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merely a great party chief and a great influence. He was also a great poet, and a great lyric poet. He was that by reason of the breadth and variety of his lyric performance, the surprising mastery of form that he showed, the new capacities for picturesque expression that he discovered in the language or created for it, the new possibilities of rhythm and melody that he opened to it, and the range, power, and sincerity of many of the thoughts and feelings to which he gave so sonorous and musical a body. No doubt in a large part of his early work, as les Orientales, the body was more to him than the spirit that it lodged. Poetry to him was an art that had its technical side, like any other. The development of its technical resources had a charm of its own, and he had the artist's delight in skillful and exquisite workmanship. The
mastery that he attained was so perfect, he seemed so fully to exhibit the utmost capacities of the language for the most various effects of rhythm and harmony, that Théodore de Banville said of _la Légende des siècles_ that it must be the Bible and the Gospel of every writer of French verse. But he did not stop with the dexterity and virtuosity of the craftsman. More and more he used the mastery that he had achieved not for the mere pleasure of practicing or exhibiting it, but to give fitting and adequate expression to feelings and to thoughts. The domestic affections, the love of country, and the mystery of death had the deepest hold upon him, and whenever he approaches these themes he is almost sure to be genuine and sincere. His pity for the poor and unfortunate was very tender, and was the real spring of a great deal of his democracy, and he had a fine gift of wrathful indignation, which was called into exercise especially by Napoleon III. No part of his lyrical production is more spontaneous and genuine than many poems of _Les Châtiments_. There was from the first a bent towards philosophical reflection observable in him, and in the latter