Two new works of interest, if not of authority, have appeared within this year, and each in its way is worth attention, and is sure to command it, as showing the hold which the Encyclopédistes still have on art and letters. Fichel, the cleverest painter in the newest school of French genre, has lately given us a capital picture, Les Encyclopédistes,—a group of the famous men of that large family,—in a library with the furniture, dress, and appointments of the period. Some of the faces are familiar to us even here,—Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, Rousseau, Buffon,—and the others have also the sharp lines and speaking features of truthful portraits. A desire to find out the unnamed persons in the painting first caused the inquiry into the subject, which now takes this shape. Almost at the same time that Fichel's picture was given to the world, the Librairie Internationale in Paris published Les Encyclopédistes, leurs Travaux, leurs Doctrines, et leur Influence, par Pascal Duprat,—a readable and attractive volume of nearly two hundred pages. It tells the story of the Encyclopédie, the political and moral state of France when it began, the incidents of its publication, and, sketching the authors who took part in its composition, explains its object and plan, its general spirit, its philosophical doctrine, its politics, its political economy, its influence on the eighteenth century, and the French Revolution, its opponents then and its value now. All this is done briefly, clearly, and well by one of the lesser lights of French letters, who, however, reflects fairly enough the influence, good and bad, which the Encyclopedists continue to exert.

It is of course generally known that the Encyclopédie was not a proles sine matre, as Montesquieu vaunted, but a translation and expansion of Chambers's "Cyclopaedia," which was noteworthy simply because the title, borrowed from the Greek, was then for the first time applied to modern literature. It had been used, for the first time in the sixteenth century, by Ringelberg, in his " Cyclopaedia," printed at Basle in 1541 ; then by Paul Scalich, in his "Encyclopaedia," Basle, 1599; by Martinuss, in his Idea methodica et brevis Encyclopaediae, sive adumbratio Universitatis, Herborn, 1606; and by Alsted, in his "Encyclop-aedia," Herborn, 1620. These were all written in Latin, each by its own single author, and with a limited, field. Chambers, a century later, at Dublin, 1728, produced a work vastly beyond all his predecessors in merit; but it was perhaps the greatest triumph of his work, that it gained such favor as to command the labor of men like Diderot and his brethren in the task of reproducing it in French.

It was in 1750 that the Prospectus, written by Diderot, announced the publication of the first volume of the Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, par une Société des Gens de Lettres. D'Alembert wrote the Preliminary Discourse, and these papers give the key-note of the work itself. But, after all, the Encyclopedists were not the discoverers of a new world of letters and philosophy, in spite of their fond belief and loud proclamation of that fact. They were the last product of a long intellectual cultivation, of a gradual development of principles which culminated in the great French Revolution, and which included Church and State, politics, religion, letters, in France, in Europe, and in almost the whole modern and civilized world. It was a revolution which began at least with Bacon, was advanced by Hobbes, was furthered by Locke, and was brought to its social and scientific results in France. In that country the philosophy of Descartes was taught by the Jansenists, by Arnauld, Pascal, and Nicole; yet, the Church, which by its oppression limited their power, was one of the first institutions to suffer by its gradual decline. The interweaving of English and French philosophy runs through a long course of years and events. France sought in England what it wanted, what of its own strength it could never attain,—-first, philosophical culture, next, political principles. England received from France the influence of some of the greatest minds of modern philosophy, but each drew from the other much of the doctrine which characterized the nation for over a century. Toland, Tindal, Collins, Shaftesbury, Wollaston, and, last and greatest of all, Bolingbroke, reflected the tone and temper of French philosophy, with its grace of style, and charm of clearness,—next best to truth.