Of Lamartine's youthful verse these purely human poems are all that we really care for nowadays. We are terribly bored by the vapid compositions which, following the prescribed rule for religious poetry, consist of nothing but adoration of the Deity as he reveals himself in his works.
The poet whose acquaintance we make in the human poems is unmistakably very vain, much engrossed with himself and his own lovableness, and at times too honeyed in his language. But his vanity is so childlike and innocent that it does not affect us unpleasantly; and we are favourably impressed by the fact that it is not literary vanity. Lamartine rejoices that he is good-looking, a favourite with distinguished women, a good horseman, in course of time an eloquent orator; but he is not conceited about his poetical gifts, not even proud of them. The man whose talent was that of the true improvisatore with proud humility describes himself in his prefaces and memoirs as one who cultivates art for his pleasure, and who does not belong to the number of the specially initiated. And he really is the dilettante in so far as he is too careless to be called a true artist. He has unconscious technique, he has flexibility and ease, but along with these an inclination to long-windedness and repetition which at times spoils his effects, and a want of the power of self-criticism which makes it difficult, nay, almost impossible, for him to correct and improve. Nevertheless, all his life long he was a poet, a true poet--in spite of his artistic defects one of the most genuine whom France has produced. It was not his fault that he made his appearance in literature under the unpropitious planet of the reaction period.
It was under the influence of the same planet that the man destined to become the most famous French poet of the nineteenth century won a name for himself. Victor Hugo, born in 1802, is for a long period of his life as good a Catholic and royalist as Lamartine, his senior by twelve years. Hugo's literary career corresponds closely with the political career of the French nation. He is an adherent of the Bourbons as long as they are the reigning family. When the Revolution of July takes place, he sympathises with it, and he is an adherent of the new monarchy from the moment it is founded. During the reign of King Louis Philippe, at whose court he is a frequent guest, he becomes an enthusiastic eulogist of Napoleon when the cult of Napoleon is revived in France. He warmly supports the candidature of Louis Napoleon for the post of President of the Republic, continues to lend him his support when he occupies that post, and is even favourable to the idea of an empire, until the feeling that he is despised as a politician estranges him from the Prince-President, and resentment at the _coup d'état_ drives him into the camp of the extreme Republicans. His life may be said to mirror the political movements of France during the first half of the century. He was, as is so often the case with poets, not a leading spirit, but an organ.