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    peasant class in France sufficiently -rich to form the basis of two useful and interesting volumes . His picture of the feudal system is one of the most complete that we have seen , while to the historical student his narrative of the changes which since the twelfth century have slowly crept over the social state of France will be of the highest value . Nothing could be more remarkable than the contrast suggested by the first and last chapters of this work , which is written in a picturesque and varied style , and displays at once much learning , and a keen critical insight .

    The history of the _ French peasant is the history of degradation and suffering . Nobles , priests , citizens , preyed upon him . He was their sport , their instrument , their property . They robbed him of his money , of his wife and child . To-day he renders service to the lord of the estate , to-morrow le watches on the border ; then he labours to pay the crown dues ; again , l e is pressed into the unpaid employment of the Church , and while lie is absent , some despicable soldier robs his cottage of all that is dear to him , morally or otherwise . To outrages of this kind he was exposed , not only in the days when Jeanne d'Arc died by fire , but to the end of the seventeenth century and later . M . Bonnemere gives a singular narrative in illustration

    . A sergeant took lodgings with a Provencal peasant named Lebre . This peasant was young , and had a beautiful wife . The soldier , accustomed to success , lost no time before' insulting her , and wlicn Lebre resented his insolence , struck him in the face . The peasant insisted upon reparation , and proposed to ^ figbt his offender ; but a clown had no right to revenge himself , so he was driven from his own cottage by a number of ruffians , who laughed at his impotent indignation . But he had formed his plans . Conducting his pretty wife to the home whence he Lad taken her , he said ,. " Father , I bring you back your daughter , a man does not deserve to have a wife who cannot protect her , she has been insulted , and I could not help it , but was turned out of my own habitation . I have no longer a home , and I have no longer a wife . Take her back , then , until ! come again to claim her , arid then 3 ou safelrestore her to

    may y me , for I swear that she shall be revenged , and that I shall know in future how to defend her . " Neither the tears of his wife nor the beseecHngs of her father could turn him from his resolution ; he left the country , and for a long time nothing was heard of him . He had overcome the habitual repugnance of the Provencal to a military life . He had enlisted ; by military service alone could he be set . free fronv the servitude of the soil , and he Was determined to rise to an equality with the man who had struck him . Nothing should stand in his way ; he would and must obtain his object . He had been taught nothing , he now learned everything necessary . Within eight years Lebre was a sergeant . But that was not enough . He must now iiudout his insulter—not a very difficult task , since the number of officers of that grade was then very few , the soldier who wore a sergeant ' s epaulette considering himself riot far from the dignity of a field-marshal . One day , accordingly , I . ebre met at Strasbourg the man he sought , and invited him to dinner witli all the sergeants of the garrison . After dinner , he rose and said ¦

    , ; " Comrades , if one of you had received a blow , what would you do ? Answer me , sir , " addressing his enemy . " Give another blow in return today , and fight to-morrow . " " Very well , " he continued ; " you remember a peasant whom you struck , eight years ago , for endeavouring to protect his wife ^ gainst ' you ? " " Not the peasant , indeed , but the lady and the blow perfectly , ' the sergeant answered ; the consequence being that Lebre discovered himself , struck him twice , claimed the privilege of a duel , and before a quarter of an hour had passed , had stabbed his antagonist mortally . Not many weeks after , with the rank of sub-lieutenant , he obtained leave of absence , and rejoined and recovered his young wife . This was the early history of M . Lebre one time governor of Monteliinart , near Bayonno . We do not remember having seen it romanticized or dramatized ; but it suggests a stage-piece richer in situations than The Lady of Lyons . With such passagesM . Bonncmcre ' s volumes abound . But their chief value consists in the broad and luminous narration in which he describes the several epochs of peasant history in France .

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    Another and more deeply-seated fault is the occasional lapse into what we should call « approximative writing . ' After pages of concrete , picturesque , direct verse , such as only poets ever write , we are suffered to toil through pages without concreteness or picture of any kind ; reflective without distinctness ; mere vague pieluding , and , to use a physiological illustration , organizable lymph in lieu of organized tissue . More than twothirds of the poetry of the present day is of this merorganre nature . You get scarcely any of it in Tennyson or Browning : the first because he elaborate ? , the second because hethinks concretely whatever he thinks . Mrs . Browning is so genuine a poetess , and so prodigal in power , that the fault we speak of is the more surprising . It is as if a great writer wroteon when Ms brain was weary . Jtiere ends iault

    our -finding . To substantiate our praises we must send our readers to the book itself , or even to the extracts given last week . Lon » passages display the beauties best , for they exhibit the largo of her stylet which is not broken up into unattached effects , but swells with organbreathing roll , and exquisite modulations . There are lines and phrases which sparkle like jewels on the robe ; but the grace of the robe is not caught fronithem . Thus fancy itself borrows some deep expression , as when , yearning for Italy , Aurora asks ttie hills if they are conscious of her yearning : — Do you feel to-night The urgency and yearning of my soul , As sleeping mothers feel the sucking babe And smile ? _ . We shall cull a nosegay from this garden , and leave the reader to enjoy the fragrance : ~ : I could not sleep last night , and , tired Of turning on my piUow and harder thoughts , " Went out at early morning , when tbe air Is delicate with some last starry touch , To wander through the Market-place of Flowers . . " It ' stheway " With these light women of a thrifty vice , My Marian , —always hard upon the rent In any sister's virtue ! while they keep ; Their chastity so darjied with perfidy , That , though a rag itself , it looks as well Across a street , in balcony or coach , As any stronger stuff might . For my part , ¦ . , . - ¦ I'd rather take the wind-side of the stews Than touch such women with , my finger-end ! They top the poor street-walker by their lie , And look the better for being so much worse : The devil ' s most devilish when respectable . "

    How sure it is , That , if we say a true word , instantly We feel 'tis God ' s , not ours , and pass it on As bread at sacrament , we taste and pass , ' Nor handle for a . moment , as indeed ' . '' .. We dared to set up any claim to such ! " A man may love a woman perfectly , And yet by no means ignorantly maintain A thousand -women have not larger eyes : Enough that she alone has looked at him With , eyes that , larg « or small , have won his souL " " That makes libertines : That slurs our cruel streets from end to end With eighty thousand women in one smile , Who only smile at night beneath the gas : The tody ' s satisfaction and no more , Being used for argument against th « soul's . " " The sadness of your greatness fits you well : As if the plume upon a hero ' s casque Should nod a shadow upon his victor face . " " There ' s too much abstract willing , purposing , In tbis poor world . We talk by aggregates , And think by systems ; and , being used to face Our evils in statistics , are inclined To cap them with unreal remedies Drawn out in haste on the other side the slate . " • • • • • "A woman cannot do the tiling she ought , Which means whatever perfect thing she can , In life , in art , in science , but she fears To let the perfect action take her part And rest there : she must prove what she can do Before she does it , —prate of woman ' s rights , Of woman ' s mission , woman ' s function , till The men ( who are \\ rating , too , on their side ) cry , A woman ' s function plainly is . . to talk . ' Poor souls , they arc very reasonably vexed ! They cannot hear each other speak . " And you ,

    AURORA LEIGH . Aurora Leijjh . By Elizabeth Barrett Browning . Chapman and Hall-Second Notice . Last week we considered Aurora Leigh solely as a novel , which to many will have seemed a very severe test , and one applicable to no other poem . Could we now speak of the poem with requisite detail wo should occupy many columns , and extract many pages . The poem itself , however , will surely be in the hands of all poetical readers ere long , and we may content ourselves with indicating a few points only , and extracting a few passages . Every one will be struck in Aurora Leigh with the affluence and effluence of mind , the exquisite'and easy utterance of a spirit penetrating , reflective

    , and high-thoughted . The rich experience of a life is garnered up in these verses . Instead of presenting us with a mere play of fancy , the idle combinations of images , Mrs . Browning gives us lier meditations and her feeLings , expressed in imagery and musical phrase , but not sacrificed to these ornaments . Various , also , are the chorus she strikes : beauty and "wisdom , humour and satire , description and pathos , by turns delight us ; and throughout there is felt the constant presence of a noble nature uttering its thoughts . The song is the song of a . mind one feels to be purer and larger than that of ordinary men , or even more than ordinai * y poets . And the influence of tlie poem sinks deep into your mind , making you feel stronger and better .

    Had we the privilege of knowing Mrs . Browning , and had she suffered us to see the proof-sheets of her poem , we should have begged her to remov e one blemish , the iteration of which is particularly offensive—wo mean the prodigality with which she employs the name of God , and the jarring introduction of Christ . The poets of the ' Spasmodic School' make fireworks of thd stai' 3 , and drag the name of God into every dozen lines , because it is easy fo produce effects by such means , and they only think cf effects . In a poet every way so superior as Mrs . Browning , wo are distressed to see this trick of iteration . It is not weakness in her , but mannerism .

    An artist , judge so ?" " I , fin artist , —yes , Because , precisely , I ' in an artist , sir , And woman , —if another sato in sight , I'd whisper , —Soft , my sister ! not a word ! lly speaking we prove only we can speak ; Which ho , the man . here , never doubted . What Ho doubts , is whetlicr wo can do the thing With decent grace , we ' ve not yet done at all : Now , do it i bring your statue , —you have room ! He'll see it even by the starlight liero ; And if ' tis e ' er so little like the god

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    December 6 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER , ll 69

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 6, 1856, page 1169, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2170/page/17/