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Meditations Poetiques, par Alphonse de la Martine. 12th Edition. Paris. Charles Gosselin et Ch. Froment, 1826. pp. 510.

OUR periodicals teem with abstracts and reviews of English and German books, some of them, as we think, no ways particularly worthy of perusal, and offering few other claims, than an immense show of lumber learning. Every classical reader must remember, how differently Goldsmith, Addison, Swift, and the other men of that school, wrote. Their learning was always beautifully in its place. From the greater simplicity, instruction and beauty of their writings alone was it inferred, that they had better availed themselves of the aid of learning, than others. The great exemplar, the beau ideal, in these days, with writers, seems to be such men, as Dr. Parr, a man of immense erudition in Greek and Latin, no doubt. But, after all, what does it amount to. The papers of the Spectator will be read, as long as our language shall last. Who will read the remains of Dr. Parr? All those scholars, who wish to cover up sterility of mind with the veil of pedantic erudition, as Cæsar concealed his baldness with laurels, and no others.

But we wander from our purpose. While we hear so much about English and German literature, we scarcely read now and then a passing notice upon that of France. Yet the people of this wonderful country, by general estimation deemed frivolous, and capable only of perfection in the walks of lighter literature, are at this moment acknowledged to surpass all others in knowledge of the higher mathematics, in their attainments in the severe and exact sciences, in every branch of knowledge, that requires profound investigation, laborious mental research, and the most thorough erudition. The names of great numbers of their scientific men, could be easily mentioned, who stand acknowledged to be alone in their several walks. They have been universally admitted, in all modern time, to surpass in belles lettres and light literature. We have not a doubt, that Paris contains at this time, more science and more learned men, and more general acquirement in belles lettres, than any other city in the world. Why is it that our literary vehicles of information, are almost silent upon this exhaustless subject? And that our people possess little more exact infor mation, touching the literature of France, than of China? We should be reluctant to believe, that it was owing to the circumstance, that the French literati have less fondness for this show of erudition; that they hold back upon this subject, and introduce their learning only in the right place. They are simple in their style of writing, easy, graceful, flowing, natural. How differently they manage criticism from us! Writers are encouraged. Warm and generous praise is accorded from a full heart. Sneering, that detestable trait in English and American criticism, as far as our reading extends, is unknown among them. Praise, when awarded, is so distributed, as to operate upon the recipient, as a cordial, and an efficient stimulant to higher aims and exertions. Our critics praise, as though they praised not, and as though they were exercising a strange and hated function. What between the school of little minded and flippant sneerers, and the worshippers of pedantic learning, we confess, it seems to VOL. III.-No. 1.

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us, that real native genius has not very favorable chances of development in this country. How many noble minds have been extinguished, how many generous efforts suppressed, how many promising germs blasted in the bud, by the universal tone of criticism among us! Genius and talent are usually appended to shrinking and diffident minds. The extraordinary case must occur, when a man of native talent succeeds, that he must possess a pushing confidence, which no sneering can wither, which no howling at the moon can deafen, or divert from its purpose.

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We could wish that French literature were more known among us, were it only to show, in how different a tone all these things are managed among that polished people. The wit is genuine. The humor gentlemanly, keen, delightful, has nothing of that bitter, barking, and malignant manner, with which even kind and favorable criticism is conducted among us. A more sure way to encourage incipient and dawning powers, to nurture and bring forth all the talent, there is in the community, could not be devised, than theirs. No extinguisher more certain in its operation, no choke damp more fatal in its efficacy to extinguish not only all talent, but all generous and virtuous feeling, could be desired by envy itself, than the general tone in which criticism is conducted in our country. The little minded seem to think, if they sneer, that they have brought down the object of their sneering to their own level, just as our Indians imagine, that they inherit all the bravery of the enemy they have killed.

We have just risen from reading courses of literary lectures, delivered in Paris, in 1827 and 8, on general modern literature. We have been delighted with the style and manner; so clear, so simple; no sneering, no lumber learning-calm, gliding easily and gracefully from one subject to another; no coarse and vulgar abuse, but just and true thoughts in easy and natural language, and bearing the marks of that excellence so earnestly recommended by Horace, which causes the reader to feel, as if, on the same subject, he should have expressed himself in the same way. One article in the London Quarterly, contains more show, we mean shop window show of learning, than we discovered in two considerable volumes, delivered by two lecturers in Paris; and yet we are told, and we can easily credit it, that they are among the finest belles lettres scholars in Europe. We refer to M. Viltemain and M. Guigot, lecturers in the French academy. We intend hereafter, to translate for our pages some of their charming reviews of the English literature of the past age. We beg leave at this time to name a living French poet, who has, indeed, been often spoken of in our journals, and whose reputation is well known to French sojourners in our country; but of whom, we imagine, the great mass of our readers know nothing, and by far the greater proportion, not even the name. Le Mort de Socrate of La Martine, was indeed announced in the journals, two or three years since. French scholars read, and admire it. The work before us, contains verses of a much higher order than that. The beautiful volume in question is announced, as the twelfth edition. Although, as a living author, he is not much mentioned by the lecturers, to whom we have referred above, when they do speak of him, it is with that high respect, which indicates sufficiently, the exalted place which he holds in their estimation. Byron is clearly his beau ideal, never in the light of a servile imitator, but as one, into whose deep spirit, whose pro

found melancholy, whose grand and original energy and compactness, he has drunk with effect. The one is the melancholy poet of skepticism; and his creed is, 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;' and from the very gloom, despair and annihilation of the tomb, as they appear to his mind, he finds a terrible and affecting inspiration. The French poet draws from dark, troubled, and fathomless waters, also; but he is always the poet of religion. Death, to him, as to the man of Uz, is the source of conceptions of inexpressible grandeur; but he always sees a God through the gloom, the necessity of submission to his will, and he enters into the sweet, sublime and soothing sentiments of a joyous meeting of friends beyond the tomb. We have no where met with images more beautifully poetic, with more frequent recurrence of the most finished grandeur of sentiment, and nobler samples of moral sublime, than in the volume before us. There is the pathos, the melancholy, the striking originality, the novel images and diction, the dim and shadowy vastness of Byron, with out any of his skeptical, misanthropic and revolting epicurism. We know few poets, living or dead, who, according to our estimate, ought to take place of La Martine. He is one of those rare, rich and endowed minds, that spring up from age to age, standing alone, while they live, and slowly, and reluctantly, and with all the withering abatements of envy, allowed to be what they are, until they are gone. And then they are hymned, and eulogized, and commented, and decked with a cold stone, and borrowed from, by those very minds, that would have traduced, and undervalued them, while praise and fame would have been a rich and deserved reward. We perceive by a note, annexed by the editor, that even in generous France, where they do not wish to crush, and extinguish genius in the bud, by the hiss of a thousand mean and envious witling scribblers and critics, La Martine had his enviers and revilers, as Horace had his Zoilus, and Pope his heroes of the Dunciad. Why do not some of our poetic scholars give a translation of Meditations Poetiques? We would hope, that the poetic eye and ear of our country has not yet been so utterly spoiled, and nauseated with poetry, as to be unable to profit from such a rich treasure to our language to our circle of glorious conceptions, and such splendid additions to the vocabulary of poetic diction.

We shall give our readers much clearer and more satisfactory views of the style and manner of this wonderful man, by introducing plain prose translations, under all their disadvantages, into our page, than by any labored discussions in the way of criticism. We translate the first six lines from his ode to Lord Byron, with which the volume commences.

Thou, of whose true name the world still is ignorant, mysterious spirit, mortal, angel, or demon, be thou whom thou mayest, Byron, good or fatal genius, I love the savage harmony of thy concerts, as I love the roar of thunder and the winds, mingling in the storm with the voice of torrents.

** Alas! such was thy lot; such is my destiny. Like thee, I have drained the poisoned cup. My eyes, like thine, have been open without seeing. I have vainly sought the word of the universe. I have demanded its course of all nature. I have asked its end of every creature. My view has plunged into the fathomless abyss. From an atom to the sun, I have interrogated every thing. I have advanced before time; I have r cended ages; sometimes traversing the seas to listen to the wise. But the

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world is a closed book to pride. Sometimes, to divine the inanimate world, flying with my soul to the bosom of nature, I have thought to find a meaning in that obscure language. I have studied that law, by which the heavens roll. In their brilliant deserts, Newton guided my views. I have meditated the ashes of destroyed empires. Rome hath seen me descend into her sacred tombs, disturbing the cold repose of her holiest shades. I have weighed in my hand the dust of heroes. I went to demand anew from their empty dust, that immortality, which every mortal hopes. Suspended over the bed of the dying, my looks have sought it in their expiring eyes. Upon waves, furrowed by eternal storms, I called for it. I braved for it the shock of the elements. Like the Sybil in her transports, I have believed, that nature in these rare spectacles, would let some of her oracles escape for us. I loved to plunge into these sombre horrors; but in vain in her calm, in vain in her fury, did I search this grand secret, without the power to grasp it from her. I have seen good and evil without choice, and without design fall, as at hazard, escaping from her bosom.

But instead of atheism and despair, the poet raises a pious and a sublime hymn of faith and resignation to the Divinity, in the same style with Milton's morning hymn of Adam in innocence; and Thompson's grand melody to nature and the seasons. He says, at the close of this sublime hymn-I adore in my destiny thy supreme wisdom. I love thy will, even in my punishments. Glory to Thee! Glory to Thee. Strike, annihilate me. Thou shalt hear but one cry; glory forever to Thee!

The second meditation is To Glory.' There is a beautiful passage on p. 28. The following is a literal translation:-Seest thou, how every thing changes, or dies in nature? The earth loses her fruits, the forests their vesture; the stream loses its wave in the vast bosom of the seas; by a breath of the winds the meadow is tarnished; and the chariot of autumn at the declining year rolls on, already propelled by the hand of winter, as a giant armed with an inevitable sword, reaching at hazard, all the diverse forms of being. How time with death with indefatigable wing renews, as they fly, this changing universe! What they harvest falls into the tomb of eternal oblivion. So fleeting summer sees her crown fall into the basket of the gleaners. So the yellow vine sees fruitful autumn give up her gilded fruits to the chariot of the vintagers. Ye shall so fall, short flowers of life, youth, love, pleasure, fugitive beauty, present of a day, which heaven envies us; ye shall so fall, if the hand of genius do not confer immortality on you.

The commencement of the meditation upon immortality, strikes us as singularly impressive and solemn :-The sun of our days grows pale from its dawn. Scarcely hath it cast some trembling rays, which still struggle with night, upon our languishing brow, when the shadow deepens; the day dies; every thing is effaced, and fled. Let another at this aspect shiver, or be affected; let him recoil, trembling, from the verge of the precipice; let him not be able to hear in the distance, without shuddering, the sad song of the dead, preluding to sound; the suppressed sighs of the loved one, or the brother suspended over the funeral bed, or the iron knell, whose distracting sounds announce to mortals, that an heir of sorrow is no more. I salute thee, O death, celestial deliverer. Thou appearest not

to me under that appalling aspect, which, for so long a time, either consternation or error hath lent thee. Thy arm wields not a destroying sword. Thy front is not cruel; thine eye not perfidious. A clement God guides thee to the succor of pain. Thou annihilatest not. Thou givest up. Thy hand, celestial messenger, carries a divine torch. When my wearied eye closes itself to the light, thou comest to pour a purer day upon my eyelid; and near thee hope, meditating upon the tomb, sustained on faith, opens before me a fairer world.

The following from the The Valley,' impresses us, as singularly beautiful. Two streams, concealed under bridges of verdure, trace, as they meander, the windings of the valley. They mingle for a moment their wave, and their murmur; and not far from their source, they are lost without a name. The source of my days has flown, like theirs; it hath passed noiseless, without name, and without return. But their wave is limpid; and my troubled spirit hath not reflected the lights of a bright day. The coolness of their beds, the shade which crowns them, draw me every day to the margin of the streams; as an infant, cradled by a monotonous chant, my spirit lulls at the murmur of the waters. Oh! it is there, that surrounded by a rampart of verdure, and a narrow horizon, yet sufficient to my eyes, I love to fix my steps, and alone with nature, to hear but the wave; to see but the heavens. I have seen too much, felt too much, too much loved, during my life. Still living, I have come to seek the calm of Lethe. Delicious places, be for me the bounds, where we find oblivion. Oblivion henceforth is my only felicity. My heart is in repose. My soul is in silence. The distant noise of the world expires, in reaching me, like a far sound, weakened in the distance, brought by the breeze, to the uncertain ear. From this point I see life, amidst the mist, vanish for me, in the shadow of the past. Love alone remains, as some great image survives, at waking, in an effaced dream.

The seventh meditation Le Desespoir,' is a most affecting and terrible picture; and, as it strikes us, more horrible, than, even the revolting pas sage of Darkness,' by Lord Byron. We are not to view these, as the sentiments of the author, but the words, which he puts into the mouth of Despair.

The eighth meditation, Providence a l'homme,' reverses this dark painting, and presents the view, which Providence offers, in justifying the ways of God to man. The ninth is 'Souvenir.' I see, he says, 'my rapid years accumulate behind me, as the oak sees the fading leaves gather round it.' There are beautiful verses in the meditation upon 'Enthousiasme.' The following is the translation of a stanza, as a sample:-So, when thou lightest upon my soul, enthusiasm, victorious eagle, at the noise of thy wings of flame, I tremble with a sacred horror. I struggle under thy power. Ifly; and fear, that thy presence will annihilate a mortal heart; as a flame, kindled by a thunder storm, which is not extinguished, and which consumes the fuel, the temple, and the altar.

'La Gloire, a un poete exile,' contains some rich and touching stanzas. He comforts the poet, by saying to him, the ages belong to thee; the world is thy country. When we are no more, our shade hath altars, where the just future prepares for thy genius immortal honors. So the proud eagle