MEMOIRS OF THE MARQUIS D'ARGENSON.
Journal and Memoirs of the Marquis d'Argenson. With an Introduction by C. A. Sainte-Beuve. Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. Illustrated with Portraits. 2 vols. (W. Heinemann. 42s.)—Mr. Rankin's clever essay on the Marquis d'Argenson, reviewed not long ago in the Spectator, will probably have roused in some readers a wish to know more of this curious character of the eighteenth century. His Memoirs, thoroughly candid and outspoken, give a vivid picture of his time. Without much liking or admiration for the writer, we have to confess that he was an honest man in a world full of corruption. He does not spare his contemporaries, of whatever rank, and the impression he gives of France under Louis XV. is in every way frightful. One has, perhaps, to allow for the frame of mind of a disappointed looker-on, whose Ministry was something of a failure, and who took a dark view, constitutionally, of everything. Still, d'Argenson holds a very high place among the many memoir-writers of his period, and no student can afford to neglect him. Unluckily, neither his style nor Sainte-Beuve's, whose well-known article forms the introduction to these volumes, lends itself to trans- lation into English, and thus what is delightful reading in the original becomes more or less laborious ; but it is worth while in this case to struggle with the manner for the sake of the matter.
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