PORTRAITS O CELEBRITIES. 47

ALEXANDRE DUMAS. Borx 18025 Dikn 1870,

[LEXANDRE D peres Lo "I whose works we are indebted for ll=mA ) astriking story inour last num- ber, and for another in the pre- SCNL Issue, was, iF we exeept Sir

NSO Woalter Scott, the areatest writer of romance who cver ived, And his Hfe was as roman- tic as s books, His erandmother was a nearess, and his father, General Dumas—a dashing ofhicer whom Napoleon left to dic in prison—had the appearance of a4 negro. Alexandre was born at Villers-Cotterets, but at twenty came to Paris to seek his lortune, and began Tife as a copying-clerk ;

Y .

Ul v (i,

but in 1828 his play, “ Ienrv T took the town by storm. e with wrdour into the Revolution of July, made an expedition to Soissons, and cap- tured, “almost single-handed, a powder- magazine, a general, and several officers. [n i8Sy Monte Cristo” appeared in the columns of a newspaper, and caused more universal interest than anv romance since “ Robinzon Crusoc” or “Waverlev” Then followcd *The Three Mousqueteers,” which, with its scquels, contained his best work,

except M La Reine Margot,” the finest of

them all. With the help of assistants, Dumas then began to put forth novels at the rate of fifty or SIXty 11 one vear—Nhis works are said to reach 2,000 volumces-—- and he made Targe sums of monev, which

e spent as fast as he carned thenn ;) so

threw himselfl

that in his old age he was reduced o the strangest devices to maintain himself, writing puffs for tradesmen, and even exhi-

b5, evallroy, biting himscll in shop-windows. FEven in

the little stories which we have aduapted there are manifested many of the charac-

[lecutienyer,

Dumas had a

which superior—the never-flageinge spirit of the narrative, the dramatic situations, the air ol naturce, and the colour of romantg

teristics 1n never