his native town and partly at Lyons, where he made himself conspicuous by his taste for poetry. This was so decided that, while studying law at Paris and taking his degrees, he translated (1833) Byron's 'Manfred' into French verse. Though excellent in its kind, this work passed unnoticed, and the young poet had to publish it at his own expense. Soon afterwards he was called to the Bar, the profession chosen for him by his father, but this did not prevent him from following labours more in accordance with the bent of his genius.

Under the influence of the reaction against Romantisme, consequent upon the favour enjoyed by Mdlle. Rachel on the stage of the Théâtre Français, M. Ponsard composed a tragedy in the style of the great masters of the seventeenth century, his 'Lucrèce,' which was brought out at the Odéon, in 1842. The subject, borrowed from the legendary history of Rome, is the well-known and beautiful self-sacrifice of the wife of Collatinus, followed by the expulsion of the Tarquins. The characters of Lucretia and of Brutus especially are drawn by a masterly hand; the verse, brilliant, precise, and powerful, reminds one not unfrequently of Corneille's 'Horace,' while the noble simplicity of the action pointed to a happy return to the ancient rules of our Classical Theatre. This tragedy of Lucrèce,' which was well received by the public, and crowned by the Académie Française, forms

an epoch in the history of the modern French drama. Ponsard was, in spite of himself, set up as the chief of a new school, in opposition to that of Victor Hugo. Sound criticism and the good sense of the public have refused to commit themselves to an exclusive verdict ; and, whilst continuing to pay the well-deserved tribute of admiration to the great exile of Guernsey, have assigned to Ponsard a distinguished place between the old and the new masters, as to one who has wrought a happy alliance between the pure taste of the ancient school and the ideas and tendencies of our own age.

It is a remarkable fact that Mdlle. Rachel, who was, so to say, the first inspirer of 'Lucrèce,' did not condescend to read the manuscript when it was left at her house by a friend of the then unknown author, and that the committee of the Odéon also at first declined to receive it. Such mishaps are but too common; there is hardly any one of our great dramatists, from Racine down to Casimir Delavigne and Ponsard, who has not had disappointments of this kind,—a fact which proves once more the truth of Voltaire's saying, that there is one authority that has more wit and judgment than critics, committees, and Voltaire himself, namely, the public, whose verdict is unbiassed by envy or ignorance.

In 1846, Ponsard wrote for the same stage, 'Agnès de Méranie,' a fine study of the time when France

was a feudal confederacy, over which the Church asserted a right of universal sovereignty. Agnès, the second wife of Philippe-Auguste by a marriage which though consecrated by the Church herself, the Pope, from a sheer wish to show his absolute power, declared invalid, was a fit subject for a dramatist of Ponsard's stamp. The success of this new piece was not, however, so great as that of 'Lucrèce.'

It was not until 1850 that Ponsard succeeded in reaching the classical 'Théâtre Français,' where he produced a masterpiece, Charlotte Corday.' Many of our readers will find, in perusing that drama, that their ideas of the great French Revolution are far from being complete, and not improbably will be inspired with the wish to read such works as Louis Blanc's admirable volumes. The great characters of that grand and terrible epoch are ill known in England. We do not mean to say that they have been traced in their absolutely true light in the stirring pages of 'Charlotte Corday;' but Ponsard has honestly studied them, and has endeavoured to get at the truth. This we state with the more confidence because, in another tragedy, of a more recent date, Le lion amoureux' (1865), our author has again drawn a splendid, and mainly true, picture of the same age, depicting in lively colours the characters of the great men of the Convention, and the feelings and virtues by which they were actuated, and, furthermore, the aspect

of that period of declension in public spirit and morality which followed the downfall of Robespierre, and of the 'Comité de salut public.'

Soon after Charlotte Corday,' Ponsard wrote, under the title of 'Horace et Lydie,' a very graceful imitation of the Latin poet whose name it bears. The subjects of his next compositions were likewise drawn from classical sources, viz., his poem of 'Homère,' published in 1852, and his tragedy of Ulysse.' Both are remarkable studies of ancient Grecian life; notwithstanding this fact, the drama did not offer interest enough to maintain itself on the stage, even with the aid of the splendid music composed by Gounod for the choruses.

After the coup d'état of December 1851, M. Ponsard was appointed Librarian to the Senate, a post which his independence of character did not allow him to retain long. A nobler end stood before him, namely, to lash the vices, the profligacy, and the avarice of a large and influential class of society under the second Empire. He produced two great comedies in verse, 'L'Honneur et l'Argent' (1853), and 'La Bourse' (1856), both of them biting satires against persons who prefer dignities and ill-gotten riches to honour. But, while ridiculing vice, it will be seen in the following pages that he knows how to praise honesty, inasmuch as he manifests throughout his reverence for noble sentiments, and his wish to cause them to

be respected by others. He thus gives us an insight into his own high moral nature, and the reader may reasonably infer that, in drawing the character of his George, Ponsard has only described what, under the same circumstances, would have been his own feelings and line of conduct. Rodolphe is a variety of a type well known in the modern drama (see Barrière's Desgenais in 'Les filles de marbre' and 'Les Parisiens'). It is a sort of compound of Alceste the misanthrope and Figaro, with some traits of the historical Diogenes, and takes no unworthy place by the side of the creations of Molière and Beaumarchais. The satirical parts of the play are perhaps rather exaggerated, a fault which would also have been Molière's; but there is another, and more serious charge which has been brought against it. The author, objects M. Nisard, lives in the provinces, where he has no good opportunities for studying characters which are principally Parisian. Such, however, as they have been drawn by Ponsard, they have been acknowledged life-like by the public, since 'L'Honneur et l'Argent' attracted a full house for more than two hundred nights in succession. This comedy brought also to the author a Government prize of 5000 francs, and opened for him the doors of the 'Académie Française.' He took there the seat formerly occupied by Baour-Lormian, a poet now almost forgotten, but who enjoyed in his time great repute as an elegant