the subject of his muse. He has praised in three different pieces, and in a different style, the Emperor and the Bourbons. The funeral hymn on the death of General Hoche; the epithalamium on the marriage of Napoleon and Maria Louisa, and the epistle to Louis XVIII., show with what flexibility of talent he could celebrate the republic, the empire, and the monarchy.

M. Baour-Lormian has passed through these three epochs without suffering the excesses of the revolution, the wars of the empire, or the saturnalia of the restoration, to injure his fortune, affect his courage, or menace his liberty. The son of a publisher at Toulouse, he cultivated poetry from his boyhood, and whilst his father, Baour, made a fortune in the book-trade, his son played the fine gentleman, and despising the name of Baour, which he thought too short, too common, and unsonorous for a poet, he added to it that of Lormian, the name of a little estate possessed by his ancestors; and still further to play the gentleman, he gave dinners to some complaisant friends, who praised his verses which nobody bought. His conduct gave rise to the following epigram:

"Baour libraire de province,

Dans son commerce a fait un joli gain;
Mais son fils poete assez mince,

Dans le même traffic se ruine à grand train.
Or savez vous comment les deux apôtres
En sens contraire ont gouverné leurs biens?
Le père debitait les ouvrages des autres;
Et le fils ne vend que les siens."

Satire was at first the favourite pursuit of the young poet. The attacks of the new Juvenal were directed against his fellow-townsmen, and the Satires Toulousaines, in which he criticises the greater part of the members of the Athenæum of Toulouse, and some of the literary men of the south of France, obtained him some notice on the banks of the Garonne. Emboldened by this first attempt, M. Baour-Lormian believed himself able to write an epic. In 1797 he published a translation in verse, of the "Jerusalem Delivered." The work was detestably bad. He afterwards revised, corrected, improved, and enlarged it; he added some notes, and a commentary by M M. Buchon and Troguon; but unfortunately he made it not a whit the better to read. It was, indeed, a newer volume; but if we find in it more of Baour, we find less of Tasso; if we see in it a skilful and somewhat melodious versification, we find so little agreement with the original, that we are tempted to believe the report in Paris, that M. Baour-Lormian is ignorant of Italian. The icy reception which the first edition of the translation of the "Jerusalem Delivered" received, brought the author back to his original style of composition-the satirical. He had come to try his fortune in Paris. He published, one after the other, the satires since known under the title of the Troismots, and addressed

them to a journalist of the name of Despaze, a satirist and Gascon like himself. It must be confessed, that the unjust censures, the undeserved sarcasms, with which they are filled, are often expressed in very smart verses. Led on by his epigrammatic style, he ventured to attack the celebrated Le Brun; but he found his master in him, and he fell crushed under the blows which were returned. The poet of Toulouse had ventured to say of Le Brun

'Lebrun de gloire se nourrit,
Aussi voyez comme il maigrit.'

His redoubtable adversary immediately replied-
"Sottise entretient l'embonpoint
Aussi Baour ne maigrit point."

The imitations in verse, of Ossian's poems, are infinitely better than the productions just mentioned. This version of the Celtic bard has many noble features. The following extract has some true poetical grandeur :

'HYMNE AU SOLEIL.

Roi du monde et du jour, guerrier aux cheveux d'or,
Quelle main, te courrant d'une armure enflammée,
Abandonna l'espace à ton rapide essor,

Et traça dan l'azur ta route accoutumée ?
Nul astre à tes côtes ne tire un front rival;
Les filles de la nuit à ton eclat palissent;
La lune devant toi fuit d'un pas inégal,
Et ses rayons douteux dans les flots s'engloutissent.
Sous les coups réunis de l'age et des antans
Tombe du haut sapin la tête achevetée ;
Le mont même, le mont assailli par le temps
Du poids de ses debris ecrase la vallée;
Mais les siécles jaloux epargnent ta beauté.
Un printemps eternel embellit ta jeunesse,
Tu t'empares des cieux en monarque endompté
Et les vœux de l'amour t'accompagnent sans cesse.
Quand la tempête éclate et rugit dans les airs,
Quand les vents font rouler au milieu des eclairs,
Le char retentissant qui porte le tonnerre,
Tu parois, tu souris, et consoles la terre.
Helas depuis long temps tes rayons glorieux
Ne viennent plus frapper ma debile paupière !
Je ne te verrai plus, soit, que, dans ta carrière,
Tu verses sur la plaine un océan de feux,
Soit que, vers l'occident le cortége des ombres,
Accompagne tes pas on que tes vagues sombres
Renferment dans le sein d'une humide prison!
Mais peut-étre ô soleil, tu nàs qu'une saison;
Pent être succombant sous le fardeau des âges,
Un jour tu subiras notre commun destin ;
Tu seras insensible à la voix du matin,
Et tu l'endormiras au milieu des nuages.'

M. Baour-Lormian's poems obtained for him considerable encouragement; they attracted towards him the notice of Napoleon, and as the Homer of the day, he became the appointed bard of the conqueror of Italy, A system of exchange in praises and benefactions was established between these two so differently celebrated In his poem, Sur l'etablissement du culte, M. Baour pays an homage to his hero, which almost amounts to adoration. He makes God say, through a cloud, that the First Consul is a Messiah:

Alors paroit un homme en des jours plus prospères
Heureux médiateur entre mon peuple et moi. . . . .

"

This, however, did not prevent him in 1815, a few months after Napoleon had made him an academician, as successor to the Chavelier de Boufflers, from addressing an epistle to the King. In this poem, feeble in every thing but its monarchical sentiments, like M. de Chateaubriand, the poet cries, in an ecstacy of penitence, 'Abjurons les erreurs dont nous fumes epris.'

Satires and epistles are the most favourite pieces, therefore, of our author, and to abuse the humble and flatter the great, there is not a muse more fruitful than his. To those of the first kind, which we have already mentioned, should be added one in which he has lately attacked the sect of the romantiques, a new school, which has for its aim the regeneration of French literature, and of which Le Globe is the grand organ. To those of the other species should be added three pieces of a different style and merit. Les fêtes de l'Hymen, a poem written on the marriage of Napoleon; La Retour à la Religion, a dithyrambic in honour of the restoration; and Le Chant du Sacre, inspired by the journey of Charles X. to Rheims.

But whilst satire and flattering epistles are the favourite subjects of M. Baour-Lormian, he has attempted, in times barren of public events, the opera, tragedy, and even romances. There are two operas by him; La Jerusalem Delivrée, which was first played at Paris on the same evening as the conspiracy of Mallet broke out; and L'Oriflamme, which he composed, jointly with M. Etienne, in February, 1814. There are also two tragedies by him; the one Mahomet the Second, which had no success on the stage; the other, Joseph en Egypte, a drama, good in style, but wanting in interest and effect; it, nevertheless, obtained considerable success, thanks to one character, that of Benjamin, happily conceived, and a chef d'oeuvre of nature, sweetness, and sensibility. Lastly, without making mention of the poem entitled l'Atlantique, now a long time forgotten, there are by the same author, Les Vielleés Poëtiques et Morales, which has gone through many editions; Rustan, ou les Voeux, followed by thirty-eight dreams in prose; and the romance of Duranti, which was published when the author was fiftysix years of age, and of which we shall give an analysis.

Duranti, First President of the Parliament of Toulouse, was the son of a Counsellor of Requests, in the palace of that city. Whilst young, he embraced the profession of an advocate, and distinguished himself by his eloquence. Appointed to be Capitoul, in 1563, and afterwards Advocate-General, his virtues and talents shone conspicuously forth, and obtained for him, in 1581, the rank of First President in the Parliament of Toulouse. He filled this situation till the time of the breaking out of the league. At this disastrous and terrible epoch, the most fearful in the history of the French Monarchy, at this period, when six conspirators, under the orders of the house of Guise, conspired against the legitimate authority of Henri III., it seemed that in perpetuating the horrors of the civil war, it was the intention of heaven to inake France expiate the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew. The earth itself, under the stream of blood with which it was deluged, became barren and barbarous as the men who ravaged it, and who perished of hunger. The Spaniards, invited by the leaguers, encamped in the midst of the French provinces, and the people, oppressed by want, and excited by the partizans of Mayenne and Guise, marched to the civil war to escape the agonies of despair. The magistracy alone remained faithful to its charge, as is mentioned in these verses of Voltaire :

"Dans ces jours de tumulte et de sédition,
Thémis résistoit seule a la contagion ;
La soif de s'agrandie, la crainte, l'esperance
Rien n'avoir dans ses mains fait pencher sa balance;
Son temple etoit sans tache, et la simple equité
Auprès d'elle en fugant cherchoit sa sureté."

HENRIADE, chant. 4.

The parliament of Toulouse, like that of Paris, remained faithful to the cause of Henri III. Duranti, by the force of his talents and virtues, more than by his authority, had for some time been able to resist the attempts of the factious; but at the news of the death of the Duke of Guise, whom Henri had caused to be assassinated, the leaguers of Toulouse rushed to arms, roused the populace, attacked the house of Duranti, seized him, and carried him first to prison, and then to the scaffold.

It was in February, 1589, that a new movement took place at Toulouse. Suddenly the gate of the Convent of the Holy Inquisition is burst open; the people roused to madness, call for the First President Duranti. But Duranti is wrapped in meditation. He is employed in correcting his admirable work on the Church; he has first finished his letter to D. Jean de la Barriere, Institutor of the order des Feuillans, and in which he prays him to obtain the approval of his book at Rome, and to have it printed there after his death. It seemed by the calmness of his countenance, that he was still seated in his own house, by the side of the vast chimney, where the heaped-up fuel burnt in the morning through silver bars.

At length, roused from his work by the tumult, he leaves his dungeon. He knew that he must die. He knelt down, addressing his last prayer to heaven; then, rising with the dignity of the president, he arranged his long black beard, which floated on his breast, and shook his red robe, moist with the vapour of his dungeon. He puts on his calm and serene forehead that cap of the president, which he never used but in entering the temple, at the head of his attendants.

"Duranti! Duranti!" madly shouted the crowd. But Duranti advanced towards them to the entrance of the prison. His fine countenance, full of gravity, inspired respect, and commanded silence. On looking at Monseigneur, the First President, it might have been believed that the assassins came to suffer the punishment of their crimes, and that he had been pronouncing their sentence. Alas! in these miserable times the magistrate was as criminal in the eyes of the people, as royalty.

It was the last day of the Carnival; the furious populace were clad in a variety of frightful, or foolish disguises. Rustics, soldiers, priests, inquisitors, monks, white and black, bishops, and filles de joie, all came in some extravagant costume to assassinate the First President of the city, in the same manner as they went to a show. We have seen how the execrable massacre of St. Bartholomew had hardened all hearts! It has been said that the voice of the sovereign justifies every crime of the subject. In fact, with what face could the infamous Medicis demand the punishment of a murder, when she herself had committed so many?

But the President demanded what were his crimes? His crimes! excellent man! They were, his having wept for the blood which had been spilt; his having executed the law when it had lost its strength; his having opposed the encroachments on the rights of society; his having-what shall we say?-cast some innocent sarcasms against the Capitole of the citizens of Toulouse, and having slept whilst some poets of the city disputed for the golden eglantine and the silver palm, which Clemence Isaure had the folly to give to the poets of the Academie and the Athénée.

Then, in the midst of the crowd, an axe, guided by a sure hand, struck the magistrate, who fell immediately. The respect due to the dead was not awarded to him. As there was no sledge ready, they put him on his feet, and fastened him to piles, together with the king's picture. Some pulled his beard; others seizing his nose, cried, The King was dear to him, and behold they are together!' The students of the good city of Toulouse, in company with the filles de joie, danced round the body; and in the evening, at the end of their orgies, they put him on a throne, enveloped him in the portrait of the King, his lord and master, and led the populace to the pillage of his house.

The next day the mob proceeded to the country-house of the