etter than anything I have seen in
Victor Hugo, and as good as Schiller. Stello is a bolder
attempt. It is the history of three poets,--Gilbert, Andre
Chenier, Chatterton. He has also written a drama called
Chatterton, inferior to the story here. The "marvellous boy"
seems to have captivated his imagination marvellously. In
thought, these productions are worthless; for taste, beauty of
sentiment, and power of description, remarkable. His advocacy
of the poets' cause is about as effective and well-planned
as Don Quixote's tourney with the wind-mill. How would you
provide for the poet _bon homme_ De Vigny?--from a joint-stock
company Poet's Fund, or how?

'His translation of Othello, which I glanced at, is good for a
Frenchman.

'Among his poems, La Fregate, La Serieuse, Madame de Soubise,
and Dolorida, please me especially. The last has an elegiac
sweetness and finish, which are rare. It also makes a perfect
gem of a cabinet picture. Some have a fine strain of natural
melody, and give you at once the key-note of the situation, as
this:--

'"J'aime le son du cor le soir, au fond des bois,
Soit qu'il chante," &c.

And

'"Qu'il est doux, qu'il est doux d'ecouter les histoires
Des histoires du temps passe
Quand les branches des arbres sont noires,
Quand la neige est essaisse, et charge un sol glace,
Quand seul dans un ciel pale un peuplier s'elance,
Quand sous le manteau blanc qui vient de le cacher
L'immobile corbeau sur l'arbre se balance
Comme la girouette au bout du long clocher."

'These poems generally are only interesting as the leisure
hours of an interesting man.

'De Vigny writes in an excellent style; soft, fresh,
deliberately graceful. Such a style is like fine manners;
you think of the words select, appropriate, rather than
distinguished, or beautiful. De Vigny is a perfect gentleman;
and his refinement is rather that of the gentleman than that
of the poets whom he is so full of. In character, he looks
naturally at those things which interest the man of honor
and the man of taste. But for literature, he would have
known nothing about the poets. He should be the elegant
and instructive companion of social, not the priest or the
minstrel of solitary hours.

'Neither has he logic or grasp with his reasoning