. He, though for a time
closely connected with the romantic school, really stands apart and
alone. Born in 1797, he followed the profession of his father, that
of arms, and knew the hopes, the illusions, and the disappointments
of military service at the time of the fall of the Empire and the
Bourbon restoration. He read eagerly in Greek literature, in the Old
Testament, and among eighteenth-century philosophers. As early as
1815 he wrote his admirable poem _La Dryade_, in which, before Andre
Chenier's verse had appeared, Chenier's fresh and delicate feeling
for antiquity was anticipated. In 1822 his first volume, _Poemes_,
was published, including the _Helena_, afterwards suppressed, and
groups of pieces classified as _Antiques_, _Judaiques_, and
_Modernes_. Already his _Moise_, majestic in its sobriety, was
written, though it waited four years for publication in the volume
of _Poemes Antiques et Modernes_ (1826). Moses climbing the slopes
of Nebo personifies the solitude and the heavy burden of genius; his
one aspiration now is for the sleep of death; and it is the lesser
leader Joshua who will conduct the people into the promised land.
The same volume included _Eloa_, a romance of love which abandons
joy through an impulse of divine pity: the radiant spirit Eloa, born
from a tear of Christ, resigns the happiness of heaven to bring
consolation to the great lost angel suffering under the malediction
of God. Other pieces were inspired by Spain, with its southern
violence of passion, and by the pass of Roncesvalles, with its
chivalric associations.

The novel of _Cinq-Mars_, which had a great success, is a free
treatment of history; but Vigny's best work is rather the embodiment
of ideas than the rendering of historical matter. His _Stello_ in
its conception has something of kinship with _Moise_; in three prose
tales relating the sufferings of Chatterton, Chenier, and Gilbert,
it illustrates the sorrows of the possessors of genius. Vigny's
military experience suggested another group of tales, the _Servitude
et Grandeur Militaires_; the soldier in accepting servitude finds
his consolation in the duty at all costs of strenuous obedience.

In 1827 Vigny quitted the army, and next year took place his
marriage--one not unhappy, but of imperfect sympathy--to an English
lady, Lydia Bunbury. His interest in English literature was shown
by translations of _Othello_ and the _Merchant of Venice_. The former
was acted with the ap