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A GLANCE AT SOME OF OUR PARISIAN CON- 

 TEMPORARIES. 



BERANGER VICTOR HUGO. 



WE would fain give the English reader some idea of the untrans- 

 lateable Beranger, the celebrated chansonnier who enjoys so much 

 popularity among his countrymen. Some critics have compared him 

 to Anacreon, but the comparison seems by no means just or appro- 

 priate : it is true they both sing of love and vrine, both admire a spark- 

 ling eye and a sparkling glass, but here all their similarity ends. 

 Anacreon is a heartless and selfish debauchee, he has no wishes but 

 for the bottle, no desire but for the smile of his mistress : but Beranger 

 has more soul, more feeling ; his thoughts take a higher range and his 

 admiration a wider circle ; when he raises the goblet to his lip, it is 

 to drink a flowing bumper to the welfare of his country, and he finds 

 time even in the arms of his Lisette to sing of the glory or to weep 

 for the misfortunes of France. Though he possesses, in some degree, 

 the licentiousness of the Greek poet, yet his keen and polished satire of 

 men and mariners, and his ardent and unconquerable love of liberty 

 render him immeasurably his superior. If we must draw a comparison 

 between Beranger and another bard, we would say that he resembles 

 Burns more than any other we are acquainted with. They were both 

 born in the lap of poverty and cradled in its blast, and into both their 

 bosoms the spirit of song descended, and rendered each the glory of 

 his country. Liberty, love, wine, and good fellowship are the muses 

 which inspire them; both are occasionally coarse, but oftener tender 

 and sublime, though we must say that Beranger never composed any- 

 thing so beautiful as the lines " To Mary in Heaven," or so natural 

 and tender as the " Cotter's Saturday Night/' 



The character of the man is impressed upon his writings ; and fully 

 to appreciate him, we ought to know some particulars of his history. 

 We will give the few facts we have been able to glean respecting him. 

 P. J. de Beranger, as he himself informs us, in the song entitled, 

 " Le Tailleur et la Fee," was born in Paris on the 19th of August, 

 1780, at the house of his maternal grandfather, a tailor, and this is 

 all we know of his ancestry. Noswithstanding the aristocratic par- 

 ticle " De" which is prefixed to his name, he has no pretentions to 

 nobility of birth ; and in one of his most satirical and cutting songs he 

 takes the trouble to inform all whom it may concern, that he is " vi- 

 lain et roturier." A lad, with a mind so poetical as his, could find no 

 pleasure in the operation of stitching coats and mending old breeches. 

 Accordingly we find that his earlier youth was passed in a more in- 

 tellectual, though quite as humble an employment, viz. a journey- 

 man printer, which he afterwards quitted to accept of a situation as 

 clerk, or commis, in a banking-house. Such has been his profession 

 ever since, but the dry detail of calculating profit and loss have in no 

 degree blunted his poetical powers. Song has been his delight, his 

 solace, and his comforter he has lived for song, and song has repaid 

 him in her own coin for all the difficulties and trials which he has had to 



