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
