The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-29 00:00:00

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AGRICULTURAL HALL, IsLiNaTos.—FAIRY PALACE
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ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, Regent's-park, OPEN daily (ex
cept Sundays). Admission, Is.; on Mondays, 6d.; Children
under twelve, 6d.

4LA 111itt .1

LONDON, THURSDAY, OCT. 29, 1868.

IF M. VICTOR HI:GO would only recognise the true
bent and force of his genius! As Poet, he is facile
princeps in the present generation : certainly in
French literature, even though among his contem-
poraries there still survives the veteran LAMARTINE.
As Novelist, the author of "Notre Dame" and " Les
Nlis6rables" need shrink from no comparison. As
Dramatist, his claims upon European consideration
are assured and resplendent—thanks to such master-
pieces as "Ray Bias" and "Marion Jo Lorznc." But
—as Politician, even we would say as Critic, his
position is simply ludicrous. In evidence of this, it
would really only be necessary to rovert to two of his
most remarkable achievements as Critic and as
Politician. In the litter capacity, his "Na-
poleon le Petit"—according to our view of
it at least —was worse than ridiculous. It
evidenced so much at once of the venom
of malignity and of the impotence of a rage
that was simply beside itself. Similarly, in his capa-
city as critic, M. VICTOR HUGO, this great Poet, this
true Lyrist, Dram ►tilt, Romancist, never made a
more preposterous exhibition of his incapacity than
when, four years ago, he gave to the world that ex-
travagant rhapsody of his about SIIAKSPERE. Once or
twice in his otherwise brilliant and honourable career
he has (seemingly under the influence of some morbid
hallucination) prostituted his genius to the composi-
tion of verses as seductive in their beauty as they have
been shameless in their depravity. It was thus with
his" Chansons desßues"—songs less of the street than
of the kennel, warblings suitable rather for the bag-
nia than for the salon. It is not, however, with that
vilerdegradation of hisrare gif ts as a Post that we would

here deal. Our reference now is to the absurdity of the
tone in which he every now and then attempts to
dictate to public opinion upon matters of political
import, frequently matters in no way concerning
himself either as an exile or as a Frenchman. Upon
these occasions when he takes pen in hand his better
judgment takes leave of him altogether. And—re-
membering in his regard, at these moments, that won-
derfully terse and witty axiom of BUFFON'S, "Le
style c'est I'homme"—we would almost say of him
that he is a man no longer. Certainly, not a ra-
tional man. Style vanishes altogether. Rhetoric
gives way to rhodomontade. Reading his political
lucubrations at these times, no one would conceive for
an instant, who knew nothing whatever of
the writer, that they were penned by
one who was otherwise a perfect master of
his craft ; one remarkable, elsewhere, even in
the manner of his composition, for the " curiosa
felicitas verborum ;" one with whom in his saner
moments words were as dexterously played with as
the golden balls, and the glittering kuiva, and the
blooming fruit tossed to and fro in the hands of an
Indian juggler. Happily for his legion of admirers,
whether as Poet or as Romance writer, whether as
Lyrist or as Dramatist, M. VIcToR, HuGo but very
seldom indulges in these political vagaries against
which we are here enveighing. When he does, he
is, according to a homely idiom, just simply off his
head. It is with him at these moments, as it is with
GARIBALDI whenever he has exchanged the handling
of a sword for the fingering of a goosequill. He writes

in a sort of delirium. We almost look to see
the letter, or whatever it may happen to be, dated

from a nzaison de sauté. Just such a letter as this,
M. VICTOR HUGO has, within the last day or two,
written apropos to Spain. It is published in the
Litertg, and is addressed—the writer of the comma-
nica..ion says at the top of it—" To my dear and
great friend EMILE DE GIRARDIN." Whether ENIILE
DE GIDARDIN—that "dear and great friend" (great,
in what capacity we are left to conjecture)—under-
stands the drift of the meaning of his correspondent
we know not. But, most certainly the outer public,
the uninitiated, will altogether fail to do so. It must
remain an inscrutable and insoluble mystery to metre
:Ilan Brother SAM or Lord DUNDREARY. It is pre-
cisely one of those very things that " no fellow will
ever understand." The Siecle declares it to be—
what the writer in the Siecle, in his own inner
consciousness, no doubt deems it to be—" mag-
uifique." But if it is so, it is so only in the
sense in which one of the most brilliant general
officers in the French army in the Crimea pro-
nounced the same opinion in regard to the cavalry
charge at Balaklava—" C'est magnifique, mais ce
n'est pas la guerre." So we might say here—if we