M. Bungener's latest work, "Julian, or the Close of an Age," terminates, as its name implies, his series of studies on the eighteenth century. Embodied in the story of one, lofty in intellect and pure in heart, who breathes unscathed the pestilential atmosphere that slays,at his side, its thousands and tens of thousands, it is an eloquent development of the prophetic denunciation: They have sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind. In these volumes, the author's circle has widened still from Paris, Versailles, and the Desert, and we are presented with a vast panoramic view of the whole eventful horizon, from the same central idea, the contrast between the religion of Christ's vicar and the religion of Christ. Nowhere, perhaps, can be found a more convincing proof of the power of Holy Writ to console the afflicted heart and illumine the benighted soul, than in the story of the Mauriac brothers. We envy not those who can peruse without emotion the faded lines penned in his precious Bible by the aged prison-worn minister, or the record contained in the twin volume found in his brother's coffin. Pages like these outweigh whole tomes of controversial divinity. Many and eloquent as are the French writers on their first Revolution, still no one has taken the high Scriptural ground whence we discern with M. Bungener the earliest indications of that approaching storm, as yet unseen, unfelt, but which, ere long, was to pour its avenging vial upon the self-devoted heads of "king, queen, people, courtiers, philosophers, apostles of liberty, apostles of despotism, upon the false and the faithful, upon men of genius and men of nought," — upon a whole nation, in short, now drunk with the wine of the wrath of God, as in times past it had been drunk with the blood of his saints.

They who have read "The Priest and the Huguenot," will rejoice to meet with names they had learned to love and admire. Rabaut reappears with a track of glory, which reminds one of the angel-visitant at the Bethesdan pool; and, verily, his kindred errand is to move the waters of life. His reply to the letter in which his son, Rabaut St. Etienne, just nominated to the presidency of the National Assembly, says: "The

President of the National Assembly is at your feet," is a truly apostolic epistle, indignantly repudiating the false liberty then courted, and proclaiming that with which Christ makes free.

But were all the remarkable passages to be enumerated, and an attempt made to give an outline of the work, this brief sketch would expand into another volume. Suffice it to say, that all which has charmed in the other productions of M. Bungener's pen, is yet developed and strengthened in Julian. In addition to the high political, religious, and historical interest of the scenes through which he passes, our liveliest sympathy is excited for Julian himself; and if we do not turn impatiently over the pages which separate us from his own personal narrative, it is the greatest proof of the author's power of bending the reader to his will.

French literature, as is well known, is of the poorest in productions that number moral purity among their merits. French Protestants owe, therefore, a deep debt of gratitude to an author who has invested the stern religious teaching of history with more than the attraction of romance, and enriched their libraries with volumes, the perusal of which never tires.

"The Council of Trent," and "Voltaire and his Times," from the nature of their subject, cannot hope to be equally popular with his other works; but they are imperishable monuments of M. Bungener's marvellous power of wielding and arranging the gigantic mass of material that his patient sagacity of research has accumulated. Many pages of his Council forcibly remind of the flashing irony, the witty logic of Provincial Letters, and Julian discloses a yet stronger affinity with the Pascal of the sublime Thoughts.

To conclude, unalarmed lest I should be accused of what Mr. Macaulay happily names the Furor Biographicus, I venture to affirm that there is no Frenchman who has produced aught that can be paralleled with M. Bungener's series of works, for the rare combination of creative power, learning, wit, sense, and piety.

INTRODUCTION.

IN complying with the wish of the translator of this work, that I should preface it with a few remarks, to indicate its character and purpose, I greatly regret that I am not in possession of more particular information as to the author. He is a minister of the Reformed Church of France, but, I believe, has not held a pastoral charge, and although-as his works prove—a man of truly original powers, and with clear conceptions as to the dignity and duty of the Pulpit, has not for some reason attracted much attention as a preacher. In this respect, he is only another example of a fact not uncommon, that the ideal and the actual are not always combined in the same person, and that an admirable power of criticism does not ensure an equally admirable power of execution.

The following work has attained a wide popularity among those who use the French language; having reached the 13th edition. Another work of the same character, the subjects of which are taken from the subsequent reign of Louis XV., has even a greater popularity; and coming down into the age of the Encyclo

pedists, has afforded the writer an opportunity of employing the graphic power he possesses in so eminent a degree, in presenting strong portraits of the men who figured in that age of enfeebled superstition, systematized infidelity, and shameless corruption of manners. Should the present work meet the favor of American readers which it deserves, the other will be laid before them in due time. The "History of the Council of Trent," by the same author, is a work of a different kind but of great merit, as a succinct narrative of the essential characteristics of that period.

The book now presented to the public might well be left to speak for itself. Its objects and merits will need no endorsement when they are examined by the class of intelligent readers for whom the work is intended. It is substantially a work on eloquence, especially sacred eloquence, and none the less worthy of respectful attention, because its criticisms are embodied in a spirited narrative, embracing occurrences and persons which belong to the actual history of that extraordinary era. The slight thread of fiction by which the disquisitions are held together, instead of injuring the effect of the work as a contribution to sacred rhetoric, imparts a life-like air of reality to the whole; and, as a reproduction of the men and manners of the time, will entitle the author to rank with other great masters in this line. He has diligently studied not only the written productions of that wonderful age (justly called the Augustan age of France), which have come down to us in the form of works in divinity and general literature, but he has

made a careful use of the "Memoires," which abounded in that, as they have in every other period in the history of the French people. Some one has remarked, that there is a strong individualism in the French character, which inclines every man to regard himself as a centre of his own times and of sufficient importance to warrant a record of the relations between himself and public events and persons. To this feeling, probably, is owing the fact that no nation is so rich in those biographical memoirs which are the materials for general history, and out of which a judicious writer may cull notices of incidents and individuals, which, when well arranged, reproduce the "time" more effectually than can be done by those stately generalizations which often pass under the name of history. As in individual, so in national history, details are necessary to accurate knowledge: they are the strands which make the web. Our author has evidently made himself well acquainted with the depositories of these details, and is indebted to them for many facts, which, if I am not mistaken, will modify the common judgment in respect to some points, concerning which a sort of traditional but not well-authenticated notion pervades our literature. The letters of Mad. de Sevignè, the memoirs of the Duc de St. Simon, Cardinal Bausset's memoirs of Bossuet, Saint Beuve, and many others, well sifted and compared, furnish the best data for an estimate of that most remarkable age, some previous knowledge of which is necessary to a satisfactory perusal of this work.

The author has chosen, as a centre of movement, the