ton was compelled to
find winter quarters at Fort Bridger.

Early in the year a Legislature had met at Topeka, Kansas, and was
immediately dissolved by the United States marshals. A Territorial
Legislature also met at Lecompton and provided for a State Constitution.
The people of Kansas utterly refused to recognize the Legislature chosen by
the Missouri invaders, and both parties continued to hold their elections.

[Sidenote: Quintana]

Manuel Jose de Quintana, the Spanish playwright and patriotic poet, died on
March 11, at Madrid. He was one of the many Spanish writers whose first
poetic inspirations were derived from the stirring incidents of the
Peninsular War. On the return of King Ferdinand VII., Quintana had to
expiate his liberal sentiments by a term of six years in the prison of
Pampeluna. The revolution of 1820 brought about his release, but three
years later he was banished again from Madrid. An ode on King Ferdinand's
marriage restored him to royal favor. He was appointed tutor to the Infanta
Isabella, and in 1833 was made Minister of Public Instruction. Two years
before his death Queen Isabella publicly crowned the poet with a wreath of
laurel in the hall of the Cortes. It was a well-merited honor, for the
poet's patriotic odes and ringing lyrics long before this had taken rank
among the finest productions of the modern literature of Spain.

[Sidenote: Jules Breton]

Jules Breton, the famous French pupil of Drolling and of Devigne, exhibited
this year at Paris one of his greatest works, "La Benediction des Bles." It
was of this picture that Hamerton, the author of "Painting in France,"
wrote: "It is technically a work of singular importance in modern art for
its almost perfect interpretation of sunshine."

[Sidenote: Alfred de Musset]

[Sidenote: Relations with Georges Sand]

[Sidenote: "Rolla" and "Les Nuits"]

Alfred de Musset, the French lyric poet, died on May 1, in Paris. Born in
1810, the scion of an old aristocratic family, he was brought up with the
Duke of Orleans. They remained intimate friends until the Duke's death in
1842. In his eighteenth year De Musset took rank among the romantic writers
of Paris by his first volume of poems--"Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie."
During the next two years De Musset published another volume of poems and
the collection "Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuil," and followed this up with
several essays in dramatic verse, published under the title "Comedies
Injouables