6 1 6 The French Poets and Novelists. 



And could his voice but whisper in my ear, 

 That tender voice, to me so soft, so dear, 

 The tomb would lose its sting !' 



" No more restrained 



By fear, I cried, 'Laurence, thy wish is gained!' 

 The feeble lamp a sickly lustre shed, 

 She rais'd herself with rapture in the bed, 

 And gaz'd upon my features. * Yes 'tis he !' 



" ' Laurence, 't was God that sent me thus to thee, 

 To grant you absolution, and ensure 

 Peace to thy soul, no longer stained but pure!' " 



(Page 189, vol. ii.) 



Laurence never rises from that bed, which was soon pressed by the 

 joltl corpse of one so lovely, so fascinating", and so unfortunate ! 



The remaining pages are uninteresting, save for their poetic beauty, 

 and the proofs they afford of the originality of M. de Lamartine's 

 genius. And in these times when almost all are copyists, when our 

 great predecessors have done so much r and have done that much so 

 well, that we, their imitators, have little left to do save to embody 

 their ideas in our own language, and then be at fault, the merit of 

 originality is not only singular, but also one of the best recommenda- 

 tions for an author. 



Having thus disposed of the greater portion of our pages in this 

 article to the consideration of Lamartine, with a view of instructing 

 the writer in the " Quarterly" and of edifying our readers in general, 

 we will proceed in our refutation of the most glaring falsehoods and 

 misrepresentations to be found in the critical notice of the above- 

 mentioned Review that called forth this answer. Our limits prevent 

 us from following the critic through his animadversions on Michel 

 Masson and Georges Sand; suffice it to say, that they are couched 

 in the same prejudiced style as the others, and are interlarded with 

 the same abuse, indiscriminately distributed, and as equally unmerited 

 as in the former instances. Let us pass on to the critic's extraordi- 

 nary argument to prove that immorality in France has arrived to such 

 a dreadful extent, and so much preponderates over that of his own 

 countrymen, " that no one can read the sketches he has given of 

 French novels, and the instances he has produced of French morals, 

 without seeing that they are not only of one country, but of one 

 family : and that the novels, in fact, present upon the whole the less 

 unfavourable view of the state of French society." 



Now it is perfectly true that French novels are generally founded 

 on intrigues, &c &c., and that English novels are totally different in 

 this respect; but do intrigues, suicides, adulteries, and murders 

 exist the less in England for that ? The French novel, as it regards 

 sketches of domestic manners, is only a picture of society in France; 

 but as it regards tales of intrigue, illicit love, suicide, and murder, it 

 is a picture of all the world, and is as applicable to England, Spain, 

 Italy, and Germany, as to France alone. Moreover, because we read 

 in a French novel a description of a wife's infidelity, a husband's ven- 

 freance, and a lover's suicide, does the critic in the "Quarterly" 

 Jwean to argue that every wife is unfaithful in France, that every hus~ 



