In a paper published in 1862, M. Sainte-Beuve—­who had then, for more than thirty years, been plying zealously and continuously the function of critic—­describes what is a fundamental feature of his method in arriving at a judgment on books and authors.  “Literature, literary production, is in my eyes not distinct, or at least not separable, from the rest of the man and his organization.  I can enjoy a work, but it is difficult for me to form a judgment on it independently of the man himself; and I readily say, as is the tree so is the fruit.  Literary study thus leads me quite naturally to moral study.”  This, of course, he can apply but partially to the ancients; but with the moderns the first thing to do in order to know the work is to know the man who did it, to get at his primary organization, his interior beginnings and proclivities; and to learn this, one of the best means is, to make yourself acquainted with his race, his family, his predecessors.  “You are sure to recognize the superior man, in part at least, in his parents, especially in his mother, the most direct and certain of his parents; also in his sisters and his brothers, even in his children.  In these one discovers important features which, from being too condensed, too closely joined in the eminent individual, are masked; but whereof the basis, the fond, is found in others of his blood in a more naked, a more simple state.”

Hereby is shown with what thoroughness and professional conscientiousness M. Sainte-Beuve sets himself to his work of critic.  Partially applying to himself his method, we discover in part the cause of his sympathy for feminine nature, and of his tact in delineating it.  His father died before he was born; and thence all living parental influence on him was maternal.  None of his volumes is more captivating than his “Portraits de Femmes,” a translation of which we are glad to see announced.

Of Sainte-Beuve’s love for excellence there is, in the third volume of the “Nouveaux Lundis,” an illustration, eloquently disclosing how deep is his sympathy with the most excellent that human kind has known.  For the London Exposition of 1862 a magnificent folio of the New Testament was prepared at the Imperial Press of Paris.  The critic takes the occasion to write a paper on “Les saints Evangiles,” especially the Sermon on the Mount.  After quoting and commenting on the Beatitudes, he continues:  “Had there ever before been heard in the world such accents, such a love of poverty, of self-divestment, such a hunger and thirst for justice, such eagerness to suffer for it, to be cursed of men in behalf of it, such an intrepid confidence in celestial recompense, such a forgiveness of injuries, and not simply forgiveness but a livelier feeling of charity for those who have injured you, who persecute and calumniate you, such a form of prayer and of familiar address to the Father who is in heaven?  Was there ever before anything like to that, so encouraging,