e "great ladies, great writers, lords, ministers, and
great savants;" and he concludes his poem with the words: "Paris makes
me proud, but Agen makes me happy."

The poem is full of the impressions of his mind at the time--simple,
clear, naive. It is not a connected narrative, nor a description of what
he saw, but it was full of admiration of Paris, the centre of France,
and, as Frenchmen think, of civilisation. It is the simple wonder of the
country cousin who sees Paris for the first time--the city that had so
long been associated with his recollections of the past. And perhaps he
seized its more striking points more vividly than any regular denizen of
the capital.

Endnotes for Chapter XII.

{1} 'Les Peuples de la France: Ethnographie Nationale.' (Didier.)

CHAPTER XIII. JASMIN AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS.

Jasmin's visit to Paris in 1842 made his works more extensively known,
both at home and abroad. His name was frequently mentioned in the
Parisian journals, and Frenchmen north of the Loire began to pride
themselves on their Gascon poet. His Blind Girl had been translated into
English, Spanish, and Italian. The principal English literary journal,
the Athenaeum, called attention to his works a few months after his
appearance in Paris.{1} The editor introduced the subject in the
following words:

"On the banks of the Garonne, in the picturesque and ancient town of
Agen, there exists at this moment a man of genius of the first order--a
rustic Beranger, a Victor Hugo, a Lamartine--a poet full of fire,
originality, and feeling--an actor superior to any now in France,
excepting Rachel, whom he resembles both in his powers of declamation
and his fortunes. He is not unknown--he is no mute inglorious Milton;
for the first poets, statesmen, and men of letters in France have been
to visit him. His parlour chimney-piece, behind his barber's shop, is
covered with offerings to his genius from royalty and rank. His smiling,
dark-eyed wife, exhibits to the curious the tokens of her husband's
acknowledged merit; and gold and jewels shine in the eyes of the
astonished stranger, who, having heard his name, is led to stroll
carelessly into the shop, attracted by a gorgeous blue cloth hung
outside, on which he may have read the words, Jasmin, Coiffeur."

After mentioning the golden laurels, and the gifts awarded to him by
those who acknowledged his genius, the editor proceeds to mention
his poems in the Gascon dialect--his So