HEGESIPPE

MOREAU (18ro-1838)  , French lyric poet, was born in Paris on the 9th of April 18ro . In his early youth his parents, who were poor, migrated to Provins, where the mother went into service and the father took the post of usher in a public school . He went to Paris before 1830, and lived a Bohemian life . He was habitually houseless, and exposed himself to the dangers of a cholera hospital in the great epidemic of 1832 simply to obtain shelter and food . Then he revisited Provins and published a kind of satirical serial called Diogene . Some years of this life entirely ruined his health, and it was only just before his death that he succeeded in getting his collected poems published, selling the copyright for £4 sterling and 8o copies of the book . This volume, Myosotis, was received not unfavourably, but the author's death on the 20th of December 1838, in a refuge of the destitute, created an interest in it which was proportionately excessive . Moreau's work has a strong note of imitation, especially in his earlier songs, distinguished from those of his model, Beranger, chiefly by their elegiac note . Some of his poems, such as the elegy La Voulsie (1837) and the charming romance La Fermiere (1835), have great sweetness and show incontestable poetic power .