Trilbyana Part 5

'Au clair de la lune Va chez la voisine-- Pierrot repondit: Je crois qu'elle y est, Je n'ai pas de plume, Car, dans sa cuisine, Je suis dans mon lit. On bat le briquet.'

The third stanza contains the point of the song:--

'Au clair de la lune Qui frappe de la sorte?

S'en va Arlequin Il dit a son tour: Frapper chez la brune Ouvre-moi ta porte Qui repond soudain: Pour le dieu d'amour.'

The fourth stanza continues in the same strain, and it goes farther."

"MALBROUCK S'EN VA'T EN GUERRE"

Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre....

Ne sais quand reviendra!

Ne sais quand reviendra!

Ne sais quand reviendra!

Il reviendra-z-a Paques-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Il reviendra-z-a Paques....

Ou ... a la Trinit!

La Trinite se pa.s.se-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ La Trinite se pa.s.se....

Malbrouck ne revient pas!

Madame a sa tour monte-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Madame a sa tour monte, Si haut qu'elle peut monter!

Elle voit de loin son page-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Elle voit de loin son page, Tout de noire habille!

"Mon page--mon beau page!-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Mon page--mon beau page!

Quelles nouvelles apportez?"

"Aux nouvelles que j'apporte-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Aux nouvelles que j'apporte, Vos beaux yeux vont pleurer!"

"Quittez vos habits roses-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Quittez vos habits roses, Et vos satins broches!"

"Le Sieur Malbrouck est mort-- _Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!_ Le Sieur--Malbrouck--est--mort!

Est mort--et enterre!"

There is no more eloquent description of the effect of music on an impressionable nature than du Maurier gives of the impression made upon Little Billee by the singing of Adam's "Cantique de Noel" at the Madeleine on Christmas Eve.

CANTIQUE DE NOeL

Minuit, Chretiens, c'est l'heure solennelle, Ou l'homme Dieu descendit jusqu'a nous, Pour effacer la tache originelle Et de son Pere arreter le courroux.

Le monde entier tressaille d'esperance A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur.

Peuple a genoux! attends la delivrance!

Noel, Noel, voici le Redempteur!

A Search for Sources

TO THE EDITORS OF THE CRITIC:--

The liquid name, "Trilby," of du Maurier's heroine having been duly run down to its source, will a slight excursus be amiss as to the origin of the affectionate t.i.tle applied by the novelist on his charming little hero--"Little Billee"? Evidently the name, together with certain descriptive touches, has been taken from Thackeray's ballad, "Little Billee." This racy skit, as many doubtless know, is in the best vein of the great humorist's inimitable burlesque. It narrates the tragic cruise of

"Three sailors of Bristol city Who took a boat and went to sea,"

the second stanza running thus:--

"There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy _And the youngest, he was Little Billee_.

Now when they got as far as the Equator They'd nothing left, but one split pea."

And the unpleasant ultimatum being arrived at, that "We've nothing left, us must eat we," the poem continues:--

"Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, With one another we shouldn't agree, There's little Bill, _he's young and tender_, We're old and tough, so let's eat he."

Here, I say, we have the origin of the novelist's "Little Billee,"

while, in the italicized phrases, we have also du Maurier's, "the third, he was little Billee" (page 6), and "he was young and tender, was little Billee."

It would be sheer nonsense, of course, to urge against the famous novelist any charge of unacknowledged borrowing in matters so entirely trivial. The point is merely a curious one of origins; a little siccatine botanizing, so to speak, on the _folia disjecta_ that have been wonderfully spun by du Maurier's genius into a fabric of grace and beauty so rare as is this "Trilby." Nor, indeed, should the further fact be a detraction from the gifted author of "Trilby," that his indebtedness to Thackeray is obviously greater than in the minutiae under consideration--that, in fact, he has caught from the great immortal the note of much that is best in his book. In his limpid, graceful simplicity of words, and their easy, natural flow--in his delicate, playful humor, and tender but not overwrought pathos, we discover a careful study of found only a few general remarks about fairies, their habits and habitations, nothing in the least resembling the story of Jeannie's lover. Perhaps Nodier was mistaken about his source. As he travelled in the Highlands, he may possibly have "collected" the tale at first hand, and, there being no folk-lore societies in those early days of romanticism, he was not aware of the honor that thus accrued to him.

It cannot have evolved itself from a mere hint. We appeal to Mr. Lang to take up and follow the chase farther. He might be worse occupied than in tracing out the original John Trilby MacFarlane, and whence he got his English-sounding name, his fairy powers and his connection with Saint Columba--the last probably from Nodier himself, who may have been reading Montalembert's "Monks of the West" before setting out upon his pilgrimage. Mr. Dole, by the way, irreverently converts the Dove of the Churches into a "Saint Columbine," unknown to any respectable hagiographer. Think, Mr. Lang, what a delightful coil this romancing Frenchman, let loose among your Hielan' men, fairies, monks and Scotch novels, has made for you to straighten out, and how many strange discoveries may be made while you are about the job!

Miss Smith (2) has prepared another translation of Nodier's story, and, though there is little choice between her version and Mr. Dole's, we prefer it. It seems a trifle less exact, but it is more idiomatic; and, if anything, she perhaps intensifies the local color a little, which does not do the tale any harm. Her book is got up in tartan cover; Mr.

Dole's has a design adapted from Paul Konewka.

Mr. Richard Mansfield has secured from Estes & Lauriat the right to dramatize and produce Mr. Dole's translation of Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail."

Nodier's "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail"

It was not long after the appearance of "Trilby" that our readers detected the French origin of the name of Mr. du Maurier's heroine. The story of the unearthing of this delightful French fairy-tale may be followed in this series of communications to _The Critic_:

On looking over Roche's "Prosateurs Francais," I find that one of the "plus jolis" contes of Charles Nodier (1788-1844) is ent.i.tled "Trilby"; therefore the t.i.tle of du Maurier's much-bought novel is not original with him. I should be pleased if any reader of _The Critic_ would inform me as to the plot of Nodier's story.

ST. FRANCIS OF a.s.sISI RECTORY,

WM. J. MCCLURE,

MT. KISCO, N. Y., 29th Oct., 1894.