the most
famous of his poems, _Le Lac_, a monody descriptive of his feelings on
returning alone to the shores of the lake where he had formerly passed
the day with his mistress. And throughout all his poetical work
precisely the same characteristics are to be found. Lamartine's lyre
gave forth an inexhaustible flow of melody--always faultless, always
pellucid, and always, in the same key.

* * * * *

During the Revolution, under the rule of Napoleon, and in the years
which followed his fall, the energies of the nation were engrossed by
war and politics. During these forty years there are fewer great names
in French literature than in any other corresponding period since the
Renaissance. At last, however, about the year 1830, a new generation of
writers arose who brought back all the old glories and triumphantly
proved that the French tongue, so far from having exhausted its
resources, was a fresh and living instrument of extraordinary power.
These writers--as has so often been the case in France--were bound
together by a common literary creed. Young, ardent, scornful of the
past, dazzled by the possibilities of the future, they raised the
standard of revolt against the traditions of Classicism, promulgated a
new aesthetic doctrine, and, after a sharp struggle and great
excitement, finally succeeded in completely establishing their view. The
change which they introduced was of enormous importance, and for this
reason the date 1830 is a cardinal one in the literature of France.
Every sentence, every verse that has been written in French since then
bears upon it, somewhere or other, the imprint of the great Romantic
Movement which came to a head in that year. What it was that was then
effected--what the main differences are between French literature before
1830 and French literature after--deserves some further consideration.

The Romantic School--of which the most important members were VICTOR
HUGO, ALFRED DE VIGNY, THEOPHILE GAUTIER, ALEXANDRE DUMAS, and ALFRED DE
MUSSET--was, as we have said, inspired by that supremely French love of
Rhetoric which, during the long reign of intellect and prose in the
eighteenth century, had been almost entirely suppressed. The new spirit
had animated the prose of Chateaubriand and the poetry of Lamartine; but
it was the spirit only: the _form_ of both those writers retained most
of the important characteristics of the old tradition. It was new wine
in