SIR EDWARD GRAHAM, AND THE GOLDEN CALF. 53

hidden from our gaze in the broad daylight of the world. The lover of scandal will be grievously disappointed who looks for "revelations" in the Golden Calf. The accomplished and instructed novel-reader will find his appetite pall upon insipidity.

Sir Edward Graham, the second novel, is in one respect the very antithesis of the Golden Calf. The object of the latter seems to be a simple clustering together of a few unworthies of the present generation. The intention is declared in the preface. The preface of Sir Edward Graham protests against its being imagined for a moment that the authoress had any man or woman in her eye in the prosecution of her labours. Nobody will suspect Miss Sinclair of the unkind intention. Her ladies and gentlemen are all strangers, and so we wish them to continue. Before Miss Sinclair proceeds to the main purpose of her work, she fills many pages with edifying remarks upon the degenerate tendency of our age, which prefers highly-seasoned and piquant dishes to the rigid and unadulterated fare suited to the palates of rational and enlightened beings; and then, by way of illustration to her lecture, she writes as thrilling, as melo-dramatic, and as unnatural a story as ever issued from the Minerva press or delighted hallporters in Grosvenor-square. There is power in her work, such as we do not find in the companion novel above referred to. The lady has skill in dialogue, and can use a delicate pencil in the development of character, but Sir Edward Graham is certainly as admirable an instance of the vice in order to counteract which the book was expressly written, as it is possible to place in the hands of the young.

The moral of "Railway Speculation" has yet to be written; the tale that shall instruct mankind has still to be told. It is no journeyman's hand that is competent to the task. It will be the glory of genius to accomplish with a touch, that which the tedious and often-repeated efforts of mediocrity will never reach. In the very simplicity and obviousness of the theme consists the difficulty of dealing with it as it deserves.

DECEMBER 14, 1849.

LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.

55

LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE time had passed for history to be serviceable either as guide or counsellor to Louis Philippe, King of the French, when he was paying in exile the penalty of opportunity misused in the day of vast prosperity and power. To the Count de Neuilly, the inhabitant of Claremont, with no future before him save the illimitable, which he must share with the meanest, what availed the upbraiding voice of experience--of what use the tremendous lesson learned too late, and at a sacrifice that beggars calculation!

In the daily walk of

Events repeat themselves. every man, scenes, actions and thoughts recur which have already played their part in the mysterious drama of his existence. Amidst the thousand new combinations of life, a well-known series presents itself to startle the actor and to confound his judgment. The public history of the family of Orleans is a continually returning narrative of the same characters, incidents and passions. The first chapter is identical with the last. The most illustrious ancestor exhibits the political features of the least remarkable descendant. Make due allowance for the altered aspect of the age, and the difference between the public career of the crowned

representative of the house and that of its founder is comparatively trifling. When Louis XIV. sat upon the throne of France, a Philip of Orleans courted the people, and mocked it with a show of popular concession. When the same monarch lay quietly in his grave, a Philip of Orleans took virtual possession of his seat at the bidding of a parliament, whose supreme voice he worshipped only the more effectually to insult and silence it. An Orleans, voted ruler by the representatives of the people at the close of a protracted reign of tyranny and despotism, a century and a half ago gave to France, in exchange for a government of arbitrary power, a government of still more deadly corruption. What are these but tales of the day in which we have moved? Nearer yet to our time, an Orleans, faithless to his blood, regardless of the ties of family and race, made common cause with the revolution, that he might the more securely ride upon the storm, and yet lived to be the victim of the bloody saturnalia of which he had been the chosen hero. To gratify the mob, the father of Louis Philippe signed the deathwarrant of Louis XVI., and then for reward was himself dragged by his patrons to the scaffold. Louis Philippe, profiting by the exile of Charles X., is flung even more ignominiously into banishment than the king whose downfall was the signal of his own sudden rise. Different phases of the same historial picture meet us at every turn. Throughout the series of portraits there is no mistaking the family likeness. An impure stream mingles with the waters from their A Nemesis attends and accompanies the stock from the cradle. It is impossible, in the space to which

source.

LOUIS XIV. AND THE DUKE OF ORLEANS.

57

we are necessarily limited, to illustrate these remarks by more than a slight notice of a few of the extraordinary events in connection with the family of Orleans, that crowd themselves into the last two hundred years. Such as we shall use for our purpose have a surpassing interest in themselves, and overflow with instruction.

A son was born to Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria in the September of 1638. Another was born to the same parents on the 21st of the same month in 1640. The first became Louis XIV.; the latter was founder of the house with whose history we are now concerned. The children as they grew up exhibited a marked difference, both in their personal appearance and natural tastes. Louis was tall and well proportioned, with a fair complexion, and a commanding face. Philip, remarkably small, exhibited a long and repulsive countenance, which jet black hair and eyebrows, and fine dark eyes, could not redeem from ugliness. The dauphin loved to play at soldiers as a boy; Monsieur, shy and retiring, spent his time in his mother's apartments, with the ladies of the court. Arrived at manhood, the elder loved the chase, music, and the drama: the younger found his enjoyment in good eating, gambling, and dress. Throughout life the King was jealous and suspicious of the Duke, whose affability to the populace set a never-to-be-forgotten example to his descendants. The Duke disliked, but feared the King, trembling, it is said, in his presence, and never venturing to remonstrate against a royal command, whatever pangs obedience might cost. In 1661 Louis became the husband of the Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of