pronounced on Paris, the city of pleasure, which has become the city
of greed. This verse is appropriate to our own commercial
enterprise:


"Vends les bois ou dormaient Viviane et Merlin!
L'Aigle de mont n'est fait que pour ta gibeciere;
La neige vierge est le pour fournir ta glaciere;
Le torrent qui bondit sur le roc sybillin,
Et vole, diamant, neige, ecume et poussiere,
N'est plus bon qu'e tourner tes meules de moulin!"


In the burning indignation of this poem, M. De Banville reaches his
highest mark of attainment. "Les Exiles" is scarcely less
impressive. The outcast gods of Hellas, wandering in a forest of
ancient Gaul, remind one at once of the fallen deities of Heine, the
decrepit Olympians of Bruno, and the large utterance of Keats's
"Hyperion." Among great exiles, Victor Hugo, "le pere le-bas dans
l'ile," is not forgotten:


"Et toi qui l'accueillis, sol libre et verdoyant,
Qui prodigues les fleurs sur tes coteaux fertiles,
Et qui sembles sourire e l'ocean bruyant,
Sois benie, ile verte, entre toutes les iles."


The hoarsest note of M. De Banville's lyre is that discordant one
struck in the "Idylles Prussiennes." One would not linger over