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Jasmin alone was thoughtful, and sought to divine the meaning of that sad smile upon his poor mother's face. She took the knife to carve the tiny bit of mutton, and he cast a glance at her finger;-ah! the secret was out! she had sold her wedding-ring!

Here ends the second part of Jasmin's little history. The third transports us to the attic of a house, with a sky-blue front, where Jasmin, now an apprentice to a barber, watches by night the rustling leaves of a neighboring linden-tree. There, under the tiles, he passed a part of every night in reading, in reverie, and in versification. He read "Florian" with delight, and in his pictures, all misery is forgotten; the hospital, the beggar's wallet, the mother's ring: these had now all vanished from his memory. The singer of Gardon (Ducray-Dumesnil) especially bewitched him, and he tried his own hand at composing verses in the sweet patois, which he spoke so well. Meanwhile he kept his razor going, and scraped many chins, with his head full of poetry. Love, too, that blessed drop in the cup of life, illuminated his lot; and, with an eye to the future, he shortly opened a little barber's shop on his own account, on the Gravier promenade, where he cut, curled, and shaved, to their hearts' content, a "discerning public." He got on slowly at first; then quicker; then his little shop got well filled, and he prospered; as the proverb says, "it never rains but it pours." In short, curls, scissors, and razors, diligently handled, did their work in time; and, besides, there were Jasmin's songs, which soon sent a silver tide of good fortune into his shop; so much so that, in a fit of poetic ardor, Jasmin broke in pieces the old redoubted chair in which all his fathers had been carried to the hospital. He, in place of going to the hospital, went to a notary; and, finally, the first of his family, he saw his name emblazoned in the lists of the tax-collector. What an honor for the Jasmin stock !

poetic autobiography, composed and group- | happy round the table, forgot their distress. ed into little pictures with consummate art. The above incidents are from the first portion of the poem; the second commences by a pitiful inventory of his mean dwelling, and a picture of the miserable condition of the nine persons belonging to the poor household. At last, great was the joy one happy day! His mother came in with a bright face, and said, "To school, to school, my son !" What," said the little boy, "have we become rich, then ?" No, poor little thing; but you are to go for nothing!" So the child applied himself: in six months he could read; six months after he went to mass; six months after, among the singers in the choir, he chanted the Tantum ergo; and, finally, in another six months he entered the seminary gratis. But he staid there only six months; nevertheless, he had already begun to distinguish himself. He had obtained one prize, and this prize was an old worn-out cassock, which was trimmed up for his wearing, though he felt some shame at donning so old-fashioned a piece of goods. But he was not to wear it long. Wicked little Jasmin was turned out of school in consequence of a rather ticklish trick which he played to a certain girl named Jeanneton, mounted on a ladder, and whose details Jasmin describes in his "Souvenirs" with considerable gusto. He was locked up in one of the canon's rooms; and what should he there do what sweeter task could he undertake-than that of testing the quality of the monk's sweetmeats and preserves? He was found out-a second fault-and driven forth from the seminary. Home ran the poor little Jasmin to his mother's house in the old street. It was Shrove-Tuesday. The table was set for dinner, and there was a morsel of mutton just cooked, about to be served up. Jasmin enters, tells his story, and excites general consternation. "Then we shall have no more," said the distressed mother, sobbing. "We shall have no more?" asked little Jasmin-" of what?" The mother explained: it was of miche-white breadwhich she daily used to get a portion of at Jasmin's seminary; a terrible loss for the poor family! But suddenly an idea seemed to strike the mother; and, going out, she bid the hungry children wait a moment, and hope. She soon returned, bringing a bit of bread in her hand; and the children, now

His wife, born in nearly the same rank of life as himself, is a woman of good sense, some imagination, and of a very picturesque style of speaking, in her native patois, which comes quite gracefully from her lips. At first she was a sworn enemy of versewriting, and used to hide Jasmin's pens and paper; but since she learnt the market value

of her husband's rhymes, she handed him in the most gracious manner, the nicest pen and the prettiest paper she could get, "Courage !" she would say to him; "each verse is another tile for our house-roof." And all the family joined in the cry-" make verses! make verses!" So things went happily and prosperously with Jasmin, and before long he was enabled to buy the house he lived in, tiles and all.

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should I change my lot?" he said to a rich gentleman of Toulouse, who wanted him to go there. "In my town, where every body works, leave me as I am. In summer, happier than a king, I glean provision enough for the coming winter, and after I have sung away like a chaffinch under the shade of a poplar or ash tree, how happy shall I be to grow white-haired in the place that has given me birth. When the young sparrow hears in the summer time, the sweet zigo ziou, ziou, of the tripping grasshopper, it springs out and leaves the nest where the feathers of its wings have been growing. But the wise man acts not so." Jasmin has, however, visited Paris and been welcomed there by many kind friends and admirers. Writing afterwards to a friend whom he had visited, he said "You have quite salonized me." But he returned to his native Agen, enjoying the fame of his muse and the esteem of all his town's folks.

Miss Costello, in her interesting book on "Bearn and the Pyrenees," has given a charming description of Jasmin and his home. She found his shop by the prominent announcement of "Jasmin, Coiffeur," (hairdresser,) in large gold letters over the door. The poet was dressing a customer's hair when the visitor entered, but his wife, a smiling, dark-eyed woman, invited her into the back-parlor, when she took pride in exhibiting the laurel crown of gold from Toulouse, the gold cup from the citizens of Auch, and numerous other choice offerings to her husband's muse.

Jasmin published his first poem in 1825; it was called "The Charivari," and was a burlesque account of an old widow, who dreams of remarrying. It is prefaced by a fine ode addressed to M. Dupront, an advocate of Agen, and who was himself a poet. Other works followed, the most important of which are 'The Papillotes," (or curlpapers, showing that he was not ashamed of his craft ;)"The Blind Girl of Castél-Cuillé," and "My Recollections," (Mous Soubenis.) The "Blind Girl" has been admirably translated by Longfellow, and is to be found in the last edition of his poems, to which we have pleasure in referring the reader. Jas min's best pieces are written in his native patois; when he writes in classical French, it is clear that he is writing in an acquired language, into which he has to translate the poetic color, the image, and the idea, that come to him in his native dialect. There is a beautiful naïveté about the writings of Jas min. They are simple, quaint, and full of Yet they are artfully elaborated too, and Jasmin does not spare pains in the elaboration of his poetic thoughts. Sometimes his simple force rises to the sublime, "When we had become nearly tired," as in his "Oiseaux Voyageurs." His meansays Miss Costello, "of looking over these ing is always obvious, never ambiguous; tributes to his genius, the door opened, and and his verse is as clear and flowing as the the poet himself appeared. His manner was waters of the limped Adour. "The Faithful free and unembarrassed, well-bred, and Agenaise" of Jasmin is one of his most pop-rally, and like one accustomed to homage; lively; he received our compliments natuular romances in his own district, and as said he was ill, and unfortunately too hoarse well known over a wide country as the to read any thing to us, or should have been "Charmante Gabrielle," of Henri IV. Had delighted to do so. He spoke with a broad he lived in a former age, Jasmin had been Gascon dialect, and very rapidly and elothe most famous of the troubadour minstrels. quently; ran over the story of his successes, As it is, he sings with taste, and plays the beggar, and all his family very poor; that told us that his grandfather had been a guitar and flageolet, with his performance he was now as rich as he wished to be; his on which he sometimes amuses his visitors. son placed in a good position in Nantes; then showed us his son's picture, and spoke of added, that though no fool, he had not his his disposition, to which his brisk little wife father's genius, to which truth Jasmin assented as a matter of course." The visitor praised some of the poet's writings, mention

nature.

Jasmin has been invited to Paris, to settle there; many kind friends have thus tempted him; but Jasmin is true to his trade, which he will not give up, and faithful to his native town, which he will not leave. Why

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ing them by name; and then Jasmin, forgetting his hoarseness, proposed to read her something of his much better those she had named. He read "Franconette," a touching poem. "He began in a rich, soft voice, and as he advanced, the surprise of Hamlet on hearing the player king recite the disasters of Hecuba was but a type of ours, to find ourselves carried away by the spell of his enthusiasm. His eyes swam in tears; he became pale and red; he trembled; he recovered himself; his face was now joyous, now exulting, gay, jocose, in fact, he was twenty actors in one; he rang the changes from Rachel to Bouffé; and he finished by delighting us, besides beguiling us of our tears, and overwhelming us with astonjsh ment. He would have been a treasure on the stage; for he is still, though his first youth is past, remarkably good-looking and striking; with black, sparkling eyes, of intense expression; a fine, ruddy complexion; a countenance of wondrous mobility; a good figure, and action full of fire and grace; he has handsome hands, which he uses with infinite effect; and, on the whole, he is the best actor of the kind I ever saw."

Jasmin is still living and thriving; and not long since he published another new poem which is pronounced equal to any of

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"I paused before the lintel of the modest shop inscribed, Jasmin, Perruquier, Coiffeur de jeunes Gens. A little brass basin dangled above the threshold; and, looking through the glass, I saw the master of the establishment shaving a fat-faced neighbor. Now, I had come to see, and pay my compliments to a poet, and there did appear to me to be something strangely awkward and irresistibly ludicrous in having to address, to some extent, in a literary and complimentary vein, an individual actually engaged in so excessively prosaic and unelevated a species of performance. I retreated, uncertain what to do, and waited outside until the shop was clear. Three words explained the nature of my visit, and Jasmin received me with a species of warm courtesy, which was very peculiar and very charming, dashing at once, with the most clattering volubility and fiery speed of tongue, into a sort of rhapsodical discourse upon poetry in general, and the patois of it, spoken in Languedoc, Provence, and Gascony in particular. Jasmin is a well-built and strongly-limbed man, of about fifty, with a large, massive head, and a broad pile of forehead, overhanging two piercingly bright black eyes, and features

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which would be heavy, were they allowed a moment's repose from the continual play of the facial muscles, sending a never-ending series of varying expressions across the dark, swarthy visage. Two sentences of his conversation were quite sufficient to stamp his individuality. The first thing which struck me was the utter absence of all the mock-modesty, and the, pretended self-underrating, conventionally assumed by persons expecting to be complimented upon their sayings and doings. Jasmin seemed thoroughly to despise all such flimsy hypoc risy. God only made four Frenchinen poets,' he out with, and their names are, Corneille, Lafontaine, Beranger, and Jasmin!' Talking with the most impassioned vehemence, and the most redundant energy of gesture, he went on to declaim against the influences of civilization upon language and manners, as being fatal to all real poetry. If the true inspiration yet existed upon earth, it burned in the hearts and brains of men far removed from cities, salons, and the clash and din of social influences. Your only true poets were the unlettered peasants, who poured forth their hearts in song-not because they wished to make poetry, but because they were joyous and true. leges, academies, and schools of learning, schools of literature, and all such institutions, Jasmin denounced as the curse and the bane of true poetry. They had spoiled, You he said, the very French language. could no more write poetry in French now language had been licked, and kneaded, and than you could in arithmetical figures. The tricked out, and plumed, and dandified, and scented, and minced, and ruled square, and chipped-(I am trying to give an idea of the strange flood of epithets he used)—and pranked out, and polished, and muscadined -until, for all honest purposes of true high poetry, it was mere unavailable and contemptible jargon. It might do for cheating agents de change on the Bourse-for squabbling politicians in the Chambers-for mincing dandies in the salons-for the sarcasm of Scribe-ish comedies, or the coarse drolleries of Palais Royal farces, but for poetry the French language was extinct. All modern poets who used it were faiseurs de phrase-thinking about words and not feelings. 'No, no,' my Troubadour continued, 'to write poetry, you must get the language of a rural people-a language talked among fields, and trees, and by rivers and mountains-a language never minced or disfigured by academies, and dictionary-makers, and journalists; you must have a language like that which your own Burns-whom I read of in Chateaubriand-used; or like the brave, old, mellow tongue-unchanged for centuries-stuffed with the strangest, quaintest, richest, raciest idioms and odd solemn words, full of shifting meanings and associa

tions, at once pathetic and familiar, homely and graceful-the language which I write in and which has never yet been defiled by calculating men of science, or jack-a-dandy littérateurs.' The above sentences may be taken as a specimen of the ideas with which Jasmin seemed to be actually overflowing from every pore in his body--so rapid, vehement, and loud was his enunciation of them." Jasmin is in the practice of devoting his talents in public, to the service of his humbler fellow-creatures. He has a wonderful power of recitation, and gives his entertainments before immense audiences in the towns around Auch. The Chronicle correspondent says:

"The raptures of the New Yorkers or Bostonians with Jenny Lind are weak and cold compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At a late recitation at Auch, the ladies present actually tore the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them into extempore garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting minstrel; while the editors of the local papers next morning assured him, in floods of flattering epigrams, that humble as he was now, future ages would acknowledge the 'divinity' of Jasmin!

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There is," he adds, "a feature about these recitations which is still more extraordinary than the uncontrollable fits of popular enthusiasm which they produce. The last entertainment of the kind, given by Jasmin, in one of the Pyrenean cities-I forget which-produced 2,000 francs. Every sou of this went to the public charities. Jasmin will not accept a stiver of money so earned. With a species of perhaps unrestrained, but certainly exalted chivalric feeling, he declines to appear before an audience to exhibit, for money, the gifts with which nature has endowed him. After perhaps a brilliant tour through the south of France, delighting vast audiences in every city, and flinging many thousands of francs into every poor-box which he passes, the poet contentedly returns to his humble occupation, and to the little shop where he earns his bread by his daily toil, as a barber and hair-dresser. It will be generally admitted, that the man capable of self-denial, of so truly heroic a nature as this, is no ordinary poetaster. One would be puzzled to find a similar instance of perfect and absolute disinterestedness in the roll of minstrels, from Homer downwards; and to tell the truth, there does seem a spice of Quixotism mingled with, and tinging the pure fervor of the enthusiast."

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Hugh Willoughby, three hundred years ago; the first of our countrymen who wrought an ice-bound highway to Cathay. Two years afterwards his ships were found, in the haven of Arzina, in Lapland, by some Russian fishermen; near and about them Willoughby and his companions-seventy dead men. The ships were freighted with their frozen crews, and sailed for England; but, "being unstanch, as it is supposed, by their two years' wintering in Lapland, sunk, by the way, with their dead, and them also that brought them."

Ice floats about us now, and here is a whale blowing; a whale, too, very near Spitzbergen. When first Spitzbergen was discovered, in the good old times, there were whales here in abundance; then a hundred Dutch ships, in a crowd, might go to work, and boats might jostle with each other, and the only thing deficient would be stowage room for all the produce of the fishery. Now one ship may have the whole field to itself, and travel home with an imperfect cargo. It was fine fun in the good old times; there was no need to cruise. Coppers and boilers were fitted on the is land, and little colonies about them, in the fishing season, had nothing to do but tow the whales in, with a boat, as fast as they were wanted by the copper. No wonder that so enviable a Tom Tidler's ground was claimed by all who had a love for gold and silver. The English called it theirs, for they first fished; the Dutch said, nay, but the Island was of their discovery; Danes, Hamburghers, Biscayans, Spaniards, and French put in their claims, and at length, it was agreed to make partitions. The numerous bays and harbors which indent the coast were divided among the rival nations; and, to this day, many of them bear, accordingly, such names as English Bay, Danes Bay, and so forth. One bay there is, with graves in it, named Sorrow. For it seemed to the fishers most desirable, if possible, to plant upon this island permanent establishments, and condemned convicts were offered, by the Russians, life and pardon, if they would winter in Spitzbergen. They agreed; but, when they saw the icy mountains and the stormy sea, repented, and went back, to meet a death exempt from torture. The Dutch tempted free men, by high rewards, to try the dangerous experiment. One of

their victims left a journal, which describes his suffering and that of his companions. Their mouths, he says, became so sore that, if they had food, they could not eat; their limbs were swollen and disabled with excruciating pain; they died of scurvy. Those who died first were coffined by their dying friends; a row of coffins was found, in the spring, each with a man in it; two men uncoffined, side by side, were dead upon the floor. The journal told, how once the traces of a bear excited their hope of fresh meat and amended health; how, with a lantern, two or three had limped upon the track, until the light became extinguished, and they came back in despair to die. might speak, also, of eight English sailors, left, by accident, upon Spitzbergen, who lived to return and tell their winter's tale; but a long journey is before us, and we must not linger on the way. As for our whalers it need scarcely be related that the multitude of whales diminished as the slaughtering went on, until it was no longer possible to keep the coppers full. The whales had to be searched for by the vessels, and thereafter it was not worth while to take the blubber to Spitzbergen to be boiled; and the different nations, having carried home their coppers, left the apparatus of those fishing stations to decay.

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Take heed. There is a noise like thunder, and a mountain snaps in two. The upper half comes, crashing, grinding, down into the sea, and loosened streams of water follow it. The sea is displaced before the mighty heap; it boils and scatters up a cloud of spray; it rushes back, and violently beats upon the shore. The mountain rises from its bath, sways to and fro, while water pours along its mighty sides; now it is tolerably quiet, letting crackers off as air escapes out of its cavities. That is an iceberg, and in that way are all icebergs formed. Mountains of ice formed by rain and snow-grand Arctic glaciers, undermined by the sea or by accumulation overbalanced-topple down upon the slightest provocation, (moved by a shout, perhaps,) and where they float, as this black-looking fellow does, they need deep water. berg in height is about ninety feet, and a due balance requires that a mass nine times as large as the part visible should be submerged. Icebergs are seen about us now

This

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