ittle too much of it, and avails himself too freely of the license,
at least of the temptation, to digress which the introduction of such
persons as Elie Magus affords. And it is also open to any one to say
that the climax, or what is in effect the climax, is introduced
somewhat too soon; that the struggle, first over the body and then
over the property of Patroclus-Pons, is inordinately spun out, and
that, even granting the author's mania, he might have utilized it
better by giving us more of the harmless and ill-treated cousin's
happy hunts, and less of the disputes over his accumulated quarry.
This, however, means simply the old, and generally rather impertinent,
suggestion to the artist that he shall do with his art something
different from that which he has himself chosen to do. It is, or
should be, sufficient that _Le Cousin Pons_ is a very agreeable book,
more pathetic if less "grimy," than its companion, full of its
author's idiosyncracy, and characteristic of his genius. It may not be
uninteresting to add that _Le Cousin Pons_ was originally called _Le
Deux Musiciens_, or _Le Parasite_, and that the change, which is a
great improvement, was due to the instances of Madame Hanska.

The bibliography of the two divisions of _Les Parents Pauvres_ is so
closely connected, that it is difficult to extricate the separate
histories. Originally the author had intended to begin with _Le Cousin
Pons_ (which then bore the title of _Les Deux Musiciens_), and to make
it the more important of the two; but _La Cousine Bette_ grew under
his hands, and became, in more than one sense, the leader. Both
appeared in the _Constitutionnel_; the first between October 8th and
December 3rd, 1846, the second between March 18th and May of the next
year. In the winter of 1847-48 the two were published as a book in
twelve volumes by Chlendowski and Petion. In the newspaper (where
Balzac received--a rarely exact detail--12,836 francs for the
_Cousine_, and 9,238 for the _Cousin_) the first-named had
thirty-eight headed chapter-divisions, which in book form became a
hundred and thirty-two. _Le Cousin Pons_ had two parts in _feuilleton_,
and thirty-one chapters, which in book form became no parts and
seventy-eight chapters. All divisions were swept away when, at the end
of 1848, the books were added together to the _Comedie_.

George Saintsbury

I

COUSIN BETTY