160 DISCOURSES OF FATHER HYACINTHE. 



revolution accomplished by the romantic school. " The 

 first poets," he wrote, *' were philosophers ; hereafter the 

 philosophers are to be poets." This is almost identical 

 with the definition which our Lamartine has given of 

 the poetry of the future: "It will be reason i)i song." 

 If I were not afraid of perpetrating a pleonasm, I would 

 add that it will be, especially, morality and religion in 

 song, and I would name as the subjects of its immortal 

 trilogy — subjects ever true and ever fresh — the temple, 

 the home, the State. 



If the poet can sing of the State, why not serve the 

 State ? Devotion to the muse, however, has been 

 esteemed not quite compatible with the struggles in 

 which political life involves us, and perhaps with the 

 qualities it demands in us. It was reserved for our age 

 to break down the walls which have too long separated 

 the different lines of human thought and action. Of 

 this, Charles Loyson was a forerunner ; he could be at 

 the same time publicist and poet, and I cannot venture 

 to say in which of the two careers he was best fitted to 

 excel. At any rate, he acquired at once, and in a higli 

 degree, the esteem and contideiice of such men as M. de 

 Serre, Royer-Collard, Guizot; and at twenty-nine years 

 of age he already held rank and authority among tlie 

 writers who adorned that stormy, but glorious and 

 fruitful iuauguration of the liberal monarchy of 1814. 

 AVhat especially impresses and charms me in him, is his 

 horror of party spirit. In presence of the social antag- 

 onism whicli had survived our late misfortunes and was 

 preparing new ones, that clear-seeing mind, that patri- 

 otic and generous lieart. saw no hope of salvation except 

 in tlie (jn'((l /xirlij of France, as Fatlier (îratry so well 

 calls it; a party which — thank God! — lias never needed 

 to be created, but which then lacked, as it does to-day. 



