NEW BOOKS.

FICTION,

La Peau du Chagrin, par M. de Balzac

BIOGRAPHY,

Dr. Brewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton. (Family/

Library. No. XXIV.)

EDUCATION,

Lucy Barton's Bible Letters Souter. PERIODICAL LITERATURE,

Englishman's Magazine for September Moson. Murray. 2 Vols. Gosselln, Paris.

THE SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

THE Skin of Shagreen, a philosophical romance, by M. de BAL- ZAC, which has accidentally fallen in our way, fixes our atten- tion for a moment on the class of modern French literature of which it is a favourable representation. It is impossible to con- ceive a more brilliant or a more striking form of composition than those series of sketches which the young and vigorous writers of France are in the habit of clubbingtogether under the name of Ro- mance. Life is viewed from some new and almost inaccessible po- sition, and all the concerns and interests of it are passed over in a rapid survey. Learning is mixed up with the observations of yester- day ; philosophy descants in the stews or the gambling-houses ; magnificence and squalor are joined hand in hand ; suicide alter- nates with rapture. All established opinions are set at nought ; faith is laughed at as well as incredulity ; morality and virtue are either proved to be vice and meanness, or they are placed upon a new basis: every thing gives way before a brilliant remark or a play of the imagination. Setting out with the idea that there is nothing venerable, nothing respectable, writers of this class treat every question with the most impudent indifference ; every thing in its turn becomes the subject of a bon mot, a new thought, or trick of the fancy. Characters are taken in the gross. The hero is generally a creature whom despair makes utterly indifferent to life ; the men are debauchees or millionaires ; the women exqui- site coquettes, or frank prostitutes. Conceive this revolutionary spirit in literature scintillating with talent, darting its brilliance on every subject however remote, and leaving no recess however dark or mysterious without being occasionally illuminated with its lurid' • flashes,—and the character of these writings will be understood. The Shin of Shagreen takes its name from a talisman, upon which turn the incidents of the story, and which serve no other purpose than that of giving occasions to the author for exhibiting the extent and vigour of his powers. A young man of genius, whose heart is wasted by passion, and whose purse has melted under his habits of luxury and extravagance, is on the point of putting a period to his existence, when he suddenly becomes possessed of the -Skin of Shagreen. This mysterious skin is an Oriental talisman : its virtue is described in Sanscrit letters, which appear to be ingrained in its texture. He who will enter into the compact with it, may have every wish gratified; it being understood, that at the expres- sion of every wish, the skin, possessing some contractile power, i diminishes n size ; and that ultimately as it becomes less and less, the life of the possessor shortens, and finally be- comes extinct with the disappearance of the Skin of Sha- green. The possessor, at first incredulous, is led into some wishes of magnitude, and perceives with horror the contraction of his Shagreen ! He sets it up before him, marks its dimensions on a surface of white, with a red line, and, under the influence of the miser's feeling, becomes covetous of every wish and desire, and guards with supernatural vigilance the proceedings of his mind, lest he should, by any accidental volition, contract his Skin, and at the same time his span of life. Young, in pos- session of unbounded wealth, and gifted with an ardent tem- perament, and the most riotous imagination, the possessor of the talisman, the young Raphael de Valentin, who was on the point of launching himself into the Seine, becomes greedy of existence, and is eaten up with an anxious dread of involuntarily forming a desire. It is, however, in vain that he would extin- guish his nature : the Skin contracts—the young Marquis fades. He falls in love, or rather renews a passion of his earlier days, with a creature of infinite loveliness and simplicity : the Skin diminishes apace: he is seized by despair : he casts the talisman to the bot- tom of a well: in vain—the gardener draws it up, and returns it. He tries, by machinery and by chemistry, to tamper with his Skin, and to stretch it—in vain : at length, alas ! it becomes very small —not larger than the leaf of a willow-tree. The unhappy pos- sessor dies as he is embracing his young wife ; the Shagreen, which she is accidentally holding in her hand, rustles, withers, and va- nishes.

The style of this author is picturesque and forcible in the highest degree; and the idea of his work is felicitous enough ; and m its execution possesses so many striking scenes, as to suggest the feasibility of constructing a drama out of its materials. We know not whether a scene in our translation may retain any part of the spirit of the original; nevertheless we will try to convey an idea of the matter and manner of what our Parisian neighbours term a Philosophical Romance. The wishes of the hero, though they are invariably accom- plished, are still broughtabout by secondary causes, which have all the effect of natural events. This leads the hero from scene to scene, and affords the painter materials of description. Almost immedi. ately after he has obtained the Skin, he is thrown into the company of a millionaire, who lives in a style of the utmost splendour, and on a luxurious principle of gratifying the senses, not known in England, if it be in Paris. The guests consist of a large party at the Tulin wit* of Paris who are said to- be. journalists,—for jour- nalism, in the opinion Of M. DE &nue, is the modern despotism : they have agreed upon the establishment of a new journal, and the meeting is held to celebrate its birth. The object of the party is thus communicated by a friend to the hero of the Shagreen Skin. " The Government, as perhaps you may not happen to know—that is to say, the aristocracy of bankers and lawyers who now compose the coun-

try, as the priests formerly composed the monarchy—perceives the neces- sity of mystifying the. good people of France, after the manner of the old Absolutists, with words, news, and ideas. The business is now to drive a

national opinion into us ; and, to prove that it is far happier to pay twelve hundred million thirty-three centimes to the country as represented by Messrs. this and that, than eleven millions nine centimes to a king who said I instead of saying WE. In a word, a journal is to be set up, armed with a good two or three hundred thousand francs, the object of which is to content the discontented without injuring the government of the Citi- zen-King. Now, since we laugh at liberty as much as despotism, religion as well as scepticism, that is our country where ideas are most readily exchanged—where the best dinners are given—where sights worth seeing are the commonest—where the suppers begin at night and end the next day—where love goes to the hour like the omnibuses. Paris consequently must ever be the most adorable of countries—the country of pleasure, of liberty, of talent, of pretty women, of bad men, and good wine. * • * * • • You shall be received as a brother, and we will salute you as king of the grumblers, whom nothing can daunt, and whose perspicacity is such that they discover the intentions of Austria, of England, or Russia, before either Austria, England, or Russia has formed any. • * • Our Amphi- tryon has promised to surpass the poor Saturnalia of the little Luculluses of modern times. He is rich enough to put grandeur into meanness, to give elegance and grace to vice.' * • • • 'Oh! you do not under- stand me, continues the same speaker. 'I refer to political crimes. Since this morning! have been in love with but one kind of existence—that of the conspirator. I do not know whether I shall be of the same mind to- morrow; but this evening the pale life of civilization, uniform as the tram of a railroad, makes me start with disgust. I am seized with a pas- sion for the miseries of the retreat of Moscow, for the emotions of the red Corsair, and the dangers encountered by the smuggler. Since the Char- treuse has ceased to exist in France, I must at least try Botany Bay—a certain infirmary, designed for miniature Lord Byruns, who having -Crumpled life up like a napkin after dinner, have nothing left them but to set fire to their country, blow out their brains, bawl for a republic or war.'

"'Emile,' said the young man on Raphael's arm, I by Heaven, if it had not been for the revolution of July, I would have gone for a priest, that! might have led a fat animallife in some. village.'

"'And would you have read your breviary every day?' ' Certainly.' -• You are an ass!" Why, do we not read the journals?' ' Not bad for a journalist." But silence ! we are walking in a crowd of subscribers. Journalism, seest thou, is the religion of modern societies ; with this ad- arantage, that the priests are not bound to believe, any more than are the people." • • •

"Emile was an author who had acquired more glory by his failures than others gain by success. His style was bold, vigorous, and sarcastic ; he had all the good qualities which corresponded with his defects. He was frank, lighthearted, and made an epigram on a friend while present, whom absent he would defend with fervour and sin zez ity. He cared for nothing, and laughed at every thing, eyen his own. future. Always with- out money, he remained like all men of any power, plunged in the very depths of idleness, throwing sometimes an entire book in a sentence, in the face of people who did not know how to put a sentence into their books. He won the world with promise which was never realized, and made of his success and reputation a cushion on which to fall asleep. He ran the chance of awaking some morning an old man in an hospital. As for the rest—a friend staunch to the scaffold itself—a cynic for the sake of the boast—in fact, as simple as a child, he wrote when he was in the humour or wanted a dinner."

The host is thus commented upon- " ' This man,' said Emile, positively has taken all the trouble of amassing his fortune for us. Is he not a species of the sponge, forgotten by the naturalists, and which ought to be reckoned among the poly piers—an animal which it is our business to squeeze with delicacy, before we leave .him to be sucked by his heirs ? Is there not style in the has reliefs which

decorate the halls, and the lustres, and the pictures ? If we are to be- lieve the envious, and those who pretend to understand the springs of life, this man, during the Revolution, murdered I know not-what asth- matic old woman, and a little consumptive orphan, and some other per- son besides. Could you suppose a crime under the grey hairs of our ve. nerable Amphitryon? He has the air of an exceedingly good man. See

how his silver service glistens. Were each of these brilliant rays a

poniard—But come—as well believe in Mahomet. If the world were right, here are thirty men of soul and genius preparing to eat the en- trails and drink the blood of a whole family. And we two, young and fresh and open as the day—we are sitting down to share his crime. By Jove, I have a good mind to ask our capitalist if he is an honest man.

"'Not now!' cried Raphael ; When he is drunk—we shall have had our dinner.'

"And the two friends seated themselves, laughing."

This is a specimen of the conversation at table- s" These pease are deliciously fantastic !—And the parson was found .dead in his bed.'

- -" !- Who talks of death I—No trifling—I have an uncle.'

'You would, doubtless, resign yourself to his loss ?' s' There isno question of it.' 4" Listen, gentlemen—How to kill an uncle. (Hush ! Hear 1) First 'take an uncle, fat and large, at least seventy years of age; these are the 'best uncles. Under some pretext, make him eat pate de fete gras—"‘ * Oh I but my uncle is a tall man, spare in form as well as diet, and miserly * • Ah I these uncles are monsters, who abuse their privi- lege of living.' 4" Malibran bas lost two notes of her voice.'

"'She has not, Sir.'

"'She has, Sir.'

"-'-Oh I oh I Yes and No.—Is not this the history of all the dissertations -that-ever were written, religious, political, literary ?—Man is a buffoon, .dancing on thebrink,of a precipice.'

" To listen to you, I am a fool.' "'On the contrary,,it is because you will not listen that you are one.'

"-' Instructionl beautiful nonsense. Mr. Heineffettermachretkons the - number uf volumes that have been printed at more than a million, while :the life of man would only permit him-to-read one hundred and fifty Ithousaad; * • • "'The immediate eonsecuenee of a constitution is the general depres. sion of intelligence. Arts, sciences-, monuments, all are destroyed by the horrible passion of egotism, which is the modern leprosy. Your three hundred citizens, sitting on their benches, think of nothing else than planting poplars, Despotism does great things contrary to law, while liberty does not give itself the trouble to do even little things by law.'

"'As for your mutual instruction, it is nothing ut coining crown- pieces out of human flesh,' says an Absolutist, interrupting. 'In. dividualities disappear among a people squared by the level of instruc- tion.'

"'however,' says a St. Simonian, the object of society is to procure the wellbeing of each.' " If you had ten thousand a year, you would think no more of the people. But if you are caught with the love of humanity, set off to Ma, danscar, you will find a pleasant little people to Saint-Simonize. Ali " You are a Carl 1st.'

"'Why not ? I love despotism—it implies a certain contempt for the human race. I do not hate kings—they are too amusing. To sit upon a throne thirty millions of leagues from the sun—is that nothing ?' " The guests at length, after a great deal more of this, become still more excited by the wine. But wine, after makinc, people mad, also sends them to sleep: the party, after half a making of bavardage, are reduced to quarrelling and snoring, when the ser- vant announces coffee ; and another scene in the history of the foundation of a journal in Paris takes place—of a kind certainly unparalleled in the history of the British press.