er and periwig-maker, like
himself, whose Gentle Shepherd met with as great a success as Jasmin's
Franconnette. Jasmin, however, was the greater poet of the two.

The reviewer in the Westminster, who had seen Jasmin at Agen, goes on
to speak of the honours he had received in the South and at Paris--his
recitations in the little room behind his shop--his personal
appearance, his hearty and simple manners--and yet his disdain of
the mock modesty it would be affectation to assume. The reviewer thus
concludes: "From the first prepossessing, he gains upon you every
moment; and when he is fairly launched into the recital of one of his
poems, his rich voice does full justice to the harmonious Gascon. The
animation and feeling he displays becomes contagious. Your admiration
kindles, and you become involved in his ardour. You forget the little
room in which he recites; you altogether forget the barber, and rise
with him into a superior world, an experience in a way you will never
forget, the power exercised by a true poet when pouring forth his living
thoughts in his own verses....

"Such is Jasmin--lively in imagination, warm in temperament, humorous,
playful, easily made happy, easily softened, enthusiastically fond of
his province, of its heroes, of its scenery, of its language, and of
its manners. He is every inch a Gascon, except that he has none of
that consequential self-importance, or of the love of boasting and
exaggeration, which, falsely or not, is said to characterise his
countrymen.

"Born of the people, and following a humble trade, he is proud of both
circumstances; his poems are full of allusions to his calling; and
without ever uttering a word in disparagment of other classes, he
everywhere sings the praises of his own. He stands by his order. It is
from it he draws his poetry; it is there he finds his romance.

"And this is his great charm, as it is his chief distinction. He invests
virtue, however lowly, with the dignity that belongs to it. He rewards
merit, however obscure, with its due honour. Whatever is true or
beautiful or good, finds from him an immediate sympathy. The true is
never rejected by him because it is commonplace; nor the beautiful
because it is everyday; nor the good because it is not also great. He
calls nothing unclean but vice and crime, He sees meanness in nothing
but in the sham, the affectation, and the spangles of outward show.

"But while it is in exalting lowly excellence that J