The Times' correspondent in Paris is endeavouring to force the
custodians of Prince Talleyrand's Memoirs, now long over- due, to give them to the world. By means which he does not reveal, he has obtained passages from them, and by publishing them hopes apparently to excite in their owners fears lest they should be anticipated. It is a shrewd, if unscrupulous device ; but we should say it would fail. The owners of the manuscripts could make a fortune out of them, and, as the Napoleonidaa are not in power, must have some strong reason for a reticence so unusual in France. They say the Memoirs are dull and obsolete; but if so, what is their reason for refusing to add one more to the long list of dull books written by witty authors ? Even Mr. Hayward's Reminiscences and George Eliot's Letters found publishers. To judge by the specimens revealed by M. de Blowitz, the single object of the Prince in his Memoirs is to whiten his own character, and, as a rule, injured virtue on its defence is prosy ; but in this case the effort, like most efforts to perform impossibilities, will be interesting to lookers-on. Prince Talleyrand's account of himself as a good patriot should at least have the attraction of any other historic noveL
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