relation to the classic
romance--that lovely but short-lived eldest daughter of the Latin--the
language of the Troubadours.

We have said that the Gascon dialect was gradually expiring when Jasmin
undertook its revival. His success in recovering and restoring it,
and presenting it in a written form, was the result of laborious
investigation. He did not at first realize the perfect comprehension of
the idiom, but he eventually succeeded by patient perseverance, When
we read his poems, we are enabled to follow, step by step, his
lexicological progress.

At first, he clung to the measures most approved in French poetry,
especially to Alexandrines and Iambic tetrameters, and to their
irregular association in a sort of ballad metre, which in England has
been best handled by Robert Browning in his fine ballad of 'Harve;
Riel.'

Jasmin's first rhymes were written upon curl papers, and then used on
the heads of his lady customers. When the spirit of original poetry
within him awoke, his style changed. Genius brought sweet music from his
heart and mind. Imagination spiritualised his nature, lifted his soul
above the cares of ordinary life, and awakened the consciousness of his
affinity with what is pure and noble. Jasmin sang as a bird sings; at
first in weak notes, then in louder, until at length his voice filled
the skies. Near the end of his life he was styled the Saint Vincent de
Paul of poetry.

Jasmin might be classed among the Uneducated Poets. But what poet is not
uneducated at the beginning of his career? The essential education of
the poet is not taught in the schools.

The lowly man, against whom the asperities of his lot have closed the
doors of worldly academies, may nevertheless have some special vocation
for the poetic life. Academies cannot shut him out from the odour of the
violet or the song of the nightingale. He hears the lark's song filling
the heavens, as the happy bird fans the milk-white cloud with its wings.
He listens to the purling of the brook, the bleating of the lamb, the
song of the milkmaid, and the joyous cry of the reaper. Thus his mind
is daily fed with the choicest influences of nature. He cannot but
appreciate the joy, the glory, the unconscious delight of living. "The
beautiful is master of a star." This feeling of beauty is the nurse of
civilisation and true refinement. Have we not our Burns, who

"in glory and in joy
Followed his plough along the mountain side;"

Clare, the pea