tomb, in the village of Beygtach, near Galata, is still a place of pilgrimage for devout Mussulmans.—J. S., G.
BEYLE, Marie Henri, born in 1783, at Grenoble, died at Paris in 1842. Beyle's father was an avocat practising at Grenoble. His mother, the daughter of an eminent physician, M. Gagnon, died when Beyle was but seven years old. On her death, Beyle and two sisters of his resided in her father's house, where Beyle's father, also, occupied apartments without being in the same way a member of the family. His practice in the court of parliament at Grenoble, and the care of a demesne which he had near the town, and where his library was, separated him for the most part of his time from his children. The future novelist, however, at times made his escape from town, and amused himself with his father's books, among which he found Grandison and La Nouvelle Eloise. Beyle's grandfather, a man of considerable learning, is described as himself endeavouring to direct the education of the boy in his earlier years. He lived so entirely with his family, that at thirteen, he had scarcely any acquaintances of his own age. His teachers were a few poor priests, who sought to make out a shifting existence by educating children, and who were often compelled to discontinue their occupation to avoid the persecution with which everything bearing the name of religion was then visited. In this irregular way Beyle learned some Latin. The boy grew up with ardent feelings, self-willed, self-dependent, at war with society and its usages. His grandfather and his aunt sought to reduce this proud spirit to subjection; the result was, that resistance to this course of treatment created in the boy's mind a temper of habitual defiance, which accompanied him through life, which he himself admitted, and sought to refer, not to the peculiarities of his education, but to his Italian blood, and to something in the character of the inhabitants of Dauphiny, which he fancifully traced to incidents in the early political history of that province. Release from what he felt as domestic tyranny came unexpectedly to Beyle. Among the changes which the Revolution brought, one was the establishment—in the year 1795—of central schools for each department, and Beyle found himself free to choose his companions from the four hundred students who attended that of Grenoble. He could also buy a few books for himself. His friend Monsieur Colomb, who gives an interesting account of this period of his life, mentions that "one of his first acts of independence was the purchase of the works of Florian." He continued to reside at his grandfather's house, but passed his days at the school. This continued from 1795 till 1799. His two last years at the central school were given to mathematics. Besides the public lessons, private instruction was obtained for him at the expense of his grandfather's sister, and his tutor was M. Gros. Beyle was successful in obtaining prizes in all his classes, and he went to Paris to present himself for examination at the Polytechnic school. Among the letters of introduction which he took to Paris, one was to M. Daru, a relation of his grandfather's family. Daru was secretary at war, and he found immediate employment for young Beyle in his office. He soon after sent him to Italy. He was for a short while in the army. We find him mentioning his having been at the battle of Marengo. He seems to have had no military tastes, and he availed himself of the peace of Amiens to leave the army. He returned to Grenoble, where he passed a year or two in study, and then again sought Paris, with the purpose of pursuing literature as a profession. His absence from home, though but of two or three years, was at a dangerous age. It was passed in Paris, in Italy, in the army—an irregular life of strong excitement; he had seen the great hero whom all men that he had met in the interval adored. He more than shared the enthusiasm which he witnessed; he had left home a boy, of confined views; he returned a man, in everything changed; he returned to a family who felt no sympathy with the existing government of the country, and who regarded Beyle's liberalism as absolute apostacy. His father was glad to enable him to try his fortunes in Paris, and engaged to give him 150 francs a month for the purpose.
Beyle's first literary efforts were not successful, and we soon find him engaged in merchandise; this is said to have been a ruse to carry on and conceal some love adventure. He next appears as a land agent on a very extensive scale. Then we have him employed in one capacity or other connected with the civil administration of France, and in a position which implied intimate and confidential relations with Napoleon. We have him again attached to the army, and active in the Russian campaign; then in the civil service of the state in 1814 Still, however, his is a hard struggle for bread—the difficulty increased by the unsettled governments of France—and he has to throw himself on literature for support. He shrinks, however, from giving his name with his works, and practises every trick of mystification. His works appear under dozens of pseudonyms, and he assumes many a strange mask—he is now an ironmonger, now a customhouse officer. Here we have him as the marquis de Stendhal—a favourite name of his—and now comes a transformation. The marquis becomes a lady, and lo! we have a new romance by the marquise de Stendhal. We have works of his under the names of Lizio, Visconti, Salviati, Darlincourt, &c., &c. If concealment was his object, he failed, for when his style was formed, he was recognized through every disguise. To his horror of being regarded as an enthusiast, we are disposed to refer his constant levity and occasional petulance; to his fear of ridicule, we attribute his never-ceasing irony. Beyle's strongest desire was to have his acts wholly unrestrained, and he felt that every communication with others was calculated to give them some power over his conduct. Hence almost all his eccentricities. He defines vanity as "l'idée de voisin," and if ever a man was under the dominion of this spell it was Beyle. He always sought entirely to master the subject on which he wrote, but trusted to the moment to supply fitting language. As man's mental and intellectual being is affected by his physical organization, he studied, when about to write on ethical subjects, Bichat and Cabanis. Compiler as he was, he made little use of compilations. In one of his books he says, "The author has run all over Europe, from Naples to Morocco, with a hundred authors, tous originaux, in his carriage." In 1814 he published the lives of Haydn, Mozart, and Metastasio. He also published letters on Haydn. These lives professed to be translations, but a great deal properly his own was introduced. They were, however, task-work, into which his mind was not thrown. In 1817 he published his "History of Painting in Italy," a work of great power and of enduring interest. It gives the best account we know of Michel Angelo and of Da Vinci. It was the only one of his works executed laboriously. It was transcribed by the author seventeen times before being committed to the press. When first published, he tells us, no one read it, while another work of his, produced about the same time—"Naples, Florence, and Rome"—carelessly thrown together, attracted great attention. The Edinburgh Review praised the book, and quoted some passages to justify their commendations. It turned out that Beyle had cribbed the passages from an article of their own. In the year 1822, Beyle published the "l'Amour," and also some sacred poems. His bookseller lost, but consoled himself by repeating a joke long before uttered with respect to Perpignan's Pseaulmes, "sacres ils sont car personne n'y touche." In 1823 he published pamphlets on the subject of Shakspeare and Racine, in which he taught what Englishmen regard as the true faith with respect to Shakspeare. In his treatment of the subject, he discussed also the class of questions that in England occupied Byron and Bowles. In 1829 he published his "Promenades en Rome," and in the next year his "Rouge et Noir." He wrote a number of the diplomatic documents of the French government on the election of the pope, with such effect, that the candidate whom France favoured lost the election but by a single vote. The dates of these publications we give from his own statement. In 1814 we find him at Grenoble as "commissaire extraordinaire." In 1815 he is employed in commercial pursuits at Marseilles, but his fortunes soon remove him to Milan, where he remained about seven years, till at last hunted out by the Austrian police. From 1821 to 1830 he lived in Paris as a litterateur, to use a French word which seems passing into our language. In 1830 Beyle became French consul at Civita Vecchia. He died of apoplexy in 1842. We have mentioned several of his works—to enumerate all would exceed our limits. The best is, we are inclined to think, his "Life of Rossini." The most amusing is the "Chartreuse de Parma." Besides writing a good deal in the French journals, Beyle contributed articles to the New Monthly Magazine when under the management of the poet Campbell. In Beyle's style there is always liveliness, often considerable felicity. Those who were wounded by his satire, called it, with reference to his early military life, "brusquerie subalterne." What they so called seems to us to have often been wit of a high order. In all
