Victor Hugo made this approach to the illimitable in power, that he was well-nigh equally able to do great things and to do small. To exhibit by specimen his achievement in verse we shall offer here a few of his small things, in the impossibility of representing his great. The small things that we offer may acquire a value extrinsic to themselves if thought of as the gentle play of a giant who could with the same ease have astonished you by exhibitions of strength. Victor Hugo went a second time, having once failed, to intercede with King Louis Philippe on behalf of a political offender condemned to death. It was late at night, and the monarch could not be seen. The intercessor would not be baffled, and, bethinking himself to appeal by the tenderness of birth and of death to the king, wrote four lines of verse which he left on the table. The allusions in them are to a lovely daughter of the royal house just lost and to a little son just born. We give the French text, and follow it with a close English translation: Par votre ange envolee ainsi qu'une colombe, Par ce royal enfant doux et frele roseau, Grace encore une fois! grace au nom de la tombe! Grace au nom du berceau! By your lost angel, dove-like from you flown, By this sweet royal babe, fair, fragile reed, Mercy once more! Be mercy, mercy shown, In the tomb's name, and cradle's, both, I plead. The poet's plea availed. Another little gem of Victor Hugo's is the following quatrain, which, though it may have had at first some particular occasion, is capable of the most general application. Again we give the French, for the French here almost translates itself: Soyons comme l'oiseau pose pour un instant Sur des rameaux trop freles; Qui sent trembler la branche, mais qui chant pourtant, Sachant qu'il a des ailes. This may be thus rendered, almost word for word: Like the bird let us be, for one moment alight Upon branches too frail to uphold, Who feels tremble the bough, but who sings in despite, Knowing well she has wings to unfold. One more little gem from Victor Hugo's treasury of such we are happily able to present in a version whose authorship will commend it; Mr. Andrew Lang translates "The Grave and the Rose." The poet here affirms, as he is very fond of doing, that capital article in his creed, the immortality of the soul: The Grave said to the Rose, "What of the dews of morn, Love's flower, what end is theirs?" "And what of souls outworn, Of them whereon doth close The tomb's mouth unawares?" The Rose said to the Grave. The Rose said, "In the shade From the dawn's tears is made A perfume faint and strange, Amber and honey sweet." "And all the spirits fleet Do suffer a sky-change More strangely than the dew-- To God's own angels new," The Grave said to the Rose.