show a great love for the beauties of nature and a very high talent for description, have also much tenderness and feeling. These pieces were collected together in a volume entitled 'Le Chemin des Bois' in 1867, and received, and deservedly, the approbation of the French Academy. M. Theuriet is the author also of a drama in verse, 'Jean-Marie,' which was acted at the Odéon in I871, and of several novels such as 'Nouvelles Intimes,' 'Mademoiselle Guignon,' 'Une Ondine,' &c., of considerable power, but, like most French novels, of doubtful taste if not of doubtful morality.
Page 305.
Intérieur.—A ma Mère. With one or two strokes a true poet can sometimes give us a picture. Shakspeare's description of evening was
'Light thickens,
And the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.'
This is M. André Theuriet's description of a midsummer dawn:
'Je m'endors, et là-bas le frissonnant matin
Baigne les pampres verts d'une rougeur furtive,
Et toujours cette odeur amoureuse m'arrive
Avec le dernier chant d'un rossignol lointain
Et les premiers cris de la grive....'
M. Theuriet is not a Shakspeare, but these five lines are sufficient to show that here we have a poet indeed,—a poet worthy of all honour.
Page 307.
The Grand Pint. M. A. de Châtillon is a painter as well as a poet: a fact which a careful reader of his poetry would perhaps discover without being told. A beautiful portrait of M. Victor Hugo holding between his knees his two sons in the blouse of schoolboys, which appeared in the Salon of the Louvre in 1836, obtained the artist a celebrity which he had long before merited. In the sale of Victor Hugo's house and furniture in 1852, another picture of his, allegorically representing the slumber of the poet, drew considerable attention. His intimacy with the poets, especially with Victor Hugo and Théophile Gautier, insensibly led him to write,—and afterwards to collect his pieces in a volume, thin, but of great merit. Of the piece we give here, his friend, Théophile Gautier, says—'Son auberge de la Grande Pinte entre autres vaut, par ses tons roux, sa chaude couleur enfumée un cabaret d'Ostade.'
Page 310.
Sonnet. This sonnet, by Félix Arvers, has been praised by the highest authorities, amongst others by Sainte-Beuve and Jules Janin, for its grace, delicacy, and passion. It is far superior to the other pieces of Arvers, which rarely rise above mediocrity.
