610 The French Poets and Novelists. 



We, however, strongly suspect that the author of the article in the 

 *' Quarterly" is one of those Englishmen who have passed six weeks or 

 two months in Paris, and have, from the reminiscences of their school 

 education, retained a sufficient smattering of the French language 

 just barely to skim over a few easy novels (with the indispensable aid 

 of a Nugent's dictionary), and thence, on their return to England, 

 imagine themselves capable of criticising and dissecting foreign insti- 

 tutions, customs, habits, morals, literature, and jurisprudence, while 

 really their knowledge of those matters is too trivial even to allow 

 them to discuss the subjects in common conversation. Of this an 

 editor of the "Atlas" gave us a specimen about a'year ago ; when, in 

 a long article intended to be a notice on the " Revue des deux Mondes," 

 and the " Revue de Paris," he coolly tells us " that the French have 

 no other literary periodical journals of any consequence, that their 

 reviews of new books are always scanty and short, and that they pay . 

 but little attention to criticisms on recent publications." All this is 

 entirely false. The Parisian press boasts of the " Chronique de 

 Paris," the " Voleur," and the " Cabinet de Lecture," which are as 

 large as the *' Athenaeum," which appear six times a month, and which 

 invariably contain critical notices as elaborate as those of the English 

 parallel papers. In addition to these, there are the " Revue des 

 deux Mondes," the "Revue de Paris," "France Lkteraire," and "Le 

 Panorama de Londres," which are published every Sunday, and con- 

 sist of from 150 to 200 closely-printed octavo pages each, the 

 " Revue du Nord," the " Revue Brittannique," and a variety of other 

 magazines published monthly, and of the same size as their English 

 cotemporaries. All these periodicals are more or less devoted to 

 literary criticism ; besides which, the French daily political news- 

 papers (to the number of thirty-seven^ all contain feuilletons where 

 new works are reviewed with an impartiality that ought to put to 

 shame the reckless profusion of praise, which English critics bestow 

 on the most insignificant and contemptible books. 



But let us return to our subject. The writer in the " Quarterly" 

 has attacked the French novelists in a most savage manner: will he 

 allow us to ask him if he has ever read any French poetry? and if 

 he has not, we will introduce him to Lamartine, and say a few words 

 with regard to " Jocelyn." 



If the attractions of any art can cause the soul of man to feel itself 

 suddenly lifted afar from the grosser joys of earth, and wrapped in a 

 species of blissful delirium it is poetry. If there be any author who 

 has complete power over the minds of his readers, to enchain them 

 in the mystic bonds that his effusions cast around them, and actually to 

 implicate them and their feelings, their sympathies, and their pas- 

 sions, in the scenes that he depicts in glowing colours it is the poet. 

 He is like an enchanter, who, with a magic wand, can make works of 

 imagination appear facts, and give reality to fables, so that the be- 

 witching pleasure which the reader experiences rather resembles a 

 long unwearied dream of delight than the effect of a certain opera- 

 tion premeditated, undertaken, and pursued when awake. And such 

 a poet is De Lamartine. 



We were in raptures with many passages in Victor Hugo's " Chants 



