DELAVIGNE, JEAN FRANcOIS Casrmin, a French poet and dramatic writer, was b. at Havre, 4th April, 1793, and educated at the lycee Napoleon in Paris, where he first attracted notice by his poem on the birth of the " king of Rome" in 1811. A few years after the fall of Napoleon, lie published his Messaiennes, a series of patriotic elegies, in which he bitterly deplored the misfortunes brought upon his country by the disaster of Waterloo. The July revolution inspired his song La Parisienne, which was set to music by Auber, and he wrote several other revolutionary lyrics, such as La sorienne ou la Polonaise, and La Bruxelloise. Many offers of employment in political affairs were made to him by Louis Philippe, but he chose to remain a litleraleur, and worked assiduously at the composition of plays. His incessant labors at length under mined his health, and he returned to Lyons for change of air, where he died 10th Dec., 1843. D. is. next to Beranger and Scribe, the most popular of recent French poets. lie
represents that "golden mean" of the French Parnassus, the half-classie, half-romantic style of poetry. There is nothing extravagant, nothing profound about him. Easily comprehended, moderately liberal, with a slight tincture of skepticism and Voltairian wit, yet, on the whole, rather moral in his tendencies, D. was just the man to charm the more elegant and decorous circles of Parisian society. Ills language, too, is piquant, picturesque. and select, and skillfully conceals the lack of poetic substance. The titles of his principal dramatic pieces are Lo Vtlpres Siciliennes (1819), Les Comediens (1820), Marino Falieri (1829), Louis III. (1832), .Les EN' ants & Edouard (1833), Don Juan. d'A atriehe (1835), and Fine du Cid (1839). Several editions of his works have been published, the first in 1845, containing a biography of D. by his brother Germain, and a panegyric by Sainte-Beuve.