JEAN PIERRE CLARIS DE FLORIAN (1755-1794) EAN PIERRE CLARIS DE FLORIAN was born of an impoverished family at the Château de Florian in Languedoc, 1755. His education, conducted by the best of masters, was begun in his own home and continued under the guidance of Voltaire, who was his kinsman and who admired his intelligence and abilities. The great master obtained for the young poet a place in the household of the Duc de Penthièvre, who granted him a commission of captain in one of his own regiments. It was after several years of attention to his military duties that Florian produced his pastoral romance Galatea' (1782), composed during the leisure hours of his service. It seems worthy of remark that Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote,' of which Florian was later on to render so acceptable a version to his compatriots, should have produced as an early work (if it was not his first) a pastoral bearing the same title. The Galatea' was followed by two volumes of dramatic pieces, and by another of short novels of the sentimental type; his next work, called 'Estelle,' enjoyed JEAN P. C. DE FLORIAN great popularity, and together with his 'Numa Pompilius (1786) placed him in the front rank of contemporary literature. He was enrolled as a member of the Academies of Lyons, Florence, and Madrid, and on the death of the Cardinal de Luynes he was admitted into the Academy of Paris, the honor which he had most coveted. During the tyranny of Robespierre, Florian was thrown into prison, his position with the Duc de Penthièvre and some verses in honor of Marie Antoinette serving as pretexts for his detention; and in spite of the ceaseless efforts of Boissy D'Anglas and Mercier he would doubtless have been sent to the guillotine, had not the downfall of the tyrant procured his release. He left his prison with shattered health, and retired to the Parc de Scéaux, the estates of the Duc de Penthièvre, where he expired of a fever, September 13th, 1794 Florian's style is typical of his times, although he showed an element of conservatism. His works were carefully written, and bear the marks of an elegant and delicate fancy without the impression of strength. His 'Numa Pompilius' seems to have been modeled on the Telemachus' of Fénelon. 'Gonzalve de Cordoue,' another of his romances, is in a more modern manner, although it opens with an invocation to the "Chaste nymphs of the Guadalquivir.» Florian, in fine, is best known to-day by his fables, which have become classic side by side with those of La Fontaine. The following translations of Florian were made for A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Thomas Walsh A THE CONNOISSEUR FAT and pompous paroquet, Free from his cage by hazard set, Within a grove, when he, like those Inform us, pray, where we offend: none; Come, show us how we may amend." "Whistling, my friends, is all I do." THE DYING ROSE-TREE ROSE-TREE, rose-tree, thou wert fair How fair, oh then how fair, thy flowers 'Twas sweet with water from the stream O rose-tree, rose-tree, thou wilt die; And yet my heart thirsts more than thine: I languish - would like thee could I, SERENADE ITHDRAW thy beams, thou moon unkind:- WIT Bear thou my sorrows, gentle wind, And whisper them where she doth sleep. All else beside, who would not know The pain her heavenly glances make, Sleep on, sleep on; for if you wake Yon must be rivals in my woe! 5851 FOLK-SONG BY F. B. GUMMERE S IN the case of ballads, or narrative songs, it was important to sunder not only the popular from the artistic, but also the ballad of the people from the ballad for the people; precisely so in the article of communal lyric one must distinguish songs of the folk-songs made by the folk-from those verses of the street or the music hall which are often caught up and sung by the crowd until they pass as genuine folk-song. For true folk-song, as for the genuine ballad, the tests are simplicity, sincerity, mainly oral tradition, and origin in a homogeneous community. The style of such a poem is not only simple, but free from individual stamp; the metaphors, employed sparingly at the best, are like the phrases which constantly occur in narrative ballads, and belong to tradition. The metre is not so uniform as in ballads, but must betray its origin in song. An unsung folk-song is more than a contradiction,-it is an impossibility. Moreover, it is to be assumed that primitive folk-songs were an outcome of the dance, for which originally there was no music save the singing of the dancers. A German critic declares outright that for early times there was "no dance without singing, and no song without a dance; songs for the dance were the earliest of all songs, and melodies for the dance the oldest music of every race." Add to this the undoubted fact that dancing by pairs is a comparatively modern invention, and that primitive dances involved the whole able-bodied primitive community (Jeanroy's assertion that in the early Middle Ages only women danced, is a libel on human nature), and one begins to see what is meant by folk-song; primarily it was made by the singing and dancing throng, at a time when no distinction of lettered and unlettered classes divided the community. Few, if any, of these primitive folk-songs have come down to us; but they exist in survival, with more or less trace of individual and artistic influences. As we cannot apply directly the test of such a communal origin, we must cast about for other and more modern conditions. When Mr. George Saintsbury deplores "the lack, notorious to this day, of one single original English folk-song of really great beauty," he leaves his readers to their own devices by way of defining this species of poetry. Probably, however, he means the communal lyric in survival, not the ballad, not what Germans would include under volkslied and Frenchmen under chanson populaire. This distinction, so |