earth and water, wandering about and searching, spinning and weaving, fighting with dragons, sowing teeth, transforming into horses, serpents," &c. : but he says enough to show how little certainty is to be attained in their interpretation, from the inherent vagueness of symbols. Apollo slew the monstrous serpent Python. What are we to understand by this? According to one explanation, the serpent is an unhealthy morass, which the beams of the sun dried up; according to Müller himself, impure, savage, barren nature, over which the god triumphs by the civilizing power of his worship, while another sees in it a type of the victory of Christ over the principle of evil. And the serpent is so multiform a symbol, that other explanations might be framed equally plausible and equally uncertain. It will be long therefore before that grammar and dictionary of symbolism and mythology will be framed of which he speaks, in which "the symbols, together with the mythic personages, would stand as verbal roots, and the mythic activities as flexions and syntactical collocations." -P. 218.

Although this introduction is the very best view of what German research and speculation have done to illustrate the history and import of mythology, we cannot recommend it as a royal road to the knowledge of the subject. The arrangement is not very clear, and it requires a good deal of previous knowledge and more patience in getting at the meaning of an abstruse turn of expression, than Englishmen are in general willing to bestow. It will not therefore avail much to our industrious compilers of school books, but it will gradually infuse more correct opinions on a subject which has been hitherto given up to sciolism, fancy, and theological prejudice.

ART. II.-BENJAMIN CONSTANT.

THE French Statesmen of the present day contradict by their position the aphorism that excellence in one pursuit is the sufficient labour of a life. On this side of the Channel the leaders of party are engrossed by the toil of achieving or retaining power, and would find a literary reputation an encumbrance rather than an assistance to their career. But on the other, success in the literary, is a ladder to highest honours in the political world. M. Guizot, on the strength of his fame as an historian, is called from the University to rule a vast and turbulent people, and M. Thiers, excluded from office, endeavours to win the confidence of the nation by his History of the Times of Napoleon. It would be difficult to show that superiority in literary attainments is not as just a test of fitness for government as the power of oratory so essential to own our countrymen, especially as a French audience will allow a person to read his speech; and therefore the writer may obtain among them the applause only given to the orator among us. At all events, the example of these great men, as well as that of many distinguished German Statesmen, effectually disproves the opinion so strenuously insisted on by "practical" men in our own country, that those who have devoted themselves to literature are unsuited for the prompt decision and rapid action of public life. Even science leads in France to high political rank; for Cuvier, though occupied in the most recondite pursuits, sat for many years as President of the Committee of the Council of State. And truly it would be strange if those pursuits which require and call forth the greatest power and energy of mind should unfit a man for the display of those qualities in action. In no civilized country is literature so little esteemed as in England at the present day. For, though Mr. Macaulay is with us an instance of a double-first, as it were, in public life, having achieved some reputation both in literature and politics, yet the days are long past when literary talent secured Addison, Steele and Swift, political importance: or when Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke increased their fame as Statesmen by writing Philosophical Essays.

The prejudice of the nation against literary men, may, perhaps, be justified by the nature of our Collegiate education, which bears still the impress of its monkish founders, and is adapted to train men into Antiquarians, or Mathematicians, or into credulous dreamers in Theology; but which rarely enables them to enter the world with advantage; and also, partly by the fact that the rela tions of England, in connection with the whole world, are so vast and multiplied, that it seems as though the Statesman should spend his life in the service of the state, to acquire the requisite familiarity with its details; while France, whose direct influence stops almost with her frontier, can be well ruled by men whose best years have been spent in the closet. And yet we are inclined to believe that, if the road to power with us were more open to ability, and required less petty intrigue and party subserviency, the talents, which had received their highest development in the University, would soon assume a superiority over those which had known only active life.

Some, indeed, will doubt whether the French littérateurs make good statesmen, but it is certain that the statesmen make admirable authors. The works of a mere student resemble too often hot-house plants, without strength or maturity; but those of a man of the world are hardy and vigorous, like the shrub which has stood the storms and the snows of winter.

And

It was thus that Niebuhr, after ten years spent in active employments, came, with a mind full of human interests, to the study of Roman history. Thus Dante, driven from the government of his native city, gave immortality to the feuds which had expelled him. Petrarch, the Councillor of sovereigns, found time amid active life to pen his sonnets. Descartes laid down the sword to build his fame in metaphysics and mathematics. Bacon, though Lord Chancellor, did not the less give a novum organum to the world; and Milton, just escaped with his life from the vengeance of Charles, poured forth that divine strain which justifies, or attempts to justify, the ways of God to men.

However, though there seems no reason why the man of literature should not take as high a rank in active life as men of active life have taken in literature, the French

statesmen are far from equalling the greatness of those to whom we have alluded. These, when they were in action, gave the whole power of their minds to action, and when bent upon their intellectual labours shunned the irritations and distractions of active life; but the French fritter away the advantage of their position. They endeavour to pursue both objects at once-this moment they give their attention to literature, the next to politics; when in place they study legislation-when out of place, books; and this must be unfavourable to permanent reputation in either pursuit. The most beautiful crystals are those which have been most slowly formed and with the least disturbance; and it is impossible that M. Guizot, hot from the pursuit of some novelty in the history of the Merovingian Kings, can balance, with sufficient coolness, the interests of the present moment; or that M. Thiers, agitated with the fierce conflicts of the Chamber, and the struggle for power, can estimate with sufficient delicacy the claims of politicians of a rival party to posthumous reputation.

But notwithstanding this disadvantage, no books can be more charming than those of the French. Their authors write for contemporary fame, and certainly they deserve it. They never forget that they are appealing to men; and hence they neglect no charm of composition which may interest, and permit no technical disquisition which would weary; their statements are distinct and direct to the purpose; and if we miss the profundity of the river, we are delighted at least with a clear and sparkling stream, which entices us to stray upon its banks, and leaves its image on the memory.

Of recent defunct French Statesmen, few are more celebrated than M. Benjamin Constant, nor any more calculated to be popular in England: for he embraced that middle course between Despotism and Republicanism, which has been taken by our own Constitution. He distinguished himself in the times of the Revolution, by discerning and putting forward the talents of Talleyrand. When Napoleon became First Consul he opposed his dictatorial government, and hence found it necessary to retreat. With the versatility characteristic of his countrymen he retired to Göttingen, to collect materials for his work

on Religion, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. On the fall of Napoleon, however, he returned to France, and being elected a member of the Legislature, he fulfilled the promise of his earlier days, by becoming the principal leader of the Constitutional party. He published many works on the principles of the Charter, exacted by the people from the Bourbons, and was one of the most unflinching opponents of those despotic acts which drove Charles X. from the throne. But he served the cause to which he was attached most effectually by establishing the Constitutionel newspaper. His success was unprecedented. His knowledge, his wit, his ready eloquence, told with effect upon the French, and especially the Parisians; and the shares in the paper rose to an enormous value. To us, who are accustomed to the heavy statistics and the somewhat boisterous humour of the London Newspapers, it appears astonishing that the French should be susceptible of impression from wit so delicate and argument so refined as those of Constant. Were an Englishman to endeavour to affect the multitude by a style so polished and sparkling, he would be open to the charge of endeavouring to cut blocks with a razor.

In this treble capacity, then, as leader of the Constitutional party in the Chamber of Deputies, Newspaper Editor, and Littérateur, did Constant earn his well-deserved fame. Ardent, sincere, eloquent, learned, with a remarkable power of making interesting what is usually thought dull, and clear what is abstruse, he devoted himself to too many objects, indeed, to reach the highest rank in literature. For while remarkable for that seeming originality, which arises from a lively method of stating what is already known, he was deficient in the real originality, which shows itself in the discovery of first principles.

The principal work by which the literary fame of Constant has been spread to foreign lands, is that entitled, "De la Religion, Considérée dans sa Source, ses Formes, et ses Développements." Of this work, which may be considered in some degree as his legacy to the world, (he finished it but a short time before his death,) it is our intention to give some notice. The volumes bear about them the impress of the excellences and defects we have