CERCLE FRANCAIS LECTURES.

M. de Regnier yesterday delivered the first of his series of lectures on Modern French Poetry, under the auspices of the Cercle Francais.

After a few preliminary remarks concerning the place, origin and history of the symbolist movement, M. de Regnier considered the principal schools of poetry which preceded the "decadent" school, sketching briefly the history of French poetry from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the romanticist movement made itself felt.

All poetry rests on one indispensable principle--the search for duty. There is poetry in everything, and it is the poet's part to find it and draw it out. One of the striking features of romanticism is the principle of "belief in inspiration."

A certain carelessness and negligence which appeared in the writings of the leading men of this period brought about in 1850 a reaction which came at a most propitious time, inasmuch as the best propitious time, inasmuch as the best work of the romanticists has been completed. The two leading men of this reaction were Baudelaire and Leconte de Lisle. The latter is essentially an objective poet and his poetry is noticeable lacking in any personal lyric strain. He is a poet philosopher and something of an historian. Baudelaire maintained that inspiration consists of work and he opposed the romanticists' idea of subordinating art to the artist.

In 1864 another reaction occurred which gave rise to the Parnassian School. Their work was made more difficult by the growing strength of the prose realism with its Stendhals, Balzacs, Daudets and Zolas. Nothing was more natural than that they should be conservative and pay much attention to verse form. The leading members of this group are Coppee, Anatole France, Sully, Prudhomme, Heredia, Sylvestre and Leon Dierk.

M. de Regnier then commented briefly on the work of each of these men, laying considerable stress on the place of the sonnet. In the early eighties followed the reaction of idealism against realism. The new movement was headed by Paul Verlaine, Mallarme, and others. With them slowly arose the new school of poets called "decadents" or symbolists.