Regarding humanity in two aspects--the historical and the legendary, and maintaining that the latter was in one sense as true as the former, Hugo took up the legendary side of the question in this Legend of the Ages. It was intended to be followed by two other sections under the respective titles of 'The End of Satan' and 'God.' The first part of this great trilogy was far more striking than any of its author's previous poems. Its brilliancy and energy, its literary skill and its powerful conceptions, enchained the attention. The poet divided his work into sixteen cycles, extending from the Creation to the Trump of Judgment. A full and on the whole discriminating criticism of this remarkable poem has been given by the Bishop of Derry, who also, with some success, has translated passages from it. But Victor Hugo's French is too peculiar and impassioned to be brought within the trammels of English verse. Nevertheless, I will quote from the Bishop the last three stanzas of that beautiful poem, _Booz Endormi_, one of the first set of poems, all of which are devoted to Scriptural subjects. The rich man Boaz sleeps, quite unconscious of the Moabitess Ruth, who lies expectant at his feet: 'Asphodel scents did Gilgal's breezes bring-- Through nuptial shadows, questionless, full fast The angels sped, for momently there pass'd A something blue which seem'd to be a wing. 'Silent was all in Jezreel and in Ur-- The stars were glittering in the heaven's dusk meadows. Far west among those flowers of the shadows, The thin clear crescent, lustrous over her, 'Made Ruth raise question, looking through the bars Of Heaven, with eyes half-oped, what God, what comer Unto the harvest of the eternal summer, Had flung his golden hook down on the field of stars.' The second section deals with the Decadence of Rome, and here the poet's imagination has full sway. The well-known story of Androcles and the Lion is the subject of a beautiful poem. The third section is Islam, and then come the Heroic Christian Cycle, the Day of Kings, etc. But perhaps the most important composition in the work is Eviradnus, a poem in praise of the true and gentle knight. The Thrones of the East, Ratbert, Sultan Mourad, the Twentieth Century, and some other sections, all bear evidence of intense poetic realism, and show the mastery of the author over pictorial and dramatic effects.