âge est sans pitié)" is his expression in the fable of 'The Two Pigeons ;' and elsewhere he says, "You, whoever you are, who are father of a family and I have never envied you that honour." But in Philemon and Baucis' (xii. 28), he for once speaks in a different key. After relating the change of the aged couple into trees, and the popular belief that if a married couple sat but for an instant under their shade they would love one another till the end of their days, he touchingly adds,

"Ah! si-mais autre part j'ai porté mes présents."

It remains to say a few words on what is almost beyond the province of a foreigner, La Fontaine's style. In the first place we must at once dismiss the idea which is about on a par with the "inspired idiot" theory, that La Fontaine, because he disliked active exertion, wrote off his verses without any trouble stans pede in uno. It is true that his style has the appearance of perfect artlessness, but it is the artlessness of perfect art. The same mistake has been made about Herrick, but it is another point of resemblance between the two poets; indolent, pleasure-loving men though they were they took infinite pains in polishing their verses. In La Fontaine's case we have only to compare the first sketch, found by Walckenaër, of the fable of 'The Fox, the Flies, and the Hedgehog' with the form which it finally took, to see how he returned upon his work and how enormously he improved it by revision.

The secret of the charm of his style and of his universal popularity is its happy blending of the old French spirit with the classical spirit. "C'est la fleur de l'esprit gaulois avec un perfum d'antiquité," says Geruzez. Although the rich stores of the earlier French literature were not open to him, he was saturated with the literature of the first half of the sixteenth century; his favourite French authors were Rabelais and Marot, Thus

his fables abound with quaint words. and expressions, which from their wonderful power of calling up a picture before us are invaluable as political currency. I have already

mentioned the skill with which in a few words he hits off the portraits of his animals, portraits as finished and life-like as those of Balzac, with their pages of description. But whatever the subject, La Fontaine's painting is always equally vivid. Take a single instance, the magnificent description of the peasant from the Danube :-" His chin grew a thick beard; his hairy person was like a bear, an unlicked bear; his eyes were hidden under shaggy eyebrows, his vision was crooked, his nose misshapen, his lips thick; he wore a cap of goat's hair and a belt of seaweed" (xi. 7). As Madame Sévigné says of another of the fables, C'est peint.

But had La Fontaine been merely the successor of Marot and Rabelais, he would never have attained this power, and far less would his style have come down to us as a model of perfection and grace. If we comhis fable of The Woodcutter pare and Mercury' with the original story in Rabelais (the comparison between the two is admirably worked out by M. Taine), we see at once the difference between the crude exaggeration of the still mediæval prosewriter and the harmonious finish of the modern poet. It is the difference between a Filippo Lippi and a Raphael. In classical literature, indeed, Rabelais was far more deeply read than La Fontaine, but he never caught the classical spirit. La Fontaine on the other hand was beyond any of his contemporaries, excepting perhaps Fénelon, a child of Greece, a nursling of Parnassus; and thus he was enabled to instil into his art that exquisite perfume of Greek beauty and Greek moderation which is so conspicuously absent in Rabelais's grosser handiwork. It was, however, only by degrees that La Fontaine was led to a study of the true

models of style. At first he took Voiture for his master: "I once took a certain author for my master. He nearly spoilt me. But luckily, thanks to the gods, Horace opened my eyes.'

Another of his favourite authors was Terence, perhaps the best example among the Latins of a perfectly pure and natural style. But he was not content to imbibe the Greek spirit through

Latin channels, however clearly it might flow in them; he drank it from the fountain-head, from the divine Plato himself: 66 Among the wise men and sages of our century shall I find one who comes near Plato?" And so thoroughly did the draught penetrate his veins, that of him, as of Plato, it might be said that his words seem to have grown in their places. Thus he was enabled to write lines like the following:

"Conti me parût lors mille fois plus légère Que ne dansent aux bois la nymphe et la bergère;

L'herbe l'aurait portée; une fleur n'aurait pas

Reçu l'empreinte de ses pas;

Elle semblait raser les airs à la manière Que les dieux marchent dans Homère";1 and to say of a woman's cheek growing pale with sorrow :

"Bientôt le lis l'emporta sur la rose ;' But the grace of La Fontaine's style is too well known to need further illustration. I will rather give an instance or two of what perhaps may have escaped some readers, his power of writing in what Mr. Matthew Arnold calls the grand style of poetry. What can be grander, for instance, than this description of an oak, from 'The Oak and the Reed' (i. 22).2:

"Celui de qui la tête était au ciel voisine,

Et dont les pieds touchaient à l'empire des

"" morts.

1 "Conti seemed to me then a thousand times lighter than the nymphs and shepherdesses when they dance in the woods; a blade of grass would have borne her; a flower would not have felt the imprint of her steps; she seemed to skim the air, after the manner of the gods in Homer."

Or this phrase, from the noble fable of 'The Shepherd and the King' (x. 10): "Let us come out of this rich palace as one would come out of a dream." Or the close of The Mocker and the Fish' (viii.8):

"Un monstre assez vieux pour lui dire

Tous les noms des chercheurs de mondes inconnus

Qui n'en étaient pas revenus;

Et que depuis cent ans sous l'abîme avaient

vus

Les anciens du vaste empire." 3

Or the whole of the splendid fable of 'The Peasant of the Danube' (xi. 8).

But when we have said that La Fontaine's style is a happy blending of the sensuousness of the Gaul with the grace and harmony of the Greek, we have not said nearly all. Another great secret of its infinite charm is its unceasing variety. Like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower (the comparison is La Fontaine's own), it passes from grave to gay, from the most concise brevity to the most delicious redundance, from the most exquisite metaphor to the most homely directness. As an instance of brevity, take the opening of The Old Man and the Three Young Men' (xi. 8): "An octogenarian was planting trees. Build perhaps, but to think of planting at that age, exclaimed three youngsters of the neighbourhood, surely he must be out of his mind!"

But analyse the style of La Fontaine as we will, there will always remain something which it is impossible to seize. As the butterfly of Parnassus, to which he compares himself, he is gone like a bright vision, before the dull eye of criticism can distinguish anything but the movement of his wings. He is a master not only of style, but of versification. On this delicate question I do not pretend to an opinion. If it is impossible to judge correctly of the style of a writer with

"A monster old enough to tell him all the names of the explorers of unknown continents who had left their bones there, and who for centuries beneath the abyss had been seen

of the sea."

whose language one is imperfectly acquainted, it is still more impossible to judge of his rhythm. Let us listen however to what M. Théodore de Banville, the veteran versifier, has to say on the subject. After noticing the theory that La Fontaine produced his fables as a field produces corn-cockles and daisies, he goes on to say:—

"It is not on this point alas! that you can deceive a versifier by profession, who can appreciate the formidable efforts required for the creation of the vers libre, in which the ordinary reader sees nothing but a succession of unequal verses put together without rule at the caprice of the poet. This intricate blending of all rhythms, in which the clothing of the thought changes with the thought itself, and which is wrought into harmony by the prodigious force of the movement, is the last word of the most learned and complicated art, the difficulties of which make one dizzy only to look at."1

And of La Fontaine's rhyme he says:

"It is like a dancing Muse who follows the poet's song, changing her instrument according to the requirements of the thought, now taking the rattle or the lute or the simple reed-pipe, now sounding the tambourine or the castanets of gold."

M. de Banville writes, as it is well that one poet should write of another, with enthusiasm ; but to arrive at a true estimate of La Fontaine's merits as a versifier, we must take into account what M. de Banville says at the beginning of his volume, namely, that La Fontaine's instrument, the versification of his age, was a miserably bad one, which no one but giants, such as he and Molière and Corneille, could have handled with any effect. The vast improvement which the Romantic school has introduced into

1 'Petit Traité de Poésie française' (La Fontaine).

the art of versification consists firstly in the adoption of a greater variety in the length of their verses, all lengths from one foot to thirteen being now admissible; and secondly, in a stricter attention to rhyme, shown not only by the choice of richer rhymes but by the complicated arrangement of them called a strophe. La Fontaine's rhyming may be somewhat faulty according to the stricter law of the modern school; but in the matter of variety, in the length of his verse, and in the management of the strophe, it is evident that he is not only far in advance of any French poet between Ronsard and Victor Hugo, but that he has little to learn even from the most brilliant of modern versifiers.

In conclusion then, may we not say that if La Fontaine has neither the high seriousness of the great masters, nor the passion and fulness of song of the genuine lyric singers, there is, short of this, hardly any poetic quality which he does not possess? Knowledge of man, sympathy with men and nature, humour, pathos, artistic skill, all these are his in abundance; and above all he has that supreme quality without which no artist can attain to the front rank, a creative imagination, the creations of which are never blurred or indistinct, but stand forth in visible reality clear against the horizon, not mere reflections of their creator's mind, but absolute living shapes. It is this quality which justifies us in ranking La Fontaine, not only as supreme in his own line, not only as the prince of fabulists, but as a great poet, who, if not equal to the greatest, is at any rate of their

race.

ARTHUR TILLEY.

It is impossible for an Australian to lay down 'Oceana' without a sense of pleasure and pride. It is the best book upon Australia which has yet been given to English readers, and this for a reason which must excite the special gratitude of Australians. Mr. Froude came among us ready to be pleased, and with an openness of mind that is not common among English visitors. Consequently he has seen our life at its best, and he has appreciated its peculiar charm. He has perceived the hopefulness and sense of power which animate our leading men, and he has understood the ground on which these feelings rest. He has seen a country where every day can show a further triumph over nature, where poverty is almost unknown, and where the potency of individual effort seems to be unlimited. No wonder that such a sight aroused the enthusiasm even of Carlyle's disciple !

But, if he has done justice to our better selves, Mr. Froude has not allowed our weaknesses to pass unnoticed. Even the consciousness of a great future cannot quite make up for the lack of an antiquity. Australia, which by its material progress is a marvel to the world, is in matters of the spirit lamentably wanting.

We have no ideal of individual culture, no class traditions, no art, no humour, and (most remarkable of all) no general capacity of association. Whether for pleasure or profit, whether as states or individuals, Australians have not yet learnt the power of union. Their characteristic is, to use a gaming metaphor, to play each man his own hand.

Yet, after all, what is this but to say that Australians are simply Englishmen, with both the faults and the merits of Englishmen more strongly

developed? It is not peculiar to Australians, among English-speaking nations, that the average citizen should have a narrow intelligence and dull sympathies; nor is it unknown, I believe, even in England, that men must lead their higher lives alone or with few others. But what is peculiar to Australia is the fact that nowhere else can a man perceive so clearly his own responsibilities, for nowhere, as in this land of physical opportunity and spiritual want, does the field of action lie so patent before everybody. Mr. Froude has felt this essential charm of Australian life-a charm which corresponds with the openness and freedom of Australian sceneryand he has done a great service to our country in bringing other people within its attractive power. He has at the same time increased our national selfrespect, and by holding before us a higher conception of the duties of citizenship he has enlarged and dignified our public life.

But Mr. Froude has another, and a greater, claim upon our gratitude. He is the first well-known writer who has touched upon our public affairs without proposing a plan for our improvement. He has recognised that Australians are the best judges of an Australian policy.

In this respect he offers a great contrast to those who have obtained the ear of the English public as the exponents of colonial sentiment. That noisy and curious band of professors, editors, and politicians, which, whether from party reasons or from pure love of sensation, is trying hard to manufacture a colonial policy out of catchpenny phrases, empty metaphors, and new versions of old history, meets with little sympathy from Mr. Froude. He has condemned in turn each of its pet

proposals. His political conclusion (see p. 215) that, as to the colonies, Englishmen should "let well alone ought to be written on the walls of every "Primrose Habitation," and graven on the cards of membership of every branch of the Imperial Federation League. That it is a curious conclusion to be reached by one who started on his travels to curse the principle of laissez-faire in all its applications, and who in these very pages denounces every statesman who has put his own maxim into practice, is hardly a matter which concerns Australian critics. We Australians know that we owe to the policy of "letting well alone," and to the Manchester Radicals who preached that policy, everything which makes our life attractive in the eyes of Mr. Froude; and we are too pleased that he should be following, although late and with reviling on his tongue, on the Manchester path, to quarrel greatly with the arguments which guide him thither.

Unfortunately, however, there is some danger in giving even the encouragement of silence to Mr. Froude's unceasing attacks upon the Liberal party for their colonial policy. What we have most to apprehend is a premature breaking of the English connection in consequence of some wellmeant but injudicious effort on the part of England to make the union closer. What we ought most to desire is a continuance of the policy hitherto adopted by the Liberal party. Fortunately this is also what is preached by Mr. Froude. But, in preaching a doctrine, and at the same time discrediting its author, there is danger lest ignorant hearers should confound both doctrine and author in a common condemnation. This effect has already been produced in England. Unceasing denunciations of Cobden, and the Manchester school of which he is regarded as the spokesman, are causing the English public to overlook the sober wisdom of his colonial policy, and are encouraging the fancies

of a certain set of cloudy visionaries, whose power for mischief may be very great.

It was said at Oxford of the neomystic school of philosophers that although the members spoke most scornfully of Stuart Mill, not one of them knew what he had written. Mr. Froude is in the same case with regard to his two great bugbears— the Liberal party and the Manchester school. He knows their names but not their works. And from the way in which his random talk is repeated in the press and on the platform, it seems as if many educated Englishmen share his ignorance. Yet it is incredible that he should have spoken of the Manchester school in the terms which he has used in Oceana,' if he had read or remembered any of Cobden's writings. For it would be hard to find one of Mr. Froude's political suggestions, with the exception of those on colonial defences, which was not proposed by Cobden nearly forty years ago in almost the same language and in precisely the same spirit. Nor was Cobden's the cheap prescience of a distant prophet. His near anticipation of events, now present or but lately passed, turned out invariably to be correct. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say, that the prosperity of the Australian colonies is, in great part, due to the timely adoption by England of Cobden's colonial policy.

Mr. Froude himself shall be a witness to this statement. Let any one read the history of England's colonial policy as told, in general terms, in the first and thirteenth chapters of 'Oceana,' and, with special reference to South Africa, in the third chapter, and then say whether, in every case, the policy which Mr. Froude approves is not that which has been advocated by the Liberal party.

Who but the despised Manchester school gave the colonies their free constitutions? Who except Cobden and the Liberal party protested strenuously against wasteful and mischievous interference in colonial affairs? Who