years of his life he wrote much, and he was elected to
the Academy in 1869, but _Les Iambes_ will remain his title to fame.

[Sidenote: Gerard de Nerval.]

A name far less generally known, but deserving of being known very well
indeed, is that of Gerard de Nerval, or, as his right appellation was,
Gerard Labrunie. He was born in 1805, and was one of the most
distinguished pupils of the celebrated Lycee Charlemagne, where he made
the acquaintance of Theophile Gautier. Gerard (as he is most generally
called) was a man of delicate and far-ranging genius, afflicted with the
peculiar malady which weighs on some such men, and which may perhaps be
described as an infirmity of will. He was not idle, and there was no
reason why he should not be prosperous. At an early age he translated
_Faust_, to the admiration of Goethe. His _Travels in the East_ were
widely read, and every newspaper in Paris was glad of his co-operation;
yet he was frequently in distress, and died in a horrible and mysterious
manner, either by his own hand or murdered by night prowlers. He has
been more than once compared to Poe, whom, however, he excelled both in
amiability of temperament and in literary knowledge. But the two have
been rightly selected by an excellent judge as being, in company with a
living English poet, the chief masters of the poetry which 'lies on the
further side between verse and music.' Most of Gerard's work is in
prose, taking the form of fantastic but exquisite short tales entitled
_Les Filles de Feu_, _La Boheme Galante_, etc. His verse, at least the
characteristic part of it, is not bulky; it consists partly of folksongs
slightly modernised, partly of sonnets, partly of miscellaneous poems.
But, if the expression 'prose poetry' be ever allowable, which has been
doubted, it is seldom more applicable than to much of Gerard de Nerval's
work, both in his description of his travels and in avowed fiction.

Some minor names remain to be mentioned. Mery, one of the most fertile
authors of the century, was a writer of verse as well as of prose, and
displayed much the same talent of brilliant improvisation in each
capacity. Auguste Brizeux, a Breton by birth, made himself remarkable by
idyllic poetry (_Marie_, _La Fleur d'Or_) chiefly dealing with the
scenery and figures of his native province. Amedee Pommier is a fertile
and not inelegant verse writer, of no very marked characteristics.
Charles Dovalle, who was shot in one of the miserab