The bibliography of this long and curious book--almost the only one which contains some verse, some of Balzac's own, some given to him by his more poetical friends--occupies full ten pages of M. de Lovenjoul's record. The first part, which bore the general title, was a book from the beginning, and appeared in 1837 in the _Scenes de la Vie de Province_. It had five chapters, and the original verse it contained had appeared in the _Annalaes Romantiques_ ten years earlier with slight variants. The second part, _Un Grand Homme de Province_, likewise appeared as a book, independently published by Souverain in 1839 in two volumes and forty chapters. But two of these chapters had been inserted a few days before the publications in the _Estafette_. Here Canalis was more distinctly identified with Lamartine than in the subsequent texts. The third part, unlike its forerunners, appeared serially in two papers, _L'Etat_ and _Le Parisien_, in the year 1843, under the title of _David Sechard, ou les Souffrances d'un Inventeur_, and next year became a book under the first title only. But before this last issue it had been united to the other two parts, and had appeared as _Eve et David_ in the first edition of the _Comedie. George Saintsbury I TWO POETS (Lost Illusions Part I) BY HONORE DE BALZAC Translated By Ellen Marriage DEDICATION To Monsieur Victor Hugo, It was your birthright to be, like a Rafael or a Pitt, a great poet at an age when other men are children; it was your fate, the fate of Chateaubriand and of every man of genius, to struggle against jealousy skulking behind the columns of a newspaper, or crouching in the subterranean places of journalism. For this reason I desired that your victorious name should help to win a victory for this work that I inscribe to you, a work which, if some persons are to be believed, is an act of courage as well as a veracious history. If there had been journalists in the time of Moliere, who can doubt but that they, like marquises, financiers, doctors, and lawyers, would have been within the province of the writer of plays? And why should Comedy, _qui castigat ridendo mores_, make an exception in favor of one power, when the Parisian press spares none? I am happy, monsieur, in this opportunity of subscribing myself your sincere admirer and friend, DE BALZAC. TWO POETS