M. AMBROSE THOMAS.
This distinguished exile terminated his course of lectures on French history, at Willis's Rooms, on Saturday last. The whole course has been occupied with the reign of Louis the Thirteenth ; and M. Thomas closed his subject by explaining the influence of Richelieu in the esta- blishment of the Academie, and by holding up Corneille's tragedies as literary representations of that transition from Feudalism to Absolutism, from the old to the modern, which took place at the period he had chosen to illustrate. M. Thomas is a remarkably clear and intelligent lecturer. He has all that talent peculiar to his countrymen, of drawing a principal figure, and grouping the minor features of an epoch around it, so that the whole narrative becomes a living organization, not a dry accumulation of facts. At the same time he has an inexhaustible store of anecdotal knowledge, and such details as are afforded by "memoires," and is able to yary. his grave communications with a vast quantity of amusing gossip. His voice is not sonorous, but his articulation is so distinct that not a word escapes the ear.
Previous page
