Lamartine,framed,above the chimney-piece,avowed the writer's belief that the Troubadour of the Garonne was the Homer of the modern world.M.Jasmin wears the ribbon of the Legion of Honour,and has several valuable presents which were made to him by the late ex-king and different members of the Orleans family.
"I have been somewhat minute in giving an account of my interview with M.Jasmin,because he is really the popular poet --the peasant poet of the South of France--the Burns of Limousin,Provece,and Languedoc.His songs are in the mouths of all who sing in the fields and by the cottage firesides.Their subjects are always rural,naive,and full of rustic pathos and rustic drollery.To use his words to me,he sings what the hearts of the people say,and he can no more help it than can the birds in the trees.Translations into French of his main poems have appeared;and compositions more full of natural and thoroughly unsophisticated pathos and humour it would be difficult to find.
"Jasmin writes from a teeming brain and a beaming heart;and there is a warmth and a glow,and a strong,happy,triumphant march of song about his poems,which carry you away in the perusal as they carried away the author in the writing.I speak,of course,from the French translations,and I can well conceive that they give but a comparatively faint transcript of the pith and power of the original.The patois in which these poems are written is the common peasant language of the South-west of France.It varies in some slight degree in different districts,but not more than the broad Scotch of Forfarshire differs from that of Ayrshire.As for the dialect itself,it seems in the main to be a species of cross between old French and Spanish--holding,however,I am assured,rather to the latter tongue than to the former,and constituting a bold,copious,and vigorous speech,very rich in its colouring,full of quaint words and expressive phrases,and especially strong in all that relates to the language of the passions and affections.
"I hardly know how long my interview with Jasmin might have lasted,for he seemed by no means likely to tire of talking,and his talk was too good and too curious not to be listened to with interest;but the sister [or wife]who had left us for a moment,coming back with the intelligence that there was quite a gathering of customers in the shop,I hastily took my leave,the poet squeezing my hand like a vice,and immediately thereafter dashing into all that appertains to curling-irons,scissors,razors,and lather,with just as much apparent energy and enthusiasm as he had flung into his rhapsodical discourse on poetry and language!"It is scarcely necessary to apologise for the length of this extract,because no author that we know of--not even any French author--has given so vivid a description of the man as he lived,moved,and talked,as Mr.Reach;and we believe the reader will thank us for quoting from an almost entirely forgotten book,the above graphic description of the Gascon Poet.
Footnotes for Chapter XIII.
[1]The Athenaeum,5th November,1842.'The Curl-papers of Jasmin,the Barber of Agen.'('Las Papillotos de Jasmin,Coiffeur.')
[2]'A Pilgrimage to Auvergne,from Picardy to Velay.'1842.
[3]'Bearn and the Pyrenees.'1844.
[4]"There are no poets in France now",he said to Miss Costello.
"There cannot be.The language does not admit of it.
Where is the fire,the spirit,the expression,the tenderness,the force,of the Gascon?French is but the ladder to reach the first floor of the Gascon;how can you get up to a height except by means of a ladder?"
[5]Westminster Review for October,1849.
[6]Published by David Bogue,Fleet Street.1852.Mr.Reach was very particular about the pronunciation of his name.Being a native of Inverness,the last vowel was guttural.One day,dining with Douglas Jerrold,who insisted on addressing him as Mr.Reek or Reech,"No,"said the other;"my name is neither Reek nor Reech,but Reach,""Very well,"said Jerrold,"Mr.Reach will you have a Peach?"
