COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

MODERN PROSE WRITERS. 433
poetic inspiration shows itself principally in the innermost
peculiarities of the language, breaking forth as fluently in his
prose as in the immortal poems of Klopstock, Schiller, Goethe,
and Byron. Even where there is no purpose of bringing forward
subjects immediately connected with the natural sciences,
our pleasure in these studies, when referring to the limited
portions of the earth best known to us, may be increased by
the charm of a poetic mode of representation.
In recurring to prose waiters, we dwell with pleasure on the
small work entitled Paul et
Virginie, to which Bernardin de
St. Pierre owes the fairer portion of his
literary reputation. The
work to which I allude, which can scarcely be rivalled by
any production comprised in the literature of other countries,
is the simple picture of an island in the midst of a
tropical sea, in which, sometimes favoured by the serenity of
the sky, and sometimes threatened by the violent conflict of the
elements, two charming creatures stand picturesquely forth from
the wild sylvan luxuriance surrounding them as with a varie-
gated flowery tapestry. Here, and in the Chaumiere Indienne,
and even in his Etudes de la Nature, which are unfortunately
disfigured by wild theories and erroneous physical opinions, the
aspect of the sea, the grouping of the clouds, the rustling of
the air amid the crowded bamboos, the waving of the leavy
crown of the slender palms, are all sketched with inimitable
truth. Bernardin de St. Pierre's master-work, Paul et Vir-
ginie, accompanied me to the climes whence it took its origin,
For many years it was the constant companion of myself and
my valued friend and fellow-traveller Bonpland, and often
(the reader must forgive this appeal to personal feelings) in the
calm brilliancy of a southern sky, or when in the rainy season
the thunder re-echoed, and the
lightning gleamed through the
forests that skirt the shores of the Orinoco, we felt ourselves
penetrated by the marvellous truth with which tropical nature
is described, with all its peculiarity of character, in this
little work. A like power of grasping individualities, without
destroying the general impression of the whole, and without
depriving the subject of a free innate animation of poetical
fancy, characterises, even in a higher degree, the intellectual
and sensitive mind of the author of Atala, Rene, Les Martyres,
Flemming's compositions is marked with a fresh and healthful rigour,
whilst his images of nature are tender and full of life."
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