scholarship caracoled in, but is merely English masquerading in
classical garb.

Father Prout also introduced Field to fellowship with Beranger, the
national song writer of France, to whom, next to the early English
balladists and Horace, he owes so much of that clear, simple,
sparkling style that has given his writings enduring value. Beranger's
description of himself might, with some modifications, be fitted to
Field: "I am a good little bit of a poet, clever in the craft, and a
conscientious worker, to whom old airs have brought some success."
Beranger chose to sing for the people of France, Field for the
children of the world. Field caught his fervor for Beranger from the
enthusiasm of Prout.

"I cannot for a moment longer," wrote he, "repress my enthusiastic
admiration for one who has arisen in our days to strike in France with
a master hand the lyre of the troubadour and to fling into the shade
all the triumphs of bygone minstrelsy. Need I designate Beranger, who
has created for himself a style of transcendent vigor and originality,
and who has sung of _war, love, and wine_, in strains far
excelling those of Blondel, Tyrtaeus, Pindar, and the Teian bard. He is
now the genuine representative of Gallic poesy in her convivial, her
amatory, her warlike and her philosophic mood; and the plenitude of
the inspiration that dwelt successively in the souls of all the
songsters of ancient France seems to have transmigrated into Beranger
and found a fit recipient in his capacious and liberal mind."

That Field caught the inspiration of Beranger more truly than Father
Prout, those who question can judge for themselves by a comparison of
their respective versions of "Le Violon Brise"--the broken fiddle. A
stanza by each must suffice to show the difference:

BERANGER

_Viens, mon chien! Viens, ma pauvre bete!
Mange, malgre, mon desespoir.
II me reste un gateau de fete--
Demain nous aurons du pain noir!_

PROUT

_My poor dog! here! of yesterday's festival-cake
Eat the poor remains in sorrow;
For when next a repast you and I shall make,
It must be on brown bread, which, for charity's sake,
Your master must beg or borrow._

FIELD

_There, there, poor dog, my faithful friend,
Pay you no heed unto my sorrow:
But feast to-day while yet we may,--
Who knows but we shall starve to-morrow!_

The credit for verbal literalness of translation is with Prou