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Lamartine determined on carrying into effect his long-devised plan, and on quitting the shores of his country for several years. To that voyage we shall hereafter more specially refer. It was one of the great events of his life—but the loss of his darling and beloved daughter there has thrown a melancholy over his spirit, which it is not very probable will ever wholly forsake it.

Whilst absent on this poetical and religious journey to the Holy Land, the electors of a small electoral college named Bergues, a fortified town in France, in the Department of the North, a few miles from Dunkirk, thought fit to appoint him their deputy. On first receiving the news of this wholly unexpected honour, De Lamartine hesitated as to its acceptance, but he finally determined on returning to France to fulfil the new duties imposed upon him. At the ensuing general elections he was renamed at Bergues, and, at the same time, appointed deputy by his native town, Macon; but, as he had promised the electors of the former place to remain their deputy in case they should again appoint him, he declined becoming the representative of his birthplace. At the last general election, however, having been returned by the electors of both the college Intra Muros, and that of Extra Muros at Macon, he felt it his duty to accept one of these nominations, to the great regret of the electors of Bergues, who had returned him without a dissentient voice. This rapid sketch of the outline of De Lamartine's life will materially assist in the consideration of his character and labours as a poet and as a politician. We have much to add, and much to fill up-but the sketch is before our readers.

DE LAMARTINE is at once a poet, a moralist, and a politician. It is not our intention to depict him in only one of these characters, but to present the whole man. His poetry is the charm of his life, his morals the ornament of his life, his social political system the end of his life. There was a time when it was truly said of him, "Aimer, prier, et chanter-voila toute sa vie !"

This can be said no longer? There is another verb which must now be added, and that verb is "agir." He

is now the active man, the daily benefactor of his species, the suppressor of gaming houses, the abolisher of lotteries, the protector of foundlings, the gradual emancipator of slaves, the Christian instructor of the people, the visitor of the prisons and lunatic asylums, and the CHIEF of that SOCIAL PARTY in France whose efforts are little known in England, and whose exertions it is our design to communicate, as we feel it our duty to applaud.

This happy combination of grace and imagination with moral and Christian principle of blandness of manner and gentleness of character with decision of mind and practical philanthropy, is not often to be met with in this world of ours; and when it is so, it is to be hailed with delight, and held up to imitation and praise. A Christian poet, a Christian gentleman, a Christian man of education and genius, and a Christian politician, who will not allow his political system to be based on any thing but morals and religion, is a man as rare as he is valuable; it is therefore that we have determined on presenting a sketch of his character.

De Lamartine is now the poet, the moralist, and the politician, and we will examine what he has done, and what he is doing, in these three capacities.

If there be not a vast deal of method in our summary, and if sometimes we appear not to be sufficiently attentive to the chronological order of our history, let it be remembered that after all, we are writing a sketch of a poet, and that to methodize too much, would infringe on our prerogatives of following him in his flights, and of attempting, at least, to give an idea of his fancy, as well as of his intellectual attainments. The 19th century in France has hitherto produced but two great poets and distinguished writers -CHATEAUBRIAND and DE LAMARTINE. They are both royalists. They have both remained inflexibly attached to the fallen dynasty. They are both essentially monarchical. They have never hesitated to declare this, nor shrunk from rendering it apparent. What can the democratic school in France produce to compare with them? Notwithstanding all the vauntings, the proud and idle boastings of that school, what has it done-where are its names

what are its productions? Victor Hugo, though most unsettled in his

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politics since his invitation by LouisPhilippe to the fêtes at Versailles, is yet far, very far from belonging to the George Sand and Alexander Dumas' class of writers. Chateaubriand and De Lamartine are in France at this day unrivalled.

The favourite writers of De Lamartine, when he was young, were Madame de Staël and Chateaubriand. But more tender than this his literary mother, and more philosophical than M. de Chateaubriand, his literary fa. ther, retaining the royalist instincts of his birth and education, at the same time feeling a profound love of rational liberty, he has at once sympathized with the past and looked forward to the future. His ideas are calmly progressive. He is noble and great in his enthusiasm and never having rea. son to doubt the sincerity of his own heart, he places much confidence in the assurances and declarations of others. When young, he was so enthusiastic in favour of Madame de Staël, that he passed a whole day by the road-side merely to see her pass in her caleche. It was the only time he beheld her. For Chateaubriand, also, he had a profound affection ;-and on one occasion, in order to see him, he climbed a wall, and remained there no inconsiderable period-and then, having satisfied his longing eyes, he descended and inscribed on the outer gate some verses to the genius he admired. This was the enthusiasm of youth. It is now moderated by years, and calmed by reflection.

That the young De Lamartine should search for great men, and great minds-for religion allied to literature, and poetry to morals,-can excite no surprise in those who remember, that, though born of Christian parents, and educated in the Christian faith, he lived in the epoch of the triumph of Bonaparte and Delille-and could no where find, though already a poet and philosoper himself either poetry or philosophy.

The education of De Lamartine being one of a strictly private and retired character, he had few opportunities afforded him of knowing the men of the day, or the writers of the age. He had a secret partiality for Jean Jacques Rousseau, not as the reasoner and the false philosopher of the "Social Contract," but as the poet of Heloise. With the works of

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Ossian, Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Milton, Bernardin St Pierre, he became intimately acquainted; and many stanzas-nay, thousands of lines-have been written by him, which he afterwards destroyed, but which his friends and admirers now, indeed, wish had been preserved. At last he was prevailed on to read to a select party of friends, his "LAC ;"—and the history of this first communication of his talent to the public is worth relating.

It was in a large saloon that a numerous audience was collected by the kindness and affection of a friend. He dreaded the moment. Timid and modest, he would gladly have adjourned the day when the hour drew near. He felt that he was a mere young country squire, a mere poet from Macon, the son of a faithful royalist and of a brave soldier-but that was all; and those who were collected to hear him were-CRITICS! When his harmonious poesy reached the at first inattentive ears of this Areopagus, he was ready to sink into the earth with apprehension; but soon he perceived that they became attentive-then that their eyes glistened with delight—then that they gave expression to their admiration and astonishment-and at last, when he concluded, he raised his eyes, and found that he was dignified with the title of poet. At that moment his auditory perceived that he was handsome as well as poetical, and that his black hair, fine ardent eyes, and noble open forehead, denoted him to be a youth of no ordinary nature. though he was successful in a saloon, why should he be in the press? Chateaubriand had been denounced as a pitiful writer-and so what chance had he? But necessity-yes, necessity— at last compelled him to publish his first volume, "MEDITATIONS;" for he had spent all his money at Paris, had lived in the capital as a poet, was too good a son to apply to his mother for aid, and was obliged to address himself to M. De Genoude, now the chief proprietor of the Gazette de France, for advice and assistance. That gentleman placed in the hands of the poet a few hundred francs, bade him take courage, kindly disposed of his work for him, and thus brought before the public, ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.— The success of the Meditations was prodigious,-not greater than they deserved, but still prodigious; after

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the sallies of the empire, after the tame and almost insipid, but amiable literature of De Jouey and Abbé De Lille, and after the correct M. De Fontanes, it was prodigious to see a serious poet-indeed, a religious poet read with enthusiasm, and raised to honour and fame. It was a sort of poetry which only addressed itself to highly cultivated minds. Sister of the poetry of Manzoni and of Pellico, sister of the poetry of Tasso, as of that of the Hebrews, it showed itself calm and suave, greatly simple, and surrounded with all the charms of Christian beauty and truth. Sometimes his Meditations resembled the poor sick daughter of love, and were elegiac in the style of Sappho. Sometimes the voice was of a different tone; and the cry of grief was heard, and the hymn of expiation was chanted, and his sacred lyre riveted all attentions and gained all hearts.

The Meditations at once placed him in the rank of poets. At the French Academy his post was soon marked; and when he published his Harmonies, he only added to his former reputation. His first two volumes were the first epo of his life; they are coloured as was his mind-they are the impressions of his nature;-the sun of Naples inflaming the horizon-the banks of the silver sea-the perfumes of Greece and of Italy—the dark blue lake-and then the tumultuous waves. Ask him why he sings? and he replies to you by the lines of the "Dying Poet,"

"Mais pourquoi chantes-tu?-Demande

à Philomèle

Pourquoi durant les nuits sa douce voix

se mèle

Au doux bruit des ruisseaux sous l'ombrage roulant ?

Je chantais, mes amis, comme l'homme respire, Comme l'oiseau gêmit, comme le vent soupire,

Comme l'eau murmure en coulant."

As a specimen of another sort, and as proving the power, as well as the flexibility of the mind of De Lamartine, we cite a passage from the very same poem on the death of Napoleon, to which we elsewhere refer. Whilst Byron, Goethe, Uhland, Manzoni, Beranger, and Casimir De la Vigne, were all surrounding the shade of Bonaparte with a cortege of their funereal_airs, like the harps of Scotland

around the shade of the mighty Fingal, De Lamartine, on the contrary, dared to be true, and ascending to the sources of the glory of the departed, he signalised by one strophe, as terrible as it was just, the sanguinary character of the hero. The following lines are sublime, not less for their poetry than for their sentiments :

"Les dieux étaient tombés, les trônes étaient vides;

La victoire te prit sur ses ailes rapides; D'un peuple de Brutus la gloire te fit roi. Ce siècle dont l'écume entrainait dans sa

course

Les mœurs, les rois, les dieux, refoulé

vers sa source,

Recula d'un pas devant toi!"

The poetry of De Lamartine has become the true social poetry of France, for it always proceeds from the heart, and is addressed to the heart. Besides this, it is the source of really pious and devotional sentiments. It is singular that the poetry of De Lamartine has few enemies in France. Charles Nodier, indeed, has published a saucy and uncivil satire; but he is the only exception. In general, his contemporaries have approved his labours, and rejoiced even in his success. All seem to recognise, that, in all his efforts,, all his works, all his speeches, all his poetry-in all that he thinks and says he has ever at heart the sacred cause of humanity and religion.

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Between the Meditations and the Harmonies of De Lamartine there is a vast difference, but it is that resulting from the lapse of time and from mental suffering. The Harmonies, like the Meditations, are the production of an enthusiastic mind and a believing and pious soul. sorrow had his young days shadedsuffering had left its impress upon his heart; and there is all the difference between the two works that there is between tears and joy, or the poetical forebodings of evil, and evil actually realized. He who was tender as Tasso and sensitive as Schiller in his Meditations, is in his Harmonies sublime as Klopstock in his Messiah, and religious as Fenelon. There are four elements in the poetry of the Harmonies:-the recollections of his childhood-the life of an orderly, pious, and happy family-the political transformation of his mind from a secluded provincial royalist to that of

one who even then dreamt of forming a "social party"-and, finally, real, genuine, heartfelt piety.

The mother of De Lamartine was his early idol. She was a model of charity and of maternal perfection. She was the Dorcas of Milly-the Martha and Mary united of Burgundy. Her dwelling was one of peace, harmony, love. There was no turbulent joy there were no restless desires. Herself, her daughters, and her son, lived for others and for God; and it was thus that his heart received all its earliest and best impressions.

The humble residence of Milly was ever, and is still, the object of De Lamartine's grateful love.

"Il est sur la colline
Une blanche maison,
Un rocher la domine,
Un buisson d'aubépine
Est tout son horizon."

The death of the mother of De Lamartine was the first great trouble of his life—that of Alphonse, his darling boy, who was separated from him by death when two years of age, his second-and that of the loss of Julia, his lovely and beloved girl, the third. The day he was named member of the French Academy his mother expired, after the most dreadfully acute sufferings. Feeble and aged, she took a warm bath in a laundry far removed from her room. She was unable to turn off the supply of hot water—her strength failed her she was literally scalded to death-and two days afterwards expired. Oh, who has not wept with the poet when perusing his poem entitled Ma Mère? At the age of eighteen, De Lamartine received his first impressions of love for woman; but it was the love "that boys feel and poets feign," for the object of his heart's truest affection was, and still is, Eliza, his beloved and tenderly cherished wife. It was not, as Ernest Falconnet supposes in his L'Art en Province, to Elvira, or to any imaginary being, that the Tombeau de Sorrente, the Crucifix, Ischia, and Chant d'Amour, &c. &c., were addressed, but to Eliza, his now faithful and devoted wife. His dedication of Childe Harold is to her, as also Jocelyn, and, indeed, he has associated her with all that he has written and loved.

VOL. XLV. No. CCLXXIX.

Le Tombeau de Sorrente was written, at the early age of eighteen, on occasion of his first visit to Italy. In 1819 he became acquainted with Eliza, now Madame De Lamartine, and before he knew her had never published a line of poetry.

In 1826, when he made his journey to Italy with Madame De Lamartine, he was called on to fight a duel with a Liberal Italian officer. Some lines in the last canto of Childe Harold having depicted, under sombre colours, the prospects of Italy, an Italian general affected to regard them as insulting, and a rencontre took place. The duel was fought with swords, and M. De Lamartine was wounded in his arm. This was a deplorable acquiescence on the part of a Christian poet with the barbarous usages of half-civilized society. De Lamartine was even then such a man as ought not to have been overcome should have refused, with indignation, by the age in which he lived. He to accept such a challenge. He had written a description of Italy, and had so written as a poet. It was monstrous champion, forsooth, of a different opifor one man to set himself up as the nion, and require his adversary to fight him with swords. If De La martine had been killed, this "patriot general" would have been a murderer. himself, in his Episode de Sorrente — But we will say, with De Lamartine

"Mais pourquoi revenir sur ces scenes passées,

Laissez le vent gémir et le flot murmurer, Revenez, revenez, ò mes tristes pensées, Je veux rêver et non pleurer.

In his Harmonies, De Lamartine foretold the future social influence of poetry. They contained the germs of the life of a man who is at once political and popular. His poetry is to produce results-not to please the ear. It is useful as well as melodious; he who wrote the Death of Socrates, and the celebrated lines on Revolutions, is the Christian who wrote the Hymns to Jehovah,-and to the Holy Spirit. In all that he has done, he has sought to be "social," and to leave the world improved by his poetry as well as by his philosophy and his political morals.

M. de Lamartine was somewhat surprised by the Revolution of 1830. His belief and his sympathies were both

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wounded; he could not approve of the ordinances he could not ratify the Revolution, so he resolved to leave France for the East-remained at Marseilles for some time-freighted a vessel at his own expense-and there addressed his celebrated Adieux to Sir Walter Scott, and to the "romanciers" of Europe.

proof

for its illustrious author, and
that all that is most lovely and inviting
may be most virtuous and true.

In examining the "Souvenirs, &c." of De Lamartine in the East, it must also be remembered, that they were not written for publication that they were the thoughts and feelings of each day, and that the mournfulness which bangs over many and many a page, was at once natural and tender. He left for the East full of the pious traditions of his youth, impressed with the still glowing recollection of the plates in that old Bible which he read on the knees of his sainted mother, and he took with him his young and admirable wife, and his lovely Julia, who was snatched from him by a premature and unanticipated death. He brought back with him to France the pale and lifeless ashes of his child-and this volume of his, which criticism has attacked for its want of method and of philosophy, was the last sigh uttered by a father at the tomb of his darling. If the book be thus read, criticism will be silent and the heart will alone speak to testify its sym

The history of this, to him, deplorable pilgrimage, was written by him daily; and on his return to France he published his "Souvenirs, impressions, pensées, et passages, pendant son voyage en Orient." This work has had a success almost unparalleled, and yet it has been attacked with vigour by the critics of his own, as well as of other countries. Those criticisms were in some cases moderate and correct, but in others absurd and grotesque. He has been accused of exaggeration-but the Arabs and the Maronites have since attested to the accuracy ofhis statements. He has been accused of being an aristocrat, because he travelled like a gentleman, and was generous and compassionate. He was accused of being so "universally benevolent" as to dimin-pathy as well as its admiration. As ish the force and effect of his praises, and this was because he described vir tue as well as vice, and goodness and beauty, as mere moral beauty, where ever he met it. And then, lastly, he was accused of purchasing, by his gifts and courteousness, the praises of the Maronite sheiks, of the Arab hordes, of Abougosh, and of Lady H. Stanhope, the niece of Pitt and the queen of the desert; and this because he was received by them with respect, or treated by them with kindness. Thus wrote Charles Nodier, who ought to have known and written better. But the book of De Lamartine is a beautiful book, an ornament to the literature of the country, a title to glory and fame

we follow the poet from Malta to the coasts of Greece, to the ruins of Athens, to Syria, and to Palestine, we are present with him in all his joys, his happiness, his domestic life, his affections, and his bright and glowing prospects. His magnificent excursion made with his daughter in the plains of Syria, causes the soul to vibrate, and the heart to be glad; and it is only when that daughter is torn from his arms, that he thus describes his desolation and his woe. There is nothing supe rior to the following lines, (in his poem called "Gethsemene," where he lost his Julia), in any poem in any lan guage.

"Maintenant tout est mort dans ma maison aride:
Deux yeux toujours pleurant sont toujours devant moi;
Je vais sans savoir ou, j'attends sans savoir quoi,
Mes bras s'ouvrent à rien et se ferment à vide.
Tous mes jours et mes nuits sont de même couleur.
La prière en mon sein avec l'espoir est morte,
Mais c'est Dieu qui t'écrase, ô mon ame soit forte,
Baise sa main sous la douleur !"

We cannot consent, then, to subject the "Souvenirs, &c. of the East," of M. De Lamartine to the ordinary tests of criticism. The work must be judged of by the heart, as well as by

the reason, and the more it is known and studied by both, the more it will be cherished.

For a long period of time De Lamartine has been preparing and com

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