prose, his attempts at criticism, are not very weighty or
instructive. With all his limitations, however, he represents, in
company with M. Leconte de Lisle, the second of the three
generations of poets over whom Victor Hugo reigned.

M. De Banville has been called, by people who do not like, and who
apparently have not read him, un saltimbanque litteraire (a literary
rope-dancer). Other critics, who do like him, but who have limited
their study to a certain portion of his books, compare him to a
worker in gold, who carefully chases or embosses dainty processions
of fauns and maenads. He is, in point of fact, something more
estimable than a literary rope-dancer, something more serious than a
working jeweller in rhymes. He calls himself un raffine; but he is
not, like many persons who are proud of that title, un indifferent
in matters of human fortune. His earlier poems, of course, are much
concerned with the matter of most early poems--with Lydia and
Cynthia and their light loves. The verses of his second period
often deal with the most evanescent subjects, and they now retain
but a slight petulance and sparkle, as of champagne that has been
too long drawn. In a prefatory plea for M. De Banville's poetry one
may add that he "has loved our people," and that no poet, no critic,
has honoured Shakespeare with brighter words of praise.

Theodore de Banville was born at Moulin, on March 14th 1823, and he
is therefore three years younger than the dictionaries of biography
would make the world believe. He is the son of a naval officer,
and, according to M. Charles Baudelaire, a descendant of the
Crusaders. He came much too late into the world to distinguish
himself in the noisy exploits of 1830, and the chief event of his
youth was the publication of "Les Cariatides" in 1842. This first