g from French into patois, and
from patois into French, and sometimes spluttering them out, mixed up
pell-mell together. Hardly pausing to take breath, he rushed about the
shop as he discoursed, lugging out, from old chests and drawers, piles
of old newspapers and reviews, pointing out a passage here in which the
estimate of the writer pleased him, a passage there which showed how
perfectly the critic had mistaken the scope of his poetic philosophy,
and exclaiming, with the most perfect naivete, how mortifying it was
for men of original and profound genius to be misconceived and
misrepresented by pigmy whipper-snapper scamps of journalists.

"There was one review of his works, published in a London 'Recueil,' as
he called it, to which Jasmin referred with great pleasure. A portion of
it had been translated, he said, in the preface to a French edition of
his works; and he had most of the highly complimentary phrases by
heart. The English critic, he said, wrote in the Tintinum, and he looked
dubiously at me when I confessed that I had never heard of the organ in
question.

"'Pourtant,' he said, 'je vous le ferai voir,' and I soon perceived that
Jasmin's Tintinum was no other than the Athenaeum!

"In the little back drawing-room behind the shop, to which the poet
speedily introduced me, his sister {it must have been his wife}, a meek,
smiling woman, whose eyes never left him, following as he moved with a
beautiful expression of love and pride in his glory, received me
with simple cordiality. The walls were covered with testimonials,
presentations, and trophies, awarded by critics and distinguished
persons, literary and political, to the modern Troubadour. Not a few of
these are of a nature to make any man most legitimately proud. Jasmin
possesses gold and silver vases, laurel branches, snuff-boxes, medals
of honour, and a whole museum of similar gifts, inscribed with such
characteristic and laconiclegends as 'Au Poete, Les Jeunes filles de
Toulouse reconnaissantes!' &c.

"The number of garlands of immortelles, wreaths of ivy-jasmin (punning
upon the name), laurel, and so forth, utterly astonished me. Jasmin
preserved a perfect shrubbery of such tokens; and each symbol had,
of course, its pleasant associative remembrance. One was given by the
ladies of such a town; another was the gift of the prefect's wife of
such a department. A handsome full-length portrait had been presented
to the poet by the municipal authorities