M. DOUMIC'S LAST LECTURE.

M. Doumic devoted his lecture yesterday afternoon to historical writings during the romantic period of French literature. At the close of his address he took a graceful leave of his audience, and thanked them for their regular attendance and appreciation.

From Boston M. Doumic goes directly to New York to deliver two lectures at Columbia this week, the first this afternoon on "La Societe Francaise et la Litterature d'Anjourd'hui," the second on Saturday afternoon on "Le Theatre d'Alfred de Musset." He will also lecture on "La Jeune Fille dans la Litterature Francaise" at the Delphi Academy, Brooklyn, on Saturday evening.

The following is a translation of M. Doumic's summary of yesterday's lecture:

Before the Nineteenth Century, history in France had not succeeded in establishing itself as a distinct style of writing. It had existed only as a vehicle for the advancement of some idea. At the end of the Nineteenth Century erudition was flourishing. Erudition, however, is not history; but merely prepares the way for history and makes it possible. It was romanticism that animated and enlivened the writing of history in France.

It was by reading the "Martyrs" of Chateaubriand and the novels of Walter Scott that Augustin Thierry felt himself develop into an historian. His object was to establish peace between science and art, with scientific and artistic arrangement of material. He is endowed with an imagination which raises images, landscapes and people before the eyes of the reader. His histories where he describes events, paints scenes and outlines characters,- for instance, the "Conquete de l'Angleterre par les Normands" and "Recits Merovingiens,"- are very close in style to novels or epic poems.

In marked contrast to Thierry's imagination is the sensibility of Michelet. This quality in Michelet's writing was the result of his unhealthy nature and of the suffering of his childhood and youth. He has the imagination of the heart; he penetrates the soul. For this reason he has a sympathetic appreciation of the Middle Ages and is the best historian of Jeanne d'Arc. But after 1843 Michelet lost the equilibrium he had preserved between imagination and erudition; and history came to mean for him mere pamphlet writing.

Romanticism brought into French literature fine sensibility and a feeling for art and for history. Its excesses and faults are due to the fact that this was a period of crisis. This was a crisis during which classic realism was developing into modern realism.