martine.' He proceeds
to give a brief account of Jasmin's life, taken from the Souvenirs,
which he regards as a beautiful work, written with much artlessness and
simplicity.

Various other reviews of Jasmin's poems appeared, in Agen, Bordeaux,
Toulouse, and Paris, by men of literary mark--by Leonce de Lavergne, and
De Mazude in the Revue des deux Mondes--by Charles Labitte, M. Ducuing,
and M. de Pontmartin. The latter classed Jasmin with Theocritus, Horace,
and La Fontaine, and paid him the singular tribute, "that he had made
Goodness as attractive as other French writers had made Badness." Such
criticisms as these made Jasmin popular, not only in his own district,
but throughout France.

We cannot withhold the interesting statement of Paul de Musset as to
his interview with Jasmin in 1836, after the publication of his second
volume of poems. Paul de Musset was the author of several novels, as
well as of Lui et Elle, apropos of his brother's connection with George
Sand. Paul de Musset thus describes his visit to the poet at Agen.{6}

"Let no one return northward by the direct road from Toulouse. Nothing
can be more dreary than the Lot, the Limousin, and the interminable
Dordogne; but make for Bordeaux by the plains of Gascony, and do not
forget the steamboat from Marmande. You will then find yourself on the
Garonne, in the midst of a beautiful country, where the air is vigorous
and healthy. The roads are bordered with vines, arranged in arches,
lovely to the eyes of travellers. The poets, who delight in making the
union of the vine with the trees which support it an emblem of marriage,
can verify their comparisons only in Gascony or Italy. It is usually
pear trees that are used to support them....

"Thanks to M. Charles Nodier, who had discovered a man of modest talent
buried in this province, I knew a little of the verses of the Gascon
poet Jasmin. Early one morning, at about seven, the diligence stopped in
the middle of a Place, where I read this inscription over a shop-door,
'Jasmin, Coiffeur des jeunes gens.' We were at Agen. I descended,
swallowed my cup of coffee as fast as I could, and entered the shop of
the most lettered of peruke-makers. On a table was a mass of pamphlets
and some of the journals of the South.

"'Monsieur Jasmin?' said I on entering. 'Here I am, sir, at your
service,' replied a handsome brown-haired fellow, with a cheerful
expression, who seemed to me about thirty years of age.

"'Will