old priest, who is to hold to her the image of the Virgin. He comes, but just as he extends it, that she may kiss it, a loud clap of thunder breaks, resounds, and rolls away; her taper is extinguished, and with it three of those on the altar.

Cièrge escantit prièro repoussado! Et tounère: maledictioun !"

"Taper quenched in thunder burst! Prayer repelled! Woe! Heaven-accursed!"

With a superstitious people this is decisive. Françonette is condemned by the ordeal she herself chose. "It is, then, true; she has been sold to the demon-Heaven has abandoned her!" A murmur of horror arises from the congregation, and when the unhappy girl, "breathless and with a vacant look, rises to go out, all shudder and shrink from her touch."

Meanwhile the thunderstorm had fallen on her native village of Roquefort, the lightning had demolished the belfry of the church, and the hail had destroyed the vintage of the year. The inhabitants are inconsolable and excited; it needs but a small spark to inflame their passions to madness; and thus, when a voice exclaims " Françonette's land remains unscathed!" the frenzied population cry with one accord, "Let us drive her out! let us burn her! woe to the accursed one!"

The unfortunate girl, meantime, half dead with grief, has regained her home, and motionless in her little chamber gives course to her despair. "Poor bouquet!" she says to the flowers she had received with the consecrated bread from Pascal, "when I first had thee, thy perfume was happiness and I breathed it. Relic of love! I have borne thee in my bosom, but now thou art faded, and with thee my happiness also. Brave Pascal, farewell! my wounded heart weeps at the word-but farewell and for ever! Born in an ill hour, not to drag you down along with me I must hide from you my love, and yet to-day I feel that I love you more than ever-that I love you with a love that nothing can cure, with a love that in this world makes one live a queen, or die! Yet death is nothing if it spare you!"

But the mob arrives, they set fire to her farm-yard and utter terrible threats against her old grandmother and herself. At this moment Pascal and Marcel appear; the former energetically takes the part of the victim, but Marcel does more, he declares that in spite of everything he is still ready to marry

her if she will but consent. "And I too am ready," cries Pascal, to the confusion of his rival; "choose between us, Françonette !"

There was little doubt how Françonette would decide, but the unhappy girl has herself almost come to believe that she would be fatal to any one who loved her. "Oh! no marriage,' she replies; "Pascal, I kill with my love -go-forget me and be happy without me!" But at length, as he insists, she yields. Pascal is enraptured, the crowd shudder, the soldier is thunderstruck. Pascal addresses him: "I am happier than you," he says, "but you are a brave man; to conduct me to the tomb I have need of a bridesman,—I have no longer a friend who will fill the office-do you!"

Marcel pauses; it is evident that a great battle is waging in his heart; his eye flashes, his brow overcasts, he fixes his look on Françonette in silence, and becomes deadly pale. At last, recovering himself, he laughs forcedly, as he replies, "Since she wishes it--she--I will."

A fortnight after, a bridal procession descended the side of the green hill; a curious crowd, trembling for Pascal's fate, is assembled to see it pass; Marcel leads the nuptial party, a secret pleasure in his countenance, an expression impossible to define in his eye. One would have thought it was his own triumph; the festivities on a grand scale are at his expense, "everything rains in abundance, everything is at the will of the guests, except pleasure, for none either laugh or sing." It is more like a funeral than a wedding, for it is now too late to save Pascal, and all are sure as to the lot that awaits him.

The evening comes. Suddenly Pascal's mother enters. "Oh, my son !" she exclaims, "leave this place. I have been to the fortuneteller. The sieve has turned--your death is certain! Pascal! if you enter your nuptial chamber, your are lost. You are lost if you remain here. And I, who love you so much, what will become of me if you die? Is a mother, then, nothing?" Pascal's eyes grow dim, but in this last trial he remains firm.

Marcel," he says, "if any evil befall me, take care of my mother; but my love for Françonette is too strong."

"I can hold out no longer!" cries the soldier, wiping away a tear; "your mother has disarmed me-be happy, Pascal. All the tale about your bride is false. But thank your mother; for without her you should nevertheless have perished-and I as well. Listen!" Marcel then tells him how, exas

perated at Françonette's preference of Pascal, he had bribed the sorcerer to invent the calumny, so singularly seconded by chance; how, when his rival was finally accepted, he undertook the office of bridesman only the more easily to work out his revenge; and how, under the chamber prepared for the married pair, he had placed a barrel of gunpowder, which, at the moment they entered, he would have fired, and so have destroyed all three together. But your mother, Pascal, recalled to my mind my own, whom I have lost-live for yours; from me you have nothing more to fear. I have now no to love, and I return to the wars.' He disappears, and all breathe again. Pascal retires joyously with his bride.

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The next day, so strong was the superstition, the people were still anxious about his fate. Some had heard strange sounds in the air during the night; others had seen shadowy shapes upon the wall. They doubt if Pascal lives; but when at last his door opens, and he comes out all safe and sound, with Françonette all blooming and blushing, fear gives place to shame and repentance. The bliss of Pascal makes all the young men envious; " and the poor fellows, badly cured of their passion for the fairest of the fair,' say, as they see her looking like a blowing rose, so happy and so lovely, 'Ah! never more will we believe in sorcerers !'

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Such is a sketch of Jasmin's" Françonette," many fine passages of which we have been obliged, from our limits, to pass over without notice; in particular, we have had to omit numerous striking and faithful details of local usages, manners, and superstitions; for these, though serving materially to the completeness and embellishment of the poem, would probably be unintelligible without explanatory notes. It is possible, that with all its beauties, Françonette may read somewhat coldly to many; if so, it will arise from the plot mainly turning on a superstitious feeling which no longer exists, and the extent of which we cannot readily understand. The choice of such for the mainspring of the action is certianly scarcely to be considered judicious; and we believe, that however admirable Françonette" may be considered as a work of art and genius, it will never become by any means so generally popular as other works of Jasmin, which depend for their interest on more universal and eternal sympathies, such as "Maltro l'Innoucento" for instance, which we have not space and time to examine.

"

Our space compels us also, notwithstand

ing their merit, to leave almost unnoticed the numerous smaller productions of Jasmin. The "Third of May," the "Ode to the remains of the Polish Nation," and the poem on Marshal Lannes, may be mentioned as exhibiting uncommon vigor and boldness; the "Journey to Marmande" for its pleasantry and humor; the "Address to the Tonneins Musicians" for the excellent spirit and good feeling it breathes. Oh!" exclaims the poet in the last, "let charity fall secretly and noiselessly, for it is as bitter to receive as it is sweet to give."

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There are many epistles full of grace and spirit to various Moussus and Madamos; there are one or two pretty songs, a few impromptus, elegies, and epitaphs, and the usual amount of flattering dedications and complimentary stanzas, some of which are remarkably delicate and well-turned. In these last, by the way, our country women come in for their share of incense, "Miss Arabella Sheridan," and a certain "Jeune Miss voyageuse," whose incognito is preserved, being honored with special tributes. The following is an extract from a eulogy on Jacques Laffitte; in translating it we have endeavored to preserve something of the spirit of the original rhythm.

"The great clear-flowing stream of the Adour, Between its banks of moss and flower,

The image of thy life might be Did ever pure its waters glide

But, flowing to the troubled sea, It mingles with the yeasty tide; Whilst thou, even far in the world's wide ocean, 'Midst all its sand and foam and motion, Preservest in thy honor's truth, The crystal clearness of thy youth!"

The poem of "The Third of May," which we have mentioned, is remarkable for the magnificent prosopopoeia with which it opens; this is a favorite figure with Jasmin, and he wields it with great success. The grandeur of the following example is not to be surpassed; it is the beginning of the short poem on the death of Foy, the orator and soldier.

"His limbs were feeble, painful was his breath'Strike him!' cried Slavery to attentive Death-'He is the only man resists my swayStrike! and the future's mine if thou hast him to-day!'"

Two short extracts must close our quotations. The first is an illustration of what is very common in Jasmin's poetry—the conveying of a sarcasm, a lesson, or a truth, under a homely, or even comic form of expres

sion. Describing the pleasure to be derived from the simplest sources, he says that to him

"In everything enjoyment's hid.
If to a wedding I am bid,
And I've enough of money stored—
I hire a carriage-off I fly,
And then I think that ne'er a lord

Was followed by more dust than I.”

The following are two lines which Nodier justly admires and criticises; they are from a description of a winter morning.

"Quand l' Aurôro fourrado en raoubo de sati, Desfarrouillo, sans brut, las portos del mati."

"When Aurora, in robe of satin clad, unbars, without noise, the gates of morn." The highest praise we can give this fine couplet is to say that they recall to us Shakspeare's

"But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill."

Such is Jasmin. Lively in imagination, warm in temperament, ardent, humorous, playful, easily made happy, easily softened, enthusiastically fond of his province, of its heroes, of its scenery, of its language, of its manners, he is every inch a Gascon, except that he has none of that consequential self-importance, or of the love of boasting and exaggeration, which, falsely or not, is said to characterize his countrymen. Born of the people, and following an humble trade, he is proud of both circumstances; his poems are full of allusions to his calling, and without ever uttering a word of disparagement against other classes, he every where sings the praises of his own. He stands by his order; it is from it he draws his poetry, it is there he finds his romance. And this is his great charm, as it is his chief distinction. He invests virtue, however lowly, with the dignity that belongs to it-he rewards merit, however obscure, with its due honor. Whatever is true, or beautiful, or good, finds from him an immediate sympathy: the true is never rejected by him because it is commonplace, nor the beautiful because it is every-day, nor the good because it is not also great. He calls nothing unclean but vice and crime. He sees meanness in nothing but in the sham,

VOL. XVIII. NO. IV.

the affectation, and the spangles of mere outward show.

But while it is in exalting lowly excellence that Jasmin takes especial delight, he is not blind, as some are, to excellence in high places. All he seeks is the sterling and the real. He recognizes the sparkle of the diamond as well as that of the dewdrop. But he will not look upon paste.

He is thus pre-eminently a poet of nature; not, be it understood, of inanimate nature only, but of nature, also, as it exists in our thoughts, and words, and acts-of nature as it is to be found living and moving in humanity. But we cannot paint him so well as he paints himself. We well remember how, in his little shop at Agen, he described to us what he believed to be the characteristic of his poetry; and we find in a letter from him to M. Léonce de Lavergne the substance of what he then said to us :

"I believe," he says, "that I have portrayed a part of the noble sentiments which men and women may experience here below. I believe that I have emancipated myself more than any one has ever done from every school; and that I have placed myself in more direct communication with nature. I have let fall my poetry from my heart. I have taken my pictures from around me in the most humble conditions of men, and I have done for my native language all that I could."

We have seen no new work of Jasmin during the last three years. He is still comparatively young; we are sure he is not idle; we expect, therefore, even still greater things from the modern troubadour.

We had intended, in reviewing the writings. of the hair-dresser-poet, shortly to have noticed those of others in similar, and even humbler ranks of life among his countrymen --such as Moreau, the type-founder; Roly, the carpenter; Festeau, the watchmaker; Eliza Fleury, the embroideress; Lapointe, the shoemaker; Ponty, the mason; Reboul, the baker; and several others. Their productions possess no inconsiderable degree of interest, more especially when they are considered in connection with the present state of things in France; but space fails us, and if we pursue the subject it must be at another opportunity. As it is, we may say that all of them fall far short of Jasmin.

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