ly poets as others of the name on paper, who fatten
in the fields of literature at so much a verse; like Lord Byron, like
all who live, alas, by ink, the Hippocrene water of to-day, for want of
a better.

Attracted by the fame of Canalis, also by the prospect of political
interest, and advised thereto by Madame d'Espard, who acted in the
matter for the Duchesse de Chaulieu, a young lawyer of the court
of Claims became secretary and confidential friend of the poet, who
welcomed and petted him very much as a broker caresses his first dabbler
in the funds. The beginning of this companionship bore a very fair
resemblance to friendship. The young man had already held the same
relation to a minister, who went out of office in 1827, taking care
before he did so to appoint his young secretary to a place in the
foreign office. Ernest de La Briere, then about twenty-seven years of
age, was decorated with the Legion of honor but was without other means
than his salary; he was accustomed to the management of business and
had learned a good deal of life during his four years in a minister's
cabinet. Kindly, amiable, and over-modest, with a heart full of pure and
sound feelings, he was averse to putting himself in the foreground. He
loved his country, and wished to serve her, but notoriety abashed him.
To him the place of secretary to a Napoleon was far more desirable
than that of the minister himself. As soon as he became the friend and
secretary of Canalis he did a great amount of labor for him, but by the
end of eighteen months he had learned to understand the barrenness of
a nature that was poetic through literary expression only. The truth of
the old proverb, "The cowl doesn't make the monk," is eminently shown in
literature. It is extremely rare to find among literary men a nature
and a talent that are in perfect accord. The faculties are not the man
himself. This disconnection, whose phenomena are amazing, proceeds
from an unexplored, possibly an unexplorable mystery. The brain and its
products of all kinds (for in art the hand of man is a continuation of
his brain) are a world apart, which flourishes beneath the cranium in
absolute independence of sentiments, feelings, and all that is called
virtue, the virtue of citizens, fathers, and private life. This, however
true, is not absolutely so; nothing is absolutely true of man. It is
certain that a debauched man will dissipate his talent, that a drunkard
will waste it in libatio