of Bossuet, who, supported by vast and uninterrupted study, rose and rose until he gained the loftiest reaches of intellect and art, and commanded at pleasure every tone and every style. Pascal did not fulfil all his destiny. Besides the mathematics and natural philosophy he knew scarcely more than a little theology, and he barely passed through good society. It is true, Pascal passed away from earth quickly; but during his short life he discerned glimpses of the beau ideal, he attached himself to it with all his heart and soul and strength, and he never allowed anything to leave his hands unless it bore its lively impress. So great was his passion for perfection, that unchallenged tradition tells us he wrote the seventeenth 'Provinciale' thirteen times over. 'Les Pensées' are merely fragments of the great work on which he consumed the last years of his life; but these fragments sometimes present so finished a beauty, that we do not know which most to admire, the grandeur and vigor of the sentiments and ideas, or the delicacy and depth of the art."
This praise is unexaggerated. What a career was run by this genius! Discovering the science of geometry at twelve years of age,—next inventing the arithmetical machine,—discovering atmospheric pressure, while every philosopher was prating about "Nature's horror of a vacuum,"—inventing the wheelbarrow, to divert his mind from the pains of the toothache, and succeeding,—inventing the theory of probabilities,—establishing the first omnibuses that ever relieved the public,—then writing the "Provinciales,"—dying at thirty-three, leaving behind him two small volumes (you may carry them in your pocket) which are the unchallengeable title-deeds of his immortal fame, the favorite works of Gibbon, Voltaire, Macaulay, and Cousin! Where else can so crowded and so short a career be found?
It is scarcely possible to repress a smile in reading this work and discovering the patient care with which M. Cousin avoids speaking of the "Provinciales." And it is strange to say (no contemptible proof of the influence exercised by the Church of Rome, even when checked as it is in France) that no decent edition of the "Provinciales" can be found in the French language. While we possess M. Cousin's "Études sur Pascal," and M. Havet's edition of "Les Pensées," the only editions of "Les Provinciales" of recent date are the miserable publications of Charpentier and the Didots. Editions of Voltaire and Rousseau are numerous, elaborate, and elegant; for atheism is pardoned much more easily than abhorrence of the Jesuits.
The volume named at the head of this article contains a great many valuable documents relating to Pascal and his family: all of Pascal's correspondence known to exist, including his celebrated letter on the death of Étienne Pascal, his father, which is usually printed in "Les Pensées," being cut up into short sentences to fit it for that work, a large part of it being omitted; his singular essay on Love; curious details concerning the De Roanner family; an essay on the true text of the "Pensées"; a curious fac-simile of a page of that work; and a discussion (perhaps M. Cousin would say a refutation) of Pascal's philosophy. But we must protest against the easy manner in which M. Cousin wears his honors. When a book has reached its fifth edition and is evidently destined to a good many more during the author's lifetime, he lies under an obligation to place the new information he may have collected, and the additional thoughts which may have occurred to him, during the intervals between the different editions, in a form more convenient to the render than new prefaces and new notes. To master the information contained in this work is no recreation, but a severe task, and one not to be accomplished except upon repeated perusals of the book. This is the more inexcusable because M. Cousin is now free from all official and professional cares; and it would involve the less labor to him, as he never writes, but dictates all his compositions.
Belle Brittan on a Tour; at Newport, and Here and There. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1858.
The compulsion of hunger, or the request of friends, was the excuse for the printing of sorry books in Pope's time; and it has not become obsolete yet. The writer of the book, the title of which we have given above, pleads the latter alternative as the occasion of this publication. He says it was "a few friends" that pre-
