A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields/Notes
NOTES.
Page 1
Sonnet. Liré, 'a small town in the Department of Maine-et-Loire,' is the birthplace of Du Bellay, who was the author of 'a collection of small pieces called Les Regrets, which have obtained for him the surname of the French Ovid.'
Page 2.
Sonnet.—The Pyrenees. Guillaume de Saluste Seigneur du Bartas, born near Auch, was so celebrated amongst his contemporaries, that in ten years, namely, between 1574 and 1584, his poem of 'The Week; or, the Creation of the World,' divided into seven cantos, corresponding to the seven days of the creation, passed through more than thirty editions. Besides this poem Du Bartas composed 'Judith,' a tragedy; 'The Triumph of Faith,' a poem; and several lyrical works of considerable merit.
Page 3.
To a Certain Marchioness. There is a story not very well authenticated, regarding this piece, which is perhaps worth mention. In the salon of the Duchess de Bouillon a young lady once smilingly asked, amidst a shower of pleasantries, What is the plant that best adorns ruins? Madame de Motteville, the celebrated authoress of the Memoirs, and a friend of Corneille, had ivy in her hair, and all eyes turned naturally towards her. Thereupon Corneille, who was present, wrote the verses on behalf, and as it were in the place, of his friend, and gave them to the young lady on the spot.
Page 5.
Sonnet. Paul Scarron is called by M. Gustave Masson the Homer of grotesque literature. 'His infirmities authorised him to call himself un raccourci des misères humaines.' He was the first husband of Madame Maintenon.
Page 6.
On the Death of a Young Girl. Parny was born in the Isle of Bourbon. He lost his fortune during the French Revolution. Napoleon granted him a pension in 1813. His admirers surnamed him the 'Tibulle Français.' We obtain these facts from M. Gustave Masson's book.
Page 7.
The Swallows. Jean Pierre Claris de Florian was born in I755 at Basses-Cevennes. He suffered great hardships during the first French Revolution. He was thrown into prison, and contracted in captivity the illness of which he shortly after died. His fables are well known.
Page 8.
The Young Captive. The heroine of this well-known poem by André Chénier, who was himself a victim of the Revolution, was the beautiful Aimée de Coigny, Duchess de Fleury.
Page 10.
The Butterfly. Like Charles Nodier's, Xavier De Maistre's strength lay in his prose; he wrote little in the form of verse. Madame Cottin in her 'Exiles of Siberia' quite spoiled the original and beautiful story of De Maistre. Of the piece given here, we may mention, that it had been translated into Russian, then retranslated into French verse by one of the Secretaries to the Russian Embassy, who did not know its origin. The 'Fall of the Leaves' by Millevoye had a similar destiny.
Page 13.
The Leaf. The oak alluded to in this poem was Napoleon, of whom to the last the poet was a faithful adherent. We append a translation of this piece by Lord Macaulay, taken from his Miscellaneous Writings:
'Thou poor leaf, so sear and frail,
Sport of every wanton gale,
Whence and whither dost thou fly,
Through this bleak autumnal sky?
On a noble oak I grew,
Green, and broad, and fair to view;
But the Monarch of the shade
By the tempest low was laid.
From that time I wander o'er
Wood and valley, hill and moor,
Wheresoe'er the wind is blowing,
Nothing caring, nothing knowing:
Thither go I, whither goes,
Glory's laurel, Beauty's rose.'
Page 14.
Romance. Chateaubriand's prose is poetry, but he has written very little verse, and that little is not of a high order. Few are gifted to excel in both.
Page 16.
Romance of Nina. Charles Guillaume Etienne was one of Napoleon's followers. The piece we give here has enjoyed a high reputation, but a translation cannot do it justice.
Page 17.
My Vocation. This song was a great favourite of Thackeray's. The reader may perhaps remember his reference to it in his lecture on Goldsmith, and his quotation of the opening lines as peculiarly applicable to that poet:—
'Jeté sur cette boule,
Laid, chétif, et souffrant;
Etouffé dans la foule,
Faute d'êtie assez grand;
Une plainte touchante
De ma bouche sortit;
Le bon Dieu me dit: Chante,
Chante, pauvre petit!'
Page 19.
The Memories of the People. In spite of Béranger's coarseness, it is impossible to deny him the title of a true poet—a poet of the people. The piece here given, those entitled, 'Le Vieux Caporal,' 'Jeanne la Rousse,' 'Le Roi d'Yvetôt,' and a hundred others, will always retain their hold on the public mind.
Page 22.
The Captive to the Swallows. This is the well-known song of Béranger named 'Les Hirondelles.'
Page 24.
The Fall of the Leaves. Sainte-Beuve has remarked that there exists or has existed in every man, be he a poet or not, 'a certain flower of sentiment, of vague desire, and of reverie,' which expires and vanishes under 'prosaic labours' and the every-day occupations of life. There exists, he thinks, in all men, or in the vast majority of men, 'a poet who died young while the man himself lives on.' Millevoye, the author of this piece, is in Sainte-Beuve's opinion 'the personified type of the young poet who cannot live but must die in each of us at the age of thirty years more or less.' The criticism is just. Millevoye is a poet of a secondary order. He lived when a great change was coming over French poetry, and he had not courage or genius to leave the old beaten tracks. 'Charles Millevoye,' said his friend Nodier, 'would have made new and successful invasions in the domains of Poesy if he had not made de si bonnes études. But these bonnes études were not the only obstacles, it seems, in his way. He wanted vigour, imagination, originality. He could write sweetly in the old style, and that was all. The little poem we give here has been called, oddly enough, 'la Marseillaise des Mélancoliques.' It has been translated into several languages, and was once retranslated into French from the Russian, by a Frenchman who did not know its origin.
Page 26.
The Young Girl. Charles Nodier was born at Besançon in 1783 and died in 1844. His strength lay in prose more than in poetry. His stories are charming, and remind one very much of Washington Irving. His 'Souvenirs' also are very interesting. A very graphic account of his life and works has been given by Alexandre Dumas who was a personal friend of his. Nodier travelled in England and Scotland, and some verses addressed by him to Sir Walter Scott, after a visit, will be found in one of the earlier numbers of 'Blackwood's Magazine.'
Page 27.
Greece. Pierre Lebrun is better know as a dramatist than as a poet, but his poetry is excellent. The antique and classical is his line. His poem 'Voyage en Grèce' has much merit, and some of his small pieces, such as 'Le Ciel d'Athènes,' are charming. He was admitted into the Academy in 1828 and died in 1873.
Page 29.
The Peasant's Dilemma. This piece will be found in the popular collection called 'La Lyre Française' by Gustave Masson.
Page 31.
À la Grâce de Dieu. Gustave Lemoine, the author of this piece, must not be confounded with André Lemoyne, the author of 'The Lost Path' (page 278). There is a homely but sincere pathos in this short poem, very inadequately rendered, which reminds one of 'Wapping Old Stairs,' 'Black-eyed Susan,' and pieces of the same stamp in English literature.
Page 33.
The Maiden and the Ring-dove. In one of her later volumes Madame Valmore has the following motto on the title-page—
'Prisonnière en ce livre une âme est renfermée.'
The line contains the secret of her success. Her soul is in her book. She writes from the heart. The music of her verses is very attractive. Charles Baudelaire compares her poems to 'un simple jardin anglais romantique et romanesque,' and sets forth his illustration in the following terms—'Des massifs de fleurs y représentent les abondantes expressions du sentiment. Des étangs, limpides et immobiles, qui réfléchissent toutes choses s'appuyant à l'envers sur la voûte renversée des cieux, figurent la profonde résignation toute parsemée de souvenirs. Rien ne manque à ce charmant jardin d'un autre âge: ni quelques ruines gothiques se cachant dans un lieu agreste, ni le mausolée inconnu qui, au détour d'une allée, surprend notre âme et lui commande de penser à l'éternité. Des allées sinueuses et ombragées aboutissent à des horizons subits. Ainsi la pensée du poete, après avoir suivi de capricieux méandres, débouche sur les vastes perspectives du passé ou de l'avenir; mais ces ciels sont trop vastes pour être généralement purs, et la température du climat trop chaude pour n'y pas amasser des orages. Le promeneur en contemplant ces étendues voilées de deuil, sent monter à ses yeux les pleurs de l'hystérie, hysterical tears. Les fleurs se penchent vaincues, et les oiseaux ne parlent qu'à voix basse. Après un éclair précurseur, un coup de tonnerre a retenti: c'est l'explosion lyrique: enfn un déluge inévitable de larmes rend à toutes ces choses, prostrées, souffrantes et découragées, la fraîcheur et la solidité d'une nouvelle jeunesse.'
Page 36.
The Solitary Nest. Madame Desbordes-Valmore's 'Solitary Nest,’ like most of her pieces of the same genre, has a music which a translation can never adequately render.
Page 37.
The Foundling. Alexandre Soumet lived between the Classical and Romantic schools of French Poetry. He had been brought up in the old school, and could not therefore join the new, except in a timid and hesitating way, although he felt the superiority of it. His first success was in the dramatic line, 'Clytemnestre' and 'Saul,' tragedies which opened to him the doors of the French Academy. He next tried his hand at Epic poems, 'Jeanne d'Arc,' pronounced by a very competent French critic to be a complete miscarriage, a poem of which 'the plan is defective, the colour false, and the tone declamatory'—and 'La Divine Epopée,' on the subject of the Redemption, a subject which, as already handled by Milton in the 'Paradise Lost' and 'Paradise Regained,' would have been avoided as likely to provoke damaging comparisons by a wiser writer. Soumet is said to have always kept the plume of an eagle on his desk, not to write with, but 'to have always present to his thoughts that a poet such as he aspired to be must build his eyrie on the highest summits,—must wheel in the regions of the sky.' 'This cursed plume of the eagle,' says M. Léon de Wailly, 'was his ruin.' Had he not attempted so much, he could have left a more durable reputation. He had sufficient means to defray a moderate ambition, but he wasted his patrimony in mad enterprises, like many another conceited literary spendthrift. As it is, writers with less merit and less ambition, placed in circumstances more propitious, have, simply by attempting what was in their power to accomplish, acquired titles more real and more durable than Soumet, to the esteem of posterity.
'La Nuit de Noel,' and the piece we give here, 'La Pauvre Fille,' have been much admired, and have been quoted in almost every book of Selections, but the feeling in them does not seem to be very genuine, and much of their success must have arisen from the very nature of the themes.
Page 39.
It would be as absurd to give a lengthened notice amongst these Notes of Lamartine as of Victor Hugo. He himself in his own magnificent language has related what everybody knows about his infancy and his youth. He was born in the most sombre period of French history, and in a respectable and religious family. The province in which his early days were past, is one of the most beautiful in all France,—'an enchanted land.' Of his education, his travels, his memorable part in the Revolution,—when threatened on all sides by levelled guns and bayonets he preserved his coolness, and made an oration which brought down the 'drapeau rouge' already hoisted and prevented a massacre,—his subsequent poverty and distress,—the loss of those he loved,—the death which at last came,—who that is at all familiar with the literature of France does not know? Read his life by himself and his travels, dear reader, if you have not done so, and thank us for the recommendation. His poetry has been criticised and reviewed times innumerable both in French and English literary periodicals, and there is very little new to be said about it. In fancy, in imagination, in brilliancy, in grandeur, in style,—in all that makes a poet—excepting purity—he must yield to Victor Hugo. In purity he yields to none. His mind is essentially religious. He never forgot what he learned at a sainted mother's knee,—a mother whom he has a thousand times lovingly commemorated in his writings. There is much in Victor Hugo—far greater poet though he be—which it would not be wise to put into the hands of young people whose principles have not been sufficiently formed; but Lamartine may be placed indiscriminately in the hands of all.
The 'Lectuies pour tous'—a selection by himself of his own writings—has not a line over which the most delicate maiden or most innocent child need blush; and it is delightful reading, only—for the truth must always be told—a little dull here and there. Lamartine married an English lady, a granddaughter of Governor Holwell, who was incarcerated in the Black Hole by Surajah Dowlah, in the early days of British rule in India. Of the piece we give here, 'The Lake,' Alfred de Musset has said:—
'Qui de nous, Lamartine, et de notre jeunesse,
Ne sait par cœur, ce chant, des amants adoré,
Qu'un soir, au bord du Lac, tu nous as soupire?
Qui n'a lu mille fois, qui ne relit sans cesse
Ces vers mystérieux où parle ta maîtresse;
Et qui n'a sangloté sur ces divins sanglots,
Profonds comme le ciel et purs comme les flots?
Hélas! ces longs regrets des amours mensongères,
Ces ruines du temps qu'on trouve à chaque pas,
Ces sillons infinis de lueurs éphémères,
Qui peut se dire un homme et ne les connaît pas?'
Page 42.
The Cedars of Lebanon. There is no evidence that the Cross was built of cedar.
Page 44.
On the First Page of an Album belonging to My Friend Auguste Bressier. Emile Deschamps, like his brother Antoni Deschamps, has paid much attention to foreign literature. His translations from Goethe and Schiller,—'La Cloche,' 'La Fiancée de Corinthe,' 'Le Roi de Thule,' may stand side by side with the admirable originals, and his imitations of the Spanish Ballads are as good as those of Mr. Lockhart. As an original writer, he belongs to the Romantic school founded by Lamartine and Hugo. His complimentary verses in the album of Auguste Bressier, which we give here, are generally considered very happy. Antoni Deschamps, the brother of Emile Descharnps, has not much resemblance to him as a poet. Antoni is stiff, cold, uniform, austere, sometimes sublime, whereas Emile is varied, supple, changing and graceful. Antoni has written little or no prose, Emile has written a great deal of prose as well as verse. Antoni has devoted himself to the poetry of Italy, Emile has fluttered about from the poetry of Germany to the poetry of England, of Italy, and of Spain. Antoni's translation of Dante, in which he has wished to give according to his own expressions 'an idea of the tone and manner of Dante,' is a noble work—a model for all who undertake the work of translation. He abstains from all notes and commentaries, and endeavours to produce with a religious fidelity 'the colour and especially the accent' of the poetry of the great master; and his success is wonderful. His other works are: 'Etudes sur l'Italie,' in which the influence of his attentive study of Dante is always apparent, and 'Elégies,' in which his own private life and its sorrows are laid bare with a power that fascinates, and 'Resignation' (his last work, we believe), a sort of sequel to the 'Elégies,' not unworthy of the fame he had previously won.
Antoni never married—never even fell in love; all his love was for his books; hence a lonely life, a life so forlorn that he seems weary of it. The following verses may give some idea of his feelings. The original has considerable pathos.
'The world for me was as if it were not,
The real, the common, never I sought,
The fanciful for me was all in all,
The rest for the poor and vulgar who crawl;
And now remark, while still, still in my prime,
All pleasure to me seems almost a crime,
Distasteful and weary. Of other clay
I thought I was made exempt from decay,
Formed, vivified, as few spirits have been
With an essence more powerful, subtle and keen
Than the herd. O folly! O sin! O pride!
Pity me all those that will not deride!
Behold like a brute I eat and I range,
And the brute itself with me would not change;
For it has nurslings to feed in its den,
And I've none at my hearth, the most lonely of men.'
Page 47.
To a Bereaved Mother. Reboul was a baker or boulanger at Nîmes, and is the author of 'Poésies' (1836), 'Le Dernier Jour' (1840), 'Les Traditionnelles' (1857), and a tragedy, 'Le Martyre de Vivia.' Lamartine honoured him with a notice, and, in reference to Reboul's humble profession, said that Homer was a beggar, Virgil a shepherd, and Moses a child abandoned on the waters. Reboul knew well what to answer:
'Chantre ami, qu'à toi seul en retourne la gloire!
Mes chants naquirent de tes chants.'
Alexandre Dumas also honoured Reboul in his 'Impressions de Voyage' with a flattering notice, which is so interesting that we must desire the reader to hunt out the book and read it. In the morning Dumas found the poet in his shop selling his loaves—'You come to see the poet and not the baker—is it not so? Now, I am a baker from five o'clock in the morning to four in the evening. From four o'clock to midnight I am a poet. Would you buy nice little loaves? Then stay. I have excellent ones. Would you have verses? Come back at five: I shall supply you with bad ones.' 'I shall come back at five.' At five accordingly Dumas saw the poet in his little garret above a granary heaped up with mountains of wheat of diverse qualities, and learnt from him the secret of his art. 'Are you of a distinguished family?' 'I am the son of a common labourer.' 'Did you receive a good education?' 'None at all.' 'What made you a poet?' 'Misfortune.' 'I looked around me,'—writes Dumas; 'everything appeared so calm, so quiet, so happy in the little chamber, that the word misfortune ought not, I thought, to have found any echo there. "You want an explanation of what I have just said, is it not so?" continued Reboul. "And I do not find it, I confess." "Have you never passed over a tomb unconsciously?" "Ah, yes; and there I have found the grass more green and the flowers more fresh." "Ah! Well, it is just that. I had married a woman whom I loved.—My wife is dead." I gave him my hand. "And now do you understand," he continued, "I felt a great sorrow which I vainly searched to pour out to somebody. Those who had surrounded me up to that time were men of my class, gentle, pitiful, but common souls. Instead of telling me, 'Weep, and we shall weep with you,' they tried to console me. My tears, which only asked to flow, went back towards my heart, and inundated it. I sought solitude, and finding no human souls able to understand me, I cried to God alone. These solitary and religious cries took an elevated poetic character, which I had never remarked in my words; my thoughts formulated themselves in an idiom almost unknown to myself; and as they had a tendency to float up to heaven for want of sympathy on earth, God gave them wings, and they mounted, mounted up to Him." "Yes, it is that," I exclaimed, as if he had explained to me the simplest thing in the world, "and I understand all now. True poets become thus what they are. How many men there are of talent who only want a great misfortune to become men of genius. You have told me in a single word the secret of your life. I know it now as well as you yourself."'
These flattering notices and the beauty of some of Reboul's small poems, such as the verses addressed, 'A une Chouette,' 'La Bergère et le Papillon,' and 'La Confidence,' attracted public attention to him, and gained him influence and position.
At the same time, it must be noted that Reboul was neither a man of great genius nor of a high education. He resembles some of the peasant poets of England and Scotland, Clare or Thom,—not Burns, for that was a Master Spirit. In his more ambitious efforts Reboul utterly fails. It was only in his occasional inspired moods that he succeeded in dashing off the little pieces which charm us, and will always charm, by their simplicity, modesty, melancholy, and even pathos.
The piece we give here has often been translated into English. The reader will find one version of it in Longfellow, and another in the Dutt 'Family Album.'
Page 49.
The Last Day of the Year. There is not much merit in this commonplace piece, but Madame Tastu's poems seldom rise above the barren level of mediocrity. She wants strength and stamina, and her best efforts are only pretty pieces of embroidery. She has written several educational works for the young, which are deservedly popular.
Page 52.
Sur la Terrasse des Aygalades. Joseph Méry, a Provençal poet, born about the end of the last century, has written a very large number of works jointly with M. Barthélemy, and the two names Barthélemy and Méry are always joined together in France, like those of Beaumont and Fletcher in England. Among their works may be mentioned 'Napoléon en Egypte' and 'Waterloo.' In connection with Gérard De Nerval, whose Sanscrit attainments have already been mentioned in another note, Méry published a translation of the Sanscrit drama 'Mritsakati' or 'Le Chariot d'Enfant,' which thus, after two thousand years, transplanted from its native soil, had a new lease of vitality in the centre of civilisation—Paris. Méry's greatest merits are fecundity and diversity. All languages and lands seem familiar to him, and he flies from one to another without ever appearing to be out of his native region. His pictures of past times are generally very vivid, and his historical figures are not always mere automatons, but very often living and breathing men and women.
Page 54.
Moses. Alexander Smith, the author of Dreamthorp, himself a poet of no mean order, and who has written a neglected novel named 'Alfred Haggart's Household,' which is as sweet as anything that has appeared since the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' says of England's Poet-Laureate, 'Mr. Tennyson does not imitate so much as he is imitated, but even in his ear there have lingered notes from the other side of the Atlantic.' Then quoting the last stanza of the famous garden song in Maude—
'She is coming, my own, my sweet:
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthen bed;
My dust would heal her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,—
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red'—
he observes, 'in these lines a quick ear detects Poe's music ringing like a silver bell.'
With much greater reason than Alexander Smith, we might ask if the lines most often quoted from the Poet-Laureate's Tithonus—and the whole piece itself in all its beauty—is not an echo of Alfred de Vigny's Moise? Let the reader judge. Sings the Poet-Laureate,
'Me only cruel immortality
Consumes: I Wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world;'
and again,
'When the steam
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes
Of happy men that have the power to die
And grassy barrows of the happier dead.
Release me and restore me to the ground.'
Now hear the poet of France,
'Mon Dieu! Vous m'avez fait puissant et solitaire,
Laissez-moi m'endormir du sommeil de la terre.'
And again,
'Vos anges sont jaloux et m'admirent entre eux . . . .
Et cependant, Seigneur, je ne suis pas heureux.'
| · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
| · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
Aussi, loin de m’aimer, voilà qu'ils tremblent tous,
Et quand j'ouvre les bras, on tombe à mes genoux.'
Alfred de Vigny's 'Moise' is indeed a poem of great beauty, and may stand side by side with 'Tithonus.' 'It is not the true Moise—historically, perhaps,'—says his French critic, M. D'Aurevilly,—'the Moise Hebraic and Biblical, but what a beautiful human Moise it is. What a weariness in the man who has penetrated into everything! What a prodigious fatigue of his superiority! What a disgust of life, in an eternal celibacy of power. What a weight at the heart! What sorrow for his high function, ever near God, where the air is not respirable for a human creature in the flesh! What an overwhelming sublimity—throughout!'
Of the other pieces of M. Alfred de Vigny, the beautiful poem of 'Eloa' is the best. Eloa is the angel of pity in heaven. She was born from the tear of our Lord at the grave of Lazarus. She compassionates the prince of the fallen angels when she first hears of him as
- 'Qu'à présent il est sans diadème,
- 'Qu'à présent il est sans diadème,
Qu'il gémit, qu'il est seul, que personne ne l'aime!'
Then she falls in love with him and perishes.
Next to 'Eloa' is 'Le Cor,'—
'Oh que le son du cor est triste au fond des bois!'
'Dolorida,' which is much admired in France, is of the Byronic school, far inferior to both the last-mentioned pieces,—melodramatic—nay, verging on the absurd. The 'Death of the Wolf,' which we give further on, is wanting in condensation, and teaches a very questionable philosophy.
M. de Vigny is also an excellent novelist, but his 'Cinq-Mars,' which is generally considered his best work, and finds a place in every library, seems to us to be cold and dull compared with his 'Servitude et Grandeur Militaires.'
Page 59.
The Death of the Wolf. This piece has not the ordinary condensation of Alfred de Vigny—who is great both as a poet and as a novelist. See preceding note.
Page 64.
The Message. The reader will perhaps feel a little surprised to find a poem by Henri Heine in a collection gleaned in 'French fields.' But Henri Heine was neither a German nor a Frenchman. He was a Jew who embraced Christianity, and afterwards turned infidel, or at all events preserved only a very modified sort of belief. Born in Germany, he lived in France, or rather in the French capital. Though he wrote in German and had a power over that language which few have shown since Goethe and Schiller, his predilections and tastes were all French. This piece and several others were translated by himself into French and published in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' under fictitious signatures. His command over the French language was great for a foreigner, though not so marvellous as his command over the German.
Page 65.
Ni Haine ni Amour. Compare this poem with page 310 by Félix Arvers.
'Pour elle, quoique Dieu l'ait faite douce et tendre,
Elle suit son chemin, distraite et sans entendre
Ce murmure d'amour élevé sur ses pas;
A l'austère devoir pieusement fidèle,
Elle dira, lisant ces vers tout remplis d'elle:
"Quelle est donc cette femme?" et ne comprendra pas.'
Page 68.
The Slaver. It would have been far better to have kept the measure of the original in this piece, but we found it impossible to do so. There is a scathing bitterness of sarcasm in some of Heine's pieces, this, among the rest, that appals and verges on the sublime.
Page 73.
My Normandy. This song of F. Bérat has long been popular.
Page 77.
Morning Serenade. It would be absurd to make any comment on Victor Hugo in a short note at the end of a book. His name is among the great ones of the earth. With Shakspeare, Milton, Byron, Goethe, Schiller, and the rest, his place has long been marked in the Valhalla of the poets. Sings England's latest poet,—a poet indeed, spite of his many serious aberrations—
'Thou art chief of us, and lord;
Thy song is as a sword
Keen-edged and scented in the blade from flowers;
Thou art lord and king, but we
Lift younger eyes and see
Less of high hope, less light on wandering hours;
Hours that have borne men down so long,
Seen the right fail, and watched uplift the wrong.'
Page 79.
The Grandmother. This is one of the earlier productions of Victor Hugo.
Page 81.
Soleil Couchant. It is impossible to do justice in translations to Victor Hugo's beautiful pieces, but it is next to impossible to abstain from an attempt every now and then.
Page 85.
Chanson. Like the thirteen following pieces this poem is an extract from Victor Hugo's masterly work, 'Les Châtiments.' When the Emperor was a prisoner in Germany, and the Empress had fled to England, the appearance of Victor Hugo at the French legislative assembly, gathered to resolve 'that the throne had been abdicated and to form a new Government,' was hailed with one long cry of 'Les Châtiments, Les Châtiments.'
Page 88.
To those who Sleep. The third stanza reminds the writer of Lord Lytton's beautiful lines in Aurora Clair:
'Sword
And shield lack never where'er there be
A soldier ready to use them. He
Who, having a cause for which to fight,
Hath also courage and will to smite,
Finds waiting for him in pebble or reed
Just such a weapon as serves his need.'
Page 99.
Patria. The song is married in the original to Beethoven's glorious music. Vide Appendix.
Page 101.
A Souvenir of the Night of the Fourth. Like Tennyson's 'In Memoriam,' 'Les Châtiments' of Victor Hugo harps upon one subject. A great sorrow inspired the muse of the one, a great public wrong that of the other. But in Tennyson's poem, exquisite as it is, the monotony palls at last, while in Hugo's the variety is infinite; hence the superiority of the latter. Disdainful, sarcastic, pathetic, sublime, by turns, the book is a masterpiece of its kind. The piece translated here is about the child killed in the Carrefour Tiquetonne on the 4th December 1851, during the street-fights consequent on the coup d'état of Napoleon III. Victor Hugo alludes to the event in another piece in the 'Châtiments:'
'Victoire! ils ont tué, carrefour Tiquetonne,
Un enfant de sept ans!'
Page 108
The Retreat from Moscow. For a vivid historical account of the Retreat, see Hazlitt.
Page 112.
The Forts of Paris. The last poetical work of Victor Hugo, 'L'Année Terrible,' from which this piece is taken, shows no diminution of his wonderful powers.
Page 115.
To my Grandchildren. This piece is taken from the work mentioned in the preceding note.
Page 122.
The Sower. This is one of Victor Hugo's earlier poems.
Page 123.
On the Death of his Daughter. Have we not here the same cry that thrilled the hearts of hearers three thousand years ago!
तिष्ठेल्लोको विना सूर्य्यं शस्यं वा सलिलं विना।
न तु रामं विना देहे तिष्ठेत्त मम जीवितम्॥
Page 124.
After the Battle. A good account of Victor Hugo's father, the hero here mentioned, and a colonel in Napoleon's army, will be found in the poet's life published in England under the title of 'Victor Hugo, a Life Related by One Who has Witnessed It,' 2 vols.
Page 125.
In Praise of Women. Auguste Brizeux came of an Irish family settled in France after the Revolution of 1688. He was born in 1803. Passionately fond of Brittany the province, and Lorient the town in which he was born, after long and repeated residence in Italy, he used to hail his native place as the best in every respect on earth; and in one of his poems he says of the town—
'Dans notre Lorient tout est clair dès qu'on entre;
De la Porte de Ville on va droit jusqu'au centre:
Ainsi marchent ses fils au sentier du devoir.'
It is remarkable that Brizeux never condescended to write in prose. Whether lie felt that he was born to be a poet, and would degrade himself by being anything else, or whether he had any diffidence in the matter, it is certain that, while every other poet wrote romances, essays, histories, criticism, he rigidly held to his lyre, and excepting one poor attempt in early life, would not even try the field of the drama. His two best poems are 'Marie' and the 'Fleur d'Or.' There is a pastoral beauty, a chastity, a delicacy, in these flowers of his creation, which can scarcely be too highly praised. It has been a moot question, whether Brizeux personally knew and loved this Marie with the naked feet,
'Cette grappe du Scorf, Cette fleur du blé noir.'
A schoolfellow of his says, she never existed, except in his imagination. A brother, on the other hand, avers that she lived, that he had known her, and that he was a witness of the principal scenes related in the poem. Did Brizeux see her after she had been married, and was the mother of a family? There is a light, a halo about this Marie, like that which circles around the Jeanie Morrison of Motherwell, and one feels a wish to know more about her. The rest of Brizeux's poems fall far short of these master-pieces. They want the Virgilian charm, the Theocritan 'souffle.' He died at Montpellier, far from his native soil, in 1858.
Page 132.
Night. Madame Emile de Girardin was a great beauty in her time 'with blue eyes and golden hair,' and she lived in the midst of a fashionable circle that all but worshipped her.
'Elle avait tant d'espoir en entrant dans le monde,
Orgueilleuse et les yeux baissés.'
Of her poetry Lamartine said:—'Les vers de jeunesse de Madame de Girardin ont tout ce que l'atmosphère dans laquelle elle vivait comporte; c'est de la poésie à mi-voix, à chastes images, à intentions fines, à grâces décentes, à pudeur voilée de style. Le seul défaut de ces vers, c'est l'excès de l’esprit; l'esprit, ce grand corrupteur du génie, est le fléau de la France.'
Page 135.
Maxima Debetur Pueris Reverentua. Amédée Pommier is not a great poet, but his verses are always very musical. The piece entitled 'La Rime' is delightful.
Page 139.
Rhyme. It is difficult, almost impossible, to preserve in a translation the verve of pieces like this. Amédée Pommier, if not a great poet, is certainly a master of French versification.
Page 144.
Sonnet.—Awake in bed, I listened to the rain! M. Sainte-Beuve was one of the greatest literary authorities and critics in France, and his review of a new book often sealed its fate. The articles he contributed to the 'Constitutionnel,' the 'Moniteur,' and the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' may easily be recognised by their style. His 'Causeries de Lundi' have a world-wide celebrity. No man could paint a literary portrait so well. We are glad to see that a translation of the reviews of English celebrities in his works is announced. It will give an insight to the English reader of his vast acquaintance with foreign literature, his scholarship, and his discrimination. His prose has to some extent done harm to his poetry. The constant composition of critical or political articles does not seem to be agreeable to the Muse, who resents any worship but her own. And of this fact he himself was aware, for he said, 'The poet in me—shall I confess it?—has sometimes suffered from all the indulgences even accorded to the prose writer.' Poet, critic, and romance writen, it is difficult for any man to be all three with impunity, and to succeed equally well in all. Some poetical lines of his furnished matter for the daily gaiety of the newspaper press in Provincial France, as well as in the Metropolis. One of these is—
'Assis sur le penchant des coteaux modérés.'
Now 'coteaux modérés' may be ridiculous enough,—but an unfortunate couplet on which his malignant critics fastened and to which they clung for a long time throws the 'coteaux modérés' quite into shade.
'Pour trois ans seulement, oh que je puisse avoir
Sur ma table un lait pur, dans mon lit un œil noir.'
We doubt if the oft-quoted
'Let laws and learning, trade and commerce die,
But give us still our old nobility,'
of the English poet and statesman has run the gauntlet of so much sarcastic and contemptuous criticism, as 'la table an lait pur' and 'le lit à l'œil noir.' Still, it must not be supposed that M. Sainte-Beuve is a bad or even a mediocre poet. Though he does not belong to the first class, and has no title to be ranked with the Hugos and the Lamartines, he takes a high place in the second. His first poetical work was 'Joseph Delorme.' And who and what was Joseph Delorme? 'He did not,' says a critic, M. Hyppolite Babou (whom we may almost hail as a countryman, for he is not a Baboo?), 'announce himself as a darling of the Muses, an archangel of genius fallen from heaven, or a poet volcano burst out from Pandemonium. He was an invalid, and he had died. His interrupted chants were but the vague echoes of a voice beyond the tomb; he had lived in obscurity, in poverty, in doubt,—he had died in isolation and despair. A friend had collected the sad relics of this unfortunate son of René, of this brother or cousin of Werther, Adolphe Oberman, and he offered them timidly to the faithful, not surrounded by the triumphal laurel, but protected and consecrated by the palm of the martyr. Yes, Joseph Delorme was a martyr of Life and of Poesy! But when people were chanting the 'De Profundis' over the open grave, the coffin was perceived to be empty, the dead had risen and not only risen, but was present at his own funeral, and had even contributed largely to its expenses. A modest and proud talent had played at the moribund to conquer without danger the means to live.' Joseph Delorme was no other than Sainte-Beuve himself. His other works are 'Consolations' and 'Pensées d'Août.' There is considerable talent in all. The sonnet was a powerful and a delicate instrument in his hands, and he translated some of Wordsworth's best, worthily. His verses on 'rhyme' are very pretty—yes pretty is the word—but inferior to those of Amédée Pommier on the same subject. There is considerable similarity in the two pieces, though the measure is very different, and the greatest credit must attach to the poet who wrote first, but on this point we have no information. The familiar acquaintance of M. Sainte-Beuve with English literature gives a tone to his poems which would make them more liked and appreciated in England than the works of much greater poets of France. Sainte-Beuve died in 1869.
Page 353.
To My Children. Jules Lefèvre-Deumier is one of the most fertile and the most persevering of the French poets of the nineteenth century. He was the brother-at-arms and friend of the valiant phalanx consisting of De Vigny, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and several others, who after many heroic battles established the new school of poetry, which is now admitted to be the best, in France. He has written much, and written admirably well, but his name has never come out of the shadow which seems to be the unfortunate lot of so many poets worthy of distinction.
In his earlier poems he drew much of his inspiration from England. 'Le Parricide' and 'Parisina' are in the vein of Byron. 'Le Retour' is an imitation of Sir Walter Scott. And even when his genius was matured by travel and experience, after a long residence in Italy, when he published the 'Cloche de Saint Marc,' it had still the Byronic ring, and reminded one of Childe Harold.
Not till Lefèvre-Deumier published 'Les Confidences' in 1833, did he shake off his English yoke and assert his own perfect originality. Twelve years after, or thereabouts, came two big volumes, 'Œuvres d'un Désœuvré,' a collection of prose and verse. On these 'Confidences' and 'Œuvres' will no doubt rest his fame with future generations. 'Les Confidences' is the history of a passion as ardent as unfortunate, and the perpetual elevation of tone, and the sustained nobility of the sentiments, impart a penetrating accent to the grief and despair of the lover. 'Œuvres d'un Désœuvré' presents us pieces of the most diverse kinds heaped pell-mell in the most rich and gorgeous confusion. 'Reveries, meditations, satires, all figure there without any other order but the date of birth or transcription.' The volumes abound with classical, scientific, and philosophic erudition rare to see united to such high poetic gifts.
The piece we produce here,—'A mes Enfants,'—which terminates the last volume (The Curfew) published by Lefèvre-Deumier, is a 'vrai testament' of the poet. With the simplicity of the 'School-Mistress' of Shenstone, it unites a pathos profoundly moving. 'Posterity,' says his French critic, 'will hear the prayer which he has only addressed to his family. It will take care of this noble name,—it will protect it from an ungrateful oblivion. It will make in his numerous works a selection, severe perhaps, but salutary on the whole, and at this price it will certainly perpetuate the renown of one of the highest poetic intelligences of our times.'
Page 161.
Sonnet.—Michael Angelo. During the Revolution of 1830 appeared the 'Curee;' and the effect was overwhelming. Auguste Barbier was then in his twenty-fifth year and this was his first work. It placed him at once on the pinnacle of popularity. The poem is indeed written with great power, greater power by far than that displayed in the 'Marseillaise,' which owes its popularity more to its glorious music than its words. But there was a coarseness mingled with the power in the 'Curée' which is damaging at the present day. Barbier wrote several poems afterwards, and although some of them have great merit, none had the popularity of his first-born. In fact his reputation declined with his years. This was hardly just to him,—but it was the natural consequence of a too sudden elevation.
Page 162.
The Resting-place of the Kine. This piece will be found in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' for 1864, vol. xlix., p. 959.
Page 169.
Qu'aimez-vous? Charles Dovalle was born at Montreuil-Bellay, a small town in the department of Maine—et-Loire on June 23, 1807, and his infancy and boyhood were passed joyously in the liberty of a country life, amidst picturesque rural scenes full of old recollections and ruined castles that spoke of feudal grandeur. He came to Paris to seek his fortune in his twentieth year, 'with a portfolio and his brains full of rhymes.' In the course of two years, during which he wrote a good deal in the papers, he died—the victim of a duel. With a great deal of immaturity, there is much promise in his poems. M. Charles Asselineau says, his works 'are a pale dawn—like all dawns—but with the certain and assured signs of a glorious and bright noon.' The greatest poet of France in our days—perhaps the greatest poet in the world now living—has honoured Dovalle's memory with a notice, written soon after the pistol bullet had traversed the portfolio which he always carried about with him, and reached his heart. Says Victor Hugo—'A poesy quite young, childish at times; now the desires of a cherubim; now a sort of creole carelessness; a verse with a gracious carriage: not very metrical, or rhythmic according to rule; but always full of a harmony more natural than musical; joy, voluptuousness, love—woman especially—woman turned into a divinity; woman worshipped as a Muse;—and everywhere flowers, fêtes, spring, morning, youth—behold, what was found in the portfolio of lyrics, torn up by a pistol ball.' These words would be poor Dovalle's passport to the temple of Fame, if he needed any passport besides his remains.
Page 171.
Dost thou remember, Mary. A very popular 'Romance.' It will be found in Gustave Masson's collection.
Page 173.
Fantasy. Gérard de Nerval had a sad history and a melancholy end. His tastes led him towards the legendary, the mysterious, and the supernatural, and German literature had, as a consequence, a fascination for him. He translated the 'Faust' of Goethe and the ballads of Burger and of Koerner. He knew Hebrew and Sanscrit well, and has left us some translations from Calidasa and Solomon. To the modern school of French poetry he did not take kindly. He called Lamartine a 'Lakiste'—of the Lake school of English poetry, and Victor Hugo, 'un Espagnol.' Still he was in some respects in advance of the modern school, for he wanted to dispense with rhyme in poetry,—at which the greatest innovators in French versification stood aghast! The mystical sonnets he composed in the last years of his life (obscure to any one who has not the key) are very beautiful. 'Their obscurity,' says Théophile Gautier, 'is illumined by sudden starts, like an idol constellated with carbuncles and rubies in the dark shadow of a crypt.'
Page 176.
Flytfaglarne. 'Flytfaglarne' means birds of passage in the Swedish language. The poem in fact is Swedish; and its author is the poet Stagnelius. M. X. Marmier has translated it into French prose in his beautiful novel, 'Les Fiancés du Spitzberg,' which we most heartily recommend to all readers. The book has been 'couronné par l'Académie Française,' and is a masterpiece. The only poem of Hayley, Cowper's friend, which still lives, and deserves to live, is very much in the vein of this piece. Perhaps the reader may remember some of Hayley's lines, the echo of which still rings in our ears
'Ye gentle birds that perch aloof
And smooth your pinions on my roof,
Preparing for departure hence
Ere winter's angry threats commence;
Like you, my soul would smoothe her plume
For longer flights beyond the tomb.'
Page 179.
L'Enfant Mourant. Besides the beautiful novel of 'Les Fiancés du Spitzberg, M. Marmier has published a 'History of Literature' in Denmark and Sweden, and some fine translations from Goethe, Schiller, and Hoffman, and of the 'Popular Songs of the North.' The piece we give here bears a close affinity to a poem in the 'Dutt Family Album' written by its editor, which we have much pleasure in inserting here, with a French translation by a friend:—
The Child's Farewell.
'Papa, papa, am I yet dead?'
Thus spake the child from slumber waking;
'No, dear, we all are round your bed,
And see, the glorious day is breaking.'
'If I still live, whence comes these here,
These lovely figures that surround me?
Behold, on all sides they appear—
White robes and wings! What spell hath bound me?
'Lo! rainbow tints; lo! golden zones;
Afar off, lo! a gleaming portal!
And music, hark! what melting tones!
They speak of life, of life immortal.
'Hands beckon me, and voices say—
Listen, for you may hear them clearly—
"Come little child, come, come away;"
I go, but yet I love you dearly.'
She said, and smiled, and then she slept.
Can Death assume so sweet a semblance?
The parents by the bedside wept,
And treasured up each fond remembrance.
Soon at the door was heard a knock,
In stepped the old and faithful servant;—
'Our lamb is gathered to the flock;
'Tis ours to weep, and pray more fervent.'
'Hath she indeed then passed away?
I've hastened, for, no form beholding,
Her little arms, at break of day
Around my neck I felt her folding.
'She kissed me as she oft was wont;
I knew, I knew, it was no other;
Grey hues had streaked the night's black front'—
'Just then she left us,' said the mother.
Les Adieux d'un Enfant.
'Suis-je morte à present? dis-moi, mon petit père,'
C'est ainsi que parlait l’enfant à son réveil.
'Non; tout près de ton lit vois nos figures chères,
Et du beau jour naissant les premiers feux vermeils.'
'Mais d'où vient tout ceci, puisque je vis encore,—
Quels sont autour de moi? ces êtres ravissants
Tous de ce côté-ci dirigent leur essor.
Ils ont des ailes blanches. Oh quel enchantement!
'Des couleurs d'arc-en-ciel, et des sphères dorées,
Un portail lumineux, là-bas, dans le lointain!
Et des accords divins et des voix éthérées!
J'entends parler de vie, oui—d'une vie sans fin.
'Du geste et de la voix a venir on m'invite,
Les voix disent—écoutez, d'ici on les extend—
"Viens, ma petite enfant, viens vers nous, viens bien vîte."
Avec eux je m'en vais—je vous aime pourtant.'
Puis elle s'endormit, la bouche souriante.
Eh, quoi! Etait-ce là l'image de la mort?
Les parents cà et là d'une main frémissante
Saisirent quelqu' objet, triste et precieux trésor.
La servante parut, fidèle et dévouée;
Elle voulait sa part des joies et des douleurs;—
'Au troupeau la brebis est enfin retournée;
Laissons couler nos larmes et prions le Seigneur.'
'Partie! partie! Mon Dieu,' dit-elle, avec tristesse;
'Et moi, qui, ce matin, longtemps avant le jour,
Ai senti d'un enfant les aimables caresses,
Et ses deux petits bras m'étreindre avec amour!
'Ce baiser doucement posé sur mon visage
C'était bien son baiser d'amour et de candeur;
Un faible crépuscule éclairait les nuages,'—
'Elle nous quittait alors,' réprit la mère en pleurs!
Page 181.
Chinoiserie. These small poems scarcely convey an adequate idea of the poetical genius of M. Théophile Gautier, which is of a very high order. For correctness and chastity of style he has few equals. Never infringing the rules of French versification, as greater poets than himself, notably Victor Hugo, have sometimes done, he has yet been able to add to the power of the language by his majestic and harmonious combinations. His word-painting is exceedingly vivid, and at the same time exceedingly natural; and the only discord that jars in his magnificent utterances is that taint of—shall we call it irreverence or infidelity?—which is unfortunately too common even amongst the best French modern poets. The lines addressed to Gautier by his friend Théodore Banville do not give him more than his due meed of praise.
'Pas de travail commode!
Tu prétends, comme moi,
Que l'Ode
Garde sa vieille loi,
Et que, brillant et ferme,
Le beau Rhythme d'airain
Enferme
L'idée au fiont serein.
••••Et toi, qui nous enseigne
L'amour du vert laurier,
Tu daignes
Etre un bon ouvrier.'
Page 188.
Chanson de Fortunio. Alfred de Musset is a name too well known to require detailed notice in this place. He is one of the most popular poets of France, and his countrymen regard him as their Byron. In truth he possesses the spirit, the power, the wit, the brilliance, and the love of nature sometimes real and sometimes affected, which mark the writings of the English poet. Like Byron, he has no great depth of thought. Like Byron, he is sometimes eccentric and wild. His landscapes, like Byron's, seem to have been elaborated more often in a study, under the fumes of wine, than in the open air and under the blue sky. But his passion, like Byron's, has often the true ring. His epigrams, like Byron's, sparkle. And his pathos, like Byron's also, is sometimes profound.
In early life he considered himself above the power of Love, and wrote the well-known lines:
'Si jamais par les yeux d'une femme sans cœur
Tu peux m'entrer au ventre et m'empoisonner l'âme,
Ainsi que d'une plaie on arrache une lame,
Plutôt que comme un lâche on me voie en souffrir,
Je t'en arracherai quand j'en devrais mourir.'
But his boasting was premature; he was attained by the arrow of the god at last, and thenceforth his life became a dreary desert, without joy and without hope. It is not known whom he loved or why his love was unsuccessful. His proud heart ever guarded the mystery of his torment. 'Not one confidence, not one indiscretion, not even an involuntary confession, or a portrait of the lady, is to be found in the whole of his works,' and yet there can be no question that he suffered greatly; for after this time, for many long, long years, he lived like a blasted tree, forgotten by a generation that had before adored him.
The verses we give here have much of the manner of Byron, and a touch of sincerity which has made them a general favourite.
Page 189.
The Hope in God. Pascal and Locke and even Kant are hardly treated with justice in this poem. It is good to be terse and epigrammatic, but not at the expense of perfect fairness and accuracy.
Page 193.
The Farmer's Wife. In an eloquent essay on the writings of Hégésippe Moreau, author of this piece, M. Théodore de Banville broaches the theory that a true poet is ever subject 'to the contempt, the hate, the invincible antipathy of the Philistine, who, in the innumerable crowd of versifiers, signals him out with an unerring scent.' 'Whoever,' according to M. Banville, 'has not been condemned like Corneille, hissed like Racine, called impious like Molière, immoral like La Fontaine, rude and savage like Shakspeare, barbarous like Victor Hugo, a libertine like Alfred de Musset, can never be a true poet.' Without attempting seriously to refute a paradox so apparent, and which may nevertheless be supported by many more numerous examples in its favour, we may simply remark that Hégésippe Moreau has been the butt of as much censure as he has been the subject of praise, and that in his case both the blame and the commendation seem to have been deserved. The fact is, there was a double Moreau, and those who contend for the duality of the human mind could scarcely find a better illustration of their theory, than his life and writings. There was a Moreau, the author of 'La Fermière,' of the 'Contes,' of the 'L'Oiseau que j'attends,' of the 'Hameau incendié,' of the ode 'A mes Chansons,' and of 'La Voulzie,' and there was a Moreau, the author of the horrible and blasphemous 'Noces de Cana' and of the 'Bohème du Quartier Latin.' There was a Moreau simple as a child and pure as an angel, whose themes were the beauties of his lovely native land, and a Moreau who revelled in the dreadful world of 'jupes retroussées,' of 'vin répandu,' of 'miroirs cassés' and of 'châles aux fenêtres.' The difference between the two Moreaus was so great, that the only wonder is, they could have been amalgamated into one person. Can anything be more lovely than the description of the Voulzie which the dwarf green Oberon could cross 'sans mouiller ses grelots,' and which a thirsty giant could drink up at a breath, or than the description of 'l'imprimerie proprette' where the poet received a hospitality so noble, or than the description of the farm, for ever blessed, where milk and brown bread and fraternal caresses were lavished on the poor wanderer? And can anything be more blasphemous, absurd, and horrible, than the 'Noces de Cana' to which we have already made reference? Moreau's mind was by its nature pure, and his habitual delight was in rural scenes of peace and plenty, but he joined in the Revolution of 1830, fought in the barricades, got into bad company, and then tried hard to be a writer of political satires for which he never had any turn, and of libertine chansons from which his better nature revolted. Glimpses of that nature flashed out, however, even in his utter debasement, for he could sing, addressing his own soul, when he had already been touched by the cold hand of death, in terms such as these:—
'Fuis sans trembler: veuf d'une sainte amie,
Quand du plaisir j'ai senti le besom,
De mes erreurs, toi, colombe endormie,
Tu n'as été complice ni témoin.
Ne trouvant pas la manne qu'elle implore,
Ma faim mordit la poussière (insensé!);
Mais toi, mon âme, à Dieu, ton fiancé,
Tu peux demain te dire vierge encore;
Fuis, âme blanche, un corps malade et nu,
Fuis en chantant vers le monde inconnu!'
He died in great poverty, in a public charitable hospital.
Page 199.
Le Fond de la Mer. M. Autran was born at Marseilles. In 1832 he published an ode to Lamartine, which brought him to the notice of the literary world. His works are 'Les Poèmes de la Mer,' 'Ludibria Ventis,' 'Milianah,' 'Laboureurs et Soldats,' 'La Vie Rurale,' 'Epîtres Rustiques,' 'Le Poème des Beaux Jours,' besides a tragedy 'La Fille d'Eschyle,' acted in the Odéon in 1848, and 'Le Cyclope' after Euripides, published in 1863. M. Autran is a member of the French Academy, and is celebrated for his knowledge of the classics.
Page 201
To a Young Poetess. The verses we cite here from Victor de Laprade are not in his usual vein. They are graceful and musical, as become verses addressed to a young lady and a poetess. His ordinary vein is very different—nervous, powerful, lofty, and religious—one would say the poems of a spiritual athlete.
In truth, Laprade is one of the great poets of France, and may take rank with the greatest names of the time. The first work of Laprade, 'Les Parfums de Madeleine,' induced his friend M. Quinet to advise him to relinquish the bar and take up literature as a profession, and to enable him to follow the advice Quinet offered to procure an appointment for him. Then came 'Psyche.' It 'lightened the antique heathen legend with the Christian idea.' Psyche is the 'pagan Eve.' Like Ballanche in his 'Orphée,' like Quinet in his 'Prométhée,' like Wordsworth in his 'Laodamia' he caused a nobler and a higher sentiment—a sentiment unknown to the ancients—to gleam darkly forth from the story for which he in as indebted to them. The sentiment was a little vague, but it was there, and though the vulgar accused him of pantheism, the initiated could follow him, especially with the aid of the able preface. After the publication of this work in 1837, Laprade undertook a journey to the Alps. 'Here,' says his French biographer M. Ch Alexandre, 'Nature made him drunk with her beauties on the high tops of the mountains.' He has often made the voyage since with a sack and a stick like a mountaineer. 'Forez,' continues M. Alexandre, 'had made him a poet rustic and domestic, the family,—a poet religions of the past, Provence;—a poet Athenian, but Switzerland made him the poet of Nature.' He descended from the Alps quite transfigured:
'Ceux qui m'ont vu gravir pesamment la colline
Ne reconnaîtront plus l'homme qui descendia.'
He brought back with him a work of great freshness and force, the 'Odes and Poems' which appeared in January 1843. Of this work M. Alexandre says—'Nature had never been sung about, as it was in this book. Weber alone, in music, has this strange friendship for the elements. It is a sort of poetry at once végétale at marmoréenne. It has the whiteness of the marble and the sap of the oak.'
'The poet,'—we continue our quotation from M. Alexandre, merely translating as before his French,—'went to enjoy his success at Paris, and make acquaintance with the great masters of the time. He penetrated to the Abbaye-au-Bois guided by Ballanche, and saw Lamartine, Lammenais, and George Sand. He was eager (affamé) to contemplate all the grand poets. In 1835, not being able to see Victor Hugo from the Place Royale, where he had posted himself before the poet's house, he seized a nail and bore it off in triumph as a relic. He has got it still. Vive l'enthousiasme!'—Sir Walter Scott carrying away in triumph the wine-glass out of which his Majesty George the Fourth had drunk, and Laprade carrying away the nail from the bolted door of Victor Hugo, might form capital companion pictures.
His subsequent publications are an essay on the sentiment of nature in Homer, 'Poèmes Evangéliques' in 1852, 'Les Symphonies' in 1855, and, last of all, a satire on the times, in which he abandons his old vein, and handles the weapon of Juvenal. The 'Poèmes Evangéliques' and the 'Symphonies' were both 'crowned' by the French Academy; and although the former has not been very popular, it is an excellent work. 'One would love,' says his French critic, 'to follow with the poet these holy figures painted with pious art, and that recall the frescoes of Flandrin.' The 'Symphonies' had been liked better by the public. It consists of three poems, one of which, 'Rosa Mystica,' shines 'comme une rosace au soleil couchant,' and another, 'Herman,' rings out with the power and sustention 'of an Alpine horn.' The views which Laprade puts forth in 'Herman' are not popular views, such as find favour with readers of newspapers,—for he does not believe in the progress, the moral progress of the world, but they are the decided views of a deliberate, sober, and deep thinker to whom the Bible 'is as a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path.' In the dedication to his father he says—
'Je n'ai vu de progrès que dans l'ignominie,
Et n'attends rien, pour fruit des âges qui naîtront,
Que des hontes de plus à porter sur le front.'
Laprade and Lamartine are the only great modern poets of France whose works are essentially and eminently pure and religious, and it is remarkable that they both are deeply indebted for the tone of their minds to their mothers, women of prayer, large-minded and self-denying.
Page 203.
The Dream of Lucretia. M. François Ponsard, born at Vienna in the Dauphiné, is the author of the tragedy of 'Lucrèce' which was acted for the first time at the Odéon in 1842, and which made his name at once famous. He has written comedies as well as tragedies subsequently. His dramas are: 'Agnès de Méranie (1846), 'Charlotte Corday' (1850), 'Horace et Lydie' (1850), 'Ulysse' (1852), 'L'Honneur et l'Argent' (1853), 'Ce qui Plait aux Femmes' (1860), 'Le Lion Amoureux' (1866), 'Galilée' (1867).
Page 206.
A Flame. Charles Coran, born 1814, a friend of Auguste Brizeux, noticed in note to p. 125, is the author of two volumes of poems named respectively 'Onyx' (1841) and 'Rimes Galantes' (1847). He has not written anything during the last fifteen years, and leads the quiet and delicious life of a dilettante. The last of his two published poems is superior to the first, in which he had been, to some extent, groping about to find out his vocation. He cannot by any means be called a poet of a high order. Love verses, unless very superior, appear ridiculous now-a-days. One can read a chanson by Victor Hugo or Tennyson, but a mediocre love lyric! Still Coran has one great merit. He is thoroughly French. It is on this account rather difficult to translate his poems. They lose their principal charm in the process. The 'duvet' on the peach does not bear to be handled. There is a very pretty Rondeau of his commencing with the words 'Bergère Rose,' which seems to toss up its head with a disdainful air, like a pretty miss, every time we attempt to render it in English.
Page 208.
The Wine of Jurançon. We do not know if there is an equivalent for piquette in English; it means,—the bad wine pressed out of grapes after they have been squeezed, and water poured upon them.
Page 209.
The Poet's Apology for his Short Poems. Nicolas Martin is deeply imbued with the grand poetry of Germany. He was born at Bonn, and his mother was a German lady—a sister of the poet Karl Simrock, the learned translator into modern language of the old and magnificent Nibelungen, which Victor Hugo considers to be one of the three great epics of the world—the other two being the Mahabharatha and the Ramayana. M. Martin's landscapes are very beautiful, and his German leanings have not spoiled his French at all. It is very clear and idiomatic, and as a French critic has observed, it proves 'qu'il est bien des no'res—un vrai fils de la France.'
Page 214.
Rêverie. Auguste Lacaussade was born in the island of Bourbon about 1815. He has published a remarkable translation of Macpherson's Gaelic poems, and was for some time the literary secretary of M. Sainte-Beuve. His principal poetical works are 'Poèmes et Paysages,' and 'Les Epaves.' He lives honourably by his pen in Paris, and is or was the editor of the 'Revue Européenne.'
With the melancholy music of Millevoye he unites a force, a passion, a pathos of his own which sets him, not indeed in the first rank of the French poets, but in a position far more elevated than Millevoye's. 'Les Soleils de Juin' and 'Les Soleils de Novembre' are pieces which are often to be met with in collections of French poetry, and which fully deserve the praise they have received.
Page 215.
Sonnet.—The Two Processions. Joséphin Soulary's sonnets are among the best in the language. They are elaborated with great care. Each is a pastoral picture, or a little drama of exquisite beauty. He has been called, and deservedly, the Petrarch of France. We may simply add here that M. Joséphin Soulary holds some humble office in one of the public departments of France.
Page 223.
Sonnet.—La Laitière. We may give here an extract from an article on M. Joséphin Soulary by M. Léon De Wailly which was translated by us for the 'Bengal Magazine.'—
'There is no need to be of the trade, to appreciate all that there is of sentiment, of grace, and of delicacy in these compositions. We use with a purpose the last word, bandied about too lavishly and inconsiderately now-a-days, for M. Soulary does compose, which is a very rare thing with modern poets,—and does compose exceedingly well. He is wholly bound in the condition of his art, ut pictura poesis. Each of his ideas has passed through and submitted to the operation which transforms prose to poetry. It has been clothed with a body. The Word—we say it not in any irreverence—has become flesh. The greater part of his sonnets form a little picture, or a little drama, and this with a measure perfect, without ever falling into the theatrical, or verging on the falsely romantic and sentimental.
'M. Soulary has two merits in our eyes—two great merits, albeit they be negative. He is not eloquent, and he is not abundant. People have complained under these heads of old, in reference to advocates in politics. How much more had they and have they reason to complain of the poets! Praised be the heavens, M. Soulary's verses do not flow as from a fountain. That which flows, flows, flows as from a fountain is only clear water, whereas his verses are impregnated with thought. There is not a word which has not its value,—and which has not been carefully and curiously searched until happily it has almost always been found. M. Soulary is a delicate carver. He is the Benvenuto Cellini of the sonnet. Is there in a carver or chaser the stuff to make a sculptor? Why not? But after all, what does it matter? He does admirably what he does. What has the Perseus added to the glory of Cellini? Let people say if they will, that M. Soulary makes nothing but statuettes. We guarantee that these statuettes will fairly survive many statues that we know. Moreover, he appears to us to have too much sense to let himself be tempted out of his way. If he comes out of it, it will be in good earnest, and with every advantage, and we shall stand security for his success....
'As to a certain obscurity that one may be tempted to reproach in some of M. Soulary's sonnets, it has for us rather a charm. His idea, even then, is always just, and to find it out quite clearly, only a little closer inspection is required. Now, Poesy is a pleasure refined, and we do not dislike to see her, like a goddess as she is, enveloped sometimes in a slight cloud to escape the eyes of the profane vulgar.'
Page 228.
Béranger to the Academy. In reference to the expressions 'fiddler' and 'low-born' in the first stanza of this poem, it is necessary to remember that Béranger claimed them himself,—'ménétrier,' and 'vilain et très-vilain.' About the first, the words of Lamartine are worthy to be quoted,—'le ménétrier, dont chaque coup d'archet avait pour cordes les cœurs de trente-six millions d'hommes exaltés ou attendris,'—'the fiddler whose fiddle-stick had for chords the heart-strings of thirty-six millions of men exalted or melted;' and about the second, Béranger's own lines are worthy to be committed to memory:
'Hé quoi! J'apprends que l'on critique
Le de qui précède mon nom,
Etes-vous de noblesse antique?
Moi noble! Oh! vraiment, messieurs, non.
Non, d'aucune chevalerie
Je n'ai le brevet sur vélin,
Je ne sais qu'aimer ma patrie—
Je suis vilain et très-vilain.'
Page 230.
A Page from the Bible. Arsène Houssaye cannot be called a great poet, but his descriptions of rural scenery have a freshness that is charming. He has written some pieces about Greece which are admired, but his strength lies in pastoral France.
Page 233.
Omnia Vincit Amor. The Marquis de Belloy was born in Waterloo year. Possessed of great wealth, like his friend and countryman, the Count F. de Gramont, and like Lord Byron and Rogers in England, he might have well kept himself aloof from the struggles of the literary arena, and simply patronised men of letters and received their homage, but he preferred to enter the lists himself, and he has done his devoir like a gallant knight and true gentleman.
An idea may be formed of his extensive patronage of poor and unknown but meritorious authors by the number of books, good, bad, and indifferent, dedicated to him. M. De Balzac inscribed his name at the beginning of the best of his contes philosophiques, and thought himself honoured to be permitted thus to hang up his ex-voto to one, who was at once a munificent patron of literature and a poet and scholar of consummate ability.
The Marquis de Belloy's works are 'Karl Dujardin,' a play in one act, of which Théophile Gautier said, it was worth 'the trouble of a Journey by post through the snow and sleet from any part of France to the Odéon;' 'Pythias et Damon; ou, l'Oreille de Denys,' a drama of great merit; a volume of fugitive poems mingled with the biography of an imaginary personage, le chevalier d'Ar, and then his principal work, the 'Légendes Fleuries,' consisting of five poems, of which 'Orpha' (the Orpha of the book of 'Ruth') is the best.
M. de Belloy has also translated into verse some of the comedies of Terence, and published a satirical poem.
Page 235.
Sonnet. Le Comte F. de Gramont is one of the best of the modern poets of France. He has written many sonnets in Italian.
Page 236.
Sextine. The 'Sextine' is something new in English versification. The thought in the piece translated seems rather obscure—remains, as it were, in a half-shadow—and we have not attempted to drag it into clearer light than that in which it was placed by the author. The poems of le Comte de Gramont have a masculine vigour, a loftiness of rhythm and tone, and an austere beauty, which place them in the highest rank amongst modern French poems. Some of his sonnets have almost the trumpet note of Milton.
Page 240.
Sonnet.—Sensitive Genius. It would almost seem as if the poet had Keats in his mind's eye when he wrote this sonnet.
Page 242.
Fragment of a Jacobite Lay. It would appear from this piece that Le Comte F. De Gramont's ancestors were British Jacobites, like those of the present President of the French Republic.
Page 245.
Sonnet.—Freedom. The reader will no doubt think of Wordsworth's famous sonnet, headed 'Eagles—composed at Dunnollie Castle in the Bay of Oban,' when he reads this piece by Le Comte F. de Gramont. To our mind the English poet bears away the palm. His concluding lines are verily magnificent:
'Such was this Prisoner once; and, when his plumes
The sea-blast ruffles as the storm comes on,
Then, for a moment, he, in spirit, resumes
His rank 'mong freeborn creatures, that live free,
His power, his beauty, and his majesty.
Page 248.
A Character of the Olden Time. This character is probably intended for that of the poet's father.
Page 253.
The Child on the Sea-shore. Auguste Vacquerie is a very pure poet, pure both in his life and his works. Like Wordsworth, he thinks that a poet's life must conform to his works, otherwise those works can never be sincere; and he is right. M. Vacquerie is a devoted admirer of Shakspeare, and a great friend of Victor Hugo, who calls him in 'Les Châtiments' 'the brother of his sons.' He has written a comedy entitled 'Tragaldabas.' He has also translated some plays of Shakspeare in conjunction with a friend, M. Paul Meurice. It is no disparagement to him to say, that these translations of Shakspeare are far inferior to those of an honoured friend of the present writer, Le Chevalier de Chatelain of Castelnau Lodge, the school-fellow and friend of Victor Hugo; for that is tantamount only to saying they are inferior to the best translations of Shakspeare in the French language,—but they are still by no means common or contemptible translations. M. Vacquerie's principal poetical works are 'L'Enfer de l'Esprit' and 'Demi-Teintes.' In criticism, he has written a volume sparkling with spirit, gaiety, and good sense, called 'Profils et Grimaces.' His contributions to reviews and journals have been very numerous.
Page 256.
The Sleep of the Condor. Leconte de Lisle, the author of this piece, is a creole born in the Mauritius. A notice of his works by the writer of these pages will be found in the 'Bengal Magazine,' edited by the Rev. Lal Behari Day, for the month of December 1874. We append here an extract from the article:
'His principal works are "Poèmes Antiques," published in 1852; "Poèmes et Poésies," published in 1855; and "Poésies Complètes," published in 1858, besides a heap of contributions to various reviews, especially the "Revue Contemporain ," which are still to be collected, and are worth the collecting.
'The faults generally attributed to all Asiatic or half-caste poets, writing in the languages of Europe, are weakness, languor, conventionalism, and imitation. From most of these defects Leconte de Lisle is singularly free. He is wonderfully vigorous, and very often thoroughly original. Not only is he very well read, not only has he meditated much, but he has that gifted poetic eye which can seize at once and extract poetry from the meanest objects. He has in a word
"The vision and the faculty divine."
'Of his style a French critic of no mean repute—himself a poet—Charles Baudelaire, thus writes: "Leconte de Lisle possesses absolute rule over his idea; but this would not amount to much if he did not possess also the dexterous use of his tool. His language is always noble, decided, strong, without any shrill clamorous note, and also without any false prudishness. His vocabulary is very extensive, and his arrangement of his words is always remarkable, as framing clearly and distinctly what he has to say. His rhythm has great breadth and certainty, and his instrument has the soft but large and profound accent of what musicians would call the alto."
| • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • | • |
'The descriptive pieces in his poems are the best. The fields at mid-day,—the desert—the ocean in its magnificence—an animal, say a tiger, in its fury or in its repose—the beauty of a peasant girl in the far, far East,—these are the sort of topics in which he excels.'
Page 264.
October. M. Emile Augier was born at Valence, and became known to the world of letters by a drama of two acts in verse, entitled 'La Cigue' which was acted with the most brilliant success at the Odéon in 1844. His other dramas in verse are: 'Un Homme de Bien,' a comedy in three acts; 'L'Aventurière,' a comedy in five acts; 'Gabrielle,' a comedy in five acts; 'Le Joueur de Flûte,' a comedy in one act; 'Diane,' a play in five acts, and some others, besides several dramas in prose. His collection of fugitive pieces, entitled simply 'Poésies,' was published in 1856. He is connected as a contributor with the 'Revue des Deux Mondes,' and was made a member of the French Academy in 1858.
Page 268.
A Lover's Wish. Théodore De Banville is essentially a lyrical poet. He distinguished himself early. His first volume, 'Les Cariatides,' was published in 1842, when he was only twenty-one. Since then he has published 'Les Stalactites,' 'Les Odelettes,' 'Les Odes Funambulesques,' and a number of dramas, besides a treatise on French poetry.
Page 269.
Cheval et Cavalier. Gustave Nadaud, born at Roubaix in 1821, is a 'chansonnier.' He composes his own music, and sings his own songs, which have great merit, and delight the poor in their gatherings on the fields, as well as the rich in their decorated salons. Light, pleasant, often witty, never tiresome, sometimes with a dash of pathos, what more need one require of songs? M. Charles Alexandre, commenting upon them, says, 'L'esprit est le fond, le sol de cette muse positive; le sentiment flotte sur elle comme la vapeur bleue sur les montagnes.' If there is no depth of thought, no passion, no sub1imity,—ah! it is because the 'chansonnier' has his 'rôle fatal.' He must please. This poesy, which lives only in the present, cannot wait for the future. The chanson aspires only to a fugitive success, the light popularity of the salons and the streets. And the public is like the Sultan of the Arabian Nights. It must be amused,—amused under any circumstances,—amused under pain of death; and it would never pardon the 'chansonnier' if he were to tire it by poesy pure, or poesy of a high order, or poesy with a moral.
Page 271.
Sonnet.—The Broken Bell. Charles Baudelaire, the author of this sonnet, is a poet and critic of considerable eminence; but he borrows, without acknowledgment, too much from English and German sources. Look for instance at a little piece of his, entitled 'Le Guignon,' consisting of fourteen lines,—not put in the legitimate form of the sonnet. First you find the line,
'L'art est long et le temps est court.'
Well! say, 'Art is long and time is fleeting' is a proverbial expression, and Baudelaire has as much right to use it as Longfellow, but then come the lines—
'Mon cœur comme un tambour voilé
Va battant des marches funèbres.'
'And our hearts, though true and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating,
Funeral marches to the grave'?
Still it turns to a question of dates. Both of them are living poets. Who wrote his lines first? But there is assuredly no question of dates, or question of any kind whatever, immediately after, when you find,
'Maint joyau dort enseveli
Dans les ténèbres et l'oubli
Bien loin des pioches et des sondes;
Mainte fleur épanche à regret,
Son parfum doux comme un secret,
Dans les solitudes profondes.'
Can anybody render into French verse, more literally, Gray's beautiful but hackneyed lines,
'Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air'?
Charles Baudelaire died only a short time ago.
Page 273.
The Oxen. Pierre Dupont is the poet of the sorrows and joys of the poor. He is not a scholar, and there is not much art in his poetry, but he has great natural gifts which compensate for all his deficiencies. His 'Chant des Ouvriers' has long been popular, and if the reader reads French at all, he must have come across—
'Mal vêtus, logés dans des trous,
Sous les combles, dans les décombres,
Nous vivons avec les hiboux
Et les larrons amis des ombres:
Cependant notre sang vermeil
Coule impétueux dans nos veines;
Nous nous plairions au grand soleil,
Et sous les rameaux verts des chênes!'
Page 278.
The Lost Path. André Lemoyne was born at St. Jean-d'Angély about 1823. 'Honourable and independent'—says a French critic,—'as well as discreet and modest, his life flows in the midst of his family and his friends in the practice of duty and the worship of his art.' Admitted as a barrister, he renounced practice and contented himself with an employment in the well-known house of M. Didot. Lemoyne has not written much, but what little he has written is worthy of high praise. Besides the piece we translate here, there are others which may be read with pleasure, and amongst these we may name 'Ecce Homo' and 'Une Larme de Dante.'
Page 279.
Dormez, Dormez. The readers of Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' will remember this piece. Its chief charm is in its music; the words are commonplace.
Page 280.
The History of a Soul. M. Eugène Manuel is a Parisian by birth, and the author of three collections of verse: 'Pages Intimes' (1866), 'Poems Populaires' (1872), and 'Pendant la Guerre' (1872). He has also written a drama, 'Les Ouvriers,' which was acted in 1870 at the Théâtre Français with the most brilliant success. His poetry is full of thought. Judging from his style as well as matter, he must have read the English poets a good deal. His mind has many of the traits of Longfel1ow's.
Page 284.
Lights. Louis Bouilhet is a great poet of the order of Victor de Laprade, only not so religious. His two principal works are 'Melænis' and 'Les Fossiles.' 'Melænis' is a Roman story, which in a small frame gives ample scope to the author for the display of his high classical knowledge, as well as his intimacy with the human heart and the springs of human action. The scene is in Rome, the time the reign of Commodius, 'when Roman society had become rotten to the core.' A tone of light irony pervades the book and pleasantly replaces the ordinary indignation of satires. The 'Fossiles' is a work on the creation. Science enters largely into it, but without spoiling it. The combats of the antediluvian animals classed in the two families of the plesiosaures and the pterodactyles are described with a scientific precision and a poetical vigour which is simply wonderful. M. Bouilhet has also written two dramas: 'Madame de Montarcy,' a historical picture, and 'Hélène Peyron,' a picture of contemporary Parisian life. Both the dramas are strong in situations and characters, and are written with great care in his masterly style, but they never attained popularity. Between the intervals of these dramas M. Bouilhet published another volume of lyrical poetry under the simple title of 'Poesies.' This volume contains a great diversity of subjects, and is rich in descriptions of nature.
The piece we cite here is taken from the 'Poesies.' The last stanza is not in the original, but has been added by the translator to suit the taste of the English reader, to whom a satire, however keen may be the irony, on an age long gone by, without a modern application or a latent significance, would appear unmeaning and unnecessary.
Page 286.
The Plesiosaurus. The Plesiosaurus is an antediluvian animal. Although a Frenchman would faint away at the idea of blank verse, which is not allowed in French poetry, we have not hesitated to render this piece in that form as well as some others.
Page 288.
Souvenir d'un Vieil Air. M. Valéry Vernier is a constant contributor to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes.'
Page 290.
Sonnet.—The Miracle of the Virgin. M. Louis Ratisbonne's translation of Dante's 'Divine Comedy,' a work of great ability, was honoured with the approbation of the French Academy. He is an acute critic and a very popular essayist, and some of his dramas have had well-deserved success on the stage, notably 'Héro et Léandre,' and 'La Comédie Enfantine.' His poems are: 'Printemps de la Vie' (1857), 'Les Figures Jeunes' (1865), 'Les Petits Hommes' (1868), and 'Les Petites Femmes' (1872).
Page 291.
To the Swallow. M. Sully Prudhomme contributes largely still to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes.' He is the author of 'Stances et Poèmes,' 'Les Solitudes,' 'Les Destins,' and 'Les Epreuves,' a collection of sonnets. He has also translated classical works in verse with great ability.
Page 295.
Promenades at Intérieurs. François Coppée, born in Paris, is the author of several collections of poems, and also of several dramas in verse. Among the former we may mention 'Le Reliquaire,' 'Les Poèmes Modernes,' 'La Grève des Forgerons,' 'Lettre d'un Mobile Breton,' 'Plus de Sang,' and 'Les Humbles;' and among the latter, 'Le Passant,' 'Deux Douleurs,' 'Fais ce que Dois,' 'L'Abandonnée,' 'Les Bijoux de la Délivrance,' and 'Le Rendezvous.' The small piece given here reminds one pleasantly of Shenstone's 'School-Mistress.'
Page 297.
In the Orchard. This piece is taken from a book entitled 'Olivier,' published only last year by M. François Coppée. Of course it has lost some of its charm taken out of its beautiful setting.
Page 298.
Landscape. M. Georges Lafenestre, the author of this piece, published a collection of poems under the title of 'Les Espérances.' He has contributed largely to the periodicals of the day, and his critiques on literary and artistic subjects are held in high estimation.
Page 301.
La Chanson des Adieux. M. André Theuriet has been a valued contributor to the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' since 1857, and he contributes to that periodical largely still, both in verse and prose. His poetical pieces, which show a great love for the beauties of nature and a very high talent for description, have also much tenderness and feeling. These pieces were collected together in a volume entitled 'Le Chemin des Bois' in 1867, and received, and deservedly, the approbation of the French Academy. M. Theuriet is the author also of a drama in verse, 'Jean-Marie,' which was acted at the Odéon in I871, and of several novels such as 'Nouvelles Intimes,' 'Mademoiselle Guignon,' 'Une Ondine,' &c., of considerable power, but, like most French novels, of doubtful taste if not of doubtful morality.
Page 305.
Intérieur.—A ma Mère. With one or two strokes a true poet can sometimes give us a picture. Shakspeare's description of evening was
'Light thickens,
And the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.'
This is M. André Theuriet's description of a midsummer dawn:
'Je m'endors, et là-bas le frissonnant matin
Baigne les pampres verts d'une rougeur furtive,
Et toujours cette odeur amoureuse m'arrive
Avec le dernier chant d'un rossignol lointain
Et les premiers cris de la grive....'
M. Theuriet is not a Shakspeare, but these five lines are sufficient to show that here we have a poet indeed,—a poet worthy of all honour.
Page 307.
The Grand Pint. M. A. de Châtillon is a painter as well as a poet: a fact which a careful reader of his poetry would perhaps discover without being told. A beautiful portrait of M. Victor Hugo holding between his knees his two sons in the blouse of schoolboys, which appeared in the Salon of the Louvre in 1836, obtained the artist a celebrity which he had long before merited. In the sale of Victor Hugo's house and furniture in 1852, another picture of his, allegorically representing the slumber of the poet, drew considerable attention. His intimacy with the poets, especially with Victor Hugo and Théophile Gautier, insensibly led him to write,—and afterwards to collect his pieces in a volume, thin, but of great merit. Of the piece we give here, his friend, Théophile Gautier, says—'Son auberge de la Grande Pinte entre autres vaut, par ses tons roux, sa chaude couleur enfumée un cabaret d'Ostade.'
Page 310.
Sonnet. This sonnet, by Félix Arvers, has been praised by the highest authorities, amongst others by Sainte-Beuve and Jules Janin, for its grace, delicacy, and passion. It is far superior to the other pieces of Arvers, which rarely rise above mediocrity.
Page 311.
Roland. There are some poets whose fame rests on a single, and not unfrequently a very small poem,—a sonnet or a few couplets. In France, the fame of Félix Arvers rests on the well-known sonnet,
'Mon âme a son secret, ma vie a son mystère,'
which is given above. In England, the fame of Sir Egerton Brydges, who has written volumes on volumes of both prose and verse, rests on a single beautiful sonnet, 'Echo and Silence,' commencing with the line,
'In eddying course when leaves began to fly,'—
Blancho White's fame rests on a single sonnet, 'Night and Death,' considered by Coleridge the best in the language:
'Mysterious night! when our first parent knew.'
The Rev. C. Wolfe's fame rests on the lines called the 'Burial of Sir John Moore'—magnificent lines which every schoolboy knows by heart, though they embody only the simple details given in Colonel Napier's history,
'Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note.
Similarly the fame of M. Napoléon Peyrat rests on this one poem of one hundred and twenty lines. It is difficult to convey in a translation an idea of the rapid movement, 'rapid as the course of the traveller addressed, or the gallop of the horses of Musa el Kevir,' and the vivid colouring of the original piece. We have done our best, but our best is bad Any traveller who has followed the same itinerary as the poet will at once recognise that the country described has not been dreamed of and created out of the depths of his own powerful imagination by some grand magician of a poet, but is a country seen, taken in, and admirably rendered by a few strokes of the brush of a master painter. 'La vermeille Orlèans, Limoges aux trois sveltes clochers, l'Aveyron murmurant entre des pelouses pleines de parfums, les grèves pensives du Tescoud, le Tarn fauve, la Garonne aux longs flots, aux eaux convulsives où nagent des navires bruns et des îlots verdoyants, Toulouse, jetée comme une perle au milieu des fleurs, les blancs chevaux à la crinière argentée, dont le pied grêle a des poils noirs comme des plumes d'aigle, Fénelon le cygne aux chants divins,
"Qui nageait aux sources d'Homère!"
et à la dernière strophe, les armées passant par Roncevaux—soldats, canons, tambours, chevaux, chants tonnant dans l'espace, &c.' 'Voilá bien,' says a French critic, M. Charles Asselineau, 'l'art de I833; l'art d'enchâsser savamment l'image dans le vers et de tout combiner pour l'effet, et le son, et la figure, et le rhythme, et la coupe, et la place et l'enjambement.'
The author wrote under the nom de plume of Napol le Pyrénéen, and his real name was long unknown. At last M. Paul Boiteau published it with some details of the life of the poet. He is a Protestant pastor and was the friend of Béranger and Lamennais. He lives still, and has a charge in a village 'avoisinant Saint-Germain.' He wrote other poems in his youth, when he chanted nature, and the heroes of his mountains. What has become of these chants? Nobody can say. The author has chosen, it is said, the life of shadow and humility,—he is devoted to an earnest and a great work, and thinks very little of these pastimes of his earlier days.
Page 318.
Nice. Madame Ackermann is the widow of a great 'savant,' formerly tutor to the nephews of the King of Prussia. She is a scholar of the first order herself, and is acquainted not only with all the modern languages, but with Latin and Greek, Hebrew and Sanscrit, and even (so it is reported) Chinese. No English authoress, not even Mrs. Browning, is her equal in point of erudition. On the death of her beloved husband, whom she assisted greatly in his literary undertakings, she retired to Nice, where she leads a life of great seclusion. The scenes of her principal stories are laid in India, and she says in one of her poems,
'L'Inde me plaît, non pas que j'aie encore
De mes yeux vu ce rivage enchanteur;
Mais on sait lire, et même, sauf erreur,
On a du lieu déchiffré maint auteur.'
'Ind pleases me, not that I've seen as yet
With my own eyes, its shores renowned in story,
But I can read, appreciate, and have met
Its bards in spirit, with their brows of glory.'
Page 319.
My Village. The name of the author is Gensoûl. The piece will be found in a little book entitled 'Nos Souvenirs.'
Page 321.
The Emigration of Pleasure. This piece will be found in Gustave Masson's 'La Lyre Française.'
Page 323.
An Epitaph. This epitaph is in M. Gustave Masson's book, 'La Lyre Française.'
Page 324.
Colinette. Very sweet in the original. Author unknown. The piece will be found in Gustave Masson's 'La Lyre Française.'
Page 326.
Love's Catechism. This piece is in Gustave Masson's 'La Lyre Française.' Author unknown.
Page 327.
Gather the Rose-buds while ye may. This piece bears in the original the title of 'La Mère Bontemps,' and the author is anonymous.
Page 329.
The Mother's Birthday. The author of this piece is unknown.
Page 331.
The Complaint of the Afflicted Church. 'This is one of the numerous poems,' says M. Gustave Masson in 'La Lyre Française,' 'suggested by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It was found a few years ago on the fly-leaf of an old family Bible, and published in the 'Bulletin de la Société du Protestantisme Française' 1853. The reader will find it in 'La Lyre Française' (pp. 8-12), and we have great pleasure in referring him to that volume, as no translation can do adequate justice to the pathos and power of the original poem.
Page 335.
Concluding Sonnet. The writer of these pages has only to add here, that the pieces signed A. are by her dear and only sister Aru, who fell asleep in Jesus on July 23, 1874, at the early age of twenty years. The last piece she translated was Colinette. Had she lived, this book with her help might have been better, and the writer might perhaps have had less reason to be ashamed of it, and less occasion to ask for the reader's indulgence. Alas!
'Of all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these,—It might have been.'