ng, criticism, poetry,
romance--and he did everything well, but perhaps nothing supremely well.
If an exception be made to this verdict, it must be in favour of his
short tales, some of which are exquisite, and all but, if not quite,
masterpieces. As librarian of the Mazarin Library, Nodier was a kind of
centre of the early Romantic circle, and, though he was more than
twenty years older than most of its members, he identified himself
thoroughly with their aims and objects. His consummate knowledge of the
history and vocabulary of the French tongue probably had no mean
influence on that conservative and restorative character which was one
of the best sides of the movement. Casimir Delavigne was born at Havre
in 1793. He first distinguished himself by his _Messeniennes_, a series
of satires or patriotic jeremiads on the supposed degradation of France
under the Restoration. Then he took to the stage, and produced
successively _Les Vepres Siciliennes_, _Marino Faliero_, _Louis XI_.
(well known in England from the affection which several English tragic
actors have shown for the title part), _Les Enfants d'Edouard_, etc. He
also wrote other non-dramatic poems, most of them of a political
character. Casimir Delavigne is a writer of little intrinsic worth. He
held aloof from the Romantic movement, less from dislike to its
extravagances and its cliquism, than from genuine weakness and inability
to appreciate the defects of the classic tradition. He is in fact the
direct successor of Ducis and Marie Joseph Chenier, having forgotten
something, but learned little. The defects of his poems are parallel to
those of his plays. His patriotism is conventional, his verse
conventional, his expression conventional, though the convention is in
all three cases slightly concealed by the skilful adoption of a certain
outward colouring of energy and picturesqueness. He was not unpopular in
his day, being patronised to a certain extent by the extreme classical
party, and recommended to the public by his liberal political
principles. But he is almost entirely obsolete already, and is never
likely to recover more than the reputation due to fair literary
workmanship in an inferior style. Alexandre Soumet was another dramatist
of the same kind, but perhaps of a less artificial stamp. He adhered to
the old model of drama, or to something like it, more, apparently,
because it satisfied his requirements, than from abstract predilection
for it, or from