New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-10-29


ere Of two frequented bockshops on the BOuleyads
tell me, 10 not brisk. They would probably have
disappeared more rapidly from the shelves, even al
this time when material interests are said 10 b. 30
absorbing with all 20 the exclusion of intere,. in
higher tbiDgs, had they been signed by . new ,me.
Regular business advertisements, sbu,iyely severe
noticee and abundant pufs have abouoded. Am ing
these la,t that of Jules Janin, in the Dsbats OF
MoDd'y. the 10TH is remarkable for its dithyram-
BIC yeil-whlch YET s hardly ridiculous 40 siag
from his pen. For the friendship and admiration
Of the itWlleoni.t for the Poe. has been not only
sincere and uhwavrring. but has been displayed
sometimes within the late past ,ars. when the dis
play Of IL Vas true Il Of courage. But the sac
| ts my mercantile acquaintance just cited complain
| lie, nevertheless not brisk. Ca ne 50 rsnd pas
| And this very morning | read through Amyots
Windows, on the cover OF thst Very indecent and
! rather dull Fanny, by Ernest Feydeau, Seven
tetnth edition The consolation il. that when
| these volumes bear that inicriprion-and in time
they will come to it-Isnny will be forgotten eI.
| cept by blbliopbiles.
Certain it is that no other living French poet,
had almost said living poet, has presented TO the
world IN these past ten years anything that would
not suffer more by comparison with these poems
than they iuferby comparison with other gifts this
poet has made 10 US. That they do suffer by this
lat comparison, it is difficult 10 deny. They lack
grace and ease. More frequently than formerly,
fabricatitn takes the place Of inspiration; forced
eXtrsyas ance Of eIuberance; ideas which used 10
seem to crowd In, now seem pressed in; instead Of
flow there is strain; as if the grand Imagination
labOred rather than played.
But if Il ere be apparent failing, it is the falling
of giant, whose diminished force still dwarfs the
normal vigor Of ordinary mortals even Of the
poetic sort. Wearied and broken it may be by age
and exile, AID long deferred hope, there is yet an
indefnable something, strangely large and grand,
tha1s arf;. pnfh Afr
Janin styles it; a sick CyclOps, but Cyclops.
, Read that wonderful legend, La Conscience:
"When, along th his children, clothed in the skins
Of wild besss, dstraught, wan in the midst Of TEN
pests, Cain fed from before jehovah as night was
falling the gloomy mar came to the foot of a noun
children sad TO him Let us lie down on the ground
ard sleep. CAIN not sleeping, sat thinking at the
foot OF the mountain. Raising his head he saw in the
depths Of the unerea heavens wide open in the
darkness gazing fxedly on him through the night.
] am too near, he said, trembling He awakened
his sleeping children his weary wife, and renewed his
woul journey going thirty days and thirty nights ST.
lent pale furtve, startled at every sound not looking
behind him, without truce, without rest, till he reached
the shore Of the Let rest here, he said for
il is ture asylum; have reached the bounds Of
the world And as he sits down. he sees the eye in
the place in the lurid horizon. And black honor
SEXES him. and he cries. hide me ! aud Jabal father
of those who live under tents in the desert drew tent
about him. and when he sat encOmpassed by its thick
folds little Tss, his sons child, fair az the morning,
asks; You no longer see anything and Cain
him wall of brass but that eye still gszed upon him.
Then Tubsl Cain and bis brothers built great city,
With walls as thick as mountains and wrote upon the
gate, God shall not enter and they placed Cain In
great tower of stone within and there the eye looked
steadfasy the dreary haggard man. Then he said,
let dwell under the ground, in the loneliness of the
grave where shall see Inc, where sha see nothing
more. And they made him cave under ground, and
Ca;p aai1 II ia OOnd Then he went down and
when he seated there in the dark and they had
closed it up with great sone "tle eve was in the
tomb, and looked On CAIN"
Perhaps even this table Of contents in excessive
prose may help to an idea of the strange largeness
of this poem, through which there breathes an
air of those primeval days when mortals were yet
undwndled giants, and the sons of God sought COM
partnership with their daughters.
La Legende dcS Siectes is made up Of thirtyslx
POEMS varying in length from four to twelve hun
dred lines the mere themes suggestions Of which
are chiefly historical legendary, and are taken
here and there from the sacred and profane records
and traditions of the past and observations OF the
present. Commencing with the Biblical cycle 10
the first volume, the poet passes to the cadence
of Rome, to 1slamism, the heroic age OF Chris
tianity, the fabulous golden age of chivalry, to
Italy of the middle ages, the Renaissance in the
sixteenth century, to more modern history, to the
present time then over to the twentieth CEN
Jury" then out beyond the bounds of time to the
Last Judgment. A writer in the last number OF the
| Rerue des Deu1 Mondes says: 1T is not merely
profound and general thought, but direct aud
| tangible bond, that connects the numerous poems
published under the significant title OF La Legende
"des Siteles." Hardly catch the general common
thought, quite miss the tangible bond, and f. to
| discover the apt significance of the title and the
ensemble" Ofthe work, 80 patent to that friendly
critic. The pieces of which It'll composed are col
lected with scarcely any logical connection. Even
the chronological sequence 10 most irregular thus
Paradise and the birth of Eve, Cain, Daniel in the
| lions den, Ruth and Boar, BALKAN, and Christ at
the tomb of Lazarus, are the only subjects chosen
out of all the Biblical history. They have little In
| common but their external form, and their general
somber tone-caught from the sadness of exile. The
| book is dedicated ITO France" and bears this
| epigraph:
En- France on e sus ne To France, where was born
| Lsrbre derscine The tree, uprooted.
Dopne % euile moite. Yields It's ZEAL dead
The author says in the preface:
| "Tbose who please to glance at this book would
form an erroneous idea Of il, if they see there any
thing more than q commencement It is, 70 10 SPEAK,
but the first psge of another book And yet 1t Is not
fragment it is complete in itsel, peristyle in
itself complete edifce; as tree, the commencement
| of forest is complete. II is whole and but the
| part of another whole
The preface is filed with reproductions of this
| notion. These two volumes contain but the frst
part. the first SERIES as the subtitle runs:
"They ar. nothing but II cannot see that they are
| 90 much ssl successive impressions OF the human
| profile from date to date, from Eve, the mother OF
men, down to the Revolution the mother OF peoples
| When other volumes shall be joined to these,
40 Az TO render the work little less incomplete, this
series of impressions, loosely arranged in certain
chronological order will form sort OF gallery OF the
changing physioe nouy OF humanity. al Inese
same idea have no other connec ing tie than thread