Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/119

 ADVERTISEMENT.

“ or two ago,” says a writer in the London Review of the 8th of March last, “a lady who was an intimate friend of Queen Hortense, and who had known Louis Napoleon from his boyhood, drew his attention to the great literary merit of Monsieur Ernest Renan. The Emperor, ever anxious to attract to his side the leading minds of France, listened with interest, and lost no time in casting about for some means to get Monsieur Renan into his service. This, however, was not so easy, for Monsieur Renan was a member of what we may call the party of the Institut, and was utterly opposed to the existing state of things. At length, however, an interview was arranged, and a series of negotiations commenced, which ended in Monsieur Renan’s agreeing to go to Syria, with a view to carrying out, under the auspices of the French Government, explorations and excavations amongst the old Phœnician cities. He went thither, and he returned thence, unpledged to the Government. His journey was saddened by a most melancholy event in his family, but he accomplished his