lies him with pen, paper, ink,
and a comfortable desk; and, in course of time, he buys the house in
which he lives, and becomes a man of importance in Agen. He ends the
third canto with a sort of hurrah--

"Thus, reader, have I told my tale in cantos three:
Though still I sing, I hazard no great risk;
For should Pegasus rear and fling me, it is clear,
However ruffled all my fancies fair,
I waste my time, 'tis true; though verses I may lose,
The paper still will serve for curling hair."{4}

Robert Nicoll, the Scotch poet, said of his works: "I have written my
heart in my poems; and rude, unfinished, and hasty as they are, it can
be read there." Jasmin might have used the same words. "With all my
faults," he said, "I desired to write the truth, and I have described it
as I saw it."

In his 'Recollections' he showed without reserve his whole heart.
Jasmin dedicated his 'Recollections,' when finished, to M. Florimond
de Saint-Amand, one of the first gentlemen who recognised his poetical
talents. This was unquestionably the first poem in which Jasmin
exhibited the true bent of his genius. He avoided entirely the French
models which he had before endeavoured to imitate; and he now gave
full flight to the artless gaiety and humour of his Gascon muse. It
is unfortunate that the poem cannot be translated into English. It was
translated into French; but even in that kindred language it lost
much of its beauty and pathos. The more exquisite the poetry that is
contained in one language, the more difficulty there is in translating
it into another.

M. Charles Nodier said of Lou Tres de May that it contains poetic
thoughts conveyed in exquisite words; but it is impossible to render it
into any language but its own. In the case of the Charivari he shrinks
from attempting to translate it. There is one passage containing a
superb description of the rising of the sun in winter; but two of the
lines quite puzzled him. In Gascon they are

"Quand l'Auroro, fourrado en raoubo de sati,
Desparrouillo, san brut, las portos del mati.'

Some of the words translated into French might seem vulgar, though in
Gascon they are beautiful. In English they might be rendered:

"When Aurora, enfurred in her robe of satin,
Unbars, without noise, the doors of the morning."

"Dream if you like," says Nodier, "of the Aurora of winter, and tell me
if Homer could have better robed it in words. The Aurora of Jasmin is
quite his own; 'unbars t