The life of Thophile Gautier is of peculiar interest to men of letters, especially to that large proportion of them who, like Thophile, are "polygraphes." Our ancestors more briefly termed them "hacks," and, since Dr. Johnson, or, at least, since Southey, there has been no hack so distinguished as Thophile. His Pegasus was early broken into harness, and his biographer, Maxime du Camp, like himself, is constantly regretting this bondage. Gautier's biography and his confessions prove that he was a born student. He had the love of printed matter, he had a memory - as proved by his recital of a long poem of Hugo's only once read, which rivalled that of Scott.