VICTOR HUGO'S NEW POEM.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3042, 26 March 1881, Page 4

VICTOR HUGO'S NEW POEM.

All Paris refused to believe that Victor Hugo's new poem, announced some time since, was to be called ' The Ass ;' but so it is, and the old poet has rarely written more brilliant, scathing, and satirical lines than lie has now put into the mouth of the much abused, long-suffering quadruped at which men laugh, and to which they commonly deny the possesion of wisdom. Hugo makes the ass ' Patience' indulge in a long lecture to the philosopher Kant, and from his assinine point of view utter a vast variety of comments on human follies ond shortcomings. That which especially impresses this philosophic ass is the absurd manner in which men rail at and endeavour to pull down every genius which arises in the world. Thereuponn, neglecting his thistles, this long-eared soliloquiser brays not unmelodiously forth a reproof to human kind, and before he has finished ho has half convinced his heaiers that he is the ass. Hugo says that the fantastic idea of this poem has been wcrking in his brain for 15 years, and that he has but recently had time to perfect it. Aii the literary critics

of the capital agree that the verses are among the very best Hugo has ever written, and while some smile ot the quaintness of the conceit, others insist that it is not only perfectly allowable, but admirable. —Paris Correspondent New York Evening Post.