They deal with floating and colourless
sentiments, and the writer is never greatly moved, but he
seems always genuine. He makes no attempt to set off thin
conceptions with a multiplicity of phrases. His ballades are
generally thin and scanty of import; for the ballade
presented too large a canvas, and he was preoccupied by
technical requirements. But in the rondel he has put himself
before all competitors by a happy knack and a prevailing
distinction of manner. He is very much more of a duke in his
verses than in his absurd and inconsequential career as a
statesman; and how he shows himself a duke is precisely by
the absence of all pretension, turgidity, or emphasis. He
turns verses, as he would have come into the king's presence,
with a quiet accomplishment of grace.
Theodore de Banville, the youngest poet of a famous
generation now nearly extinct, and himself a sure and
finished artist, knocked off, in his happiest vein, a few
experiments in imitation of Charles of Orleans. I would
recommend these modern rondels to all who care about the old
duke, not only because they are delightful in themselves, but
because they serve as a contrast to throw into relief the
peculiarities of their model. When de Banville revives a
forgotten form of verse - and he has already had the honour
of reviving the ballade - he does it in the spirit of a
workman choosing a good tool wherever he can find one, and
not at all in that of the dilettante, who seeks to renew
bygone forms of thought and make historic forgeries.
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