He is never more happy than when he finds that he can borrow from an artizan or labourer one of those words which are worth ten of others.

It is thus that his genius has refined during the years preceding the time in which he produced his greatest works.

It is thus that he has become the poet of the people, writing in the popular patois, and for public solemnities, which remind one of those of the Middle Ages and of Greece; thus he finds himself to be, in short, more than any of our contemporaries, of the School of Horace, of Theocritus, or of Gray, and all the brilliant geniuses who have endeavoured by study to bring each of their works to perfection."{5} The Blind Girl was the most remarkable work that Jasmin had up to this time composed.

There is no country where an author is so popular, when he is once known, as in France.

When Jasmin's poem was published he became, by universal consent, the Poet Laureate of the South.