O'er pathless plains, at early hours, The sleepy rustic sloomy goes; The dews, brush'd off from grass and flowers, While every leaf that forms a shade, Stoops, bowing with a diamond drop. "Tis sweet to meet the morning breeze, When Nature every sweet prepares To entertain our wish'd delay,— The images which morning wears, The wakening charms of early day! Now let me tread the meadow paths While glitt'ring dew the ground illumes, As, sprinkled o'er the withering swaths, Their moisture shrinks in sweet perfumes; And hear the beetle sound his horn; And hear the skylark whistling nigh, Sprung from his bed of tufted corn, A hailing minstrel in the sky." DE BERANGER. To the information, given by himself, in one of his Songs, that he was born in Paris, in the year 1780, that his grandfather was a tailor, he himself an attendant in an inn, (kept, we believe, by his mother,) struck by lightning in his youth, apprenticed to a printer, and subsequently a clerk in a public office, little is to be added of De Béranger's early life. He has been heard to say, that he learned to read he scarcely remembers how; but that the first books he studied were, the Bible, and a translation of Homer. In these volumes consisted the whole library of the 66 Auberge ;" and it may be conceived how powerfully such studies must have aided to fix the bias of so poetical a mind. In the printingoffice, he had a wider field for improvement. He there learned the rules of his mother tongue, its orthography and versification-and beyond these, his knowledge of language does not extend. Neither is there any thing apparent in his songs, to make us suppose him a man of extensive reading, beyond the volume of the human mind. That he has deeply studied; and for his admirable commentaries upon it, we cheerfully dispense with a display of learning. In his humble station of clerk in the office of public instruction, he found leisure for the composition of some of those songs which have since become so celebrated. He was in the habit of singing these productions in the society of his friends, and they soon got abroad. "Le Senateur” and “Le Roi d'Yvetot”—the first, a bitter satire against the corruption and subserviency of senators-the latter, a not less keen attack upon the Emperor,-were particularly popular; and it is said, that Napoleon laughed at the wit of the lesson, by which he failed to profit. Lucien Bonaparte, the great patron of letters of his day, had heard of De Béranger, and became his protector. Upon the voluntary exile of Lucien, the Poet was desirous of proving his gratitude, by the dedication of a volume of pastoral poetry. The censors suppressed the dedication, which contained expressions little palatable to the Imperial taste. De Béranger, on this, abandoned his intention, and his Idyls remain to this day unpublished. When Napoleon lost his empire for the first time, the noise of his fall was not echoed by the muse of De Béranger. He scorned to libel, when in misfortune, him whom he had satirized in the fulness of his power. Quietly fulfilling the duties of his station, he saw the return of the Emperor, but he did not profit by his temporary success. was offered, during the Hundred Days, the office of censor, a place of considerable emolument and influence, but little suited to the free and liberal turn of his mind. He unhesitatingly refused it. He In the year 1815, during the occupation of France by the Allies, he was prevailed on to publish a small volume of songs. Its success was prodigious; and although it contained several of those afterwards selected for prosecution, they did not then attract the vengeance of the Ministers. With his celebrity came its natural consequence-improvement. He wrote new songs, each one better than the other. Subjects of the most inviting nature presented themselves in the political tergiversation, and the revival of religious bigotry, which every day became more evident. De Béranger seized on such topics, and made the chastisement of the offenders his peculiar province. The Government became indignant, and the "Chansonnier" was deprived of his place. But there never was a more perfect triumph prepared for a literary man, than this destitution procured for its intended victim. His cause was at once espoused as national, and he was pronounced a martyr. His private friends, a numerous party, rallied round him, and the public joined in circles of increasing extent, till the whole surface of society was ruffled by the wide-spreading eddies of discontent, emanating from him who floated buoyantly on the troubled waters. A new edition of his songs was announced, with an additional volume. Ten thousand copies were printed, and instantly sold. The prosecution of the author was resolved on; the suppression of the work commanded; and the discovery of four copies rewarded the zeal of the police. De Béranger was brought to trial on four separate charges, namely for having outraged morality, insulted religion, offended the King's person, and excited the public to sedition. Fourteen songs were selected to bear out these charges. The interest created was quite unparalleled. The court was crowded to an excess scarcely before witnessed; and the powers of the counsel employed in the |