y-Agen-Jasmin, the last of the Troubadours-Southern Cookery and G

ingenious originator of candle-light turnings-out than I did, when a red ray shone through the keyhole of my bedroom, and the knuckles of-one would call him boots at home-rattled at the door, while his hoarse voice proclaimed, "Trois heures et demi,"-a most unseasonable and absurd hour certainly; but the Agen steamer, having the strong stream of the Garonne to face, makes the day as long as possible; and starts from the bridge-and a splendid

the boat. On the pier I observed a tent, and looking in, found myself in a genuine early breakfast shop, where I was soon accommodated with a seat by a pan of glowing charcoal. The morning was bitter cold; and a magnificent bowl of smoking coffee, bread hot from the oven, and just a nip of cognac, at the kind sug

eerfulness, and nothing could be more picturesquely beautiful, seen under such auspices, than the fleet of market-boats through which we threaded our way, and which were floating quietly down to Bordeaux. I dismiss the mere vegetable crafts; but the fruit-boats would have made Mr. Lance leap and sing for joy. They were piled-clustered-heaped over-with mountains of grapes bigger than big gooseberries-peaches and apricots, like thousands of ladies' cheeks-plums like pulpy, juicy cannon-balls-and melons big as the head of Gog or Magog. I could not understand how the superincumbent fruit did not crush that below; but I suppo

cape. We have Gascony to our r

me streets, and dilapidated piers, the stakes worn and washed away by the constant action of the river. Take Langon and Castres as specimens of these places: two drearier towns-more like sepulchres than towns-never nurtured owls and bats. They seem to be still lamenting the old English rule, and longing for the jolly times when stout English barons led the Gascon knights and men-at-arms on profitable forays into Limousin and Angoumais. Occasionally, however, we have a more promising

ace subsisted between the crowns, were they attacked and harried by moss-trooping expeditions led by French Watts Fire-the-Braes, or by English Christies of the Clinthill. While, then, the steamer is slowly plodding her way up stream, turning reach after reach, and showing us another and yet another pile of feudal

f the moment. For instance, on one occasion, an English and Gascon garrison was besieged in Auberoche-the French having "brought from Toulouse four large machines, which cast stones into the fortress night and day, which stones demolished all the roofs of the towers, so that none within the walls dared to venture out of the vaulted rooms on the ground-floor." In this strait, a "varlet" undertook to carry letters, requesting succour, to the Earl of Derby, at Bordeaux. He was unsuccessful in getting through the French lines, and being arrested, the letters were found upon him, hung round his neck, and the poor wretch bound hand and foot, inserted in one of the stone-throwing machines. His cries for mercy all unheeded, the engine m

g for blood. These men were frequently Bretons; and, says Froissart, "the most cruel of all Bretons was Geoffrey Tete-Noire." With this Geoffrey Tete-Noire, continues the old chronicler, "there was a certain captain,

e riding silently towards Aloise, Aimerigot spied the porter sitting upon the branch of a tree without side of the castle. The Breton, who shot extraordinary well with a cross-bow, says to him, 'Would you like to have that porter killed at a shot?'-'Yea,' repl

ared and thought no more of the spilling of blood which was not gentle, than he would of the scotching of a rat or a snake. Lingeringly and wofully does he record the deaths of dukes, and viscounts, and even simple knights and squires,

SM

a couple of thousand persons-the hot-blooded and quick-brained children of the South-the modern Troubadour plunges over head and ears into his lays, working both himself and his applauding audience into fits of enthusiasm and excitement, which, whatever may be the excellence of the poetry, an Englishman finds it difficult to conceive or account for. The raptures of the New Yorkers and Bostonians with Jenny Lind are weak and cold compared with the ovations which Jasmin has received. At a recitation given shortly before my visit at Auch, the ladies present actually tore the flowers and feathers out of their bonnets, wove them into extempore garlands, and flung them in showers upon the panting minstrel; while the editors of the local papers next morning assured him, in floods of flattering epigrams, that, humble as he was now, future ages would acknowledge the "divinity" of a Jasmin! There is a feature, however, about these recitations, which is still more extraordinary than the uncontrollable fits of popular enthusiasm which they produce. His last entertainment before I saw him was given in one of the Pyrenean cities (I forget which), and produced 2000 francs. Every sous of this went to the public charities; Jasmin will not accept a stiver of money so earned. With a species of perhaps overs

T'S H

ffeur de jeunes Gens. A little brass basin dangled above the threshold; and, looking through the glass, I saw the master of the establishment shaving a fat-faced neighbour. Now, I had come to see and pay my compliments to a poet; and there did appear to me to be something strangely a

ts!" he burst out with; "and their names are Corneille, Lafontaine, Beranger, and Jasmin!" Talking with the most impassioned vehemence, and the most redundant energy of gesture, he went on to declaim against the influences of civilization upon language and manners as being fatal to all real poetry. If the true inspiration yet existed upon earth, it burned in the hearts and brains of men far removed from cities, salons, and the clash and din of social influences. Your only true poets were the unlettered peasants, who poured forth their hearts in song, not because they wished to make poetry, but because they were joyous and true. Colleges, academies, schools of learning, schools of literature, and all such institutions, Jasmin denounced as the curse and the bane of true poetry. They had spoiled, he said, the very French language. You could no more write poetry in French now, than you could in arithmetical figures. The language had been licked, and kneaded, and tricked out, and plumed, and dandified, and scented, and minced, and ruled square, and chipped-(I am trying to give an idea of the strange flood of epithets he used)-and pranked out, and polished, and muscadined, unti

as he discoursed, lugging out, from old chests and drawers, piles of old newspapers and reviews, pointing me out a passage here in which the estimate of the writer pleased him, a passage there which showed how perfectly the critic had mistaken the scope of his poetic philosophy, and exclaiming, with the most perfect naivete, how mortifying it was for men of original and profound genius to be misconceived and misrepresented by pigmy whipper-snapper scamps of journalists. There was one review of his works, publi

d. Jasmin possesses gold and silver vases, laurel branches, snuff-boxes, medals of honour, and a whole museum of similar gifts, inscribed with such characteristic and laconic legends as-"Au Poete, Les Jeunes filles de Toulouse reconnaissantes--." The number of garlands of immortelles, wreaths of ivy-jasmin (punning upon the name), laurel, and so forth, utterly astonished me. Jasmin preserved a perfect shrubbery of such tokens; and each symbol had, of course, its pleasant associative remembrance. One was given by the

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 commo

ister, 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 immediate

ious rapidity. You turn from the first garlicky dish with dismay; the second does not appear quite so bad; you muster up courage, and taste the third. A strange flavour certainly-nasty, too-but still-not irredeemably bad-there is a lurking merit in the sensation-and you try the experiment again and again-speedily coming to Sir Walter Scott's evident opinions touching the petit point d'ail, "which Gascons love and Scotsmen do not despise." Indeed, your friends will probably think it well if you content yourself with the petit point, and do not give yourself up to a height of seasoning such as that which I saw in the salle à manger at Agen, drive two English ladies headlong from the room. Every body in the South eats garlic

-?a doit etre bon su' le pain-?a!" The little gourmand lo

e bursting beds of huge melons and pumpkins-when, extending my gaze over the vast expanse of champagne country, watered by the winding reaches of the Garonne, I saw-shadowy as the phantoms of airy clouds, rising into the far bright air-faintly, very faintly traced, but still visible, a blue vision of sierrated and jagged mountain peaks, stretching along the horizon from east to west, formi

could occasionally do uncommonly sneaking things. Thus it fell out:-In the year 1368, the Lord of Aquitaine announced that he would raise a hearth-tax throughout Guienne. The measure was, of course, unpopular, and the Gascon lords appealed to the King of France, as Feudal Superior of the Prince; and the King sent, by two commissioners-a lawyer and a knight-a summons to Edward, to appear and answer before

ard practitioners whom he consulted, the means of prevention were easy: what more practicable and natural than to send out a handful of men-at-arms-catch the knight and the lawyer, and then and there cut their throats? But Edward refused to commit unnecessary slaughter; and possibly exclaiming, as gentlemen in a drama and a dilemma always do-"I have it"-he gave some private instructions to Sir William le Moine, the High Steward of Agenois, who immediately set forth at the head of a plump of spears. Meantime, the envoys were quietly jogging along, when, what was their horror and surprise at being suddenly pounced upon by the Lord Steward, and arrested, upon the charge of having stolen a hor

on to Pau. The Toulouse diligence passed every day, but was nearly always full; I might have to wait a week for a place. A voiturier, however, was to start in the evening, and he faithfully promised to set me down at Tarbes, whence locomotion to Pau is easy, in time for a late supper; and so with this worthy I struck a bargain. He shewed me a fair looking vehicle, and we were to start at six. Punctually to the time, I was upon the ground, but no conveyance appeared. The place was the front of a carrier's shed, with an army of roulage carts drawn up before it. I kicked my heels there in vain, for not a bit could I see of voiture or voiturier. Seven struck-half-past seven-the north wind was bitterly cold, and a sleety rain began to fall. Had I a

uriest and the most garlicky of dishes, and the whole party in the highest state of feather and enjoyment. The cool impertinence of the greeting, however, tickled me amazingly; and room being immediately made, I was entreated to join the company, and exhorted to eat, as it would be

ad increased to a hurricane; the rain and sleet lashed the ground, so that you could hardly hear the driver shouting at the full pitch of his voice to the poor jades, who drearily dragged us through the mire. After an hour or two's riding, the water began to trickle in on all sides. The fat ladies said they could not possibly survive the night; and a poor thin slip of a soldier next me accepted half a railway wrapper with the most vehement "Merci-bien merci!" I ever heard in my life. About one in the morning we pulled up at a lone public-house, in the kitchen of which the passengers refreshed

LE O