'_Cinq-Mars_ is a romance in the style of Walter Scott. It
is well brought out, figures in good relief, lights well
distributed, sentiment high, but nowhere exaggerated,
knowledge exact, and the good and bad of human nature painted
with that impartiality which becomes a man, and a man of the
world. All right, no failure anywhere; also, no wonderful
success, no genius, no magic. It is one of those works which
I should consider only excusable as the amusement of leisure
hours; and, though few could write it, chiefly valuable to the
writer.
'Here he has arranged, as in a bouquet, what he knew,--and a
great deal it is,--of the time of Louis XIII., as he has of
the Regency in "La Marechale d'Ancre,"--a much finer work,
indeed one of the best-arranged and finished modern dramas.
The Leonora Galigai is better than anything I have seen in
Victor Hugo, and as good as Schiller. Stello is a bolder
attempt. It is the history of three poets,--Gilbert, Andre
Chenier, Chatterton. He has also written a drama called
Chatterton, inferior to the story here. The "marvellous boy"
seems to have captivated his imagination marvellously.
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