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undertook to express . We might as well have gone to a child for a rational summary of-political doctrine as to Beranger . ' He knew nothing of nothing , ' as the French say ; but he had very noble sentiments and very wellplaced antipathies . He became as it were the voice of the nation ; and gave a form to all its vague and undefined desires . The unpractical and illogical character of the French was never better exemplified than in the ^ Republican songster who exhausted all his genius in keeping alive the superstitious worship of the Fetish of St . Helena . ' Les Souvenirs du Peuple' is one of the most pathetic and admirable of Be * ranger ' s productions ; and moves even those who usually turn away ¦ with cold dislike from all thought of the selfish egotist it immortalizes . * 11 n ' est pas Mort , in the present volume , though inferior , is full of true
touches and poetical feeling . But no amount of partiality can discover anything --worth praising in ' Le Bapteine . la ' L'Egyptienne' we find the form of Beranger so accurately preserved , without a trace of spontaneity , that if we did not reflect on the weakening eflect of age we might fancy it the production of a fourth-rate disciple . The same remark applies to all the other Napoleonic effusions ; and , we regret to add , to three-fourths of all the songs in this collection . " Voici les chansons de ma vieillesse , " says the poet in his preface . It was no doubt pleasant to write them , and it is sometimes pleasant to read . But those friends and admirers of Beranger who cry out that he has here surpassed himself , may do infinite damage to his reputation . Many who make a first acquaintance with him by means of this volume will be satisfied and go no further ; and will say quietly to themselves , " Do such things bestow immortality ?"
Why conceal the truth ; and what is the meaning of this enthusiasm got up for the occasion ? Beranger knew his own literary position perfectly well . * ' The most fertile mind , "'lie * says , " has only a certain number of forms to apply to thought , which belongs to everybody . Mine were exhausted , or nearly so ( under the Bourbons ) . Let younger men now try their chance . " This is sensible . It shows that the poet did not deceive himself . " Whatever his mission may have been , he had fulfilled it "when he ceased to publish . Afterwards when he wrote it was almost as an amateur ; arid if we consider his later productions in that light , without reference to his younger aiid more vigorous efforts , except as motives for our present interest , curiosity -will be to a certain extent repaid . But we repeat , to refer readers who do not already love Beranger to his 'Dernieres Chansons' as a
specimen of Ins powers , is to do the worst possible service to his memory . They will find pages and pages of -elegant verses and '/ rich' rhymes , ' some ingenious burdens , some gay and playful movements , that remind one a little too much of the grandmamma emulating youthful activity , but they will rarely meet anything like a startling picturesque expression , a line that pierces like a dagger , a humorous turn that forces laughter , a tender expression that irresistibly brings tears to the eye-lids . ' Lisettes' and ' fillettes' are talked of , not embodied and indeed there is a remarkable , almost prudish absence of warmth of colouring . Pie who could so sweetly and pathetically paint regrets which he hud not yet felt— -whilst smiles and kisses still hovered around him—seems to have forgotten all as soon as
sensation died away . Beranger appears now in ; the character of a spiritualist , and defends the immortality of the soul in choice language . He seems anxious to prove that some of the liberties he took with forms of faith were ** " »«•<» sallies of the imagination , or outbursts of licentiousness . He never , indeed , adopted the material doctrine , and created , as we know , theUieti des Bonnes Gens for the adoration of his school . But we suspect he would scarcely have ventured thirty years ago to exclaim indignantly by the mouth of ' a poet ' : — Prostitute et vagnbonde , " Quoi ! cette ame , eselave ici-bns , N ' a point de cicl oti fuir le moude Qu ' elle sent crouler sous ses pas !
" VVe had marked some of the best specimens in the volume for extract as an antidote to the necessary severity of our remarks , which we make in the interest chiefly of Beranger ' s reputation . But instead of transcribing the whole of ' 11 est M . ort , ' . which we repeat is excellent , we can only give the curious reference to the idea once entertained in France that Napoleon would re-appear as the leader of an insurrection in our Indian empire : — Uu matelut , qui commit l'lndc eselave , Pour nous scrvir vcut qu'il y soit passe . // incite on Jin 1 c Mahnttte si bran ; Etdes A iinhits Uunnrire tat menace .
There could not be a bettor illustration of a truth which we have recently had so many . opportunities of learning , that the merely popular feeling over the water is that any disaster that could occur to us in India or elsewhere would be a . blessing to France . We do not take this opportunity to characterize Beranger as a songster . That task will devolve upon us when the forthcoming ' Biography , written by Himself , ' is under notice . We liere merely enter our protest against these ' Dernieres Chansons' being considered , except in some lew instances , os additions to his claims to immortality — if immortality can be won by productions , however exquisite , tluit are so local and temporary as some of the best of Beranger ' s . l Homines noir ^ , d'ou sortoz-vous ? ' may lust as long as tho Jesuits , but l Dans un ( Jrenier , and a few others only , will last as long as youth and love .
' Plus do Yers , ' which introduces this volume , contains an exquisite passage : — Ditsu nu veut plus ! Mt , comme aux lins il ' automne Le villagcois , dans si's elos dopouille ' s , Jtegarrfu vncor $ i Vnrbrv cu sir couroiiiie ¦ Ne cache pas quctqiies fruits oiiMic . * , Jo vuis chcrclmnt ; pour win je m ' e ' veille ; Mnid l ' arbro est mort , fatigue des hivers . Qu'il manquera do fruita a ma eorboille . ' . Diou nu vewt plus que jo fusse de vois . These * fruits forgotten in the upper branches' were worth gathering for the most part ; but it is not fair to judge the tree by them .
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A LITERARY BIOGRAPHY . The Life , of John Banim , the Irish Novelist . "With Extracts from his Correspondence . \ By Patrick Joseph Murray . •;' . ' . Lay . Literary biographers are raTely successful , and why ? Because they will not confine themselves to biography , but branch into irrelevances at every turn ; or still ' ofteuer , because they forget that they have undertaken to ¦ write the story of an individual , and not to build for him . a pedestal loftier than his claims . Mr . Murray sins in the latter respect . He labours to the summit of the ancient Pyramid of Worthies , to find on that eminence a throne for John Banim , a principal writer of the Tales by the O Hara Family , and author of Damon mid Pythias , the tragedy in which Macready played , with Charles Kemble as his dramatic lieutenant . Poor Banim was a man of peculiar and conspicuous merit , his character was good , his works were
popular , he suffered many bitter mishaps in the course of a perplexed and painful life ; but these characteristics of himself and his biography might have been presented with more effect had Mr . Murray understood the virtue of simplicity . Instead of this , he overloads his narration with farfetched analogies , commonplace illustrations , and unnecessary panegyrics . His materials have been inartistically put together so as to form a series of disquisitional sketches , and he is not careful to eliminate all superfluous or unimportant matter . The book is a Memorial , not a Life . It possesses its attractions . The tale of Banim ' s struggles and efforts , however indifferently told , could not be without interest . But it would have "been a more creditable performance had the style been less florid and the allusions less ostentatious . Mr . Murray does not arrive at the parentage of the Irish novelist until he has referred to the anguish of Philoctetes and of Lear , the
martyrdom of Nash—the c creature' of famine— -the poverty of Churchyard , the beggary of Stowe , the strangulation of Otway , the suicide of Chatterton , the charity of Goldsmith , the aosery of Savage , Harte ' s dinner with Cave , Johnson ' s rags and pride , ChesterfieUTs ' clever puppyism , ' Carlyle ' s sneer at Eoswell , the * murder' Kirke "White , the physical decay of Keats , the pallid face of Gerald Griffin , and the mental decay of Scott and Southey . Surely , this might have sufficed , even for a biographeiv But Mr . Murray has carried his studies . farther , and is anxious to impress us with the result . Coming round , by way of ' great old Samuel Johnson , to autobiography , he refers , and not in mere side glances , to Horace , Montaigne , Southey , Boswell , Sydney Smith , Byron , Scott , Shakspeare , and Petrarch . Shortly afterwards , an anecdote of precocity suffices to cover us with the dust of Cuto , Hobbes , Bacon , Descartes , Boyle , Alfieri , Cowley , Pope , Tasso , Ariosto , Lope de Vega , and Boccacio ; Shelley , Gibbon , Buflon , and Campbell falling in a secondary shower . Now , we think , with Mr . Murray ,
that the narrative of Montaigne ' s education , labours * and travels , ranks among the jewels of literature , a ' nd no doubt much that is important may be told of the poets , from Tassb to Shelley ; but if the biography of no one individual can be written without references to a hundred others , pedantry is a quality less objectionable inaman and a book than we have always considered it to be . Certainly , it interferes with the story which the writer has undertaken to tell . Besides , the effect of these digressions is not to exalt , but to degrade the person whose acts and works are under review . The writer-of the O'Hara Tales and of the tragedy Damon and Pythias earned a reputation for himself , but his name -will not appear on the same roll with the names of the Greek or Italian classics . Apart from its tendency to-excursiveness , and its generally extravagant tone , Mr . Murray ' s volume may be commended to notice as the record of a literary career marked by manytriumphs , but by still more numerous and still more striking vicissitudes . In John Banim , we have a man whom we can admire as well as pity . 1
lie was born in 1798 , a plain-looking child , with ' great staring eyesand a , most lovable disposition . As a toy , he was devoted to study and to exercises in poetical and prose composition . The private theatre at Kilkenny moved him to sympathy with the drama ; there he heard Tom Moore reciting one of his own pieces , and forthwith called , with a specimen of verse , upon the poet , who sent him on his way l'ejoicingby calling him his ' brotherpoet . ' . His next attempt was at the construction of wings for himself , but these , launching him from a manure heap , laid him in the vnud . IN " ext he tried to make sky-rockets , wliich blazed ignobly along the ground ; this
experiment he remembered years afterwards , when his drama had been triumphantly played at Covent Garden , for he wrote homo , saying that , at last , he had sent up a sky-rocket . ¥ e do not propose to trace an outline from the volume by Mr . Murray , which , no doubt , "will be extensively read ; but , having explained our objections to his plan , we will quote a passage or two by way of exemplification of Banim ' s life , and his biographer ' s manner of treating it . An unfortunate affection had sprung up between Banim and Anne D , and this girl , after being forbidden to see him , died of consumption : —
He never knew by what route , or liow lie traversed the twenty-live dreary miles winch lay between him ami the corpse of his beloved , but night had closed around the dripping weary man ns ho reached tho farmhouse where the body of Anno D — lay . None of her relatives were present na ho entered , and but few friends sat around , lie stood beside the dead one ' s head , and the long black laslics of the closed eves resting upon the pallid cheek , the shrunken features , and the worn look of her whom he had once thought so beautiful , fronv whom he had so recently parted in all the glory of her ) 'outli , tcrriiicu him , and he gazed upon her but shed no tear . His faco of agony attracted the attention of those- persons who had gathered by the cottin , and as hestood
beside its hcml , one of Aiuiu's luilf-sistcrs recognised him , called him the murderer of her sinter , and demanded that lie should be . thrust from tho room . At first linnim felt indignant at this cruel conduct , but suddenly lie thought that if Anne hud never loved him she might be then living happily ; hn < l .-she never met him she might be jovou . s and in . health—but now she was n wreck of hope , of peace , of lift !; and srarcely during to look upon her , lie tottered from the room . Me had eaten nothing since tho preceding day ; lie felt no hunger , but entering an-outhouse , sank upon the wet straw of a ouv-sheil , and there , iu a stupor of grief , continued until ho heard tho funeral uuo . itd assembling .
lie rose , re-entered the house , and beiiijj ; permitted to slantl beside the oollin , saw the face of his Anno for tho lust time , as the eolliii-lid hid it for ever , lie followed the , body to the churchyard , stood by as tho enrth > vus » piled up , and when all had departed , oast himself upon tho fresh green mound that marked the grave of hia first love . Ho never could recollect where the night succeeding this day oC woo was
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No . 400 , yovEMBEB 21 , 1857 . ] THE LE A . D E R . 1121
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 21, 1857, page 1121, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2218/page/17/
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