What shall I say of Victor Hugo from the literary point of view? His true glory is that he revivified French literature--created it afresh, as it were--and was himself the best representative of its new excellences. But this subject is so great that I scarcely dare venture upon it. The poet carried out in his own person and work the advice he once gave to some younger spirits, 'Act so that your conscience will approve, and your works praise you; and, like those great unknown, you will leave the world better than you found it; while, in virtue of the justice which I believe to be the law of the universe, you will rise high elsewhere in the scale of creation. A man is splendidly praised when he is praised by his works.' Of course, he had his detractors--such men as Charles Maurice, who believed himself to be a greater writer than Victor Hugo, and who only perceived in _Hernani_ the effects of 'an intolerable system of style destructive of all poesy.' The world has since regulated this matter adversely to Maurice. Then there were others not so unjust as this writer, but men who were so strongly impressed by the defects of Hugo that they scarcely gave him due credit for his manifest powers of literary expression. Heine and Amiel may be taken to represent this type. To set against these are the Hugolâtres, as Théophile Gautier called them. In England the most enthusiastic admirer of the poet is undoubtedly Mr. Swinburne, and from his numerous tributes I may select one passage that is a kind of triumphant summary of the rest. It is the last stanza from his New-Year Ode to Hugo, in the _Midsummer Holiday, and other Poems_: 'Life, everlasting while the worlds endure, Death, self-abased before a power more high, Shall bear one witness, and their word stand sure, That not till time be dead shall this man die. Love, like a bird, comes loyal to his lure; Fame flies before him, wingless else to fly. A child's heart toward his kind is not more pure, An eagle's toward the sun no lordlier eye. Awe sweet as love and proud As fame, though hushed and bowed, Yearns toward him silent as his face goes by; All crowns before his crown Triumphantly bow down, For pride that one more great than all draws nigh: All souls applaud, all hearts acclaim, One heart benign, one soul supreme, one conquering name.'