478 A GLANCE AT OUR PARISIAN CONTEMPORARIES, 



if Beranger to-morrow possessed wealth and honours, his popularity 

 would diminish in the same proportion as his gold increased. 



Criticism may be said to abdicate two-thirds of its prerogative when 

 it refrains from finding fault ; but Beranger has already passed through 

 the ordeal, and it would ill become a foreigner, who cannot be sup- 

 posed to enter into the spirit of his country's feelings, to cavil against 

 what his own compatriots have so unanimously approved, for most of 

 his songs are decidedly political. His bacchanalian and amatory effu- 

 sions, take a wider though less noble range, and of them we are com- 

 petent to judge more impartially. Their distinguished mark is, they 

 are so eminently social; Beranger could not drink and sing alone in 

 his bower like Anacreon he must have others to share his glee, and 

 participate in his " ivresse." He has too much bonhommie, to drink 

 for drinking's sake, and too much philosophy to get absolutely drunk, 

 for he makes wine his friend, not his master. We would fain translate 

 " Le Senateur," " Le Marquis de Carabas," " Les petits Cours," 

 " Plus de Politique," and many others ; but into English he is really 

 untranslateable that is, to do him justice. We have seen many at- 

 tempts, but all failures; those who can read French will want no 

 counsel to read him in the original ; and to those who cannot do so, 

 we would apply the peer's remark to the young poet, who solicited 

 his patronage. " Sir," said his Lordship, " you should study Spanish." 

 The poet applied himself, and in a short time rendered himself master 

 of the language, and full of hope presented himself to his patron, and 

 in high glee informed him of the progress he had made. " Then," 

 said his Lordship, " I envy you the pleasure of reading Don Quixote 

 in the original." Reader, if you do not know French, learn it and 

 the perusal of Beranger will alone repay you for the trouble. 



VICTOR HUGO is the chief of what is called " L'ecole romantique," 

 which may be designated the Whig, or rather radical party of the 

 French litterateurs, as the opposite party of the Academic may be 

 denominated the Tory. The dissensions between the two are numerous 

 and violent the Academy accusing the Romantiques of barbarism 

 and bad taste ; while the Romantiques, with Victor Hugo at their 

 head, accuse the Academicans of tameness, and a mean servility to the 

 milk-and-water maxims of Boileau. But we must leave them to their 

 wrangling, our present object being only to examine the writings of 

 this very original author. We might very justly compare Victor 

 Hugo's productions to some old gothic cathedral of the middle ages, 

 with its heavy and massive towers, its gloomy arches and ponderous 

 doors, and its old tombs of knights and warriors, with the sunshine 

 streaming on them through the blue, green, and crimson of the high 

 gothic windows. All his writings are in this lumbrous and costly 

 style ; they have none of the simplicity and elegance of more modern 

 times ; all is dark, cumbersome, and striking. 



One fault he is very free from ; when he is melancholy, it is in a 

 manly mood ; he has none of the puling tea-table sensibility, which in 

 a wishy-washy flood deluges the works of some of his contemporaries ; 

 his grief is that of a man, not of a love-sick and moping miss, who 

 longs to be free from the trammels of the boarding-school ; his whole 

 intellect is of a bold and masculine stamp, and what he may some- 



