Another special favourite, the poet of romance and melancholy, is Lamartine. He has written “Meditations;” also La Mort de Socrate, and the last canto of “Childe Harold.” Here are eight of his lines.—The “Golfe de Baia.”
O, de la Liberté vieille et sainte patrie!
Terre autrefois féconde en sublime vertus!
Sous d’indignes Cæsars, maintenant asservie,
Ton empire est tombé! tes heroes ne sont plus!
Mais dans ton sein l’ame aggrandie,
Croit sur leurs monumens respirer leur génie,
Comme on respire, encore dans un temple aboli,
La majesté du Dieu dont il etait rempli.
He now makes eloquent speeches in the Chamber of Deputies.—Politics run away with all the genius, and rob even the schools of their professors. Only think of such a man as Arago prating radicalism in the Chamber of Deputies. The Muses weep over his and Lamartine’s infidelity.
I have read Victor Hugo lately, and love him and hate him. Like our mocking-bird, he mingles the notes of the nightingale with the cacklings of the hen. But I must not abuse him, the ladies all love him so. Only think of “Bug Jargal,” the “Dernier jour d’un Condamné;” and above all, “Notre Dame de Paris;” and think only of poor little Esmeralda, put so tragically to death on the Place de Grêve in spite of her little goat Djali, and her little shoe.—I have read his tragedies, Hernan, Le Roi s’amuse, and Marie Tudor; parbleu! and “Lucrece Borgia.” His poetic works are Les Orientales; a collection of odes; Les Feuilles d’Automne, &c.
Victor Hugo is yet in the full tide of youth, and so is Casimir de la Vigne. The latter represents to-night, at the Theatre Français, his Don Carlos; he has already reaped much glory from his Vêpres Siciliennes, Paria, Comedienne, and Ecole des Vieillards, and still greater from his Poetic Lamentations, the Messeniennes, which are full of patriotic sentiment, expressed in the richest graces of poetry.
Alfred de Vigny has written a pretty poem, the Frégate, and two biblical pieces, Moïse, and the Femme Adultère; but his great praise is Cinq Mars, one of the best compositions of the French historical romance.—Scribe, Picard, and Duval have written so many vaudevilles, that one has a surfeit of their names. Dumas is a dramatic writer of first-rate merit for these days. His Antony, Therèse, Henry V., and Catharine Howard, are all played with success. Jules Janin has a great fund of wit; his Ane Mort, Femme Guillotinée, Chemin de Travers, you can read with the certainty of being pleased.
I have said nothing of Leclercq, Langon, Balsac, Meremy, and Lacroix, who have all their share of admiration, especially from the fair sex.
When the vapours have smothered the sun, and when it rains, as it does always, instead of inhaling charcoal, or leaping from the Pont Neuf, I go into a “cabinet de lecture,” and read Paul de Kock. No author living can carry one so laughingly through a wet day. If you are fond of the genuine wit of low life, neither Fielding, nor Smollett, nor Pigault Lebrun, will disgust you with Paul de Kock. But here comes the end of my paper, what shall I do with the rest? I will just string them together by the gills.—Give Guizot credit for a History de la Civilisation, a translation of Gibbon, and a score or two of volumes on the English Revolution; Mignet and Thiers for a History of the French Revolution, and Barante for his Dukes of Burgundy; Sismondi for a History of the Italian Republics, of The French, and the Literature of the South; and Daru, of Venice; Thierry, of the Conquest of England; Capefigue, the Reform; Lacretelle, The 18th Century; Ségur, a Universal History; Michaud, of the Crusades; Delaure, of Paris; Michelet, of Rome; and Précis de l’Histoire de France. Cousin has written the “Philosophy of History;” Keratry, Metaphysics, and Novels; and Villemain, Melanges de Litterature, and M. de la Mennais is praised for his “Indifference in matters of Religion.”—The French were strangely deficient in history before the present century, not even having furnished a good history of their own country; they have now supplied their deficiency in this department of letters.—Now with all due respect, and a full sense of the distinction, I place myself at the bottom of this illustrious group. Your obedient, humble servant.
LETTER XVII.
The Theatres.—Mademoiselle Mars.—Théatre Royal.—Italien.—Grisi.—Académie Royal de Musique.—Taglioni.—Miss Fanny Elsler.—The Variètés.—The Odéon.—Mademoiselle George.—Hamlet.—Republican Spirit of the Age.—Character of the French Stage.—Machinery of the Drama.—The Claqueurs.—Supply of New Pieces.—The Vaudevillists.—M. Scribe.—The Diorama.—Concerts.—Music