'- Colonel,' said I, 'you are badly wounded.'-'Foutre, mmon cher, but the redoubt is taken.' "Carmen," M. Mérimée's latest production, appeared a few months since in the Revue des Deux Mondes, which appears to have got the monopoly of his pen, as it has of many of the cleverest pens in France. "Carmen" is a graceful and animated sketch, in style as brilliant as any thing by the same author-in the character of its incidents less strikingly original than some of his other tales. It is a story of Spanish life, not in cities and palaces, in court or camp, but in the barranca and the forest, the gipsy suburb of Seville, the woodland bivouac and smuggler's lair. Carmen is a gipsy, a sort of Spanish Esmeralda, but without the good qualities of Hugo's charming creation. She has no Djali; she is fickle and mercenary, the companion of robbers, the instigator of murder. She inveigles a young soldier from his duty, leads him into crime, deceives and betrays him, and finally meets her death at his hand. M. Mérimée has been much in Spain, and unlike some of his countrymen, who apparently go thither with the sole view of spying out the nakedness of the land and making odious comparisons, and who, in their excess of patriotic egotism, prefer Versailles to the Alhambra, and the Bal Mabille to a village fandango he has a vivid perception of the picturesque and characteristic, of the couleur locale, to use the French term, whether in men or manners, scenery or costume, and he embodies his impressions in pointed and sparkling phrase. As an antiquarian and linguist, he unites qualities precious for the due appreciation of Spain. Well versed in the Castilian, he also displays a familiarity with the Cantabrian tongue-that strange and difficult Vascuense which the Evil One himself, according to a provincial proverb, spent seven years of fruitless labour in endeavouring to acquire. And he patters Romani, the mysterious jargon of the gitanos, in a style no way inferior so far as we can discover - to Bible Borrow himself. That gentleman, by the bye, when next he goes a missionarying, would find M. Mérimée an invaluable auxiliary, and the joint narrative of their adventures would doubtless be in the highest degree curious. The grave earnestness of the Briton would contrast curiously with the lively half-scoffing tone of the witty and learned Frenchman. Indeed, there would be danger of persons of such opposite character falling out upon the road, and fighting a mortal duel, with the king of the gipsies for bottle-holder. The proverbial jealousy between persons of the same trade might prove another motive of strife. Both are dealers in the romantic. And "Carmen," related as the personal experience of the author during an archæological tour in Andalusia in the autumn of 1830, is as graphic and fascinating as any chapters of the great tract-monger's remarkable wanderings. HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE AND LIVE IN IT. NO. III. and HAVING disposed of two grand two mummies for door-posts, and who categories of mistakes and absurdities is now putting up the pretty little in house-building, viz., lightness of Gothic church for the Diocesan structure and badness of material, Church - and-Chapel - Building we shall now address ourselves more Pew-Extension Society, with an east particularly to the defects of Arrange- window from York, and a spire from ment and Form, or, as an architect Salisbury, and a west front from might term it, to the discussion of Plan Lincoln-why, he is the veriest stick of and Elevation. The former task was a designer that ever applied a Tungrateful enough; for therein we had square to a stretching-board. He has to attack the cupidity and meanness, studied Wilkins's Vitruvius, it is true, and the desire for show and spu- and he has looked all through Hunt's rious display, which is the besetting Tudor Architecture, but his imaginasin of every Englishman who pays tion is as poor as when he began poor-rates; but the present under them; he has never in his life seen taking is hardly less hopeless, for we one of the good buildings he is pirathave to appeal to the intelligence, ing from, barring St Paul's and Westnot only of architects and builders, minster Abbey; he knows nothing but also of those who commission finer than Regent Street and Pallthem. Mall, and yet he pretends to be a Now, there is nothing drier and modern Palladio. It will not do, all more unprofitable under the sun, no- this, sham and parade of knowledge; thing more nearly approaching to a we want a new generation, both of state of addle, than a builder's brains. architects and builders, before we Your regular builders (and, indeed, shall see any thing good arising in the not a few of your architects) are the way of houses—but as this new prosorriest animals twaddling about on geny is not likely to spring up within two legs; mere vivified bags of saw- a few days, nor even years, we may dust, or lumps of lath and plaster, as well buckle to the task of criticism galvanised for a while, and forming at once, and find out faults, which themselves into strange, uncouth, un- we shall leave others to mend. reasonable shapes. A mere "builder" And, to lay the foundation of critihas not two ideas in his head; he has cism in such matters once more and only one ; he can draw only one spe- for ever, let us again assert that good cification,” as he calls it, under dif- common-sense, and a plain straightferent forms; he can make only one forward perception of what is really plan; he has one set of cornices al- useful, and suited to the wants of ways in his eye; one peculiar style of climate and locality, are worth all panel; one special cut of a chimney. the other parts of any architect's eduYou may trace him all through a cation. These are the great qualities, town, or across a county, if his fame without which he will take up his extends so far; a dull repetition of rulers and pencils in vain; without the same notion characterises all his them, his ambitious façades and inworks. He served his apprentice- tricate plans will all come to nothing, ship to old Plumbline, in Brick Lane; except dust and rubbish. got up the Carpenter's Vade-Mecum draw and colour like Barry himself; by heart; had a little smattering of but unless he has some spark of the drawing from Daub the painter, and genius that animated old Inigo and then set up in business for himself. Sir Christopher, some little inkling of As for Mr Triangle the architect, who William of Wickham's spirit within built the grand town-hall here, the him, some sound knowledge of the other-day, in the newest style of fitness and the requirements of things, Egyptian architecture, and copied he had better throw down his instru 66 He may |