GREAT POETS: LAMARTINE.--Great poets were to come. Aroused, without doubt, by the poetic genius of the prose writer Chateaubriand, the first generation of the romantics was formed by Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Vigny. Romanticism was the preponderance of imagination and sensibility over reason and observation. Lamartine rebathed poetry in its ancient and eternal sources: love, religion, and the sentiment of nature. In his _Meditations_, his _Harmonies_, and his _Contemplations_, he reawoke feelings long slumbering, and profoundly moved the hearts of men. In _Jocelyn_ he widened his scope, and, emerging from himself, narrated, as he imagined it, the story of the soul of a priest during the Revolution, and subsequently in the obscurity of a rural parish; in _The Fall of an Angel_ he reverted to the life of primaeval man as he conceived it to be when humanity was still barbarous. Apart from his poetic works, he wrote _The History of the Girondins_, which is a romanesque history of almost the whole of the Revolution, some novels, some autobiographic episodes, and a few discourses on literature. VICTOR HUGO.--Victor Hugo, though less sensitive than Lamartine but more imaginative, began with lyrical poems which were somewhat reminiscent of the classical manner, then went on to pictures of the East, thence to meditations on what happened to himself, and on all subjects (_Autumn Leaves_, _Lights and Shades_); next, in full possession of his genius, he dwelt on great philosophical meditations in his _Contemplations_, and in _The Legend of the Centuries_ gave that epic fragment which is a picture of history. His was one of the most powerful imaginations that the world has ever seen, as well as a _creator of style_, who made a style for himself all in vision and colour, and also in melody and orchestration. Although in prose he lacked one part of his resources, he utilised the rest magnificently, and _Notre Dame_ and _The Miserable_ are works which excite admiration, at least in parts. Later, he will be dealt with as a dramatist. ALFRED DE VIGNY.--Alfred de Vigny was the most philosophical of these three great poets, though inferior to the other two in creative imaginativeness. He meditated deeply on the existence of evil on earth, on the misfortunes of man, and the sadness of life, and his most despairing songs, which were also his most beautiful, left a profound echo in the hearts of his contemporaries. Some of his poems, such as _The Bottle in the Sea_, _The Shepherd's House_, _The Fury of Samson_, are among the finest works of French literature.