25 APRIL 1874, Page 2

France, says Sir James Stephen, has committed every crime- except

that of being dull. He never read the discussions on the• meaning of the Septennat. They began with its birth, and if they last much longer will end with its death, caused by the uprising of a world which fears lest the mental capacity of the human race should be permanently deteriorated. The Septennat has killed the art of epigram, and must live, for it causes dullness, till satirists will shortly be extinct.