Chateaubriand, de Stai'l and Ili:ranger connect the age of Rousseau and Voltaire with the modern literature of France.
Chateaubriand was born in 1769, and published his first work, the Essay on Revolutions, in London, in 1797, while in exile. Ills Atala, the subject of whlmh was derived from his adventures among the Natchez tribe of Indians, on the Mis sissippi, appeared in 1301, and his Genie du Christianisme in 1802. He also pub lished Les Martyrs in 1807, and an ac count of his travels in the East. Ile filled many diplomatic stations under the Bourbons, and was made peer of France. After his death, which took place in 1848, his autobiography was published, under the title of .ilii'moires doutre Tombe. Madame de Stai'l, the daughter of M. Neckar, afterwards minister under Louis XVI., was horn in 1766, and first appear ed as an author in 1799, when she pub lished a series of letters on the life and writings of Rousseau. During the French Revolution she remained in Switzerland and England, where she wrote several po litical pamphlets, dramas, and essays on life and literature. Her romance of Co rinne was published in 1807, and her Be Allemagne, which directed attention to the literature of Germany, it, 1810. Her work entitled Ten Years of was written in Sweden ; she died in Paris in 1817. Br.ranger, who still lives at Pussy, near Paris, is the first song-writer of France. Many of his lyrics and ballads have become household words with the common people. Casimir Dela vigne, rho died in 1813, was among the first restor ers of that lyric school, which Lamart Me, Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset have since carried to a high degree of perfee lion. The most renowned names in co temporary French literature, are, as po ets : Alphonse de Lamartine, author of Meditations Poetiques, Harmonies Po Igo es and La Ch utenun Ange ; Victor lingo, author of three volumes of lyrical romances and ballads; Alfred de Mussel ; Jean Raoul, it disciple of Lamartine ; and Auguste Barbier, who mingles with his penis a vein of keen satire. Jasmin, a barber of Agen, has obtained much co.
lebrity by his poems in the Gascon dialect. The new school of French romance has infected the modern literature of all countries. Balzac, who died in 1330, is
unequalled as a painter of society and manners ; Eugene Sue, whose Mysteries of Paris and Wandering Jett. have been on widely read, delights in exciting sub jects and the most intricate and improba ble plots ; Alexander Dumas. best known by his Count of Monte Christo, and his 1'0111:111CC,S of travel, is a master of pictur esquo narrative ; Victor Hugo is best known as a novelist by his Notre Dante de Paris, a brilliant historical fiction, and Paul de Kock, as a lively though unscrupulous painter of Parisian life, enjoys a remarkable popularity. The most striking and original writer of fic tion is Madame Dudevant, better known as Sand," whose Andre, Lettres d'unVoyageur and Consuelo, have placed her in the first rank of French authors. As ti.-.-atnatists, Scribe, Leon Gozlan, Eti enne Arago, Germain Delavigne and Fe lix Pyat have distinguished themselves. The most prominent historieal and politi cal writers are Lamartine, Thiers, Miehe let, Guizot, Louis Blanc and Thibau dean ; while Cousin and Comte are the founders of the new schools of philosophy. French oratory now occupies a higher position than ever before ; its most illus trious names are Guizot, Thicrs, Berryer, Lamartine, Odilon Barret and Victor Hugo.
German first period of German literature commenced with the reign of Charlemagne in the eighth century, and extends to the time of the Suabian emperors, at the close of the twelfth century. The first learned so ciety was instituted by Aleuin,the great est scholar of Charlemagne's time. In the succeeding period, Einhard, and Lambert von Aschaffenburg dis tinguished themselves as historical and theological writers. About this time also originated those epic ballads and frag ments which were afterwards collected under the title of the or "Lay of the Nibelungen," and the "Song of Hildebrand." The Neibelon gen-Leich which has been called the Ger man Iliad, received its present form about the year 1210. Its subject is the history of Siegfried, son of the King of the Netherlands, his marriage with Chriemhild. sister of Gunther, King of the Burgurnlians, and the revenge of 13runhild, Queen of Ireland, who married Giinther.