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ART. III.-1. Œuvres Complètes de P. J. DE BERanger. 2 vols. Paris. 1847.

2. Ma Biographie: Ouvrage Posthume de P. J. de Beranger. Paris. 1857.

3. Songs of Béranger. Translated by the author of the Exiles of Idria. London. 1837.

MUCH has been written, and little apparently understood, about following nature in literary and other art. The examples of Homer and Shakespeare are appealed to, and those writers of the renaissance school in Germany and elsewhere headed by Goethe. Nature, human and otherwise, has many manifestations, some poetical and others not. The Pre-Raphaelitism which would depict a toad or a cabbage-garden while neglecting the most beautiful landscape within view, is certainly not such an adherence to nature as to be entitled to our admiration. Yet the toad is fabled to have a jewel in its head, which is a poetical idea, and there is much in the habits and aspects of the animal which may suggest poetical thoughts. In treating of cabbages, it would not be necessary to allude to sauerkraut and cole-slaw; the growth of the vegetable, fed by the sunshine and the rain, and the human care and interest bestowed upon it, are themes worthy of song. In art, as in everything else, it is requisite to be true. Art deals not only with the higher truths, but with all that contain the element of beauty. This beauty doubtless resides, to a greater or less degree, in all things; yet it is not every poet who can make us perceive it in every object. Some things we are so accustomed to regard as unlovely that it is not safe for the poet to allude to them, because of the associations which we invariably attach to those objects. Yet, really, there is no distinction of truths for purposes of art. As God is one, so is his emanation, which is beauty, the same everywhere. Some objects and conditions have more of this radiance than others. What constitutes the artist is the power to perceive and to depict real beauty. It is generally easier for him to understand and to represent the

soul of the simpler existences. If he knows the limitations of his genius, he will not attempt to deal with what is beyond his comprehension.

Béranger thus understood his genius, and his success was due to that knowledge, and to his honesty in accepting and acting upon it. He wrote from within, reproducing the impressions made upon him by external objects and by his own experiences. So far he was true, and his poems are real. He might have succeeded in fictitious representations of ideal passion, but he would not attempt it. It is here that he showed. his strength and his greatness. We always think of him as following Molière's rule of judging of the excellence of his works, not by submitting them to a learned critic, but noting their effect when read to his illiterate old female attendant. Béranger, as well as Molière, knew that the scholar would compare the work submitted to his critical judgment with conventional standards of excellence with which he was already acquainted, and they knew that such a taste, formed by study, is quite likely to be vitiated. For a reliable standard they rightly judged that they could confidently appeal to the native instincts of untaught and unperverted humanity. Béranger is and will be a model for the study of those who wish to learn how to deal with things truthfully-to be genuine artists.

He is not a Shakespeare nor a Goethe, but he is as real in his department as either of those great singers. In an interview with the public censor which Béranger has recorded,* that official is reported as saying to him that "song-writers are in literature what fiddlers are in music." This characterization of the chansonnier the poet accepts and defends. We may properly consider him from the point of view which he has deliberately selected. We may picture to ourselves the modest violinist taking his place at the street-corner, hoping that his simple strains may please the common people, and draw from them the hearty applause which is all he covets. At first only the poor and uneducated slowly collect; then the more aristocratic and cultivated pause, compelled to listen to the

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ravishing melody. The crowd increases, and is joined by the rich and the noble, until the vicinage is thronged with people of all descriptions and stations, and even kings and emperors are pleased to mingle with the others, and to shower praises and presents upon the unpretending musician. The delight which all feel and exhibit proves that in the innate feelings of the heart the whole world are of kin.

It was not until he had reached middle life that Béranger gained the title of poet. For this recognition of his just claims he acknowledges himself first indebted to the Edinburgh Review. In France, previous to Béranger's day, a song.writer was not reckoned as a poet; but it is his proud distinction that his genius changed all that.

Béranger loved his fellows, and it was this love that fitted him to appreciate them, and in his turn to be appreciated by them. The service he has rendered to humanity has been very great. He was not a reformer, as that term is usually applied. Ile did not attempt to give the people new light, but to make them respect what was in them. His standard of morals was not on the plane with ours, but we must take into account, in our estimate of him, the influence of the circumstances in which he was placed.

Pierre-Jean de Béranger was born at Paris, in 1780. Regarding the use of the feudal particle de, he seems to think it necessary to make many apologies. In his autobiography he tells us that it was bestowed upon him by his father, who claimed noble descent,* and that he did not use it until some bad verses signed M. Bérenger had been attributed to him, when he adopted the particle as a measure of self-defence.

His father, at the time of marriage, was book-keeper to a grocer; his mother followed the trade of modiste. At the house of his maternal grandfather, a tailor, "in one of the dirtiest quarters of Paris," was the poet born. Neither of his parents appears to have paid much attention to him in his early years, or to have done much for him. For his mother he could not have had much affection, and he says of her, "Buffon a dit que les garçons tiennent de leur mère. Jamais enfant

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Je dois dire, pour sa justification, que c'était la manie des chefs de la famille."-Ma Biographie, p. 13.

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n'a moins ressemblé que moi à la mienne, au moral comme au physique." The two spouses separated after six months of not very pleasant matrimonial life. The yet unfledged songster remained until the age of nine years in the care of his grandfather. He was sent to school in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and from the roof he witnessed the taking of the Bastile, which event, he declares, embraced almost all the instruction he received there. He was fortunately absent from Paris during the Reign of Terror; but in 1789, he and his aunt, walking together, suddenly found themselves in the midst of a crowd of men and women carrying on long pikes the heads of the gardes du corps massacred at Versailles. This was enough of scenes of horror for his sensitive nature. Making due allowance for his native and national vivacity, we could hardly hope that, witnessing much more of the horrible events of those days, the susceptible poet could ever have developed into the gay and light-hearted singer he became.

Soon afterward he left Paris for Peronne, in Picardy, to be placed in the care of his father's maiden sister, who kept a small inn at that place. His aunt at first refused to take him, but, looking upon his childish face, her heart was aroused in his behalf, and, bursting into tears, she promised to be a mother to him. She kept her word, and seems to have given him nearly all the love his childish years ever knew. Béranger ever remembered this excellent woman with most affectionate gratitude, and, after her death, dictated for her the following epitaph: "She never was a mother, yet she left children to weep for her." With her he passed several years of the developing period of his life. She assisted to inspire him with a taste for reading, and with her he read Télémaque, Racine, and Voltaire. This aunt was an ardent republican, but withal something of a devotee, and the young satirist did not forbear to ridicule some of her favorite points of faith. At the age of twelve years, during a violent storm, the pious lady sprinkled the house with holy water. flash of lightning prostrated the young Béranger, who, on recovering, immediately said to his aunt, "Well, of what

*Ma Biographie, p. 38.

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use was your holy water?" He had very little inclination for school, and says he does not know when he learned to read. He never had any knowledge of Greek or Latin; his acquaintance with the ancient classics was derived from translations. This ignorance he confessed to Lucien Bonaparte with some humiliation.* Yet from a careful study of the best translations within his reach, he was able to get the spirit of the best of the ancient writers.

He had desired to learn the trade of clockmaker, but his sight was so much injured that he was obliged to give it up, greatly to his regret. He tried as apprentice to a jeweler, and served for awhile in the office. of a notary. At the age of fourteen years he became apprentice to a printer. It was here that he got the most of his knowledge of orthography and grammar. His master, M. Laisney, gave him valuable instructions in versification. To this excellent man Béranger afterward made the acknowledgment:

"Dans l'art des vers c'est toi qui fut mon maître.".

There was at Peronne a school named the Institut Patrio. tique organized upon the system of J. J. Rousseau. This school Béranger attended, and here, it would seem, he acquired the greater part of his book-knowledge. Besides history and geography he learned to declaim in the club, and had the benefit of criticisms upon his literary attempts. His parents becoming reunited, he returned to Paris, where father and son engaged together in financial speculations. As a financier the young Béranger seems, from his own account, to have developed considerable talents. He acquired quite a fortune, which was lost in the crisis of 1798.

It was at this time that he turned his attention particularly to poetry, and studied it as an art. He labored assiduously to form a poetic system which he says, "I have doubtless since perfected, but which has scarcely varied at all in any of its principal rules." + Certain friendly capitalists had offered to

"Jamais il ne m'avait tant coûté de dire que je ne savais pas le latin, cette langue dont je croyais, avec tout le monde alors, qu'on ne pouvait se passer pour rien écrire en français. "-Ma Biographie, p. 89.

+ Ib. p. 66.

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