June — The French Imitation-Pastoral. 193 



XXXVI. 



The French Imitation-Pastoral — Le'Brun — Le Brun's Good Inten- 

 tions — The Modern Genuine Pastoral — Lamartine's * Laboureurs ' — 

 Troyon and Rosa Bonheur — Millet and Jules Breton — George Sand 

 — \ La Petite Fadette ' — Landry and Sylvinet — A perfect Bit — Diffi- 

 culty of treating Rustic Subjects — A Satirist of Florian. 



WHEN you come to the French imitation-pastoral, 

 the indifference to landscape is pretty nearly 

 absolute. You have 'rockers' and * bois 1 and 'foritsl 

 of course, but not the faintest sign that the writer has 

 ever walked in the woods with his eyes open. The 

 following lines from Houdard de Lamotte are a fair 

 specimen of the sort of landscape-painting you have to 

 expect : — 



1 Aux plaintes de Daphnis les Nymphes s'attendrirent ; 

 Dans le creux des rochers les e'chos en ge'mirent ; 

 Comme aux accords d'Orphe'e on vit du fond des bois 

 Les lions attendris accourir a sa voix.' 



The most curious thing about the French pastoral 

 writers of the eighteenth century is that they do really 

 seem to fancy themselves students of Nature. Le Bran 

 wrote a poem on ' La Nature, ou le Bonheur Philoso- 

 phique et Champetre/ and in the first canto invokes the 

 wood-gods and the nymphs: — 



* Et vous, de la Nature immortelles compagnes, 

 Vous, ddites des bois, vous, nymphes des campagnes, 

 Laissez-moi parcourir vos bosquets ombrage's 

 Que l'art contagieux n'a jamais outrages.' 

 13 



