How many ardent, aspiring souls, whose youth afforded the most flattering promise, have sunk into oblivion and a fortune, or resigned Parnassus for a counting house! Poets should always be hungry and necessitous-Enriched they become lazy and indolent, or else present the world with the verses of a fine gentleman, or a wealthy 'don, from both of which, God in his mercy preserve us. It was when treading the regions of misery and misfortune, that Lebrun addressed his two odes to Buffon; one on occasion of the dangerous illness from which that illustrious philosopher had just emerged; the other on his calumniators: They were both severely handled in the Mercury, by La Harpe, as the ode of Voltaire had been, in the Année Literaire, by Freron. To this piece of criticism, we are indebted for some hundred epigrams and a few epistles, to which the author has modestly declined giving the title of satires. If the bickerings of men of letters, always produced results such as these, we would willingly consent to banish every lover of peace and concord from the poetical fraternity.

But the prospects of Lebrun soon began to brighten, and misfortune, weary of persecution, left him, at length, to the guid ance of his better genius. He became an object of favour at court, and, by the solicitation of M. Calonne, obtained a pension of two thousand francs. It was then that our poet, in a very beautiful discourse, composed on occasion of the assembly of notables, sang the praises of Louis XVI and his minister.

The storm of the revolution was at this moment gathering, and soon burst forth. Lebrun became a zealous republican. Who does not remember those famous lines:

L'insecte usurpateur, etc.?

The editor informs us, that for upwards of thirty years Lebrun professed those principles which the revolution consecrated. God forbid that we should play the part of accusers, but it would, in our opinion, have been more manly, if the poet had either refused the favours of this insecte usurpateur, or if he did receive them, to have restrained such indecent exulation at his benefactor's fall. It is a very fine thing, no doubt, to be a great poet; but gratitude is certainly no derogation from his merit.

Be this as it may, democracy provided its eulogist with a very comfortable residence at the Louvre, and though, as Mr. Guingené observes, the apartment was decorated with ornaments which could not be removed, Lebrun contrived to accommodate himself; and a pension from the government of six thousand francs, shielded his old age from every want.

Lebrun, undoubtedly did not enjoy, in his lifetime, that degree of celebrity to which his merit was entitled. By many he was regarded as the mere author of Republican Odes, trifles of the day. The present collection of his works will, however, we have no doubt, dispel such injurious ideas; indeed when we rereflect a moment, the cause of his neglect is of no very difficult explanation. Prior to the revolution, the republic of letters was divided into two distinct parties, styled philosophers and antiphilosophers. Did you desire to have eulogists, to be lauded in the public journals, and extolled in the various circles of taste and fashion? You must immediately and warmly attach yourself to one of the conflicting parties. Lebrun, proud and independent, ridiculed both. On the one hand, Diderot, Marmontel, La Harpe, Rulbière, &c. are the subjects of innumerable biting sarcasms. On the other side, he attacked Freron with equal violence.

Dealing out thus, indiscriminately, his deadly blows, Lebrun raised up a host of enemies, without engaging a solitary defender. While Dorat was applauded in the various journals, and cried up as the only competitor of Voltaire in the lighter species of poetry, the name of Lebrun was seldom heard, unaccompanied with the most contemptuous epithets. Nor was it until after the revolution that he could obtain a seat in the academy. Numerous enemies, and few friends, will, we believe, be found the clue to those unfavourable sentiments which his cotemporaries professed for the genius and writings of Lebrun. It will, no doubt, be asked, however, did Lebrun deserve to have many friends? We dare not answer in the affirmative. Mr. Guingené, who so justly holds up to admiration the genius and imagination of his author, says not a word, we observe, about the goodness of his heart. This silence, on a point which biographers usually seize with avidity, appears, to us, rather suspicious. Opening, casually, the second volume, we find, in the

invocation to Nemesis, abounding in frightful beauties, these four verses which Lebrun indited-against his own mother and sistèr:

O Méléagre! ainsi ton effroyable mère

Te dévouait aux feux qu'alluma sa colère;
Ainsi l'horrible sœur d'Absyrthe massacré,
Dispersait en lambeaux son frère déchire!

Poetry, we acknowledge, has its privileges; but this is straining the license beyond all bounds. Admitting that Lebrun had cause of complaint against them, is that a reason for thus holding up to public execration his own mother and sister? Our poet has somewhere said,

Jamais, jamais, je n'ai d'une épigramme
Lancé le dard, sans être provoqué-

Heaven preserve us from such lambs as these; wolves could not be more ferocious! To be sure, when this mighty lion was chafed, in advanced life, by juvenile pretenders to rhyme, who, disregarding his prowess and experience, had the temerity to goad him, he had a right to display the fierceness of his nature, and chastise such insolence: but very difficult, indeed, would be the task of justifying those numerous angry thrusts which were aimed at an illustrious poet, who never provoked a human creature, and never replied to the most virulent calumniator.

Mais il (Fréron) prôna l'ingénieux Delille,

Qui, sous le fard, se donnant pour Virgile,

Si bien lima son vers mince et poli,

Que le grand homme est devenu joli.

Sur deux poëtes qui nous manquaient à l'Institut.

Deux poëtes chez nous ne font point résidence:
Sur Delille et Leblanc notre choix se méprit;
Delille à l'Institut manque par son absence;

Leblanc, par absence d'esprit.

You may call this a mere fit of spleen, if you choose; but Lebrun had such fits every morning-they were, we may say, his breakfast, and the translator of the Georgics appears to have afforded him the heartiest meal.

The secret of this dislike seems to have been, that Lebrun was himself a translator of the Georgics, and had been in the habit of reading to a select circle, certain portions of his work, long before De Lisle's translation appeared. Conscious of his superiority, Lebrun could ill brook the general enthusiasm which was excited by his rival's production, and the oblivion into which his own immediately sunk-Inde ira. The translation of the episode of Aristaus, by our author, has very considerable merit. It is observable too, that the editor, who, in his wisdom has conceived it a duty to suppress the sarcasms against authors now living, makes an exception in favour of Mr. Delisle. He thought, no doubt, that however malignant, they possessed no power to injure a character so amiable and so exalted; and we are very much of the same sentiment.

Another example will serve to display still further the simplicity and ingenuousness of this lamb. That celebrated "Thomas," before whose name the gall was dissipated from Lebrun's pen, in what did his exalted merit consist? He had admired, forsooth, the talents of our author, had vaunted with enthusiasm, (vol. 4, page 241.) the harmony of his verses, and the majestic flow of his odes. Turn over the volume of epigrams, and you will find in what coin the poet has repaid his panegyrist. Happily these epigrams are not dangerous; they may be read with pleasure, as possessing, for the most part, a very agreeable and amusing turn; still, however, we will not the less admire those writers whom Lebrun has selected as his victims.

It is not our intention, in this place, to delineate the nature of the ode, nor to discuss at large, that beautiful irregularity, and disorder, which is in reality the effect of art.-The delightful sensation it excites, is to be felt, not analysed; the poet, who never seizes the pencil, but when guided by heavenly inspiration, and when he can exclaim

Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus ipso,

may unshackle himself from the fetters of ignoble rules; his genius, his enthusiasm will supply their place-while the reader would turn with weariness and disgust from the plodder, who, though he may surpass the Stagyrite himself in a knowledge of the laws of verse, inhaled not from Heaven the mens divinior of

a poet. No writer, perhaps, was ever more deeply versed in these pretended rules than Lamothe, and yet we all know of how much service they were to him-Nothing certainly can be more learned, more frigid, or less lyrical than the odes of this gentleman; nevertheless, in spite of common sense, they were repeatedly crowned by the academy, while the Ode to Fortune, presented as a candidate for the prize of the Floral Games, was adjudged to be wholly unworthy of notice-a decision which shows how far we are to appreciate those rewards, which are commonly styled academic crowns.

It will not be denied, that he who succeeds in a task so arduous, as this species of composition, is, indeed, a poet; this honourable title, therefore, will surely be granted to Lebrun, who has presented the world with a volume of odes, some of which would not shrink from a comparison with the most beautiful of Rousseau's. According to the editor, indeed, we might go still further-" Hitherto," says Mr. Guingené, "the odes of Rousseau appear to have been the best that our language could boast, next to the admirable chants of Esther." From this word hitherto, we may augur that Mr. Guingené would intimate a preference of his own author over Rousseau. But however excusable such an excess of partiality may be, in a gentleman standing as he does, the god-father, as it were, of these volumes, we could plead no such apology, and therefore still think that Rousseau's odes to the count de Luc, to prince Eugene, the duke of Vendome, and Malherbes, are the most genuine specimens of lyric poetry; yet proud may Lebrun be, to occupy a place even next below the inimitable Jean Jacques. Like Horace, who seems to have been his model, our poet adopted each style in turn, so that no want of variety, at least, can be complained of. His finest production perhaps, is the ode addressed to Buffon on his calumniators; we would wish to transcribe the whole of it for our readers, but our limits must confine us to the three concluding strophes:

Quoi! tour à tour, dieux et victimes,

Le sort fait marcher les talens

Entre l'Olympe et les abîmes,

Entre la satire et l'encens!