Ijamartine. A celebrated French poet

He ranks with Victor Hugo and Alfred'de Musset among the f oremost poets of the 19th oentury, He was prominent in the political life of his times, and was eminent as a brilliant orator. Lamartine not being so modem as to discard classical forms of expression he naturally would be contemptuously dismissed as old - fashioned by a literary décadent like the Marius of our story, who represents the frothy, erratic élément of Paris student life.

7. Jocelyn (1836). One of the best known works of Lamartine, a narrative poem of ten rising to the dignity of an epic. The subject matter deals with a priest of the Jura région, on the border of S witzerland, who8e.life is fiUed with noble thoughts and Works of charity. The tone of the poem is grave and stately, the versification faultless, the descriptions of nature admirable. But religions ai^d philosophical spéculations occupy perhaps toc prominent a place for the interest of the average reader.

20. Ouvrir de grands yeux=regarder d'un air ébahi, être très étonné.

24, 4. Râblé et maflu, Thick-waisted and fat-faced.

4. Frère Jean des Entommeures. A celebrated character in the ** Gargantua" of Rabelais, a plain spoken fighting monk, a sort of roùgh diamond. He had no difficulty in defending himself most eflfectually, and with his *' baston (bâton) de la croix, qui estoit (était) de cœur de cormier, long comme une lance, rond à plein poing," which he habitually carried about him, he could put to flight a whole f^rmy. The author introducea him to our attea-

KOTES â4fi!

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tion (Bk. I, Ch. XXVII) as **jeiine, gallant, frisque (vif, pimpant), déliait (joyeux), bien à dextre (adroit), hardy, adventureux, délibéré, haut, maigre, bien fendu de gueule, bien advantagé en nez, beau despescheur d'heures, beau desbrideur (celui qui expédie rondement) de messes, beau descroteur (performer) de vigiles ; pour tout dire, un vrai moine si onques (jamais) en fut, depuis que le monde moinant moina (example of satirical and fantastical terms coined by the author) de moinerie (" monkery ") ; au reste, clerc jusque es (aux) dents en matière de bréviaire." NeverthelesR, frère Jean' s career is any thing but canonical. He is a favorite with the author, who makes him a satire on the monastic System.