The notes are no less
curious, and to a stranger no less bewildering. Nothing could be more
naive than the writer's ignorance at some points, or more startling than
her learning at others. On the whole, the attainment of the book was
simply astounding. It consisted of a selection of translations from
nearly one hundred French poets, chosen by the poetess herself on a
principle of her own which gradually dawned upon the careful reader. She
eschewed the Classicist writers as though they had never existed. For
her Andre Chenier was the next name in chronological order after Du
Bartas. Occasionally she showed a profundity of research that would have
done no discredit to Mr. Saintsbury or "le doux Assellineau." She was
ready to pronounce an opinion on Napol le Pyrenean or detect a
plagiarism in Baudelaire. But she thought that Alexander Smith was still
alive, and she was curiously vague about the career of Sainte-Beuve.
This inequality of equipment was a thing inevitable to her isolation,
and hardly worthy recording, except to show how laborious her mind was,
and how quick to make the best of small resources.
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