ve province. If Jasmin had published his
volume in classical French he might have been lost amidst a crowd of
rhymers; but as he published the work in his native dialect, he became
forthwith distinguished in his neighbourhood, and was ever after known
as the Gascon poet.

Nor did he long remain unknown beyond the district in which he lived.
When his second volume appeared in 1835, with a preface by M. Baze, an
advocate of the Royal Court of Agen, it created considerable excitement,
not only at Bordeaux and Toulouse, but also at Paris, the centre of the
literature, science, and fine arts of France. There, men of the highest
distinction welcomed the work with enthusiasm.

M. Baze, in his preface, was very eulogistic. "We have the pleasure," he
said, "of seeing united in one collection the sweet Romanic tongue which
the South of France has adopted, like the privileged children of
her lovely sky and voluptuous climate; and her lyrical songs, whose
masculine vigour and energetic sentiments have more than once excited
patriotic transports and awakened popular enthusiasm. For Jasmin is
above all a poet of the people. He is not ashamed of his origin. He was
born in the midst of them, and though a poet, still belongs to them. For
genius is of all stations and ranks of life. He is but a hairdresser
at Agen, and more than that, he wishes to remain so. His ambition is to
unite the razor to the poet's pen."

At Paris the work was welcomed with applause, first by his poetic
sponsor, Charles Nodier, in the Temps, where he congratulated Jasmin on
using the Gascon patois, though still under the ban of literature. "It
is a veritable Saint Bartholomew of innocent and beautiful idioms, which
can scarcely be employed even in the hours of recreation." He pronounced
Jasmin to be a Gascon Beranger, and quoted several of his lines from
the Charivari, but apologised for their translation into French, fearing
that they might lose much of their rustic artlessness and soft harmony.

What was a still greater honour, Jasmin was reviewed by the first critic
of France--Sainte-Beuve in the leading critical journal, the Revue des
deux Mondes. The article was afterwards republished in his Contemporary
Portraits.{5} He there gives a general account of his poems; compares
him with the English and Scotch poets of the working class; and
contrasts him with Reboul, the baker of Nimes, who writes in classical
French, after the manner of the 'Meditations of La