LAMARTINE Alphonse de (1790-1869)

THREE autograph MANUSCRIPTS, Harmonies and Meditation 10 folios in-fol. written recto-verso, mounted on tabs on white vellum leaves; bound in one volume in-fol. blue jansenist morocco, lined, smooth spine, blue moire endpapers, double endpapers, gilt edges, case (G. Cretté successor of Marius Michel). Fine manuscripts of two Harmonies and a Meditation. - Harmonie ieme [number left blank] - Quare tristis es anima mea? Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (III, 9), where the title appears in French: "Pourquoi mon âme est-elle triste? 5 leaves; 246 verses. Some erasures and corrections; variants with the printed text. "Why do you moan unceasingly, O my soul, answer me? from where does this weight of sadness come which weighs today on you? to the tomb which devours us in mourning you have not yet led your last friends!"... - Harmonie 16eme - La perte de l'Anio - to the Marquis de Barol. Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (II, 3). 3 leaves; 146 verses. Manuscript dated at the end: "Florence 10 December 1826". Variants with the printed version. "I had dreamed formerly, with the noise of its cascades; lying on the gossip that Horace had trodden in the shade of the old arches where the Sybil sleeps under its collapsed temple I had seen it fall in the deep caves"... - Meditation vingtieme - Philosophy - to the Marquis de L.M.F. Meditations poétiques (XX). 2 leaves; 128 verses. The manuscript bears at the head a correction as to the classification of this Meditation: "Meditation [vingt et unieme rayé] vingtieme". Lamartine had sent this meditation (November 5, 1821) to the Marquis de LA MAISONFORT, French minister in Florence, whose collaborator he hoped to become. The manuscript, written on a watermarked paper with the King's coat of arms and cipher and the date of 1818, presents some corrections. "oh who will carry me to the tepid shores where the Arno crowned with its pale shades to the walls of the Medici in its arrested course reflects the palace by a wise man inhabited and seems to the flattering noise of its slower wave to murmur the great names of Petrarch and Dante?"... PROVENANCE Louis BARTHOU (I, 399), Daniel SICKLES (II, 397).