ber of the French Academy. His predecessor was François Raynouard, the once-celebrated author of a tragedy on the fall of the Templars, and a man of no ordinary scholastic acquirements.

The first fruit of his appointment as Director of the Archives of Foreign Affairs was the publication of four quarto volumes of official documents under the title of " Négociations relatives à la Succession d'Espagne sous Louis XIV." These volumes appeared at intervals from 1835 to 1842; and accompanying them was a very luminous and admirable Introduction, subsequently reprinted in the "Mémoires Historiques." In the space of a hundred and seven duodecimo pages, Mignet brings before us a rapid but clear and graphic account of the various causes which produced this memorable struggle, of the successive phases by which its progress was marked, and of the final triumph of the real interests of France. Written in accordance with the theory which underlies his earlier work, it is one of the best specimens of rapid and condensed narration that he has ever given to the world; and nowhere else are his powers as a philosophical historian exhibited to greater advantage.

In 1846 he published another work on a Spanish subject, "Antonio Perez et Philippe II.," the chapters of which had previously been printed in the "Journal des Savants." This book, we suppose, has been more generally read than any other of Mignet's productions, except the "History of the French Revolution; " but it must be conceded, that the volume owes its attractiveness to the extraordinary interest of the story, and to the flood of light which it pours on one of the most obscure points of Spanish history, rather than to any special felicity in the treatment. There is, indeed, the same masterly arrangement and the same judicious management of the lights and shades which are found in every one of Mignet's books; for in this respect he is always the consummate artist. But the characterization does not fulfil the promise of his earlier years, and there is a perceptible hardening of the style. With the exception of Antonio Perez and Philip himself, we do not carry away a very clear idea of the

persons with whom it is the duty of the author to make us acquainted; and yet no one who takes the book in hand will be ready to lay it aside, until he has turned the last page. This, after all, is high praise, since it is one of the ultimate tests of a writer's power; and no one will say that it is undeserved. Mignet has always been fortunate in his choice of subjects; but he was never more so than in this instance, where, to the intrinsic interest of the story, was added a mystery which had been gathering over it for centuries, and which he has for ever dispelled.

The life of Perez is, indeed, one of the most remarkable episodes in Spanish history; and, if we take into view the uncertainty as to the name of his mother, his personal character, the extraordinary vicissitudes of his career, and his miserable end, it will be difficult to find anywhere a parallel to the story. Antonio Perez was the natural son of Gonsalvo Perez, Secretary of State to Charles V., and was brought up at the court of that monarch. At an early age he became the minister and chief favorite of Philip II., and gradually acquired an overwhelming influence in the administration of affairs. As minister, and to gratify his own ends, he nour ished the suspicions which his jealous and implacable master had formed against Don John of Austria, and even went so far as to cause the murder of Don John's confidential friend and secretary, Escovedo, at the command of Philip. While he thus made himself a willing instrument of the most gloomy and suspicious of sovereigns, he did not hesitate to become the rival of his master in love, and to carry on an intrigue with the king's mistress. Accused of the murder of Escovedo, Philip for a time protected him from the murdered secretary's kinsmen and friends; and it was not until the discovery of his intrigue with the Princess of Eboli that this protection was finally withdrawn. He was then thrown into prison, where he was kept for eleven years, alternately treated with mildness and severity, and finally subjected to torture, while his trial was constantly deferred, in accordance with what seems to have been the settled policy of Philip's reign, never to do any thing so long as it was possible to postpone

action. At length he escaped into Aragon, and was for a time abstracted from the pursuit of his enemies by the Justicia of that kingdom; but, being seized by the officers of the Inquisition, he was rescued from them by the mob of Saragossa, who, as Mignet well says, "saved him from the punishment of a heretic, by throwing away their own liberties." He then fled to France, and spent some months at Pau, under the protection of Catherine of Bourbon, sister of Henry IV. Afterward he went to Paris and London, became the friend of Bacon and Essex, and the pensioner of Henry IV., and took part in all the negociations among the enemies of Philip, down to the death of that prince. But he still cherished the unconquerable pride of a Spaniard; and, having lost his new friends by his arrogance and his double dealing, he passed his last years in Paris, in poverty and neglect, and died there, in November, 1611, at the age of seventy years, the last survivor of the great men with whom he had held such various relations.

Such is the story which Mignet selected for his second work, and which he was able to illustrate by a copious supply of unpublished documents. It combines in a rare degree the personal interest of biography with the wider relations of history; and was admirably adapted to exhibit, to the best advantage, his habits of diligent research, his powers of luminous statement, and his fondness for philosophical generalization.

Five years after the publication of this work, he gave to the press his "Histoire de Marie Stuart." Like its predecessor, it had been previously printed in part in the "Journal des Savants;" but the whole narrative had been recast, and, as it now stands, it is the best history of the unfortunate queen which has been written. Availing himself of the magnificent collection of Mary's letters, published by Prince Labanoff, and of some important documents which he had himself obtained from Spain, as well as of the earlier and more common sources of information, he has treated the whole subject with a thoroughness and a candor which leave nothing to be desired. Opinions as to the guilt or innocence of Mary are so little

affected by evidence, that it would be idle to look for a cessation of the Marian controversy as the result of any discussion; and we do not suppose that the end has been brought much nearer by the unanswerable arguments of our author. On the great question of Mary's complicity in the murder of Darnley, his judgment is clear and positive as to her guilt; and, on other contested points, his opinions are stated with equal clearness and force. At the same time he is never a partisan; and throughout he exhibits an unfeigned sympathy with Mary in her distresses. For Elizabeth he has a far less friendly feeling, and her character is portrayed in very unattractive colors; but his estimate of her differs widely from the portrait which has been commonly drawn by her enemies. Feebleness of will, irresolution, and a habit of procrastination, have not ordinarily been associated with the name of England's imperious queen. That the case of her cousin and rival presented immense difficulties to her mind, will be admitted; but it is certain that her hesitation to take the final step was the result of the peculiar circumstances in which she was placed, rather than the characteristic expression of her policy. If she inherited her father's arbitrary temper, she inherited also his inflexibility of purpose; and her occasional reluctance to act with energy and promptitude sprang from a very different source from that which is obvious in the case of Philip IĮ. Mignet's character of Elizabeth is only one more illustration of the danger of too wide and hasty generalization. But, in respect to thoroughness of research, clearness of statement, and impartiality of tone, the volumes will compare favorably with the best of his writings; while, as regards style, they are little, if at all, inferior to the volume on Antonio Perez, and are much better than any of his later productions.

The "Histoire de Marie Stuart" was followed, in 1854, by a monogram on the last years of the Emperor Charles V., mainly founded on the important documents recently obtained from the archives of Simancas. The discovery of these new materials had set the life of Charles at Yuste in a new light, and had made it necessary to re-write that chapter of his eventful experience. Robertson had been ignorant of the real

facts, and had said little on the subject; but that little was altogether wrong. Among the writers who came forward to supply Robertson's omissions and to correct his mistakes, Mignet was not the least able or the least successful in his treatment of the subject. Writing after all of his competitors, we believe, except our own distinguished countryman, Prescott, he had access to the materials which they had gathered; and, with his accustomed skill as an artist, he has woven them into a narrative of surpassing interest. In regard to the motives which induced the abdication of Charles, and in regard to the manner of his life at Yuste, Mignet differs but little from the other writers, though he dwells mainly on the retired monarch's participation in the management of public affairs, and utterly rejects the Jeronymite monk's story, that Charles celebrated his own funeral rites. His remarks on this point, in particular, are admirably put; and, if they are not absolutely conclusive, they at least throw great doubt on the story.

Beside these four principal works, and a very interesting and instructive series of papers on the rivalry between Charles V. and Francis I., which have appeared at irregular intervals within the last ten or twelve years in the pages of the "Revue des Deux Mondes," Mignet has published four volumes of collected miscellanies. The first and most elaborate of these, the "Mémoires Historiques," comprises four independent essays, three of which are of great value, and are in every respect worthy of the writer's powers. The first paper in the collection is a thorough and scholarly essay on the condition of Germany in the eighth and ninth centuries, its conversion to Christianity, and its introduction into the civilized society of Western Europe. The various learning, the comprehensiveness of view, and the fondness for broad generalization, which Mignet brought to the examination of his subject, and the admirable manner in which he has dealt with it, render this memoir one of the best of his minor productions, and a solid and useful contribution to historical literature. The character of the men by whom the conversion of the northern nations was effected, the circum