in these days, every man is a Mecaenas--will reward his industry and
talent, and thus encourage him to proceed in his design--to illustrate
the History of France by the Lives of her Great Men; each volume, though
forming a distinct work, being connected with that which preceded it, by
a view of the intervening period. The portion before us has our most
cordial approbation and recommendation.

Of Charlemagne, the greatest man of the middle ages, no accurate life
had ever been written. Mr. James tells us that, in his work, he believes
he has corrected some of the errors to be found in former statements,
and has added a few facts to the information which the world before
possessed upon the subject. The Life is preceded by an Historical
Introduction, from A.D. 476, to A.D. 749, recounting the state of Gaul
from a little previous to the final overthrow of the Roman Empire, to
the birth of Charlemagne.

The precise birthplace of Charlemagne is unknown;[7] neither have any
records come down to us of his education, nor any particulars of those
early years which are generally ornamented by the imagination of after
biographers, even when the subject of their writing has left his infancy
in obscurity. The year of his birth, however, seems to have been A.D.
742, about seven years before his father, Pepin, the Brief, assumed the
name of king. The first act of Charlemagne--a task which combined both
dignity and beneficence--was to meet, as deputy for his father, the
chief of the Roman Church, and to conduct him with honour to his
father's presence. Charlemagne was then scarcely twelve years of age.
This is the first occasion on which we find the great man mentioned in
history; "but," observes Mr. James, "the children of the Francs were
trained in their very early years to robust and warlike exercises; and
there is every reason to believe that great precocity, both of bodily