LETTER, 



PRKFrXF.D TO "TlIE SELECT WORKS OF ClIARLES 

 LOYSON." 



[Charles Loyson, uncle to Father Hyacinthe, was a i)ui)il of the 

 Ecole Normale, and was regarded b}' liis schoohnates, Cousin and 

 JoulTroy, and by his iUustrious contemporaries, Guizot, Koyer- 

 Colhird, ]Maine de Biran, and de Serre, as the most remarkable 

 youn;^ man of the generation which came into public life about 

 that very critical and hopeful era of French history, the year 1817. 

 A man of Avide versatility, and generous sympathies with the in- 

 terests of human liberty and of the Christian faith, he was at once 

 poet, oratoi', and statesman. Ills name shone for a brief time 

 with rare brilliancy, and was then suddenly extinguished in 

 death. 



Fifty 3'ears afterward, a gentleman who was much interested 

 in the historj' of the province of Brittany, the native province of 

 the Loyson famil}--, felt moved, in part by an honorable local pride, 

 to rescue from oblivion the history of so bright though brief a 

 career of one of his fellow-citizens, by compiling a volume of his 

 works in prose and verse. The volume was prefaced with criti- 

 cal notices from the distinguished pens of MM. Patin and Sainte 

 Beuve, and with tluî following Letter to the Editor by Fatlicr 

 Hyacinthe. 



In a brief review of this memorial volume, JM. Augustin Cochin, 

 known to multitudes of Americans by his constant and most in- 

 telligent vindication of our national cause before his own countr}-- 

 men, remarks thus concerning the deceased poet : 



" Let us not spend too much pity on the unknown orator, the 

 forgotten author, the poet whose song was broken off b}' death, 

 but whose memory now, let us hope, is about to be revived in the 

 hearts of new readers. Ilis life was not long, but it was lived at 



