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 things and thoughts, which blows through all the brighter and more gracious interludes of the Légende des Siècles: the figures of Gallus, the libertine by philosophy, and Gunich, the philosopher of profligacy—the former a true man and true lover at heart, the latter a cynic and a courtier to the core—are as fresh in their novelty as the figures of noble old age and noble young love are fresh in their renewal and reimpression of types familiar to all hearts since the sunrise of Hernani. The tragedy which follows this little romantic comedy is but the more penetrative and piercing in its pathos and its terror for its bitter and burning vein of realism and of humour. The lyric book is a casket of jewels rich enough to outweigh the whole wealth of many a poet. After the smiling song of old times, the stately song of to-day with its other stars and its other roses, in sight of the shadow where grows the deathless flower of death, pale and haggard, with its shadowy perfume: the song of all sweet waking dreams and visions, and sweetest among them all the vision of a tyrant loyally slain: the song on hearing a princess sing, sweeter than all singing and simple as 'the very virtue of compassion': the song of evening and rest from trouble, and prayer in sorrow, and hope in death: the many-coloured and sounding song of seaside winter nights: the song of three nests, the reed-warbler's and the martlet's made with moss and straw, in the wall or on the water, and love's with glances and smiles, in the lover's inmost heart: the song of the watcher by twilight on the cliff, which strikes a note afterwards repeated and prolonged in the last issue of the Légende des Siècles, full of mystery and mourning and fear and faith: the brief deep note of bewildered sorrow that succeeds it: the great wild vision of death and night, cast into