his affairs of the heart, he was remarkable for the delicacy and depth of his feelings, and the constancy of his attachment. "There was one woman," says Mérimée, "whose name he could never pronounce without trepidation in his voice. In 1836 (he was then fifty-three) he spoke to me of his love with profound emotion. An affection, which dated very far back, was no longer returned. His mistress was growing reasonable, and he was as madly in love as at twenty. How can you still love me?' she asked; 'I am forty-five.' 'In my eyes,' said Beyle, 'she is as young as when we first met.' Then, with that spirit of observation which never left him, he detailed all the little symptoms of growing indifference that he had remarked. 'After all,' he said, 'her conduct is rational. She was fond of whist. She is fond of it no longer: so much the worse for me if I am still fond of whist. She is of a country where ridicule is the greatest of evils. To love at her age is ridiculous. During eighteen months she has risked this evil for my sake. This makes eighteen months of happiness that I have stolen from her.'"

Beyle, always too stout for elegance, grew corpulent as he advanced in years, and his portrait, as sketched by his friend M. Colomb, does not convey the impression of an homme aux bonnes fortunes. But his brow was fine, his eye lively and penetrating, his mouth expressive, and his hand cast in so fine a mould that a celebrated sculptor applied for permission to take a cast of it for a statue of Mirabeau.

The utmost space we feel justified in devoting to this remarkable man is exhausted, and we cannot now notice any other of his works. We will merely add one observation which is equally applicable to all of them. They belong pre-eminently to what he calls the class of insolent works, which require and compel

readers to think; and if (as many apprehend) the prevalent fashion for cheap reprints should end by deteriorating literature and lowering the popular taste, there will be some comfort in reflecting that it has occasionally rescued from unmerited neglect the name and writings of a man of thought, observation and sensibility, like Beyle.

372

PIERRE DUPONT.

(FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE, MAY 1851.)

AN imprudent and (it is to be hoped) abortive attempt has recently been made in France to frighten the higher classes and the bourgeoisie into a belief that the Jacquerie of the fourteenth century will be renewed, unless every manifestation of popular feeling is instantly suppressed by force. "Our only hope is in bayonets and grape-shot"-l'artillerie contre l'imprimerie," exclaims M. Romieu, the author of the "Spectre Rouge," in which every topic or argument that can excite alarm, or provoke recrimination, has been unsparingly employed. The ghost has been pretty effectually laid for some time to come by a temperate, well-reasoned, and high-toned article from the pen of M. Lamartine, in a recent number of "Le Pays." But if any of our readers have been led to suppose that the French peasantry have retrograded in civilisation, or are at all likely to repeat in 1852 the atrocities of 1358, we recommend them to procure, and study attentively, a little volume entitled "Muse Populaire-Pierre Dupont-Chants et Poësies.' These "Chants et Poësies" are now selling by hundreds of thousands amongst the French workpeople, particularly in the rural districts.

Dupont's popularity with the lower order of his countrymen undoubtedly exceeds that of Béranger in the full height and freshness of his fame. Why is this? Is the younger poet rougher, coarser, less refined? Does he address himself more directly to their passions and prejudices? Does he deal more in local and ephemeral feelings and associations? Is he

more essentially or conventionally French? Does he flatter their national vanity more adroitly? The reverse of all this is the fact. Dupont (though inferior in wit) deals more in general nature than his distinguished predecessor in the same line. His politics are merged and forgotten in his poetry. There is not a shade of bitterness in his bursts of patriotic indignation; and we think no more of what are termed his socialist tendencies, when reading or listening to his songs, than we think of the "Whiteboyism" and "Captain Rockism" which pervade so many of the most popular of Moore's Irish melodies. Moreover, it should always be kept in mind that "Socialism" has gradually become a generic term for all shades of democratic opinion. It has no necessary connection with Communism, nor is it irreconcilable with the most unflinching attachment to social order and the principle of property. The whole of Dupont's Socialism consists in conceiving a popular Republic best suited to France, and in a conviction that a well-constituted Government might effectually intervene at all times for the relief of distressed branches of industry. He is a believer in the "remunerative-price " doctrine, and in the possibility of ensuring to every man "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." In other words, he is merely Socialist in the sense in which our English Protectionists may be so described; the chief difference being that he would legislate with the view of elevating the condition of the poor, whilst they are prepared to reverse every sound principle of commerce and finance to swell the incomes of the landed aristocracy. So much for the rising poet's politics. Let us now turn to the far more important and interesting chapter of his life.

Pierre Dupont was born at Lyons, on the 23rd of April, 1821. His father was a forgeron, for which "blacksmith" is the nearest, although incorrect,

translation. His mother, an Italian by race, died when he was only four years and a half old; and his early training was undertaken by his uncle, a priest, with whom he remained until he had attained his ninth year. He was then removed to a college or school of some note in the neighbourhood, the same in which many eminent living members of the Gallic Church, and at least one politician of note (Jules Favre), received their elementary education. At fourteen he was taken from school, and placed as clerk in a banking-house at Lyons, where he continued seven years. This was the critical and (so to speak) forming period of his career. His passion for rural life for woods, streams, meadows, and flowers — was rather stimulated than repressed by his compelled residence in a town; and two events occurred during his clerkship which each in its peculiar way contributed to call out his latent powers and susceptibilities. He fell in love, and he became an unremitting student of Balzac. The object of his passion was of a rank far superior to his own, and may probably be detected under the disguise of "Eusèbe," in the song so entitled:

"A sa fenêtre il l'a surprise

Se regardant à son miroir;

Il erre, du parc à l'église,

Dans les taillis pour l'entrevoir :
Elle est grande, leste et mignonne;
De la chevelure au soulier,

On voit qu'elle est une baronne,

Et lui n'est rien qu'un écolier."

She so far smiled upon him as to receive some occasional verses-from which (it is whispered) she inferred his future fame and to permit latterly the daily presentation of a bouquet, which he purchased with his scanty savings when he was not able to go into the woods to pluck wild flowers for her. In an autograph note of his life which now lies before us,