is death, I wrote on him in the
_Fortnightly Review_,[284] some surprise at my loftier estimate was
expressed _here_. The reasons for this depreciation are not hard to
give, and as they form a base for, and indeed really a part of, my
critical estimate they may be stated shortly. The "Bohemia"[285] of
which Murger was the laureate, both in prose and verse, is a country
whose charms have been admitted by some of the greatest, but which no
wise person has ever regarded, much less recommended, as providing any
city to dwell in; and which has certainly been the scene if not the
occasion, not merely of much mischief, which does not particularly
concern us, but of much foolishness and bad taste, which partly does. It
was almost--not quite--the only theme of Murger's songs and words.
And--last and perhaps most dangerous of all--there was the fact that, if
not in definite Bohemianism, there was in other respects a good deal in
him of a far minor Musset, and both in Bohemianism and other things
still more of an inferior Gerard de Nerval. I believe the case _against_
has been fairly stated here.

[Sidenote: The _Vie de Boheme_.]

The case _for_ I have put in the essay referred to with the full,
though, I think, not more than the fair emphasis allowed to even a
critical advocate when he has to demolish charges. The historian passes
from bar to bench; and neither ought to speak, nor in this instance is
inclined to speak, quite so enthusiastically. I admitted there that I
did not think Murger's comparatively early death lost us much; and I
admit even more frankly here, that in what he has left there is no great
variety of excellence, and that while there are numerous good things in
the work, there is little that can be called actually great. But after
these admissions no small amount remains to his credit as a writer who
can manage both comedy and pathos; who, if he has no wide range or
variety of subject, can vary his treatment quite efficiently, and who
has a certain freshness rarely surviving the first years of journalism
of all work. His faintly but truly charming verse is outside our bounds,
and even prose poetry like "The Loves of a Cricket and a Spark of
Flame"[286] are on the line, though this particular thing is not far
below Gerard himself. The longer novels, _Adeline Protat_ and _Le Sabot
Rouge_, are competent in execution and pleasant enough to read; yet they
are not above good circulating-library strength. But the _Vie