SIMPSON'S LILY OF PARIS. * AN organized body rejects undigested what

it cannot amalgamate to its own substance, and the mind would seem to do the same. In other words, it requires a genius, not only of a high but of an apt kind, to see the characteristics of past ages and reproduce them sufficiently to exhibit their essential stamp. We talk of the necessity of study or training for this purpose; and unquestionably the necessary knowledge cannot be attained by intuition ; but there is more than time or materials needed in works of imagination. Shakspere had little of the antiquarian know- ledge about Rome or semi-barbarous Britain which is now available to anybody; yet in Lear and his historical plays he has exhibited their characteristics more truly than writers who have expressly set about works of fiction to depict manners. No man can escape the training of his own age, merely by " taking thought," let him study another how he may. If his inquiries have been slight and for the nonce, he will ex- hibit a kind of tedious emptiness, in which we have lists of articles rather than descriptions of things. If his researches have been long-continued, so that his mind has become saturated with antiquity, he will be exceed- ingly apt to give us archreology in the form of fiction ; to substitute customs and costumes for story and characters. In both cases, the tone and mode of his own times will predominate.

It is in not presenting this spirit of the age that one great fault of Mr. Simpson's historical romance consists. The scene is laid in Paris at the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the madness of Charles the Sixth, the intrigues of his worthless Queen Isabelle, the youth of the Dauphin, the quarrels for power of Armagnac and Burgundy, and the invasion of Henry the Fifth of England, seemed to threaten the dissolu- tion of society as well as of the kingdom. From the chroniclers, or the historians who revive the chroniclers, Mr. Simpson catches clearly enough the miseries of the people, the violence of factions aggravated by distress, and the formal traits of the age; but be presents them like an historian or a disquisitionist. In a similar manner, his account of the appearance of the streets of Paris, the shops and goods to be found therein, the dresses of the citizens, and the classes into which the inhabitants were divided, are probably all correct ; but it is the correctness of an essayist who enumerates the parts, not of a poetical describer who presents the effect of the whole. His descriptions, however literally accurate, are rather prolonged in themselves, and consequently rather tedious. His discourse, when obviously framed, as it too frequently is, to " let in " something superfluous, or which he wants art to introduce in a more na- tural mode, is frequently as overlaying as his elaborate descriptions ; while the age is marked by the set phrases of the novelist, almost hack- Died into cant terms. These give a flatness to parts of the book, though to some extent they are capable of removal. A. remedy is not so easily found for a melodramatic exaggeration in the more fiery and intense cha- racters, with an apparent incapacity to sustain scenes of passion or bear tip to a climax.

In other respects, the Lily of Paris is a great advance upon Mr. Simpson's former works. There is more closeness and matter than in his Letters from the Danube, more variety and weight than in his novel, with more massy and effective scenes. The story of the book turns upon the passion of an historical Parisian mob leader, Perrinet Leclerc, for another person of history, Odette de Champsdivers, the Lily. In fact they were separate ; in the fiction they are connected as fiery lover and an angelic not to say cold mistress. The catastrophe is brought about by Perrinet betraying Paris- to the Burgundians, and causing the murder of Armagnac through jealousy and revenge. He has been scourged by orders of the Constable ; and he believes that the Lily has been taken to the Palace for dishonourable purposes, whereas she has gone thither to act as the poor old mad "King's nurse," with the view of restoring him to reason. This story is complicated in various ways, by a variety of persons, and with sufficient skill to form a tale of oonsiderable interest for those who like the fierce and mysterious. A great subject of the book is the mob or citizens of Paris, with their politics and outbreaks ; and these are the best done. Here Mr. Simpson is drawing from reality. He has resided for some time in Paris ; he was present during the revolution or revolutions of last year ; and in painting the dmeutes of Paris in the fifteenth century, he drew from his experience of those of the nineteenth, with a little colouring from the chroniclers to carry back the mind to the past : and this, perhaps, is about as much as Scott attained. Mr. Simpson, too, is not ill fitted for scenes of this character. He cannot rise to individual passion, but he can manage the movement, fury, and va- riety of a mob. The following is an example. Perrinet, anxious and excited through the absence of the Lily, has wandered into the neigh- bourhood of the celebrated University, and enters a tavern frequented by the students, where several of the dramatis persona' in the interest of Burgundy are assembled. A brawl ensues, and these people take the opportunity to raise cries against the Constable Armagnac, and cause the entrance of an officer with his archers.

" 'In the name of King and Constable,' cried the officer, 'seize on these fellows who cry treason thus, and drag them off to the Chatelet!'

"This command turned away instantly the rapiers from the throat of Cleofas, and caused the students to face round with a howl of indignation and execration against the intruding guard. The men-at-arms advanced in obedience to the order of their commander; who, had he not been a very young and headstrong man, would probably not wilfully have thrust his head into such a hornet's nest as a tavern full of students was likely to prove, or set fire to a train which might lead to the explosion of the whole wrath of the University. The tumult became general: resistance was made by the students by means of sword and arm and club; jugs and plates and trenchers were flung upon the heads of the guard ; presently stools and then tables followed in heavy shower; the men-at-arms stag- gered and gave way. Cleofas, the quack-doctor, who had nigh paid his appren- ticeship in his new trade so dearly, had fled at the first onset amidst the guard, and contrived to escape with no further harm than a heavy contusion on his head from the leg of a table.

• The Lily of Paris; or the King's Nurse. By J. Palgrave Simpson, Es4.. Author

of " Pictures from Revolutionary Paris." " Letters from the Danube," " Glselia," Atm In three volumes. Published by Bentley.

"In the midst of this confusion the young officer had seized upon the defence- less Yvon, as a ringleader of the tumult. " ' Let go thy hold, dastard; it is an innocent youth, without defence,' cried Perrinet, now first mixing in the fray. "The only reply was a blow of the officer's sword, which wounded the young armonrer just above shoulder. "The blood of Perrinet was roused ; and, before any further attack could be made, his cutlass was drawn and slashed across the face of the officer. The young captain fell backwards with a shoat. The routed men-at-arms could do no more than drag away their wounded leader. The whole mass of students rushed ales out of the door, and by the vaulted entrance into the street, in pursuit. Perrinet, Yvon, and the boy Astaroth, were borne along in the throng. Several students burst open the barricade of the shutters with a crash, and leaped over the parapet into the outer air. In an instant the tavern vault was left to the unhappy ta- vern-keeper and his assistants, who were lamenting over the broken furniture and scattered fragments of utensils. " The street, however, had become, as if by magic, the scene of the wildest tu- mult. The students' cry of war, Out, out—up, scholars, up—rapiers abroad!' had been responded to by pouring throngs in disordered attire, rapiers in band, from almost every house. In an incredibly small space of time, the Roe St Jacques was invaded by a rushing crowd. The night air rang with shouts and clamour. The fantastic glare of shifting hurrying torches began to illumine the'

frantic scene, the red and lurid light of the flaring pitch giving the whole an in-

fernal colouring. The hoarse shouting and struggling of the students was quickly intermingled with the shriller croaking of women of the lower classes and of vile profession, who were to be found among the crowd, no one could tell whence or how. The younger student boys leaped and shouted and danced, as if engaged in the merriest Saturnalia. Now the crowd advanced upon the retreating men- at-arms, who offered only a feeble resistance ; now stopped, now struggled in waving masses, now fought on their way once more. " ' Rapier law ! The law of retaliation!' shouted a young demagogue, with hoarse voice. An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth ! A blow for a blow— and blood for blood ! Look here, my friends, look here!' And he endeavoured to lift up Perrinet, from whose neck a stream of blood was now trickling, visible in the light of a torch close by. ' Vengeance! Down with the guard! Fling the vile rats into the Seine!'

" To the glory of the University and of Aristotle!' chimed in the grey-baked old boy, ' Exhibete vulnera in Fero!' "The young armourer was caught up in the arms of several of the students, and hailed with acclamations, as if he were a hero and a defender of the rights of the University; and, unwillingly as he found himself compelled to become the principal actor in this scene of strange triumph, his cheA glowed, and his hmrt heaved with a strange sensation until then unknown to him. He was thus borne along down the Rue St. Jacques.

"Suddenly a check took place in the vanguard of the rioters. A reinforcement of the Constable's private force had arrived to the assistance of the retreating men-at-arms. But the power of the rushing sea of students was still too great. They also were repulsed. The triumph of the wounded young man was, how- ever, cut short, in the need of all hands to assist the fresh force of the enemy. Perrinet was allowed to find his feet upon the ground. He staggered with a feel lug of faintness; and the crowd rushed on.

"In a short time the street was deserted; and where so late was agitated tumult and confusion and the glare of torches, all was dark, except when an

anxious head or two appeared peeping out of a narrow upper window with a light, and all was still, save the hoarse murmur of the tumult, now coming more faintly from the distance.

"Perrinet sat upon a stone bench: the blood still flowed from his wound, but he thought not of it. He had for the first time tasted of popular applause and

popular triumph; and a mist of deep emotion was before his eyes—a rushing sound of his beating pulse was in his ears. As the tiger that has once licked blood, was that ardent and excitable mind that had felt the first impulse of a mistaken and bad ambition.

"The kloarek, in spite of some resistance, had detached his vest, and was staunching his wound.

" 'It is nothing, good Yvon,' said his friend. "'Let me be your slave, my master,' said the voice of Astarotb, who stood with his monkey by the armoureia side, ' and I will avenge you.' " I will take care of thee, poor boy replied Perrinet.

" Ah I no more evil thoughts !' said the kloarek, on one side, as if the good genius of Perrinet were prompting him. " ' Revenge is sweet on the oppressor!' urged Astaroth on the other, as though his evil genius were also there.

" "Tin well!' murmured Perrinet, faintly, his weakness from loss of blood con- fusing the ideas conveyed by these two conflicting influences. 'Revenge! Odette! But no, I will never be a traitor !' With these words be swooned.

"The bell tolled midnight from the neighbouring church of St. Andre. The day had closed as it had commenced in that unhappy city, in discontent, riot, and bloodshed."