he delivers himself of the opinion that he'll be "blowed if he ain't a trying to save the boat." And having thus recklessly subjected himself to the possibility of compulsory ventilation, he proceeds to say, with the most frank generosity, that if any gentleman will promise him a shirt he'll go in for the spluttering coxswain. This offer is accompanied by such a display of the inside of the platter, by way of proof that he needs that article of clothing, that a hasty promise to the desired effect is made, and "Time behind" is rescued from his disagreeable position.

He looks upon the affair in a serious light, and declares that his great consolation and support in danger was the fact that he had been to chapel fourteen times each week in the term. Having given this information, he is immediately taken worse, lapsing into a state of petrifaction from the cold, under which circumstances it is considered that the best thing for him is a bed and some egg-flip at the Plough. So he is conveyed there and put to bed, the time race being deferred till he is warm enough to get up.

That desirable event having taken place in about four hours, during which time the other men have been up to change, we again take our place by the two remaining boats, and start them for the final race.

Unfortunately for the success of this, it has so happened that while "Time behind" was mildly imbibing egg-flip in bed, his assistant and his assistant's colleague were doing ditto rather more determinedly in. the kitchen. When spoken to seriously on the state to which they had reduced themselves, the vicarious coxswain who hitherto has not taken any prominent part in the affair, owing to his charge having made its bump at the start, unexpectedly displays a most antithetical turn of mind, informing us, in his own soft, persuasive vernacular, that while his "mate's master" went to bed and drank egg-flip because he was wet, he himself went to the kitchen and drank it because he was dry, and he puts it to us, as candid men, whether his was not the better reason for resorting to liquids; and besides, while "Time behind" drank it hot that he mightn't get cold, they drank it hot that it mightn't get cold, which he considers an equally justifiable proceeding, and if it isn't, perhaps we'll let him know. The question of amount he positively declines to enter upon, declaring that a poor hardworking fellow's lush hadn't ought to be dropped upon like that. However this may be, it is certain that the orders from the bank as to the particular string to be pulled are not given with the clearness and precision which characterised them in the former race, so that the gallant coxswains are left more or less to their own devices, and the results are pretty nearly what might be expected. The last thing we hear of "Time behind" is a speech to the following effect, enunciated much as Phaeton may have spoken when he lost the reins: "Gentlem-hen! I'm afr-haid we're going into the tr-hees." These said trees being the willows in which they do eventually disappear.

The remaining boat is now sure of the race, if it can only be navigated up the Long Reach. The coxswain sees an imaginary corner, and in his endeavours to "take it" scientifically, lays his boat's nose high and dry ashore. We lose no time in pushing her off, and in the course of the next two or three hundred yards perform the same office three or four times-like the little boys who accompany the runners in a sack-race, to set them up when they fall-warning the coxswain each time to keep

close to our side, for if he gets aground on the other side there is no one to push him off. By such exertions as these we at length have the satisfaction of seeing the boat pass the winning-post, just as "Time behind" is getting his crew past-we dare not say round-Ditton Corner.

As we walk up towards Cambridge a vision rises in our mind of one of the pewters won in these races, emblazoned with the arms of S. Anima Mundi, and engraved with a list of the crew; handed down by a proud father to his admiring children as a proof of his prowess and his victories as an undergraduate, "when Jones and I were on the river." It is strange what discontinuity exists in our thoughts, for the very next thing that presents itself to our imagination is a Crimean medal, while after that a bishop's mitre appears.

MICHELET ON LOVE.

M. MICHELET's last novelty, "L'Amour,"* is a strange one. But that, perhaps, is a tautology, after saying that the book is by M. Michelet. Could the book be his, in fact, were it not a strange one?

A very strange book, then, is "L'Amour"-and suited only to a very French public, with very free notions. On no account let the average Englishman, in his unsuspecting innocence, venture on reading it aloud; he will have to "pull up" with a jerk, if he does, and cough away his confusion as best he may. The medical student, on the other hand, may value this treatise as a vade-mecum-a very handbook of suggestion and instruction. For every other page almost is concerned with delicate questions that pertain to his profession, and Mrs. Gamp's. Accouchements and their antecedents are detailed with all a morbid anatomist's prolixity and all a sage-femme's relish. If there is something of the philosophy of Love, there is much more of its physiology and pathology. The spiritual is sadly overlaid with the physical, the sentimental with the sensuous.

In short, "L'Amour" would make a not unworthy pendant to the closing sections of Rousseau's "Emile." The right of translation is reserved. We presume, as far as England is concerned, that right is likely to remain undisturbed; by all means requiescat in pace.

Certainly it is a little startling to the reader of a book entitled "L'Amour," to find, staring him out of countenance, on so many pages, such phrases and technicalities as "fièvre de suppuration," "l'accouchée,' "le livre de Bourgery," "l'atlas de Coste et de Gerbes," &c. Here are the headings of some of the chapters: "La Femme est une malade;" "Hygiène;""Conception;" "La grossesse et l'état de grace;" "Accouchement;""Couches et relevailles ;" "Allaitement et séparation ;" "Médication du corps ;" "Des sources du livre d'Amour et de l'appui

* Paris: Hachette et Cie. 1858.

que la physiologie donne ici à la morale."-If the book should find an English translator, he will surely resort to Mr. Churchill as his publisher, and look out for reviews in the Lancet and the Medical Times.

Not that the book is void of good things; on the contrary, it is rich in them, excellent things, and worthy of all acceptation. The honourableness of wedlock, the sacredness of the marriage ring, the nobleness of pure womanhood, the constancy of sincere affection, the imperishable character of real love,-upon these, and kindred topics, the author dilates with impassioned eloquence.

Three several times within five-and-twenty years, he tells us, the idea of the present work, "of the profound social want which it is designed to meet," presented itself to him in all its seriousness. First, in 1836, when, however, the "texts essential to it" were not yet published. "I hazarded a few pages on the women of the medieval age, and these, happily, came to a pause." The second, in 1844, when he occupied "the chair of Morals and of History"—when he enjoyed "the confidence of the young and the sympathies of all"-when he saw and knew many things, public morals in particular-all which convinced him of the necessity of a serious book upon Love. Again: "In 1849, when our social tragedies had just broken the hearts of men, a terrible coldness spread through the atmosphere; it seemed as though all the blood were withdrawn from our veins. In the presence of this phenomenon, which seemed the imminent extinction of all life, I appealed to what little warmth was yet remaining; I invoked, in aid of the laws, a renovation of morals, the purification of love and of the family.

"The occasion of 1844 deserves to be recalled.-In collecting my reminiscences and looking over my large correspondence of that period, I see that the singular confidence placed in me by the public arose from their observing me to be a real solitary, a stranger to all coteries, standing aloof from the disputes of the day, shut up with my own thoughts.-This isolation was not, however, without its inconveniences. . . . I was often in quest of, and discovered, old matters, already discovered and well known. In compensation, I had continued young. I was of more worth than my writings, of more than my lectures. To this work of instruction in history and morals I brought a yet undivided soul, a great freshness of mind; under occasionally subtle forms, a true simplicity of heart; in short, amid open war [en pleine polémique], a certain spirit of peace. Whence was this? It was because-sheltered from the influences of the times, the men of which were to me unknown (and the books nearly so)—I hated no one. My battles were those of idea against idea.

"The public was touched by this. It had never come across so ignorant a man.

"That is to say, one who knew so little of all that was going on in the streets.

"Being unacquainted with the current formulas and common-place solutions that would have helped me to an answer, I was obliged to draw out [tirer] from myself, ever to draw up [puiser] from myself, and, as I had nought else, to give them of my life. They took it not amiss, and resorted to me. Many made personal revelations to me, were not afraid to show me their hidden wounds, brought me their bleeding hearts." And so this good father confessor-the inexorable foe of the confessional

goes on to tell with exulting pride, how reserved and haughty men came to him to open their griefs; and how brilliant women of the world, and pious, studious, austere religieuses even, "leaped the vain barriers of conventionalism or opinion, as people do when they are ill. Strange, but very precious, very touching correspondances, which I have kept with the care and respect they deserved.-I had not gone to the world. The world had come to me. And thus I gained great enlightenment. Secrets of our nature that I had never guessed at, were all at once revealed to me. I came to know more of them in a few years than I ever could have learnt in the monotonous spectacle presented nightly in the salons. I knew, I saw human hearts to the bottom."

This consultation-doctor of souls, and good physician of troubled spirits, then tells us of the emotions he had to suffer in prosecuting his labour of love. He gave his patients sympathy, and as the sympathy was genuine, it cost something. He felt with and for them. "Je ne rougis point d'être homme." Then he mentions the case of a country doctor, unknown to him, who one day wrote saying he had just been bereaved by death of the betrothed damsel who within a week would have been his wife, and that he was in a state of despair. The poor man wished for nothing, asked for nothing, but just to say to one whom he believed to have a heart, I am in despair. What was M. Michelet to say in reply? what consolation could he offer in such a case? He knew of none. "Yet I would fain write to him without delay, and I set to and tried my best. In the midst of this labour, which I felt to be only too useless, checking myself to read over his letter once again, I felt in it such a power of inconsolable grief, that the pen dropped from my hand. hand. . . . . For this was not a letter, it was the thing itself, too naïve and too cruel; I was a spectator of the entire scene. And my paper got wet with tears, and my letter blotted out. But, such as it was, illegible as it was, I sealed it, and in that state I sent it to him."

gave

It was his heart, and nothing less, our author assures us, that he to the crowd that waited on him for counsel and consolation. And what did the crowd give him in return?

The

Let him tell us again himself. Early one morning, as he was at work in his study, a young man made his way into the house and into the room, with impetuous step, regardless of consigne, and intent only on an interview. "Monsieur, said he, forgive my unusual manner of coming in, but you will not be angry at it. I bring you a piece of news. masters of certain cafés, notorious houses, and public gardens, are complaining of the instruction you give. Their establishments, they say, suffer largely in consequence. Young people are catching the mania for serious conversation, and are forgetting their old habits.

The

gardens for dancing are in danger of having to shut up. All those persons who have hitherto been gaining by amusements for the schools, now believe themselves to be threatened by a moral revolution such as must ruin them, without fail.

"I took him by the hand, and said to him: If what you tell me were to come to pass, I assure you it would be triumph and victory for me. I wish for no other success. The day that our young people become serious, liberty will be saved. Should such a result ensue, and by means of our instruction, I will carry it away, monsieur, as the crown of my life, to

place it in my tomb." The young man exit. And M. Michelet, solus, soliloquises. "As for me, I will, in return, sooner or later make them a present. I will write for them the book of enfranchisement from moral servitude, the book of true love." And here is the book-"L'Amour." It embodies the study bestowed on the "crowd" of confessing patients aforesaid, and particularly (for M. Michelet lays great stress upon this particular) the observations made in physiological inquiries, and information collected from medical friends.

In his chapter on Marriage the author utters this admonition. "Young man, read this when you are quite alone, and not with that giddy-pated comrade whom I see behind you, reading over your shoulder. If you read it when alone, you will read to profit, and feel that you have a heart. The holiness of nature will touch you." In a hundred other passages the writer's seriousness of purpose is manifest, after his peculiar fashion. He battles with the laxity of social life. He believes that the reformation of Love, and of the Family circle, must precede all other reformations, and can alone indeed render them possible. He deplores the diminution of marriages, as shown by statistics; and vigorously descants on the evils of those immoral connexions which are substituted for the legitimate alliance. He exposes with much feeling les mornes plaisirs d'une vie polygamique. He has sharp things to say against the fictions of Balzac and George Sand. His glorification of womanly virtue, innocence, self-sacrifice, unappreciated endurance, and unrecognised suffering, will by many be judged rhapsodical and extravagant. Into its component parts we cannot enter, for plain reasons already plainly assigned. The physiological aspects of the theme-comment parler de l'amour, he wants to know, sans dire un mot de tout cela? But his mots about tout cela are so many, and so broadly expressed, that practically the book is unreadable this side the Channel.

For the concluding volumes of his History of France, with all its splendid sins upon its head, we wait with something like eager vigilance. But if anything could spoil our appetite for that residue,

C'est l'Amour, l'amour, l'amour,

meaning the book which bears that name.

J. C. X.