ure, but by degrees
finding himself drawn more and more towards democratic ideas. "Where
will you sit?" he was asked on his presentation in the Chamber. His
smiling reply, "On the ceiling," was symbolical of the fact; but from
"the ceiling" his exalted oratory, generous in temper, sometimes wise
and well informed, descended with influence. _Jocelyn_ (1836), _La
Chute d'un Ange_ (1838), the _Recueillements Poetiques_ (1839),
closed the series of his poetical works, though he did not wholly
cease from song.

In 1847 Lamartine's idealising _Histoire des Girondins_, brilliant
in its romantic portraiture, had the importance of a political event.
The Revolution of February placed him for a little time at the head
of affairs; as he had been the soul of French poetry, so for a brief
hour he was the soul of the political life of France. With the victory
of imperialism Lamartine retired into the shade. He was more than
sixty years of age; he had lost his fortune and was burdened with
debt. His elder years were occupied with incessant improvisations
for the booksellers--histories, biographies, tales, criticism,
autobiographic confidences flowed from his pen. It was a gallant
struggle and a sad one. Through the delicate generosity of Napoleon
III. he was at length relieved without humiliating concessions. In
1869 Lamartine died in his eightieth year.

He was a noble dreamer in practical affairs, and just ideas formed
a portion of his dreams. Nature had made him an irreclaimable
optimist; all that is base and ugly in life passed out of view as
he soared above earth in his luminous ether. Sadness and doubt indeed
he knew, but his sadness had a charm of its own, and there were
consolations in maternal nature, in love, in religious faith and
adoration. His power of vision was not intense or keen; his
descriptions are commonly vague or pale; but no one could mirror more
faithfully a state of feeling divested of all material circumstance.
The pure and ample harmonies of his verse do not attack the ear, but
they penetrate to the soul. All the great lyric themes--God, nature,
death, glory, melancholy, solitude, regret, desire, hope, love--he
interpreted on his instrument with a musician's inspiration.
Unhappily he lacked the steadfast force of will, the inexhaustible
patience, which go to make a complete artist; he improvised admirably;
he refused to labour as a master of technique; hence his diffuseness,
his negligences; hence the decl