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How differently were two young girls awaiting that sunrise. The one, the queen of the day, is preparing for her wedding; on her head she places a wreath, on her breast a nosegay of flowers; and in the midst of happiness she forgets to say a prayer. The other, alone and blind, has neither wreath nor flowers. Her eyes are full of tears; she throws herself down on her knees and prays to God to pardon her the sin she is about to commit. But it is time to go to the church. Angèle, surrounded by her friends, goes as in triumph. Margaret, leaning on her brother, wends her steps too towards the church. But before leaving her room, she has concealed in her bosom a dagger. As they approach the church they hear the sound of the melancholy ewfray singing his doleful song. "Dost thou not hear that sound, sister! Dost thou remember the night our poor father died we heard this sound? He said to thee: My child, take care of Paul, for I feel that I am going to leave you.' We all shed tears. Our father died, and was buried here. Here is his grave, and the cross is still on it. But why dost thou draw me so near to thee, as if thou wouldst smother me?" Alas, poor Margaret! It seemed to her as if a voice from the grave had cried My child! what art thou going to do? But Paul hurries her on; they have entered the church. The bride is at the altar. Baptiste has pronounced the fatal "Yes," when a well-known voice exclaims at his side: "It is he! Baptiste, thou wished for my death: let my blood be the holy water of this wedding!" She is about to stab herself, but surely a guardian angel protects her, for just as she is going to strike, she falls dead. Her grief had killed her! Everything then changes. Instead of the gay songs of the morning, the solemn De Profundis is heard, and everything seems to say: The paths should sigh and weep, so beautiful is the one who is dead!

We are fully aware how impossible it is to give a correct idea of the beauties of a poetical composition by means of an analysis. The critic can no more convey to his readers a true notion of the poetic flowers of a work, which he can but dissect as the anatomist dissects a body, in order to lay bare the lifeless skeleton, than the engraver can, with his burin, represent the

coloring and the general effect of a picture. But yet by his work, the engraver may give to him who sees it a desire to behold the original from whence it is taken-a desire, which he perhaps would never have felt, had it not been awakened within him by this even imperfect representation. So, too, may we not hope that our readers will wish to see the original from which we have taken this faint sketch? This poem first awakened the literary men of France, and in a measure the public itself, to a sense of the merit of Jasmin. In 1835 he was called upon to read it before the Academy of Bordeaux, and excited by his impassioned delivery an almost unparalleled enthusiasm. He had a similar honor conferred on him in 1840, when he was invited to read the poem of Françonneto before a still larger audience in the city of Toulouse.

The scene of this poem is laid in the south of France, in the 16th century, at the time of the persecution of the Huguenots, when the cruel Marquis of Montluc was covering the country with blood and tears, in the name of a God of mercy. The scene opens at a moment of comparative peace and quiet. The peasants are assembled to dance on the green turf. Among them is Françonneto la Ponlido de las Ponlidos, (the belle of all belles.) Like all belles, however, Françonneto is capricious. Surrounded by admirers, she leaves them to hope or to despair, according as they may be of a desponding or cheerful disposition, without pronouncing in favor of any particular one. But in the course of the evening she will be obliged at least to show some degree of partiality, for it is the custom to allow the dancer, who can succeed in tiring his partner out, to take a kiss. What a struggle there was for this kiss! William, John, Louis, Peter, and Paul are out of breath without having obtained the disputed prize! But here comes Marcel the soldier, to whom Françonneto is engaged, but for whom she cares perhaps less than for any of her other admirers. Surely he who is accustomed to all the hardships of war, will succeed in tiring out a young girl. But when the will is good the weakest girl is strong! Marcel is outdone; he is obliged to stop. Pascal the smith rushes forward, and in a moment has taken his place; but hardly has Fran

çonneto taken a turn with him, when she stops, and holding up her cheek, receives the kiss. The air rings with the applause of the peasants at the triumph of Pascal. But Marcel the soldier, the favorite of Montluc, is not thus to be trifled with. "You took my place too quickly, young man!" he exclaims, and adds a blow to the insult. "How easily a storm succeeds to the calm! A kiss and a blow! Glory and shame! Light and darkness! Life and death! Hell and Heaven! All these things fill at once the ardent soul of Pascal. When a man is thus cowardly attacked, he needs not to be a gentleman or a soldier to avenge the insult without fear. No-look at him! A tempest is not worse! His eyes flash fire, his voice thunders! and seizing Marcel by the waist, he hurls him to the ground." He does not wish to kill him. He is satisfied. His generosity does not disarm Marcel, however; he wishes to continue the fight, but Montluc appears and puts an end to the quarrel. The soldier is obliged to obey, but between his teeth he might be heard to mutter: "They love her and do all they can to cross my love; she laughs at my expense. By St. Marcel, my patron, they shall pay for it, and Françonneto shall have no other husband but me."

Between the first and second cantos, two or three months have elapsed. We again find the peasants met to celebrate New Year's eve, and Françonneto is still the queen of beauty. The festive meeting is however interrupted by the appearance of the man of the Black Wood, the dread of the neighboring country, who comes to announce that the father of Françonneto became a Huguenot before dying, and sold her soul to an evil spirit. Il luck to him who shall venture to marry her. When her husband shall take the bridal wreath from her brow, the Demon will take possession of her soul, and wring his neck. "Great words, high sounding comparisons could not express the appearance of the peasants, who at this dreadful prediction seemed to be changed into stones." Françonneto alone remains unmoved. She believes at first that it is but a joke, but when she finds all her companions shrink back from her, she falls insensible to the ground. She is now shunned by all her companions. When she goes to church, they all avoid

her. Pascal alone has not abandoned her, and even does not fear to offer her the blessed bread at the altar. What a moment was that for her! "One would think that the bread of a resuscitated God had recalled her to life. But why does she blush? Oh, it is because the angel of love has blown a little of his flame on the embers which lay lurking in her heart. Oh, it is because something strange, something new, hot as fire, soft as honey, has taken root and is growing up in her breast. Oh, it is because she lives with another life; she knows, and she feels it! The world and the priest are alike forgotten, and in the temple of God, she sees but one man, the man whom she loves, the man whom she can thank." She returns home, and then "she does what we all may do; she dreams with open eyes, and without stone or hammer, she builds a little castle, in which by the side of Pascal everything is happiness." But alas! why must she awaken from this dream? She was thinking of love, but reality now breaks in on her with its cold and iron hand; she remembers the prediction that he who marries her, must die. In despair she falls on her knees before the image of the blessed Virgin. "Holy Mother," she exclaims, "without thee I am lost. I love Pascal. I have neither father nor mother, and they all say, that I am sold to an evil spirit. Take pity on me! Save me if this be true! or if they deceive me, prove it to my soul. I will offer thee a candle at Notre-Dame. Virgin so good, show me by some infallible sign, that thou receivest it with pleasure." Short prayers, when sincere, ascend rapidly to heaven. Sure that she has been heard, the young girl thinks incessantly of her purpose. At times, however, she trembles; fear paralyzes her speech. And then again hope shines in her heart, as a flash of lightning in the dark of the night. The solemn day has come. She goes to the church and presents her offering at the shrine of the Virgin; but alas! her hopes are in an instant blighted. No sooner has she lighted the candle on the altar, than a violent peal of thunder is heard, and the light is extinguished. No doubt can now remain! She is condemned to a cruel fate! The peasants are exasperated, and resolve to set fire to her house. The flames are already spreading over it, when Pascal

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interferes and endeavors to save her. But he comes not alone. Marcel is behind him. "Wilt thou marry me?" he exclaims. Pascal makes the same offer. Françonneto, after a struggle between love and duty, accepts Pascal's offer. "I love you, Pascal," she says, and wished to die alone. But you demand it. I can resist no longer, and if it is our destiny, let it be so, let us die together." Two weeks after this scene, the marriage procession might be seen winding its way down the hill. But Pascal's mother entreats him not to proceed; his fate is decreed, she says, he will surely die. Pascal feels the tears running down his cheeks, but still he holds the hand of his beloved. How those tears affect him!

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but love is yet the stronger. Take care of my mother, if anything happens to me," he says to Marcel. But the soldier, too, is shedding tears. 'Pascal," he exclaims, "in love as in war, an artifice is permitted. I forged the whole story of Françonneto's being sold to an evil spirit. I paid the sorcerer to frighten you with it, in the hope of forcing Françonneto to marry me. But alas! she preferred thee. I then resolved to avenge myself by putting you both to death. I would have led you to the nuptial chamber, and then have blown you up with myself. Everything was prepared for this crime. But thy mother has disarmed my anger by her tears. She recalls to my mind my own mother, who is no more. Live for her sake. Thou hast nothing more to fear from me; thy paradise descends now on earth. I have nobody left. I return to the wars. cure me of my love, a cannon-ball is perhaps better than such a crime." He speaks and disappears. The marriage is celebrated. But here the poet stops. He had colors to depict grief; he has none wherewith to represent such happiness!

To

Beauties of the highest order are profusely scattered throughout these two poems. They are of that kind, however, which makes it extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to render them in any language but that of the original. The patois dialect, in which Jasmin writes, is full of softness and simplicity, but, at the same time, energetic as the race to whom it belongs. In making use of such a dialect, the poet is not obliged, as the French writer is, to weigh every word, in order to

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ascertain whether it is worthy to be used or not in a poetic composition. Molière and Béranger are the only two French poets, who seem to be so perfectly master of the language in which they write, as to be able to express all their thoughts without circumlocution. To this perhaps, in a great measure, may be ascribed the popularity of the great comic writer, and, if we may so say, the anticipated immortality of the greatest of modern French poets, Béranger. To us many of the French poets who are most admired, and deservedly so, appear very much as would a laborer who wore every day his Sunday dress, They are unfit for performing their common duties for fear of soiling their borrowed dress. From the heights on which they strive to dwell, they can take no part in the ordinary events of life. It seems to us that the merit of the poet is not to ennoble things by so disguising them, as to make it sometimes even difficult to recognize them, but to present them in their natural state, although in a poetic form. That nature, when left to herself, is never vulgar, is a precept which the poet should always bear in mind. Look, for example, at the peasant. He is rough, rude in his speech, but he is not vulgar. Take him to a city, and, in six months, he will be essentially so. In endeavoring to make people forget his humble origin, he will show how out of place he is. When you saw him in the field, you thought him even graceful in his movements. In his new, and to him, uncomfortable dress, you find him awkward. And so it is with everything in nature. Leave things in the place which nature assigns to them, and you will find them all that they should be. But when, no matter from what cause, the beautiful order of nature has been perverted, that which was wont to appear noble and beautiful, is so deformed as to become common and sometimes hideous. The poet then need not fear to represent things as they are. He will make the peasant speak the language of the peasant, and the lord, the language of the lord; for what would be vulgarity in the one is but nature in the other. Jasmin is well aware of this. We never find him endeavoring to give to his verses a borrowed dignity. They are always drawn from the life. Jasmin has had to resist the temptation

which is thrown in the way of every distinguished man in France, that of establishing himself in the capital. He has resisted it with a constancy worthy of the highest praise. The inducements must have been strong. In Paris, he would have lived in those literary circles in which his talents would have been fully appreciated; but at the same time, he would have experienced the envy of rival authors. At Agen, on the contrary, he lives quietly and admired by all his countrymen. We find among his poems, an epistle addressed to a rich farmer of the neighborhood of Toulouse, who had strenuously urged his going to the metropolis to make his fortune. There is in this piece of poetry an energy and a vivacity of expression, which must have been anything but agreeable to the person to whom it was addressed. you too, sir," he says, And "do not fear to trouble the peace of my days and nights, but write to me to carry my guitar and comb to the great city of kings! There, you say, my poetic vein and the verses by which I am already known, would cause a stream of dollars to flow into my shop. You might, sir, during a whole month, sing the praises of this golden rain-you might tell me that fame is but smoke! glory nought but glory, but that money is money! I would not even thank you. Money! Is money anything to a man who feels burning in his breast the flame of poetry? I am happy and poor with my loaf of rye, and the water from my fountain. . . . . . I enjoy everything. Nothing makes me sigh. I have cried long enough; I mean to make amends for it. Wiser than in the days of my youth, I begin to feel in this world,

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which we must all leave so soon, that which passes riches."

rious turn, but there are, nevertheless, two The muse of Jasmin is generally of a sehumorous pieces in the collection before us, which are very excellent. The one is a description of a journey which the poet once took, and in which his travelling companions were quietly discussing the merits of Jasmin, without being at all aware that he was sitting by their side. The reader can easily imagine to what amusing scenes such a mistake might give rise. The other, entitled Le Chalibari, is a mock heroic poem, like Boileau's Lutrin, and Pope's Rape of the Lock, and which, had it been written at an earlier period, might have claimed poems. The nineteenth century is not exa place by the side of those two capital actly the best period for writing a parody of a style of composition, which is nowand we trust ever will be-out of fashion. A satire on the manners and customs of the Middle Ages would be almost as well adapted to our times. other poems in the works of Jasmin which There are many are well worthy of notice, but we have neither the leisure nor the desire to write out an index of the two octavo volumes before us; we therefore dismiss the subject, sincerely wishing that no person who admires true poetry, will take our word for the beauties contained in the poems of Jasmin, but that they will judge for themselves. We are much mistaken, or he will feel something of the pleasure we have ourselves experienced in perusing them, and, we may add, in endeavoring to make them known.

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HUMAN FREEDOM.

ALL created life exists under two aspects, and includes in itself what may be denominated a two-fold form of being. In one view, it is something individual and single, the particular revelation as such, by which, in any given case, it makes itself known in the actual world. In another view, it is a general, universal force, which lies back of all such revelation, and communicates to this its true significance and power. In this form, it is an idea; not an abstraction or notion simply, fabricated by the understanding, to represent its own sense of a certain common character, belonging to a multitude of individual objects; but the inmost substantial nature of these objects themselves, which goes before them, in the order of existence, at least, if not in time, and finds its perpetual manifestation through their endlessly diversified forms. All life is at once ideal and actual, and in this respect, at once single and universal. It belongs to the very nature of the idea, (as a true subsist ence and not a mere notion,) to be without parts and without limits. It includes in itself the possibility, indeed, of distinction and self-limitation; but this possibility made real, is nothing more nor less than the transition of the idea over into the sphere of actual life. In itself, it is boundless, universal, and always identical. It belongs to the very conception of the actual world, on the other hand, that it should exist by manifold distinction, and the resolution of the infinite and universal into the particular and finite. All life, we say then, is at one and the same time, as actual and ideal, individual also, and general; something strictly single, and yet something absolutely universal.

These two forms of existence are opposite, but not, of course, contradictory; their opposition involves, on the contrary, the most intimate and necessary union. The ideal is not the actual, and the actual is not, as such, the ideal; separately considered, each is the full negation of what is affirmed in the other; and still they

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cannot be held for one moment asunder.
The ideal can have no reality, except in
the form of the actual; and the actual
can have no truth, save as it is filled with
the presence of the ideal. Each subsists
only by inseparable union with its oppo-
site; each is indispensable to the other, as
the complement of an existence, that could
otherwise have no force. The bond which
unites them, accordingly, is not mechani-
cal and outward merely. The life in which
they meet, is not to be regarded as, in any
sense, two lives. The two forms of exist-
ence which it includes, are at the same
time the power of a single fact, in whose
constitution they are perfectly joined
together, in an inward way. The ideal
and the actual, the general and the partic-
ular, are both present in all life, not by
juxtaposition or succession, but in such a
to include each other at every
way as
point. The very same life is both general
and particular, at the same time-the ideal
in the actual, and the actual in the ideal ;
and each is what it is always, only by
having in itself the presence of the other,
as that which it is not.

Take, for instance, the life of a particu-
lar plant or tree. Immediately considered,
it is something single, answerable to the
But it is, at
outward phenomenal form under which it
is exhibited to the senses.
the same time, more also than this. It
becomes a particular plant or tree, in fact,
only as it is felt to be the revelation of a
life more comprehensive than its own, a
life that appears in all plants and trees,
and yet is not to be regarded as springing
from them, or as measured by them, in
any respect. The general vegetable life is
not simply the sum of the actual vegeta-
tion that is going forward in the world.
It is before this in order of being, and can
never be fully represented by its growth;
for in its nature it has no bounds, while
this last is always necessarily finite, made
up of a definite number of individual exist-
Still it is nothing apart from these
existences, which serve to unfold its pres-

ences.

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