Two years after _Les Misérables_ appeared the magnificent book of meditations on the mission of art in the world, on the duty of human thought towards humanity, inscribed by Victor Hugo with the name of William Shakespeare. To allow that it throws more light on the greatest genius of our own century than on the greatest genius of the age of Shakespeare is not to admit that it is not rich in valuable and noble contemplations or suggestions on the immediate subject of Shakespeare's work; witness the admirably thoughtful and earnest remarks on Macbeth, the admirably passionate and pathetic reflections on Lear. The splendid eloquence and the heroic enthusiasm of Victor Hugo never found more noble and sustained expression than in this volume--the spontaneous and inevitable expansion of a projected preface to his son's incomparable translation of Shakespeare. The preface actually prefixed to it is admirable for concision, for insight, and for grave historic humor. It appeared a year after the book which (so to speak) had grown out of it; andin the same year appeared the _Chansons des Rues et des Bois._ The miraculous dexterity of touch, the dazzling mastery of metre, the infinite fertility in variations on the same air of frolic and thoughtful fancy, would not apparently allow the judges of the moment to perceive or to appreciate the higher and deeper qualities displayed in this volume of lyric idyls. The prologue is a superb example of the power peculiar to its author above all other poets; the power of seizing on some old symbol or image which may have been in poetic use ever since verse dawned upon the brain of man, and informing it again as with life, and transforming it anew as by fire. Among innumerable exercises and excursions of dainty but indefatigable fancy there are one or two touches of a somewhat deeper note than usual which would hardly be misplaced in the gravest and most ambitious works of imaginative genius. The twelve lines (of four syllables each) addressed _À la belle Imperieuse_ are such, for example, as none but a great poet of passion, a master of imaginative style, could by any stroke of chance or at any cost of toil have written. L'amour, panique De la raison, Se communique Par le frisson. Laissez-moi dire, N'accordez rien. Si je soupire, Chantez, c'est bien. Si je demeure, Triste, à vos pieds, Et si je pleure, C'est bien, riez. Un homme semble Souvent trompeur. Mais si je tremble, Belle, ayez peur. The sound of the songs of a whole woodland seems to ring like audible spring sunshine through the adorable song of love and youth rejoicing among the ruins of an abbey. Seuls tous deux, ravis, chantants! Comme on s'aime! Comme on cueille le printemps Que Dieu sème! Quels rires étincelants Dans ces ombres Pleines jadis de fronts blancs. De cœurs sombres! On est tout frais mariés. On s'envoie Les charmants cris variés De la joie. Purs ébats mêlés au vent Qui frissonne! Gaîtés que le noir couvent Assaisonne!