He is a
charming singer at Calais; at Dover he inspires un morne etonnement
(a bleak perplexity). One has never seen an English attempt to
describe or estimate his genius. His unpopularity in England is
illustrated by the fact that the London Library, that respectable
institution, does not, or did not, possess a single copy of any one
of his books. He is but feebly represented even in the collection
of the British Museum. It is not hard to account for our
indifference to M. De Banville. He is a poet not only intensely
French, but intensely Parisian. He is careful of form, rather than
abundant in manner. He has no story to tell, and his sketches in
prose, his attempts at criticism, are not very weighty or
instructive. With all his limitations, however, he represents, in
company with M. Leconte de Lisle, the second of the three
generations of poets over whom Victor Hugo reigned.
M. De Banville has been called, by people who do not like, and who
apparently have not read him, un saltimbanque litteraire (a literary
rope-dancer). Other critics, who do like him, but who have limited
their study to a certain portion of his books, compare him to a
worker in gold, who carefully chases or embosses dainty processions
of fauns and maenads. He is, in point of fact, something more
estimable than a literary rope-dancer, something more serious than a
working jeweller in rhymes.
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