not allow us to place him on our list. It becomes, therefore, a somewhat difficult matter to choose from modern Frenchmen a representative of poetry. Alfred de Musset will, we have already said, come later; but he represents rather her unique rebel than the regular school of poetry in France. We should have preferred Victor Hugo, as the greater poet and man of larger genius, to Lamartine; but his career is still unaccomplished, a fact which is more to be regretted than rejoiced over, so far as his literary genius is concerned. And in his sphere Béranger is a greater artist, a truer poet than either; but that sphere is too limited, and his productions often too slight in workmanship and too ephemeral in subject, to give him full rank as the representative of art of the highest order. He is chansonnier pure and simple, not to be elevated to the classic dignity of a lyrical poet; and though he is sometimes almost worthy of a place by the side of Burns, the lower level of emotion, the absence of passion, conspicuous in his charming verses, exclude him, not in degree, but in kind, from the highest sphere. We may pause, however, here to remark that, however deficient in the higher qualities of poetry, France remains absolute mistress of the chanson. In England the song (except in some very rare cases) has dwindled downward into such imbecility, that bolder musicians have begun to intimate the possibility of dispensing with "words" altogether, and expressing their sentiments, so far as articulation is necessary, by the inane syllables of the sol-fa system,—a tremendous irony, which, if it were intentional, would do more to demolish our lesser songsters than all the bans of literary criticism. The idea is barbarous; but it is partially justified by the nonsense verses which we constantly hear chanted forth in drawing-rooms, to the confusion of all sense and meaning. But the song in France has never dropped to this miserable level. The crisp, gay, sparkling verses—the graceful sentiment, a little artificial, and reminding the hearer, perhaps, of Watteau's wreathed lyres and quaint garden-groups—the captivating peculiarity of the refrain—combine to give a certain identity to these charming trifles. They may have no high title to poetic merit, but still they vindicate the claim of the literary voice to have some share in all expression of feeling. It is impossible to treat them as mere "words for music," or to throw them aside for the barbarous jargon of the sol-fa. But yet, though so much more perfect than anything we possess, this branch of poetic art does not reach the empyrean heights of poetry; and Béranger, though the finest and most perfect of artists in his way, cannot be accepted as a fit impersonation of the poet. We do not venture, in placing the name of Lamartine at the head of our page, to attempt to confer even upon him an equal rank to that of the great singers we have already discussed. All that we can say is, that he is the best modern representative of the higher art in his country on whom we can lay our hand; dignified by high meaning, at least, and endowed with many of those qualities which bulk most largely in the estimation of his race—graceful versification, correct and fine phraseology, and that curious, vague enthusiasm for nature—different as it is possible to imagine from the enthusiasm, for example, of Wordsworth or of our modern school of poets—which the French imagination loves. His life, too, is one in which it is impossible not to feel interest; and though there is much in it, especially towards the end, to rouse a painful pity, and that unwilling contempt which hurts the sensitive-soul, there is also much to call forth our admiration and sympathy. At the greatest and most critical moment of his life the poet bore himself like a man, earning, or at least deserving, the gratitude of his country, and the respect and honour of all lookers-on.
Alphonse de Lamartine was born on the edge of the Revolution, in Mâcon, in the year 1790. Of a noble family, some members of which were touched by the revolutionary ferment of the time—moderately touched——uniting the grace of liberal opinions and patriotic zeal to the many other graces of their patrician state,—a union which, however, did not survive the hot days of the Terror. His grandfather was an old French seigneur, possessing many terres and châteaux in the regions round, and a family hotel at Mâcon, the metropolis of the district, whither he and many other noble personages of the country repaired in winter, in an age when Paris was not everything in France. M. de Lamartine had six children, equally divided—three sons and three daughters—five of whom, according to the extraordinary custom of the time, were born only to extinguish themselves for the sake of the family. The race, according to all its traditions, was destined to flourish and prolong itself only in the person of the eldest son; and the code of family honour enjoined upon the others a contented
