ed by a very fine sense of the total form of
his tales, so that the already-mentioned _Morte Amoureuse_ is one of the
unsurpassable things of literature. In general writing he has a singular
faculty of embalming the most trivial details in the amber of his style,
so that his articles can be read again and again for the mere beauty of
them. As a poet he is specially noteworthy for the same command of form
joined to the same exquisite perfection of language. In _Emaux et
Camees_ especially it is almost impossible to find a flaw; language,
metre, arrangement, are all complete and perfect, and this formal
completeness is further informed by abundant poetic suggestion. The
chief fault, if it be a fault, which can be found with Gautier is, that
he set himself too deliberately against the tendencies of his age, and
excluded too rigidly everything but purely aesthetic subjects of interest
from his contemplation, and from the range of his literary energy.

[Sidenote: Alfred de Musset.]

The most happily-gifted, save one, of the great men of 1830, the weakest
beyond comparison in will, in temperament, in faculty of improving his
natural gifts, has yet to be mentioned. Alfred de Musset was born at
Paris in 1810. His father held a government place of some value; his
elder brother, M. Paul de Musset, was himself a man of letters, and at
the same time deeply attached to his younger brother; and the family,
though after the death of the father their means were not great,
constantly supplied Alfred with a home. He was, fortunately or
unfortunately, thrown, when quite a boy, into the society of Victor
Hugo, the _cenacle_ or inner clique of the Romantic movement. When only
nineteen Musset published a volume of poetry, which showed in him a
poetic talent inferior only to Hugo's own, and, indeed, not so much
inferior as different. These _Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie_ were quickly
followed up by a volume entitled _Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuil_, and
Musset became famous. Unfortunately for him, he became intimate with
George Sand, and the result was a journey to Italy, from which he
returned equally broken in health and in heart. His temperament was of
almost ultra-poetic excitability, and he had a positively morbid
incapacity for undertaking any useful employment, whether it was in
itself congenial or no. Thus he refused a well-paid and agreeable
position in the French embassy at Madrid; and though he had written
admirable prose tales for