The Portland daily press., 1881-03-09
IA. c. swinburne in Fortnightly Review.l
i Heine on MusSet. ,r

Heine, that snake of the Hebrew Paradise
a ''smooth-lipped serpent, surely high in
spired"-was never inspired more truly
by the serpent's genius of virulen'
wisdom than when he uttered, In a
most characteristic hiss of sarcasm, a sentence
as conclusive in its Judgment as venomous in
its malignity, describing Musset before he had
reached middle age as young man with
very fine career-behini him. (ain jeune
honme dun bien beau passe). Never was there
a truer, as assuredly there never was crueler
witticism Brilliant and early as was the first
flight of Mr.. Tennyson above the bright circle
of his early college friends and admirers-a
circle then very plausibly defnable by name
less dogs Of letters as "mutual admiration so
ciety" artifcially heated by the steam of re-
ciprocal incense for the incubation of 'coterie
glory" the simultaneous dawn of Musset on
the far more splendid horizon OF contemporary
Paris was itself as far more splendid than the
sunrise over Cambridge of Poems Chiefly
Lyrical. When all due deductions andire-
serves are made, it remains undeniable that
the world of letters has hardly ever seen such
first book as the "Contes dEspagne ct dit
alie." Its very faults were promises-unhap-
PLY too soon to be falsifed-of ripper and not
and shallow criticisms, none ever was shallow
or or thinner than that which would describe
these firstlings of Musset's genius as mere By
ronic echoes. In that case they would be tune
less as their original, whereas they are the
notes of singer who cannot but sing-though
perhaps they gave no great evidence that he
could do much else. But of all poems written
in youth these are perhaps the likeiest or rath-
or, the surest for a season to stir the brain and
sting the blood OF adolescence. To do them
Justice, they should first be read at the age
Of IS-or 20 at the latest. After Catullus and
Ovid, there is probably no poet with whose in
fluence pious parent or a judicious preceptor
should be so anxious to Undue or may be so
confident of imbuing the innocent mind of
| ingenious youth. He has more than the
| audacious charm and seductive impudence Of
| Cherubin, and the graceless grace who served
| his boyhood for a muse had some half a dozen
| nightingale notes lin the compass OF her voice,
which in clear sheer quality of blithe and bird
| like spontaneity were beyond the reach OF Ten
| neyson. But when the pretty page of Thack-
eray's ballad grows bearded and then bald, 1t
| remains to be tried what manner OF brain was
ripening under the curly gold locks Of his nom
| age. And lin such things" as the too splen-
did and snowy puberty Of Musset
"There is a rotten ripeness superyenes
On the first moment of maturity"
| Unjust or barely Just in its original applica-
| tion to one who lived to show himself bravest
| at the last" and far other than a passionate
| weakling," another couplet OF Sir Henry Tay-
| lor is exactly significant of the later emotion
| felt toward Musset by men whom he naturally
| fascinated before their own minds were hors de
page:
| "I heard the sorrowful sensualist complain
If with compassion, not without aisdain.