s made to stride down the steps of heaven four at a time,
and M. De Banville fancies that this sort of thing is like the simplicity
of the ages of faith.

In "Les Cariatides," especially in the poems styled "En Habit Zinzolin,"
M. De Banville revived old measures--the _rondeau_ and the "poor little
triolet." These are forms of verse which it is easy to write badly, and
hard indeed to write well. They have knocked at the door of the English
muse's garden--a runaway knock. In "Les Cariatides" they took a
subordinate place, and played their pranks in the shadow of the grave
figures of mythology, or at the close of the procession of Dionysus and
his Maenads. De Banville often recalls Keats in his choice of classical
themes. "Les Exiles," a poem of his maturity, is a French "Hyperion."
"Le Triomphe de Bacchus" reminds one of the song of the Bassarids in
"Endymion"--

"So many, and so many, and so gay."

There is a pretty touch of the pedant (who exists, says M. De Banville,
in the heart of the poet) in this verse:

"Il reve a Cama, l'amour aux cinq fleches fleuries,
Qui, lorsque soupire au milieu des roses prairies
La douce Vasanta, parmi les bosquets de santal,
Envoie aux cinq sens les fleches du carquois fatal."

The Bacchus of Titian has none of this Oriental languor, no memories of
perfumed places where "the throne of Indian Cama slowly sails." One
cannot help admiring the fancy which saw the conquering god still steeped
in Asiatic ease, still unawakened to more vigorous passion by the fresh
wind blowing from Thrace. Of all the Olympians, Diana has been most
often hymned by M. De Banville: his imagination is haunted by the figure
of the goddess. Now she is manifest in her Hellenic aspect, as Homer
beheld her, "taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer; and
with her the wild wood-nymphs are sporting the daughters of Zeus; and
Leto is glad at heart, for her child towers over them all, and is easy to
be known where all are fair" (Odyssey, vi.). Again, Artemis appears more
thoughtful, as in the sculpture of Jean Goujon, touched with the sadness
of moonlight. Yet again, she is the weary and exiled spirit that haunts
the forest of Fontainebleau, and is a stranger among the woodland folk,
the _fades_ and nixies. To this goddess, "being triple in her divided
deity," M. De Banville has written his hymn in the characteristic form of
the old French _ballade_. The translator may borrow C