ALFRED DE MUSSET.
AMOST unsatisfactory article in a review of which we expect better things* professes to introduce English readers to the works of a very remarkable modern poet. The secret of the fascination which Alfred de Musset exercises over the whole of France will certainly not be discovered by those who take the North British writer for their guide. He is not even just to the literary merits of his hero. His sole object seems to be to construct a theory to which each work in turn may be referred, and for the sake of that theory he ignores both facts and criticism. Thus, when he draws a sort of genealogical tree of Alfred de Musset's mind, and tells us that "at an early period he felt the influence of Delavigne and Andre Chenier," while "as his genius developed itself and grew in strength he seems to have been attracted to the satires of Regnier," he forgets that Alfred de Musset himself calls Regnier
"Premier maitre jadis sous lequel reerivis, More quo du voisin je prenais lee axis."
But what is still worse than this habit of philosophical oversight, is the reviewer's neglect of some of the most striking works of his -author. He does not even mention the Stances of Alfred de Musset's first volume, lines which are unapproachable in their alternate force and delicacy, at once moving scenes and finished pictures. Neither the strength nor the weakness of Rolla is adequately reproduced. The Nuits are vaguely described, and, as in the case of the "Epistle to Lamartine," are rendered still more -obscure by a quotation. That inevitable quotation must be familiar to all readers of bulky periodicals. It is a confession that the task of making his author clear to the public has only clouded the mind of the reviewer. The interpreter has become conscious that he is the harder to understand of the two. "Make it out for yourselves," he cries in despair. He finds it much easier to write about Alfred de Mussel as being essentially selfish, losing the universal and objective view of men and of the world which more normal and temperate poets retain throughout their delineations, keeping up a constant oscillation between -aspirations and realities, between the mud in which he blindly wallowed and the pure air of his dreams. "No poet sets more nakedly side by side the clay and spirit of our double nature, filth -and refinement, blasphemy and veneration. No one displays wisdom and folly, pain and pleasure, purity and foulness, in more extreme antagonism. No one wishes more and wills so little. No one is less philosophical and more anarchical than Alfred de Musset." While of the early poems he says, 4' Their tone of decided and painful scepticism is that of one who has been convinced of the futility of metaphysics, whose faith has given way to restless speculation, but who has no power to cast aside his doubts and be content with life or some fixed system. Having impartially reviewed all the theosophies of the world, he cannot find the stamp of Divinity more clearly impressed on one than on the others The process of comparative analysis has yielded him a kind of theory of the history of Thought." The sole excuse for this magniloquent idealism is a bit of Alfred de Mussel's most random chaff—his " peculiar levity," as the reviewer calls it in another place—of various deities. We are reminded of Napoleon's charge against an English diplomatist whose ignorance of the classics was well known, but whose duty led him to talk of the uti possidetis and the status quo ante, that he was obstinately attached to des forniules Latines.
We give the North British reviewer full credit for having studied his subject, for reading not only Alfred de Mussel's works, but a good deal about Alfred de Musset. Now and then, too, he has caught, or picked up, some phrase which goes to the heart of the matter. It is very true that Alfred de Mussel's "imagination is more extravagant than his language," so far at least as regards his earlier poems. It is also true that Alfred de Musset told stories well, though in quoting Mr. Palgrave's praise the North British reviewer abates it needlessly. But much more than this might be said of a poet whose gifts were so great, so rare in his own country, so unique in any country, and at any time. There are still English critics who do not believe in the existence of French poetry. Byron's description of Boileau's "creaking lyre,"
"That whetstone of the teeth, monotony in wire,"
is not wholly inapplicable to the heroic verse of the present century. Not to wander from our immediate subject, we must admit that it needs Frenchmen to sympathize with much of Alfred de Musset's feeling. And none but very young Frenchmen would appreciate the overstrained and spasmodic incidents of his Confer d'Espagne et d'ltalie. There is a decided power in these earliest pieces, if we take the trouble to look for it. But we are apt to be revolted by the sameness of duels and mistresses, of murders and love potions, of inexplicable caprice and passion. The young poet is aiming at effect, and he does not care how he produces it. But unfortunately the background of immorality is either true or believed in. The loves chosen by Alfred de Musset as the motive powers of his Spanish and Italian stories are those which he afterwards describes in their true colours and saw in their true light. The women are the same, only they have not jealous husbands. A veil of factitious adventure is thrown over the most ordinary vice, and the dark winding streets of Paris are fringed with marble palaces. All the later pieces of Alfred de Musset show his recoil from this youthful plunge into the depths. In this respect, as in so many others, the poem of Rolla is the centre of his life. The fault of that wonderful piece is that it overdoes the romantic picture of childish innocence. The total absence of love, the cynical revel in a crowning pleasure as a prelude to death, form the successive touches by which the poet builds up a true modern tragedy of Parisian life, the depth and sincerity of which can best be appreciated by comparing Alfred de Mussel with Owen Meredith, or even with Mr. Swinburne. But the exaggeration to which we have referred mars the true effect of the poem. It is difficult to speak more plainly of a work with such a tendency. Mr. Palgrave, we think, passed it over altogether. Yet Rolla is not only the most characteristic of Alfred de Mussel's works, but it contains some of his grandest poetry. The opening invocation of the various ages of Faith, the address to Voltaire, the allusion to Faust possess all those rhetorical merits that seem the highest aim of French verse, while uniting with them a warmth to which it scarcely ever pretends. Episodes such as these are to be found in almost all the poems of Alfred de 'gusset. The description of the Don Juan of Mozart and Hoffmann stands out in bold relief from the too facile, too purely graceful badinage of Namouna. When it is not Alfred de Musset's design to tell a story, when he can give himself up to the work of poetic reflection, there is no disparity between thought and conception. It is for this reason that the four magnificent poems called the Nuits, soliloquies in the form of a dialogue, the epistle to Lamartine, the dirge on Malibran, and the piece called if pres une Lecture, have such sustained power, and are so perfect in their workmanship. When he wrote these poems, Alfred de Musset had hit upon his true vein. He took the tone of the moralist of a material age. He saw that it was useless to idealize vices by associating them with romantic scenery. He had tasted them as they were, and detected his own error. The North British reviewer speaks of his having outlived his genius, and it is true that he ceased writing some years before his early death. But his early pieces were the easy, spontaneous flow of youth, and his fertility at that age is not so wonderful as the occasional power which shone through it. The works of his manhood were of that kind which exhausts the brain by over-tension, and which even those who do not share Alfred de Mussel's indolence never produce rapidly. It is true that in one sense these later poems grew out of his youth ; they were the regrets of one who was ever looking backwards. In another sense, too, the promise of his young poems was not fulfilled. The mind which had been rife with creations turned to the more sober work of moralizing. When youthful extravagance passed away, the very imagination seemed to depart with it. Yet whatever Alfred de Musset's early writings promised, they did not prepare men for the work of his manhood. For all that can be gathered from the Conies d'Espagne et &Italie he might have hardened into an nnacted melodramatist, seeking to startle with his violent surprises, and calmly outdoing the monstrosities which were natural to boyhood. That he outlived this kind of genius is his great glory. The experience he gained in prose stories probably stood him in some stead. He could not write gems of art in one style without weeding his other style of faults which choked the growth of beauty.
At the same time, the forgetfulness of self which marks Alfred de 'gusset's prose stories never worked its way into his poetry. In his youthful verses he was always thinking of what he wanted to do, in the verses of his manhood of what he had done, or left undone. There is not even the thin disguise cast by Byron over his would-be autobiographic heroes. But the reason of this is that Alfred de 'gusset was truer to nature than Byron. We know that Byron was not the Corsair, or Lara, or Childe Harold. But these characters are not merely lay figures -with Byrou's face looking out through the mask. They are something more than this, though not much more genuine. The heroes of Alfred de 'gusset's early poems are mere casual types called in to support a story. Their creator does not care particularly about them. He does not wish to elaborate them. They are there to serve his purpose, and when they have done so they are kicked out like the Abbe in the Marrons du Feu. This is not the highest art ; it does not resemble the art of Alfred de Musset's prose stories. But it was quite good enough for the characters, and very often for the work they had to do. We have said already that the interest of the early poems is apt to be lost if the actual subject is closely scanned. The details are better than the whole work. It is the charm of many of these details that makes even the worst of Alfred de /gusset's poetry so enjoyable. But it is difficult to make that charm felt without more fullness of criticism than we can command here, and it is for this reason we regret that when the North British Review took up the subject it did not try to do it justice, did not at least enable its readers to judge for themselves of Alfred de /gusset, instead of plunging them in metaphysics and theosophies.
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