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combine vermillion, cadmium, and ultramarine in a series of metrical effects. Far from the noise and the folly, buried in his delicious Provence, the simple old man-in temperament and even in work so like our lamented William Morris-pursues his quiet, confident business. He is troubled with no doubts or instincts of revolt; he writes as all his great forefathers did, and the methods of Virgil and Bojardo are good enough for him. As I write these words it is forty-three years to a day since Frédéric Mistral founded the society of Provençal poets called the Félibrige. In 1859 he gave them a model in that exquisite "Mireio," which all the world has read, if only in translations. Mistral has never been in a hurry; once in ten years is often enough for him to publish, and he has not overloaded our shelves with the five volumes of a lifetime.

The studied eccentricity of the "ternary derivatives, or solicitous to rhymes may be passed; if "fontaines" and "même," "hautes" and "roses," satisfy a French ear, it is no business of an English critic to comment on it. But the dimness of the sense of this poem is a feature which we may discuss. At first reading, perhaps, we shall find that the words have left no mark behind them whatever. Read them again and yet again, and a certain harmonious impression of liquid poetic beauty will disengage itself, something more in keeping with the effect on the mind of the "Ode to a Grecian Urn," or the close of the "Scholar-Gypsy," than of the purely Franco-Hellenic poetry of André Chenier or of Leconte de Lisle. Throughout this volume what is presented is a faint tapestry rather than a picturedim choirs of brown tauns or creamwhite nymphs dancing in faint, mysterious forests, autumnal foliage sighing over intangible stretches of winding, flashing river; Pan listening, the pale Sirens singing, Autumn stumbling on under the burden of the Hours, thyrsus and caduceus flung by unseen deities on the velvet of the shaven lawn -everywhere the shadow of poetry, not its substance, the suggestion of the imaginative act in a state of suspended intelligence. Nor can beauty be denied to the strange product, nor to the poet his proud boast of the sanction of Pegasus:

Verdoyant à jamais hier comme aujourd'
Et, flairant le laurier que je tenais encor,
Verdoyant à jamais hier comme aujourd'
hui,
Se cabrer vers le Jour et ruer vers la Nuit.

Are we to believe M. Boschot and the rest when they assure us that true poetry has ceased to be written by Frenchmen? It is certainly still written in France by one man who does not write in French. It gives a reader the most curious sensation to turn from all the theories and the experiments, the artincialities and the ingenuities of the warring Parisian sects to Mistral's new book-so direct, old-fashioned, and serene, so little troubled by anxiety about

The new work is called "Lou Pouèmo dóu Rose," or the Poem of the Rhône (A. Lemerre). It is composed in a rhymeless iambic metre of five beats; as on previous occasions, a prose translation by the author accompanies the Provençal text. M. Mistral has devoted to the praise of a native river an epic poem in twelve books, following, in greater fulness, the example of another poet of the South of France, who also did not write in French-Ausonius. The time of the action is almost modern; it is marked by the suspicion and fear of steam, and the first intrusion of a paddle-boat upon the Rhône. We follow the adventures of a file of laden barges, which start, led by a oncefamous vessel, the Caburle, from the quay of Lyons, bound down-stream for the fair of Beaucaïre, and we are returning with them when a catastrophe brings the voyage and our poem to a close. This plan gives M. Mistral the excuse for a Virgilian treatment of a succession of little incidents, to which the glowing light of the South gives an epical importance, and for a close and picturesque study of the places passed on either side, especially on the empéri, or empire, as the boatman to this day

call the left bank of the river, reserving the word reiaume, or Kingdom, for the right bank. At Vernaison they take on board a pious Æneas in the shape of a blond Prince of Orange, eldest son of the king of Holland, who is wandering incognito in search of adventures.

To this somewhat mysterious prince the captain of the Caburle speaks of an exquisite girl, Angloro, whom the boatmen, as they pass and repass the mouth of the Ardèche, see searching for grains of gold in its auriferous sands. The imagination of the Dutchman is fired by the general report of her beauty, and when the file of barges reaches the point where Angloro is usually waiting to see them go by, she is easily persuaded to step on board and be taken as a guest to the Fair of Beaucaire. But among the legends of the Rhône, there is one which says that its currents are haunted by a waterdemon called the Drac, which has the power of taking the form of a beautiful young man. Angloro, who has the habit of bathing alone in the warm moonlit nights, has long convinced herself that she has seen the white limbs and golden hair of the Drac wind and flash just out of reach in the shallows of the river at midnight. The moment that she observes the fair-haired and authoritative Prince of Orange standing among the swart, familiar bargemen, she becomes persuaded that he is a supernatural being, and then recognizes in him the appearance of her midnight visitor, the Drac. To her simplicity, it seems natural enough that this all-powerful demoniac being should take human shape and should decoy her, an extremely willing captive, on board the Caburle. Very droll and exceedingly pretty in their pastoral innocence as of an Age of Gold are the complications produced by Angloro's conviction of the uselessness of attempting to resist a supernatural lover, and by the prince's astonishment at being treated with this singular mixture of awe and resignation.

By this half-pastoral, half-comic intrigue, and by a variety of episodes and incidents, the reader is carried swiftly

down the majestic stream, past glens and hamlets, castles and estuaries, each of which reminds the antiquarian poet of some legend or some event. The reader of M. Mistral's last important poem, "Nerto" (1884), will remember the description of the fêtes when Avignon is visited by the pope and the king of Provence. Here, again, the poet describes Avignon, no longer in a medieval glamour, but as he himself recollects the city, still unspoiled, in the days of his boyhood.

We reach Beaucaïre, and we see the dazzling attractions of its stalls and merry-go-rounds through the eyes of Angloro, as she hangs on the arm of her harmless demon-lover. Then the flotilla, having concluded its business, turns round, and by the aid of an army of strong horses, is towed up stream. But it is not fated to reach Lyons. All along the river there have been whispers of a hideous monster, spouting black coils of smoke, and flapping in the water revolving iron wings. As the line of barges is approaching Malatra, the home of Angloro, this horrible object, the earliest steamer ever floated on the Rhône, makes her appearance. The flotilla knows not how to escape her; the steamboat rushes on, becomes entangled in the rope which fastens the barges to one another and drags them backwards in her wake. The horses are pulled into the river and drowned, while the Caburle is flung with such vehemence against the pier of the bridge that Angloro and the Prince of Orange are thrown into the water and drowned. We have been wondering how the story could end, and this is certainly a cutting of the knot, yet hardly a satisfactory one. This grotesque catastrophe jars on us after the half-supernatural haze of golden romance in which we have been moving, and the slightly incredible paddle-boat is a devil out of a machine. But the poem is exquisite, in its old-world freshness and leisurely, confident grace. It smells of Flora and the country green, of dance and sunburnt mirth; its graceful indolence is very welcome in these days of exhausted and exhausting effort.

our

While we are in Provence, thoughts may lightly turn to M. Zola. If you wish to retain the fashionable (and, I admit, not unaccountable) prejudice against this writer, do not read "Nouvelle Campagne" (Charpentier), for it will force you to reconsider your position. It is impossible to run through these eighteen leaders reprinted from the Figaro-for that is all they pretend to be-without a conviction that the author is a very honest man. Left alone, in this ebb-tide of realism, a sort of roughly hewn rockgiant on the sand, M. Zola finds himself misunderstood, insulted, abandoned. And in his isolation he is grander, he is an object of more genuine sympathy, than ever he was in the days of his overwhelming prosperity. Adversitya very relative adversity, which does not effect the enormous bulk of his "sales" and his "royalties"-has been salutary to M. Zola; it has acted on him as an astringent. It has made him pull himself together and practise his pectoral muscles. It has even had a favorable effect upon his style, which seems to me to be more direct, less burdened with repetitions, less choked with words, than it usually is. M. Zola is very angry, and wrath is becoming tohim. He seizes his club and glares round upon us. The effect is distinctly tremendous; he looks like Hercules, and sometimes a little like Polyphemus.

To be serious, the reaction against M. Zola has certainly proceeded too far. It has become a shield behind which all manner of effeminacies and hypocrisies have concealed themselves, and, if he were the Devil, it is time he should have his due. And nothing could be less like the Devil than M. Zola. He is a strenuous, conscientious bourgeois, rather sentimental and very romantic, with a Theory of Life which has ridden away with him, and makes him believe that he ought to be squalid and obscene wherever existence is obscene and squalid. But the heart of him is a heart of gold, and any candid person who reads "Nouvelle Campagne" will see how uneffectedly the author is everywhere on the side of the angels. His

very faults are virtues turned inside out; the anti-Malthusian essay, called "Dépopulation," throws a most curious light on this. But read his tender pleadings for kindness to animals ("L'Amour des Bêtes" and "Enfin Couronné"), his courageous defence of the Jews, his articles on literary property (where he gives points in ardor to our own unselfish Sir Walter Besant), his amusing, frank, and spirited replies to his juvenile detractors ("Le Crapaud," "A la Jeunesse," "Les Droits du Critique"), his extraordinarily generous single-handed defence of M. Paul Bourget ("Auteurs et Editeurs"), and then deny that M. Zola, besides being the most effective of living journalists, is, with all his surface faults, a very excellent and honest man.

Now that "John Gabriel Borkman" is being so much discussed in London, it may be interesting to many readers to know that an excellent translation of the drama has just been published in Paris (Perrin et Cie), from the pen of Isben's friend and enthusiastic commentator, Comte Prozor. It contains, in an interesting preface, some curious notes of the conversation of the poet.

EDMUND Gosse.

IN KEDAR'S TENTS.1

BY HENRY SETON MERRIMAN, AUTHOR OF "THE SOWERS."

CHAPTER XXIX.

MIDNIGHT AND DAWN.

"I have set my life upon a cast,

And I will stand the hazard of the die." "Excellency," reported a man, who entered the room at this moment, "they are bringing carts of fuel through the Calle de la Ciudad to set against the door and burn it."

"To set against which door, my hon est friend?"

"The great door on the plaza, excellency. The other is an old door of iron."

1 Copyright, 1897, by Henry Seton Merriman.

"And they cannot burn it or break it would find life a dull affair were there open?" no strife in it.

"No, excellency; and, besides, there are loopholes in the thickness of the wall at the side."

"Yes," said the general after a moment's reflection, "that is a good idea, and will gain time. But let them first

The general smiled on this man as bring their fuel and set it up. Every being after his own heart.

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moment is a gain."

At this instant some humorist in the crowd threw a stone in at the open window. The old priest picked up the missile and examined it curiously.

"It is fortunate," he said, "that the stones are fixed in Toledo. In Xeres

The general shrugged his shoulders, they are loose and always in the air. wisely tolerant. I wonder if I can hit a citizen." And he threw the stone back. "Close the shutters," said the general. "Let us avoid arousing ill-feeling."

"Oh, yes;" he answered; "I suppose one may prick them with the sword." Conyngham, who had been standing half in and half out of the open window listening to this conversation, now came forward.

"I think," he said, "that I can clear the plaza from time to time if you give me twenty men. We can thus gain time."

"Street-fighting," answered the general gravely, "do you know anything of it? It is nasty work."

"I know something of it. One has to shout very loud. I studied it at Dublin University."

"To be sure; I forgot."

Julia and Estella watched and listened. Their lot had been cast in the paths of war, and since childhood they had remembered naught else. But neither had yet been so near to the work, nor had they seen and heard men talk and plan with a certain grim humor, a curt and deliberate scorn of haste or excitement, as these men spoke and planned now. Conyngham and Concepcion Vara were altered by these circumstances--there was a light in their eyes which women rarely see-but the general was the same little man of peace and of high domestic virtue, who seemed embarrassed by a sword which was obviously too big for him. Yet in all their voices there rang a queer note of exultation, for man is a fighting animal, and (from St. Paul down to the humblest little five-foot-one "recruit")

The priest drew the jalousies together, but did not quite shut them. Vincente stood and looked out through the aperture at the moonlit square and the dark shadows moving there.

"I wish they would shout," he said; "it is unnatural. They are like children. When there is noise there is little mischief."

Then he remained silent for some minutes, watching intently. All in the room noted his every movement. At length he turned on his heel.

"Go, my friend," he said to Conyngham; "form your men in the Calle de la Ciudad, and charge round in line. Do not place yourself too much in advance of your men, or you will be killed, and remember the point. Resist the temptation to cut-the point is best."

He patted Conyngham on the arm affectionately, as if he were sending him to bed with a good wish, and accompanied him to the door.

"I knew," he said, returning to the window and rubbing his hands together, "that that was a good man the first moment I saw him."

He glanced at Estella, and then, turning, opened another window, setting the shutters ajar, so as to make a second point of observation.

"My poor child," he whispered, as she went to the window and looked

out, "it is an ill fortune to have to do with men whose trade this is." Estella smiled a little whitely and said nothing. The moon was now shining from an almost cloudless sky. The few fleecy remains of the storm sailing toward the east only added brightness to the night. It was almost possible to see the faces of the men moving in the square below, and to read their expressions. The majority stood in a group in the centre of the plaza, while a daring few, reckoning on the Spanish aversion to firearms, ran forward from time to time and set a bundle of wood or straw against the door beneath the balcony.

Some, who appeared to be the leaders, looked up constantly and curiously at the windows, wondering if any resistance would be made. Had they known that General Vincente was in that silent house, they would probably have gone home to bed, and the crowd would have dispersed like smoke.

Suddenly there arose a roar to the the right hand of the square, where Calle de la Ciudad was situated, and Conyngham appeared for a moment alone, running toward the group with the moonlight flashing on his sword. At his heels an instant later a single line of men swung round the corner and charged across the square.

"Dear, dear," muttered the general; "too quick, my friend, too quick!"

For Conyngham was already among the crowd, which broke and swayed back toward the cathedral. He paused for a moment to draw his sword out of a dark form that lay upon the ground, as a cricketer draws a stump. He had at all events remembered the point. The troopers swept across the square like a broom, sending the people as dust before them, and leaving the clear, moonlit square behind. They also left behind one or two shadows, lying stark upon the ground. One of these got upon his hands and knees, and crawled painfully away, all onesided, like a beetle that has been trodden underfoot. Those watching from the windows saw, with a gasp of hor

ror, that part of him-part of an armhad been left behind, and a sigh of relief went up when he stopped crawling and lay quite still.

now

retreating

The troopers were slowly toward the Calle de la Ciudad. "Be careful, Conyngham!" shouted the general from the balcony: "they will return."

And as he spoke a rattling fire was opened upon them from the far corner of the square, where the crowd had taken refuge in the opening of the Calle del Aico. Immediately the people, having noted that the troopers were few in number, charged down upon them. The men fought in line, retreating step by step, their swords Estella, gleaming in the moonlight. hearing footsteps in the room behind her, turned in time to see her father disappearing through the doorway. Concepcion Vara, coatless, as he loved to work, his white shirt sleeves fluttering as his arm swung, had now joined the troopers, and was fighting by Conyngham's side.

Estella and Julia were out on the balcony now, leaning over and forgetting all but the breathless interest of stood beside them, battle. Concha muttering and cursing like any soldier.

at They saw Vincente appear the corner of the Calle de la Ciudad and throw away his scabbard as he ran. "Now, my children!" he cried, in a voice that Estella had never heard bewhich rang out across the fore, square, and was answered by a yell that was nothing but a cry of sheer delight. The crowd swayed back as if genbefore a gust of wind, and the eral, following it, seemed to clear space for himself, as a reaper clears away the standing corn before him. It was, however, only for a The crowd surged back, those in front against their will, and on to the glittering steel, those behind shouting encouragement.

"Caramba!" shouted was gone.

a

moment.

Concha, and

They saw him a minute later appear in the square, having thrown aside

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