the air quivers with the ever-widening circle of the echoes, sighing and
dying out of the ear until the last faintness is reached, and the glad
rhymes clash and dash forth again on their aerial way. Banville is not
the poet, he is the bard. The great questions that agitate the mind of
man have not troubled him, life, death, and love he perceives only as
stalks whereon he may weave his glittering web of living words.
Whatever his moods may be, he is lyrical. His wit flies out on
clear-cut, swallow-like wings; in speaking of Paul Alexis' book "Le
Besoin d'aimer," he said: "_Vous avez trouvé un titre assez laid pour
faire reculer les divines étoiles_." I know not what instrument to
compare with his verse. I suppose I should say a flute; but it seems to
me more like a marvellously toned piano. His hands pass over the keys
and he produces Chopin-like fluidities.

It is now well known that French verse is not seventy years old. If it
was Hugo who invented French rhyme it was Banville who broke up the
couplet. Hugo had perhaps ventured to place the pause between the
adjective and its noun, but it was not until Banville wrote the line,
"_Elle filait pensivement la blanche laine_" that the cæsura received
its final _coup de grâce_. This verse has been probably more imitated
than any other verse in the French language. _Pensivement_ was replaced
by some similar four-syllable adverb, _Elle tirait nonchalamment les bas
de soie, etc_. It was the beginning of the end.

I read the French poets of the modern school--Coppée, Mendés, Léon Diex,
Verlaine, José Maria Hêrédia, Mallarmé, Richepin, Villiers de l'Isle
Adam. Coppée, as may be imagined, I only was capable of appreciating in
his first manner, when he wrote those exquisite but purely artistic
sonnets "La Tulipe," and "Le Lys." In the latter a room decorated with
daggers, armour, jewellery and china is beautifully described, and it is