The verse had a magical effect. There was a shudder of feeling among the Bretons. Every eye met, every voice cried at once

That is the prayer in the tragedy !' 'How does he know it?' asked Guiader. 'He acted Saint Nona,' replied Salaün. 'I played God the Father,' said Menèz.

'I the Priest,' said Ledu.

'I Death,' said Leguera.

The recollections all burst forth together.

'It was on Olier Moreau's threshing floor that we played it the first time.'

'There was an alder hedge behind the theatre.'

'And a great hawthorn bush which shed its blossoms on us.' 'Do you remember how they cheered us?'

'And how many pretty girls came to see?'

These recollections brought back the poetry, and every one recurred to his part; but soon Pierre's voice rose again above all the rest

Menèz replied

""Lord God, creator of the stars,
I deem my hour is come;
Blest Virgin Mary, thee I pray,,
From pain and torture save me.'

"I, the Almighty, I commend

That thou, cold Death, shouldst go
To earth within a moment's space,
And Nona bring, my servant true,
A faithful keeper of my laws.
From pain and torture set her free,
For so hath she deserved.""

Pierre resumed

"Alas, to suffer and to die,

My time to quit this earth is come,
Its cheats, its pains, its cares :
Time is for ever passed with me,
Eternity is now my care:

White priests, bring your anointing oil,
For I ain called away.

My soul I give to God,

Of this world the sole King;

May my corpse rest on holy ground,

May comfort bless the poor,
May peace and love prevail,
May contests rage no more;
Such is my earnest prayer.'"

Then leguera continued

"I, Death, within this vale,
I ruthless slay each living thing.
Courteous Nun, thine hour is come,
And first I strike thy brow,
Then in thy heart this blow receive.

And all except Pierre joined in the next

"Between two mighty stones we'll seek
A lovely spot to charm the eye,
Within the land of Rivelen,

For thus the elders named the spot,
The Nun's pure corpse we there will lay.
The Armorican sea beside,

Where all the world her tomb may see.

Here in this desert place the parting came,

To God her spirit pure is gone,

Her corpse beneath the turf is laid,

Between Erné and the spot of the two Murders.'"

These rude verses acted on the Bretons like a spell. They had repeated them with increasing action, and as they declaimed, a kind of enthusiasm seemed to gain possession of them. The victim and his executioners seemed to have forgotten their differing opinions and hostile position, and to have lost themselves in one common emotion.

For my own part, I cannot describe what I experienced during this strange scene. Its strangeness in the midst of the dangers that surrounded us, the sort of allusion that the parts of the actors seemed to have to the condition of each, the cadence of the declamation, and the wild harmony of the Keltic verse, which awakened in me recollections of my earlier days, all combined to touch me. I had arisen, and was listening in a sort of transport, when the general shout arose which announced the close of the tragedy. At the same time I thought I heard footsteps without. I sprang towards Pierre who was still on his knees.

'Here's the Vendean !' I cried.

The Bretons were suddenly silent, and listened. I took the young peasant's hand. If you are Christians,' I said, eagerly, can you have the heart to allow a lad from your own parish to be killed before your eyes, who was a child, among you, and has never done any one any harm?'

They looked at one another. He is a Blue,' said Salaün doubtfully. 'He is a Breton,' I answered, 'who has saved several of your own people. But for him I could never have got Mdlle. de la Hunoterie out of Rennes. He has never had treason, in his heart, nor blood in his hands. Use him as he has used others.'

'The Chevalier is in command, and we cannot spare the prisoners without his orders.'

'Then how has the Vendean power to kill them?' asked Pierre. 'In fact,' I resumed, if M. de la Hunoterie alone has a right to spare them, he alone can have the right to punish. You heard his niece desire that no harm should be done to us, and you will be in danger of disgrace with him if you let us be murdered. You ought at least to insist on waiting for his orders.'

The Bretons seemed struck, but Leguera said, 'M. Storel will not.'

'I could see if M. le Chevalier is come back to the Manor,' resumed Fine Ear; but the others will come, and it would be all over before my return. What shall we do?'

'Take us with you,' said Pierre.

That's right,' shouted the peasants; 'then M. le Chevalier will do

as he pleases. Quick! or the Vendean will be back.'

The took their guns and made us walk in the midst of them. We soon entered the copse, and were out of sight of the hovel. we are safe!' I said to Pierre.

'Not yet,' he answered, stopping to listen.

'March!' said Menèz.

'Now

'Hush!' murmured the youth, and as we listened there was a distinct sound of steps.

'The others are coming back from the farm,' said Salaün; 'they have taken the green path. We are sure to be seen.'

'Do they pass near?'

'The other side of the bushes.'

In fact we could hear their words. Our guides stood still, but the slightest movement might betray us, and my heart beat violently. The steps and voices came closer, we could even see Storel and his fellows through the leafless boughs, we felt the shaking of the branches as they moved, but they never saw us.

We resumed our way with swift steps, crossing the copse, and at the Manor we found M. de la Hunoterie, happily just come in. At the first word he reassured us. My travelling companion came in at the same instant, and told the whole story. The Chevalier apologised for what he called a mistake, thanked me for the service to his niece, and offered me hospitality for the night; and the next morning Pierre and I safely arrived at Roche Sauveur.

FRENCH LITERATURE IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE 'ATELIER DU LYS,' 'FAIR ELSE,' ETC.

IV.-LAMARTINE (continued).

Les Confidences must not be taken as a real biography, and this somewhat excuses the questionable taste which gave them to the public, and which Lamartine vainly tries to explain away in his preface addressed to a friend who had justly observed that cette publicité déflore les choses du cœur. Real life reached Lamartine entirely altered and coloured by his imagination, as M. Autran has told us. He not only was unable to see things as they were, but avoided doing so. Thus, Graziella, the sweet Sicilian girl who died of grief when he was recalled by his family to France, after long residence with her family,

was not really a coral-worker, but a 'hand' in a cigar factory. He tells us himself in a later work that he changed the name of her occupation, because it was unpoetical in the history of his love which he composed in after years. We feel indignant as we read this, since he set it as fact before his readers, and resent his evident belief that he had atoned for all which she suffered by the exquisite verses written by him to her memory. They deserve to be quoted at length, but we can only give an extract.

"Sur la plage sonore, où la mer de Sorrente
Déroule ses flots bleus au pied de l'oranger
Il est, près du senlier, sous la haie odorante,
Une pierre petite, étroite, indifférente
Aux pieds distraits de l'étranger.

La giroflée y cache un seul nom sous ses gerbes,
Un nom que nul écho n'a jamais répété !
Quelquefois, cependant, le passant arrêté,

Lisant l'âge et la date en écartant les herbes,

Et sentant dans ses yeux quelques larmes courir,

Dit Elle avait seize ans ; c'est bientôt pour mourir !
Mais pourquoi m'entraîner vers ces scènes passées,

Laissons le vent gémir et le flot murmurer;

Revenez, revenez, ô mes tristes pensées !

Je veux rêver, et non pleurer ! "

It must be in connection with his shrinking from facts, in idealising his own conduct, that a want of manliness, a faint-hearted depression is felt in Lamartine's poems; and we notice in all the later ones that pantheism which loses the Creator in the creation. His God, he tells us, is

"Dans ces sons, ces parfums, ces silences des cieux,

Dans ces ombres du soir, qui des hauts lieux déscendent,
Dans ces vide sans astre, et dans ces champs de feux,
Et dans ces horizons sans bornes; qui s'étendent
Plus haut que la pensée et plus loin que les yeux."

His Recueillements are inferior to the Méditations; he repeats himself, beautifully indeed, but it is unmistakable repetition. In Jocelyn, the supposed journal of a village priest, he attempts a more sustained flight; it is a novel in verse, such as we have had in Aurora Leigh and Lucille. But it is more than this; it was felt at once to be a most eloquent protest against the enforced celibacy of the clergy, and treats -although the author expressly disclaims any intention of writing controversy of many religious and social questions which have been better discussed by others in prose; but though these might be spared, the poem abounds in striking passages and beautiful descriptions. Jocelyn tells his own story. To leave his share of the family fortune to his sister, too poor otherwise to marry, the lad of sixteen determines to be a priest. Lamartine tells us that in his hero he 'painted all which he himself had felt of suppressed soul fervour, pious enthusiasm which found an outlet in soaring thoughts, outpourings, and tears of adoration before God, during the fervid years of youth passed in a seminary.'

The Revolution drives Jocelyn to seek refuge in a cave in the Alps of Dauphiné, his vows yet unspoken; another fugitive, introduced to us as a boy named Laurence, joins him there, and a year is spent in the happiest friendship before Jocelyn discovers that he has sheltered a young girl, who had concealed her sex by her dying father's desire. They love and plight troth, waiting until calmer times to marry. But a message reaches Jocelyn from his bishop, summoning him to Grenoble, where he goes at the hazard of his life, to find the bishop in prison, and himself sent for to receive ordination at the hands of the captive priest, that he may be able to administer the sacrament and receive confession before the bishop passes to death. In vain Jocelyn pleads; his supplications are disdained, his love looked on as weakness, if not sin; the bishop is fanatically resolved on his ordination. Religious selfishness is no doubt as common and more intense than any other, but this scene strikes us as unnatural; we have had no previous knowledge of the bishop such as would have prepared us for his immense egotism, cloaked by so-called piety. Jocelyn is cowed by his threats and warnings, and yields, forgetful that he has no right to sacrifice Laurence, any more than the bishop has a right to demand the sacrifice. We cannot sympathise with

either the pitiless priest or the youth who feebly submits, for even the point of view taken by the former, to receive absolution and to communicate, could not have been absolutely necessary to ensure salvation, or what would have become of countless believers, martyrs, and others, who have perforce died without either? Laurence is heartbroken at the desertion of Jocelyn, and we meet her again as a reckless woman, her fair name gone. A sentimental repentance closes her career; she returns to her Alpine refuge twelve years later, to die. Jocelyn, we hear, finds consolation in devoting himself to the poor and sad. We wonder what he found to say to them? The poem is so bitter, so mournful and vague in its Christianity, that we must doubt whether Jocelyn could give comfort to others which he evidently did not feel himself.

Of La Chute d'un Ange it is needless to say much. With all the lovely passages scattered through it, the poem was a failure, and deserved to fail.

As for the historical works of Lamartine, perhaps they were never better judged than by Dumas, when he exclaimed with enthusiasm, not unmingled with malice, 'You have elevated history to the level of romance!'

The speech was especially piquant from the lips of the great romancer, who, more than any one else, has audaciously altered history to suit himself. Those who recollect the vehement protest once uttered by Lamartine against whitewashing and embellishing the leaders of the Revolution, must marvel when they read his Girondins. But the instinct of the poet was contrary to the duty of giving a true account