AMERICAN LITERARY GAZETTE 21219 A55 n.p. v.8. TESTIMONIAL DINNER TO W. HEPWORTH DIXON, ESQ. NOV. 1, 1866. On Tuesday, October 23d, a testimonial dinner was given, at the Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, to W. H. DIXON, Esq., editor of the "Athenæum," the leading weekly critical journal of England, by some members of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and other leading citizens. This was a compliment well merited, for its recipient had "done the State some service," by vindicating the personal character of William Penn from the aspersions cast upon it by Lord Macaulay in his " History of England"aspersions repeated, with a show of elaborate argument, in an appendix to the second volume of the work, finally revised by the author in 1857, eight years after the attack had first been made. In 1851, which was as early as possible under the circumstance that Mr. Dixon had to obtain much of his materials from this city, his "William Penn, a Historical Biography" was published, with a special chapter, successfully defending the great Founder of Pennsylvania. For this voluntary service, solely prompted by his sense of right and justice, Mr. Dixon was gratefully elected honorary member of the Historical Society, and the Testimonial Banquet might be considered his inauguration festival. Mr. Dixon has travelled extensively throughout this country during the last few months, and is said to be again engaged upon a biography of a great man whose career is connected with its early historythe gallant but unfortunate Sir Walter Raleigh. During the whole period of our late unhappy civil war, the "Athenæum," in his hands, consistently expressed its sympathy for the good cause of freedom. The banquet, superb in all respects, was partaken of by Mr. Dixon and some forty-five other gentlemen-representing the commerce, law, and literature of Philadelphia. Merchants and professional men, newspaper proprietors and poets, publishers and historians, novelists and critics, distinguished soldiers and acute gentlemen of the long robe, bankers and engineers, were here assembled-a body of whom any city might well be proud, discharging, with splendid hospitality, a public debt of gratitude to a foreign writer who had vindicated, without fee or reward, without prompting or solicitation, the honor of the illustrious dead. to. In great success, and must form a most agreeable point there. R. S. M. OUR CONTINENTAL CORRESPONDENCE. Paris, August 31, 1866. THE city of Paris has purchased the Hotel CarWe may soon navalet, giving 950,000 francs for it. hope to see the Municipal Library established The city has published the first volume of Hon. Morton McMichael, Mayor of Philadelphia, its history (an interesting volume it is), and it is occupied the chair, with Mr. John William Wallace, said to be in treaty with Prince Czartoryski for his now reporter of the Supreme Court of the United mansion, Hotel Lambert, where the Municipal HisStates, also a member of the Historical Society, as torical Museum will be placed. Do you know the vice-chairman. Without any preliminary toasts, meaning of hotel? Here, town mansions belonging the health of Mr. Dixon was proposed by the Chair- to one family (a common sight in old times, quite man, soon after the banquet had been done justice rare now) are called hotels; the city mansion, or, Always eloquent, the Chairman was more than as it is called by a pleonasm in London, the Manusually so on this occasion. His speech, brilliant sion House, is here called the Hotel de Ville. and earnest, kept the attention of its auditors upon Taverns are called Grands Hotels, grand meaning the qui vive from the opening to the closing sen- public. Respectable detached country-houses are tence. The toast was honored with great cordiality, called chateaux. I make this explanation that you and suitably acknowledged by Mr. Dixon, who paid may not think Hotel Carnavalet an old tavern. a hearty tribute to the memory of William Penn. is No. 23 Rue Culture Ste. Catherine. It was built At the request of the Chair, Mr. J. W. and presented to Mr. Bullant, for the Sire des Ligneris. This family expressive of weledard, and gratitude, which owned it only thirty years. It was bought by the Androuet du Certhe Historical Society had unanimously voted to de Carnavalet family in 1578. him, and was followed, in an able speech, by Mr. ceau (the architect of Pont Neuf), Jean Goujon, Horatio Gates Jones, one of the Vice Presidents of François Mansard, and Van Obstal adorned it. It the Society. Other speakers, during the evening, was reckoned the noblest mansion in Paris. Mme. were General Meade, Judge Hare, Messrs. Bayard de Sevigné bought it and inhabited it in October, Taylor, George H. Boker, Gillingham Fell, John Jay 1677, and there this immortal writer died the 14th At her death it was purchased by Smith, Joseph Harrison, Jr., Daniel Dougherty, Dr. January, 1696. S. A. Allibone, and Dr. Shelton Mackenzie. An Paul Estienne Brunet de Rancy, a former general. agreeable interlude was the recitation, by Dr. Ben- After the Revolution, the family de Pommereul jamin Coates, of an excellent Ode to the Defender bought it; then it became the Government Books' of Penn. In all respects, this entertainment was a Censors' office; next the Government Engineering It a seribu mt48 by Pierre Lescot, Abbé de Clagny, and Jean NOV. 1, 1866. "chool; and lastly a boarding school. Would it t seem, from this enumeration of its tenants, as Mme. de Sevigné's ghost attracted books and their lovers to the house? Her letters show she spent many happy days here. There are a great many objects connected with Mme. de Sevigné still in existence. The Chateau des Rochers, near Dinan, from which many of her letters are dated, is especially wealthy in these souvenirs. It is wonderful how little is lost. I saw a few days since on the walls a placard announcing the sale of 6000 addresses of newspapers, the cover bearing the name of the subscriber, and among them were newspaper addresses of the sixteenth century, and from this distant period of time to yesterday. Nothing seems lost in this world but man's life. 'Tis the only brittle thing on earth. expressed for some phases of his talents allows me to express myself with this liberty. Add to all this an attire which was nearly always irreproachable (he must have taken at least three hours to dress, or to have himself dressed), a plain, round handwriting, rapid and elegant, without any of those tremulous lines which lead one to suspect fondness for drink, love of chess, and passionate fondness for legerdemain, and you will have before you that enigmatic, puzzling, inexplicable, coldly odd, repulsive person who bore the sympathetic and justly loved name Alfred de Musset. There evidently were two beings in him. The being who held the pen was the best, the true, the real man. Let us forget the other. Let us abandon that passion which makes us ask from artists a certain cordiality. Let us take them, not for what they are, but for what they are so good as to give us. Their essences are mysterious. And, to sum up my thought in one sentence, it is always prudent to distrust them." M. de la Pilorgerie has discovered in the Library of Nantes the first French newspapers printed, and he has republished them. During the expedition of Charles VIII. to the kingdom of Naples (1494), hawkers cried in the streets of Paris, the "Bulletin of the Grand Army of Italy." While this word do not render it by the proper English word, main army, instead of giving it grand army. It is stated the French Emperor will turn his attention to, indeed has already begun to collect materials for, a life of Charlemagne. He will probably do Philippe Augustus, Louis XI., and Louis XIV.'s life, each after the other. It is said M. Louis Paris ... I regret to record the death of Judge Warn Koenig, one of the most eminent judicial writers of Germany. He died at Stuttgardt in the 72d year of his age. We have lost, too, M. Roger de Beauvoir, who was for a great many years the "fast man" of Paris, and whose various adventures filled the public ear for many years. His early and prolonged dissipations gave him gout, rheumatism, and softening of the spinal marrow. These diseases have for years made him bedridden, or, even worse, chair-ridden. It has been five years since he quit-"grand" is under my pen, let me regret translators ted his chair; whenever he attempted to lie on his bed, he would suffocate. His name was Roger de Bully. When it was evident he was about to become notorious as the wildest fellow in Paris, one of his uncles made him change his name. Wild as was the life led by M. Roger de Beauvoir, he found time to write forty works-novels, plays, and poems. His best work was his first novel, "L'Ecolier de Cluny," which was published in 1832; the next in value were "Histoires Cavalières," Le "Cabaret des Morts," "Le Chevalier de St. Georges," and "L'Hotel Fimodan." Messrs. Michel Levy still have them on their catalogue. He dramatized with M. Melesville "Le Chevalier de St. Georges," and the play had an extraordinary run. M. Melesville was once asked what was M. Roger de Beauvoir's share in this play. He replied: "He lent me a hunting-knife for one of the characters." M. Melesville was unjust, for his color-bearer did unquestionably furnish the idea and the plot of the play. M. Roger de Beauvoir wrote with M. Lambert Thiboust another very successful play, "Les Enfers de Paris." He was happy at impromptu poetry. He married Mlle. Doze, the favorite pupil of Mlle. Mars, after living irregularly with her. The marriage was singularly unfortunate, and the quarrels of husband and wife filled our public prints and courts of justice with their scandals. He was extremely popular, and his funeral was attended by the majority of second-rate literary men in Paris. His wife died some years since in extreme poverty, and was buried at the expense of Prince Napoleon. Since I am with the dead, let me translate a penand-ink portrait of Alfred de Musset by M. Charles Monselet: "I was able to approach Alfred de Musset frequently, to be introduced to him, and to talk with him. His appearance was icy, rather indifferent than haughty; his movements were slow as those of an automaton; his eye was without projection; his articulation was difficult; and his conversation was empty, terribly empty! It seemed as if he was fulfilling the conditions of a wager, as if he was trying to play a joke upon his company. Nevertheless, I saw him with his best friends, with Arsène Houssaye, Capt. d'Arpentigny, and with other persons whom he could not possibly consider Philistines or indiscreet visitors. Alfred de Musset was the most uninteresting of men. The admiration I have always ... ... is about publishing a work on French antiquities in 10 vols. 8vo. . . . M. Guérin and other lovers of the fine arts are about to publish engravings of all the valuable objects in the Napoleon III. Museum (ex-Campana Collection). . . . M. Lafferrière, the actor, announces that his memoirs will positively be published this winter. . . . It is said the French government has requested Dr. Veron to discontinue publishing his memoirs. M. Champfleury has begun to publish extracts from his memoirs. An article by M. Rénan on St. Francis of Assaz, published in the "Journal des Débats," has attracted a great deal of attention. It reveals his antipathy to material progress and to freedom. It shows he regards convents as favorable to great works (a favorite thesis with him), and raises our smiles to see his unequal standards of measuring truth. He alleges the stigmata on the saint's body to have been frauds, and in the same breath admits the saint's song as unquestionably authentic, although the Italian original has been lost. The article is very curious. . . . The Minister of Public Instruction has offered prizes for the best papers on archæology published in the memoirs of provincial learned societies; for the best glossary .of the dialect of any given district of France; and for the best memoir on the commerce and industry of any province or town during the Middle Ages. ... M. Prévost-Paradol's forthcoming book will be entitled "Democracy and Liberty." MM. Lucien Biart and Ernest Daudet are writing, under the patronage of the French government, a diplomatic and military history of the French expedition to Mexico. M. Dentu, the well-known pamphlet publisher of the Palais Royal, has taken the contract of the publication of the catalogue of the Universal Exhibition; he gives $100,000 for the monopoly. He reckons upon making at least $40,000 by it. He reckons upon a sale of 1,000,000 copies at 20 cents (at the least); the cost of printing, paper, etc. will be $60,000; add $100,000. |