SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
',tinder this heading we notice such Books of t'w week as have not been teserred for review in other forms.]
poets, has known m any interesting people. He saw_ in his youth Chateaubriand and 1314ranger, and meditated dedicating a novel to the first and some poems to the second. These latter were to be introduced with the words, "I am a poet; I am eighteen years of age, and I long to know you before I die," Unhappily neither the novel nor the poetry was written. Latnartine was the first great titterateur that he actually knew. The Revolution of 1848 brought about an intimate acquaintance. M. Grenier had just come back from Germany, where he had held a diplomatic appointment, and his acquaintance with the German language and affairs generally made him valuable. He was daily at the offices of the Provisional Government at the Hotel de Ville, and had many opportunities of witnessing Lamartine's mar- vellous power of speech. Before long came the Empire, and M. Grenier's public career was at an end. Henceforward his reminiscences are strictly literary. There is scarcely a French writer of note who is not drawn for us in these pages. Heinrich Heine comes first, if he may be included in the list. M. Grenier is a little more severe with Heine than with any one else, except possibly Victor Hugo, whom he admires, but with limitations. "All Heine is contained in Byron. But Byron soars higher , . . . . . between them there is all the difference between Puck and an Archangel." "To proclaim [Victor Hugo] the greatest poet of all time is to push patriotism to the point of blindness, and religion to blasphemy." It is interesting to see that M. Grenier's three poets of the century are Goethe, Byron, and Lamartine. Byron, we take it, is to him the first. When he sees the Countess Gniccioli he can only say : "When a woman has had such a lover as that, she ought to disappear from the world." Does any one of Byron's countrymen feel this spirit of adoration ? We doubt it. There is an interesting chapter on George Sand, with more space given to the affair between her and De Musset, the famous Rile et Lui, than we think it deserves. After this we come to Prosper Ilerimee, who begs M. Grenier to bring back from Moldavia (whither he was going as secretary to the Hospods.r) the Lord's Prayer in the dialect of the Moldavian gipsies. Unhappily no Moldavian gipsy could be found, who knew the Lord's Prayer, or even the alphabet. With llleriine comes Sainte-Beuve, and after them Victor Hugo, Ponsard, and Angier. M. Grenier never reached a place among the Forty, and not the least entertaining part of a delightful volume are his experiences as a candidate.
Previous page
