- IN MEMORJAM, JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE Authorised Translation All Rights Reserved JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE A STUDY OF THE LITERARY RELATIONS BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BY JOSEPH TEXTE PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LYON TRANSLATED BY J. W. MATTHEWS LONDON DUCKWORTH & CO. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1899 ttO M. FERDINAND BRUNETIERE DE L'ACADEMIE FRANCAISE In token of gratitude r J 6 C - > -.: preface IN submitting this translation of my book, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et le cosmopolitisme litteraire, to the English public, mention should be made of the fact that a con- siderable number of errors have been corrected in view of the present edition. Several books and articles published during the past three years have been laid under contribution, as will be seen by reference to the notes. In short, I have done my best to bring this translation up to the level of the latest publications upon this immense subject. Nevertheless, having said so much, I am fully aware that the book must needs still present more than one lacuna. Studies in the comparative history of modern literatures involve, by reason of their complexity, peculiar difficulties, which have hitherto prevented them from attaining the development they deserve and are destined to receive in the future. Those, at any rate, who have prosecuted researches of this nature, will know how especially difficult it is to be complete in the matter of bibliography. I have repeatedly been made aware of this fact while writing this essay in comparative literature, and am still more sensible of it now that the book is about to appear in a new form. I must acknowledge that I have incurred obligations viii PREFACE towards more than one of the critics who have spoken of this book. I would at any rate tender my thanks to Mr W. M. Fullerton for his constant sympathy, and to my translator, Mr J. W. Matthews, for the conscientious care which has enabled him to correct certain errors in points of detail, particularly in the matter of quotations. JOSEPH TEXTE. LYON, January 1899. Jnttobuction "THERE exist two entirely distinct literatures," wrote Madame de Stael in the closing year of the eighteenth century, " that which springs from the South and that which springs from the North " : on the one hand, the group of romance literatures, derived from the Latin tradition, with the literature of France as its chief representative ; on the other, the group of " Northern," that is to say Germanic and Slavonic, literatures, free — or so, at least, thought Mme. de Stael — from this absorbing Latin in- fluence, "the most remarkable" among them, in her opinion, being the literature of England. To-day, however, we no longer divide the literatures of Europe, with the same assurance as did Mme. de Stael, into two groups separated by a hard and fast line. We have learnt that among " Southern," no less than among " Northern " literatures, there are essential distinctions to be drawn. In a word, we have multiplied the data of the problem, and obtained glimpses of more complex solutions. Have we shaken ourselves free from the central idea of Mme. de Stael's theory ? Have we given up contrasting Latin with non-Latin tradition, Southern literature with Northern, " humanism " — as we say now-a-days — with " exoticism," or " cosmopolitanism " ? Clearly, we have not. Quite recently a brilliant discussion was started upon this question, — to-day more real than ever before — as to the influence of the " Northern literatures " and of "cosmopolitanism" upon the literature of France, and all who took part in it, whether opponents of " exoticism " or its parti- sans, were agreed in distinguishing the " Latin tradition " from what M. Jules Lemaitre has wittily named " septentriomania." 1 1 Articles, by M. Jules Lemaitre on " L'influence des litteratures du Nord " (Revue des Deux Mondes, December 1894), by M. Melchior de Vogue on the "Renaissance latine" (^.-January 1895), by M. Andre Hallays on "L'influence ix x INTRODUCTION M. E. Faguet, a few months earlier, seeking a definition for the "classical" spirit, declared that the direction which French literature is henceforth to take is at the present moment disputed by two conflicting influences, namely, humanism on the one hand and exoticism on the other.1 Is France to remain faithful to that veneration for antiquity to which the national intellect has adhered for three or four cen- turies ? Or will she allow herself to be carried away by the movement which, for a hundred years and more, has been urging her in the same direction as literatures which are younger and more independent of classical tradition ? Will she come back to Greece, to Rome, to the French classics ? Or will she turn to England, to Germany, to Russia, to Norway, — in short, to the North ? Since the question can be asked, it is clear that the distinction formerly drawn by Mme. de Stael still holds good in substance : whether founded upon reason or not, her theory has been, for nearly a hundred years, one of the leading ideas of nineteenth century criticism. But how did that theory come to be formulated ? What are the facts upon which it was based ? How, and where did it arise, and under the influence of what circumstances ? Such is the problem which I have attempted to solve. It seemed to me that the origins and successive forms of the influence of the classical spirit upon the French genius had been studied repeatedly and at great length, but that the origins of the cosmopolitan spirit, which had assailed and threatened to supplant that influence, had been less frequently — and very inaccurately — dealt with. What then was it that cosmopolitanism, or " exoticism," represented at the outset? Few of the historians of French literature have asked themselves the question. By some of the greatest, Nisard for instance, it has been evaded; others have touched lightly upon it, as a side issue, when treating of the des litteratures etrangeres " (Revue de Paris, February 1895). See also M. F. Brunetiere's essay : Le cosmopolitisme et la litterature nationals, reprinted in Etudes critique sur fhistoire de la litterature franfaise, 6th series. 1 Study on Alexandrinism (Revue des Deux Mondes, May 1894). INTRODUCTION xi origins of romanticism or of Mme. de Stael. The majority, after devoting a few hurried pages to the anglomania or the " germanomania " of the romantic school, assert that this fashion had no very great vogue, and hasten, as Nisard expressed it, to " restore the true guides of the French spirit,'* namely, the ancient writers, to their rightful place. Unfortunately, however, the present is an age in which the French mind, rebelling — rightly or wrongly — against the counsels of criticism, refuses adherence to its old masters, and when — as Emile Hennequin observes — French literature 1 'is less than ever adequate to express the prevailing senti- ments of French society." Not only so, but French society " has found its own feelings more faithfully expressed, and has taken greater pleasure, in the productions of certain foreign writers of genius, than in those of the poets and novelists to whom it has itself given birth." Whence it follows that between minds there exist " voluntary bonds, at once more free and more enduring than the long-established community of blood, of native soil, of speech, of history and of custom, by which nations appear to be formed and divided."1 The question of race is therefore at the basis of the question of cosmopolitanism ; it is the existence of the national genius of France that exoticism leads us to consider, at anyrate in so far as this genius is conceived as the lawful and privileged heir of the genius of antiquity. In the present work I have endeavoured to determine the origins of this movement, and it has seemed to me necessary to go back not merely, as is usually done, to the romantic school, but to the eighteenth century and to Rousseau. True, it was the romanticists who, if I may say so, let loose the cosmopolitan spirit in France ; but the master of all the romantic school, as well of Mme. de Stael, — the man whose aspirations they did but formulate, whose influence they did but extend and strengthen — was Rousseau. He it was who, on behalf of the Germanic races of Europe, struck a blow at the time-honoured 1 E. Hennequin, Ecri-vains /ranches, p. iii. Cf. H. M. Posnett, Comparative Literature (London , 1886), book iv., ch. i (What is World-literature /'). xii INTRODUCTION supremacy of the Latin races. It was he who, in the words of Mme. de Stael, united in himself the genius of the North with the genius of the South. It was from the day when he wrote, and it was because he had written, that the literatures of the North unfolded themselves to the French mind, and took posses- sion of it. Jean-Jacques, said Mme. de Stael once more, although he wrote in French, belongs to "the Teutonic school"; he impregnated the national genius with " foreign vigour." Employ- ing the same idea, and giving it greater precision, M. de Vogue has recently said : " There is one very cogent argument, and one only, which can be brought against those who would see in French romanticism a product of foreign influences, and that is that the germ of all our romanticism exists in Rousseau. But this precious fellow, who is lawful father to Bernardin and Chateaubriand, and grandfather to George Sand and the rest of them, actually has the presumption to be a Swiss. Has he not a very strongly marked foreign appearance, one 'which in many respects is already of a northern cast, even on his first irruption in the midst of French tradition ? It is painful to have to confess it, but in order to defend ourselves from the reproach of having been poisoned with German and English virus, we are constrained to recognize that Swiss blood has, for a century past, been flowing through our inmost veins." The whole object of this book is to exhibit Rousseau as the man who has done the most to create in the French nation both the taste and the need for the literatures of the North. In the first place I have endeavoured to show that Rousseau profited greatly by the influence which had been exercised in France, ever since the commencement of the eighteenth century, by " the most remarkable of the Germanic nations " — the only one, in fact, of which that century acquired a thorough knowledge — namely, England. During the interval between his arrival in Paris in 1744 and the publication of La Nouvelle Heldise in 1761, English influence strengthened its hold upon the French alike in science, in philosophy, in the drama and in fiction. A con- temporary, struck with the current of ideas which connected the two countries during those decisive years, remarked that if at INTRODUCTION xiii that time France had brought a telescope to bear upon the things of the mind the instrument would have been constantly directed towards England; and Buckle once declared that this union of the French with the English intellect was " by far the most important fact in the history of the eighteenth century." l I have studied the origins of this movement ; I have tried to show how the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by driving the national genius abroad, if I may say so, paved the way for the advent of the Northern literatures, and I have reminded the reader of the way in which the work of Protestant criticism was carried on by Muralt, Voltaire and Prevost, all of whom Rousseau- had read and closely studied. Disseminated by these men of talent or of genius, English influence had, at the moment when Jean- Jacques began to write, become a power. It was the secret hope of all who, more or less vaguely, were dreaming of a revival of French literature. To Diderot, the friend of Rousseau, and to the whole of Diderot's school, England seemed the home of liberty of thought : " The Englishman," wrote one of them,, borrowing both metaphor and thought from Rousseau, " never bows his head to the yoke which the majority of men bear with- out a murmur, but prefers freedom, however stormy, to tranquil dependence." 2 This stormy freedom of the English genius was destined to captivate Jean-Jacques. By his foreign descent, his religious convictions, and his literary aspirations, he was sooner or later to feel himself drawn towards this eighteenth century Salentum. We shall see the extent to which it actually fascinated him, and how his admiration for England, while it did not in his own mind take the form of a protest against the classical tradition of France, was rendered such by force of circum- stances. But the anglomania of his contemporaries was not enough for Rousseau. His most celebrated work is in part an imitation of a famous English novel. Every writer of his day remarked that, as an English critic has expressed it, the soul of Clarissa 1 History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 214. 2 Journal encyclopedique , April 1758. b xiv INTRODUCTION had " transmigrated into the heroine of La Nouvelle He/oise." 1 I have endeavoured to specify Jean- Jacques' debt to Richardson, and to show why the latter, too little known at the present day, is the precursor of the former in the history of European litera- ture. The whole of the bourgeois literature of modern times, and this is saying a great deal, has sprung from this English novel, and, as has been excellently observed, " it is undeniable that Clarissa Marlowe stands to La Nouvelle He/oise in this same relation as La Nouvelle He/oise stands to Werther, Rene and Jacopo Ortis" 2 For the first time a great English writer had served as model for one of the great writers of France. Can we wonder that Rousseau's contemporaries remarked the fact as a sign of the times ? Thus Rousseau felt an instinctive admiration for the English, and imitated them. He was the brilliant personification of all that was most original and most independent in the English genius. Thomson sang the praises of nature thirty years earlier, and with no less feeling, than he ; twenty years before the publication of La Nouvelle Heloise Young had given expression to that "enchanting sorrow" which so charmed Saint-Preux •, while old Ossian revealed the sweet springs of melancholy simultaneously with Rousseau. The works of these writers made their appearance in France when his literary career was at its height. In truth, he owes them nothing. But their influence became blended with his ; in them French readers, betweeen 1760 and 1789, found the same aspirations, the same unrest, the same lyricism as they had found in Rousseau, — everything, in short, which they thirsted for but had failed to discover in the classical literature of France. How could they help being struck with the kinship between the genius of Rousseau and that of the northern writers ? How could they help regarding this as an instance, to use the expression of a contemporary, of " cross-fertilization " in the intellectual sphere ? Was it not inevitable that Mme. de Stael should have said that 1 Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, ist ed., p. 68. 2 Marc Monnier, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les etrangers, in Rousseau juge par les Genevois (faujourd'hui (Geneva, 1879). INTRODUCTION xv he had infused the French intellect with " foreign vigour," since it was from his school that it learned to enjoy foreign works in preference to those of purely French origin ? If the idea was an illusion, we can at any rate both account for it and excuse it. It was through this school — that of Rousseau and the English — that our fathers learned to appreciate what Mme. de Stael calls " the genius of the North." They became, or began to be, "cosmopolitans"; that is to say, they grew weary of the pro- tracted supremacy of the literatures of antiquity. The ancients, wrote the author of De la Litterature not long afterwards, "leave little regret" behind them, and five-and-twenty years later the romantic school, through the medium of Stendhal, added the opinion that "spite of all the pedants, Germany and England twi// ivin the day against France" -1 It is true that cosmopolitanism did not take shape as a theory until after the Revolution, with Mme. de Stael. I hope I have succeeded in showing that as an aspiration, already well-defined, it dates from the previous century, and that, in contrasting the Teutonic with the Latin genius, the new criticism simply carried the revolution effected by Rousseau to its inevitable consequence. The influence of the northern literatures has increased or diminished during the past century in proportion to that of Jean- Jacques ; the reason being that the former is but the latter in another form. It should further be observed that the French were not awakened all at once to an interest in northern literature. Just in the same way eighteenth century France failed to under- stand Shakespeare, and the critics treated this as a proof of its inability to appreciate the literatures of other nations. Not only, however, is it difficult to recognize Shakespeare in the crude versions of that day,2 but between the eighteenth century and Shakespeare there is something more than the mere differ- ence of race, there is the gulf that separates two epochs. Not 1 Stendhal, Racine et Shakespeare (1823), p. 246. 2 Observe that down to 1776, the year in which the first volume of Letourneur's version appeared, the only manner in which French readers could become ac- quainted with Shakespeare was through the grotesque parody of La Place. See J. J. Jusserand, Shakespeare en France sous Vanc'ien regime (Paris, 1898). xvi INTRODUCTION all at once did the French mind, which could no longer ap- preciate either Ronsard or Rabelais, succeed in understanding the English Renaissance. Nevertheless, even in the eighteenth century, it both under- stood and appreciated the novels of Richardson and Sterne, and the poetry of Young, Thomson, and Ossian, all of them thoroughly English writers and anything but " classical." They form the escort of Rousseau, who is greater than them all. Some are his models, others his predecessors or contemporaries. All are bound to him by a family likeness : Mme. de Stael constantly speaks of "Rousseau and the English", and she is right. The cosmopolitan spirit was born, during the eighteenth century, of the fruitful union between the English genius and that of Jean- Jacques. Such is the thesis of the present work. The reader will be good enough to observe that I do not identify the cosmopolitan spirit with the influence of any one in particular of the literatures of Europe. The chief place is allotted to England, because she was the first, and, for a century, practically the only, country to exercise an influence upon France. Of German literature nothing was known during the eighteenth century beyond a few names, and Gessner was the only writer with whom Rousseau was acquainted. Those who read Werther or the Robbers, which owed their inspiration to him, could discern in them one more proof of the kinship between his genius and that of the Germans. Only a few of the more inquiring minds paid any attention to the writings of " the Danes and Swedes " mentioned by Mme. de Stael. England was thus the first country to exercise an influence upon France ; an influence which gave the cosmopolitan movement the tendency it has maintained throughout the present century — namely, to raise a protest, in the name of foreign and modern literature, against the influence of the classical spirit. But is there such a thing as a " classical spirit," a " French spirit," or an "English spirit"? And what right have we to distinguish a "Germanic" from a "Latin" genius? Are not these expressions simply empty formulas, which have no real INTRODUCTION xvii import, and but faintly disguise the vagueness of the ideas for which they stand ? — I confess that more than once, in the course of these pages, I have asked myself this disturbing question. "There are naturally," said Taine in a famous passage, " varieties of men, just as there are varieties of bulls and horses ; there are the brave and intelligent, and there are the timid and feeble-minded ; those who are capable of lofty con- ceptions and productions, and those who cannot go beyond rudi- mentary ideas and inventions ; some who are especially fitted for certain kinds of work, and more richly endowed than others with certain instincts, just as certain races of dogs are better qualified, some for running, some for fighting, some for the chase, and some for the protection of houses and flocks." l Taine was the successor of Mme. de Stael, and since his day the history of literature has been above all an ethnological problem. But since Taine wrote these lines we have learnt to distrust the more positive conclusions which some writers have attempted to draw from moral ethnography, assuredly the most difficult and the most complex of all the sciences. Nay, in many intelligent minds, this distrust has turned into absolute scepticism. Only recently the author of a splendid work upon Robert Burns asserted that the idea of race is " fluctuating, ill-established, and open to dispute." Admissible, perhaps, in the physical sphere, that idea is unreliable in the moral sphere, and for two reasons : firstly, because there is nothing to show that a few differences in physical characteristics, faint and superficial as these, moreover, are, such as the outline of the nose, and the colour of the eyes or hair, carry with them differences, and important differences, in the intellectual system ; and, in the second place, because the psychology of races seems still more problematic. You cannot obtain a conception of the soul of a portion of humanity by merely supplementing certain ethnological labels with a few vague adjectives."2 These are specious objections, and I confess they do not strike me as conclusive. 1 Introduction to English Literature. 2 Angellier, Robert Sums, vol. i. p. vii. xviii INTRODUCTION In the first place, we are not here concerned with " the colour of the eyes" or "the shape of the nose." It is allowable to speak of the "French spirit" or of " the Italian genius " because, in Italy as well as in France, a long succession of writers of talent or of genius have had a certain more or less definite idea of this national " genius " and this national " spirit." Whether that idea was true or false is of little consequence; even an illusion may produce good results. Enough that from the whole assemblage of French or Italian works it is possible to select certain common features which differentiate them from the pro- ductions of Spanish or English writers. The excellent observa- tion made by Nisard in respect to his own history, that it was possible " only because there exists a clear conception of the French intellect," might without hesitation be applied to French literature. In other words, this conception — or, if you will, this illusion — is the collective work of all those who for centuries past have wielded the pen in France, and the reason why the French spirit exists is simply that hundreds and thousands of writers have willed that it should exist. Could Robert Burns be called " the great poet of Scotland," if he ha.d not set before himself a certain ideal of the " Scotch genius " ? It has been maintained that, in his poems, he shewed himself independent of the necessities of race and blood. But while this may be, we must at least admit that with all the strength of his soul he be- lieved in the originality of his country — that he gloried in being, through an act of his own free will, a " child of Scotland." Doubtless, the idea of race, like so many other ideas essential to science of any kind — like that of heredity, or that of moral liberty — is neither absolutely clear nor perfectly definite in range. Does it therefore follow that there is no reality which corre- sponds to it ? Not only would such a hypothesis contradict every scientific notion of things, but it would also infallibly land us in the strangest paradoxes, and when Taine expressed the idea that race is " the primary source of historical events " he did but enunciate a law from which it will long be impossible for the history of literature to escape. By eliminating this essential notion of race, we surrender, at the very outset, all possibility of INTRODUCTION xix accounting for anything beyond the individual. But what is the individual without his environment ? What is Dante without Italy, Burns without Scotland, Ibsen without Norway ? The inadequacy, the futility, of any attempt to study the genius of these men without paying due regard to the idea of race, is palpable. On the other hand, will any one deny that the literature of Greece, taken as a whole, represents an entirely distinct type of the human intelligence ? Will anyone maintain that the whole mass of the works which have been written in Latin might equally well be attributed either to the Arabians or to the Chinese ? Could the Alhambra be the work of the architect of the Parthenon, or the Discobolus of a Hindoo sculptor ? Those who scoff at the absurdity of such questions thereby admit that the history of literature and art is before all things an ethnographical problem. Nisard, in his account of the literary productions of France, states that his aim was to write " the history of the French mind." He was right. A history of French literature which did not set that aim before it would be no more than a shapeless congeries of materials. It is thus in vain to point out the obscurity of the conception of race, to protest that genius removes all barriers, or to expose the dangers and difficulties of the " psychology of peoples " ; there is no escaping the fact that this idea of race is now, and long will be, the guiding principle of all fruitful historical research. " Human- ity," said Vigny, " is delivering an interminable discourse, and every distinguished man is one of the ideas it expresses." When, therefore, the historian studies a man, he is studying humanity ; but in order to go back to the origins of humanity, he must of necessity study the ethnological group to which the man belongs. For each nation, in its turn, utters a portion of the " interminable discourse" delivered by humanity. But in reality it is only the discourse of humanity that can be called "interminable." The discourse which each nation delivers lasts, on the contrary, only a few centuries at most. It is this fact that enables the historian of Greece or Italy to speak with confidence of a Greek genius or a Latin spirit. These nations have said their say, and we can determine the nature of xx INTRODUCTION their genius. Their civilizations are dead and gone ; they are organisms whose evolution has run its course. How much easier it is to study them than to examine a living civilization, the development of which will continue for centuries ! By what right, logically speaking, can we give a definition of the French or of the German spirit, so long as there is a Germany or a France still in existence ? What science authorizes us to classify, to judge and to define that which still lives and moves, and every day advances towards an end of which we cannot as yet obtain a glimpse ? In a few centuries the vital force of our race may have exhausted itself j we, in our turn, may have ended our discourse ; and then, and then only, will it be alto- gether permissible to say what we were. Meanwhile we are confined to conjectures and to probabilities. Such is one reason for caution. Here is another. The races of men are no more invariable and no more proof against the intrusion of alien blood than are the species of ani- mals : interbreeding takes place between them, as between those species, and thereby they become transformed. " For the past eight or ten centuries there ;has been, in a sense, a traffic or interchange of ideas from one end of Europe to the other," so that Germany has been nourishing itself upon French thought, England upon German thought, Spain upon Italian thought, and each of these nations successively upon the thought of all the rest. The study of a living being is to a large extent the study of its relations to its neighbours. Similarly not a literature can be found of which the history does not carry us beyond the frontiers of its native country. Look where we will among modern literatures, it is always the same story of alternate lendings and borrowings ; as Voltaire said : " Almost all literary work is imitation. ... It is with books as with the fire on our hearth-stones : we obtain kindling from our neighbours, light our own fire with it, pass it on to others, and it becomes the property of all." There is, as it were, a fluid form of matter which flows successively into different moulds, runs from mind to mind, and always, as it passes on to the next, carries with it a fresh principle of life and movement. INTRODUCTION xxi The difficulty of these racial problems having been ascertained, it is none the less incumbent upon the historian of literatures, and of modern literatures in particular, to treat each one of them, " not as an entirely distinct and self-contained history, but as a branch of European literature in general." l This is what I have en- deavoured, to the best of my ability, to do, in these pages, for Rousseau. In their moral no less than in their political life, nations have their periods of concentration and expansion. I have attempted to show that for a century and a half the cosmopolitan spirit in literature has manifested itself in the reaching out of the French mind, according to the example set by Rousseau, towards the literatures of northern Europe. The present volume owes much to the teaching and advice of M. Ferdinand Brunetiere. He has said somewhere that it " would be well to subordinate the history of individual litera- tures to the general history of the literature of Europe." It is his opinion that " by adopting this standpoint in our study of the history of French literature, we shall find it no less original, and least of all less classical," but we shall assuredly "recon- struct it in part." Such, also, was my own opinion, and still is. Now that I have experienced the difficulties of the undertaking, and have had my own incapacity fully brought home to me, I cannot but feel the deepest gratitude to the generous teacher, but for whose encouragement these pages would never have been written, and whose instruction has been one of the chief favours I have received at the hands of fortune. Would that this book were less unworthy of the interest he has taken in it. I wish also to acknowledge the useful advice I have received from M. J.-J. Jusserand, from my old master, M. A. Beljame, professor at the Sorbonne, and from the professors of Oxford University generally, who have made me their grateful debtor. 1 F. Brunetiere, Revue des Deux Mondes, loth May 1891. xxii INTRODUCTION It gives me much pleasure to add to these names those of M. E. Ritter, M. H. Carre, and above all that of the late M. Guillaume Guizot, who was generous enough to place at my disposal his manuscript notes upon the literary relations between England and France during the eighteenth century. LYON, April 1895. Uable of Contents PAGE INTRODUCTION . vii 3800& I THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE BEFORE THE TIME OF ROUSSEAU Chapter I THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES AND THE FIRST MIGRATION OF THE FRENCH SPIRIT I. Ignorance of the seventeenth century with regard to England — Pre- judices and prepossessions— Ignorance of the language — Instances of English books which were known in France during the seventeenth century — Why these instances prove nothing — Paramount influence of humanism ..... ...» II. The French colony in London — Propaganda of the refugees on behalf of English philosophy and English political institutions . . 14 III. Their works of travel — Their newspapers — In what sense can it be said that the Dutch reviews aided the birth of the cosmopolitan spirit in literature? — Bayle, Le Clerc, and Basnage — Multiplication of inter- national reviews — Their hostility to antiquity — They pave the way for English literature — La Roche, La Chapelle, Maty — French imitators of the refugees: Dubos, Destouches, Desfontaines — Inferiority and unim- portance of their work in comparison with that of Protestant criticism ^^ Chapter II WRITERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE : MURALT, PREVOST, VOLTAIRE I. Prevost and Voltaire were themselves preceded by the Swiss, Beat de Muralt, the author of the Lettres sur les Anglais et les Fran^ais (1725) — Muralt's character — Wherein he carried on the work of the refugees, wherein he went beyond them —His illusions— His opinions on English literature and the English intellect — Great success of his book : Muralt and Desfontaines — His influence on Rousseau . . . -37 xxiii xxiv CONTENTS PAGE II. Admiration of the abbe Prevost for English ideas ; he assists in diffus- ing them — His two visits to England — His translations — His cosmo- politan novels : Memoires d'un homme de qualite and Histoire de Cleveland — His magazine, Le Pour et Contre (1732-1740): the author's aim and method — England occupies a large share of its space . . .44 III. Voltaire and the Lettres anglaises (1734) — Importance of the book in Voltaire's life — His intercourse with men of letters during his stay in London — Knowledge of the language — His efforts to awaken interest in English matters — Origin of the Lettres anglaise : they consist of two books ........ 56 IV. Insufficiency of Voltaire's information ; his wilful inaccuracy — The pamphleteer injurious to the critic — Why this book is nevertheless of the highest importance in the history of the influence of England — Voltaire encourages imitation of English works . . .66 Chapter III THE CAUSES WHICH, BEFORE THE TIME OF ROUSSEAU, PAVED THE WAY FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN FRANCE I. Circumstances which contributed to the diffusion of the cosmopolitan spirit during the first half of the century — Decline of the patriotic idea — Exhausted state of the national literature . . . 76 II. Spread of the scientific spirit, and its literary results . . .82 III. The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in its relation to the influence of England ; in him the Latin genius is combined with the Germanic . 87 II JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND ENGLISH LITERATURE Chapter I ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND I. Origins of Rousseau's genius : what it owes to Geneva, and through Geneva to England — Its exotic character . . . .89 II. Rousseau, like his contemporaries, an admirer of England — Freedom of the English intellect — Respect felt by Frenchmen of the eighteenth century for English virtue . . . . . .96 III. How these features come to be found also in Rousseau — Whence did he derive his notions concerning England ? — Muralt's influence over him — English manners in La Nouvelle Helo'ise— Milord Bomston, or the Englishman — Rousseau's work reflects the anglomania of his age . 102 CONTENTS xxv Chapter II ROUSSEAU'S FIRST STUDIES IN ENGLISH PAGE 1. Rousseau's early associations in Paris : Diderot and the admirers of England. . . . . . . . . in II. His first studies in English : Pope, and his popularity — Influence of his commonplace philosophy upon his age and upon Rousseau — Daniel de Foe: success of Robinson Crusoe . . . . . . 115 III. Rousseau's admiration for English literature directed mainly to the bourgeois variety — Why ? Because of his literary tendencies — His admira- tion for the English drama : translation of The London Merchant (1748) 128 Chapter III EUROPEAN POPULARITY OF ENGLISH FICTION , I. Greatness of the English novel in the eighteenth century — Its success upon the continent — Fielding — Immense popularity of Richardson . 142 II. Why the French public went into raptures over English fiction — Why, with Rousseau, it rated it more highly than the works of Lesage, Prevost and Marivaux — Wherein the French novelists, and Marivaux in particular, had anticipated Richardson and Rousseau . .150 III. Provost translates Richardson (1742, 1751, 1755-56) — Importance of these translations — Their value . . . . . .160 Chapter IV THE WORK OF SAMUEL RICHARDSON I. Defects of Richardson's novels — Reasons for their success — Wherein they are opposed to classical art . . . . .165 II. Wherein the realism of the author of Clarissa Harlo'we consists — His lack of distinction— His brutality— His power . . . .170 III. Richardson a delineator of character — He is an inferior painter of the manners of good society, and an excellent painter of middle-class manners: Lovelace, Pamela, Clarissa . . . . .180 IV. His moral ideas ; his preaching — Fond of casuistry and the discussion of moral problems . . . . . . • J93 V. His sensibility — The place of love in his works — Emotional gifts . 199 VI. Magnitude of the revolution effected by Richardson in the art of fiction ......... 105 xxvi CONTENTS Chapter V JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND ENGLISH FICTION PAGE I. Success of English novels in France — Richardson is read and imitated by every member of Rousseau's circle — Controversy with regard to English novels — Diderot's Eloge de Richardson — Voltaire takes the other side — Richardson's influence upon the French novel . . . 209 II. Rousseau's admiration for him — He had Richardson in mind while writing La nouvelle Helo'ise — The resemblance between Htlo'ise and Clarissa a commonplace of eighteenth century criticism — Reasons for this . 227 III. Analogy between the two works in point of design, characters, use of the epistolary form, and devotion to reality as exemplified in middle- class life .... . 233 IV. Analogy between the two writers in point of religion — How Rousseau, following Richardson's example, transformed and elevated the novel . 241 V. Wherein he surpassed his model : feeling for nature, conception of love, melancholy — The success of Helo'ise increased the fame of Clarissa Har- loive — Richardson and the romantic school .... 249 JBOOfc III ROUSSEAU AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND DURING THE LATTER HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT Chapter I ROUSSEAU AND THE DIFFUSION OF THE LITERATURES OF NORTHERN EUROPE I. Development of English influence in the latter half of the century — Intercourse with England — Influence of English manners . . 256 II. Growth of the cosmopolitan idea — Diffusion of the English language and literature : newspapers and translations .... 262 III. Wherein Rousseau assisted the movement — The revolution accom- plished by him in criticism — Manner in which he effected the union of Germanic with Latin Europe ..... 271 Chapter II ENGLISH INFLUENCE AND THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL I. Sterne and the sentimental novel — Sterne, like Rousseau, brought sentimental confession into fashion — His visit to Paris — His amours — The " culte du moi " ....... 277 II. The eighteeenth century failed to understand his humour, but appre- ciated the way in which, like Rousseau, he affected to talk of himself, and to be deeply touched by his own condition — Nature and extent of the influence exerted by his work in France . . . .281 CONTENTS xxvii Chapter III ENGLISH INFLUENCE AND THE LYRICISM OF ROUSSEAU PAGE I. The love of nature — Rousseau's English predecessors — Thomson : his talent — Gessner — Their popularity in France .... ^^^ II. Melancholy — English melancholy proverbial in France — Popularity of Gray — Young and the Night Thoughts : the man and his work ; his popularity ........ 300 III. Mournful feelings inspired by the past — Macpherson and Ossian — Origins of Celtic poetry — The fame of Ossian European — How he fared in France . . . . . . .".314 IV. In what way the success of these works was assured by Rousseau . 331 Chapter IV THE REVOLUTION AND THE SECOND MIGRATION OF THE FRENCH SPIRIT. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND MME. DE STAEL I. How it was that in the eighteenth century cosmopolitanism was nothing more than an ill-defined aspiration — Reaction of the classical spirit, due to Voltaire and his school ; inadequacy and inferiority of classical criticism — Revival of ancient literature at the approach of the Revolution . . . . . . . -335 II. The Revolution restores the respect for antiquity — Intellectual rupture with the Teutonic nations — Decrease of the literary influence of Rousseau — But the springs which the Revolution had exhausted were rendered afresh accessible to the French mind by the emigration . 346 III. Publication of De la Literature (1800) — It was the expression at once of the cosmopolitan spirit and of the influence of Rousseau — Its origin mainly traceable to English influence — It was the last production of eighteenth century criticism — The author's judgment upon the classical spirit — What she has to set up in its place — Cosmopolitanism becomes a literary theory — Triumph of the influence of Rousseau, and of the northern literatures . . . . . -355 Conclusion THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY . 370 INDEX . . . . . . . . .381 Boofe i THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE BEFORE THE TIME OF ROUSSEAU Chapter I THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES AND THE FIRST MIGRATION OF THE FRENCH SPIRIT I. Ignorance of the seventeenth century with regard to England — Prejudices and prepossessions — Ignorance of the language — Instances of English books which were known in France during the seventeenth century — Why these instances prove nothing — Paramount influence of humanism. II. The French colony in London — Propaganda of the refugees on behalf of English philosophy and English political institutions. III. Their works of travel — Their newspapers — In what sense can it be said that the Dutch reviews aided the birth of the cosmopolitan spirit in literature ? — Bayle, Le Clerc, and Basnage — Multiplication of international reviews — Their hostility to antiquity — They pave the way for English literature — La Roche, La Chapelle, Maty — French imitators of the refugees : Dubos, Destouches, Desfontaines — Inferiority and unimportance of their work in comparison with that of Protestant criticism. THE revocation of the Edict of Nantes was something more than a religious or political event of great importance in the history of France. It was productive also of far-reaching effects upon her intellectual destinies. For with the revocation began that movement of thought which opened the French mind to a comprehension of northern literature. When Louis XIV. condemned four hundred thousand of his subjects, men of an active and enquiring turn of mind, to live beyond the confines of France, and principally in lands where Teutonic tongues were spoken, he did not suspect that his action would tend towards a thorough transformation of the national genius. It was, nevertheless, in consequence of the revocation 2 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE that French thought was brought in contact, first of all with England, and afterwards with Germany. As interpreters be- tween the Germanic and Latin sections of Europe, the refugees were most industrious, and from the heart of the Low Countries, of Great Britain, of Brandenburg, and of Switzerland, Protestant criticism strove, for two centuries, to bring Frenchmen into com- munication with the mind of Europe. Begun by the refugees, and carried on by Prevost and Voltaire, this propaganda on behalf, more particularly, of English litera- ture, had important consequences. Its effects began to make themselves felt about the middle of the eighteenth century, that is to say, at the moment when Jean- Jacques Rousseau was revolutionizing French literature. As a critic of that age expressed it, "it had long been impossible to doubt that the intermixture of races improves every species, both animal and vegetable," and " the experiment which for thirty years had been made upon a neighbouring country, namely, England," had afforded a clear proof that " the crossing of minds, which have also their races," may result in fertility.1 It appears to me that Rousseau derived more benefit from this "crossing" between the French and English minds than has commonly been supposed. In briefly recalling the nature of the propaganda carried on by the refugees, and of that of their French imitators, we shall therefore be studying the very origins of the revolution which he effected. In order to estimate its importance we must transport our- selves in spirit to the seventeenth century, and recall to mind the contempt professed by the more outspoken writers of that epoch for the literatures of the Northern countries, and especially for the people which Mme. de Stael described as " the most remarkable of the Germanic nations." It was through England that France was brought into con- tact with non-Latin Europe. Now, of all European countries, 1 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. i., p. 153. FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND g England was the one with which Frenchmen of the grand siecle were least acquainted. They regarded it with suspicion on account of its religion, and with detestation on account of its political history. Attached as they were to Catholic and monarchical tradition, the " English tragedies," to use the expression of Descartes, had filled them with alarm. Mme. de Motteville speaks of Cromwell and his crew as " rebel savages." " Guilty nation," cried Bossuet, " more turbulent within its own borders and in its own havens than the ocean which washes its shores ! " How could men who, according to Saumaise, were " more savage than their own dogs," and were still regarded by Frenchmen with the inveterate rancour engendered by the wars of the middle ages,1 be thought capable of poetry or art? But little acquainted with the English, the French despised them without scruple. Their contempt was returned with interest. Sir William Temple forbade his daughter to marry a Frenchman, " because he had always had a deep hatred of that nation on account of its proud and impetuous character, so little in harmony with the slavish dependence in which it is kept at home." 2 And if the English accuse the French of servility, they are in turn accused by the French of a savage disposition and senseless pride. " Pride and stupidity are their only manners ; their least absurd caprices are full of extravagance," said Saint-Amant of the English, and he spoke de visit, having seen " the malignant Roundheads, to whom the very throne is an object of suspicion,"3 at work in their own country. Two migrations of English royalists, in 1649 and 1688, did not suffice to close this gulf between the two peoples. One would have thought it might have been bridged by the curiosity of travellers. But we have every reason to know that Frenchmen of the grand siecle were but little given to travel. Rare indeed were the writers who, like Malherbe or Descartes, had crossed the northern or eastern frontier. Italy was visited, and Spain ; 1 See M. Langlois's study on Les Anglais au moyen age (Revue historique, 1894). 2 A. Babeau, Les voyageurs en France, p. 99. 3 V Albion (CEu-vres, ed. Livet, vol. ii., p. 439). 4 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE but no one ventured to cross the Channel. When, in 1654, Father Coulon, a Jesuit, published one of the earliest guides for travellers in England — possibly the first to appear in the French language l — this ancestor of Baedeker and Joanne did not disguise from his readers the difficulty of the undertaking, and had to appeal to the most celebrated instances in order to encourage them. "Once the dwelling-place of saints and angels, England is now the infernal abode of parricides and fiends. For all that, however, she has not changed her nature ; she still remains where she was, and just as in the lower regions the justice of the Almighty is associated with pity, so in this hateful island you may observe at the same time the traces of ancient piety, and the commotions and disturbance caused by the brutality of a people excited, spite of their Northern stupidity (sic), to the verge of madness." Scarcely an attractive picture. Accordingly, Coulon feels the necessity of providing his reader with some consolation. " Since in former days Julius Caesar had the courage and the curiosity to embark from the shore of Calais in order to seek a new world beyond our seas, and to add to his empire provinces which nature has separated from our dominions by another element, our traveller need not fear to cross over to England nor to entrust himself to the winds and to fortune, which formerly brought that ruler of the universe in safety to the port of Dover." He would therefore follow Julius Caesar to England, but he would make no stay in the island. " I do not recommend any reader to penetrate very far into the country, for nature has subjected it to a very sorry climate, and placed it, as it were, at the extremity of the world, in order to forbid our entry. It would be better to set out once more for France."2 1 Lejidele con ducteur pour le voyage d'Angleterre, by the sieur Coulon. Paris, Gervais Clouzier, 1654, nmo. In the sixteenth century had appeared Le guide des chemins d'Angleterre,fort necessaire a ceux qui y voyagent . . . [by Jean Bernard, Secretary of the King's Chamber]. Paris, Gervais Malot, 1579, 8vo. 2 About the same time a certain sieur de la Boullaye Legoux published a few notes on England, which he had visited in 1643. He mentions as his friends: " Charles Stuart, first of the name, king of England," and " Mme. Cromwell, widow of the late Oliver Cromwell, of London." (See Rathery, Des relations sociales et intellectuellcs entre la France et I'Angleterre, 4th part.) FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND 5 Most men, in that day, held the same opinion as Coulon, and spared themselves the trouble of " setting out once more for France " by never crossing her frontier. The majority, like Guy Patin, regarded travelling as " a disturbance of body and mind to no purpose whatever." 1 Such writers as had visited England during the previous century — for instance, Brantome, Ronsard, Monchrestien, Bodin, Henri Estienne, La Noue, and du Bartas — had commonly done so for diplomatic purposes, or in the train of a great personage. The few men of letters who, in the seventeenth century, crossed the English Channel, were travellers almost in spite of themselves, and certainly had little curiosity concerning English literature. Such were Voiture,2 Gabriel Naude, who went to collect books for Mazarin's library, Puget de la Serre, whose duties as historiographer obliged him to follow Marie de Medicis,3 Theophile de Viaud, who sought refuge in England for his own safety, Pavilion, d'Assoucy, Jean de Schelandre, Chappuzeau, almost all literary adventurers, upon whom, with the possible exception of Schelandre, English literature seems to have made no impression whatever. Saint- Amant, in some very inferior lines,4 said of the Englishman, " he has nevertheless the audacity to boast of his own rhymesters ; to his mind they are better than either Vergil or Horace. In comparison with a Janson [Ben Jonson], Seneca is but an insipid poet, destitute of either power or melody, and the famous Euripides has neither grace nor workmanship." And of some lines of English poetry he said : " Enough that they are in English ; they shall be re- duced to ashes." Pavilion expects to find England a wild region, covered with virgin forests, and is amazed to discover " never a 1 From the way in which he mangles proper names it would appear doubtful whether Coulon himself ever crossed the straits. Exeter becomes Exceste, Bristol, firestel, the Thames, la Tamesc, etc 2 Cf. Li vet, Precieux et Precieuses, vol. i;, p. 191. 3 See the account of Marie de Medicis' entry into London, by Puget de la Serre : the event occurred in 1639. (tf- Edward Smith, Foreign Visitors in England, p. x.) 4 Cf. Albion, caprice hero'i-comiqne, dedicated to Mgr. le Marechal de Bassompierre, composed in 1644, and published by M. Livet in his edition of Saint- Amant, 1855, vol. ii 6 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE bridge or a gate to defend, not a single castle to storm, no wrongs to redress nor robbers to chastize ; in fact not the veriest young spark to draw sword against." " But for the few young ladies on palfreys whom one meets from time to time, I should never have believed myself in the kingdom of Great Britain, so changed seems everything in England since the days of King Artus."1 Le Pays — who received the nickname of "Voiture's ape" and was so ill-treated by Boileau — remarks the ferocious nature of English dramatic representations, but does not mention any author or any piece by name.2 Nor were the French less ignorant of the language than of the country. Who should have been at the pains to acquire it ? Europe spared them the trouble of speaking foreign languages by using their own. Etienne Pasquier had already remarked that there was not a nobleman's mansion in the whole of Germany, England, and Scotland but had its French tutor. French, in the seventeenth century, was, after Latin, the inter- national language. It was in French that Bacon wrote to the Marquis d'Effiat, and Hobbes to Gassendi. The foreign languages taught in the schools of Port Royal were Spanish and Italian.3 In the scheme of studies drawn up by Richelieu for the grammar school he intended to found in his native town, we find no subjects represented beyond " the comparison of the 1 Letter to Mme. de Pelissari. CEuvres de M. Pavilion, Paris, 1720, I2mo, p. no. 2 Amitiez, amours et amourettes, by M. Le Pays, 3rd edn., Paris, 1665, izmo. p. 202. " You are aware, sir, that the rules of dramatic art, as we understand them, will not allow the tragic events of a play to be enacted before the eyes of the spec- tator. Our poets understand the gentleness of our disposition, and never permit blood to be spilt upon the stage. . . . Quite otherwise is it with English poets, who, in order to pander to the humour and inclination of their audience, always in- troduce scenes of bloodshed, and never fail to embellish their pieces with the most horrible catastrophes. In every play that is produced some one is either hung, torn in pieces, or assassinated. And it is at such passages that their women clap their hands and burst into laughter." As further instances of accounts of travel in the seventeenth century, I may mention that of a journey by the Due de Rohan : Voyage fait en Van 1600 en Italie, Allemagne, Pays JSas, Angleterre et Ecosse (Amsterdam, 1646, i 2mo), and the volume by Charles Patin entitled : Relations historiques et curieuses de •voyages en Allemagne, Angleterre^ Hollande, Boheme, Suisse, etc., by C. P. (Rouen, 1676, izmo). 3 Lantoine, Histoire de Venseignement secondaire en France au xviie siecle, p. 181. FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND 7 Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish languages." The writers of the day, Mme. de Sevigne, Racine, Corneille, La Fontaine, read Spanish or Italian, and sometimes both ; but for the Teutonic languages they cared nothing whatever. La Bruyere and Saint-Simon are quoted as having known something of German. So late even as 1665 the Journal des savants was unable to find anyone who could contribute an account of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. " The English," wrote Le Clerc, " have many good works ; it is a pity that authors in that country seldom write any language but their own." x English was regarded as a barbarous jargon. Corneille used to show his friends, as a curiosity, an English translation of Le Cid, which he kept in a cabinet along with translations of the same work into Turkish and Sclavonian. Jean Doujat, the lawyer, who was believed to know all the languages of Europe ; La Mothe le Vayer, who had married a Scotchwoman ; Regnier Desmarais, who, in his grammar, introduces a few comparisons with English ; the sieur de la Hoguette, who had visited England, had met Bacon, and was acquainted with some English novels,2 were mentioned as having a knowledge of the language. Fenelon, Ramsay's friend, says vaguely : "I hear that the English do not mind what words they use, provided they suit their purpose. They borrow them from their neighbours wherever they find them." 3 Sorel, in his Francion, obtains a cheap success with a burlesque of the jargon spoken by an English lord.4 Nevertheless, even in the seventeenth century there existed works devoted to the teaching of English. From Gabriel Meurier, through Festeau and Miege, down to Louis Oursel and Boyer, various grammarians had turned their attention to the language.5 One of them, Claude Mauger, in a grammar 1 Rathery, part iii. 2 Ibid. 3 Lcttre a I* Academic, iii. 4 Francion, bk. ii., pp. 70-72. 5 Gabriel Meurier's work (Traite pour apprendre a parler francois et anglois) dates from 1653. The Alphabet anglois of Louis Oursel is dated 1639 (Rouen, 8vo, 32 pp.). The same writer's Grammere angloise bears the same date (Rouen, 1639, 8vo, 205 pp.). Festeau's Noui>elle grammalre anglaise belongs to 1672. The Dictionnaire anglais- francais et francais-anglais of Miege is dated 1685. 8 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE which passed through thirteen editions, boasts, for the benefit of his English readers, of having associated with some of the best minds of Port Royal, who had placed his work in their library.1 These works, however, were designed for the use of those engaged in business. Boyer, in the grammar which he published in 1700, was the first to proclaim that there is " something both of Sophocles and of Aeschylus in Shakespeare." But Boyer was a refugee, and his grammar, as well as his dictionary, belongs to the eighteenth century. Adrien Baillet, as M. Jusserand has pointed out, had already alluded to Shakespeare in his Jugements des Savants, published at Paris in 1685-86, but he men- tioned his name only, without giving any appreciation of his work.2 Very few were the English books which found their way into France before 1700; a few translations from Latin, More's Utopia and Barclay's Argents ; certain historical works, such as those of Burnet or Ricaut, the latter of whom, through the medium of a translation, supplied Racine with the historical materials of his Bajazet ;3 almost the whole of Bacon, whose Essays were rendered into French in 1611 by a certain Jean Baudouin,4 and some of the writings of Hobbes ; as regards imaginative works, Godwin's Man in the Moon, and The Discovery of a New World, by John Wilkins, both of them known to Cyrano de Bergerac, and translated, the one* by Jean Baudouin in 1648, and the other by the sieur de la Montagne in 1655 ; a novel by Greene, and Sidney's Arcadia — such were the principal 1 " I assure you that there are no Words nor Phrases in my Grammar but are very Modish, for I was every day with some of the ablest Gentlemen of Port Royal, who assured me that my Grammar is in their Library." Cf. the notice at the end of the Grammaire angloise, expliquee far regies generates, by Claude Mauger, professor of languages, Bordeaux, not dated. The thirteenth edition bears the date 1689. 2 See M. Jusserand's articles on Shakespeare en France sous fancien regime (Cosmopolis, 1896 and 1897). 3 Histoire de I'etat present de V empire ottoman, trans, by Briot. Paris, 1670, 4to. 4 See the list of these translations in Charles Adam's Philosophic de Francois Bacon. — To M. Adam's list should be added the translation of the De augmentis, by the sieur de Golefer, the royal historiographer. Paris, 1632, 4*0. FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND 9 English works which found their way across the Channel in the seventeenth century.1 The Arcadia alone became famous, on account of the reputa- tion of its author. Two translators disputed the honour of introducing it to the French public. D'Urfe appears to have read it ; Balzac praises the author ; Sorel criticises it ; while Boisrobert and Marechal had recourse to it for the subjects of plays. But all these translations, which we mention as curiosities merely, did not affect French literature to any appreciable extent. On the contrary, it was the French tragedies, romances and comedies that were finding their way abroad at this period, and were exerting a strong influence beyond the borders of France.2 It would be difficult to name more than one or two seventeenth- century works, the subjects of which were taken from English books. Jean de Schelandre was possibly acquainted with Shake- speare ; La Fosse, in his Manlius, has undoubtedly imitated Otway, and La Fontaine appears to have borrowed the subject of Un Animal dans la lune from Hudibras. Of English literature, 1 L'homme dans la lune, an imaginary journey to the Moon, by Dominique Gonzales [Jean Baudouin], Spanish adventurer. Paris, 1648, 8vo. Decouverte d'un nouveau monde, designed to show that there is an inhabitable world in the moon ; and a discourse intended to make plain the possibility of getting there, together with a treatise on the planets. London, 1640, 8vo. Le monde dans la lune, by the sieur de la Montagne. Rouen, 1655, ^ vols. i2mo. Histoire tragique de Pandosto, roi de Boheme, et de Bellaria safemme; together with the Amours de Dorastus et de Favina, translated from English into French by L. Regnault. Paris, 1615, I2mo (mentioned by Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Bibliotheque des romans, p. 44). Mention is also made of certain Memoires du chevalier Hazard, traduits de I'anglais sur T original manuscrit, Cologne, 1603, I2mo, which I have been unable to identify. {Bibliotheque des romans, March 1779.) Le Blanc (Lettret, i., 33) speaks 01 a translation of J. Hall's Quovadis, to which no date is assigned. Numerous translations of J. Hall's works were published at Geneva in the course of the seventeenth century. — Thomas Browne's Religio Medici was translated (from the Latin) by Nicolas le Febvre in 1668. — The Eikon Basilike, translated by Porree, appeared at Rouen in 1649. With reference to translations of the Arcadia, see J. Jusserand, The English Novel, p. 282. — The Arcadia figured in the library of Fouquet. 2 Cf. Beljame, Le public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre, p 14 et seq. — J. Jus- serand, The English Novel, chap. vii. io INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE its general characteristics and essential features, cultivated minds had no idea whatever, and it was from Addison that Boileau heard of the existence of English poetry. Saint-Evremond alone, among the critics of his time, has spoken of it with a measure of understanding. Obliged to live in London, the friend of Waller, Buckingham, and D'Aubigny succeeded at any rate in forming a fairly accurate idea of the English genius, if he never obtained a knowledge of the language. He showed much acuteness in detecting the strong and the weak points of the English drama. He does not, it is true, make mention of Shakespeare, or at any rate he alludes to him only in a vague and cursory manner.1 But he names Ben Jonson, whose Catilina and Sejanus, as also several of his comedies, he had read or seen acted. In the year which saw the produc- tion of Phedre, he spoke in favourable terms of the English drama, which " appeals too strongly to the senses," but possesses fresh and vigorous beauties to which French tragedy cannot attain.2 Above all, though the information he acquired was not always very exact, his mind became broadened by contact with a new literature so entirely different from the French. Though never more than a literary amateur, he was a man of an open and comprehensive mind ; with Fontenelle he perceived that " different varieties of ideas are like plants and flowers which do not thrive equally well in every kind of climate," 3 and like him would have been ready to add : " Possibly our soil is no better suited to the reasoning of the Egyptians than it is to their palm-trees." 4 But Saint-Evremond, like Fontenelle, is an isolated example. 1 Letter to Mme. de Mazarin, 1682. (CEuvres melees de Saint-fivremond, ed. Giraud, vol. Hi., p. 186). 2 Sur Us tragedies, 1677. — Ed. Giraud, vol. iii., p. 368. ^ Digression sur les anciens. 4 Cf. Saint-fivremond, Dissertation sur Alexandre, ed. Giraud, vol. i., p. 295 : " One of the great faults of our nation is that we judge everything in reference to it, even to the extent of calling those of our compatriots who have not the bearing and manners characteristic of their country strangers in their own land ; hence we are justly reproached with being unable to judge of things otherwise than by their rela- tion to ourselves." — Cf. vol. i., p. 109, and vol. ii., p. 385. FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND II Taken as a whole, seventeenth-century France remained closed to the literatures of the Northern nations — or rather to the only one of those literatures with which it might have formed acquaintance. For her, the map of intellectual Europe was limited by the Alps, the Rhine, and the English Channel. Beyond these boundaries was desert-land and darkness. Away yonder, in the regions of the North, dwelt a coarse-minded race of men who led a sort of vegetable existence and were for ever incapable of rising to the idea of an art stamped with their own individuality or of independent thought. " You must at least confess," says one of Father Bouhours's characters, "that refine- ment of mind knows neither country nor race ; that is to say that, just as of old there were men of refined intellect among the Greeks and Romans, so are there now among Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Englishmen, and even Germans and Musco- vites." His companion indignantly replies : " A strange pheno- menon, forsooth, would that be — intellectual refinement in a German or a Muscovite. If there are such men in the world they must be of those who never show their faces without astonishing people. Cardinal du Perron once said, speaking of Gretser the Jesuit : " He has quite a refined mind for a German ; as though a cultured German were a prodigy." " I acknow- ledge," Ariste interrupted, " that cultivated minds are somewhat rarer in cold countries, because nature is there more languid and mournful, so to speak." " You should rather acknowledge," said Eugene, " that intellectual culture, as you have defined it, is entirely incompatible with the coarse temperament and clumsy frames of northern peoples." l What would Father Bouhours have said if he had been in- formed that a day would come when those " clumsy frames " and " coarse temperaments " would be the envy of French writers, and when this "languid, mournful nature" would be triumphantly contrasted with the bright sunshine of Italy ? " Our native prejudice," writes La Bruyere, " combined with our national pride, makes us forget that reason belongs to all climes alike, and that there is correct thinking wherever men 1 Les Entretiens d' Ariste et d"1 Eugene, new edn., Amsterdam, 1671, pp. 231-132. 12 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE exist. We should not like to be similarly treated by those whom we call barbarians ; and if there is any barbarism in us, it consists in our being amazed when we find other people reason- ing as we do." In truth this " prejudice " was very strong, even in the nobler minds of that century. Not that the genius of the French nation was regarded as the highest manifestation of the genius of humanity •, but that curiosity and admiration, instead of being attracted by works of foreign origin, were directed to those of antiquity. They were extended, if one may say so, not in space but in time. So powerful was the charm of antiquity that very few minds dreamed of breaking away from their time- honoured habit of fond veneration for it. Reverence for the humanities had become, as it were, the very substance of the French mind, and the history of human genius seemed to con- sist of but three stages : Athens, Rome, and Paris. Beyond these, beyond the three great epochs adorned by the brilliant names of Pericles, Augustus, and Louis XIV., classical criticism finds no age worthy of mention save that of Leo X., the glorious aftermath of the classical harvest. Across the periods of gloom these bright ages join hands and supplement each other. In the course of human progress they stand out like so many glittering beacons, which but render the dark intervals of the road still more obscure. Are we then to make it a reproach to the men of the seven- teenth century — to the genius of a Bossuet, to the open mind of a Fenelon, to the sober reason of a Boileau — that their concep- tion of the world's intellectual history was what it was ? We should, indeed, be strangely simple if we did. Not only did historical circumstances beyond human control conceal from them the prodigious efflorescence of English literature in the sixteenth century, and the manner in which the German genius blossomed forth into poetry during the middle ages ; not only had Northern Europe, during their own time, produced nothing at all com- parable to the literature of France, but the humanism with which they were imbued condemned them to remain strangers to everything that was not inspired by ancient models. Those even who revolted against the superstitious belief in antiquity, FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND 13 such as Desmarets, Perrault, and Lamotte, did not dream of setting up foreign, in opposition to classical, models. Whatever they themselves may have thought, the works which they contrast with those of antiquity are imitations of the antique ; with the Greek epic they compare the French, and, with ancient tragedy, modern. The quarrel as to the ancients and the moderns is thus a quarrel between Rome and Paris, and Perrault would have been very much astonished if the name of Spenser or of Milton had been introduced into the discussion. There was, in truth, no question of replacing the established principles of art by fresh ones ; above all, none of substituting a new for an obsolete con- ception of man. It was merely a question of finding out whether progress was still possible on the lines marked out by Homer, Vergil and Sophocles, and whether or not mankind was con- demned to remain subject to these masters. But to inquire whether other models could not be set up in opposition to these ; whether, somewhere in the world, a different art had not been realized by men of genius of another stamp, was a thing of which no one dreamed ; and to this, in the quarrel concerning ancient and modern writers, which might have had beneficial results, was due the weakness of those who supported the moderns. In the works which they compare with the classics, in the dramatic productions of Racine or Moliere — works which, though almost as perfect as their models, do not aim at throwing them into oblivion, but glory, on the contrary, in carrying on their tradition — antiquity itself is born again to a new life. The purest element in the genius of these moderns is still the genius of antiquity. Of a literature entirely free from classical con- tamination, a spontaneous growth — untainted by any germs of foreign origin — in the heart of the national soil, Perrault could have no idea, and could only have had, if for an antiquity ap- parently so little dissimilar from the age of Louis XIV. had been substituted either the art of the middle ages or the literature of the North. The cult of the humanities would have had to be — indeed it actually needed to be — replaced or supplemented by the cosmopolitan spirit. Louis XIV. once had the curiosity to enquire whether there 14 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE were any writers and men of learning in England. The reply of his ambassador in London, the Comte de Comminges, was that " the arts and the sciences seem at times to forsake one country in order to do honour to another in its turn. At the present they have made their home in France, and if any vestiges of them are yet left in England, they are only to be found in the works of Bacon, Morus, and Bucanan, and coming to a later period, in those of a certain Miltonius, whose writings have made his name more infamous than those of the executioners and assassins of the English king." l In the seventeenth century the whole of France, or very nearly the whole, held the same opinion as the Comte de Comminges. The nation was blinded by its literary supremacy. To use the vigorous language of a contemporary, it " was under the happy conviction that everything that was not French ate hay and walked on four legs," when a momentous historical event altered at once the political map and the intellectual frontiers of the continent, and prepared the way, in opposition to the Latin section of Europe, for the rise of the Germanic and Anglo-Saxon races. II The revocation of the Edict of Nantes had a two-fold effect. In the first place, it marked a pause in the diffusion of French influence abroad ; England, a Protestant nation, and destined ere long to become to some extent Dutch and Calvinistic as well, assumed in consequence of the revocation an attitude of opposition to the group of Catholic states represented by France. In the second place, it established on the borders of France, and especially in Great Britain and the Low Countries, colonies of men whose liberal minds were embittered and sharpened by exile, and whose curiosity became increasingly attracted to their adoptive countries, to which they were already drawn by re- ligious and political sympathy. England, the uttermost territory of the old continent, "that 1 Cf. J. Jusserand, / 3 P. 172. 24 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE remarking the appearance of the stage, the " green cloth " which covers it, the lavishness of the decorations, and the music which is played in the intervals between the acts, he adds : 11 Their comedies would not be received in France with the same approbation as in England. Their poets pay no attention to uniformity of place, or to the rule that the action should be limited to twenty-four hours. They write comedies ex- tending over five-and-twenty years, and after representing the marriage of a prince in the first act, they forthwith exhibit all the great deeds of his son, and take him to many different countries. They pride themselves especially on the accuracy with which they depict passion, vice, and virtue, and in this they succeed tolerably well. To portray a miser they make a man perform all the meanest actions characteristic of various ages, occasions and professions ; it matters nothing to them that the result is a medley, because, say they, they only attend to one part at a time, and pay no attention to the total effect." Sorbiere acknowledges, however, that he does not understand English. But for one who spent no more than a few weeks on the farther side of the channel he did not waste his time, what- ever Voltaire may say. Sorbiere's Relation dates from 1664, and was reprinted two years later. Misson's Memoires et observations faites par un voyageur en Angleterre appeared in 1668, and Remarque s sur F Angleterre faites par un voyageur, by Le Sage de la Colombiere, in 1715. These two authors were Protestants. The former, an ex-member of the Parlement de Paris and son-in-law of Mme. de la Sabliere, was a refugee in London in 1 688, and there occupied an import- ant position in the religious world ; 1 his work, though somewhat heavy, contained an abundance of information, and was translated into English.2 The latter, a descendant of Agrippa D'Aubigne, after a ten years' residence in England as tutor, wrote the first French book in which the physical theories of Newton were pre- 1 Sayous, Dix-huitieme siecle a V stronger , vol. i., p. 10. 2 Mr Misson's Memoirs and Observations in his travels over England . . . translated by Mr Ozell. London, 1719, 8vo Cf., on Misson's book, Journal des Savants, 1699, p. 127. PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM 25 sented in a connected fashion,1 and collected in a slender volume a certain number of observations, often trivial and sometimes coarse, upon English manners. But it is chiefly to the gazettes and newspapers of the refugees that we must turn to find a real mine of information on all matters relating to England.2 In these delicately printed little volumes, which may be reckoned by the hundred, and, as their title-pages inform us, were published either at the Hague, at Amsterdam, or in London ; in the reviews published by Le Clerc, La Chapelle or Maty — the first imperfect patterns of our modern reviews — are to be found the earliest studies of English, and also of German, literature that were written in French. Not, it is, true, in Bayle' s Nouvelles de la Republique des lettres ;3 which is mainly a theological and scientific magazine, treating, moreover, of few but French and Latin books. Nevertheless, pursuing a practice destined to spread, the Nouvelles had already their London correspondents, who contributed reports of scientific events, of Boyle's experiments, of the meetings of the Royal Society, and of the latest publications in astronomy, geography, or medicine. One of these communications terminates as fol- lows : " Whence it will be seen that England alone could furnish sufficient material every month to fill a larger journal than ours with notices of good books, of which however practically none are to be seen in Holland. This is a case of negligence on the part of our booksellers, which it is to be hoped they will repair." 4 Bayle's successors responded to this appeal. Le Clerc, a man 1 Le M'ecamsme de I' esprit, by Le Sage de la Colombiere. Geneva, 1700 (cf. Sayous, xviiie siecle, vol. i., p. 103). 2 In reference to the Dutch Gazettes, cf. Kcenen, Histoire des refugies franfais aux Pays-Bas, Leyden, 1846; Ch. Weiss, Histoire des refugies protestants de France; E. Hatin, Les Gazettes de Hollande, 1865, 8vo, and Histoire de la fresse, by the same writer ; also the two works by Sayous, especially La Literature franfaise a P'etranger, vol. ii., p. zy et seq, 8 Nouvelles de la Republique des lettres, by Bayle and others. Amsterdam, March 1684 to June 1718, 56 vols. izmo. The portion written by Bayle ends with February 1687, and has been reprinted in his (Euvres completes. His successors were La Roque, Jacques Bernard, Barrin, and Le Clerc. 4 June 1685. 26 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE of prudence and of weight, who may be regarded as the second founder of Protestant journalism, thought it his duty to do what he could, in the Bibliotheque universelle, to remove the ignorance of the public on the subject of England. " How few are the people," he writes, " on this side the sea, who have a knowledge of English. Yet the language contains a multitude of good books, still untranslated, and apparently destined to remain so, of which it would be highly beneficial to the public to have at least some knowledge." l Le Clerc therefore exerted himself to supply the want. But literature was not his strong point ; he had " too much calvinistic and socinian arrogance," as Boileau roundly informed him, to concern himself with trivial matters. Thus, when he speaks of English books, it is of scientific treatises, books on history, or philosophical works like those of Hobbes. Only by accident does he so far forget himself as to speak of Addison's travels in Italy.2 On the other hand he never wearies of praising, in his successive miscellanies,3 the commercial, maritime and political greatness of England. More of a scholar than either Bayle or Le Clerc, Basnage de Beauval, the third member of the triumvirate which laid the foundations of international journalism, carried on the Nouvelles de la Republique des lettresf and, in an indiscriminate fashion, devoted several numbers to Hobbes, Sherlock, Locke, Boyle, and W. Temple,5 to the dispute between Jeremy Collier and Dennis on the moral condition of the stage, to Milton,6 and to Milton's later poems.7 He possessed a more open mind than his famous rivals. Above all, he had more zeal, and in opposition to Father Bouhours warmly took up the defence of " Germany, which had produced so many great men, and had invented so many of the arts necessary to life." 8 1 Bibliotheque universe/It, vol. xxvi., preface. 2 Bibliotheque choisie, 1707, vol. xi., 198. 3 Bibliotheque universelle et historique, Amsterdam, 1686-93, 26 vols. 12,1110; Biblio- theque choisie, Amsterdam, 1703-13, 27 vols. I2mo; Bibliotheque anctenne et moderne , Amsterdam, 1714-27, 26 vols. i2mo. On England see, especially, vol. i. of the Bibliotheque Universelle, pp. Il8-lZO. 4 In his Histoire des outrages des savants, Rotterdam, i68"7-i7C>9, 24 vols. I2mo. 5 In reference to this, cf> a passage on the English character, June 1692. 6 July 1698. 7 February 1699. 8 January 1700. PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM 27 The success of these publications in Paris, and the relish with which they were read by La Fontaine, are well known.1 Is it improbable that through them, at some time or other, the name of Milton caught the heedless eye of a Boileau or a Racine ? The more we learn of the history of these Dutch journals, the more of their space do we find allotted to studies of foreign, and especially of English, literature. " To a country so prolific of great men," we read in the Histoire critique de la Republique des lettres? " we can but render all the justice that is her due. When a nation has made us acquainted with so many fine works as has Great Britain, we cannot allow them to remain for ever unknown to the rest of Europe." In short, certain men of letters in France became irritated at last by the anglomania of the Dutch journalists, and thought to correct public opinion by showing " that the French were not so degenerate as was pretended in Holland." With this object, the Bibliotheque fratifaise was founded by De Sauzet, Bernard, Camusat, Granet, and the abbe Goujet, but its duration was very brief. The number of what may be called European reviews, on the contrary, continued to increase. All were due to the same spirit, and had the same end in view, namely, to break down the barriers between nations, and to prepare the way for a sort of international literature. It may, indeed, be doubted whether these efforts at dissemination were altogether disinterested ; too often love of Europe was, in reality, nothing more than hatred of France. But it cannot be denied that they were very active. From the Bibliotheque raisonnee des ouvrages des savants de F Europe? down to the Nouvelle bibliotheque ou Histoire litter air e des principaux ecrits qui se publientf and including among others P Europe savantef and rHistoire litteraire de fEuropef the series of encyclopaedic 1 Lettre a M. Simon de Troyes. 2 Utrecht, 1712, vol. i., preface. 3 By La Chapelle, Desmaiseaux,Van Effen, Saint-Hyacinthe. Amsterdam, 1728-53, 52 vols. i2mo. 4 By Chaix, Barbeyrac, d'Argens, La Chapelle, etc. The Hague, 1738-44, 19 vols. i2mo. 5 By Saint-Hyacinthe, Van Effen and others. The Hague, 1718-20, 12 vols. 8vo. 6 By Van Effen, 1726, 6 vols. 8vo. 28 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE miscellanies, the mere titles of which suffice to indicate their aim and scope, extended over more than fifty years. Not one of these magazines will bear reading to-day. Their style is "Protestant" to the last degree; their criticism desti- tute of elegance ; their humour ponderous. But their informa- tion is singularly copious and accurate. When they indulge in satire, these journalists of Holland are terrible ; their irony resembles a blow from a club. Of this type was their manifesto in the dispute concerning the ancients and the moderns, the once-famous Chef cfoeuvre d'un inconnu, the idea of which they derived from Swift and from the Spectator. They wished to ridicule those would-be critics " who will not allow that any classical author ever thought incorrectly, or ever gave an inaccurate or trivial explanation." Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot used to divert themselves at the expense of Bentley, the philologist, by supplying commentaries after their own fashion to lines of Vergil, inter pocula. The Spectator had pub- lished a skit of this sort — a slender shaft, and launched by no disrespectful hand — upon the partisans of the ancients. In the hands of Themiseul de Saint-Hyacinthe and his friends this shaft becomes a paving-stone. The passage to be explained being taken from a song sung by the daughter of a carpenter at the Hague : " L'autre jour Colin malade Dedans son lit, D'une grosse maladie Pensa mourir," the commentary is as follows: " ' 111,' that is to say, * not well,' or as the gentlemen of the French Academy observe, ' sensible of some derangement, some alteration in his health.' Colin therefore was ' ill ' ; not, however that his health was disordered by fever, or some other sickness which would demand the ser- vices of a doctor of medicine. He was exactly what is called in familiar language, out of sorts, or, in vulgar phrase, un- commonly queer. This complaint of Colin's brings to mind that of Seleucus Nicanor or Nicator "... and behold our explanatory PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM 29 note in a fair way to spread itself, as notes will, over twenty columns. Such, when they try to be amusing, is the humour of the journalists of Holland — a third-rate imitation of Swift. As a rule, however, their tone is serious. Nothing of this sort is to be found in the whole series of the Journal Litteraire, which, founded at the Hague by Sallengre, Sgravesande, and Van EfFen, attempted to take up the work relinquished by Basnage.1 Here, by way of compensation, as in all these " gazettes," a great abundance of English literature is to be found. In meta- physics, the writers are followers of Locke, in science of Bacon and Newton, in politics of the Parliament. This is a truly cosmopolitan review ; it has correspondents everywhere : at Brussels, at Leipzig, at Hamburg, at Cambridge, and in Italy. It is also — as the title promises — a literary review. It contains a lengthy comparison between English and French poetry,2 and extracts from The Spectator, The Tale of a Tub, and Gulliver. Swift had an especial attraction for its writers. They delighted in his withering and somewhat unseemly jests, his sardonic laughter, his bitter mockery. Montaigne, likewise, they studied for the sake of his scepticism, Rabelais for his gaiety, Fontenelle for his irony. Like their contemporaries, they warmly espoused the side of the modern against the classical writers. We have good grounds for believing that the English portion of these periodicals was responsible for their success, for maga- zines were shortly established which were especially devoted to England. "It is a country," said Michel de la Roche, the editor of the Bibliotheque anglaise? " where the arts and sciences are as flourishing as in any other part of the world ; in England they are cultivated in an atmosphere of liberty." La Roche had first of all attempted, in his Memoirs of Literature ',4 to introduce French productions to the English public. The scheme proving unsuccessful, he applied himself with great zest to the opposite 1 The Hague, 1713-36 (with several interruptions), 24 vols. izmo. 2 Vol. ix. 8 Or Histoire litteraire de la Grande- Bretagne, Amsterdam, 1717-28, 15 vols. I2mo. 4 1710-14, 4 vols. 410. go INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE task. The Biblioth'eque anglaise, however, bade fair to meet the same fate as the Memoirs, when it fell into the hands of the industrious Armand de la Chapelle, who extended its scope, while making, at the same time, his reservations with regard to English taste. " There are perhaps few countries," he wrote, " where poetry is more deserving of public attention than it is in England, and if the English language were more common, foreigners would be surprised to find that it contains so many fine pieces of every description of poetry, with the possible exception of the dramatic, in which the taste of the English is still, to my mind, too singular." The excellent La Chapelle's wits were as dull as his pen ; nevertheless he died not un- regretted. De la Roche meanwhile had founded some new Memoir es litter air es de la Grande Bretagne — mainly scientific, in spite of their title,1 while Desmaizeaux, Bernard, and others started the Biblioth'eque britannique. They professed a thorough knowledge of English and of English affairs. Jordan, who happened to be in London when their magazine first appeared, declares that the authors are men of ability, and have a perfect acquaintance with the language.2 Their magazine, written in London and published at The Hague, affirms with justice that " England is more fertile than any other country in works dis- tinguished by the freshness, the singularity and the boldness of their opinions ; and that this is due to the fact that the English are free to examine everything and to refuse any court of appeal save that of reason." 3 Repeatedly interrupted, the work of popularization undertaken by the refugees was resumed again and again with extraordinary tenacity. The Biblioth'eque britannique ceased to appear in 1747. Three years later, a renewed attempt was made by one of the most interesting of all these journalists, Doctor Maty. The son of a pastor at Utrecht, who had been excommunicated by the Synod 1 1720-24, The Hague, 16 vols. izmo. 2 Histoire (fun voyage litteraire fait en 1733, p. 159' * Bibliotheque Britannique ou histoire des ouvrages des savants de la Grande- Bretagne, the Hague, 1733-475 25 vols. izmo. PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM 31 of the Walloon Church of The Hague and had taken refuge in England, young Maty had lived in that country from the age of twenty-two years. Being a doctor, his aim in establishing a journal was chiefly to keep up with the work of English surgeons. But he included also " good English literature and well seasoned," as a critic of the time expressed it.1 His Journal britannique ex- tended to twenty-four volumes. He sought also, excellent man that he was, " to stimulate all men to a love of truth and virtue," and declared that " every thoughtful person was his friend." Fully master of his subject, and capable of writing English with facility, he nevertheless regretted that he had not been able to naturalise his tongue as well as his heart.2 Gibbon, who speaks of him in most grateful terms,3 asserts that "the author of the Journal britannique sometimes rises to the level of the poet and the philosopher." On obtaining a post at the British Museum he gave up his journal. But his son founded a review which was destined to make Englishmen acquainted with Europe. Cos- mopolitanism was plainly a virtue common to the Maty family. When Maty retired, several writers disputed the position he had vacated. De Joncourt established a Nouvelle biblioth'eque anglaise ;^ de Mauve resumed the Journal britannique, and con- tinued it for two years;5 while in 1767-1768 Gibbon and Deyverdun published two volumes of Memoires litteraires de la Grande Bretagne? in which Chesterfield and Hume manifested an interest, the latter even assisting it with his pen. Respecting Deyverdun, Gibbon bears witness that " his critical knowledge of our language and poetry was such as few foreigners have possessed."7 Not only, however, was Gibbon scarcely the man for so thank- 1 Clement, Les Cinq annees litteraires, vol. iii., p. 145. — Cf, Memoires de Trevoux, December 1750 and February 1751. 2 Letter to Gibbon, Hatin, Histoire de la presse, vol. ii., p. 435. 3 Memoires, vol. i. p. 126. 4 The Hague, 1756-57, 3 vols. izmo. 5 I know nothing of this series beyond the mention made of it by Pictet in his own Bibliotheque britannique (vol. ii., 1796, pt. V.). 6 Cf. Memoirs of Ed-ward Gibbon, chap, xviii. 7 Ibid., vol. i., p. 102. 32 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE less a task, but the public — at the period we have reached — was so fully informed on English matters, and by men of such eminence, that an obscure compilation by two unknown men had little chance of making its way. Here again the unweary- ing efforts made by journalists in Holland had led to important results, and their patient labour during more than half-a- century had opened up fresh vistas to the gaze of a curious public. Not content with giving accounts of English works in their periodicals, the refugees devoted themselves with untiring zeal to the work of translation. From the earliest years of the cen- tury the " demon translator," as Grimm called him, raged as furiously as the " demon novelist." Every member of the clan of refugees was engaged in the translation or adaptation of some English book. The occupation provided a livelihood and gave a kind of status in the world of letters. Justus Van Effen, who rendered some dozens of volumes into prolix and inaccurate lan- guage, was mourned by his colleagues as though he had been a French writer.1 It is only fair, however, to say that to him Frenchmen are indebted for the first version of Robinson Crusoe. We have no intention of introducing here the tedious and in- terminable catalogue of translations by Van Effen and his col- leagues, but shall be content to remark that the refugees very soon acquired the habit of translating the more important works produced in English as soon as they were published. Collins's Discourse of Freethinking appeared in 1713, and was rendered into French in 1714. Shaftesbury's Letter concerning Enthusiasm, pub- lished in 1708, was translated in the same year. Very few works of note, especially of those on philosophical subjects, escaped the attention of the refugees. Those which were not immediately translated, such as Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, were analysed at length.2 That Shakespeare and the great poets of the sixteenth century received but rare and scanty notice need not surprise us. The 1 See a panegyric on Van Effen in the Bibliothequefranfaise of 1737. 2 Bibliotheque raisonnee des ou-vrages des savants de P Europe, vol. iii., 1729, p. 402 ft seq. PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM 33 English themselves paid scarcely any attention to them.1 But the whole of contemporary literature was conscientiously analysed, adapted, or translated. Addison and Steele were especially favoured : the Spectator was translated in 1714, the Guardian in 1725, the Freeholder in 1727, the Tatler in 1734. Boyer translated Addison's Cato in 1714* and the Journal des Savants contains a notice of it.2 About the same period Pope's Essay on Criticism found two translators or imitators,3 and both the book and its author were mentioned in the journals.4 Swift's works crossed the channel scarcely less quickly. Several of them were advertised in the Journal litteraire5 so early as 1713, and the same review printed portions of Gulliver and The Tale of a Tub. In 1720 the Biblioth'eque anglaise translated the "Proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining the English Tongue." 6 Van Effen's translation of The Tale of a Tub appeared at the Hague in the following year, and five years later, that of a satire on the practice of introducing dedications. In 1727 Desfontaines, following the example of the refugees, trans- lated Gulliver, which had appeared in the preceding year. Robinson Crusoe, as has been seen already, was translated in 1720, the year after its publication.7 These examples suffice to show the activity of the refugees. It may be said without hesitation that they were familiar with the whole of contemporary English literature, and that through 1 Boyer, however, as has been already observed, mentions Shakespeare in his gram- mar (1700) together with Ben Jonson, Dryden and Milton, and. moreover, he prefers Dryden. In 1716 the Journal litterairt (vol. ix.) devoted an article to Shakespeare, quoting Hamlet, Richard III., Henry VIII., and Othello. 2 1 71 4, p. Betsey. 3 Essai surla Critique, imite' de M. Pope [by Robeton, councillor and private secre- tary to the late King of England]. London and Amsterdam, 1717. (Cf. Memoires de Trevoux, August 1717). — Essai sur la critique, imite de 1'anglais de M. Pope, by J. Delage. London, 1717. 4 Cf. Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne, vol. vii., part i. ; Journal des savants, July 1717 ; Bibliotheque anglaise, 1719, part ii. 5 May and June 1713. 6 Vol. viii., part i. 7 Lenglet Dufresnoy (De Vusage des romans) attributes this translation to Saint- Hyacinthe. The writer of the panegyric on Van Effen mentioned above, attri- butes it, from the middle of the first volume onwards, to the latter. The translation is, besides, anonymous. C 34 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE them France was made acquainted with all its most important productions. Through them too this knowledge was spread far and wide. When the abbe Dubos visited London in 1698 and in 1702, he associated with the refugees, and particularly with Moivre,1 and it was to them, doubtless, that he was indebted for that smattering of foreign literature which is discernible in his Reflexions sur la poesie et la peinture. In his book Dubos quoted from a few English poets, among them Butler, the author of Hudibras? He also translated, in a magazine published at the Hague, some scenes from Addison's Cato? But his taste remained thoroughly French. " Though I often visit other countries," he wrote, " in order to become acquainted with their opinions, I do not surrender the opinions I hold as a Frenchman. Like Seneca I can say : Soleo saepe in aliena castra transire non tanquam transfuga sed tanquam explorator." A few years later than Dubos, Destouches visited London, whither he accompanied cardinal Dubois. He resided there from 1717 to 1723, and contracted a highly romantic marriage with a young Scotchwoman.4 Probably the refugees welcomed him no less warmly than they welcomed Dubos, and, a few years later, Voltaire. Des- touches, who seems to have been acquainted with Addison, borrowed from him, as is well known, the subject of his Tambour nocturne, an adaptation of The Drummer, and, under the title of Scenes anglaises, translated several scenes from The Tempest of Dryden and Davenant. But the Scenes anglaises did not appear until 1745, and the Tambour nocturne was not played before 1762. Thus the part played by Destouches in bringing English works to the knowledge of the French public was insignificant. It was otherwise with the abbe Desfontaines, the most active if not the most illustrious rival of the refugees in France before Voltaire and Prevost. Desfontaines' ambition, or one of the least of his ambitions, was to be, as it were, the recognised 1 Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. i., p. 142. 2 Part i., section 18. 8 The first three; see Nouvelles litteraires (the Hague, October 1716), vol. viii., p. 285. Cf. in the same periodical (January 1717) two letters on Cato by Boyer. 4 Cf. Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et la societe franfaise, vol. i., p. 215 Villemain, Tableau de la litterature au xviiie siecle, 1 2th lesson. PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM 35 authority for introducing English works to the public notice. The translator of a pamphlet by Swift, The Grand Mystery, or the Art of Meditating over an House of Office, Desfontaines also (1727) either rendered Gulliver into French, or pretended to have done so ; for there are fair grounds for believing that this version is by a certain Abbe Markan.1 What is certain is that the irascible critic, for all his pretensions, had a very poor knowledge of English,2 and Voltaire did not deny himself the pleasure of convicting him of it. This did not, however, prevent him from corresponding with Swift, nor even from writing a sequel to Gulliver? which met with very little success. " Oh ! as to the new Gulliver" wrote Lenglet-Dufresnoy, "it is from beginning to end invented and manufactured by M. 1'abbe Desfontaines."4 Lastly, the abbe translated Fielding's Joseph Andrews, but the result is scarcely more creditable to his knowledge than is his Gulliver. Thus, during the first thirty years of the century, the refugees remained the most industrious, the best informed and the most highly qualified of all those who devoted themselves to the task of popularizing English literature. What they lacked was ability. They were compilers and abstractors, but not writers. Their part was to rough-hew the materials which have been worked up by more eminent men, and this is no contemptible function. They were the humble pre- decessors of a Voltaire and a Prevost. But it was necessary to say, since it has too often been forgotten, that the work of the latter was rendered possible only by the persevering labour of the former. 1 E. Nisard, Les enncmis de Voltaire^ p. 49. 2 Cf. Clement, Les cinq annees litteraires, vol. i., p. 6 1. Voltaire had commissioned Desfontaines to translate his Essay on The Epic from the English. Desfontaines made an error in every line (cf. the letters to d'Argens, igth Nov. 1736, and to Thieriot, I4th June 1717). If we may believe Voltaire, he understood the language so little, that when required to give an account of Berkeley's Alciphron, which is an apology for Christianity, he took it for an atheistical production. (Letter to Cideville, zoth September 1735.) 3 Le Nouveau Gulliver on Voyage de Jean Gulliver^ jils du Capitaine Gulliver, translated from an English manuscript by M. 1'abbe D. F. Amsterdam, 1730, 2 vols. izmo. 4 Bibliotheque dei Romans^ p. 342. Chapter II WRITERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE : MURALT, PREVOST, VOLTAIRE I. Prevost and Voltaire were themselves preceded by the Swiss, Beat de Muralt, the author of the Lettres sur let Anglais tt Us Frattfais (1725) — Muralt's character — Wherein he carried on the work of the refugees, wherein he went beyond them — His illusions — His opinions on English literature and the English intelligence — Great success of his book : Muralt and Desfontaines — His influence on Rousseau. II. Admiration of the abbe Prevost for English ideas ; he assists in diffusing them — His two journeys to England — His translations — His cosmopolitan novels : the Memoires d'un homme de qualite and i'ffistoire de Cleveland — His magazine, La Pour et Centre (1732-1740) : the author's aim and method— England occupies a large share of its space. III. Voltaire and the Lettres anglaises (1734) — Importance of the book in Voltaire's life — His intercourse with men of letters during his stay in London — Know- ledge of the language — His efforts to awaken interest in English matters — Origin of the Lettres philosophiques : they consist of two books. IV. Insufficiency of Voltaire's information ; his wilful inaccuracy — The pamphleteer injurious to the critic — Why his book is nevertheless of the highest importance in the history of the influence of England — Voltaire encourages imitation of English works. BETWEEN 1725 and 1740 three men were responsible, in varying degrees, for the work of directing the attention of the French public, aroused by Protestant criticism during the early part of the century, towards England. One of them, now entirely forgotten, the author of a lively and agreeable collection of letters which made some stir in its day, was Beat de Muralt, a Protestant of Berne, who carried on, if he did not anticipate, the work of the refugees, and is very closely connected with them. Another, much more celebrated, became, through his novels, his journal, and certain famous translations, one of the warmest champions of the new literature 36 MURALT AS PROPAGANDIST 37 then being introduced into France. This was the abbe Prevost. The third, and by far the greatest, has given an account of his work in the following words : " I was the first to make French- men acquainted with Shakespeare ; I translated passages from him forty years ago, as well as extracts from Milton, Waller, Rochester, Dryden, and Pope. I can assure you that before my time there was not a man in France who had a knowledge of English poetry, while Locke had scarcely been heard of." l And certainly the author of the Lettres anglaises is entitled to claim such credit as may be due to one who, by dint of his own genius and notoriety, imbued Frenchmen with a veneration for the philosophy, the political science and the literature of England. But he has no excuse for forgetting or concealing what he owes to those who preceded him. For if the Lettres anglaises or philosophiques were published in 1734, Muralt's Lettres sur les Anglais et les Fran pis had appeared in 1725, while the most important of Prevost's novels, as well as the first volume, at any rate, of Le Pour et Contre are likewise anterior to them. Voltaire, in short, provided " a brilliant summary," as Sainte-Beuve ex- pressed it, of what had been said of England by other writers before him. But, besides drawing freely upon the works of his predecessors, he neglects to mention that others had already aroused the attention of the public and had prepared the way. I " Now that we are reprinting everything," wrote Sainte- Beuve, " we certainly ought to reprint the letters of M. de Muralt : they deserve it. He was the first to say many things which have since been repeated less plainly and less frankly." 2 1 Voltaire to Horace Walpole, I5th July 1768. 2 On Muralt see the excellent monograph by M. de Greierz : Beat Lud-wig von Muralt (Frauenfeld, 1888, 8vo) ; an article by M. ET Ritter in the Zeitschrlftfur neufranzosische Sprache und Literatur (1880), and various documents published by same author, especially an account of Muralt's religious ideas, in the Etrennes chretiennes for 1894. See also the histories of French literature in Switzerland by M. Godet and M. Virgile Rossel (the latter of which contains a complete bibliography). Lastly, I may venture to refer the reader to an article in the 38 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE Plain, frank, and withal somewhat eccentric : such, in truth, was ' this atrabilious Swiss/ as he was called in his own day." A Bernese of Protestant family, by education half French, half German, and born on the border line between two civili- zations, he was well qualified thoroughly to understand them both. Employed as a soldier in the French service, he became tired of the military profession, and, crossing over to England, noted down his impression of the country, during 1694 and 1695, for the benefit of a friend. Returning to Switzerland he embraced pietistic ideas of a very exalted type, and having provoked his expulsion first from Berne and then from Geneva, took shelter at Colombier, where, after his mysticism had in- volved him in an extraordinary adventure, he died. " You read Muralt," St Preux writes to Julie : " remark his end, lament the extravagant errors of that sensible man." l To these " extravagant errors " we owe certain religious works, now, deservedly it would seem, forgotten.2 Muralt's reputation, however, rests not on these works but on his Lettres sur les Anglais et les Franfais et sur les voyages? frequently reprinted during the eighteenth century, and even under the Revolution. There are six letters on England and as many on France ; both groups are written from a some- what Protestant standpoint, but with a shrewd pen, and one a hundred times more vivid than those of Basnage de Beauval and Van EfFen. "When he wrote these charming pages, Muralt was not yet under the influence of the ideas which so entirely altered the course of his life during its later years, and almost Revue tfhistolre litteraire de la France (January 1894), in which I have spoken of Muralt more at length. Since the publication of the first edition of this book, two fresh editions of Muralt's Lettres have appeared (Berne and Paris, 1897), one with notes in French by M. E. Ritter, the other with notes in German by M. de Greierz. 1 Nouvelle Helo'ise, vi. 7. Eloisa (published by Hunter, Dublin, 1761), letter 159. 2 L* instinct divin recommande aux hommcs, 1717 ; Lettres sur F esprit fort, 1728 ; Lettres fanatiques, 1739. Muralt also left some fables, and collaborated with Marie Huber. 3 (Geneva) 8vo. Possibly the book was on sale as early as 1724. (Cf. Bibliotheque francaise, vol. iv., part ii., pp. 70-81). MURALT AS PROPAGANDIST 39 led him to withhold his book from publication for conscientious reasons.1 He was fond of observing, and of recording what he saw with all the charm he could command. " Immediately a Frenchman enters another country," he writes, " he cannot contain himself for amazement at the spectacle of a whole nation differing from himself, and flees from the sight of so many horrors." Muralt endeavours not to be a Frenchman in that respect. He is no less distrustful of his countrymen's insatiable relish for intellectual smartness, whereby the nation is made " the perpetual subject of ridicule." He would have solidity, of the Bernese or even of the English type, without pedantry : " I think I had rather be a worthy Englishman than a worthy Frenchman ; but it would perhaps be less uncomfortable to be a worthless Frenchman than to be a worthless Englishman. I had also rather meet a deserving Frenchman than a deserving Englishman, just as it would give one more pleasure to find a treasure in gold pieces, which could be turned to immediate account, than to find it in ingots, which would first have to be converted into coin." 2 A discerning mind withal, keen and incisive, and strangely curious with regard to everything except "trifles" — by which must be understood whatever is merely a source of gratification, and does not contribute in any way to the inner life. If he happens to speak of comedy, it is to say that " grave people have even been seen, not only to derive amusement from it, but even to speak of it as seriously as though it were a matter of importance." Behold him therefore supported by excellent authority, and entitled to laugh without too many scruples. But it was because there was no French " levity " about him that he was able, in 1694, to form an admirable estimate of the English genius, such as had never before been formed in the French language. It is true that he carried courtesy a little too far in his praise of English "liberty" and British "virtue" — those generous 1 Muralt was sixty years old when the entreaties of his friends induced him to consent to its publication. But his letters had almost attained celebrity before they were printed, and one of them had appeared in the Nouvelles littcraires at the Hague (May 171 8). 2 Letter IV. 40 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE illusions of the eighteenth century. "His mind is French," said the abbe Le Blanc, referring to him, " but his heart is English." l But whatever Le Blanc may say, it was because his mind as well as his heart was somewhat English that Muralt gave so flattering a definition of the moral and intellectual temperament of Englishmen. He gives a careful statement of their origins — Saxon, Norman and Latin. He observes their manners, their sports and even their vices from a close stand- point, and as a man of caution and experience. He investigates their arts and manufactures. He is captivated by their ingen- uousness and their fidelity, and even by the savage element in their character. " May we not venture to say that a nation requires some fierceness in order to guard itself against slavery, just as one must be born a misanthrope in order to keep himself an honest man ? Reason alone cannot have great influence over men ; it needs, I think, a touch of fierceness to sustain it." 2 How attractive this "fierceness" and "misanthropy" were shortly to appear to the frivolous French nature, and how far Muralt is here in advance of his age, the age of Jean-Jacques, who, moreover, was his convinced admirer ! The French spirit " consists mainly in the art of making much of trifles." The English spirit is more precise, more solid, more free, and more simple.3 " England is a country of reserve and com- posure." Muralt, like the refugees, is a modern, though timid and of narrow tastes. He speaks cleverly of Boileau, and considers that the French know scarcely anything of great poetry. He professes to despise " genius of an inferior order," and believes that to clothe common thoughts in beautiful language is to give us the semblance of poetry, but not poetry itself." Unfortunately he has not made it sufficiently clear that the English are more 1 Lettres, vol. i., p. 87. 2 Edition of 1725, p. 55. a Cf. p. 65. "The epithet 'good man' is never taken in bad part among the English, whatever the tone in which it is pronounced : so far from it that when they wish to praise their own nation highly they mention their 'good-natured people,' people of a pleasant disposition, of whom they maintain that neither the name nor the reality is to be met with elsewhere." Rousseau appropriated this observation from Muralt (Amite, 1. ii. note 26). MURALT AS PROPAGANDIST 41 truly poets than the classical writers of France.1 Like Saint- Evremond he does not go back to the fountain-heads, to Shake- speare— though he makes casual mention of him — or to Spenser. He confines himself to Ben Jonson, whom he compares and finds inferior to Moliere, " though a truly great poet in certain respects." One of the reasons which he gives for the inferiority of the English as regards comedy is, however, of considerable weight : "In France characters belong to general types, and comprise each a whole species of men, whereas in England, where every one lives as he pleases, the poet finds scarcely any but individual characters, which are extremely numerous, but cannot produce any striking effect."2 A sound and fruitful idea ; it is to be regretted that the author did not follow it further. But, to tell the truth, he was not sufficiently well acquainted with English dramatic literature. He judges it as a moralist, and a severe one. It offends his good sense and his conscience. " Humour," or, as he calls it, "houmour" is merely the faculty of " turning our ideas of things topsy-turvy, and thereby rendering virtue ridiculous and vice attractive." His judgment of Shadwell and Congreve is precisely that which would have been passed upon them by Rousseau. Of English tragedy he has spoken to better purpose, revealing to his reader, or at any rate perceiving for himself, its savage grandeur. " England is a country of passions and catastrophes. . . . Moreover, the genius of the nation is for the serious ; its language is powerful and concise." What a pity that they fall into the same errors as the French, and present us with a be-ribboned Achilles and a Hannibal in powdered wig ! No 1 Further, it is essential to remember that Muralt was in England in 1694 or 1695. He represented England, as Sainte-Beuve said, " in all its crudeness under William, and before it had time to become refined under Queen Anne." He does not mention either Pope or Addison, nor did he put any finishing touches to his book before it was published. 2 Edn. of 1725, p. 23. Saint-fivremond had already remarked that English comedy is not " a mere love-intrigue, full of adventures and amorous conversation, as in Spain or in France ; it is a representation of ordinary life with all the variety of temper and the differences of character which are to be found in men." De la comedie anglais e. 42 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE historical colour, no sustained solemnity ; an offensive mixture of the comic and the tragic, and spectacles which only excite disgust : " It appears to me that poets who possess true genius, and are capable of rousing the feelings, ought not to have recourse to instruments of torture." Such instruments are too much in evidence upon the English stage. Muralt's extremely well-expressed resume of his own estimate of the English intelligence was widely appreciated during the eigh- teenth century. " I must not forget to tell you," he says, " that the English prosecute the sciences with much success, and that there are many good writers among them on every kind of subject. This does not seem to me surprising ; they feel themselves free ; they do as they like ; they are fond of using their reason •, they do not observe that urbanity in conversation and that attention to manners by which the intellect may be squandered and im- poverished. . . . There are people among the English •who think more deeply and entertain more of these profound thoughts than intelligent men of other nations. But it appears to me that as a rule they lack both refinement and simplicity, and I think you would find their imaginative works over-weighted with thought." Does it there- fore follow that they are wanting in imagination ? " Most of them possess it, but its fire resembles that of their coke ; it is powerful, but yields little light." l Here again, why has he not explained what he meant by means of examples ? Certainly no one, in 1694, could have given the French nation a more complete and well-founded opinion on a subject still so new. Muralt's intention was merely to give a sketch. Incomplete as it was however, his sketch achieved a brilliant success. The book was translated into English 2 and read in Germany.3 But it was in France, more especially, that the collection of letters made its way. Never, before Muralt suggested it, had the question of the intellectual supremacy of England been brought before the public as a whole. His presumption in doing so was 1 First letter. 2 Letters describing the Character and Customs of the English and French nations ... by M. de Muralt, a gentleman of Switzerland. Second edition, London, 1726, 8vo. 8 See Hirzel's edition of Haller's poems (Frauenfeld, 1882). MURALT AS PROPAGANDIST 43 great, and was thought extreme. His criticism of French " politeness" gave offence. "Our author is guilty of a para- dox," says the Biblioth'eque fran false,1 " when he refuses to hear of anything but good sense, as though good sense were incom- patible with politeness." The Journal des savants devoted two long articles to an abstract of the book.2 The majority of the author's critics, while fully recognising his originality, held that his position was indefensible. A Jesuit, the reverend father de la Sante, professor of rhetoric at the college of Louis-le-Grand, felt it his duty to refute it in a public oration.3 Desfontaines caught the infection and published an Apologle du caracfere des Anglais et des Franfaisf in which he sharply criticised the author's errors and disputed his conclusions, while, at the same time, he acknowledged his merit in somewhat singular terms : " I was very pleased to find a thinking Swiss. With regard to certain nations we have, it must be confessed, ridiculous prejudices. So I am beginning to conceive of philosophers on the summits of the Alps, just as I have for some time been imagining poets from Astrakhan or Norway. This Swiss, who has thoughts in his head, is not, if you please, a Frenchman in disguise, nor a Swiss 'spectator'5; he is a Swiss, a real Swiss, but a Swiss who is at once both an Englishman and a Frenchman, that is to say, his mind has been formed by intercourse with these two nations. As a Swiss he has both good sense and simplicity, as an English- man plenty of depth and penetration ; as a Frenchman animation and a certain amount of subtlety." The merit of Muralt's mind, 1 Vol. iv., part ii., pp. 70-82, and vol. vi., part i.5 pp. 102-1*3. 2 August 1726. Cf. Bibliotheque des livres nouveaux (September, October, and December 1726); Journal litteraire de la Haye, 1731, vol. xviii., pp. 50 and 240; Mercure Suissc, March 1733, November and December 1736 ; Lettres juives of d'Argens, letter 68 or 72 — according to the edition referred to ; Clement, Les cinq annees litteraires, ist March 1751, and 3oth December 1752. 3 28th January 1728 (Mercure de France, May 1728). It is clear that, three years after its publication, the excitement aroused by Muralt's book had not yet subsided. 4 Ou observations sur le livre Intitule : Lettres sur les Anglais et les Franfais et sur les voyages, avec la defense de la sixieme satire de Despreaux et la justification du bel esprit fran^ais [the last two pieces are by Brumoy], Paris. 1726, i2mo. 5 An allusion to the imitations of Addison which were so numerous at that time. 44 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE namely its cosmopolitan character, a rare quality at that period, was thus discerned by Desfontaines with considerable accuracy. Nevertheless, he is foolish enough to reproach Muralt with certain supposed errors ; and incurs in consequence a smart rebuke from Voltaire. " Is there a fresh edition of a wise and clever book by M. de Muralt, who does so much honour to Switzerland . . . forthwith the abbe Desfontaines takes his pen, abuses M. de Muralt, whom he does not know, and pronounces a sweeping judgment upon England, which he has never seen."1 Voltaire was an admirer of Muralt — " the wise and clever M. de Muralt," as he calls him once more in the Lettres ang/aises.2 He certainly made him his guide in his first studies in English. " M. de Muralt's letters," wrote one who knew,3 " are highly ap- preciated here by all sensible people. Those who inveigh against the depravity of taste and style in France delight to extol this book as a model of beauty, vigour and simplicity." Jean-Jacques, in his turn, praised that " wise man," " the sober Muralt," and borrowed from him, as we shall see, on more than one occasion. Thus Muralt, in company with the refugees, to whom he is closely allied, was among the first in France to institute a com- parison between the French and the English intellect, and to show a preference for the latter. And since he was in addition a writer of talent, the success of his Lettres, published nearly ten years earlier than the Lettres anglaises, should be noted as a symptom. II Stimulated by Muralt, public curiosity with regard to England soon found fresh nourishment in the cosmopolitan novels of the abbe Prevost. The abbe had twice sought refuge in England ; the first time 1 Memoire du sieur de Voltaire: Works, published by Moland, vol. xxiii., p. 32. It will be observed that the passage was written in 1739, subsequently to the Lettres anglaises, and to Voltaire's residence in England. 2 Beginning of letter xix. (suppressed in later editions). 3 A letter from Jacob Vernet to Turrettini, dated Paris, yth March 1726 ; quoted by M. E. Ritter. PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST 45 in 1728, after his rupture with the Benedictines of Saint-Ger- maine des Pres. On that occasion he remained there until 1731,* and appears to have enjoyed the delights of his first residence to the full, as well as the intoxication of recovered freedom. Em- ployed as secretary or tutor in the house of an English peer, he seems to have been obliged through a " love affair " to leave both his " agreeable position" and the country he had found so attractive.2 He returned thither in 1733, this time in the society of a young lady who had accompanied him from Holland. He has complained of the cold manner in which, on account of this circumstance, he was received by the refugees, who, on the occasion of his first visit, had probably welcomed the unfrocked Benedictine, so rest- less-minded and inquisitive, with open arms.3 " He is a shrewd man," wrote Jordan, who saw him in London in 1733, " and has a knowledge not only of polite literature but also of theology, history and philosophy. ... I will say nothing of his conduct, nor of a criminal action of which he has been guilty in London. . . . It is no business of mine."4 Whatever this mysterious crime may have been, Prevost, who was obliged to live in England and to earn his own living, became more completely anglicised than any other writer of the eighteenth century. He acquired a thorough knowledge of the language, and henceforth worked as a salaried translator of English books. Not to mention in this place his celebrated versions of Richardson, he rendered into French Van Loon's History of the Low Countries as illustrated by their Coinage, the Travels of Robert Lade, Middleton's History of the Life of Cicero, Hume's History of the House of Stuart, Dryden's tragedy All for Love. His Histoire des voyages is itself nothing more than an adaptation of a book by Green,5 just as his 1 The exact date of his return is unknown. One of his letters, dated loth Nov- ember 1731, was written from the Hague. See the book upon Uabbe Prevost, by M. H. Harrisse, p. 150. On the zoth June 1731, Prevost witnessed the first per- formance of Lillo's London Merchant in London. 2 See M. Brunetiere's fine study of Prevost : Etudes critiques, vol. Hi., p. 195. 3 Prevost translated Van Loon's History in conjunction with Van Eifen. 4 Jordan, Histoire (fun voyage litteraire fait en 1 733s p. 148. ^ A neiv general collection of voyage t and travels. London, 1 745 "47* 46 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE novel Almoran et Hamet is merely an adaptation from J. Hawkes- worth. Thus Prevost made abundant use of his knowledge of the English language, which he seems to have written and spoken with facility.1 But, above all, he took a keen interest in the country, in its customs, laws and literature. Naturally inquisitive with regard to foreign nations, he endeavoured to introduce in his earlier novels almost every country in Europe. The originality of the Memoires d?un homme de qualite, written during his first residence in England, consists not so much in their romantic but disconnected thread of action, which is constantly hindered by unexpected incidents, as in the representation of foreign manners — German, Spanish or Italian, as well as Turkish, Dutch, and English. It is all very well for him to write contemptuously : " I leave to geographers, and to those who only travel from curiosity, the task of supplying the public with descriptions of the countries they have traversed. The narrative I write consists only of actions and feelings."2 The real novelty of the book consists, if not in the physical, at any rate in the moral geography, if I may say so, of the countries traversed by its hero. But if there was nothing very new in making a few rough, and moreover conventional, sketches of Spain in the manner of Lesage, or in venturing, like Montesquieu, to describe the manners of a harem, assuredly there was considerable novelty in aspiring to give us "an idea of German pleasures and Teutonic gallantry," or, better still — since here Prevost was drawing from life — of the character and manners of the English. In this re- spect, these Memoires (Tun homme de qualite, which obtained so great a success in their day, are quite peculiarly instructive. Few books have done so much to create among Frenchmen a knowledge, to quote the author's own words, of " a country which other European nations esteem less highly than it deserves, because they are not sufficiently acquainted with it." 3 And few 1 There is an English letter from Prevost to Thieriot extant (CEuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxiii., p. 467). 2 Memoires (Tun homme de qualite (CEuvres choisies, vol. i., p. 330). 3 Vol. ii., p. 237. PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST 47 writers have laboured so earnestly to remove " certain childish prejudices, common to most men, but especially to the French, which lead them to arrogate to themselves a superiority over every other nation in the world." 1 England occupies an important place in the Memoires. First of all, we have some attractive pictures of manners and customs ; a masquerade in the Haymarket, an English ball, a description of London, a " gladiatorial contest," or, more precisely, a boxing- match, followed by a bout with sabres, " a kind of school where," according to the indulgent narrator, " youths are trained to be courageous, and to despise death and wounds."2 Here, again, is a full account of a journey through England, full of shrewd and accurate observations,3 and vivid as a picture. The description of Tunbridge Wells is a historical document : we learn from it that a cup of coffee costs threepence, chocolate the same ; there are balls where " lively shopgirls rub elbows with duchesses," and where love-adventures are plentiful. " If this enchanting place had existed in the times of the ancients, they would never have said that Venus and the Graces dwelt in Cythera." The work is almost a guide-book, more especially for those who are in search of adventures of a certain kind. But Prevost does not forget to inquire about more serious matters. He acquires information concerning the poets, quotes Milton, Spenser, Addison and Thomson, and remarks the prosperity of the drama : "I have seen several of their plays, which appeared to me not inferior to those of Greece or France. I will even go so far as to say that they would surpass them, if their poets paid more attention to the rules of construction ; but as regards beauty of sentiment, whether tender or sublime, and that tragic power which stirs the heart to its depths and never fails to arouse the passions of the most torpid soul ; in respect also of the power of expression, and the art of conducting events or contriving situations, I have read nothing, either in Greek or in French, superior to the English drama." 4 He mentions Shakespeare's Hamlet, Dryden's Don Sebastian, Otway's Venice 1 Vol. ii., p. 251. 2 Qf. vol. ii., pp. 281, 288, 289, 326. 3 Book xi. 4 Vol. ii., pp. 270-71. 48 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE Preserved, and a few comedies by Congreve and Farquhar — the very examples afterwards employed by Voltaire in his Lettres, and possibly suggested to him by Prevost's novel. It will also be observed that Prevost saw all these plays acted, and derived " infinite satisfaction" from their representation. His freshest and most enthusiastic pages have reference to the national character. Considering that Muralt does not belong to France, Prevost was really the first French writer to become fascinated with that free, wise, philosophical and in other respects quite ideal England which was the Salentum of the eighteenth century. Everything connected with the country delighted him — its air of liberty to begin with. " What a lesson to see a lord or two, a baronet, a shoemaker, a tailor, a wine-merchant and a few others of the same stamp," all seated together round the same table in a coffee-house and chatting familiarly, pipe in mouth, on matters of public interest ! Verily, " the coffee-houses are, as it were, the seat of English liberty." l It is true that the common people are somewhat coarse. But it is also true that " there is no country where one finds such integrity, such humanity, and such sound notions of honour, prudence and happiness as among the English. Love of the public weal, a taste for practical science, and a horror of depen- dence and of flattery, are virtues which are almost innate in these fortunate people ; they descend from father to son like an inheritance." The English, in short, are " one of the first nations in the universe." Then follows a comparison between English, French and Spaniards. It is worth noting that Spain is very harshly treated by Prevost : she was gradually sinking in public estimation, and had to pay dearly for the long spell of good fortune she had enjoyed in France 2 from Corneille to Lesage. The Frenchman, fascinating as he is on first acquaintance, does not improve as he becomes better known. The Englishman, though somewhat rough, is the only one who promises much to observant eyes. 1 Vol. i., p. 193. 2 See M. Morel Fatio's curious study of the vicissitudes of Spanish influence in France. {Etudes sur I'JEsfagne. ) PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST 49 " His is a wholesome exterior and we feel at "once that there is no hidden depravity beneath it. When we get to know him as he is within, we find nothing but robust and perfect parts equally satisfactory to the eye and for use. ... In short, the English virtues are as a rule lasting ones, because they are founded on principles ; and those principles are the product of a happy disposition and an uncorrupted reason." l But if such be the case, whence this people's evil reputation ? It is due, in the first place, to their bloody and terrible history ; yet does it greatly differ, in this respect, from that of other nations ? In the next place, being separated from the rest of the world by " a dangerous sea " — toto divisos orbe Britannos — they are less known, because less seen. " People seldom travel in England," or so at least Prevost assures us, and consequently they form incorrect conceptions of its inhabitants. You must know them in their own country. Then perhaps, like the author of Manon Lescaut, you will desire to see " all who are dear to you " resemble the English. Here the author's feelings are aroused. He is carried away by enthusiasm, and he too exclaims, Ofortunatos nimium! "Happy isle, and happy, too happy inhabitants, if they are truly conscious of all their advantages of climate and situation ! What do they lack of all that can render life comfortable and enjoyable ? As regards the aspect of nature, their summer is not excessive in point of heat, nor is the cold of their winter extreme. Their soil produces in abundance everything they require for their own use. They can do without the goods of their neighbours ; nevertheless they add to their own possessions all the rarest and most precious productions of every country in the world. . . . Are they less fortunate in the moral sphere ? They have successfully defended their liberty against all the assaults of tyranny. To all appearance it is established upon impregnable foundations. Their laws are wise and easy to understand. There is not one of them but ministers to the public weal ; nor is the public weal in England a mere name which serves to disguise the injustice and violence of those who hold the reins 1 Vol. ii., pp. 247-252. 50 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE of power : every citizen is fully acquainted with his own rights ; the people have theirs, the limits of which they never transgress, just as the power of the great is defined by bounds they dare not overstep. Nor do the English enjoy less freedom in religious matters. They have recognised that every form of compulsion is a violation of the spirit of the Gospel. They know that the human heart is the kingdom of God. . . . Accordingly, virtue with them never consists in cant and affectation. . . . Religion in England, in the towns and even the humblest villages, finds its expression in hospitals for the sick, homes of refuge for the aged of both sexes, schools for the education of children, in short, in a thousand tokens of piety and of zeal both for country and religion. Would not any sensible man prefer these wise and religious institutions to our convents and monasteries where, as is only too well known, an idle and useless life is sometimes honoured with the name of hatred of the world and of con- templation of heavenly truths ? " 1 But for the last sentence — in which the malignity of the unfrocked monk is too clearly apparent — should we not think we were reading a page from Fenelon or Bernardin de Saint- Pierre, describing some Salentum or marvellous Ile-de-France ? And is it not true that in 1729, in a book which was favourably received by the public, England was represented as an Ultima Thule where the happiness of the race was realised in love and fellowship through the free play of the human faculties ? His vein once discovered, Prevost worked it freely in his other novels.2 In particular, the Philosophe anglais, ou Histoire de Monsieur Cleveland, jils naturel de Cromwell, which was pub- lished from 1732 to 1739, is simply an exaltation of British virtue. Having extolled the virtues of the people, he deemed it needful to exhibit them in action, and this is the main object of these six large volumes, wherein a whole chapter of the history of England under Cromwell and Charles II. is in a manner 1 Vol. ii., pp. 379-381- 2 Cf. The Lettres de Mentor a unjeune seigneur. London [Paris], 1764, izmo. The author inquired into the condition of poetry in England and in France, into the progress of education in the two countries, etc. PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST 51 novelized. The hero of the book, the philosopher Cleveland, is a sort of romantic Montesquieu, with a fondness for travel. Never for a moment, as he crosses continent or sea, does his philosophy fail him. In the depths of misfortune, in the heart of American solitudes, among savages who murder his dearest friends, and devour — or so, at least, he supposes — his own daughter, Cleveland, unmoved, meditates, observes and enacts laws. Nothing can be more curious than his profession of faith, in which there has been remarked a foretaste, as it were, of that of the Savoyard vicar.1 Nor can anything be more singular than the methods he employs in order to civilize the savages and turn them into so many philosophers. Cleveland has but one weakness, and that a thoroughly English one. He is haunted by the idea of suicide ; he has the spleen : " a kind of wild frenzy more common among the English than among other European nations. . . . The most dangerous and terrible of diseases." Nevertheless, after a fearful struggle Cleveland gets the better even of the spleen. How else could he be worthy of the names of philosopher and Englishman ? At the very moment when he was publishing Cleveland, Prevost had plunged into a new enterprise, the sole and acknow- ledged aim of which was the diffusion of English thought in France : he had founded Le Pour et Contre? There was novelty in the undertaking ; in the words of Prevost's biographer, it " bore no resemblance to the journals of the period." 3 Accord- ingly it achieved a great success. But the author took it into his head to endanger the success of the magazine by employing Le Fevre de Saint-Marc, a second-rate compiler, as his assistant.4 The public, whom Prevost had intended to mislead, was not to be deceived. He was obliged to resume the pen,5 and did 1 Book vii. Cf. Brunetiere, Etude sur Prevost. 2 Le Pour et Contre was issued from 1733 to 1740, and comprises 20 volumes. 3 Cf. The Essai sur la vie de I1 abbe Prevost, prefixed to the CEuvres choisies. 4 Editor of Boileau, Chaulieu and Malherbe, and author of an Abrege chronologique de VHisto'ire de L? Italic. 5 To satisfy his readers Prevost himself says, "The greater part of the second volume and the whole of the eighteenth are not by me " (vol. xx., p. 335). 52 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE not again lay it down until the journal reached its seventeenth volume. At this point he once more became weary of his task, and did not return to it until the beginning of the nineteenth volume. Of the twenty volumes of which the entire series of his journal consists, only the first four were composed in London. Prevost had, in fact, returned to France, and, thanks to the protection of the Prince de Conti, obtained the right to resume the dress of a secular priest. Employed as chaplain to the prince, he continued to edit his journal, with the assistance of his literary correspondents in London, but, it was said, in a less independent manner than formerly through his inability to with- stand the influence of his fellow-journalists.1 However this may have been, the success of his miscellany was beyond doubt. Spurious copies were issued in Holland, " without my knowledge," says Prevost, " and with additions of which some are extremely ridiculous." His competitors grew angry when they saw themselves left behind : and the hot- tempered Desfontaines — supplanted by Prevost in the coveted work of popularising English information, and unable to deny the attractiveness of the magazine — contested the author's veracity. He accused him more especially of speaking about England not de visu, but according to the reports of travellers, such as Camden and others.2 This treacherous insinuation was apparently without foundation.3 The public remained faithful to Prevost.4 In Le Pour et Contre it discovered an encyclopaedic review, more varied, amusing, and genuinely literary than the Dutch journals upon which it had been modelled. In truth, if the art of arousing public attention by every manner of means is one 1 Bibliothequefranfaise, vol. xxix., p. 155. 2 Observations sur let ecrlts modcrnes, vol. i., p. 328. 3 Prevost seems to have travelled about England a good deal; in vol. vii. of Le Pour et Contre (p. 241) he informs his readers that he has just returned from a nine months' journey through the provinces of the United Kingdom, and promises an account of it in two volumes, which never appeared. However, he made use of his reminiscences in his novels (cf. Memoires d'un homme de qualite, book xi.). 4 Cf. the Mercure for December 1733, October 1735, etc. PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST 53 of the journalist's professional virtues, Prevost may claim an honoured place in the annals of modern periodical literature. The information accumulated in his magazine is of the utmost variety. He forgets neither fashions, sports, theatres, nor wit and humour; not even "medical chat" and the "correspondence column." As its title promises, his journal really is a "periodical publication of a novel character in which all matters of interest to public curiosity are fully treated." He gratified the taste for exact, varied, copious and up-to-date information which was growing up in France at that period. No less than twelve objects does he set before himself, among which the character of " ladies distinguished by their merit," and " well-established facts which appear to transcend the power of nature," are among those of first importance. He supplies items of current informa- tion and chronicles of the day. Prescriptions for the small-pox or apoplexy, volcanic eruptions, Egyptian mummies, gigantic aloes, "love-intrigues" and erotic verses, tittle-tattle, and " echoes from the fashionable world," are all alike grist for his mill. "Why should I prefer one reader to another? If you publish a work do you not thereby declare that you write to please everybody ? " * A candid confession. Still more frank — and characteristic even of another age — is the modesty of the editor, who is obliged to speak of everything when he knows nothing. " Though by no means versed in the 'writings of metaphysicians, any more than in geometry and algebra, of 'which I confess I understand practically nothing, I venture to-day to impart to my readers a few reflections on the divisibility of matter and its existence, and on the nature of the souls of the lower animals, of man, and of superior intelligences."2 His courage as a reviewer is such that he does not shrink either from the abbe Nollet's experiments on phosphorus, from Newton's physics, or from equally abstruse problems in algebra. But though Prevost pays considerable attention, perhaps too much, to matters of trifling interest, he does not lose sight of his main object. " An entirely original feature of this paper 1 Vol. ii., p. 38. 2 Vol. xiii., p. 169. 54 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE will be the publication, in each issue, of some special fact re- specting the genius of the English, the curiosities of London and of other parts of the island, the progress they are every day making in science and in art, and even at times of translations of the finest scenes from their plays." 1 Is not London, in fact, "a point of convergence, as it were, for all the wonders and curiosities the world contains"2 — a sort of intellectual capital of the universe ? Nor does he intend in any sense to vindicate the English ; he speaks " simply as a historian who wishes to make them known." 3 The method proved highly effective. He himself states that he has an advantage over his competitors "in being able to give to the subject of his articles, and even to a single thought, a novelty of expression, an English colouring, if the words be allowed, which cannot fail to hit the taste of the French." 4 In fact he hits it so truly that he is overwhelmed with letters and questions, some on art, some on science, some on the fashions ; he is unable to cope with them, and is fairly inundated. On manners, customs, and anecdotes of private and public life, he is inexhaustible. He mentions the popular singers of the day, and the dancers, Farinelli and Mile. Salle. He retails the petty rumours of the political world. " A thousand times" he is entreated to give an exact translation of the official report of a parliamentary debate. He resolves to do so, translates the report of a sitting, and makes quite a hit. On other occasions he has to give an account of the English fauna and flora, scenery, natural curiosities, the fluctuations of public opinion, the differ- ences of scientific men, and the controversies of theologians. But his most brilliant successes were the " short pieces or fragments of foreign literature." These were the rarest speci- mens in the collection, as the author, who was well aware of the fact, informs his readers. He knows that the French have everything to learn. While Moliere is being played in London, and also Brutus and Zaire ; while French novels are being read and plundered, Frenchmen 1 Vol. i., pp. io- 1 1. 2 Vol. iii., p. 50. 3 Vol. viii., p. 315. 4 Vol. iii., p. 50. PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST 55 are scarcely acquainted with a single English production. Yet in London, " ten thousand copies of a good book are easily sold in a month. ... A book of which four hundred copies are bought creates a sensation in Paris." l What could be more convincing ? What is one to think of a nation which in three months, from December ist to March ist, turns out "a hundred and fourteen works of various sizes ? " Too often, it is true, neither "grace nor subtlety" can be dis- covered in this mass of books. Yet how numerous are their original beauties ! The ancient poets, such as Chaucer and Gower, who are little read even by the English themselves, receive no more than a passing allusion, as curiosities. But in compensation he makes all the more of Shakespear (sic.).1 This great writer, the son of "a woollen manufacturer," possessed true genius. Of ancient writers he knew very little, certainly, but what of that ? Had it been otherwise he would doubtless have lost some of " the vehemence, the impetuosity, the fine frenzy, if the expression be allowed, which flash forth even from his least striking productions." He is a very great poet. Then follows an examination of The Tempest, which in France would be considered a ridiculous play, of The Merry Wives of Windsor, of Othello, and, lastly, of Hamlet. Here Prevost's taste revolts ; " an extraordinary rhapsody," he exclaims, " in which it is impossible to distinguish either form or probability." Yet he had read it and had detected the author's genius. Elsewhere Prevost deals with the life of Milton,2 not with- out inaccuracies, the most serious of which occurs when he makes it a reproach against the author of Paradise Lost, that he died " free from all religious ties." His treatment of Dryden is better, and shows more knowledge. Translations are given of Alexander's Feast and Cleopatra, the latter, to the despair, it should be said, of certain readers, filling several numbers of the journal.3 Doubtless they preferred the anecdotes of living writers — Addison, Dennis, Tindal, Bentley , Berkeley, and others — with which Prevost enlivens his pages. A translation of Steele's comedy, The Conscious Lovers, or, according to Prevost's version, 1 Vol. ii., p. 272. 2 Vol. xii., p. iz8. 3 Nos. 62, 82, and 96-101. 56 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE V amour confident de lui-meme l ; a review of Pope's letters ; an abstract of Glover's Leonidas, a " masterpiece of English poetry," which was shortly afterwards translated ; some scenes from Fielding's Miser ; a few short pieces by Swift, such as Martinus Scriblerus Peri Bathos* — all was novel, stimulating, and gratifying to the curiosity. Prevost was thus very conscientious in the pursuit of his calling as literary chronicler. He kept opinion in a state of healthy activity. He established a connection between Paris and London. When his journal ceased to appear it was keenly regretted. If Prevost ever mapped out a programme of life — and this is ex- tremely doubtful — he could say, when he laid down his pen, that the first part of his task was accomplished. Following Muralt, and anticipating, by a brief interval, Voltaire, he had naturalized the taste for English literature in France. But in thus making himself its champion he had contracted towards his readers a debt of honour, which he discharged — as is well known — with the greatest talent and success, by translating Richardson. Ill In the year which witnessed the publication of Pour et Contre there had appeared in London, in its earliest form, the famous book which, by modifying its character, had definitely impressed the influence of the English genius upon France, namely, the Lett res phihsophiques of Voltaire. In every respect the Lettres phihsophiques or anglaises — for Voltaire made use of both titles — is a work of the first import- ance. From its publication dates the commencement of that open campaign against the Christian religion which was destined to occupy the whole of the century ; thence, too, the attack upon political institutions ; thence, also, and above all, the rise of that new spirit, contemptuous of questions of art, critical, eager for reform, combative and practical, which concerned itself rather with political and natural science than with poetry and elo- 1 Nos. 109 et seq. 2 Vol. xiii. VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 57 quence, and was interested, before all things, in literature dealing with the active side of life and the diffusion of knowledge. The Lettres anglaises are the patent of majority of the eighteenth century. They mark, also, a decisive advance in the growth of English influence. On this point we may trust to contemporary evidence. " This work," says Condorcet, " was, with us, the starting- point of a revolution ; it began to call into existence the taste for English philosophy and literature, to give us an interest in the manners, the politics and the commercial knowledge of the English people, and to spread their language among us." * Voltaire may at least be credited with having added a seasoning of wit, animation and cynicism to certain truths scattered among the writings of his predecessors, but up to that time not familiar to the public. This is why, however strongly he may have re- pudiated it later, Voltaire was largely responsible for the anglo- mania of his epoch. He had come to England at thirty-two, the age of intellectual maturity, and under the best conditions for deriving the utmost profit from his enforced residence there ; prepared already to understand the English mind by his previous relations with several Englishmen of worth — Lord Stair, Bishop Atterbury, the merchant Falkener, and particularly Bolingbroke, in close ac- quaintanceship with whom he had, as he himself expressed it,2 "learned to think"; and, above all, prepared by the deadly affront put upon him by M. de Rohan-Chabot and by his momentary scorn for France to welcome with enthusiasm any- thing which did not remind him of his ungrateful country. His visit to England was a turning-point in his life. Hitherto a poet and nothing else, his exile and misfortune now sealed him a philosopher. "It is M. de Voltaire's good fortune," wrote a contemporary, " that he- has visited England. . . . The poetic gift of this author has long been apparent to every one. But no 1 Vie de Voltaire. 2 To Thieriot, izth August 1737. Cf. also his letter of znd January 17*3 to the same person. He had been introduced to Bolingbroke in 171 9, and had visited him, and Mme. de Villette as well, at La Source. 58 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE one had thought of classing him among the thinkers and the reasoners." l The remark is of the greatest importance. For it renders it beside the point to maintain that in reality the genius of Voltaire owed less to England than has been supposed ; to observe, with Michelet,2 that all the scepticism of the English was already to be found in Bayle, in Fontenelle, in Chaulieu or in La Fare j and to recall, with M. Brunetiere, the " impiety " of Voltaire's early life, his first associations, his early reading, his maiden verses, the Society of the Temple, the patronage of Ninon, the Epitre h Uranie, and many other unanswerable arguments which show clearly that even before 1726 Voltaire was no longer a believer. It will never be proved that his residence in England did not broaden, stimulate and temper his intelligence, nor that it did not endow him with that authority which was still wanting to the author of Mariamne and flndiscret. Certainly it was not from the English that Voltaire learned to doubt all religious truth. Before ever he read Tindal or Collins he had written : " Our priests are not what a foolish populace supposes ; their learning rests on the foundation of our credulity."3 "Let us trust in ourselves alone," was his conclusion ; " let us view everything with our own eyes ; 'tis they are our tripods, our oracles, our gods." 4 Before ever he set foot in England he had breathed in France the atmosphere of a country already destitute of religion, and of a capital concerning which Madame wrote : " I do not believe there are a hundred people in Paris, even if we take into account ecclesiastics as well as men of the world, who possess a sincere faith in Christianity or have any belief in our Saviour : the thought makes one shudder." 5 Finally, before he fled from M. de Rohan-Chabot, he had already found mental 1 Bibliothequefranfaiie, on Histoire litteraire de la France, vol. xx., 1735, p. 190. 2 Histoire de France, vol. xvi., p. 70: "What does he owe to the English deists ? Less in reality than has been supposed. He is far more dependent on our own free-thinkers of the seventeenth century, on the doctrines of the Gassendists and of Bernier, Moliere, Hesnault, Boulainvilliers, &c." The same view is maintained by Lanfrey (L'Eglisect les philosophes au xviii6 sieclt). 3 (Edife, iv. i. 4 Ibid., ii. i. 5 Quoted by M. Brunetiere, Revue des Deux Mondes, ist November 1890. VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 59 sustenance in Bayle's " incomparable dictionary," as Locke calls it,1 the arsenal whence all the sceptics of the eighteenth century, English and French alike, had taken their weapons. The Dictionnaire critique had twice been translated into English, and even sold in parts to encourage its circulation,2 and Toland, Collins, Tindal and others, not to mention Bernard de Mandeville, had borrowed unsparingly from " the greatest dialectician who ever wrote." 3 But if the English deists are undoubtedly the disciples of the French free-thinkers of the seventeenth century and of Bayle, does it therefore follow that they merely imitated them ? Because Locke had recourse to Bayle, shall we conclude that he invented nothing himself? And, to speak more generally, because public opinion in France between 1700 and 1730 was gradually throwing off the fetters of Catholicism, are we therefore to conclude that in point of religious belief it had arrived at the same indepen- dence as England ? Such an idea would be strangely paradoxical. " There is no religion in England," wrote Montesquieu, in the record of his travels. " If any one mentions religion, everybody begins to laugh. Someone having said, during my own stay there, * I hold that as an article of faith,' everybody began laughing." Montesquieu evidently exaggerates. But there is truth in Muralt's statement that there was a certain indefinable air of finality, composure and resolution in the scepticism of the cultured classes among the English which was wanting in the frivolous unbelief of the French : "In point of religion, you would almost say that every Englishman has made up his mind either to have it in earnest or to have none at all, and that 1 Cf. Le Clerc, in the Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne, vol. xiii., p. 458. 2 Desfontaines, Lettre d'une dame anglaise, at the end of the translation of Fielding's Joseph Andrews. Concerning English translations of Bayle, cf. Histoire des outrages des savants, June 1709, p. 284 ; Bibliotheque britannique, vol. iv., p. 176, and vol. i., p. 460. The earlier of the two translations was of an inferior order. The second, enlarged and more accurate, began to appear in 1734 under the title: A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical, in which a New and Accurate Translation of that of the celebrated Mr Bayle is included. . . . London, 1734, folio. The authors of the adaptation are John Peter Barnard, Thomas Birch, John Lockman, George Sale. A life of Bayle by Desmaizeaux is prefixed. 3 Voltaire, Poemc sur Lisbonne, Preface. 60 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE England, in distinction from other countries, contains no hypocrites." l In France, liberty of thought, however widely spread, was not, as in England, a part of the national spirit ; it shrank from displaying itself openly and did not adopt the same aggressive attitude. In this respect, therefore, Voltaire found England in advance of his native country. Similarly, he discovered in English books a new and complete philosophy, very positive and precise, of which only the germ was to be found in Bayle. This philosophy Voltaire rendered popular in France. It is true that the refugees had already published translations or abstracts of Herbert, Blount, Shaftesbury, Toland, Tindal and Collins. Not only, however, were these translations done in that harsh and inaccurate style which the refugees had contracted in a foreign land,2 but they^were not read beyond the limits of a very small circle. Voltaire absorbed the substance of them, and transmitted it to the public in general. We find the author of (Edipe and the Henriade writing a Traite de metapbysiqite, which is an abridgment of Locke, and publishing Elements de la philosophic de Newton. In this sense, then, England gave Voltaire, the wisely and worldly-minded sceptic, an entirely fresh char- acter— that of a philosopher. His unbelief derived substance from English philosophy. In the phrase of Mr John Morley, " Voltaire left France a poet, he returned to it a sage." 3 What is certain is that during the three years, or thereabouts, which he spent in England, he gave evidence of remarkable activity of mind.4 Through the agency of Bolingbroke, the first to receive him as his guest, and also of Bubb Doding- 1 Lettre sur les Anglais et les Franga'n^ p. 16. 2 Tabaraud, Histoire du philosophisme anglais, vol. ii., p. 338. 3 Voltaire, p. 58. See Taine, Literature anglaise, vol. iv., p. 215: "The entire arsenal of the sceptics and materialists was built and furnished in England before the French arrived : Voltaire merely selected his arrows there and fitted them to the string." All his contemporaries were of the same opinion ; see especially Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire ; Garat, Memoir -es sur guard, vol. ii. ; Tabaraud, Histoire du philosophisme anglais ; and the unknown author of the Preservatif contre fanglomanie (1757). 4 On his residence in England, see Churton Collins, Bolingbroke and Voltaire in England, and Mr A. Ballantyne's recent book. Voltaire's visit to England, which does not add much to the foregoing. Voltaire's stay seems to have extended from 3oth May 1726 to February or March 1729. VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 61 ton and Falkener, the doors alike of Tory, Whig and middle- class society were at once opened to admit him. Of the Eng- lish political world — which treated him, moreover, in princely fashion by subscribing ^2000 towards the Henriade1 — he obtained a close view — too close, indeed, if slanderers be credited.2 The king granted him a private audience, and Queen Caroline gave him permission to dedicate the famous epic to herself. Petted by the official world, Voltaire also associated much with men of science. He attended Newton's funeral in March 1727, made the acquaintance of the great man's niece, Mrs Conduit, questioned his medical adviser, and, in short, made a close investigation of Newtonianism, the most important of all English novelties. Meanwhile he attended the meetings of the Royal Society, of which he was afterwards elected a member, and acquired a knowledge of the latest advances in science. He rendered himself familiar with religious and philosophical con- troversies, obtained information concerning the Quakers, and visited Andrew Pitt at Hampstead. He read the philosophers, ransacked, or glanced through, Locke, " the sagacious Locke," Bacon, of whose works he never obtained an adequate knowledge, Chubb, Tillotson, Berkeley, Woolston and Tindal. With these, and with Clarke, whose " metaphysical imagination " appalled him, he became friendly. In the society of " these intrepid defenders of natural law " he contracted new and fruitful habits of thought. He knew almost all the great English writers, concerning whom Desmaizeaux and the starveling Saint-Hyacinthe — whose relations with him very soon became somewhat strained — had doubtless given him more than one piece of useful information. He visited Pope at Twickenham, and owing to his still imperfect knowledge of English, their interview was rather an awkward one ; this, however, did not prevent them 1 Michelet errs in stating that Voltaire only received " a few guineas from the queen " (vol. xvi., p. 69). Longchamp and Wagnere {Memoires sur Voltaire •, vol. ii., p. 492) even speak of ^6000 as the proceeds of the subscription and the sale. 2 He was accused of having played the spy. (See a letter from Bolingbroke to Mme. de Terriole, in Churton Collins.) 62 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE from afterwards becoming intimate.1 He knew Swift fairly well, and spent three months with him at Lord Peterborough's house : when Swift thought of visiting France, Voltaire offered him a letter of introduction to M. de Morville, while Swift, on his part, wrote a preface for Voltaire's Essai sur la poesie epique? At Dodington's house he met Young, not yet the author of the Night Thoughts, and Thomson, who charmed him with " the grandeur of his genius and his noble simplicity."3 He went much to the theatre, witnessed performances of Shakespeare, which filled him " with ecstasy,"4 became friendly with Colley Cibber, met Gay, who showed him The Beggar s Opera before it was produced, and paid to Congreve a visit which has ever since remained famous, though to Voltaire it was disappointing by reason of the affectation which led the old dramatist to insist on being treated as a gentleman rather than as a poet.5 In short, there was scarcely a single distinguished writer of the period with whom circumstances did not bring him into contact. If he took no pains to make the acquaintance of Daniel de Foe, it was because de Foe avoided even his own countrymen 6 and friends, and possessed, moreover, an evil reputation. But he sought information both with regard to famous writers of the past, such as Addison and Dryden, and to living authors of less celebrity, such as Garth and Parnell.7 And, lastly, he made himself familiar with the language. He 1 Villemain (Tableau de la litterature du xviiie siecle, yth lesson) echoes a very doubtful anecdote in reference to this subject. Voltaire having uttered some coarse jest at the expense of the catholic religion, Pope rose abruptly and left the room in indignation. Owen Ruffhead (Life of Pope, p. 156) repeats the story. Goldsmith (Miscellaneous Works, vol. iv., p. 24) maintains, on the contrary, that the interview was a cordial one. It seems safest to admit, with Duvernet, that owing to the inability of Voltaire to speak English, and of Pope to speak French, the interview was slightly embarrassed. On the other hand Voltaire asserts that he has " lived a good deal " with Pope. Voltaire continued to correspond with him after his return to France (cf. A Ballantyne, op. cit., pp. 86-90). 2 Bengesco, Bibliographic de Voltaire, vol. ii., p. 4. 3 Ballantyne, p. 99. 4 Discours sur la tragedie. 5 Lettres anglaises, edn. of 1734, letter xix. Cf. Johnson, Life of Congreve. 6 MintO, Daniel de Foe, p. 165. 7 From Parnell Voltaire borrowed the story of the hermit in Zadig. He trans- lated the earlier part of Garth's Dispensary. VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 63 had already, when confined in the Bastille, devoted himself to mastering its elements, and Thieriot had sent him English books. While in England he applied himself to it with ardour, and attended the theatre assiduously, the book of the play in his hand.1 He very soon managed to read English and to write it, but he had more difficulty in speaking the language ; after eighteen months' residence he still understood it very imperfectly in conversation.2 At a later period he confessed to Sherlock that although he was perfectly sensible of its harmony, he had never been able to master it thoroughly.3 On the other hand he wrote letters in English to his friends, especially to Thieriot, and composed verses in the language.4 It was in English that he wrote the first act of Brutus 5 and Charles XII? He became so accustomed to think in English that, if we may believe him, he found it difficult to think in his mother-tongue. He even undertook the work of an English writer : it was in that language that he published his Essal sur les guerres dvi/es de France and the Essai sur la poes'ie epique, " a mis-shapen English embryo" which he afterwards recast in a French form,7 — both pieces being so correct and even elegantly written that a good judge has proposed to include Voltaire among the number of English classics.8 Throughout his life Voltaire retained his liking for the lan- guage, which he never altogether mastered, though he was always ready to use it. At Cirey, which he jocosely called Cireyshire, he wrangled in English with Mme. de Graffigny, so 1 A. Ballantyne, pp. 48-49. 2 Cf. Avis au lecteur, prefixed to the Essai sur la poes'ie epique^ reprinted by Bengesco (vol. ii., p. 5). 3 Lettres d'un voyageur anglais^ xxv. 4 These will be found in Ballantyne, pp. 68-69. 5 Goldsmith gives a fragment of this earliest version (Worh, ed. Cunningham, vol. iv., p. 20). 6 Some of these notes are in the Bibliotheque Nationale. 7 An Essay upon the civil Wars of France. Extracted from curious Manuscripts. And also upon the Epick poetry of the European nations from Homer down to Milton, by M. de Voltaire. London, 1717, 8vo. The copy given by Voltaire to Sir Hans Sloane is in the British Museum, and contains a dedication. 8 M. Churton Collins, p. 265. Spence, it is true, asserts that Voltaire was as- sisted by Young (Ballantyne, p. 53). 64 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE that the servants might not understand. He talked English with Franklin, and said to Mme. Denis, when she complained that she could not follow him: "I confess I am proud of being able to speak Franklin's language." He was acquainted even with its least becoming expressions : Pennant the naturalist, who visited him at Ferney in 1765, found him perfectly familiar with English oaths.1 The accusation brought against him by Desfontaines, and later by Mme. de Genlis, of being absolutely ignorant of the language of Shakespeare, is therefore unjust.2 Though his know- ledge of it became less accurate as he grew old, he always had as thorough a mastery of it as any French writer of the eighteenth century. And considering that ignorance of the English idiom had previously been almost universal, and with some even a source of pride, Voltaire's knowledge of it, when he returned to France in 1729, was no small testimony to his originality. Nor did his pre-occupation with London and with England cease upon his return to France. He corresponded with Boling- broke, Pope, Gay, Lord Hervey, Falkener, Pitt and Lord Lyttelton. The link was formed, never again to be broken. Throughout his life Voltaire remained deeply and sincerely grateful to the country which had welcomed him during his exile. Even when he was concerned and irritated at the influence of England upon literature, he continued to receive Fox, Beckford, Boswell, Sherlock, Wilkes and as many more, at Ferney, with an affability no less untiring than their curiosity. Ferney, as Voltaire delighted to prove, was one of the most hospitable houses in Europe to all who bore an English name. When Sherlock visited him, Voltaire enjoyed pointing out upon the shelves of his library the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Con- greve, Rochester, Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke and others as well — objects of his youthful admiration to which he had remained faithful in maturer years. The zeal with which, after 1729, he devoted himself to praising the English is only too well known. His efforts, it is 1 Cf. A. Ballantyne, p. 50 a seq. 2 J^oltairomanie, pp. 26, zj and 46. Memoires, vol. iii., p. 362. Cf. also Baretti, in his letter to Voltaire concerning Shakespeare. VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 65 true, were not entirely disinterested : " What ! Is England the only land in which mortals dare to think ? O London, rival of Athens ! O happy land ! As you have expelled your tyrants, so too have you driven out the shameful prejudices which warred against you. England is the country where everything may be said and every deed be rewarded as it deserves." 1 Nevertheless, interested as it was, Voltaire's admiration was perfectly sincere. Even to Thieriot, an intimate friend, he wrote : "I add my weak voice to all the voices of England in order to create some impression of the difference there is between their liberty and our bondage, between their enlightened security and our foolish superstition, between the encouragement which the arts receive in London and the shameful oppression beneath which they languish in Paris." 2 It was just at this time that he dedicated Brutus to Boling- broke, and Zaire to Falkener, using, in the latter case, terms so enthusiastic that the public took offence. But his boldest stroke was the publication of the Lettres anglaises. The project had been formed long before. Some of the letters seem to go back to the early days of his exile. The greater part of them had been written between the close of 1728 and that of 1 732.3 So early as 1727 he publicly announced his intention of writing an account of his journey, and, in view of this undertaking, invited communications concerning Newton, Locke, Tillotson, Milton, Boyle and others.4 It was not, how- ever, until he had returned to France that he carried out his design. The framework was ready to hand, in the letters he had addressed to Thieriot, at the latter* s request, concerning the manners and customs of the country.5 They were simply modified, completed, and arranged in strict sequence. 1 Lines on the death of Mile. Le Couvreur, 1731. 2 ist May 1731. 3 The book was almost finished in September, and was completed in November (Letters to Formont, September and November 1732). In December he submitted the letters on Newton to the criticism of Maupertuis. 4 Notice to the reader in the English edition of the Essai sur la poesie epique : M. Bengesco has translated this curious fragment, which Voltaire suppressed in subsequent editions (Bibliographic, vol. ii., p. 5). 5 Cf. Bengesco, vol. ii., p. iz, and Voltaire to Cideville, I5th December 1731. E 66 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE The reader will be familiar with the difficulties placed by the censor in the way of printing the book. Voltaire then sent his manuscript to Thieriot, who happened to be in London, and he had the work translated by a man named Lockman. The English edition was brought out in London, during August 1733. Prevost assures us that it met with great success.1 However that may be, it was reprinted in the same and the following years in Dublin, Glasgow and London. The French edition did not appear until the next year, when it was published by Jore, and placed on sale in April.2 In spite of what Voltaire has said, it does not materially differ from the English one.3 It is needless to recall here the scandal created by this famous work, and the decree of loth June 1734 condemning it to be burnt, as " calculated to encourage licence of a kind most dangerous to religion and to the order of civil society." No single book, of all Voltaire's writings, caused a more lively agitation or provoked more controversy. The Lettres anglaises contain, in fact, two works : a pamphlet — philosophical, political and religious, and a study of England. With the pamphlet we are not here concerned — except in so far as it distorts the study which the author intended to write. IV It would be a waste of time to attempt to prove that Voltaire's ill-feeling perverted his judgment. The whole of the earlier part of his book is simply a satire. The four letters on the Quakers are a coarse attack upon religion, and do not pretend to be anything else. Elsewhere, however, the author is either careless, or ill-informed, or deliberately inaccurate. 1 Pour et Contre, vol. i., p. 242. Cf. Voltaire to Formont, letter 359 in Moland's edition, and to the abbe de Sade, 29th August 1733. 2 Beuchot wrongly asserts the existence of an edition published in 1731. 8 To Cideville, 4th January 1732. VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 67 His commonest error is that of exaggerating characteristics. He is well enough aware that he is writing a panegyric and not drawing a portrait. Just as Tacitus had his Germany, so Voltaire has his England, too beautiful to be true — as, indeed, his contemporaries assured him. To one it seemed that Voltaire was not master of his subject,1 and to another that, while the Lettres might be " amusing " reading, " it was a question whether the facts were always accurate, the reflexions always true, the criticism always just."2 Such was the opinion of Prevost, who was one of the first to read the book. Such too is our verdict upon it to-day. On the subject of the religious condition of England, and upon toleration and liberty of thought, there are palpable and deliberate exaggerations. But there are exaggerations also on less burning topics : on commerce, for instance, and the cir- cumstances of men of letters. If we may believe Voltaire, there is nothing more enviable than the condition of literary men in this land^ of freedom. A sweet spirit of brotherhood reigns between the poet and the peer. The surest way to attain any lofty position is to write an ode or a treatise on moral philosophy. Did not Addison become a Secretary of State ? Newton, Warden of the Mint ? Prior, an ambassador ? Swift, an Irish dean ? Did not Pope make ^£8000 by a translation of Homer ? And the lesson becomes still more instructive if it be added that Prior was a " waiter at a tavern," and that he owed his good fortune to the Earl of Dorset, himself a " good poet and a bit of a drunkard," who discovered him in his tavern reading Horace. Lastly, were not actresses, provided they had genius, buried at Westminster by the side of such as Newton ? But Voltaire makes no mention of the facts, which he might have witnessed with his own eyes, that a poet like Thomson had to sell his verses for a mere trifle in order to buy shoes ; that Savage, without a roof to shelter him, was forced to spend the 1 Jordan, Histoire r ef res menteurs benir Vhytoocrisie ? * Really, who ever thought of finding Shakespeare in this predicament ? Would the reader like to know why the English, who have appropriated so freely from Moliere, have never imitated or translated Tartuffel "The subject of it could not possibly be a success in London : the reason being that men derive very little enjoyment from portraits of people they do not know." The remark is smart, but is it legitimate criticism ? There is an art of quotation which is itself a process of satire ; and of this art Voltaire was a master. If he desires to prove that English noblemen cultivate letters, there falls from his pen a quotation from Lord Hervey, which happens to be a picture of ecclesiastical life in Italy. Les monsignor, soi-disant grands, Seuls dans leurs palais magnifiques, Y sont d'illustres faineants Sans argent et sans domestiques. This is slightly impertinent. Still, it was necessary to give an idea of the " somewhat lusty " imaginations of these English. But Voltaire goes further, and places his own friends in uncom- fortable positions. Take his appreciation of Swift's Tale of a Tub : " In this country, which certain other European countries find so odd, it is not considered at all strange that, in his Tale of a Tub, the reverend Swift, dean of a cathedral, should have ridiculed Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism ; he claims in excuse that he has not meddled with Christianity itself. He pretends that if he has given a hundred birch-strokes to the children, he has respected their father ; but certain very fastidious people thought the rods must have been 1 (Euvres,ed. Moland, vol. xxii., p. 151. 70 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE so long that they reached even the father." l If this is not treachery, what is it ? And what is to be said of an insinuation which ranks Swift among the philosophers whose very name threw him into a rage ? But Voltaire, as a friend of Swift, felt no stings of conscience, and in his letter " on the English authors who have written against religion," does not scruple to place both Jeremy Taylor, one of the glories of Anglicanism, and Dean Swift, who would certainly have felt little flattered to find himself in such company,2 by the side of theologians like Warburton and Tillotson. If, therefore, we set aside such of Voltaire's opinions on English literature as may have been prompted by wilful mis- conception and bad faith, the residue of impartial and com- prehensive criticism is of small extent. It should be said, how- ever, that this part at any rate is interesting and, in certain respects, distinctly novel. If literary criticism is the art of understanding foreign works in themselves and for themselves, there are in the Lettres anglaises two or three chapters in which Voltaire's keen and enquiring mind was genuinely critical. His early taste in English literature was for the poets of the Restoration : Rochester, Waller, Dorset, and Roscommon, all of whom he quotes. Though very French in flavour, they were almost unknown in France. In a translation of an extract from one of Rochester's satires, Voltaire seeks to give his reader some idea of " the impetuous freedom of English style." His success is open to question, but his intention, at any rate, was good. With one of the strangest and certainly one of the most characteristically English productions of the same period, namely, Butler's Hudibras, he was more fortunate. Butler's ponderous raillery, the ferocious insolence of his sneering laughter, his art of cutting up history and life into colossal caricatures — an art which implies much individuality, however inferior it may be in type — had evidently a great attraction for Voltaire. He conies very near to putting Butler above Milton. In the ability 1 Vol. xxii., p. 175. 2 On Swift, see the fifth of the Lettres •, a S. A. le prince de . . . (vol. xxvi., p. 489), and the letter to Mme. du Deffand, i3th October 1759. VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 71 to excite laughter the author of Hudibras is unrivalled : "A man whose imagination contained the tenth part of the comic spirit, good or bad, which reigns in this work, would still be very amusing."1 In comparison with such a masterpiece the French Menippean Satire is " of very indifferent quality." The platitudes of the poem ; the obscenity, the strange com- bination of frivolity and ponderous buffoonery, the musty odours of kitchen and stable, which render Butler's work, considered as a poem, odd and almost monstrous — nothing of all this repelled Voltaire. He chuckled without scruple at Butler's noisy puppets, disporting himself with all the menials and applauding Hudibras, who Tout rempli d'une sainte bile, Suivi de son grand ecuyer, S'echappa de son poulailler, Avec son sabre et 1'Evangile.2 In the same way he relished the spicy and cynical English comedy of the Restoration. He liked its blunt naturalness, and the almost impudent fidelity with which it depicted every-day life. True, its naturalness was not altogether free from coarse- ness, nor its portraiture from vulgarity. Yet coarseness and vulgarity were after all characteristics of English manners, and it was upon their manners that the English had founded their comedy. Their climate was productive of misanthropy, and so, by means of Wycherley's pen, they placed misanthropes upon the stage. This implied, no doubt, a lack of " delicacy " and " propriety." It was a little too " daring for French manners," and the English drama was no school of all the virtues. It had to be acknowledged, however, that it was " the school of wit and of good comedy." Classical by the higher side of his mind, Voltaire always had a secret fondness for coarse pleasantry, 1 Letter xxii. 2 A paraphrase of two lines in Hudibras (canto i.) : Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, And out he rode a colonelling. (Bonn's Library edn., p. 4.) Voltaire was always fond of Hudibras; cf. Nichols, Illustrations of the eighteenth century, vol. Hi., p. 722. 72 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE which found abundant satisfaction in the plays of Wycherley, in Congreve — or in Swift, the "Rabelais of England," whose works had " a strange and inimitable flavour," and whose humour Voltaire was one of the few Frenchmen to appreciate to the full. " One who has read classical authors only," he wrote, " despises everything written in a living language ; and the man who knows no language save his own is like those who, never having left the French court, pretend that the rest of the world is of little consequence, and that anyone who has seen Versailles has seen everything." * Voltaire — at the time when he was writing the Lettres anglaises — made a very sincere effort to see, and to see correctly, something beside Versailles. There is therefore no occasion to congratulate him on having understood Pope, whose " subjects, for the most part, are general and appeal to all nationalities " ; we may rather praise his concise, but significant, appreciation of the tragic poets of England, who, "barbarous" as they are, exhibit nevertheless " surprising flashes in the midst of their darkness." He has well observed that if the language or the imagination of Shakespeare appears to us " unnatural," it is because his style is " too close an imitation of the Hebrew writers, who are full of Asiatic inflation." Voltaire was undoubtedly the first French critic to point out this affinity between the British genius and the genius of the Bible — the chief of English books. He was vaguely aware how foreign was the poetry of England to the French spirit, and how closely it was bound to the soil which had witnessed its birth : " The poetic genius of the English has hitherto resembled a thickly-growing tree of nature's own plant- ing, which puts forth a thousand branches at random, and grows vigorously, yet irregularly. If you attempt to do violence to nature, and to trim it after the fashion of the trees in the garden at Marly, it will die." This is rather to suggest a clue than to prove by evidence. To tell the truth, Voltaire says scarcely anything definite concerning English poetic literature, least of all anything which had not been said before. The few pages of Shakespeare which he translates are very inadequate speci- 1 Essai sur la poesie epique, chap. i. VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 73 mens. The Lettres philosophiques , we must repeat, are not a synopsis of English literature : any one who looked to find in them a sketch of that literature in 1730 would be greatly disappointed. But by way of compensation they created the desire to be acquainted with it, and that was the main thing. Partly out of spite and partly from genuine admiration, Voltaire not only introduced English taste, but also constituted himself its apologist, though a few years later he atoned for his action by opposing that taste and retracting his own declarations. What was better, he praised with warmth, and was easily aroused to ardour. " M. de Voltaire," said the Dutch gazettes,1 " is not of those cold judges who have intellect and nothing else, and are rendered insensible to the delights of admiring, and of having their feelings aroused, by the pleasure they take in criticizing. He praises the fine pieces of which he speaks, as a man, and a man of genius." And this is why the Lettres anglaises remain an epoch in the history of criticism. Prepared by the refugees, and unsettled by Muralt and Prevost, opinion was definitely won over by Voltaire. The ten years which followed the publication of the Lettres assured the success of English literature in France. Four years later, J. B. Rousseau recognised with regret the progress of " this miserable English spirit, which has insinu- ated itself into our midst during the past twenty years."2 About the same time the abbe du Resnel, the translator of Pope, shows clearly that the study of English is gaining ground in France, and that the most famous English writers are no longer unknown to Frenchmen. He adds, it is true, that " this liaison, as it may be called, is still too recent " to con- vince him " that the two nations are really ready to harmonize with one another," and regrets the discredit into which Italian books are falling.3 Five years later, however, Goujet declares that " English poetry is scarcely less known to-day than that of 1 Bibliotheque britannique, 1733, vol. ii., pp. 121-2. 2 Letter to Louis Racine, Brussels, i8th May 1738. 3 Les principes de la morale et du gout, translated from the English of Mr Pope. Paris, 1737, 8vo, p. xxiii. 74 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE the Italians or the Spaniards."1 The Memoires de Trevoux state that France had become " a very good friend to English literature," and express concern at the fact.2 The Correspondance litter air e remarks that the vogue of translations from English " is lasting longer than such fashions usually last in this country." 3 In 1755 Freron writes: "Barely forty years ago a man who ventured to speak of English tragedy and comedy would have been hissed in fashionable society. ... It has been a great surprise to us to find that this nation is the equal of ours in genius, its superior in power, and its inferior only in subtlety and elegance." 4 I may be excused for quoting so much evidence of a revolution of such importance in French taste. There was still, according to the point of view which we adopt, either one more step to be taken, or one more error to be committed. Now that curiosity with regard to English works had been thoroughly aroused, it remained to recommend them for imitation. From this consequence Voltaire did not shrink. Of what does the history of literature consist but of imitation and borrowing ? Montesquieu borrows from Mariana, Boiardo from Pulci, Ariosto from Boiardo. The English have frequently pilfered from the French without making any acknowledgment. Books are like " the fire on our hearths." We obtain kindling from our neighbours, light our own fire with it, hand it on to others, and it becomes common property. The fortunate ones are those who manage to borrow in season ! Since therefore the 1 Bibliotheque frang aise, vol. vii., p. 189. " Our intercourse with the English, our study of their language, the eagerness of our writers to translate their works, are so many different ways in which a knowledge of the style and genius of their poetry has been rendered easier for us." Cf. Silhouette, Introduction to the translation of Pope's Essay on Man. London, 17415 4to. 2 October 1749. Cf. L1 Esprit da journalistes de Trevoux. Paris, 1771, vol. ii., p. 491 : " It may be said that the productions of this country are sowing among us the germs of all the unbridled opinions which have made as many ungodly Christians in England as bad citizens." 3 ist August 1753. 4 Journal etr anger, September 1755, p. 4. See also La Harpe, Court de litter -ature, vol. Hi., p. 208. VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 75 English have profited largely by works in the French language, " we, who have lent to them, ought to borrow from them in our turn."1 Coming, as it did, at the right moment, this advice was followed. 1 Vol. xxii., p. 177, note. In 1756, Voltaire suppressed this passage, feeling, doubtless, that his advice had been followed too faithfully. Chapter III THE CAUSES WHICH, BEFORE THE TIME OF ROUSSEAU, PAVED THE WAY FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN FRANCE I. Circumstances which contributed to the diffusion of the cosmopolitan spirit during the first half of the century — Decline of the patriotic idea — Exhausted state of the national literature. II. Spread of the scientific spirit, and its literary results. III. The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in its relation to the influence of England ; in him the Latin genius is combined with the Germanic. I THE refugees and Muralt, Voltaire and the abbe Prevost had prepared opinion in France for the influence of English literature, and by means of this influence, for that also of other Northern literatures. They all contributed, some with full consciousness and intention, others from simple intellectual curiosity and with- out any calculation of the consequences their action might entail, to impair the venerable prestige of classical literature by afford- ing the French mind a glimpse of a literature which to all appearance at any rate was absolutely indigenous, was profoundly original, and, instead of being founded on tradition, tended exclusively in the direction of progress. "It seems," wrote Gottsched in 1739, " that the English are setting themselves to drive the French out of Germany." l In France the invasion of English literature took place more slowly. Nevertheless, between 1700 and 1760, approximately speaking, a few of those who aspired to educate the masses were promoting 1 Manuscript letter preserved in the Zurich Library and quoted by M. de Greierz, in his Muralt. 76 DECLINE OF PATRIOTISM 77 the cross-fertilization of the two literatures. Many circum- stances assisted them in their endeavour. In the first place, it must be admitted, the decay of the patriotic idea. " The eighteenth century," it has been justly said, " was neither Christian nor French." l That is why, no less in literature than in everything else, it failed to maintain what for two centuries had been regarded as the national tradi- tion. It is curious that the periods of the recrudescence of anglomania should coincide exactly with our most painful defeats or most disastrous treaties. Our admiration of England was never more lively than in 1748 and 1763, or thereabouts, and during the war with America. During the seven years war, it reached fever-heat. In vain did a few patriots raise their voices in denunciation of " that detestable country, the horrible resort of the savages of Europe, where reason, humanity and nature are unable to make their voices heard." 2 In vain did the press pour forth its pamphlets and satires. We read in a poem issued in 1762 : "Blood-nurtured tigers ! Your Lockes and Newtons never taught you such barbarous lessons as these. From them arose your imperishable renown ; they have absolved you from a Cromwell's crimes." 3 The author of a Petit catechisme politique des Anglais, par de- mandes et par reponsesf endeavours to rouse the national senti- ment over the Port Mahon affair : " How do we define the science of government ? " the English are supposed to be asked. "It is the practical knowledge of everything that is unjust and dishonest. — What is « natural right ' ? — It is an ancient code of law implanted in the human heart, which we have just 1 E. Faguet, xviiie siecle, preface. 2 Les Sauvages de I" Europe. Berlin, 1750. (See the Journal encyclopedique, 1st June 1764.) 3 D'Arnauld, A la Nation, 1762. 4 1756. (Journal encyclopedique, September 1756). See also the Adreisc a la nation anglaise, a patriotic poem, by a citizen, Paris, 1757, nmo: "It has been thought permissible," says the author, in language which is highly significant, " to tell the truth boldly to a nation which tells it so frankly to its own kings " ; and La differ- ence du patriotisms national chez let Fran$ais et chez les Anglais (by Basset de la Marelle. Paris, 1766) in which the author calls attention very decidedly to the decline of the patriotic sentiment. 78 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE amended in accordance with patterns only to be found in Barbary. . . . — What is a treaty ? — The thing for which we care less than for anything else in the world. — What are boundaries ? — We have not the slightest desire to know. — What are friends ? — What we shall never possess." Friends they possessed, nevertheless, and very warm ones. Gibbon, who visited Paris in 1763, writes: "Our opinions, our manners, and even our dress were adopted in France ; a ray of his nation's glory illumined every Englishman, and he was always supposed to be a patriot and a philosopher born." 1 " What did you think of the French ? " Voltaire once asked Sherlock. " I found them agreeable, intelligent and refined," his guest replied. " I only noticed one fault in them : they imitate the English too much."2 Immediately after the conclusion of the disastrous peace which deprived France of her fairest colonies, Favart cele- brated the union of the two peoples in his Anglais h Bordeaux : " Courage and honour knit nations together, and two peoples equal in virtue and intelligence throw down the barriers their decrees have raised, that they may be for ever friends."3 So strangely feeble was the national sentiment that these lines were applauded to the skies, and their author dragged on to the stage and loudly cheered. We must therefore note, as one of the causes which assisted the diffusion of anglomania, the decline of the patriotic idea. By a strange inconsistency, the virtues which the French admired in their neighbours were just those in which they them- selves were most deficient. They envied the patriotism of the English, with all its fierceness and brutality.4 Even in 1728, Marivaux expressed his astonishment at these inconsistencies in a t) ch. XV. 2 Lettres (funvoyageur anglais , p. 135. 3 The treaty of Paris was concluded in February. The play was produced in March 1763. The author submitted it to the English ambassador, who altered its title, and caused the performance to be preceded by that of Brutus, " a patriotic tragedy in the English style." In consequence of this disgraceful success, the Journal encyclofedique says : " The author formulates the charge that at Paris the English are represented as a great and generous nation which seeks to rival the French in talent and in virtue, an accusation which the public endorses by its applause." (ist March 1763.) 4 Cf. Bolingbroke's Letters on Patriotism, translated by the Comte de Bissy. DECLINE OF PATRIOTISM 79 delightful passage : "It is an amusing nation — ours; its vanity is not like the vanity of other peoples ; they are vain in a per- fectly natural fashion ; they don't strive to be subtle with it as well ; they think a hundred times more of what is made in their own country than of anything made anywhere else on earth ; there is not a trifle they possess but is superior to everything we have, no matter how beautiful j they speak of it with a respect they dare not fully express for fear of spoiling it ; and they be- lieve they are quite right, or, if ever there are times when they do not believe it, they are careful not to say so, for, if they did, where would be the honour of their country ? There is some sincerity in vanity of this sort. . . . But as for us Frenchmen, we cannot let well alone, and have altered all that ; our vanity, forsooth, is of a much more ingenious sort, we are infinitely more cunning in our self-conceit. Think highly of anything made in our own country ! Why, whatever should we come to if we had to praise our fellow-countrymen ? They would get too conceited, and we should be too much humiliated. No, no ! It will never do to give such an advantage to men we spend all our lives with, and may meet wherever we go. Let us praise foreigners, by all means ; they will never be rendered vain by it. . . . Behold your portrait, Messieurs les Franfais. One would never believe how a Frenchman enjoys despising our best works, and preferring the silly nonsense which comes from a distance. ' Those people think more than we do/ says he, speaking of foreigners : and at heart he doesn't believe it, and if he thinks he does I assure him he is mistaken. Why, what does he believe then ? Nothing ; but the fact is men's self-conceit must be kept alive. . . . When he ranks foreigners above his own country, however, Monsieur is no longer a native of it, he is the man of every nation" 1 — the cosmopolitan. To be a citizen " of every nation," not to belong to one's " native country " — this was the dream of French writers in the eighteenth century, and that is why " the silly nonsense which comes from a distance " met with such success. Is it not a mark of the " philosopher " to possess just this absolute de- 1 L' Indigent philosophe, 5th No. (1728). 8o COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE tachment from that national bond which may very well be one of the most absurd prejudices handed down from early ages ? Where Marivaux was mistaken was in seeing in it nothing more than a fashion. It was one of the most profound tendencies of the age, one of its essential characteristics. Now that which dis- tinguishes nations from one another, that which differentiates races, is, strictly, literature or art, that is to say, the expression of their manners and inherent genius. What unites them, on the other hand, is the philosophical or scientific spirit. Art is infinitely various, philosophy is one. The relativity of the former is opposed to the universality of the latter. And, by a natural consequence, as the influence of science increases, the power of art wanes. These two results were verified in the earlier half of the eighteenth century. Its first twenty years were, in a literary sense, barren. They witnessed little more than the liquidation of the grand siec/e. One by one the survivors of the great epoch passed away ; in 1704 Bossuet and Bourdaloue, in 1706 Bayle, in 1707 Vauban and Mabillon, in 1711 Boileau, and in 1715 F^nelon and Malebranche, as well as Louis XIV. The prominent writers of the eighteenth century, on the other hand, were but just coming into existence : Duclos was born in 1704, BufFon in 1707, Cresset and Mably in 1709, Rousseau in 1712, Diderot and Raynal in 1713, Helvetius, Vauvenargues and Condillac in 1715, d'Alembert in 1717, Freron in 1718, Marmontel, d'Holbach and Grimm in 1723. Fontenelle alone — and herein lies his originality — formed, with Lesage, a connecting link between the two centuries. Montes- quieu, Voltaire, Marivaux and Prevost were just taking the field, and indeed already opening fire. But if the period witnessed the disappearance of many figures in the literary world, it was marked also by the publication of many posthumous works ; Bourdaloue's sermons, in 170? 5 tne Politique tiree de VEcrlture Sainte, in 1709 ; the Memoires of Retz, in 171? 5 tne Dialogues sur I"1 eloquence de la chaire, in 1718 ; followed by the Traite de la connalssance de Dieu et de soi-meme (1722), the Memoires of Mme. de Motteville (1723), the Lettres DECLINE OF PATRIOTISM 81 of Mme. de Sevigne (1726), the Elevations sur les Mysferes and the Traite de la concupiscence (1727 and I731)* The contempt with which these belated works were received by those har- bingers of the century, the Dutch journals, was worth seeing. Obviously the years of waiting seemed tedious and empty. Opinion was wavering between a slowly dying admiration and a vague and as yet unsatisfied need of something fresh ; there was an anxious expectation of the advent of a new literature for which the works of Englishmen provided a timely satisfaction. For if, by a sort of posthumous vitality, the seventeenth century was being lengthened out into the early years of the eighteenth, the new spirit did not as yet assert itself in any decisive work. (Edipe did not make its appearance until 1718, nor the Lettres persanes until 1721. Old and effete types of literature still dragged out a painful existence. It is impossible, without the indulgent spirit of their contemporaries, to become warmly in- terested in the tragedies of Crebillon and Lagrange-Chancel. In comedy the protracted influence of Moliere was wearing itself out in the last works of Boursault and Regnard and in the earlier ones of Dufresny and Destouches. Turcaret afforded a solitary exception in 1709? and even this piece, so far as form was concerned, remained entirely in accordance with tradition. In history likewise, as also in moral and political philosophy, these years were unproductive. A few of Massillon's sermons gave a foretaste of a new eloquence, one better adapted to the age, savouring more of the present world, less solid also, and less religious than those of Bossuet's school and Bourdaloue's. Imaginative literature was in a languid condition : the one exception, Gil Bias, began to appear in 1715. The Memoires du chevalier de Gramont, one of the very few works of importance belonging to this unfruitful period, were written by a foreigner, and were, moreover, among the books which did most to spread a knowledge of England among the French. I have shown how the refugees endeavoured to turn the sterility of French literature to account in their effort to compel Frenchmen to admire the literature of a neighbouring country, and how they succeeded, if not in naturalising it in France, at F 82 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE any rate in arousing attention with respect to it. That literature was destined gradually to become the refuge of all who were disgusted with the barrenness of the classical art of France ; and all that the latter was to lose the literature of England was destined to gain. II Another influence which prepared the way for the success of English works in France was the scientific and philosophical spirit. Even in the seventeenth century England had seemed to be the home of experimental science. So early as 1665 the Journal des savants declared that " fair philosophy was more flourishing there than anywhere else in the world." x Chapelain, speaking of the English, wrote to Vossius : " They are learned, inquiring and open-minded, and you need scarcely expect anything of them but what is good."2 "The English," wrote Father Rapin a few years later, " by virtue of that penetrative genius which is common among them, are fond of methods which are deep, abstruse and far-fetched ; and by reason of their inveterate liking for work, are still more devoted than other nations to the observation of nature." 3 So, La Fontaine : <£ The English are deep thinkers : in this respect their intellect corresponds with their temperament \ given to examine every subject thoroughly, and skilful in experiment, they extend the empire of science in every direction." 4 The great name of the man of whom it has been said that he was " in a sense the type, or the proof-engraving, of the English genius" 5 — the name of Bacon, symbolized all the aspirations then beginning to be aroused by the empirical sciences, and afterwards so magnificently realised by Newton. Is it any wonder that the man who spoke so eloquently of progress, and so contemptuously 1 30th March 1665. 2 Lettres de Chapelain, ed. Tamizey de Larroque, vol. ii., p. 393. 3 CEuvres, 17x5, vol. ii., p. 365. The passage was written in 1676. 4 Le Renard anglais ^ published in 1694. 5 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 45. THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 83 of tradition, who considered that " we ought to look, not to the darkness of antiquity, but to the light of nature, for our discoveries," should have been in the eyes of a d'Alembert, " the greatest, the most universal, and the most eloquent of philosophers." * And the hopes of Bacon were realised by Newton. In Voltaire's phrase, the heavens declared the glory of the author of the Principia and the Optics. English science, every day more glorious, appeared to the contemporaries of Voltaire and Maupertuis as the greatest revival of the human intellect since ancient times. It did more for the glory of the English genius than all the Addisons and the Popes together. The experimental or Baconian method triumphantly resisted the dis- tinctively French method of Descartes. "I believe," wrote Le Clerc, " that the world is beginning to abandon that positive manner with which Descartes, who is responsible for it, used to set forth his conjectures in place of demonstrations ; you do not find a single man of learning who is such a systematiser, so to speak, as he was. The English, in particular, are more averse to it than any other people." 2 Henceforth — from 1700 to 1740 — the whole " English party" gathered themselves together under the name of Newton, from Maupertuis, the first Frenchman to become an avowed " Newtonian," 3 to Voltaire, who spread the new physics with so much eloquence.4 " Many of our learned men," writes a witness in 1745, "have ranged themselves already beneath the English banner. . . . How pompously they extol everything which comes to us from that country ! How eagerly they seek to make proselytes ! To hear fanatics of this sort there are no real men except the English : not a step can be taken in phil- osophy or in letters without a knowledge of their tongue : according to them it is the key to all the sciences -, they look 1 Discours preliminaire de V Encyclopedic, 2 Letter to Louis Tronchin, Sayous, La /literature francaise a I'etranger, vol. ii., p. 41. 3 Discours sur la Figure des astres, 1732. Cf. d'Alembert, Discours preliminaire. 4 The Optics was translated by Coste in 1722. The Eloge of Newton, by Fon- tenelle, dates from 1727. The Elements de la philosophic de Neivton, by Voltaire, from 1738. The Epitre LI., to Mme. du Chatelet, written in 1736, appeared in the same year. 84 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE upon it as the only rich language, upon English methods of thought as the only correct ones, and on the English manner of life as the only one that is reasonable." 1 And so the homage paid to English science, by turning all eyes upon the country of Newton, preceded and prepared the way for the worship of Shakespeare and Richardson. It is less difficult to bring men together upon the ground of science, which knows no country, than upon that of art, which cannot so easily become universal and human. But this evolution of the spirit of the age had still other results, even upon literature. It was in the school of Bacon, Locke and Newton that the French mind, up to that time full of respect for ancient models, and, under their influence, con- vinced of the superiority of art to science, forgot both its admiration for the ancients and its respect for art itself. " Poetry is ingenious nonsense," said Newton. " All specula- tions on this subject," Locke had written, " however curious or refined or seeming profound and solid, if they teach not their followers to do something either better or in a shorter and easier way than otherwise they could, or else lead them to the discovery of some new and useful invention, deserve not the name of knowledge (or so much as the vast time of our idle hours to be thrown away upon such an empty idle philosophy). They that are studiously busy in the cultivating and adorning such dry barren notions are vigorously employed to little purpose, and might with as much reason have retained, now they are men, the babies they made when they were children."2 This is exactly the spirit of the eighteenth century : contempt for all needless speculation, absolute indifference to problems, the solution of which does not directly affect our happiness in this world, exclusive concern with physical or moral comfort. Our business in this world, in Locke's opinion, is not to know all things, but to know those alone which concern the manage- ment of our own lives. To French thinkers of the seventeenth century, to Pascal and Descartes, it had seemed that the object 1 Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. i., p. 63. 2 Locke, De Arte Medico, Shaftesbury papers, series viii., No. 2. THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 85 of life was something outside of life itself, that human thought found its dignity in projecting itself, if one may say so, without limit. Baconism confined thought and science to the present existence. It maintained that there were ingenious yet useless truths which, like stars " too remote from our sphere, afford us no light." l The one solid fact was the necessity to which we are subjected of improving our present condition, of obtaining control over matter, of rendering it our docile and useful slave. Beyond that, all was idle fantasy. " When a man employs himself," writes Johnson, " upon remote and unnecessary subjects, and wastes his life upon questions which cannot be resolved, of which the solution would conduce very little to the advancement of happiness ; when he lavishes his hours in cal- culating the weight of the terraqueous globe, or in adjusting successive systems of worlds beyond the reach of the telescope ; he may be very properly recalled from his excursions by this precept [Be acquainted with thyself], and reminded that there is a nearer Being with which it is his duty to be more acquainted ; and from which his attention has hitherto been withheld by studies to which he has no other motive than vanity or curiosity." 2 Such a conception as this carries with it a contempt for everything in the nature of mere amusement, intellectual diversion, or superfluous thought. Poetry becomes " ingenious nonsense." The rationalism of a Locke will tolerate literature only as a modest clothing for ideas. The anglomaniacs, who, according to Voltaire, profess a great respect for " the four rules of arithmetic, and good sense," contrast that "rough ingenuity" which makes the English the Michael Angelos, as it were, of literary art, with the " easy elegance " of the French, who may be described more modestly as its Raphaels.3 Casting aside all respect for models, they hold with Bacon that it is an "idle and useless thing to make the thoughts of man our principal study." Locke never studied books ; he endeavoured to establish " the experimental physics of the 1 Lettres anglais es, xxiv. 2 The Rambler, No. xxiv. 3 Garat, Memoir es sur SuarJ, vol. ii., p. 48. 86 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE soul," l and thus provided a notable example of what modern thought, independent of all tradition, should be. In 1740, however, Locke and the English notwithstanding, the French public was still amusing itself with its tragedies, operas and frivolous verses. It applauded those who amused it, and was even yet the gayest and most volatile people in the world, the " whipped cream of Europe," to use the words of Voltaire. But, little by little, it began to feel a sense of shame, and to compare itself with the inhabitants of neighbouring countries. A Frenchman of this type would find himself a giddy-brained creature when weighed against a Bacon, a Newton, or even the " sagacious Addison " or the "respectable dean Swift." He would consider that "purity of language" and a "polished style" can only " serve to set one off in the world, and give one the reputa- tion of a scholar," 2 ends which are of very little consequence. At any rate, many men of sound intelligence were soon to acquire a conviction that the bounds of literature were but narrow, and that the " imitation of nature in her beauty seems confined to certain limits which one or two generations at most very quickly attain."3 France, in short, to borrow once more the actual language of contemporary writers, " owes to England the great revolution 'which has taken place in her literature. . . . How many excellent works, in place of the ingenious trifles which have come at last to be valued at no more that their true worth, have appeared in recent years upon the useful arts — upon agriculture, the most indispensable and therefore the first of all, upon commerce, finance, manufactures, navigation, and the colonies, in short upon 1 D'Alembert, Discours preliminaire. 2 Locke's Journals, as quoted in The Life of John Locke, "with extracts from his Correspondence, Journals, and Commonplace Book, by Lord King, 2 vols. 8vo, 1830. " Purity of language, a polished style, or exact criticism in foreign languages — thus I think Greek and Latin may be called, as well as French and Italian — and to spend much time in these may perhaps serve to set one off in the world, and give one the reputation of a scholar ; but if that be all, methinks it is labouring for an outside ; it is at best but a handsome dress of truth or falsehood that one busies oneself about, and makes most of those who lay out their time this way rather as fashion- able gentlemen than as wise or useful men." Vol. ii., p. 176. 3 D'Alembert, Discours preliminaire. ROUSSEAU— THE MAN FOR THE HOUR 87 everything which can contribute to render peoples more happy and States more flourishing." 1 Thus did the French spirit join hands with the English upon the ground of a common ideal. Before the two nations adopted identical modes of feeling and imagination, the regularity of their scientific and philosophical intercourse had accustomed them to a kind of intellectual alliance. Whilst Voltaire and Prevost were striving to acclimatize English literature among the French, France was learning to look more and more towards the North for inspiration and guidance. " From the English," wrote Voltaire to Helvetius, " we have adopted annuities, Consolidated Funds, depreciation funds, the construction and management of vessels, attraction, the differential calculus, the seven primitive colours, and inoculation. Insensibly we shall adopt their noble freedom of thought, and their profound contempt for the twaddle of the schools."2 Ill Such was the negative influence, if one may say so, of the English mind upon France, at the time immediately following the publication of the Lettres philosophiques. No great literary work had as yet achieved a decisive conquest of the public taste. But the public asked nothing better than to be taken captive. By mere force of attachment to tradition, it remained faithful to ancient models, but its attachment was without zeal and without conviction. " The productions of a healthy antiquity," wrote Freron sadly, "are no longer consulted. The finest geniuses of Rome and Athens are scarcely known by name." 3 The abbe Le Blanc complained that a contempt, for which there was no 1 Journal encyclopedique, April 1758. Cf. the Journal etranger, April 1754: "A day will come when custom will demand that a man shall be well-informed, observant, capable of reasoning, and of appropriate discussion upon a natural phenomenon, just as the tone of to-day leads us to speak with discernment on any subject connected with the agreeable arts, to pronounce a subtle yet ready opinion upon a poetical work, or to criticise a dramatic production." 2 1 5th September 1763. Cf. to Mme. du Deffand, i7th September 1757. 3 Lettres sur quelques ecrits de ce tempi , vol. ii., p. 134. 88 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE justification, had given place to a " blind prepossession," and having given evidence of the advance of anglomania, he expressed the hope that the worship of new gods might not cause the old ones to be forgotten.1 France having thus become acquainted with England — the two nations having been brought into contact, it merely remained to infuse the French mind with all that was best in the minds of Englishmen, or, if the expression be preferred, to unite the first of the Latin with the greatest of the Germanic nations of Europe — a task which was accomplished by the Swiss, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 1 Lettres, vol. ii., p. 234. Cf. vol. Hi., p. 227. ffioofe II JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND ENGLISH LITERATURE Chapter I ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND I. Origins of Rousseau's genius : what it owes to Geneva, and through Geneva to England — Its exotic character. II. Rousseau, like his contemporaries, an admirer of England — Freedom of the English intellect — Respect felt by Frenchmen of the eighteenth century for English virtue. III. How these features come to be found also in Rousseau — Whence did he derive his notions concerning England ? — Muralt's influence over him — English manners in La Nouvelle Heldise — Milord Bomston, or the Englishman — Rousseau's work reflects the anglomania of the age. I No writer of his age was better* fitted by the circumstances of his origin to effect a union between the Germanic and the Latin sections of Europe. " There is something English," said Doudan, " in the Genevan nature." However just the remark may be, one would hesitate to apply it to Rousseau — swept by the current of life, as he was in early youth, far away from his native town — had he not himself dwelt upon the idea with satisfaction. Voltaire irreverently said of Geneva that it imitated England as the frog imitated the ox : it was the Gille of the English nation.1 What seems absurd to him is for Rousseau a ground of national pride. " The manners of the English," he says, " have reached even so far as this country ; and the men, living 1 Quoted by Ballantyne, op. cit., p. 283. Letter to George Keate. 89 90 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND more separate from the women than with us " — Saint-Preux is the speaker — " contract among themselves a graver turn, and have more solidity in their discourse." l Some part, therefore, of their gravity, their Grtindlichkeit, came to the Genevans from beyond the Channel. Hence, as Jean-Jacques has said, that " dogmatical and frigid air " which conceals ardent passions. Hence too, in conversation, " their habits of speaking at a most inordinate length, of introducing preliminary statements, or exordiums, of indulging in affectation and stilted phrases -9 and hence, also, their want of facility, and their entire lack of that artless simplicity which expresses the feeling before the thought, and so enhances the value of what is said." How many of their characteristics, if Rousseau's portrait of the Genevans be studied afresh, will be seen to be either English or such as one would expect of the English people ! The truth is, as he observes, that the relations between the two nations had always been most intimate. A religious com- munity was formed at Geneva in the sixteenth century by the Englishmen who were persecuted and banished by Mary Tudor, and John Knox was a disciple of Calvin. Great Britain, on her part, protected the little republic in better days, gave a welcome to distinguished Genevans, and readily entrusted them with posi- tions in the army and the church.2 Founded on similarity of genius and religion, this intercourse became, in the eighteenth century, still more close. Debating clubs were formed at Geneva, with a membership half Genevan, half English.3 Sismondi informs us that the Genevans wrote in French, but " read and thought in English," and Napoleon found fault with them for knowing the latter language " too well." At no period was the intercourse between Great Britain and Rousseau's native country more intimate than during the eighteenth century. 1 Nouvelle Heloise, vi. 5. 2 Two Casaubons became church dignitaries, while four men of the name of Prevost distinguished themselves, among others, as superior officers in the English army, &c. (Cf. A. Bouvier, Le protestantisme a Geneve. Paris, 1884.) 3 Cf. M. Pictet's book, Pictet de Rochemont, p. 61. See also Sismondi, Con- siderations sur Geneve dans ses raff arts avec V Angleterre et les Atats protestants. London, 1814. CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU'S GENIUS 91 Many Genevan pastors officiated in the churches of the refugees. Several Genevan scholars became members of the Royal Society of London, and Newton corresponded with Abauzit. Delolme, Francis d'lvernois and Mallet du Pan made it their business to propagate a knowledge of the British constitution in Europe. Many prominent Genevans, such as Alphonse Turretin, Tronchin, Andre de Luc, de Saussure, and before their time the renowned and " venerable Abauzit," whose wisdom and genius Rousseau extolled in such extravagant language, had studied at English universities. The first book of the eighteenth century on the subject of England was by a Genevan, Le Sage de la Colombiere. And it was from Geneva, also, the centre of cosmopolitan tendencies in Europe, that Marie-Auguste and Charles Pictet first issued the Bibliothlque britannique, the true successor to the cosmopolitan reviews established by the refugees, and designed, according to the intention of its original editors, to spread English ideas wherever the French tongue was spoken.1 Those, therefore, who were prejudiced in favour of things English had always a partiality for Geneva, and without attribut- ing to this fact any direct influence on the formation of the genius of Rousseau, we may nevertheless point out — seeing that he himself so loudly proclaimed his Genevan origin — how far his country was herself indebted to the English genius. Geneva's debt to the genius of England, however, was but a part of her total debt to the Teutonic genius. " To be born a Frenchwoman," wrote Mme. de Stael, " with a foreign character, •with French tastes and habits, and the ideas and feelings of the North, is a contrast which ruins one's life." Now this contrast — or alloy — is the very basis of the Genevan mind, the intellectual portion of which is Latin, while the soul is Germanic ; and hence it is that between France and Geneva there have arisen the strangest and, at times, most painful misunderstandings. The 1 Concerning the establishment of this periodical see M. Pictet's book, Pictet de Rochemont (Georg, 1892, 8vo, p. 53 et j^gr.). Pictet's design was to " commend England to public notice, and to suggest her as a model for her neighbours." He hopes to make his review " an oasis for English ideas." 92 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND defect which, in the words of the subtlest and most ingenious of her writers, Geneva can never pardon in the French mind is its absolute inability to recognise " personal dignity and the majesty of conscience," or to conceive of " personality as supreme and conscious of itself." l It is worth while to recall the strange and incautious parallel he draws between the Germanic and the Latin mind : " The thirst for truth is not a French passion. In every- thing appearance is preferred to reality, the outside to the inside, the fashion to the material, that which shines to that which profits, opinion to conscience. . . . All this is probably the result of an exaggerated sociability, which weakens the soul's forces of resistance, destroys its capacity for investigation and personal conviction, and kills in it the worship of the ideal."2 Too sociable and trained to too strict a uniformity, the French mind is mistrustful of the individual. It looks with suspicion on isolated convictions, and insists that the stamp of the whole com- munity shall be affixed to every idea entertained by its separate members. It has a veneration for " the current coin of the intellectual realm." The expression is severe and profoundly unjust, but it might have been used by Jean-Jacques. Like Muralt, like Rousseau, like Benjamin Constant, Amiel was following the pure Germanic tradition. And what more has Rousseau said, on many and many an admirable page, than Amiel says here ? In contrast to a France which he deemed too thoroughly Latin, too deeply Catholic, he determined to be Protestant and Genevan to the core. He too aspired to exalt the dignity of the individual. It was to the individual consciousness that he made appeal. He destroyed, so far as he was able to do so, the moral and in- tellectual currency. I am not forgetting that through one of his ancestors he was of French family, and by blood, therefore, half a Frenchman. But was he French by virtue of the influences to which he was 1 Amiel, Journal intime, vol. ii., p. 92; vol. i., p. 87. (Mrs Humphry Ward's translation, p. 17*.) 2 Amiel, Journal intime, vol. ii., p. 1 86. (Mrs Humphry Ward's translation, p. iio.) CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU'S GENIUS 93 subjected in childhood and youth ? The Gallic stock from which he sprang had been " re-tempered by the Reformation."1 If we are to believe one of those who know him best, he had been infused with the purest essence of Germanic protestantism. Through Mme. de Warens, a disciple of the pietist Magny, he would acquire the main principles of Spener and the German pietists. Romanic pietism, Magny and Mme. de Warens would thus prove to be " three links uniting Germanic thought and piety with Rousseau's religious ideas." A sentiment of pro- found and habitual devoutness, great independence in the face of traditional authority, signal indifference to disputes on points of dogma, an ever-present sense of the Deity and of an eternal future, the practice of religious meditation — such were the char- acteristics of this sort of protestant quietism,2 which would form a direct link between the spiritualism of Rousseau and the re- ligious traditions of Germany. Of this, however, I do not feel confident ; I cannot forget a certain disturbing phrase employed by Jean- Jacques.3 But it is none the less true that Rousseau, though of French extraction, only half belongs to France. Foreign critics commonly look upon him as the most German of Frenchmen, if not indeed as the most English. He was, at any rate, a cosmopolitan. Looking at the question broadly, it will readily be granted that he was the embodiment of all the depth, the variety and the individuality with which protestantism, when it was no longer confined to France, was able to imbue the French mind. Contrasted with the classical literature of the French, a literature not only essentially sociable in character, but finding in society at once the bond of 1 See H. F. Amiel, in the interesting volume entitled Rousseau juge par les Genevois efaujourd'hui, p. 30, and, on Rousseau's ancestors, M. E. Ritter (Lafamille et lajeunesse de J. J. Rousseau, 1896). 2 E. Ritter, Magny et le pietisme romand, Lausanne, 1894, and Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 5th March 1895. 3 Nou-velle Helotse, vi. 7. Saint-Preux laments the " aberrations " of Muralt, who had become a pietist and persuades Julie not to read the Instinct dlvin. Rousseau adds the following note concerning the pietists : " A class of crazy people who con- ceived the notion of living as Christians and following the Gospel to the letter, closely resembling the Methodists in England, the Moravians in Germany, the Jansenists in France, at the present day," 94 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND connection between its branches, and its principal and almost its only theme, Rousseau seems to be a paradox. One marvels that he should have comprehended it ; one doubts whether he loved it. " Egotism," he said, " is excluded as scrupulously from the French drama as from the writings of Messieurs de Port-Royal ; and the passions of the human heart never speak, but with all the modesty of Christian humility, in the third person." l Now it is the first person that Rousseau employs, never the third. No genius was ever more individual, more lyrical, and therefore less French — in the sense in which the classic authors of the language understood the word. The NouveUe Helo'ise, as was justly remarked by Mme. de Stael, " sets forth the character- istics of a man's genius, not those of a nation's manners." 2 The same might be said of most of his books : they depart entirely from the French classical tradition. The work of a foreigner, they are singularly at variance with the practice of French classical art. They are its absolute antithesis : its very negation even. They have deprived those who have sought inspiration from them of the power of comprehending it. How easily one pictures him on the other hand as taking his place in the genealogy of English literary art ! How thoroughly he belongs to it by his deep sense of " inward dignity," by his love of detail and his close observation of trifles, by his love of that " home " which he so passionately extolled, and by his yearnings after nature — the nature which Thomson had dis- covered thirty years before him ! Prone to morbid revelation of the self, is he not the compatriot of Swift ? Is he not, in virtue of the richness and abundance of the poetic element in his nature, of the school of Milton or of Gray ? Fond of melancholy reverie, how closely akin he would have been, had the spirit of his age permitted it, to Shakespeare ! True, these racial problems are obscure, and words can but faintly express the complexity of what we dimly perceive. But if it is true that Romanticism was " a kind of rebellion against the spirit of a race steeped in the Latin tradition," 3 who was it that added to it not only the fer- 1 Nouvelle Heldise, ii. 17. 2 De la litterature, i. 15. 3 F. Brunetiere, devolution de la foesie lyrique, vol. i., p. 178. CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU'S GENIUS 95 ment of revolt, but also this germ of exoticism, if not the man of whom it has been said that though French by language he was a foreigner by genius, because he had derived his talent entirely " from the depths of his own soul ? " 1 What is certain is that in the history of the growth of cosmo- politan tendencies, Rousseau occupies the first place. Between Europe of the North and Europe of the South he was the mighty link that bound the genius of the one to that of the other. Rousseau accomplished what neither the refugees, nor Prevost, nor Voltaire had succeeded in doing ; he inoculated the French mind, by the unaided power of his own genius, with a full com- prehension of these new beauties. He transformed not French taste only, but even French conceptions of art \ and it happened that this new notion of art, as distinguished and set forth by him for all to see, corresponded exactly with the idea which the en- deavours of English writers had been tending to realise since the beginning of the century. What Richardson and Pope, Thomson and Macpherson had attempted, and to some extent accomplished, was by him perfected and completed with all the power of a genius superior to theirs. From them he derives, and with them, in the history of European literature, he is allied. If it cannot be said that he is a disciple of each one of them, he at least carried on their labours. He completed and crowned their work. Like them he was sensitive and profoundly religious, deeply poetic and intensely lyrical. In like manner it was England next to Geneva that he loved the best. To his contemporaries it seemed that the Nouvelle He/oise, in which England occupies such an important place, was coloured, as it were, with an English tint. Before considering how far Rousseau was indebted to certain English writers, and wherein his thought ran parallel to that of others, we must therefore inquire what he thought of England, and whether he shared, in respect to her, the infatuation of his contemporaries. 1 Mme. de Stael, De I'Allemagne^ V. I. 96 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND II It is not in its literature only that the influence of one nation over another makes itself manifest, nor in the mere imitation of works that literary influence finds its expression. Such influence consists also, and principally, of those currents of opinion, those mysterious trains of thought and feeling, which at certain periods impel one people towards another people, France of the sixteenth century towards Italy — the land of beauty, France of the seventeenth towards Spain — the land of heroism, France of the early part of the present century towards Ger- many— " the land of thought," as it was called by Mme. de Stael. Nor is it merely, in such cases of international influence, some particular book or writer that commands admiration ; it is an aggregate of works, a particular literary or moral aspiration, a certain ideal of life, a collective soul, the heart and the mind of a nation. It is not enough, therefore, to ask, in respect of these influences : what did Frenchmen know of Italy in 1550 ? Of Spain in 1630 ? Of Germany in 1815 ? Of England in 1760 ? What they knew of these nations was not always what they liked in them. And what they liked in them did not always accord with the reality. A certain idea of the Greek genius, true enough no doubt, inspired Racine, and gave him a love for Greece; a very different, though by no means false, conception of the same genius inspired Andre Chenier, and gave him an affection for another Greece, no less real than the first, yet appreciably different. To be influenced by a foreign nation, therefore, certainly implies a knowledge of it, but usually also a knowledge which is maimed and incomplete. Captivated by a few striking and essential features, admiration overlooks what seems to be either inconsistent with them or of less importance. Such was the case of those who lived in the eighteenth century with regard to England. They admired an ideal England, because they resolved that she should correspond with their dream. " English," said La Harpe, " was introduced among us with the taste for philosophy, which was then beginning to develop ; FRENCH RESPECT FOR ENGLAND 97 and we were acquainted with Bacon, Locke, Addison and Shaftes- bury before we had read Pope and Milton." l Accordingly, the first characteristic in English works to strike the attention of men in the eighteenth century was the boldness of thought and the profound genius they revealed. " Those people think more than we do," said Marivaux ironically. But Voltaire, quite seriously, wrote : " Everything proves that the English are bolder and more philosophical than we are " ; 2 Diderot, in one of his early works represents England as " the country of philoso- phers, systematisers and men of inquiring mind." 3 BufFon is never weary of expressing his admiration for " this sensible and profoundly thoughtful nation," and even goes so far as to say that " Fenelon, Voltaire and Jean- Jacques would not make a furrow one line in depth on a head so massive with thought as that of Bacon, that of Newton, or — happily for us — that of Montesquieu." 4 Such was the verdict passed by the great minds of the age. But public opinion had forestalled them. " The English," wrote the translator of The Tale of a Tub, " are extremely deficient in restraint and moderation not only as regards conduct and manners, but also in their turn of mind : their wanton imagination entirely exhausts itself in comparisons and meta- phors " ; and he makes it a reproach to them that by their singularity they depart from the " noble simplicity " of the ancients.6 This quality of independence in English thought sometimes sheds a vague perfume of heresy over English works : in one of Prevost's novels we find the English philosophers, Hobbes and Toland, relegated to one particular corner in a library, along with " curious " and prohibited volumes, such as 1 Cours de /literature, vol. Hi., p. 224. 2 Lettres anglaises, xi. — Cf. to Helvetius, 26th June 1765 : " We in France are not made to be first in the race for knowledge : we get our truths from elsewhere." See also the letters to Mme. du DefFand, I3th October 1759 ; to Helvetius, 25th August 1763, and to Marmontel, ist August 1769. 3 Lettre sur les aveugles^ ed. Tourneux, vol. i., p. 312. 4 Letter to Mme. Necker, 2nd January 1777. 5 Le Conte du Tonneau, by Jonathan Swift. Translated from the English, the Hague, 1732, vol i., preface. G 98 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND those of Vanini, Cardan and Paracelsus.1 But the depth of the English genius was also becoming a commonplace of criticism, and even of conversation. In a pleasing comedy by Boissy, produced immediately after the publication of Muralt's Lettres sur les Anglais et les Franfais and seven years earlier than that of the Lettres philosophiques, the author — who, by the way, has manifestly borrowed from Muralt's work — puts the following declaration into the mouth of one of his characters : " ' Good sense is simply the common sense which is possessed by the man in the street, and belongs to all countries alike. But intellectual refinement is found only in France. France, so to speak, is its native soil, whence we supply it to all the other nations of Europe. The refined intelligence hovers gracefully above its subject, culling only its bloom. It is wit that makes a man agreeable, sprightly, gay, merry, amusing, the charm of a party, a good talker, full of pleasant banter — in fine, a Frenchman. Good sense, on the other hand, weighs down the matter it deals with under the impression that it is sounding it thoroughly ; it handles everything in a tedious, methodical manner. It is good sense which makes a man dull, pedantic, melancholy, taciturn, a bore, the plague of a party, a moraliser, a dreamer — in short, an . . . ' — ' An Englishman, you mean ? ' — ' Good manners forbade me to put it quite so plainly, but you have hit it.' — ' In fact, according to you an Englishman has good sense, but no wit.' — ' Very good ' — ' And a Frenchman wit, without common sense.' — ' Capital.' " Whence it follows " that the English are profound without being brilliant." 2 From the moment when the hare-brained de Polinville expressed this idea on the French stage, down to the period when Rousseau began to write, respect for English depth and seriousness had been steadily growing in France. One does not wonder that a second-rate critic should be amazed at " reasonings so vast that one would take them for the operations of a super- human intelligence." 3 But one cannot, without surprise, read 1 Memoires vol. vii., pp. 227-267. 2 Nouvelle Helo'ise. 3 See M. fimile Montegut's remarkable study on Pope. 4 Voltaire, Poeme sur la lol naturelle. 5 Essay on Man, Ep. ii., 11. 1 19-122. EARLY READING 117 man from another, and consequently the satisfaction of the passions, which constitute the sole real basis of the self, is the one nutriment which our craving for happiness demands. Yes, said Voltaire, the interpreter of Pope, " God in his goodness has given us the passions, that he may raise us to the height of noble deeds." To the exuberance of the passions, Voltaire, like Pope, opposes the restraint of social obligations. But this restraint is lax and feeble, and Pope still remains one of the inaugurators of the movement which led the age of Rousseau to magnify passion, regarded as the true end of man. Further, he never had any- thing but pity for that philosophy of the humble-minded which pretends " to chasten man under the pretence of exalting him." *• For Pope the passionate man alone is complete. He venerates passion as the ruling power in man, not so much because it is moral, as because it is beautiful and renders man more great. That is as much as to say that in certain pages of the Essay on Man there is, as it were, a foretaste of Rousseau. Above all, the author makes a complacent parade of that vague and maudlin spirit of benevolence so dear to the whole period. If Pope does not actually cause our tears to flow, he at least excites a certain tender feeling and a certain melting mood, which he regards as creditable to man. Sensitiveness, if it is not virtue, is at least the beginning of virtue : Wide, and more wide, th' o'erflowings of the mind Take every creature in, of every kind ; Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blessed, And heaven beholds its image in his breast,2 or, if Voltaire be preferred to Pope,3 let the reader peruse once more the sentimental tirade on benevolence, at the end of the Discours sur la vraie vertu ; the subject is the same, and the expressions are almost identical. The Essay on Man did more to spread English deism in France 1 Voltaire, Cinquieme discours en *vers. 2 Essay on Man, Ep. iv., 11. 369-372. 3 We may observe, in passing, that Voltaire owns to having written one half of the lines in du Resnel's translation. (To Thibouville, 2nd February 1769.) The fact does not add to his reputation. Ii8 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES than all the works of Shaftesbury. At bottom the doctrine is Shaftesbury's, but it is shorn of his aggressiveness, purified from all leaven of scepticism and pantheism, rendered more vague and indefinite, and therefore more poetical. Can we wonder either that Rousseau read Pope's poem or that he wrote to Voltaire : " The poem of Pope alleviates my troubles and encourages me to be patient ? " l What the author of the Profession de foi du Vicaire Savoyard discovered in Pope was himself. It was a system of morals again, a homely, bourgeois system, that he sought in the Spectator, one of the most popular books of the century. Through the refugees the names of the " sagacious Mr Addi- son" and the "virtuous Mr Steele" had become well known. In 1719 the Journal des savants had reviewed the Letters from Italy. Ten years later the author received a biographical notice in the Bibliotheque anglaise? Like Pope, he attained a European reputation at a very early age. His Cato was accounted a great work in the eighteenth century ; an adaptation of it, made by a certain Deschamps two years after its production, was highly success- ful, and Voltaire frequently compares Addison's one tragedy with the whole of Shakespeare's plays.3 But his great title to celebrity was undoubtedly the publica- tion, in collaboration with Steele, of his magazines dealing with moral subjects. Of these the Spectator was alike the most original and the most highly appreciated. A daily paper, non- political, concerned before all things with homely, practical philosophy, resolutely refusing to make any allusion to the scandals of the day or in any way to provoke the unhealthy curiosity of its readers, the Spectator caused a revolution in the English press, and thereby throughout Europe. " His manner of writing," said Voltaire, speaking of the author of the Spectator, " would be an excellent model in any 1 i8th August 1756. 2 Vol. vi., pp. 213-220. 3 Caton cfUtique, a tragedy dedicated to the Duke of Orleans (by M. C. Deschamps, Paris, 1715, i2mo). — Gottsched imitated Addison's Cato in his Death of Cato, and his drama was translated by Riccoboni in his Recherches historiques stir les theatres del' Europe, Paris, 1738, 8vo. — La pretendue veuve ou Vepoux magicien, a comedy in five acts, Paris, 1737, 8vo, was also a translation from Addison. EARLY READING 119 country." l Now he acquired this manner, to a large extent, from his French models. The accomplished intellect of Addison had no difficulty in appropriating not only ancient philosophy, but whatever was best in the French moralists of the seventeenth century as well.2 Therewith also — and herein he displayed the most accurate knowledge of his country's manners — he associated an amiable and unassuming bourgeois philosophy which won over all those who were dismayed by the subtlety of a La Bruyere. Beneath the most classical forms, Addison remains at heart thoroughly English. It should be remarked that at the com- mencement of the century he was, for foreigners, the personi- fication of the bourgeois element in the English intelligence. " My heart was Addison's," writes Breitinger at Zurich ; " with him I left my humble retreat, and took my first steps in the society of men." Bodmer started his Discourse der Mahlern (1721) in imitation of the Spectator, and dedicated them " to the august Spectator of the English nation." 3 Improving magazines were published also by Gottsched, Klopstock, and many others. It has been computed that more than one hundred and eighty imi- tations of the Spectator were published in Germany before 1 760,* and the Journal Etranger, mentioning a great many of them, called the attention of French readers to this astonishing proof of Addison's success. His good fortune soon spread to Hol- land, which had its Spectateur hollandais, having already had its Babillard and its Controleuse spirltuelle ; 5 to Italy, where Gozzi established his Osservatore ; and even to Russia, where the first review patronised by Catherine II. was an imitation of the English journals of moral teaching.6 In France their popularity was equally great. " There is not a person but has read the Spectator" writes Tabaraud ; "its success has been prodigious."7 In 1716 the Memoires de Trevoux, 1 Siecle de Louis XI P., ch. xxxiv. 2 Cf. Voltaire, Lettre a Milord Harvey, 1740. 3 Cf. Joret, Herder, and an interesting pamphlet by Th. Vetter: Zurich als Vermittlerin englischer Literatur im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, Zurich, 1891, 8vo. See the same writer's edition of Bodmer's Discourse (Frauenfeld, 1891, 8vo). 4 Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, Fr. trans., p. 1 6 6. 5 Hatin, Les Gazettes de Hollande, p. 200. 6 Cf. The Academy, 25th March 1882. 7 Hiitoire du philosophisme anglais, vol. i., p. 66. Cf. 1st, with regard to the Specta- tor 5 Le Spectateur ou le Socrate moderne ou F on *voit un portrait naif des moeurs de ce siecle, 120 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES which were, however, very unfavourable to English productions, declare " the English Socrates " to be greatly superior to the " French Theophrastus." Camusat finds in him certain new and remarkable ideas which cannot but enhance " the good opinion at present entertained of English books." l Its success astonished Voltaire at first ; but during his stay in England he came to understand Addison's originality, and expressed his admiration in the warmest terms.2 D'Argenson considered that no one could read anything " more agreeable or better done."3 In short, its success was general, and imitations of it innumer- able ; some, and the greater portion, absolutely forgotten to-day, others, such as Marivaux's Spectateur franfais, having been pre- served from total oblivion by the names of their authors. There were a Misanthrope, a Censeur, an Inquisiteur, Spectators Swiss and American, as well as Dutch and Danish, not to mention a Radoteur, a Bagatelle, and a Fantasque. Addison had discovered a form of literature really adapted to the needs of contemporary readers, and all Europe adopted his idea.4 But none of these productions obscured the recollection of the original. Marivaux himself did not succeed in striking the full and copious vein of his model, or in acquiring the same wealth of information on moral topics, and the same interest in problems suggested by every-day life. Amsterdam, 1714, i2mo, 456 pp. The other volumes follow in order, to the number of seven, down to 1754. The translator of the first six is unknown ; the translation of the last two is attributed by some to Elie de Joncourt, by others to J. P. Moet (Cf. Querard and Barbier). — The Spectator was reprinted in three quarto volumes. — 2nd, with regard to the Toiler : Le Babillard ou le Nouvelliste philosophe, traduit de V anglais de Steele by A. D. L. C. [Armand de la Chapelle], Amsterdam, 1723, izmo. — This is only the first volume ; the second appeared at Amsterdam in 1735. — 3rd, concerning the Guardian : Le Mentor moderne, ou Discours sur les moeurs du siecle, translated . . . [by Van Effen], The Hague, 1724, 3 vols. izmo. — In bibliographical lists there are many erroneous details. 1 Camusat's Bibliothequc franf aise (vol. vii., 1726, p. 193). 2 Cf. Ballantyne, p. 309, and see Sharpe, Letters from Italy. 3 Memoires, ed. Jannet, vol. v., p. 164. 4 See in Hatin's Histoire de la presse a long though incomplete list of these imita- tions. In Caylus (CEuvres badines, 1787, vol. vi.) there is a satirical letter on the Spectators : " An Englishman writes several disconnected articles, puts them to- gether, and gives them the name of Spectator : his book succeeds, and its success is deserved: forthwith there spring up Spectators called French, Unknown, Swiss, &c." EARLY READING 121 After the literature of the day Addison was a relief: in his broad stream of morality, at once so simple and so pure, the^ readers of a Fontenelle — as often happens in an era of scepticism — loved to plunge themselves as though in a bath of virtue. Marivaux, with his cold and over-refined intellect, entirely failed to produce the same effect.1 In the moral philosophy of the Spectator, robust as it was and respectable, though, to our modern taste, somewhat commonplace and unaspiring, there was that which, by its very faults, proved attractive to those whose wearied palates were beginning to de- mand simple fare. " The English are easier to please than we are," it was said, " with regard to works on morality : they do not mind what is commonplace, provided only it be useful, and presented in popular form ; with us, moralizing only goes down when it is clever and pointed." 2 Their very lack of refinement and style constituted the charm of these lay sermons. They occasioned no regret for the incomparable subtlety of La Bruyere, the profound philosophy of La Rochefoucauld, the mild and gentle spirit of Nicole,3 or the vigorous dialectic of Bourdaloue, the master of Addison. There was something pleasant in that flameless warmth, that radiance which to us seems so pallid. " Virtue," the reader thought, " as represented here, has nothing chilling, harsh, burdensome or dismal, about it ; ... this is a pleasing sort of virtue, made for man, responsive to all his natural faculties . . . and capable of affording them the most exquisite sensations : " 4 a virtue, in short, adapted to the re- quirements of the eighteenth century. The English moralist's narrow horizon, his profoundly bourgeois character, his modera- tion and amiable tolerance, all seemed fresh and original. In the early part of the present century Cardinal Maury, who had witnessed the persistence of this fashion, was unable to compre- hend how anyone could ever have preferred Addison to La 1 Cf. G. Larroumet, Marivaux, p. 394. 2 Gazette litteraire de V Europe, vol. vi., p. 354. 3 Locke had translated the Essais of Nicole for Lord Shaftesbury : his translation was published by Thomas Hancock in 1828 (Cf. H. Marion, Locke, p. 147). 4 Preface to the Mentor moderne (The Hague, 1724, vol. i.). 122 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES Bruyere ; 1 and we, too, prefer the latter. But those who were contemporary with the Lettres Persanes — the idea for which Montesquieu was accused of having taken from the Spectator — relished the ethics which appealed to heart rather than to mind — the moral teaching not of a scholar but of a moralist. " Use, but do not abuse — such is the wise man's advice. I avoid alike Epictetus and Petronius. Neither abstinence nor excess ever made a happy man." 2 Here we have the substance of the ser- mon preached by Addison under two or three hundred heads, and addressed to the commonplace souls of his contemporaries as their morning viaticum. — Did he not recommend his reflections to all well-regulated families who, with their breakfast of tea and bread-and-butter, would have his paper served up to them as an accompaniment to the spoons and the tray ? The sermon is not new, but everything can be renovated, even platitudes — they, indeed, above all. The reader will be familiar with the agree- able background Addison contrived to give to his sermonizing ; how, in the " Club " to which we are introduced, the good Sir Roger de Coveiiey, Freeport the merchant, the veteran warrior Captain Sentry, and the amiable dandy Will Honeycomb enable him to present his moral teaching, in the pleasantest manner in the world, in a concrete form. There, the questions of marriage, of religion, of education, of the best form of government are discussed. But there also are treated, seriously or lightly, as becomes the occasion, such trifling problems as a La Bruyere would have deemed beneath his notice : what ladies should wear indoors, the impropriety of talking freely in public vehicles, dancing, the deportment of married couples in society, belief in the existence of ghosts, how one should behave in church, and a thousand questions relating to good-breeding or to hygiene. Addison considers the question of the suckling of children ; en- quires whether or not it is well to indulge the fancies of women with child, and humorously recounts the vexations of a husband ; he discusses, with a smile, the use of chocolate, and recommends becoming methods whereby women may enhance their beauty. 1 Lettres et opuscules of J. de Maistre, vol. ii., p. 177. 2 Voltaire, fifth Discours en vers sur rhomme. EARLY READING 123 He constitutes himself adviser, confessor, and family doctor. No question is too mean for him, provided it affects, either directly or remotely, the moral or physical health of man. French readers found this solicitude no less charming than amusing : Addison and Steele were compared to Socrates, and it was considered that " these truly wise men " had brought heaven's philosophy down to earth, " the phantoms of the study upon the stage of the world." l Prevost too, in his Pour et Contre, played the part of Addison and Steele. He inquired " whether high rank or official position are incompatible with certain talents ; " he gave rules for conversation ; portrayed the effects produced upon the character by the fierce emotions of love ; lavished counsel upon the fair, consolation upon the ill-favoured, and learned advice upon those who are on the wane : he even dis- cussed the practice of tea-drinking, and concluded that by the use of this " liquor," which relaxes the fibres of the stomach, " the brave man becomes cowardly, the strong workman weak, and women become sterile." 2 The work of Addison was drawit upon to an unlimited extent ; sometimes for simple tales, some- times for philosophical allegories,3 sometimes, and most fre- quently, for the subjects of plays. For Addison is not a moralist only, he is also rich in pictures of middle-class life, in pathetic scenes, in dramatic adventures. Baculard d'Arnaud takes from j him the subject of a tragedy,4 Boissy the plot for a comedy,5 La Chaussee several ideas and more than one entire situation.6 And with the advance of the century his celebrity increases, at the expense of that of the French moralists : " It is difficult," wrote Saint-Lambert, " to read much of the Spectator without becoming a better man ; he reconciles you with human nature, while La Bruyere makes you dread it." 7 Rousseau read it at Chambery, on his return from Turin, and 1 Journal etranger, February 1762. 2 Vol. xii., p. 207. 3 Raynal borrows from the Spectator an anecdote for the Histoire philosophique des deux Indes (J. Morley, Diderot, vol. ii., p. 226) ; Voltaire an allegory for the article Religion in the Dictionnaire philosophique •, &c. The moral journals also provided Berquin with the materials for his Tableaux anglais (Paris, 1775, 8vo). 4 Eufhemie, 5 Les Valets maitres. 6 Lanson, Nivelle de la Chaussee, p. 133. 7 Essai sur la vie de Bolingbroke (1796). I24 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES appreciated it highly. " The Spectator" he says, " pleased me greatly, and did me good." l Like his contemporaries he loved its bourgeois moralizing, so simple, so appropriate to the family circle. It is Addison whom he advises Sophie to read in order to learn the duties of an honest woman.2 From him, doubtless, he took the idea of the Persifleur, which he afterwards estab- lished in conjunction with Diderot, and did not carry beyond a single number.3 From him, too, he appears to have borrowed what he says in the Lettre sur les spectacles concerning the clubs and societies of London, a few touches, also, in the description of the English garden in the Nouvelle Heldise, and some of the ideas in Emile on the advantage of inuring children to the endurance of cold. These little obligations, however, are not of much importance.4 The point of interest to us is that Rousseau understood and loved an Addison whose genius, in common with his own, possessed a rare and precious quality of moral elevation, and who, in more than one respect, may perhaps be considered a champion of the same causes.5 Lastly, among the English books with which he was familiar there was one upon which he pronounced a magnificent eulogy, namely, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, ofTcrk, Mariner, who lived Eight-and-tiventy Tears all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the great River of Oronoque. . . . Written by Himself. Published in 1719 and 1720, Defoe's novel, as we have seen, had been translated by the refugees in 1720 and 1721, and had since then been reprinted over and over again. The edition read by Rousseau was undoubtedly the inaccurate translation by Saint-Hyacinthe and Van Effen. The work was already famous ; 1 Confessions, \., 3. 2 Emile, book v. 3 Confessions, ii., 7. 4 Cf. L. M^zieres, Histoire de la litter ature anglaise, vol. i., p. 145. 5 Cf. particularly what Addison says of the morality of the theatre. — On this question Rousseau, also, perhaps read La critique du theatre anglais compare au theatre fAthenes, de Rome, et de France . . . [translated from Jeremy Collier by de Courbeville], Paris, 1715, izmo. Several French writers appear to have gained a knowledge of the English stage from this book. (Cf. Memoires de Trevoux, April 1704 ; Journal des savants, 1715? P- 2I9? Memoires de Trevoux, July 1716, and May, June, July and August 1732. — See also a letter from Brossette to J. B. Rousseau, 25th December 1715. EARLY READING 125 the attention of the newspapers had been attracted to it immedi- ately it appeared,1 and Lesage, assisted by d'Orneval, had founded upon it the story of a comic opera for the theatre de la Poire.2 Very early too the book became launched upon the great stream of European literature : there had appeared a Robinson allemand, a Robinson ita/ien, a Robinson de Si/esie, and Robinsons of which the hero was either a priest, a doctor, a Jew, a poet, a bookseller, or even a woman.3 It has been computed that by 1760 forty Robinsonades had already made their appearance in Germany,* not to mention those published in Holland and Austria.5 In spite of its popularity it does not appear that the success of the book was in the first instance due to its true merits : the author's marvellous gift of observation, which, as he himself says, enabled him to present a " statement of facts," passed almost unnoticed. Though one of the great books of the cen- tury, the work did not at once create a school, either in its native country or in France. The translators of the book, it is true, assert that most of its readers feel that they are actually living with Robinson, so great is the power of the author's art to create illusion.6 "With him they seemed to be spending whole years in building a hut, in hollow- ing out a cave, in erecting a palisade ; they fancied themselves occupied for months together in helping him to polish a single plank, and felt themselves as much imprisoned in their reading as Robinson in his solitude." 7 Many of the details, indeed, seemed minute or unworthy of notice. A few years earlier Mari- 1 Cf. Journal des savants, 1720, p. 503 et seq. '2 This comic opera is lost. (See Barberet: Lesage et le theatre de la Foire, p. 222). 3 Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, p. 264. 4 Cf. Kippenberg, Robinson in Deutschland bis zur Insel Felsenburg (1713-43), Hanover, 1892, 8vo. 5 H. F. Wagner: Robinson in (Esterreich, Salzburg, 1 886, 8vo. A list of Dutch imitations will be found in the Annales typografhiques^ 1759, vol. i., p. 58. 6 See M. J. Jusserand's remarkable study Le roman anglais et la reforme litteraire de Daniel de Foe, Brussels, 1887. We may justly object that the author exaggerates, not the greatness of Defoe's work, but its immediate influence : Defoe was truly enough the creator of realistic fiction in England, but for more than twenty years he had not a single disciple. 7 Preface to vol. ii. 126 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES vaux also, in a now forgotten novel, had described the island-life of a recluse ; but how much *' nobler" was his recital ! Mari- vaux's hero wants some broth ; but what of that ! He kills some birds with his bow and arrows. But he has no vessel for cooking purposes. " How ingenious we become when we have to live by our wits ! Taking some earth and kneading it with water, I fashioned a pot from it as best I could, and set it out in the sun to dry." In an hour's time the pot is finished and the broth prepared : what could be more expeditious ? The same skill, the same ingenuity, when he has to make some bread. " As heaven has distributed its gifts to every spot on earth,1 I perceived that there was a kind of grain growing wild in the island, which the natives did not use because they were un- acquainted with it. I had a quantity of it cut . . . and dried. Finally I managed to discover the secret of extracting the flour, from which I kneaded several small loaves." Nothing can be simpler, as we see ; nor can anything give us a better idea of the difference between two separate types of genius, and even between two races, than a comparison of Marivaux's Robinson with that of Defoe. The savages of the one are real savages ; those of the other dwell together as in one great family, and feel " inno- cence and peace steal into their hearts." " They called me their father." What a contrast to the practical, bargain-driving, thoroughly English Robinson who sells his slave Xury for a few pistoles. Now the readers of Saint-Hyacinthe and Van Effen — I will not say of Defoe — do not seem to have fully perceived the originality of this acute observation of detail, this perfect veri-similitude of the least little fact, this seizing of reality, which gives the English novel all the relief of an authentic narrative — a statement of facts. What they enjoyed in Robinson Crusoe was a curious story of travel, which readers of the Thousand and one nights, the Aventures de Beauchene or the Histoire des voyages found gratify- ing to that appetite for tales of adventure and of expeditions to remote regions which was so widely spread in that day.2 The 1 See Les Effets surprenants de la sympathle (1713), part ii. 2 On this taste for travel see L. Claretie, Lesage romancier, p. 60 etseq — English critics EARLY READING 127 romantic isolation of the hero produced a lively impression. It was almost traditional with eighteenth-century novelists to make their heroes pass some time on an island. Prevost, in his Histoire de Cleveland, imagines a philosophical recluse and misanthrope, of whom Cleveland, as is proper, makes a friend.1 Fielding inflicts the ordeal of solitude upon Mrs Heartfree, and Jean-Jacques upon Saint-Preux. Rousseau's hero even dwells in two islands successively : " I was perhaps the only soul, "he says, " to whom so pleasant an exile was in no way alarming. ... In this fear- some yet delightful abode, I have seen what human ingenuity will attempt in order to extricate civilized man from a solitude where he lacks nothing, and to plunge him afresh into a vortex of new wants." 2 They all remained subject to the spell of the marvellous adventure related by Defoe, and Bernardin de Saint- Pierre, reading Robinson Crusoe on the shores of the English Channel in the closing days of the century, felt the yearning for unknown lands awake within him.3 Rousseau, however, was the first to point out the wide philo- sophic import of the book. It " constituted a very able treatise on natural philosophy," and was to be the one and only volume in the library of limile. The author, it is true, he does not name : the men of that century did not know who he was ; Freron, speaking of Robinson Crusoe in 1768, thought it necessary to remind the reader in a note that the author was "a certain Daniel de Foe " ; 4 while another translator attributes it to Steele.5 Nothing whatever was known of the writer's person- ality and talent. But Jean-Jacques pronounced a splendid eulogy upon the educational qualities of the work, preferring its author have remarked certain similarities between Robinson Crusoe and Lesage's novel Les Aventures de Beauchene (Cf. Saintsbury, A short history of French literature} ; I do not think, however, that there are any grounds for inferring that there was imitation. 1 See the solitary's curious discourse when he set foot on his island (vol. iv., p, 70). The episode pleased Prevost's readers, for fifty years later de la Chabeaussiere took from it the subject for his Nouveau Robinson, a comedy in three acts with music by Dalayrac(i786). 2 Nouvelle Heloise, iv., 3. 3 Maury, Bernardin de St Pierre, p. 6. 4 Annee litteraire, 1768, vol. i., p. 235. ** Les avantures ou la vie et les voyages de Robinson Cruive, traduction de ('ouvra&e anglais attribue au celebre Richard Steele, Francfort, 1769. 2 vols., nmo. 128 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES to Aristotle, Pliny and BufFon.1 " I want Emile," he said, " to examine his hero's behaviour, to try and find out whether he omitted anything, and whether anything better could have been done." He saw quite clearly how closely the author of Robinson Crusoe had adhered to life, and perceived the lofty teaching he had managed to extract from it. Rousseau raised to its proper position what had been regarded as nothing more than a novel, when in reality it was a moral treatise. It was his testimony to its qualities that gave Daniel Defoe's work a place in the philo- sophical heritage of humanity.2 Ill FOR English literature of the more common and popular type Rousseau had an even greater admiration than for the Spectator or for Robinson Crusoe. Therein he found his own literary aspira- tions realized. There is no doubt that between 1745 and 1758 the subjects of Rousseau's admiration were those admired by Diderot. During the early days of their intimacy, their thoughts were turned more especially towards the theatre, Rousseau's even more than Diderot's. Both were enthusiastic playgoers. Jean- Jacques had a free seat at the Opera and the Comedie : he boasts of having faithfully witnessed every play produced during ten years, especially those of Moliere. During his residence at Chambery he had written a tragic opera, Iphis et Anaxarete. While tutor in M. de Mably's household at Lyon he wrote his Decouverte du Nouveau Monde. It is needless to enumerate here the operas for which he provided the libretti. But Narcisset Les Prisonniers de guerre, L Engagement temeraire, and all the other 'attempts, which, after all, add nothing to his fame, afford ample proof of the 1 Emile, book iii. 2 Further translations of Defoe's masterpiece followed the publication of Emile. See Robinson Crusoe, a new imitation of the English work, by M. Feutry, Amster- dam, 1765, Z vols. izmo, and IS fie de Robinson Crusoe, adapted from the English by M. de Montreille, Paris, 1767, izmo. — See also La Harpe's estimate, which is a mere echo of Rousseau's (Cours de litterature, vol. iii., p. 190). PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 129 strength of his predilection for the theatre. Three years after the appearance of the Discours sur les sciences et les arts he had not yet abjured it, and produced his Narcisse ou Famant de lui-meme : the piece was a failure, but he published it nevertheless, abusing his public in the preface. At Geneva, two years afterwards, he began Lucrece, a tragedy in prose. His Pygmalion was written later still. All his life long Rousseau loved the theatre — Rousseau, the writer of the Lettre sur les spectacles. Men impugn nothing so savagely as what they have greatly loved. Not only, however, was the theatre the subject of his thoughts and aspirations ; there is no doubt that he took a lively interest in the dramatic reform contemplated by his friend. Among the ideas expressed in his Lettre sur les spectacles and in the literary chapters of the Nouvelle Heldise there are some which he un- doubtedly acquired from Diderot, or held in common with him. Like Diderot, he is of opinion that tragedy has had its day, and that Corneille and Racine, for all their genius, " are but speech-makers." 1 Many of their pieces, tragic as they are, have no power to move the feelings, and above all — a point on which Diderot insisted more than upon any other — they " give no sort of information on the manners characteristic of those whom they amuse." They contain no simple and natural sentiments, but merely " smart things " which catch the ear of the crowd.2 Like Diderot, he thinks that the drama should be formed upon the social ideal, which is constantly changing ; do we not know that there are " five or six hundred thousand souls in Paris of whom the stage takes no heed whatever ? " 3 Like him, he holds that taste varies with the age, and that after all it is nothing more than " the faculty of judging what is pleasing or displeasing to the greatest number."4 Hence it follows " that the true models for taste are to be found in nature," which always leaves some- thing to be revealed, and is a thousand times richer than French poets have supposed. If the ancients are superior to us, it is simply because they were first in the field, and therefore at closer quarters with eternal nature. Yet how much is still left to be 1 Nouvelle Helo'ise, ii. 17. With this passage cf. ch. xxxviii. of Bijoux indiscrets. 2 Lettre sur les spectacles. 3 N. H., ii. 17. 4 JSmile, book iv. I i go ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES discovered. The matter of the drama has, as it were, become congealed in antiquated moulds. It remains for us "to keep close to life," to reveal the provincial world — that is to say, the whole universe outside of Paris, — to find again the true man beneath the polished and unnatural man of society. In the circle of which Diderot and Jean- Jacques were members it was con- sidered that in France " all ranks and conditions had become fused together for social purposes " : seigneurs, magistrates, financiers, men of letters and soldiers were all alike, and only one condition of life remained, that of man of the world. "The English, on the contrary, have preserved, 'with their liberty, the privilege of being each individually exactly what nature has made him, of not concealing his opinions, nor the prejudices and manners of the profession he follows : that is why their novels of domestic interest are such pleasant reading."1 And that, also, is one of the reasons why Rousseau was so attracted towards " this proud and intrepid people, who despise sorrow and death, and fear nothing in the world but hunger and ennui."2 He likes them because they are still capable of great passions, because "no famous deed was ever achieved by cold reason," and because in the Englishman man recognises his own best possible type. Like Diderot also, though with deeper conviction than he, Rousseau found in English writers his own interest in questions of moral philosophy. With the majority of Protestant writers he regarded the beautiful as in its essence nothing but a form of the good. " If the moral system is corrupt," his friend wrote, " it follows of necessity that the taste is false."3 Rousseau goes further and expressly declares that " the good is nothing more than the beautiful put into practice," that the one is closely bound up with the other, that they have a common source in a perfectly regulated nature, that " taste may be brought to per- fection by the same methods as wisdom " — which is paradoxical — and " that a soul thoroughly alive to the charms of virtue ought to be proportionately sensitive to every other kind of beauty " — which is false, but extremely English. Let us, 1 Correspondance litteraire, August 1753. 2 N. H., iv^ 3. 3 De la poesie dramatique, xxii. PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 131 therefore, have tragedies which breathe patriotism and the love of freedom, and they will be fine tragedies. Let us have dramas which call forth our tears on behalf of virtue, and those dramas will be true to nature. Now it is still more true of the English people, as Suard observed, than of the Roman people, that it " breathes tragedy,"1 and it is to the English drama that we must look for the revival of pathos. Very early in the century La Motte called for " action that is impressive," such as was introduced by English playwrights,2 and a few years later Montesquieu compared their dramatic pieces not to the ordinary products of nature so much as to the sports in which she has developed what was originally only a happy accident.3 In the very year in which Rousseau definitely took up his residence in Paris, appeared the first volume of the too famous Theatre anglais of La Place, with which he was undoubtedly acquainted. Therein one might learn that " readers who do not believe that the French mind must of necessity be the type of all others will be qualified to enjoy reading Shakespeare, not only because they will thereby discover how the English genius differs from the French, but because they will find in his works flashes of power and new and original beauties which, in spite of their foreign appearance, seem all the more effective to those who did not expect to meet with them." Among those who did expect to meet with them must be reckoned Diderot and Rousseau. Shakespeare, however — the Shakespeare of La Place — does not seem to have made a very vivid impression upon them. Diderot, though capable of con- sulting the original text, had but scant praise for the author of 1 Garat, Memoires sur SuarJ, vol. ii., p. 117. 2 Discours sur la tragedie, prefixed to Romulus. 3 Pensees diverses. In the Memoires de Trevoux, April 1704, We read: "The English, who for more than a century have paid much attention to dramatic poetry, have at last brought it to a degree of perfection which most of their neighbours cannot but admire. Their national genius, the bent of their language, the liberty of criticism which is assumed in England, all contribute to this result." — Cf. also Riccoboni : Reflexions historiqucs et critiques sur les different* theatres de I' Europe (1738). 132 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES Othello, and has expressed it in the vaguest terms. For it is no very high praise to compare him to that " shapeless, roughly carved colossus," 1 St. Christopher of Notre-Dame, if it is added that there is not one of his scenes " of which, 'with a little talent, something great might not be made." 2 Diderot seems in fact to admire Shakespeare because he is English, and, although he belongs to the past, extremely modern. He is always inaccurate when he speaks of him, and his expressions have none of that warmth which sincerity of feeling imparts to admiration. As for Rousseau, he commends Voltaire, somewhere or other, for having ventured to follow the example of the English, and put some life into the drama.3 This, if we please, we may call an indirect way of praising Shakespeare — and we know, moreover, that Rousseau thought highly of him, though that was all.4 Must we condemn Rousseau or Diderot for not having had a better understanding of Shakespeare as interpreted by La Place ? Verily, they would have required the eyes of a lynx to do so. Besides, their ideal, it must be confessed, was to be found elsewhere. What they were dreaming of was the bourgeois drama, invented, with such a flourish of trumpets, by Diderot ; " tragedies rendered interest- ing by patriotism and love of liberty ; " 5 in short, The London Merchant and The Gamester. In reality, it was La Chaussee who had produced the earliest specimens of pathetic comedy, but him they did not greatly ap- preciate. Diderot cared little for him because he merely heralded a new type, and because, moreover, he was but an indifferent herald.6 Rousseau, on his part, confessed that if the plays of La Chaussee or Destouches are " refined," they are also, however instructive they may be, still more tedious, and that one might just as well go to hear a sermon.7 Moreover, as Prevost had 1 Paradoxe sur le comedien, ed. Moland, vol. viii., p. 384. 2 Letter to Voltaire, zgth September 1762. 3 N. H., ii. 17. 4 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre : Fragments sur Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 5 N. H., ii. 17. 6 (Euvres de Diderot, vol. xix., p. 314. After a performance of the Pere de famille he writes : " Duclos said, as we came out, that three pieces like that in one year would kill tragedy. Let them get used to emotions of this sort, and after that endure Destouches and La Chaussee if they can." 7 Lettre sur les spectacles, ed. Fontaine, p. 165. PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 133 observed, La Chaussee himself was merely a disciple, though per- haps an involuntary one, of the English. " I cannot abstain from informing," he said, " the public that they [the writers of pathetic comedy] are not the first who have formed this project, and that if the example of a sensible nation is of any value they may justify themselves by that of our neighbours." And he proceeded to quote some instances of the English drama of pathos,1 and intro- duced the London Merchant to his readers' notice. The author of this once famous play, which impressed Rous- seau as a master-piece, was George Lillo, born, in 1693, of a Dutch father and an English mother, both of them dissenters. Like Richardson, Sedaine, Jean- Jacques, and many members of the lower middle class who, in the eighteenth century, tried their hands at fiction and the drama, he at first pursued a handicraft, and was somewhat late in entering upon his literary career. After a fruitless attempt at opera he produced George Barnivell or the London Merchant in 1731. In spite of the season — the height of summer — the piece had a run of twenty nights. In vain the author's enemies conspired against him, and had several thousand copies of the old ballad on which the play was founded sold in the streets. Those who sold them, says a witness, were overcome by their feelings, and dropped the ballads in order to get at their pocket handkerchiefs. Pope, who was then living, thought the plot of the piece well-managed and the style natural without being vulgar.2 Queen Caroline wished to possess the manuscript of the work, and the city merchants, proud of a sermon which re- flected so much honour upon them, praised it to the skies. It continued to hold the stage, though apparently less on account of its literary qualities than because it was an edifying play. The Theatre Royal at Manchester was long accustomed to present George Barnivell once a year, on Shrove Tuesday, for the instruc- tion of the apprentices of the town. When Ross, the actor, 1 Pour et centre, vol. xii., p. 145. It may moreover be observed that La Chaussee was himself imitated in England : his Prejuge a la mode furnished the theme of Murphy's The Way to keep him (1761). (See Le nouveau theatre anglais, Paris, 1769, vol. i.). Paul Lacroix mentions Melanide as having been reprinted in Dublin (174.9). (Catalogue de Soleinne, vol. ii., p. 91.) 2 Perry, Litterature anglaise au xviiie siecle, p. ZJJ. 134 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES played Barnwell, in 1752, a young apprentice, who, like the hero of the piece, had robbed his employer in order to keep his mistress, was so smitten with remorse while watching the per- formance, that he lost his reason. A doctor was called in, inter- ceded with the father, and by pacifying him managed to restore the senses of the sick youth, who became an honest merchant. Ross, in his memoirs, declares that he thenceforth received every year a sum of ten guineas, with the words : " A tribute of gratitude from one who was highly obliged, and saved from ruin, by seeing Mr Ross's performance of Barniuell" l What a pity that Diderot was unacquainted with this incident. What a tirade we have lost ! Thus the London Merchant worked miracles. Lillo's other pieces, the Christian Hero or Fatal Curiosity, Marina or Elmerick had a less brilliant success.2 But when he died, their author was widely regretted. Fielding praised him for his " perfect know- ledge of the human heart," his noble character, his philosophy, which was that of a happy man, and his generous repugnance to depending on others. " He had the spirit of an old Roman, joined to the innocence of a primitive Christian." 3 Significant praise, from such an authority. Read again to-day, the "master-piece" of this remarkable character seems less sublime. It is a melodrama of a decidedly sombre type, highly moral, and in parts, but in parts only, full of pathos. It must not be forgotten that the story of a young apprentice, who is beguiled by a woman of loose life and led on to commit robbery and murder, was a subject almost new to the stage. Writers of comedy had been lavish in the presenta- tion of dissipated young fellows who had to reap the fruits of their youthful follies ; but those follies merely occasioned laugh- ter, and their retribution was never severe. Such scatterbrains got off with nothing worse than a matrimonial fiasco — a pretty piece of business ! — or, more cheaply still, with a paternal lec- 1 Biographia Dramatica (The London Merchant}. 2 None of them were known in France. (Cf. Grimm, Correspondance litteraire April 1764). 3 The Champion, in Biographia Dramatica. See the article on Lillo in the Dictionary of National Biography, where a detailed bibliography is given. PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 135 ture. But to depict the tumult occasioned in a lad's soul by base desires, to study the slow and irretrievable descent of a feeble will towards vice, severely yet sorrowfully to elicit the moral con- veyed by a life thus maimed and spoiled, was, in 1731, some- thing quite new. Manon was as yet unwritten, and who shall say that Lillo's play, which Prevost saw performed in London, and spoke of with such enthusiasm, did not count for something in the creation of his romance ? However this may be, there is a touch of the rogue about Des Grieux, and Manon is too lovable ; the lesson conveyed is less direct and less tragic. The manner in which the humble dissenter George Lillo determined to pro- ceed was very different. He aimed at producing a more forcible impression, and wrote, not a dramatic work, but a sermon in the form of a play. Nevertheless, crude as it is from an artistic point of view, this drama contains a presage of something great. The character of Barnwell, it is true, is but slightly studied ; he is a puppet. He cannot tajke his pleasure without preaching and lecturing. Observe him in the hour of his fall : he is speaking to the courtesan : " To hear you talk, though in the cause of vice ; to gaze upon your beauty, press your hand, and see your snow-white bosom heave and fall, inflame my wishes ; my pulse beats high, my senses all are in a hurry, and I am on the rock of wild desire. — Yet, for a moment's guilty pleasure, shall I lose my innocence, my piece of mind, and hopes of solid happiness ? — MILLWOOD : Chimeras all ! . . . Along with me, and prove no joys like woman-kind, no Heav'n like love."1 This is really too simple and abrupt ; the reader is amazed and stupefied. But even so long ago as 1731 an author could acquire a reputation for being very profound by slurring over transi- tions, destroying gradations, and jjoldly skipping problems in psychology. The courtesan, Millwood, is not a woman, but an idea — the beast of the Apocalypse, which has declared war against humanity. By ruining Barnwell she avenges herself on all the male sex. Like certain heroines of the modern drama, like the stranger 1 George Barn-well, Act i. sc. iii. (Modern British Drama, vol. ii.). 136 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES of Dumas jils, she is a blind force, a living enigma, a pest with a symbolic meaning. Her ill-will is directed against society. " I would have my conquest complete, like those of the Spaniards in the new world ; who first plundered the natives of all the wealth they had, and then condemned the wretches to the mines for life, to work for more."1 She is an enemy of law, religion, the clergy, the machinery of justice, and all established order. For you must know that such as these only live by ruined reputations and perverted innocence, "as the inhospitable natives of .Cornwall do by shipwrecks."2 Millwood's strange confession of faith, which ranks her with Ibsen's heroines as a rebel against society, is omitted by the French translator, Clement de Geneve, as offensive and out of place. " What are your laws, of which you make your boast, but the fool's wisdom, and the coward's valour, the instrument and screen of all your villanies ? By them you punish in others what you act yourselves, or would have acted, had you been in their circumstances. The judge, who condemns the poor man for being a thief, had been a thief himself had he been poor." 3 From a woman such a declaration of war against society was doubtless something fresh ; and she, too, was no doubt a new dramatic type — woman as the embodi- ment of fatality. She glances for one moment at young Barnwell as she meets him in the street, and that one look is enough ; thereby she condemns an innocent youth to robbery, murder, and the gallows. If this is not " the despotism of woman incarnate," 4 what is it ? Observe the rapidity of his fall. From the hour when he yields, the apprentice is a lost man : the next day he commits robbery ; the day after, murder. The scene in which the crime is enacted lacks neither vigour nor sombre beauty. It is as simple as a scene in Marlowe's Faustus, but from the complicity of the elements it gains a certain savage grandeur which must assuredly have impressed Rousseau. Standing beneath the open sky, and appealing to nature, Barnwell is about to kill the uncle 1 Act i. sc. ii. 2 Act iv. sc. ii. 3 Act iv. sc. ii. 4 Dumas /f/r, Preface to L'Atrtmgtre. PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 137 by whom he has been educated and treated as a son, but whom he is nevertheless compelled to rob. And as he slays him, he philosophizes concerning his crime : Scene : A Walk at some distance from a Country Seat. BARNWELL (alone'}. — A dismal gloom obscures the face of day. Either the sun has slipped behind a cloud, or journeys down the west of heaven with more than common speed, to avoid the sight of what I am doomed to act. Since I set forth on this accursed design, where'er I tread, methinks the solid earth trembles beneath my feet. Murder my uncle ! — Yonder limpid stream, whose hoary fall has made a natural cascade, as I passed by, in doleful accents seemed to murmur — Murder ! The earth, the air, and water seemed concerned. But that is not strange: the world is punished, and nature feels a shock, when Providence permits a good man's fall. Just heaven ! then what should I feel for him that was my father's only brother, and since his death has been to me a father ; that took me up an infant and an orphan, reared me with tenderest care, and still indulged me with most paternal fondness ! Yet here I stand his destined murderer — I stiffen with horror at my own impiety. — It is yet unperformed. — What if I quit my bloody purpose, and fly the place ? [Going, then stops.~\ But whither, oh, whither shall I fly ? My master's once friendly doors are ever shut against me ; and without money, Millwood will never see me more ; and she has got such firm possession of my heart, and governs there with such despotic sway, that life is not to be endured without her. Ay, there is the cause of all my sin and sorrow ! it is more than love, it is the fever of the soul, and madness of desire. . . . \_His uncle appears, in a "walk. Barnivell puts on a vizor, and draivs a pistol, unperceived . BARNWELL'S UNCLE. — Oh, death ! thou strange mysterious power, seen every day, yet never understood, but by the incommunicative dead, what art thou ? The extensive mind of man, that with a thought circles the earth's vast globe, sinks to the centre, or ascends above the stars ; that worlds exotic finds, or thinks it finds, thy thick clouds attempt to pass in vain ; lost, and bewildered in the horrid gloom, defeated, she returns more doubtful than before, of nothing certain but of labour lost. [During this speech, Barnivell sometimes presents the pistol, but draws it back again. BARNWELL. — Oh ! 'tis impossible. \Throiving dotun the pistol. Uncle starts, and attempts to draw his sivord. UNCLE. — A man so near me ! Armed and masked — BARNWELL. — Nay, then, there's no retreat. [Plucks a poignard from his bosom, and stabs him. UNCLE — Oh ! I am slain. All gracious Heaven, regard the prayer of thy dying servant ! Bless, with thy choicest blessings, my dearest nephew ! forgive my murderer, and take my fleeting soul to endless mercy ! [Barnivell throivs off his mask, runs to him, and, kneeling by him, raises and chafes him. BARNWELL. — Expiring saint ! Oh, murdered martyred uncle ! lift up your dying eyes, and view your nephew in your murderer. Oh, do not look so tenderly upon me I — Let indignation lighten from your eyes, and blast me, ere you 138 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES die. — By heaven, he weeps, in pity of my woes. — Tears, tears for blood ! — The murdered in the agonies of death, weeps for his murderer. — Oh, speak your pious purpose ; pronounce my pardon then, and take me with you. — He would, but cannot. — Oh, why, with such fond affection, do you press my murdering hand? — \Uncle sighs and dies. ] — What, will you kiss me? — Life, that hovered on his lips but till he had sealed my pardon, in that sigh expired. — He is gone for ever, and oh 1 I follow. — [Swoons aivay upon his uncle's dead body. ] Artless as it is, the scene is full of pathos ; a certain lyrical inspiration finds its way into Lillo' s awkward yet poetic style, so ill rendered by his translator. As the drama closes, the gallows is to be seen — in that day a very daring effect, before which the author himself had hesitated. The translator suppressed the scene, but added it afterwards, with an apology for doing so. Pompous in form, this swift and tragic drama nevertheless contains something suggestive of those rude yet powerful old plays Arden of Feversham and A Torkshire Tragedy, in which Shakespeare, of whom they are scarcely unworthy, may possibly have had some share. We must regard Lillo as related, not so much to Southerne and Rowe, his immediate predecessors, as to Ford, Dekker, Heywood, and perhaps Shakespeare.1 The brutal clumsiness of a beginner, the scorn for customary methods of procedure, and the contempt for convention, by which his imitation of these models was supplemented, gave his work the effect of originality. George Barnvuell, which in England was regarded as a common and rather vulgar drama of some merit, produced on the Con- tinent the impression of a work of genius, and gave the theatre a new lease of life. The Germans became as enthusiastic over Lillo as over Shakespeare ; Gottsched and Lessing extolled him to the skies, and the latter imitated him in Sara Sampson. He became one of the classics of the modern drama.2 Yet, strange as it may seem, even to the Germans he appeared too brutal, and Sebastien Mercier's Jenneval, a modified but inferior adaptation, 1 On these "assize-court dramas," see Mezieres, Predecesseurs et contemporains de Shakespeare ', and, especially, J. A. Symonds, Shakespeare's predecessors in the English drama, p. 418 et seq. Observe that Lillo, at his death, left an adaptation of that fine piece, Arden of Feversham. 2 Cf. Hettner, Das moderne Drama, Brunswick, 1852. PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 139 was played in preference. The name of Lillo was none the less famous, and we must turn to W. Schlegel to find the London Merchant regarded as a " regular assize-court story, scarcely less absurd than trivial." l Many were the tears shed over this " assize-court story," before it was relegated from the tragic stage to the boards of thefoire. Prevost, in Pour et Contre, led the chorus in praise of the new master-piece in France. " A tragedy which has been acted thirty-eight times consecutively at Drury Lane, amidst unflagging applause from a constantly crowded house ; which has met with similar success wherever it has been performed ; which has been printed and published to the number of many thousand copies, and is read with no less interest and pleasure than it is witnessed upon the stage — a tragedy which has called forth so many marks of approbation and esteem must occasion in those who hear it spoken of one or other of two thoughts : either that it is one of those master-pieces the perfect beauty of which is perceived by all ; or that it is so well adapted to the particular taste of the nation which thus delights in it that it may be considered as a certain indication of the present state of that nation's taste."2 Of these two explanations Prevost accepted the former. The London Merchant was, in his eyes, a master-piece, and in support of his verdict he translated a scene from the play. A few years later George Barnivell found a translator, who was attracted by the warm praise of Prevost. Formerly a minister, and also tutor to the children of Lord Waldegrave, the English ambassador, Clement de Geneve 3 was an avowed admirer of England. The writer of a " hyperdrama," Les Frimapns, and for that reason expelled from the society of Genevan pastors, Clement was also the author of a literary journal, no less caustic than spirited, which makes anglomania an article of faith. Therein the French are reproached for their ignorance " of the beauty of the unstudied, the vast, the fantastic, the gloomy, the 1 W. Schlegel, Litterature dramatique, 34th lesson. 2 Pour et Centre, vol. iii., p. 337. Prevost translates the scene in which Mill- wood hands her lover over to justice. 3 Born at Geneva, 1707, Clement de Geneve died at Charenton in 1767. (Senebier, Histoire litter air e de Geneve. ) 140 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES terrible," and of romantic beauty in every form. " Come to London," he concludes, " we will enlarge your imagination." l— So Clement, who knew English, translated the London Merchant, shed tears as he corrected the proofs of his translation, and exclaimed in his preface : " Avaunt, ye small wits, whose quality is not so much delicacy as subtlety and frivolity ; ye thankless, hardened hearts, wrecked by excess and overmuch thinking ! You are not made for the sweetness of shedding tears!"2 A select public yielded to persuasion and, following Clement's advice, " plunged with delight into the deepest and most poig- nant distress." Lillo seemed more pathetic than Shakespeare, and the London Merchant more terrible than the Merchant of Venice? The piece, to tell the truth, was an appeal to " the irre- sponsive and vulgar souls of a barbarous people," but who could resist its pathos ? " Every act, every scene, as the play progresses, excites more pity, more horror, more heart-rending anguish." What art in the employment of contrast ! What a " climax of terror! "4 The slanderer Colle, who declared the translator a fool, in the same breath confessed himself moved to tears ; he too exclaimed : " What truth ! What vehemence ! What intensity of interest ! " The workmanship is not good ; but there is " genius in abundance," which covers a multitude of faults.5 In a Lettre de Barnevelt (sic) dans la prison a Truman, son ami? Dorat, also, poured out his soul in whining verse. Lillo's drama furnished Mme. de Beaumont with a theme for a novel,7 Anseaume with the subject of a comedy, and Sebastien Mercier 1 Les cinq annees litteraires, 1 5th March 1752. 2 Le Marchand de Londres ou Vhistoire de George Barnivell, tragedie bourgeois e en cinq actes, traduite de T anglais de Lillo, by M . . ., 1748, izmo, 139 pp. In the edition of 1751, the hanging scene is also included. A further edition was issued in 1767. 3 Journal encyclopedique, I5th June 1768. 4 Journal etr -anger , February 1760. Journal encyclopedique, March 1764. 5 Colle, Journal, ed. H. Bonhomme, vol. i., p. 21. 6 Paris, 1764. Cf, Freron, Annee litteraire, 1764, vol. i., and Journal Encyclo- pedique, ist March 1764. 7 Lettres du marquis de\Roselle, PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 141 with the idea for a drama.1 For a moment the Comedie thought of producing this remarkable work, but finally recoiled before its English uncouthness.2 The play was said to have touched even Voltaire, but it appealed to Diderot most of all. He believed he had at last discovered the long-sought dramatic masterpiece. " Call the London Merchant what you will, so long as you admit that the play scintillates with flashes of beauty and splendour." 3 Throughout his life he meditated publishing an annotated edition of the work, together with one of the Gamester.4' Was it Diderot who introduced it to the notice of Rousseau, or Clement de Geneve, his fellow-countryman, or Prevost, his friend ? It does not signify. The important point is that he shared the admiration of all his circle. " An admirable piece of work," we read in a note to the Lettre sur les spectacles, " with a moral which goes more straight to the point than that of any French play I am acquainted with." 5 The man who thought it needful to teach the young " to distrust the illusions of love," and " to beware at times of surrendering a virtuous heart to an object unworthy of its solicitude," confessed that nowhere but in Lillo, except in the Misanthrope, had he found that which corresponded to this ideal. The testimony is brief but significant, and justifies the stress I have laid upon a drama which excited the fervent admiration of Rousseau and of his time. But neither Addison, nor Defoe, nor Lillo himself, well worth attention as he considered them to be, fully realised his own ideal of bourgeois literature ; and the author of the Nouvelle Helo'ise, who, after all, was rather a novelist than a dramatist, could only feel at home, if I may say so, in English fiction. 1 L'ecole de la jeunesse ou le Barne'velt fran$als, a comedy in verse in three acts by M. Anseaume, played at the Italiens, 24th January 1765. Jenneval ou le Barne'velt franfais, Paris, 1769, 8vo. A singular fact is that Mercier, though an uncom- promising reformer of the drama, did not dare to kill his Jenneval, but married him to the daughter of the man he had robbed. 2 " L'ostrogothie anglaise." 3 Article Encyclopedie. 4 To Mile. Voland, vol. ii., p. 87 and p. 140. 5 This note does not occur in the first edition, but was printed in the edition of 1781. Chapter III EUROPEAN POPULARITY OF ENGLISH FICTION 1. Greatness of the English novel in the eighteenth century — Its success upon the Continent — Fielding — Immense popularity of Richardson. II. Why the French public went into raptures over English fiction — Why, with Rousseau, it rated it more highly than the works of Lesage, Prevost and Marivaux — Wherein the French novelists, and Marivaux in particular, had anticipated Richardson and Rousseau. III. Prevost translates Richardson (1741, 1751, ! 755-56) — Importance of these translations — Their value. I OF all the creations of English literature during the eighteenth century, the most original was certainly the novel of middle-class manners, or, as Taine calls it, the roman antiromanesque. Very few revolutions in European literature can be compared to that effected at this period by Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, whose positive and observant minds led them boldly to substitute the accurate study of contemporary society for narratives of adven- ture of the French or Spanish type. And, assuredly, very few have had such far-reaching consequences. It is not too much to say, of this " austere middle-class thought," that as it developed it produced the effect of " the voice of a nation buried beneath the earth." l This voice was heard in every country. In Ger- many, in France, in the northern countries, and even in Italy, the English novel gave the impression of work which was entirely fresh, similar to nothing else, untrammelled in its glorious flight by any classic models, and absolutely free from any taint of tra- ditional influence. The Harlowes and the Joneses seemed to usurp in the wearied imagination of mankind the place held 1 Taine, Literature anglaise, vol. iv., p. 84. 142 ITS POPULARITY 143 for centuries by the heroes of Greece and Italy, or by the knights- errant of epic poetry. The novel — a form of literature almost unknown to the ancients — became with the English the epic of the modern world. "They are the first," says Mme. de Stael with justice, "who have ventured to believe that a representation of the private affections is enough to interest the human mind and heart ; that neither celebrated characters nor marvellous events are necessary in order to captivate the imagination, and that in the power of love there is that which can renew scenes and situations without limit, and without ever blunting the edge of curiosity. And it is in the hands of the English also that the novel has become a work with a moral purpose, wherein obscure virtues and humble destinies may discover motives to moral enthusiasm, and may invent a form of heroism of their own."1 Fiction, a type of literature previously regarded as inferior, was thereby revolu- tionized. Thereby also, the English became the models of every novelist now wielding a pen. " Where shall we find the pro- genitors of our own novels," said Goethe to Eckermann, " if not in Goldsmith and Fielding ? " In truth the English novelists rendered this frivolous branch of literature capable of conveying ideas and passions ; they shewed that, instead of being, in the words of Voltaire, " the work of feeble-minded creatures whose facile productions are unworthy the attention of serious people," it was something better ; and from the humble position in which it had languished they raised it to the highest level of all, from which it has never again descended. Thereby also, unintentionally no doubt, and perhaps uncon- sciously, they dealt an effective blow at the long domination of classical literature. Here was a fresh arrival, entirely apart from all recognized modes, from those classified by Boileau — from those which a writer of consequence could cultivate without prejudice to his reputation or loss of prestige — springing up in a single day, or at any rate quite suddenly elevated to such high honour, and at a single step assuming in men's minds the position hitherto claimed by dramatic literature alone, or by poetry of 1 De la litter -ature, i. 15. 144 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD the highest order. In works of this description the modern man recognized himself, not under ancient features, or beneath the form of a type which was conventional simply by reason of its generality, but with his faults, his vices, his absurdities, and his passing fancies — everything in short which dates a portrait. Bourgeois literature, that is to say nearly all the literature of modern times, has its root in the English novel. Of the two greatest novelists of the eighteenth century, excluding Defoe, one, Fielding, was a man of cultivated mind, was an ardent admirer of antiquity, and had been educated at Eton, where, however, the process of classical training had not destroyed his vigorous native originality. The other, the son of a carpenter named Richardson, was devoid of literary culture, or possessed at any rate no more than a smattering which he had acquired himself, — just enough to enable him to play the pedant if necessary. " A self-made man," and too thoroughly Christian to appreciate the beauty of pagan works, he was also too thorough an Englishman — and an Englishman of the people — to feel that desire for refinement which classical culture bestows. Both were, in their own line, great innovators, and, though rivals, laboured at the same task.1 Both proved the truth of Montesquieu's saying concerning the English : " They admire the ancients, but will not even imitate them." 2 Thanks to them, and to a few less brilliant lights, the English novel, freed at last from the ancient domination of heroic fiction,3 shed abroad an incomparable lustre. In the first place there was the group of works consisting of Pamela (1740), its parody Joseph Andrews (1742) — the first of Fielding's novels — and Jonathan Wild, his second ; the earliest specimens of an art as yet imperfect and uncertain. Then — after five years' silence — the series of master-pieces was in- 1 Fielding was eighteen years younger than Richardson, and always spoke of him with deference. He was loud in praise of his "profound knowledge of human nature" and his "command of pathos." Richardson did not do equal justice to Fielding (Barbauld, vol. v., p. 175). 2 Pensees divers es. 3 On the prolonged popularity of the French novel in England, see Beljame, p. 14 et seq, and J. Jusserand, The English Novel, ch. vii. ITS POPULARITY 145 augurated by the famous Clarissa (1748). One after the other came Smollett's Roderick Random (1748) and Peregrine Pickle (1751), reviving the picaresque tradition; Fielding's master- piece Tom Jones (1749), and shortly afterwards that delightful novel Amelia (1751); the series coming to an end in 1754 w^ Sir Charles Grandison, the last of the three novels of Richardson. The same year witnessed the death of Fielding, that of Richard- son occurring seven years later. Next we have a fresh generation of novelists taking up and carrying on the work of the masters : Sterne, who in 1759 ma(^e his first appearance with the first part of Tristram Shandy ; Gold- smith, who produced the Vicar of Wakefield in 1766; while Smollett, five years later, reappeared with Humphrey Clinker. Then it seemed as though the genius of English fiction was reduced to silence for half a century, a silence broken only by the sentimental works of Miss Burney and Henry Mackenzie, and lasting until 1811, when the first of Miss Austen's novels — followed shortly afterwards by Waver/ey — ushered in a new era. The success these various novelists met with beyond the limits of their own country was very diverse. Smollett was too essentially English to be generally under- stood. Goldsmith, more popular in Germany than in France, found the way to many hearts, but was not regarded as a very great writer. Fielding, the most original of all, attained cele- brity, but in France, at any rate, was not understood ; in Germany his name was associated with that of Richardson. He was imitated by Wieland, for whom he had a great fascina- tion ; Musaeus also copied him, and free-thinkers triumphantly contrasted him with Richardson the preacher.1 In France his name was in every mouth, but the full significance of his work was not perceived. Some took him for a coarse and trivial exponent of the " picaresque " school, others for a disciple of the author of Clarissa, to whom, however, he bears very little resemblance. 1 See Mr. Erich Schmidt's book : Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe, Jena, 1875, 8vo, p. 68 et seq. K 146 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD Who was to blame for this ? In the first place the translators, Desfontaines and La Place, who defaced and burlesqued him. Who could have recognised in the crude version of La Place the novel of which Stendhal said that it was to other novels what the Iliad is to other epics ? l It is impossible, without close examination, to credit the extent to which the translator of Tom Jones has misrepresented his author.2 In the next place, Fielding seemed too exclusively English ; it was remarked that Richardson's novels, which were less national, were on that account more interesting to readers of all nationalities.3 Lastly, and this is the main reason, Fielding, like Smollett, with whom, indeed, he was confused, appeared too " picaresque." France had had enough of her Lesage, the very writer whose " infinite humour and sagacity " attracted Smollett's praise. Why then should she have accepted his imitators, or those whom she regarded as such ? " The talent of these men consists in the fidelity with which they report the jests and gossip of the lower classes."4 What do we find in their books ? "Tavern-scenes, brawls on the high road, innumerable assaults with fist or stick" — fine subjects forsooth!5 In truth it was scarcely to be expected that readers of Cleveland and Marianne would appreciate the scene in which a certain rude fellow pulled away good Parson Adams' chair just as he was going to sit down, while another tipped a plateful of soup over his 1 Memoires d'un touriste, vol. i., p. 39. ^ See Les Avettturci de Joseph Andreivs et du ministre Abraham Adams, translated into French [by Desfontaines], London, 1743, 2 vols. izmo, frequently reprinted; Histoire de Jonathan Wild le Grand, translated from the English of Mr Fielding, London and Paris, 1763, z vols. izmo [this translation is by Charles Picquet] ; Amelie, histoire anglaise, a free translation from the English [by De Puisieux], Paris, 1762, 4 vols. izmo; the same work was also adapted by Mme. Riccoboni ; Histoire de Tom Jones on V Enfant trouve, translated from the English by M. D. L. P. [de la Place], London (Paris), 1750, 4 vols. izmo. The following works have also been attributed to Fielding: Memoires du chevalier de Kilpar (Paris, 1768, 2 vols. izmo), really by Montagnac ; Les malheurs du sentiment (1789, izmo) ; Julien VApostat (1765, izmo), &c. These frauds prove at any rate the popularity of Fielding's name. 3 Journal etr anger, February 1760. 4 Correspondance litteraire, September 1761. 5 Lettres sur quelques ecrits de ce temps, vol. X., p. zz6. ITS POPULARITY 147 breeches, and as if this were not enough, a third tied a cracker to his cassock, and a fourth adroitly placed behind him a tub of water, in which he could not help taking a bath. A scene like this simply carries us back to Furetiere or Scarron. This, however, was the least important side of Fielding's robust genius. The other side, the valiant and healthy realism of a great and candid mind, was not appreciated. Tom Jones was turned into comic-operas and comedies : Poinsinet made a laughable vaudeville out of it, and Desforges more than one pathetic play.1 But Freron could not forgive its " low comedy,"2 and Voltaire declares that he could see nothing even passable in it, except the story of a barber.3 In vain Mme. du DefFand praised " the true lessons in morality " and the " infinite truth " 4 it conveyed 5 in vain La Harpe wrote bravely : " For me the first novel in the whole world is Tom Jones." The general public did not perceive its importance. It praised its "truth and joviality,"5 and pronounced it some- times "agreeable" and sometimes "sublime," but did not under- stand it. Its simple, unsentimental moralizing no longer satisfied an audience familiar with Clarissa, and Fielding possessed the defect of lacking sensibility. Was it not he who apostro- phised Love in this irreverent fashion : " O love ! what mon- strous tricks dost thou play with thy votaries of both sexes ! . . . Thou puttest out our eyes, stoppest up our ears, and takest away the power of our nostrils. . . . When thou pleasest, thou canst make a mole-hill appear as a mountain, 1 Poinsinet's Tom Jones was played at the Comedie Italienne on the zyth February 1765, with music by Philidor (cf. Journal encyclopedique, I5th April 1765). Desforges produced his Tom Jones a Londres, five acts in verse, at the Italiens, on the 22nd October 1782, and his Fellamar et Tom Jones, at the same theatre, on the I7th April 1787. (Cf. Correspondance litteraire, November 1782 and May 1787.) 2 Lettres sur quelqites ecrits, 1751, vol. V., p. 3. 3 To Mme. du DefFand, i3th October 1759. 4 1/j.th July and 8th August 1773, to Walpole. 5 An article by Voltaire in the Gazette litteraire, May 1764. Cf. Clement, Les cinq annees litteraires, vol. ii., p. 56 et seq • Horace Walpole, Letters to Mme. du Deffand ; Geoffroy, Cours de litterature dramatique, vol. Hi., p. 262. 148 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD a Jew's harp sound like a trumpet, and a daisy smell like a violet. ... In short, thou turnest the heart of man inside out, as a juggler doth a petticoat."1 The heart of the reader of Jean-Jacques declined to be taken for a juggler's " petticoat." The fame of Richardson, on the other hand, was spreading throughout the length and breadth of Europe, and carrying the reputation of English fiction into every country. In Holland he was translated by Pastor Stinstra. In Italy Pamela was drama- tised by Goldoni.2 But it was in Germany, above all, that his works obtained unprecedented favour : as a German critic has remarked, Richardson belongs just as much to German as to English literature, and so profound has been his influence that his genius has become incorporated with the very fabric of Germanic fiction.3 The Discourse der M abler n were fascinated by Pamela, from the very first appearance of that pious tale ; Pamela and Grandison were translated by Gellert, who also copied their author in his Leben der schivedischen Grafin ; 4 Klopstock went into raptures over Clarissa, and applied for permission to leave Copenhagen in the hope of being appointed Danish charge d'affaires in London, his sole object being that of living with or near Richardson ; and failing to achieve his object, he sought consolation in corresponding with him and in writing an ode on the death of Clarissa. Some idea of the pitch which enthusiasm had reached in Klopstock's circle may be obtained from the following note written by his wife to the author of Grandison : " Having finished your Clarissa (Oh ! the heavenly 1 Joseph Andrews •, bk. i., ch. vii. 2 See the Journal etranger, February 1755. The play was translated: Pamela, a prose comedy by Charles Goldoni, advocate, of Venice ; performed at Mantua in 1750 ; translated into French by D. B. D. V. [de Bonnel de Valguier], Paris, 1759, 8vo. 3 See Erich Schmidt : Richards -on , Rousseau and Goethe, which gives a number of details in reference to this subject ; and an article in the Zeit- schrift fur vergleichende Literaturgeschichte, new series, Berlin, 1887-88, vol. i., p. 217 et seq. 4 Das Leben der schivedischen Grafin von G . . ., 1746, translated by Formey under the title La comtesse suedoise ou Memoires de Mme. de G . . ., Berlin, 1754, two parts, 8vo. ITS POPULARITY 149 book !), I would have pray'd you to write the history of a manly Clarissa, but I had not courage enough at that time. . . . You have since written the manly Clarissa, without my prayer ; oh, you have done it, to the great joy and thanks of all your happy readers ! Now you can write no more, you must write the history of an Angel." *• Wieland read and re-read Clarissa, contemplated writing some letters from Grandison to his pupil, and composed a drama called Clementina von Porretta. Lessing proclaimed Richardson the creator of middle-class literature, and drew from him the inspiration for his own plays. Imitations and panegyrics were alike innumerable. Futile were the pro- tests of a more dispassionate critic against what he called the furor anglicanus : he himself, when it came to the point, ranked Lovelace among the heroes, together with Alexander, Charles XII., Richelieu and Masaniello.2 In vain did Musaeus write his Grandison II., a gentle satire on Richardson, wherein he ridi- culed the deluge of angelic creatures which had burst over his country like a water-spout. In vain did Wieland, after reading Fielding, renounce his blind admiration for Fielding's rival. In vain did the free-thinking party point in triumph to the robust author of Joseph Andrews as the superior of the pious and finikin eulogist of Pamela. The charm of Richardson's heroines proved the stronger. Numbers of travellers in England went to visit Hampstead and the Flask Walk, just as others at a later period made the pilgrimage to Clarens. One of them, in a transport of enthusiasm, kissed the great man's bench and inkstand.3 In the opinion of one of his worshippers, Richardson takes rank with the first of Greek poets. " This is that creative soul, who, through his deeply instructive works, renders us sensitive to the charm of virtue, and whose Grandison wrings from the heart of the vilest his first yearnings after righteousness. The works he has created shall not suffer from the ravages of time. They are very nature, true taste, and religion itself. More 1 See Mrs Barbauld, vol. Hi., pp. 139-159. 2 Knigge, Die Ver-wirrungen des Philosophen. 3 Mrs Barbauld, vol. i., p. clxv. 150 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD immortal than the immortality of Homer is the fame among Christians of the Englishman Richardson." 1 II Such, too, was the opinion, or rather the feeling of the French public, when once it had become acquainted with Clarissa Harlonue. The main thing to be observed here is that in comparison with English novels Gil Bias, La Vie de Marianne, and Cleveland appeared to the French equally insipid. Since then, Lesage, Marivaux and Prevost have been restored to their rightful place. In one has been seen the master of Fielding and Smollett, in another the predecessor of Richardson, while all have been recognized as emulators and rivals of the English novelists. But their contemporaries were far from placing them in the same rank — and nothing affords a more striking proof of the progress of English influence. For anglomania had very soon ceased to be regarded as a passing fashion of no special significance : Richardson's success was European, and it is unreasonable to suppose that minds like those of Diderot, Rousseau, Goethe, Andre Chenier, and Mme. de Stael were merely the dupes of a feverish and absurd infatuation. And if these writers were unanimous in placing Clarissa and Grandison far above Gil Bias and the Paysan Parvenu, is not that a sign of a profound alteration in the public disposition ? Does it not also show that they found in the English novelist something which neither Lesage 1 Gellert, Ueber Richardson's Bildniss : — Dies ist der schopferische Geist, Der uns durch lehrende Gedichte Den Reiz der Tugend frihlen heisst, Der durch den Grandison selbst einem Bosewichte Den ersten Wunsch, auch fromm zu sein, entreisst. Die Werke, die er schuf, wird keine Zeit verwiisten, Sie sind Natur, Geschmack, Religion. Unsterblich ist Homer, unsterblicher bei Christen Der Britte Richardson. ITS DEBT TO FRENCH FICTION 151 nor Prevost nor Crebillon fits had as yet given them ? To ask the reason for this contempt is to ask why Richardson, and Rousseau after him, met with such success in France. As concerns Lesage, readers were no longer satisfied either with the form of his novels, with the kind of characters he affected, or with the moral of his work. Not only did he follow Spanish models, — from which opinion now turned with aversion, — but he still held to the artificial form of the novel " in episodes," which renders the story a mere series of disconnected adventures, quite incompatible with the coherent analysis of a single character — except perhaps in the case of the character of Gil Bias. Undoubtedly Lesage comes very near to being a great writer, as much in virtue of the perspicuity of his observation as of the charm of a supple and witty style. But at bottom he belongs distinctly to the " picaresque " school ; in other words, he is a writer of comedy. The contemporaries of Richardson and Rousseau refused to regard Gil Bias as anything else than a humorous novel. They thought with Joubert that the book must be the work of a man who plays dominoes and does his writing after leaving the theatre. Their eyes were closed to that description of middle-class life, and that painstaking study of a certain social atmosphere which we do not hesitate to admire. It was a witty work, they thought, but lacking any deep meaning. They would have been amazed at any attempt to extract a moral or a "conception of life" from such a tissue of roguery and double-dealing. The central character, who is by turns brigand, lackey, physician, and agent or secretary to a minister, is certainly an amusing creation, but is rather too much of an epitome to be quite true. Not only is there a superabundance of crude romance, robbers' caves, captive beauties, disguises, and unexpected encounters, but this world of thieves and sharpers is a very monotonous one. The souls here revealed — if the characters have any — are essentially those of profligates, brawlers, and petty rhymesters. The picture is a vulgar one, because it was drawn from vulgar models. 152 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD Above all there is nothing bourgeois about it ; the world of Gil Bias is the demi-monde ; its heroes all have more or less of a gallows-bird air ; beneath their embroidered clothes and under the lace of their brilliant doublets a fragment of halter hangs round their necks. A world of adventurers and blacklegs, starveling barbers and medical assassins, unscrupulous priests and shameless parsons — could this be the commonplace world of middle-class life, the world of mild virtues and moderate vices, of which after all the age was awaiting the representation ? I am afraid that the society frequented by Gil Bias is as remote from it as is the world of fashion inhabited by Marianne and Artamene. Between the heroic and the picaresque types of fiction, the average humanity to which I belong, and of which I seek the representation, still remained undiscovered, a humanity doubtless very different from the society described by Lesage, which is decidedly lower and more shameless than the generality of mankind. The best proof is that among those with whom Gil Bias associated love was unknown. The author even seems to take a mischievous delight in belittling love. One of his characters l calls it " a malady to which we are subject just as animals are to madness." Even when it is not positively grotesque, love, as here represented, has something laughable and ridiculous about it. It is derangement, or sickness, but not passion in the higher sense of the word. Lesage's women, when they are enamoured, are either adventuresses who love from interest, or women of the town who love with the senses only — unless they happen to be princesses who love to distraction, and because that is the part they are cast for. Too often they are bourgeoises with a passion for barbers' assistants, such as Mergeline had for Diego. Love of this type never soars to any empyrean. As the lover who has been breathing a serenade beneath some grated window leaves his post, he finds himself capped at the next corner "with a perfuming pan which by no means gratifies his sense of smell." The madrigal ends in a burlesque adventure and the dawning romance in coarse satire. 1 Book ii., ch. vii. ITS DEBT TO FRENCH FICTION 153 Hence it follows that since Lesage only studied the lowest and most superficial of the feelings which go to make up human nature, and deliberately turned aside from those which are at once the noblest and most profound, the moral he conveys is merely trite and commonplace. In vain shall we seek beneath the stone the soul of Pedro Garcias, the licentiate : all we shall find is a bag of money. Such a moral is purely negative ; what it teaches is the art of buttoning up one's pockets and stowing away one's pocket-book. We close the last of these four volumes fully convinced that the world contains many different varieties of cut- purse. But seek the least information in reply to the hundred and one problems of every-day life and of man's inward experi- ence which hourly suggest themselves — and you will find nothing but an arid waste of satire. It is impossible to be more completely detached from love, from family life, from the thought of death, than Lesage. In truth, fiction in this form is as yet nothing more than a means of gratifying the imagination, which likes to keep to the highway and deal with what it can find ; it is not in any degree a revelation of the soul ; its ambition is mean and un- aspiring. And this was what was felt by the contemporaries of Lesage. Desfontaines praised him for the "ingenuity" of his novels ; Voltaire, in the Siecle de Louis XV., coldly congratulated him on his "naturalness"; Marmontel, who classed him as a satirist, reproached him for his limited knowledge of the world. The majority, with much justice, praised the ease and purity of his style.1 As Sainte-Beuve remarked, Lesage was but sparingly praised by the critics, even after he had been writing for a quarter of a century. How are we to account for this ? By the fact that he no longer satisfied the needs of the age. His work did not appear sufficiently serious. To the reader of English novels it seemed to be simply the dramatic work of Regnard divided up into chapters. To Prevost, opinion has been more indulgent. Of all the novelists of the eighteenth century his name has been most fre- 1 See Sainte-Beuve's curious article, Jugements et temoignages sur Le Sage (Causeries> volume containing list of contents). Observe that Lesage had no literary influ- ence whatever. He had not a single disciple (Lintilhac, Lesage^ p. 189). 154 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD quently associated with those of English writers — not only be- cause he translated them, but because he was regarded as the only one worthy to be compared with them. To begin with, in contrast to Lesage, he is always serious, and even gloomy. His biographer praises him for having brought the terrors of tragedy within the scope of fiction.1 The encomium was but too well merited. In the next place, he lacks artistic skill — no bad re- commendation from the reader's point of view, in 175° or there- abouts. Lastly, he is as full of passion and feeling as could be desired. Many a reader must have been able to say with Jean- Jacques : " The reading of Cleveland's imaginary misfortunes had, I think, made me create more bad blood than have my own troubles." 2 Prevost's art, on the other hand, except in Manon Lescaut, is inferior. He is unable either "to keep to his design, or to re- gulate his progress." 3 He accumulates episodes and incidents, in volume after volume, without ever creating a firm connection between the heterogeneous parts of his narrative by means of the unity of his characters. In short, he wrote too quickly ; to quote the words of a contemporary, he was " content with a rapid suc- cess, and never, either in good or evil fortune, had any other object than to be read with avidity, and by the multitude." 4 What was worse, he was so simple as to acknowledge the fact. How can a man be taken seriously when he writes thus concern- ing his own works: "The Memoir es d'un homme de qualite and their sequel, Cleveland and the Doyen de Killerine are entirely useless for historical purposes ; their sole merit lies in the fact that they afford a suitable and amusing piece of reading." 5 This unpretentiousness disarms criticism, it is true, but admiration, forestalled by so in- genuous a confession, is weakened by it. For all his ability, Prevost has no ambition beyond that of being "interesting" and "pathetic": "he appears to have forgotten that the object of the novel is the reformation of conduct," 6 — and at certain periods 1 Essai sur la vie de Prevost, introductory to the (Euvres choisies. This point has been developed by M. Brunetiere in his study on Prevost. 2 Confessions, i. 5. 3 La Harpe, Cours de litterature, vol. iii., p. 186. 4 Marmontel, Essai sur les romans. 5 Pour et Centre, vol. vi., p. 353- 6 Marmontel, ibid. ITS DEBT TO FRENCH FICTION 155 it is an inexcusable fault to be simply a novelist and nothing more. The success of Richardson, as also of Rousseau, was due to the fact that both were moralists, educators, spiritual directors in the first place, — and novelists only in the second. Prevost, excellent man, reforms nothing, not even the novel. Until he read Richardson, he still held the same conception of fiction as the author of Cassandre and Cleopatre — capital books, he called them, and very much maligned. Let us be faithful, thought Prevost, to our father's love for gallantry and romance : " If we try to draw men as they are, we make their faults appear too attractive, . . . whereas in romantic fiction nothing is called virtue unless it deserves to be."1 But when he came to read Pamela and Clarissa he changed his mind, and, with equal frankness, placed English novels above the romances whose ascendancy they had destroyed. When trans- lating Clarissa Harlowe he wrote: "I begin by a confession which ought to do some credit to my honesty because it might do little honour to my discernment. Of all the imaginative works I have read, and my self-conceit does not lead me to except my own, none have given me greater pleasure than the one now submitted to the public." 2 Sheltering himself therefore in this manner behind the English, from that day forward he strove to walk in their footsteps.3 In truth it would have been discourteous to protest, and the public was careful not to do so. Of all the French novelists of the eighteenth century, Mari- vaux is the one who bears most resemblance to the English ; he has the best claim to be regarded as their predecessor, if not their master. He was the introducer of a simpler form in fiction, one less loaded with worn-out ornaments. He discarded the low adven- tures in which Lesage delighted, and the easy style of romance which Prevost handled with such success. He deliberately set himself to depict the soul of average humanity in his own day, 1 Memoir es d'un homme de qualite, vol. i., p. 406. 2 Preface to the French version of Clarissa. 3 Compare with Clarissa the Memoires pour servir a I'histoire de la vertu, in Prevost's translation. 156 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD " the heart, not of the puppet of an author's fancy, but of a man and a Frenchman, one who has actually existed in our own times." 1 He aimed at being the Chardin of lower middle-class life. Now that he has received so much and such warm com- mendation, it is needless to show that, before ever Fielding or Richardson did so, Marivaux contrived to enrich the art of fiction with those imperceptible touches which resemble the strokes of a miniature painter ; that like them he is tedious and prolix ; that, like them, he reduces action to a minimum and puts "the metaphysics of the heart" in the foreground;2 that he preaches and moralizes as they do, and that he is sensitive and even sensual as they are. Like them, above all, he has the true realist's consciousness of the complexity of his models, and his anxiety to reveal them in all the richness and variability of their nature. " No one," as he says, " can present people altogether as they are,"3 and "the human soul has many more modes of behaviour than we have words wherewith to describe them."4 This almost morbid desire to be true and to be modern renders Marivaux unique in his generation. In spite of these conspicuous merits, Marivaux's greatness as a novelist has only become apparent in our own day. What stood in his way at first was his idleness. Who could feel any interest in novels which were never completed by their author, which were in a manner interwoven one with another, and of which the chapters led to no issue and took, as in the case of La Vie de Marianne, ten whole years to appear ? 6 Pamela was already 1 Vie de Marianne, 8th part. 2 The similarity was detected by his contemporaries: "If any of our writers could be suspected of understanding them, we should be tempted to believe that it is from them [the English] that they have learnt to use the most extraordinary words as ordinary expressions, to be extremely subtle in dealing with the feelings of the heart, to attribute imperceptible differences to all its impulses, and to com- pose from all this a jargon almost as metaphysical and quite as incomprehensible as that of the schools." (Du Resnel, Les principes de la morale et du gout, 1737, p. xxiii.) 3 Marianne, 4th part. 4 Paysan parvenu, 5th part. Cf, in the 3rd part of the same novel : " Can any- one describe all his feelings ? Those who think they can are devoid of feeling, and apparently only see half of what there is to be seen." ITS DEBT TO FRENCH FICTION 157 translated before Marianne was completed. May it not have been the dazzling success of the English novel that discouraged Marivaux from finishing his own ? Again, Marivaux, charming writer as he is, makes what is a serious error for a painter of every-day life; he writes too well, and never loses his self-consciousness. His subtle mind is for ever mocking at itself, and that such a master of delightful chatter should have aimed at being the artist of the masses is simply paradoxical. He lacks both the robust coarseness of Fielding and the fearless prolixity of Richardson. How could he paint a picture of contemporary manners with the bold strokes of a vigorous brush, when he could also indulge in affectation of this sort : " I must have a little leisure in order to come to an understanding with my heart ; I find it disputatious, and to-day I shall try to break it in to hard work."1 No wonder Desfontaines wrote : " What a tissue of insipidity and emptiness is La Vie de Marianne \ " 2 — La Harpe : " Everything is portrayed with a sincerity of language which is intended to appear simple, but only betrays artifice";3 — Marmontel : "He scarcely ever allows himself a chance to use a vigorous, masculine touch ; he is the Girardon of fiction " ; 4 — and BufFon, in regard to Marianne-. "The small-minded, and those who are fond of affectation, will admire both thought and style."6 That is exactly the verdict of the age, and it is well to recall it. Because his work was too highly finished, too polished in form, because he had too much wit for a period that would have nothing but genius, Marivaux did not acquire a reputation at all equal to his merits. Richardson was admired by his contemporaries because he wrote badly. Where Marivaux failed was in not writing worse. Lastly, for the very reasons that he wrote too well and that his perceptions were too subtle, his pictures, which were merely true, appeared trivial. The contrast between the choice of 1 Paysan parvenu ^ part i. 2 Translation of Joseph Andrews, vol. ii., p. 326. 3 Cours de litterature, vol. iii., p. 186. 4 Essai sur les romans. 5 Letter to President Bouhier, 8th February 1739. 158 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD models and the method of treatment caused offence. What he gives us is a very nice imitation of a vulgar reality. To quote a highly appropriate metaphor of Sainte-Beuve's, he paints masquers and grotesque figures on porcelain ; hence a certain annoying effect not unlike that of glazing, which " makes everything glitter as we read." l This also explains why con- temporary writers bitterly reproached him for the very quality which they praised in English novelists — the audacity of some of his descriptions.2 It seems strange to find the future translator of Pamela blaming Marivaux for the scene with the coachman which we admire so much to-day, or condemning the descrip- tion of Mme. Dufour's shop as "unworthy of a well-bred man, and most disgusting in a printed book." 3 A few years, and " dis- gusting " features were to be the making of Richardson's repu- tation. English writers would have had to supply very much bolder and more uncompromising models before Frenchmen could endure the realism of Marivaux without being shocked.4 For all these reasons, Marivaux was not, in his own day, estimated at his true worth as a novelist. His place, Sainte- Beuve has justly said, was at that time merely beside and a little above Crebillon fls. England and Germany treated him with greater justice. "Of all French authors," wrote Diderot, " M. de Marivaux is the one whom the English like the best," 5 and Gray declared that he desired no other paradise than to read the novels of Marivaux and Crebillon j£/j- for ever and ever.6 Foreigners appreciated his concern for the moral, his application of a subtle analysis to cases of conscience, his respect for honesty and his affectation of sensibility. In translation, Marivaux loses some of his preciosity, 1 Cauteries, vol. ix., p. 358. 2 G. Larroumet, Marivaux, p. 334. 3 Pour et Contre, vol. ii., p. 346. 4 It is amusing to find that the first English novels were considered vulgar in comparison with Spanish fiction of the picaresque school: "The characters of people of humble station in England," said Desfontaines, " are not interesting, but the strapping girls, the muleteers, the shepherds and the goatherds of Spain are delightful." (Observations sur les ecrits moJernes, vol. xxxiii., p. 313.) 5 Lettre sur les aveugles, ed. Tourneux, vol. i., p. 301. 6 Gray's Works, ed. Gosse, vol. ii., p. 107. ITS DEBT TO FRENCH FICTION 159 his form is less prejudicial to the real soundness of his matter ; so that there has been found an English reader who could pronounce Marianne, in an English version, the finest novel in the world.1 Must we go a step further ? Are we to reckon Richardson as one of those who read him and derived inspiration from him, and did Marianne suggest Pamela ? Such was the general opinion in the eighteenth century. Diderot maintains it,2 and Mme. Du Boccage wrote from England in I75O: "When dining with people of literary taste, we did not fail to praise the clever authors of Tom Jones and Clarissa. I was asked for news of the creator of Marianne and the Pays an parvenu, 'which has possibly been the model for these neiv stories." 3 On the appearance of Clarissa, English journals compared the author to Marivaux.4 In spite of this tradition — generally adopted by critics 5 — it seems to me doubtful whether Richardson imitated the author of Marianne. It is not certain that Marivaux's novel had been translated into English when he wrote Pamela, and it is well known that Richardson was absolutely ignorant of French. So far, therefore, as this argument is concerned, the supposed influence of Marianne upon Pamela is, to say the least, doubtful.6 May not Richardson, nevertheless, have had Marianne in mind when he wrote Clarissa ? But in his Postscriptum he quotes and appears to endorse the verdict of a French critic, who declares that " Marivaux's novels are absolutely improbable." This 1 Macaulay's opinion. 2 " Pamela, Clarissa and Grandison were inspired by the novels of M. de Mari- vaux." (Rough draft of a preface, ed. Tourneux, vol. v., p. 434.) 3 Larroumet, p. 348. 4 Gentleman's Magazine (June. 1749^ vol. xix., p. 245). Observe, however, that the article is a translation from the French. 5 M. Larroumet writes : " It is evident that Richardson took both the idea and the principal character of Pamela from Marianne" 6 From M. Jusserand I hear of The Life of Marianne, or the adventures of the Countess of . . . , by M. de Marivaux, translated from the French, the second edition revised and corrected, London, Charles Davis^ 1743, izmo, vol. ii. The edition to which this volume belongs is therefore a reprint. What is the date of the first edition? If Richardson made use of the work, it must have been 1738 or 1739. There is also another and much later English version: The Virtuous Orphan, or the Life of Marianne, Countess of . . ., London, 1784, 4 vols. 8vo. No mention is made of the above-mentioned edition. 160 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD consideration is of great importance. Throughout his copious correspondence the English novelist makes no mention of his supposed model. Moreover, Clarissa has practically nothing in common with Marianne, nor has Pamela, whatever may be said to the contrary. Reperuse the two books as we will, we detect nothing but disparity ; Marianne, the accomplished and sprightly coquette, is totally different from the humble and simple Pamela ; the story of one bears scarcely the least resemblance to that of the other ; and lastly, Richardson, as we need hardly repeat, is just as careless with regard to art as Marivaux is over- careful. It appears, therefore, that the debt of one towards the other, if it exists at all, is insignificant.1 In the history of European literature Marivaux anticipated Richardson, but it does not appear that we can regard him as his master.2 However this may be, native fiction in France was quite eclipsed by the splendour of the art supposed to be imitated from it : " If it is true," said Grimm, " that Marivaux's novels have served Richardson and Fielding as models, it may be said that for the first time a poor original has given rise to admirable copies." The fame of the " master " never equalled that of the disciple, and, if Richardson was to find rivals and competitors in France, the author of Marianne was not among them. Ill While the fame of Lesage and Marivaux was increasing in England, English fiction was, as La Harpe says, " being trans- planted to French soil, and naturalised " ; and if his biographer is to be believed, Richardson's novels did more in France for the reputation of their translator than they had done in England for 1 We possess a very detailed knowledge of the circumstances which inspired Richardson to write Pamela. He owes the story to one of his friends, as he himself tells us. (Cf. Mrs Barbauld, Life and Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, vol. i. p. 52.) The origin of the novel contains no trace of literary imitation. 2 M. J. Jusserand (Les grandes ecoles du roman anglais, p. 49) is of the same opinion. I have consulted him on the present occasion, and he maintains his conclusions : Marivaux, current opinion notwithstanding, is not the teacher of Richardson. PREVOSTS TRANSLATIONS 161 that of their author." 1 This, though a palpable exaggeration, is not so monstrous as one might suppose. The eighteenth century was just as grateful to Prevost for his adaptations of Clarissa and Grandison as for his own novels, Cleveland and Manon, and he him- self frequently spoke with pride of what he regarded as an im- portant part of his work. Seldom indeed has a more eminent translator devoted himself to spreading the fame of a more illustrious model. Even during the last century it was remarked2 that "for the greatest master of pathos among English novelists it was a piece of rare good fortune to find such a translator as the author of Cleveland." No one, in fact, was better qualified for such an undertaking as this than the man who alike in his novels and in his journal had acted as the earnest and persistent eulogist of the English genius. The translation of Pamela appeared in 1741 and 1742. En- grossed just then with other occupations, Prevost seems to have employed the services of a collaborator.3 It is, further, cer- tain that on this occasion he entered into communication with Richardson, who sent him a number of additions and corrections, and furnished him with previously unpublished portraits of some of the characters for insertion in the French edition.4 Clarissa Harlowe, published in 1748, was translated in 1751, just at the time when Prevost became friendly with Rousseau.5 Prevost's version was incomplete, and thereby gave offence to Richardson. Ten years later Diderot also complained of it in his celebrated JElogef and at the same time the Journal etranger 1 (Eu-vres choisies, vol. i., p. 24. 2 Marmontel, Essai sur les romans. 3 Aubert de la Chesnaye-Desbois, a most prolific writer on a great variety of subjects, and author more especially of Lettres amusantes et critiques sur les romans (1743), where English fiction is dealt with at considerable length. (See Biographic generals, and Haureau, Histoire litter air e du Maine, 1870, vol. i., p. 114.) 4 See Prevost's preface. Pamela, ou la vertu recomfensee, translated from the English, London, 1742, 4 parts, I2mo; frequently reprinted. 5 Lettres anglaises ou Histoire de Clarisse Harloive, translated from the English, Paris, 1751, 4 vols. izmo. (The Nouvelles litteraires announce the appearance of the first part in January 1751.) 6 Mrs. Barbauld, vol. vi., p. 244: "This gentleman has thought fit to omit some of the most afflicting parts. . . . He treats the story as a true one, and says, in one place, that the English editor has often sacrificed his story to moral instruc- tions, warnings, &c. — the very motive with me of the story being written at all." L 1 62 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD published a translation, by Suard, of the account of Clarissa's funeral, the principal portion omitted, for the benefit of readers whose hearts were not " too weak to endure a succession of deep and powerful emotions."1 This translation, with a few other fragments, found a place in subsequent editions. At a later period the worshippers of the English novelist were no longer satisfied with Prevost's " elegant " but by no means faithful translation ; and a more complete version of the master- piece was issued by Letourneur.2 Finally, in 1754, aPPeared Prevost's version of Grandison? which was followed by a more complete and more painstaking translation, published in Germany.4 The author was a Protestant minister, Gaspard Joel Monod, and, according to Prevost, his translation is "one of the most extraordinary monuments ever * issued from the press." While Monod's is a clumsy and literal version, Prevost's is by no means open to the same reproach. The very method of translation adopted by Prevost is in itself a mine of evidence concerning French taste in the eighteenth century. " The taste of Prevost," says his biographer, " was so 1 Journal etranger (March 1762). See Supplement aux lettres de Miss Clarisse Harlotve, translated from the English, with a panegyric on the author. 2 Clarisse Harlovue, new and only complete translation, by M. Letourneur. . . . Dedicated to Monsieur, the king's brother, Geneva and Paris, 1785-87, 10 vols. 8vo, or 14 vols. i8mo, illustrated by Chodowiecki. Clarissa was once more trans- lated, by Barre (1845-46, 2 vols. 8vo), and abridged by J. Janin (1846, 2 vols. I2mo). — The chevalier de Champigny published two vols. of Lettres anglaises at St Petersburg and Frankfort, in 1774, as a sequel to Clarissa. 8 Nouvelles lettres anglaises ou histoire du chevalier Grandisson, by the author of Pamela and Clarissa, Amsterdam, 8 parts in 4 vols. i2mo. The original edition of this translation bears the date of 1755 on vols. i., ii., and the first part of vol. iii. : the second half of vol. iii., and vol. iv., are dated 1756. This second part of the novel does not appear to have been on sale before 1758, for at that date Grimm and Freron speak of it as a new work. See H. Harrisse, L1 abbe Prevost, p. 379. As Prevost translated Grandison in 1753, M. Harrisse concludes that he translated either from one of the spurious versions which were in circulation so early as 1753, or from a manuscript copy supplied by Richardson himself. 4 Histoire de sir Charles Grandisson, a complete version of the original English edition, Gottingen and Leyden, 1756, 7 vols. i2mo. (With regard to this transla- tion, see Correspondance litleraire, August 1748; and upon the author, Senebier, Histoire litteraire de Geneve, vol. iii., p. 251). PROVOST'S TRANSLATIONS 163 unerring as to make it impossible for him to confine him- self to merely translating his original." He himself loudly maintained " the supreme right of every author who employs his mother-tongue for the purpose of giving pleasure,"1 — and in virtue of this right made many alterations and suppres- sions. The reasons he assigns are most curious. "I have no fear," he says, " that I shall be accused of treating my author with severity. Now that English literature has been known in France for twenty years," Prevost writes in 1751, " readers are aware that it often requires these little emenda- tions before it can become naturalized." Still, he does consider himself bound to retain the "national colouring" of manners and customs, for the rights of a translator do not include that of " transforming the substance of a book," and besides, " a foreign air is no bad recommendation in France." But there was nothing absolute, it seems, even in this principle, since elsewhere he prides himself on having reduced to the common practice of Europe everything in English customs which might give offence to French taste.2 Since Prevost's translations form an integral part of the history of the French novel, and since it was through them that Rousseau became acquainted with Richardson, it is im- portant also to observe that mistaken renderings are by no means infrequent ; that there are traces of haste and carelessness ; that a great number of letters are curtailed or blended together, and that some are simply analysed, while others are entirely suppressed. In certain cases these suppressions are due to the translator's delicacy : they are sacrifices " to the taste of the French nation." In others they arise from scruples of one kind or another : the letters of Leman the servant, with their colloquial expressions, disappear as being " too low " ; the same fate 1 Preface to Clarisse. 2 Preface to Grandhon : " I have suppressed or reduced to the common practice of Europe whatever in English customs might give offence to other nations. It has seemed to me that these remnants of the rude manners of ancient Britain, to which nothing but familiarity can still keep the English blind, would bring dis- credit upon a book in which good-breeding ought to go hand in hand with nobility and virtue." 164 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD befalls several "indecent" passages; and the story of the sham licence granted to Lovelace by the Bishop of London is omitted as irreverent. On other occasions it is the realism of certain details which disturbs Prevost : the incarceration of Clarissa is a " very long and very English " episode ; the anguish of her death would not be tolerated in its entirety, and her posthumous letters do not appear in the translation. Some of Lovelace's forgeries seem really too " revolting " to be transcribed ; and if after all the translator decides to include them, it is "in order to prove that the work is founded on reality." The same squeamishness caused the omission of the death-scene of the libertine Belton, in Clarissa, and also of the descriptions of Sinclair's death and of Clarissa's funeral. In Grandison, Prevost went so far as to alter the denouement.1 Thus the contemporaries of Diderot and Rousseau did not read Richardson " in the crude state," but Richardson refined by Prevost, relieved of a certain amount of dross and reduced by almost a third. But the English novelist suffered less from these changes than might be supposed. In reality he is destitute of style ; and even writes incorrectly. His whole merit lies in his wealth of moral observation and his mastery of pathos. And in the " charming infidelities " of Prevost there remained enough of observation to prevent the French taste from finding any very great cause of offence in this overwhelming mass of analysis. In the more passionate scenes what is essential has been left intact : the author of Cleveland was not likely to clip the wings of the author of Clarissa in such passages as these. "Where Prevost has been false to his author is in giving us less moralizing, less of trivial detail, and a more ornate and elegant form. And in compensation for this infidelity he has left the pathos of the work and the distinctness of the characters unimpaired. In spite of Prevost's pruning, Richardson's work seemed very fresh to French readers. 1 Cf. the edition of 1784, vol. iv., p. 401. Chapter IV THE WORK OF SAMUEL RICHARDSON I. Defects of Richardson's novels — Reasons for their success — Wherein they are opposed to classical art. II. Wherein the realism of the author of Clarissa Harlotve consists — His lack of distinction — His brutality — His power. III. Richardson a delineator of character — He is an inferior painter of the manners of good society, and an excellent painter of middle-class manners : Lovelace, Pamela, Clarissa. IV. His moral ideas ; his preaching — Taste for casuistry and the discussion of moral problems. V. His sensibility — The place of love in his works — Emotional gifts. VI. Magnitude of the revolution effected by Richardson in the art of fiction. TO-DAY the works of Richardson are entirely forgotten. Of these once famous novels the public no longer knows anything beyond the titles. Even the critics scarcely pay any attention to the man who was considered the greatest of all English writers in point of pathos,1 and if Tom Jones, the Vicar ofWakefield and Robinson Crusoe are still read, Clarissa Har/oive is read no more than Clelie or Le Grand Cyrus. This neglect may be explained, but it cannot be justified. Richardson's work must always be of the highest importance in the history of fiction, by reason of the magnitude of the revolution he effected. His very faults even, obvious as they are, stamp him with originality. We can imagine the shock it would give, not Voltaire or 1 No satisfactory monograph on Richardson exists. The principal source of information concerning him is Mrs Barbauld's collection : Life and Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, 1806, 6 vols. 8vo. The best study of his work as a whole is that by Mr Leslie Stephen, in his Hours in a Library. Sir Walter Scott's study should also be consulted. 165 1 66 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON Marivaux only, but also Addison and Pope, when, on opening Pamela, they found such compliments as this : A suitor, putting his hands on a young lady's shoulders, says to her, playfully : " Let me see, let me see, . . . where do your wings grow ? for I never saw anybody fly like you." So happy does this touch appear to the author that he employs it again in another of his novels, where Lovelace, speaking of Clarissa, says : " Surely, Belford, this is an angel. And yet, had she not been known to be a female, they would not from babyhood have dressed her as such, nor would she, but upon that conviction, have continued the dress."1 So much for the language of gallantry. When the characters talk naturally they speak in the following manner : " Tost to and fro by the high winds of passionate controul (and, as I think, un- seasonable severity), I behold the desired port, the single state, into which I would fain steer ; but am kept off by the foaming billows of a brother's and sister's envy, and by the raging winds of a supposed invaded authority ; while I see in Lovelace, the rocks on the one hand, and in Solmes, the sands on the other ; and tremble lest I should split upon the former, or strike upon the latter." 2 Such is the language of that affected little pro- vincial, the immortal Clarissa. But affectation goes hand and hand with coarseness. A cer- tain Lady Davers — intended as a portrait of a lady of quality — has an inexhaustible flow of fishwife's pleasantries, and such ex- pressions as " wench," " chastity," " insolent creature," fall thick as hail on poor Pamela's head. On another occasion, a gentleman, speaking to a young lady, delicately alludes to his intention of perpetuating with her at once his happiness and his race. Not only is the author both vulgar and affected, but he is a pedant as well. When Clarissa is dying, Lovelace exclaims : " She is very ill ! " and adds sententiously : " What a fine sub- ject for tragedy would the injuries of this lady and her behaviour under them . . . make." 3 Then follow ten or twelve pages in 1 The novels of Samuel Richardson (BallantynJs Novelists' Library), vol. ii., p. 197. * Ibid., vol. i., p. 669. 3 Vol. ii., p. 565. Observe the curious footnote. DEFECTS OF HIS ART 167 which the author sketches the plot of this tragedy, and favours the reader with his reflections on the state of the drama, and on the causes of its decadence — a digression which refreshes our interest, nevertheless. When he intends to be impressive, he is bombastic. Lovelace, in a passion, threatens Clarissa, and she exclaims, " For your own sake, leave me ! — My soul is above thee, man ! . . . Urge me not to tell thee, how sincerely I think my soul above thee." l This pathetic passage — if they read it — must have delighted the readers of La Vie de Marianne, but the translators were careful to tone down everything of this sort. The romantic element is commonplace to the last degree, or else it is the lowest of low comedy. On one occasion Lovelace, in a frightful dream, foresees his own destiny ; he beholds Clarissa ascending to heaven amid a chorus of angels, and himself falling into a bottomless abyss. On another, in the very crisis of his sufferings, he occupies himself with selling gloves and soap- balls in order to pass the time, installing himself behind a counter and — for no reason perceptible to the reader — mystifying the passers by. But assuming that the French reader has become used to Richardson's peculiarities of form, his want of taste, his coarseness, his pedantry and affectation, how, if he has studied good novels, can he tolerate the perpetual intrusion of the author's personality, that preaching / which buttonholes you on every page and shouts into your ears: "Whatever you do, mark the moral of this tale ! " The mere title of one of his novels takes up a whole page — so that we may be in no doubt as to its object : " Pamela, or virtue rewarded, in a series of Familiar Letters from a Beauti- ful Young Damsel to her Parents. Now first published in order to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes. A narrative which has its foundation in truth and nature ; 2 and at the same time that it agreeably 1 Vol. i., p. 200. 2 A friend of Richardson's had told him the story of a servant-girl whom her master had attempted to seduce, but whose innocence had so touched him that he had married her. (Cf. Walter Scott, Lives of the Novelists, vol. ii., p. 30.) 1 68 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON entertains, by a variety of curious and affecting incidents is en- tirely divested of all those images, which, in too many pieces calculated for amusement only, tend to inflame the minds they should instruct." But not to dwell longer upon the title, which is a programme in itself, let us resign ourselves to a rapid perusal of this singular book. Just as we are beginning to get an idea of the characters, to take an interest in the progress of events, the author assails us with the following reflection: "The whole [of this history] will show the base acts of designing men to gain their wicked ends, and how much it behoves the fair sex to stand upon their guard against artful contrivances, especially when riches and power conspire against innocence and a low estate." l A strange novel, forsooth, is this sermon ! Not only is the moralizing cumbersome, but the narrative is simply crowded with matter. Richardson gives us not so much novels by means of letters, as letters developed and spun out into the form of novels. In Clarissa eight volumes are devoted to a story which extends over less than twelve months — from January loth to December 8th of the same year. We feel as we read these substantial volumes that life is spent in writing letters. In the light of this constant interchange of notes and epistles, it seems to take the appearance of a vast game of chess, in which the players are for ever seated before a writing-desk, thinking out to-morrow's move. An incredible and truly paradoxical abuse of the inkstand ! Miss Byron, in Grandison, writes, on March 22nd, a letter which occupies fourteen pages of a closely-printed edition. On the same day she writes two others, one ten, the other twelve pages long ; on the 23rd, two others of eighteen and ten pages ; and on the 24th, two which together fill thirty pages. She remarks at last that she must lay down her pen, but allows herself nevertheless a postscript of six pages. Thus in three days she writes nearly one hundred and fifty pages of an ordinary-sized volume. — And all the characters are alike. Not a moment but two or three couriers are on the road. Nor is this all : this world of scribblers makes it a practice to preserve a duplicate of the most trifling note. 1 Ballantyne, vol. vi., p. 52. DEFECTS OF HIS ART 169 Clarissa dockets all her missives, and, as she herself acknow- ledges, collects documents for the use of her future biographer. On her deathbed she writes a long will, besides eleven letters for various people, and copies of those letters as well. " No wonder," says her executor, " that she was always writing." But how did she find the time to live ? This is the documentary novel with a vengeance. Everything is in the form of a report or a draft of minutes. Every letter is a memorandum, containing references, errata, corrigenda, and addenda. On every page we find resumes of previous resumes, and analyses of analyses. Some of these letters are of the nature of an official statement ; reasons are classified, numbered, docketed, and have their preambles and their vouchers. Everything is described, nothing omitted : a word, a frown, the position of a chair — everything is set down. The author is a shorthand- reporter of the most diffuse and scrupulous type. In fact, in the most important scenes, a corner is found for a clerk, who writes from dictation. When Pollexfen resolves to fight Grandison and has it out with him, he takes care to have a " writer " in a recess, who is instructed to note down every little word. Grandison's declarations of love, even, are duly formu- lated and initialled. When Clementina is reconciled to her family, Grandison draws up an agreement in six clauses which gives rise to an elaborate interchange of comments.1 It is the triumph of the scribbling habit : everything possible is said, and everything that is said is put on paper ; one after the other the characters make their appearance, each with his or her missive, and resembling, to use Victor Hugo's amusing simile, the foreign actors who, unable to appear except in succession, and not being permitted to speak upon the boards, come forward one after another, each bearing above his head a great placard whereon the public may read the part he has to play.2 How remote are these heavy, formal novels from the light and airy little books of the earlier part of the century, such as the Lettres persanes or Manon \ What a difference there is between 1 See Prevost's translation, vol. iv., pp. 208 and 236. 2 Literature et philosophic melees .- on Walter Scott. 1 70 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON Grandison and Cleveland even ! Those who regard Richardson as a feeble imitator of Marivaux have never read Richardson. With his pedantry and affectation the printer makes one think involuntarily of Walpole's neat description of the Baron de Gleichen as bewildering himself with definitions of things which do not need defining, and drowning himself in a spoonful of water from sheer determination to get to the bottom. Richardson drowns himself in an ocean of documentary evidence.1 When taken to task for his prolixity, he replied that it was merely his novel method of writing ; of substituting for the picture of events taken from a distance a patient, minute, and laborious narrative which records the progress of events from day to day, from hour to hour, and almost from minute to minute. It would seem indeed that such records must be improbable ; that, further, when a writer makes use of so monotonous a form he limits himself to the portrayal of one kind of heroes only, those who have leisure and are also given to contemplation, who have the time and the inclination to keep a journal of their lives ; lastly, that it must weaken the effect to give two or three successive versions of the same fact. But all these objections, in Richardson's view, could not outweigh the necessity of representing life in its infinite complexity. — Most novels, he said, are highly improbable, because they simplify and abbreviate everything. They only give us one aspect of things. I mean to show you their whole reality. I shall be long, and certainly tedious. But I do not write to divert you ; I merely desire to instruct you. Are you fond of watching the drama of a human life ? If so you will like my books.2 II Richardson's art, in fact, is as different as possible from the classical art of France. But here it is important to know what we mean. Richard- 1 And even then he sacrificed half of each of his MSS. (W. Scott, ibid., vol. ii., P- 74-) 2 See the Postscriptum to Clarissa, a regular declaration of literary faith. HIS REALISM 171 son's novels, besides being improbable in form, are often also romantic in point of matter. While it may be said that he " keeps close to life " in his selection of characters and in his lavish — and indeed extravagant — use of trifling details, he cannot be said to keep equally near to it, if his plot alone be considered. It is doubtless true that events which might happen in the eighteenth century have in many cases become impossible at the present day : we may admit that in eighteenth-century England so audacious a fellow as Lovelace might have kidnapped a girl of such moral courage as Clarissa ; that he might have kept her in confinement for whole months together, have intro- duced her to his family, have imprisoned her — without rous- ing her suspicions — in a house of ill-fame, have violated her during sleep, and finally have brought about her death by privation and suffering. All this, though extraordinary enough, is not impossible. But what is not, and never can be, admissible is the means employed by the author to render such an intrigue probable ; the interception of letters, the forgery or imitation of messages, the transcription of bundles of letters in a single night, the compliance of courtesans who play the great lady when required, and of the keeper of a disorderly house in passing for a lady of noble birth, the versatility of servants in being made up to represent gentlemen of rank and consequence — of Joseph Leman and Donald Patrick, who play every variety of part — their compliance in lending themselves to every whim, the feats of Lovelace in overhearing conversations and noting them down upon his tablets, the simplicity of Clarissa in never for a moment conceiving the idea of putting herself under the protection of a magistrate. What manifestly exceeds possibility is all this paraphernalia of tricks, machinations and stratagems, this perfect arsenal of snares, pitfalls, places of confinement, and traps, which are of the very essence of the novel of adventure. We must resign ourselves to finding these remnants of the old novel of cape and sword in the work of the founder of modern fiction. This defect, it is true, gave less offence to eighteenth century readers, accustomed as they were to find accurate observation enshrined in a purely imaginary 172 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON setting,1 and moreover still full of their reading of seventeenth century novelists and of Prevost. The contrast between the author's avowed intention of painting contemporary life and his manifest incapacity to combine his picture with a simple and probable intrigue, is none the less striking. Richardson, the painter of middle-class life, like Rousseau in the Nouvelle Heldise, remains faithful, in this respect, to the old conception of this branch of literature. And this perhaps, as in the case of Rousseau, was not the least among the causes of his success. This reservation being made, we find in Richardson an art which is absolutely new. It is a minute, a patient, a laborious art ; what he gives us is a mosaic of delicate impressions, not one of them worth report- ing in itself, but which, accumulated, produce the effect of life. Nothing could be less French, nothing less classic. The French like to find art in the smallest things •, they like every phrase to be well-balanced, and also every thought, however ordinary, to be clothed in the choicest language. Now this polished art to which the masters attain — the precision of idea and expression which indicates that the thinking capacity is well regulated and under complete control ; the perfect adjustment of thought and language ; the maintenance of perfect symmetry between the clauses of a sentence, the paragraphs of a chapter, the parts of a book ; the anxiety to avoid repetition, or, in so far as it is un- avoidable, to relieve it with a touch of satire or of pathos ; the sense which requires that effects shall be graduated and interest guided in the same manner as one would conduct an intrigue in real life, by making the most of surprises, guarding against in- convenient questions, and gradually supplying curiosity with nourishment, in a definite and skilfully ordered sequence, so that it progresses from situation to situation and from one gratifica- tion to another, — to all this Richardson is a complete stranger. He is destitute of art, or, if he has any, it is nature's own. His usual, or rather his only, method is one of repetition or accumu- lation : that of the single drop which slowly and surely wears a hole in the rock whereon it drips. Of the arts of transition, 1 The Ldtres per s ones, and, later, the novels of Voltaire, Candide or Zadig. HIS REALISM 173 composition, and adjustment of parts he knows nothing. He has not the slightest fear of wearying the reader, but there is a rare audacity in his art of wearing out the attention. Twenty times, a hundred times, you lay the book aside in vexation, and twenty or a hundred times you take it up again. For, long and heavy as the story may be, the writer has passion, and the picture obtained by the painter from a sorry and vulgar model glows with colour and with life. Nothing is more beautiful than a pot or a kettle if only it be painted by Chardin. So, also, it is true that nothing is so vulgar as the Harlowe circle, and nothing so pretentious as the writer who tells us of it : no one is more completely representative of what (in the almost un- translatable words of an English critic) may be called our common English clumsiness.1 But, awkward and embarrassed as is his utterance, this man has nevertheless the gift of deep emotion before the spectacle of life. He was born with the necessity for observing the world, and for giving expression to what he sees with all the accuracy of which he is capable. He could not, in fact, have written eight volumes on the history of a group of squalid and cross-grained bourgeois, had it not inspired him with some deep emotion. And we, if we divest ourselves of such refinement, such delicacy, and such love of the graceful and the elegant as may have been instilled into us by two or three centuries of classical culture, shall feel it too. " Imagination," said Voltaire, " can fulfil its office only when supplemented by profound judgment : it is for ever combining its own pictures, correcting its mistakes, erecting all its edifices in due order. ... It is by his imagination that the poet creates his personages, endows them with character and passion, invents his plot, presents it in narrative form, com- plicates the intrigue and provides for the catastrophe : a work which demands, further, that the author's judgment shall be not only most profound but also most acute. In all these products of the creative imagination, and even in novels, the greatest art is required. Those who are incapable of it are objects of con- tempt to people of sound judgment."2 Such is the classical Mr Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, 1st series. 2 Dictionnaire philosophique. 174 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON critic's conception of the creative imagination. But let " right- minded people" take warning. They have no business here. In Richardson's novels they will find neither ingenuity of plot, nor skilful " complication" of the intrigue, nor cleverly prepared catastrophe, but simply a bundle of letters none too well ar- ranged, which require to be read not as a work of art but as a collection of curious yet deeply moving documents. In a forgotten drawer you find a bundle of yellow papers. You glance carelessly over one page, then over another, then over a third. Then, in spite of yourself, your curiosity is aroused. They deal with an old — a very old — love-story. You do not know the people concerned in it ; their names tell you nothing, and the events take place in a distant country. Yet the story takes hold of your attention : a touch of passion, like a half-faded perfume, still lingers among these faded leaves ; the names acquire some meaning, the phantoms start into life, the old souvenirs live and move beneath your eyes. Hours pass, yet you are reading still, softly stirred and, as it were, lulled by the rhythm of a life long since extinct. At a certain point the story becomes extremely pathetic : the anguish becomes heart- rending ; a cry of despair arises from the depths of the past. . . You check yourself. " What is this story to me ? " you say, and at the same moment you brush aside a tear. . . . Such is the experience of every reader of Clarissa Harloive. If realism is the art of giving the impression of life, Richardson is the greatest of realists. But between his method and that of the French classical writers, though the result may be the same, there is nothing in common. With him, as with the Dutch painters, there is, as regards subject, neither trivial nor sublime. The fact had already been remarked by contemporary writers : " Every pic- ture which gives a faithful presentation of nature, whatever it may be, is always beautiful ; nothing is excluded from our works save the filthy and the loathsome, which is banished also by the painter. Do we not hold the pictures of Heemskirk and other Dutch painters in high esteem, although their subjects are of the lowest ? ... If you are so prejudiced by your lofty HIS REALISM 175 French ideas as to find something contemptible in certain of the images in this book, / beg you to reflect that among us nothing which represents nature is ever despised" l This was, or seemed to be, something new. " It was part of the destiny of Holland," an eminent critic has said, " to love a good likeness." 2 Nothing, it would seem, could be more common than such a destiny ; in reality, nothing is more rare. There have been very few genuine realists in France, such, I mean, as plunge boldly and unhesitat- ingly into the heart of reality, without the least anxiety as to whether they will find it tedious, monotonous, and barren. Lesage, the most realistic of all French eighteenth-century novelists, is at the same time a most subtle artist — too subtle, in fact — and too self-controlled ; he does not let himself go ; he is afraid of making his subject tedious or ridiculous ; it is no part of his destiny irrevocably and with all his heart to love " a good likeness." Richardson, like a true Englishman, has no such scruples. In describing Grandison's wedding he spares us neither a costume nor a bow nor a curtsy ; we know the exact number of carriages, the occupants of each, and how everyone was dressed on the occasion ; we are not left in ignorance with regard to the amount of money distributed by the good Sir Charles to the village girls who had strewn his path with flowers. Verbiage, you call it ? Then you have no passion for " the good likeness." When a person of consequence enters a room we are told his gestures, his attitude, and the number of steps he takes. " The description of movements is what pleases, especially in novels of domestic interest. See how complacently the author of Pamela, Grandison and Clarissa lingers over it ! See how forcible, how 1 Desfontaines, Lettre Grandison made its appearance, the fame of the English novelist was at its height. Nothing affords better evidence of the growth of his reputation than the outcry occasioned by the emendations Prevost had allowed himself to introduce : " One must have a fair opinion of oneself," we read in the Correspondance litter air e? " to act as the sculptor of Mr Richardson's marble. In him we have indeed a glorious artist, and if you, his translators, must venture to touch his 1 Remarques en lisant. 2 Letter to Mme. du Deffand, izth April 1760 ; — Preface to L'Ecossaise (1760). 3 See Journal encyclopedique, ist November 1756. 4 The drama of Nee de la Rochelle is anonymous ; Clarlsse Harloive, a prose drama in three acts, Paris, 1786, 8vo. — The Clarisse Harlotve of Nepomucene Lemercier was acted in 1792. 5 January 1756. RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 215 masterpieces, remove, if you can, any trifling specks and any dust which may here and there conceal these admirable statues ; relieve them of the soil which occasionally hides their contours ; but beware of even touching the statue with profane hands, lest you betray your ignorance and want of feeling." In this case, however, the feet of the statue were of clay, though at that time the fact was unsuspected. Gibbon re- commends the new book to his aunt as greatly superior to Clarissa.1 Marmontel, while he admits that in France its success is not equal to that of the author's preceding novel, warmly refutes those who find the hero's character " too stiff and unnatural." " If we dared," wrote d'Argenson, " we would say that in Sir Charles Grandison another Christ has appeared upon earth, so perfect is he." 2 But the character of Grandison is, in Marmontel's opinion, " a marvellous and extraordinary one " : it is neither extravagant nor romantic : " He is nothing more than a good man, such as it is possible for everyone to be," and the book, taken as a whole, remains " a masterpiece of the most healthy philosophy." 3 Admiration had become infatuation. This novel, "ineffective," to quote La Harpe,4 " in spite of all its merit," did not repel French readers 5 : its moral seemed to them a noble one, and its hero became popular. Grandison was a type, and had as good a claim to the title as Tartuffe or Don Juan. The Clementina episode, from which a person named Bastide constructed a play,6 was considered an unrivalled piece of work, and in popular esti- mation the author of Clarissa had never before attained such a pitch of excellence. " Antiquity," Marmontel wrote, " can show nothing more exquisite." 7 1 Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 240. Translated in 1797. 2 Memoirs!) edited by Jannet, vol. v., p. 112. 3 See the Mercure, August 1758 ; and Essai sur les romans (CEnvres, vol. x., P- 340- 4 Cours de litterature, vol. iii., p. 190. 5 See Journal encyclopedique, Feb. 1756 ; JVLercure de France, Jan. 1756 ; Annee litteraire, 1755, vol. viii., p. 136, and 1758, vol. iv., p. 3. 6 Gesoncour et Clementine, " tragedie bourgeoise " i'n prose, in five acts. Played 4th November 1766. 7 Mercure, August 1758. 216 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON On the death of Richardson, 4th July 1761, popular enthusiasm rose to frenzy. The admirers of England were not slow to take advantage of so favourable an opportunity. From September 1757 onwards, the Journal etranger kept its readers informed as to the great man's health. In the issue for January 1762, after his death, the following lines appeared : " There has fallen into our hands an English copy of Clarissa, containing some notes in manuscript. The author of these, whoever he may be, is un- doubtedly a man of keen intelligence, but one who was nothing more than this could never have written them. . . . Through all the absence of method and the pleasing carelessness of a pen unconscious of restraint, it is easy to recognise the sure and skilful hand of a great artist." The " great artist " was Diderot ; " Diderot, the possessed," as Joseph de Maistre calls him, who loaded Richardson " with praise which he would not have bestowed upon Fenelon," 1 and — as his contemporaries with more justice observed — extolled, of all English writers, the one whose genius bore the closest resemblance to his own.2 His contemporaries were right. But during the present century many critics, and those not the least eminent, have thought the same, or nearly so, as Joseph de Maistre. The Eloge de Richardson seemed to them a mere piece of rhetoric. It almost makes them blush for Diderot, and they would gladly expunge it from his works. The truth is that they fail to appreciate both him and Richardson. The Eloge is certainly not perfect : but, pompous as it is, it remains a most interesting piece of criticism. In the first place, Diderot is absolutely sincere. In the month of October 1760, he wrote from Grandval to Sophie Volland : " There was a deal of discussion concerning Clarissa. Those who despised the work regarded it with supreme contempt ; those who thought highly of it were no less extravagant in their esteem, and considered it one of the most marvellous achievements of the human intellect. ... I shall not be 1 Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg, vol. i., p. 347. 2 Marmontel, CEuvres^ vol. x., p. 339. RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 217 satisfied either with you or with myself until I have made you appreciate the truth of Pamela, Tom Jones, Clarissa, and Grandison" * His novel La Religieuse was written in the same year, and he wrote it with the lamentations of Clementina sounding in his ears, "the ghost of Clarissa" hovering before him ; above all, he borrowed not only the English author's method of presentation and his style of pathos, but almost, even, his subject as well, since La Religieuse, like Clarissa Harloive, is the story of a girl who is imprisoned and subjected to the worst form of outrage. On the death of Richardson, Diderot, seizing his pen, pro- duced within twenty-four hours, and without pausing for fresh inspiration, a work that was less a study than a funeral oration, not so much a criticism as a panegyric. By so doing he gratified the desires of a great number of readers ; what strikes us as declamation seemed, when his encomium first appeared, simply eloquence and nothing more. The Comte de Bissy, who trans- lated Young, wrote to Arnaud : "I have read, and re-read, this sublime and touching panegyric ; and have been made sensible of the power and the charm which genius and virtue derive from one another when found in combination."2 Diderot, in fact, had simply accepted a part assigned to him by public opinion, and had earned its gratitude thereby. His Eloge very quickly became a classic, and was henceforth reprinted in all editions of Richardson. Some have regarded it as an indirect attack upon Prevost.3 But if it is so, how can we account for the fact that it was Prevost who first prefixed the piece to his own translation ? Moreover, if certain allusions are applicable to Cleveland — the work which drew tears from Rousseau — had not Prevost him- self been the first to condemn the fluent romantic style of his early works ? Again, had not Prevost, the friend of Rousseau, and doubtless of Diderot as well, been quite recently the editor of the Journal etranger, by which the j&loge was published ? 1 2oth October 1760. Cf., in the (Euvres, vol. xix., pp. 47, 49, 55. 2 Journal etranger, February 1762, p. 143. 3 Brunetiere, Etudes Critiques, vol. iii., p. 243. 2i8 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON Lastly, what grounds have we for doubting Diderot's sincerity, and why should the fact that he praises Richardson be a reason for supposing that he is attacking Prevost ? It would be far more reasonable to suppose that the Eloge was intended to remind the numerous admirers of the Nouvelle Heldise, which had been published a few months before, that Rousseau — with whom Diderot, as we are aware, had now quarrelled — had had both a predecessor and a master ; and this, indeed, as we shall see, is the way in which Rousseau seems to have interpreted its publication. Having said so much, it would be a waste of time for us to point out the instances of palpable exaggeration in this fragment, did they not afford a singular testimony to the progress of anglo- mania. Is it not odd to find French novelists condemned for describing the " secret haunts of profligacy," when we recollect the places in which many of the scenes in Clarissa take place ? Is it not, to say the least, paradoxical to reject Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, and Nicole in favour of Richardson as a por- trayer of the human heart ? Is it not a gross mistake to praise in a novelist of a popular, and sometimes of a vulgar type, that delicate art, appreciable only by a very limited number of readers, which is just the very thing he did not possess in the slightest degree ? Diderot was thus in error — possibly not without in- tention— upon certain points. But he distinguished the char- acteristics of the work as a whole with much truth and eloquence. No ; one who has just laid down the last volume of Clarissa will find the Eloge something more than a mere piece of rhetoric. He clearly perceived the novelty of Richardson's precise, de- liberate and circumstantial art, of his detailed descriptions, of those pictures of his which produce the effect of life, and give us the illusion " of having added to our experience." Every unprejudiced reader of Richardson can say with Diderot : "I know the house of the Harlowes as well as I know my own ; I am no less familiar with Grandison's dwelling than with my father's." When Richardson carries his reader away he does so entirely : this is because he has a complete, varied, and penetra- tive comprehension of the chaos of incidents and trifling events called life. He endeavoured to portray it in its complexity and RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 219 its totality. This characteristic has been excellently described by Diderot. " You accuse Richardson of being tedious ! Have you then forgotten the trouble, the attention, the manoeuvring that are necessary before the humblest enterprise can be brought to a successful issue — before a law-suit can be concluded, a marriage arranged, or a reconciliation effected ? Choose of these details which you will, they will all be interesting to me if they call the passions into play and illustrate character. ' They are commonplace,' say you ; ' this is what we see every day ? ' You are wrong ; it is what passes before your eyes every day, without your ever seeing it. Beware ; in attacking Richardson you are bringing an action against the great poets. A hundred times you have watched the sun set and the stars appear ; you have heard the fields ringing with the shrill song of the birds ; but which of you perceived that it was the sounds of the day that charged the silence of the night with emotion ? Well I It is for you, with moral as with physical phenomena ; outbursts of passion have often fallen upon your ears, but you are very far from knowing all the secrets implied in its accents and manifestations. There is not one of the passions but has its characteristic facial expression ; all these different expressions succeed one another upon a countenance, without its ever ceasing to be the same ; and the art of the great poet or the great painter consists in making you see something that had escaped your notice before. . . . Learn that it is upon this multitude of little things that illusion depends ; it is a very difficult thing to picture them ; it is a very difficult thing, also, to reproduce them." Diderot has caught the very essence of Richardson's " realism." But behind the portraiture of the external world, we must look for that of human souls. Richardson has a rare faculty of analysis. He portrays every character and every station in life ; but, above all, he discerns the secret feelings, those which escape your indifferent eye, the " fissures," so to speak, of the soul. " If there is a hidden feeling in the depths of the soul of any one of his characters, listen closely, and you will hear a discordant note which will betray its presence." ... Or again, " it is he who carries the torch to the darkest part of the cavern." He is an admirable anatomist of the moral life. All this, it must be observed, was most seasonable as a con- firmation of Diderot's own theories on truth to nature in art. Similarly, this apotheosis of Richardson — immediately following the publication of Le Fils nature! (17 57), and the production of Le Pere de famille (ij6l) — came at a time most appropriate for the justification of his ideas concerning morality on the stage and in fiction. 220 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON How could Diderot fail to appreciate one who used the novel as a pulpit or a rostrum, and wove in with the thread of the story a continuous lesson for the benefit of the reader ? The briefest passage affords opportunity for discussion on " the most important questions of morality and taste." Leave Pamela or Clarissa, he said, lying about upon a table, and those who read them will soon become as passionately attached to the actors in these dramas as though they were living characters. From differences of opinion with regard to them, " secret hatreds" have been known to spring, veiled contempt, in short the same divisions between those bound together by natural ties as might have occurred if a matter of the utmost gravity had been at stake. Strange that such an effect should be produced by a novel ! How rare a genius, too, must that be which has rendered the most frivolous branch of literature capable of producing a book worthy of comparison — these are Diderot's words — " to a book more sacred still," namely, the Gospel ! The word once out, Diderot can contain himself no longer. " O Richardson, Richardson, you who have no rival in my eyes, it is you whom I shall always read ! Under the stress of pressing circumstances I may sell my books, but you I shall keep : you I shall keep, upon the same shelf as Moses, Homer, Euripides and Sophocles ! " Moses, Homer, Euripides and Sophocles ! Great names, these, and grand words. We must not forget that it is Diderot who utters them, nor that the date is about 1760, a time of change and regeneration for French literature, which was awaiting its Homer, and believed it had found him. " O Richardson ! If, during your lifetime, you did not enjoy all the reputation which is your due, how great will you appear in the eyes of our descendants, when they behold you at the distance from which we look back upon Homer ! " The modern Homer : such is Richardson. Here Diderot is in agreement with Gellert and the Germans, because he, like them, felt the need for a new genius who should be capable of directing a virgin literature into fresh paths. This was extremely daring ; so much so that Voltaire became concerned. RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 221 Hitherto he had regarded the popularity of English novels with toleration, if not with favour. He had even endeavoured, in Nanme and UEcossaise, to shelter himself behind " these re- markably successful English novels." Now, however, his secret antipathy came to light. Already, and not without malice, he had pointed out the author's faults, at the very time when he con- fessed that the perusal of Clarissa " fired his blood." He had called him " a clever fellow . . . who keeps making promises from volume to volume," but never fulfils them. " I said, if all these people were my relatives and friends, I could not feel interested in them." x In vain Mme. du Deffand maintained that Richardson "had great intelligence." "It is painful," he re- plied, "for an energetic person like me to read nine whole volumes and find nothing in them whatever." In reality he is standing up for his old idea of the novel as a very light form of literature, unworthy the attention of a serious mind. But after the appearance of the Aloge de Richardson, and as anglomania gained ground, his mistrust turned into open hostility. An article of his in the Gazette litteraire2' finds an explanation and an excuse for the English taste for such " twaddle " in the Englishman's habit of spending nine months out of the twelve on his country estate ; without reading, during his long winter evenings, what would he find to do ? But in a letter to d'Argental he throws off the mask, and confesses his astonishment and contempt : "I don't like those long and in- tolerable novels Pamela and Clarissa. They have been successful because they excite the reader's curiosity even amidst a medley of trifles ; but if the author had been imprudent enough to inform us at the very beginning that Clarissa and Pamela were in love with their persecutors, everything would have been spoiled, and the reader would have thrown the book aside." 3 He adds, not without some irony and ill-humour : " Is it possible that these islanders are better acquainted with nature than your Welches'!" Still, the Welches persist in their admiration, and a certain Jean-Jacques supplies them with 1 To Mme. du DefFand, izth April 1760. 2 30th May 1764. 8 i6th May 1767. 222 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON books of the same character : it is too much of a good thing. To read Clarissa one must be crazy and have plenty of time to lose.1 Is it not really disgraceful that the English should allow themselves to be imposed upon with such "jugglers' tricks as novels," and that a nation which has afforded a pattern to Europe should forsake the study of Locke and Newton for works of the most frivolous and ex- travagant kind ? " 2 This was Voltaire's last word upon English fiction. At bottom, no one could have less romance about him than he ; but neither could anyone view with greater anxiety the infatuation of France with these foreign novels, which in his opinion were inferior or barbarous. It was this which led him ultimately to treat Richardson and Sterne as he treated Shakespeare. But public opinion was no longer with him. Readers of Rousseau and the followers of Diderot were all looking to him for a reasoned opinion on Richardson. He refused to give one. As Diderot had nothing to say, Sebastien Mercier, one of his disciples, took upon himself to ask Voltaire the reason of his silence. " M. de Voltaire, in his numerous writings, which I have read and re-read, has avoided, so far as I know, all mention of Richardson, whether favourable or otherwise, though he has treated of every other writer, however obscure." — In justice it should be mentioned that in 1773 — the year in which Mercier was writing — Voltaire's opinion, quoted above, had not been printed. — "It is impossible," Mercier continues, "that the author of Nanine should fail to appreciate Pamela ; he has certainly read Clarissa and Grandison, poems to which antiquity can produce no worthy rival. He must know that these master- pieces of feeling, truth, and moral teaching have found readers of both sexes, in every country and of every age. I suppose that, since M. de Voltaire's manner of writing is diametrically 1 Lettres chinoises, xii. (1776): "My attention is engaged with a problem in geometry ; and straightway there arrives a novel called C/arissa, in six volumes, which the anglomaniacs praise to the skies as the only novel fit for a sensible man to read. I am fool enough to read it, and thereby I lose both my time and the thread of my investigations." 2 Journal de politique et de litterature (1777), article on Tristram Shandy. RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 223 opposed to Richardson's, the silence he has preserved in regard to this author of genius is founded on principle."1 Mercier had discerned the truth. Voltaire's silence was that of contempt. But the books he so despised were making the French nation " stupid," as Horace Walpole said. The women became crazy about them. Mme. du DefFand discussed them with Walpole and could not forgive him his contempt. Clarissa was certainly not like other novels ; it was " but a poor antidote to depression." But " the play of every day interests, tastes, and feelings, when their subtle gradations are so finely indicated as in Richardson, is enough to absorb my attention and to give me infinite pleasure."2 How superior it all is to La Calprenede and to French fiction ! " After your novels I find it impossible to read any of ours." Such was the opinion of Mile, de Lespinasse : she was very fond of Prevost and Lesage, M. de Guibert tells us, but she placed "the immortal" Richardson above everyone else. In vain her friend d'Alembert declared that " it is well to imitate nature, but not to do so to a wearisome extent." She wrote to her lover, in a fit of despondency : " I believe, if I read Clarissa to-night, I should find neither love nor passion in it. Good heavens ! can one fall lower than this ? " 3 But it was not the women only, as Voltaire maintained,4 who were responsible for the success of these novels. All the associates of Diderot and Rousseau and the whole of the re- forming party adopted them almost without reserve. They held that " there was more philosophy in most English novels than in many a moral treatise."5 The Encyclopedia made them the subject of a pompous eulogy.6 Marmontel, the faithful disciple of Diderot, placed the English novelist above all writers, 1 Essai sur Vart dramatique, p. 326. 2 See the Lettres de Mme. du Deffand a Horace Walpole, especially that of 8th August 1773. 3 1 7th October 1775 ; see also the letter of 7th July 1775. 4 Gazette litter air e, vol. i., p. 334. 5 Journal encydopedique, 1st March 1763. 6 In an article entitled Roman-. " Novels written in this excellent manner are perhaps the only remaining form of instruction that can be given to a nation so corrupt that no other can be of service to it." 224 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON ancient or modern. Even BufFon, with all his calmness and his ready contempt for literary novelties, admired him " for his intense truthfulness, and because of his close observation of every object he portrayed."1 For more than half a century France remained subject to the spell. Richardson brought the English type of novel into fashion. " Our novelists," said the Journal etranger,2 " are almost com- pelled to disguise the products of their fancy in this foreign garb if they wish to be read." Who has not seen upon the quays, or hidden away in old provincial libraries, some of these faint and sterile imitations of the master ? Some pretend to be sequels, such as La Nouvelle Clementine, by Leonard, or the Petit Grandison of Berquin. Others, more candid, actually claim the sanction of his name; for example: " Les Mceurs du jour, ou Histoire de Sir William Harrington, ecrite du vivant de M. Richard- son (sic), editeur de Pamela, Clarisse et Grandisson, revue et retouchee par lui, sur le manuscrit de fauteur" 3 Volumes similar to these, or still more obscure, were produced by the dozen : Les Lettres de Milady Linsay, the Memoires de Clarence Welldonne, Milord d'Ambi, histoire anglaise ; a catalogue of them would be long and unprofitable. It is of more importance to note that all the authors in vogue make use of the British hall-mark : Baculard d'Arnaud, the popular author of the Epreuves du sentiment, never loses an opportunity of praising Richardson, and brought out in succession Anne Bell, Sidnei et Silli, Clary ou le retour a la vertu recompense, Adelson et Salvini, " an English anecdote," and any number of other books, now no longer read, which ran through sixty editions, and were translated into several languages ! Eng- lish novels, said Rousseau, are either " sublime or detestable." The imitations of them, for the most part, are not sublime. But the foreign livery made everything go down. English novels are not all good ones, it is true, said the Correspondence litterairef but at any rate they are always better than "our insipid French productions of the same sort." Not a single novelist of note escaped the taint of anglomania. 1 Sainte-Beuve, Causeries, vol. iv., p. 364. 2 February 1757. 3 See the Correspondance litter -aire, February 1773. 4 February 1767. RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 225 Crebillon fils announced his Heureux orphelins as a translation.1 Mme. Riccoboni, who was so famous in her day, and so much admired by Doudan,2 wrote the Memoires de Miledi B • • , and the Lettres de Juliette Catesby, which evoked the congratulations of Marmontel. " It is by following English models," he said, " that a woman has attained such great and well-deserved success among us." 3 Prevost contributed the Memoires pour servir h rhistoire de la vertu^ — an inferior work translated from Mrs Sheridan's Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph. Marmontel derived the inspira- tion, and even the subjects, for several of his Contes moraux5 from Richardson. Voltaire himself had Clarissa in mind when he wrote a certain chapter of ISIngenu, describing the sufferings of the fair Saint- Yves on her death-bed, as a companion picture to those of the heroine of the English novel.6 From 1760 to the end of the century scarcely a novel was published that escaped this all-absorbing influence. It was Richardson who furnished Diderot with the inspiration for Les Deux Amis de Bourbonne and UHistoire de Mile, de la Chaux ; it was from him that he derived his abounding wealth of detail, the accuracy which makes his presentation almost palpable, and his slightly crude colouring; and it was Richardson also whom he had in mind while writing La Religieuse. As his editor points out, the Eloge de Richardson explains the immense advance which this novel marks in comparison with his earlier efforts ; in the interval he had read Clarissa Harloive, and felt that he had been initiated.7 Whether Richardson would have acknowledged him as a disciple is doubtful. It is certain that he would have frankly 1 Les heureux orphellns, a tale imitated from the English (1754). 2 Lettres > vol. i., p. 271. s (Euvres, vol X., p. 346. 4 All the newspapers of the period attribute this novel to Prevost (Mercure, July 1762 ; Journal encyclopedique, 1 5th July 1762 ; Memoires secrets, 3Oth April 1762). It has also been included in his (Euvres choisies. 5 See especially L'ecole de FamiHe. 6 The resemblance has been pointed out by Villemain. See L' Ingenu , chap. xx. (1767): " She made no show of vainglorious fortitude ; she did not understand the paltry honour of giving a few neighbours occasion to say, ' Hers was a courageous end . . .' How many there are who praise the pompous death-beds of those who meet annihilation with apathy I " &c. 7 See Assezat, (Euvres de Diderot, vol. v., p. 211. 226 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON disowned Laclos and Restif, though they professed themselves his followers. Contemporaries had pointed out how far the author of Les liaisons dangereuses was indebted for the character of Valmont to that of Lovelace ; Valmont is simply Lovelace in the guise of a Frenchman.1 And as for Restif, a coarse but powerful artist, who dealt with the vulgar side of life, he wrote his Paysan perverti " under the inspiration of Pamela" and boasted of having done so ; when he described in detail " the progress of corruption as it invades an upright and innocent heart," 2 he claimed to be following Richardson. Lavater, one of his numerous foreign admirers, surnamed him " the French Richardson," and his worshippers ranked him higher than the English novelist whose disciple he professed to be, because, with equal genius, he had set before himself a still more ambitious project.3 Every one of the novelists who belong to the closing years of the century — including the Marquis de Sade4 — call upon the name of Richardson. He had therefore quite a progeny of imitators, distinguished and otherwise. Some loved him for his faithful delineation of the vulgar side of existence, others, more numerous, because he surpassed all other novelists in his command of pathos. Many produced bad imitations of him, because they imitated him too closely. Others, who call themselves his disciples, owe him in reality little or nothing. But all speak of him with respect. In fiction his is the greatest name of the century. A French critic of that period states that " Clarissa, the greatest among English novels, has also become the first among our own" 5 The eloquent printer's tomb became a resort for pilgrims. Mme. de Genlis, when in England, called upon Richardson's son-in-law, asked to see the great man's portrait, sat in his own 1 La Harpe, Gorrespondance litteraire, vol. iii., p. 339. — Observe moreover the success attained by Les liaisons dangereuses in England (Dutens, Memoires d'un voyageur qui se repose ', vol. iii., p. 221. 2 See Avis de Pierre R ' • ', prefixed to the Paysan perverti. 3 C/. P. Lacroix, Bibliographie de Restif de la Bretonne, pp. 69, 127 ; and Mes Inscriptions, edn. P. Cottin, 1889, p. Ixx. 4 See his Idee stir les romans, edn. Uzanne, I2mo, p. 25. 5 Journal des savants, September 1785. CLARISSA AND HfiLOtSE 227 particular seat, and paid a visit to his grave. Another visitor, Mme. de Tesse, threw herself upon the tomb-stone and gave way to such despair that her guide became alarmed.1 But a few years had passed when a great poet, lost in reverie on a bright summer's day in the country, summoned before his mind the images of Richardson's heroines : " Clarissa ! with Heaven itself radiant in your saintly beauty ; free, in all your pain, alike from hatred and from bitterness, suffering without a groan, and perishing without a murmur ; beloved Clementina ! pure, and heavenly soul, who, amidst the harsh treatment of an unjust household, never lost your innocence with the loss of your reason : — your eyes, bright souls, hold me with their charm ; your sweet likeness hastens to fill my fairest dreams ! " 2 What could afford more signal evidence of Richardson's popularity than this tribute of reverence for his genius from Andre Chenier, the least English of all French poets ? II Rousseau began to write La Nouvelle Heldise at L'Ermitage in the winter of 1756, when the sensation caused by the still recent publication of Clarissa Harloive was at its height. Like everyone else, Rousseau read the new masterpiece, and read it in the translation of Prevost, who had possibly shown it to him in manuscript. It is unlikely that he had recourse to the original, for he never knew much English.3 He was none the less impressed with the originality of this novel, as with that of the master's other works. In a certain place he demands that the composition of novels shall only be entrusted " to well-bred but 1 Mme. de Genlis, Memoires, vol. Hi., p. 360. 2 A. Chenier, Elegle xiv. 3 On receiving the English translation of La Nouvelle Helo'ise, he asked Mme. de Boufflers, who was acquainted with the language, to look through it, and tell him what she thought of it, adding: "I do not understand the language well enough" (To Mme. .de Luxembourg, z8th August 1761). Three years later, Panckoucke asked him to undertake the abridgment of Richardson, and he declined on the ground of his ignorance of English (25th May 1764). 228 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON sensitive persons, whose writings will reflect their own hearts," 1 and on reading Richardson's masterpiece he at once declared that never yet had " a novel equal to, or even approaching, Clarissa, been produced in any language whatever." 2 What Geoffrey's authority may be for discerning in this statement a disparaging allusion to Tom Jones, which had recently been translated by La Place, I cannot say.3 Nowhere does Rousseau make any mention of Fielding. On the other hand, at the very moment when he was expressing this opinion in the Lettre sur les spectacles, he was himself putting the last touches to La Nouvelle Helo'ise, in which he had evidently drawn inspiration from Clarissa. Everything therefore tends to convince us that he was expressing quite sincerely, and without the least reserva- tion, an admiration which lasted throughout his life. When, at a later period, he visited England, he wrote to the Marquis de Mirabeau as follows 4 : " You admire Richardson, monsieur le marquis ; how much greater would be your admira- tion, if, like me, you were in a position to compare the pictures of this great artist with nature ; to see how natural his situations are, however seemingly romantic, and how true his portraits, for all their apparent exaggeration ! " And he regretted that he came across so many Captain Tomlinsons, and so few Belfords. On this point Rousseau never swerved from his opinion. Bernardin de Saint Pierre, who knew him during the latter part of his life, tells us that " he never spoke of Richardson without enthusiasm. Clarissa, according to him, contained a complete portrait gallery of the human race ; of Grandison he thought less highly."5 While writing his novel he undoubtedly kept Clarissa before him, and possibly Pamela® as well. In his second preface he protests against the foolish affectation of designing the moral 1 Nouvelle Helo'ise, ii., 21. 2 Lettre sur les spectacles. 3 See Cours de litterature dramatique, vol. Hi., p. 262. 4 8th April 1767. 5 Fragments sur J.-J. Rousseau, in Aime Martin's edition of the works of Bernardin de St. Pierre. 6 Cf. a letter written by La Roche, Streckheisen-Moultou : J.-J. Rousseau, set amis et ses ennemis, vol. i., p. 493. Rousseau also quotes Pamela in the Lettre sur les spectacles. CLARISSA AND H^LOlSE 229 of a novel for the benefit of young girls, without reflecting that young girls can have no part in the disorderly life the author condemns; and in a note he adds: "This has refer- ence only to modern English novels," evidently thinking of Richardson. Similarly, when sending the fifth part of Julie to Duclos, he adds that he adheres to his belief that reading of this sort is dangerous for girls: "I go so far as to think that Richardson makes a gross mistake when he attempts to instruct them by means of fiction; it is the same thing as setting a house on fire to make the pumps work." 1 On another occasion he interrupts the thread of his narrative in order to refute an opinion of the English "novelist : " My heart," says Julie to Saint-Preux, " was yours from the first moment I saw you." Rousseau inserts a note : " Mr Richardson pours a good deal of ridicule upon these attachments at first sight, founded on indefinable affinities. It is all very well to make fun of them ; but since there are in reality only too many cases of the kind, would it not be better, instead of wasting time in denying them, to teach us how to conquer them ? " 2 Plainly, therefore, Clarissa, the success of which was filling the world with its clamour, was in Rousseau's mind when he wrote Julie. It would even seem that this success caused him annoyance. In response to a request from Malesherbes that certain portions of Heldise should be suppressed, he wrote the following signifi- cant lines : " A pious woman of the lower class who humbly submits to the authority of her spiritual director, a woman who forsakes a dissolute life for one of devotion, is not a sufficiently rare or instructive subject to fill a large volume ; but a woman who is at once lovable, devout, enlightened and reasonable is a newer and, to my mind, a more useful subject. This novelty and usefulness, however, are the very things that the suggested excisions would remove ; if Julie has not the sublime virtues of Clarissa, her virtue is of a more prudent and judicious kind, and is independent of public opinion : deprived of this counterbalancing 1 1 9th November 1760. The expression occurs again in the second preface. 2 Nouvelle Heloise, Hi., 1 8. 230 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON characteristic, she 'would have no choice but to hide her face before the other ; ivhat right 'would she have to show herself '? " x After the publication of Diderot's sonorous JE/oge, Rousseau's feeling became stronger. Rightly or wrongly — but not without some appearance of justification — he thought there were signs that the work was directed against him. He was unquestion- ably conscious that the parallel between Clarissa and Julie was in everyone's mind, and was somewhat concerned in conse- quence. He himself touched upon this delicate subject in the Confessions, and, in 1769, wrote a reply to Diderot's Eloge. He points out with regard to his own novel that the simplicity of its subject and the small number of characters introduced, in which respects it is a unique work, have not been sufficiently praised. " Diderot has complimented Richardson very highly on the prodigious variety of his scenes and the multitude of his characters. Richardson has, indeed, the merit of having given each of them a distinct individuality ; but as far as their number is concerned he is on a par with the most insipid novelists, who make up for the poverty of their ideas by the quantity of their characters and adventures." Surely it is a more difficult thing to sustain attention with but slender resources : " and if, other things being equal, the simplicity of its subject adds to the beauty of a work, Richard- son's novels, which, whatever M. Diderot may have said about them,2 are superior in so many other ways, cannot, in this respect, afford any parallel to mine."3 It is evident that Rousseau is disturbed by the recollection of the Eloge — the publication of which, follow- ing close upon the success of Julie, had revived Richardson's glory at the expense of his own — and that he is annoyed with Diderot in consequence. Three years after Richardson's death — at the very moment when the master's glory was at its height — Panckoucke had committed the indiscretion of asking Rousseau to undertake the task of 1 Date unknown. CEuvres et correspondance inedites, Streckheisen-Moultou, p. 390. 2 These significant words were suppressed by the first publishers of the Confes- sions, but appear, without erasure or addition, in the manuscript, which is in the library of the Chamber of Deputies 8 Confessions, ii., II. CLARISSA AND H^LOISE 231 abridging his works. Rousseau replied from Metiers that he had a good many scruples about abridging such books, though " they unquestionably needed it. Richardson's club-conversa- tions, in particular, were unbearable, since he had seen nothing of high life, and was consequently entirely ignorant of its manners." But, no ! Rousseau's health, his indolence, the great number of translations it would be necessary to compare, and his own work, all discourage him.1 Must we not add to the motives which he here admits, a certain repugnance in the author of Heloise to spend labour in magnifying still further the author of Clarissa ? I am inclined to think so. However this may be, the parallel which annoyed him was being remarked by all those about him. We find it difficult in the present day to picture the state of mind of the contemporaries of Richardson and Rousseau who could weigh the two men against one another. But we are acquainted with the whole of Rousseau's work, whereas his contemporaries were not. In 1761 Jean-Jacques had as yet written neither the Confessions nor the Reveries. Though his reputation was of ten years' standing he had not hitherto unbosomed himself for the benefit of his readers with all the unhealthy exuberance that characterised his later effusions. He was known only as a philosopher and a politician. Above all, as a novelist he was making a first appearance. Though awaited with impatience, La Nouvelle Heloise was:' not crowned as a master- piece until after publication. Is it likely, sensible people asked themselves, that, if the author of the Discours sur Vinegalite ventures into the domain of fiction he will excel the author of Clarissa at the first attempt ? All this explains how it was that, to the amazement of certain historians, critics should have been found who could compare the two works and the two men. It seems clear that in England the comparison was unfavourable to Rousseau. The work was immediately translated and was fre- quently republished.2 Richardson, it is said, derived no pleasure 1 25th May 1764. 2 Eloisa, or a series of original letters collected and published by J.-J Rousseau, translated from the French. London, Becket, 1761, 4 vols. I2mo. "Milord Marechal " speaks of several English editions. (Letter of 2nd October 1762, Streckheisen- Moultou, vol. ii., p. 68.) 232 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON from its perusal. A fact of greater significance is that the refined intelligence of Gray, catholic as it was and usually so inquisitive with regard to French works, was repelled by the want of veri- similitude in a book " more absurd and more improbable than Amadis de Gaule." In vain he goes on hoping that a wonderful denouement will " bring something like nature and interest out of absurdity and insipidity." If the book is really by Rousseau it " is the strongest instance I ever saw that a very extraordinary man may entirely mistake his own talents." 1 A lengthy comparison of Rousseau with his rival was published by an English journal, The Critical Review, and was immediately reproduced by the Journal etranger, in which it appeared — and the fact is significant — a month before the publication of Diderot's £/oge, and as though to pave the way for it. " Our ingenious author," says the writer of this article, "has formed his Eloisa on the plan of the celebrated Clarissa, the favourite work of our late countryman, the amiable Mr Richardson." " Eloisa is a less perfect Clarissa, Clara a Miss Howe, as fervent in her friendship, as witty and charming, but less humorous. ... It is indeed the highest encomium on Mr Richardson, that he has been deemed worthy the imitation of a writer of Mr Rous- seau's eminence." But in respect of moral teaching the palm must be awarded to the English author, who is also the more weighty and the more faithful to nature, if he is the less brilliant of the two. " Rousseau's performance is infinitely more sentimental, animated, refined and elegant ; Richardson's more natural, interesting, variegated and dramatic. The one everywhere appears the easy, the other the masterly writer ; Rousseau raises your admiration ; Richardson solicits your tears." The one is a master of rhetoric of the most brilliant talent ; the other is a painter of genius.2 Such was the verdict of all the enemies of Rousseau. In Freron's opinion, Rousseau was most likely indebted to 1 Letter of 22nd January 1761. (Works, edited by Gosse, vol. iii., p. 79.) See Mrs Barbauld, vol. i., p. cvii. : " Rousseau, whose HeloTse alone, perhaps, can divide the palm with Clarissa." 2 Critical Review, September 1761, vol. xii., p. 203. Cf. Journal etranger, December 1761. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 233 Clarissa for the plot and the principal characters of his book.1 Grimm — the friend of Diderot — thinks that "it is the fate of great works to give rise to numbers of feeble imitations : Miss Biddulph and La Nouvelle Heloise will not be the last." A few pages only of the new novel deserve comparison with Grandison. The three novels of the master stand forth as "prodigious works."2 La Harpe, also, points out the analogies between the two, and gives the credit to Richardson, without, however, failing to appreciate the genius of Rousseau.3 In short, the parallel between the two works was a common- place of eighteenth century criticism. The general public, less partial, was divided in opinion with respect to them. The one, as containing the history of Rousseau's own love-affairs, was more keenly interesting, and possessed the attraction which scandal always affords ; the other, for very many people, remained the more truly great work of the two. Readers were by no means rare, who retained, like the duchess de Lauzun, a preference for the English novel, and derived " a thousand times more pleasure"4 from its perusal. "The one made me weep no less than the other," said Ballanche, refusing to choose between them. Many a reader preferred " the naturalness, the pathos, the truth, and the moral excellence " 5 which render Clarissa the masterpiece of modern fiction, to the "artificial" though "dazzling and fascinating" eloquence of Rousseau. Ill To-day we read Jean-Jacques' novel with less prejudiced eyes. But if we restore the conditions which prevailed at the time of its publication, and if, in addition, we read the two works 1 Annee litteraire, 1761, vol. ii., p. 306 et seq. 2 Correspondance litteraire, February 1761 and June 1762. 3 Cf. Cours de [literature, vol. iii., p. 192. 4 D'Haussonville, Le salon de Mme. Necker, vol. i., p. 239. 5 Marmontel, Essai sur les romans (1787). A curious comparison between Richardson and Rousseau will be found in Ballanche (Du sentiment, Paris, 1801, 8vo, p. 221). 234 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON with attention, we can account for the comparison drawn by those who were contemporary with their authors. Heloise appeared at the precise moment of the eighteenth cen- tury when anglomania was at its height. " If a telescope like those of Herschell," said Garat, " and an ear-trumpet of similar range had existed at that period, they would have been directed towards England still more frequently than towards the moon and the other celestial bodies." l At no time during the century was this enthusiasm more keen than towards the close of the Seven Years' War. To a few reactionary spirits who were concerned thereat, it was boldly answered : " Gentlemen, there are a thousand whose voices are raised in declamation against anglo- mania : what they understand by the word I do not know ; if they mean the craze for turning a few useful customs into burlesque . . ., they may be right ; but if by any chance these ranters should presume to treat it as a crime on our part that we desire to study, to observe and to philosophize like the English, they would certainly make a very great mistake."2 We have seen how, in his novel, Rousseau had humoured this current of opinion by giving an English colour to the sentiments and manners of his characters. This was one preliminary reason for comparing him with Richardson ; but there were others besides. In the first place the plot of his book recalls that of Clarissa. It is, as in Clarissa, the story of an unfortunate girl, who is victimized by her father's endeavour to force her inclinations. In a certain sense, Rousseau's novel even forms a sequel to Richardson's : Clarissa's father schemes to win from his daughter a consent which violence has failed to extract from her, but her flight prevents him from carrying out his design. What is suggested by Richardson is put into execution by Rousseau, and accordingly the baron d'6tanges induces Julie to marry M. de Wolmar. It is true that Clarissa heroically defends her virtue, while Julie yields at the outset. But the analogy is in a manner restored by Julie's marriage ; as Wolmar's wife she 1 Memoir es sur Suard, vol. i., p. 72. 2 Letter to the authors of the Gazette litteraire (i4th November 1764). RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 235 resists Saint-Preux, whom she still loves, just as Clarissa resists Lovelace, whom she has always loved and to whom she has once belonged, though against her own will. Love thwarted by duty, and conquered, is the theme of both works. Again, there is a symmetry in the arrangement of the char- acters. Julie resembles Clarissa, as Claire resembles Miss Howe: the two former are alike gentle and serious, their two confidantes malicious and sprightly. Just as Miss Howe marries the stupid but excellent Hickman, so Claire becomes the wife of the good- natured and honourable M. d'Orbe, the man of whom she dis- respectfully remarks that he lacks the " virile intelligence of strong souls." 1 Like Miss Howe, Claire, whose affection for her husband is of a very tranquil order, loves her friend with an almost inordinate affection, which causes her even to lose her reason when Julie dies. So too, Julie, like Clarissa, has a harsh and unfeeling father, and a good-natured but insignificant mother. As Clarissa finds a protector in Colonel Morden, so Julie and Saint-Preux have a bosom-friend in Lord Bomston. Bomston, like Morden, is the soul of honour, and like him, again, is proud and generous. Wolmar, though as virtuous as Lovelace is profligate, is, like him, an unbeliever, and reasons in a similar manner, if with the best of intentions. Lastly, Julie purposes flight from her father's roof, just as Clarissa does ; she cor- responds in the same way with her lover through the agency of a friend ; her letters are intercepted ; and, like Clarissa, she dies in the end, after philosophizing at much length for the edification of those around her. Was it then inexcusable, for contemporaries, who remarked all these analogies, to conclude therefrom that Jean-Jacques had copied the plot and the general arrangement of the English novel ? But he owes to Richardson another and heavier debt. In Heldise there are two works : in the first place a novel of the bourgeois type — the newest, most eloquent, most improving of eighteenth century novels, the earliest model for Delphine, Corinne and Werther, and the work which realises, as no 1 I-, 65. 236 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON other does, the literary aspirations of the age. In the second place Helolse contains a prose poem, a first "confession" by Rousseau, disguised and incomplete as yet, but, already even, how full of pathos ! Here, in germ, is all the lyricism destined afterwards to shine forth in the Confessions and the Reveries, the intercourse with nature, the melancholy, the poetic communion with the heart — or, as Freron said, immediately after the publica- tion of the book, " an exquisite appreciation of nature, physical, and moral, a touch often pleasing and voluptuous, a gentle melancholy which can be known only in retirement." l This it was which constituted the unlocked for gift of genius, and herein Rousseau had no teacher but himself. His lyricism springs from himself alone. But the roman bourgeois contained in Julie, the art of portraying the characters and presenting them in action, " the eloquent language of the heart, the accents of emotion " — Freron is still the speaker — all this he derived from Richardson. In the first place he is indebted to him for the epistolary form of novel. Was Richardson really the inventor of this form ? The question was asked even in the eighteenth century : some assert- ing, others denying, that he had taken the idea either from the semi-romantic letters to be found here and there in the Spectator, from Mme. de Sevigne, Mme. Dacier, and Mme. de Lambert, whom, of his own accord, he quoted as models,2 or, lastly, from the Lettres portugaises, or from those of HeloYse and Abelard.3 The Lettres portugaises, especially, had frequently been reprinted, and often in the same collection with those of Heloi'se,4 while amorous epistles were to be found in French novels — in Polex- andre and in Cyrus ; and Crebillon fils, who had attained a great reputation in England, had published his Lettres de la marquise 1 Annee litteraire, lj6l, vol. ii. 2 See Mrs. Barbauld, vol. vi., p. 121. 3 On this subject see Freron, Annee litteraire, vol. ii., p. 306 ; Journal encyclopedique, February 1756, p. 32, and February 1775, p. 459. See also J. Jusserand, Les grandes ecoles du roman anglais. 4 For example : Recueil de lettres galantes et amoureuses d'Helotse et Abelard, d'une religieuse portugaise au chevalier . . . ., avec celles de Cleante et de Belise, Amsterdam, 1711, I2mo. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 237 de . . . au comte de R. . . . in I738.1 All this, however, in no way detracts from the glory of Richardson. Novels in the form of letters had plainly been published before his time ; but it is no less evident that no one had turned this method to the same account as he did. In Pamela, not only is the diary method employed concurrently with the other, but his art is still very un- certain, and shows but few traces of the imitation of good models. In Clarissa, on the contrary, the author has, by his own con- fession, acquired confidence in himself2; the correspondents are more numerous, the style has become flexible, and the characters have the leisure to present themselves to us in all the complexity of their nature. The epistolary novel has really become what it should be, a form of the analytical novel. If it is not this it is nothing, and the originality of Richardson consists in the very fact that he made it such. The essence of the novel in epistolary form lies in the invention " not so much of facts as of feelings," and of " observations upon what takes place in the heart " rather than events, however cleverly contrived.3 A letter is a journal, and in a large measure a journal intime. As a journal it throws light upon hidden feelings ; and as a letter it is suggestive of romance, intrigue, and the seductive advances of both intellect and heart. It is a confidence, but a confidence tempered by that dose of vanity which each one of us unintentionally mingles with words spoken to another. The epistolary type of novel is thus a delicate one to deal with, one which readily becomes tedious and is very easily rendered unendurable. A bundle of homilies on suicide, duelling, or marriage does not deserve the name of novel, for this demands a thread of events which shall leave its impression now on one, now on another, of a certain number of minds, wherein, with sufficient clearness, but without too much repetition, we are enabled to follow its consequences. The characters must have the capacity and the leisure for writing to one another, and if they are to be interesting, must have the 1 The Hague, 2 parts, i2mo. Crebillon fils, according to Voltaire, is also the author of the Lettres de Ninon, published by Damours (Amsterdam, 1752, 2 vols. izmo). 2 See the Postscript to Clarissa. 3 Mme. de Stael, De I'Allemagne^ ii. 28. 238 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON inward yearning for confession and analysis. Lastly, it is necessary that the public should have a taste for confidences of this kind — a circumstance which occurs at certain epochs only, and under the influence of certain moral ideas. Now Richardson, in spite of a certain coarseness in the use of his means, is the actual creator of the confession-novel, and this is why Rousseau — the very incarnation of confession — borrows the form invented by him. In fact, he is the only writer to borrow it from him. For in spite of the publication of Mme. de GrafEgny's Lettres peruvienne s — inspired, it was said, by Pamela1 — of Mme. Riccoboni's Lettres de Juliette Catesby, and Mme. de Beaumont's Lettres du marquis de Roselle, the first genuine example of the epistolary novel to appear in France was La Nouvelle Heldise, because it alone corresponds to the definition of the class. Rousseau's characters, like those in Clarissa Harloive, make their confessions " in the bosom of friendship." Like them they have, as Mme. du DefFand expressed it, the gift of " verbose eloquence." Like them, too, when swayed by strong emotion, they amaze the reader by rushing to the inkstand. Wolmar quits the bedside of his dying wife, and enters his study in order to set down what she has just said to him ; Julie writes to her friend from her deathbed ; Saint-Preux, confined in the apartment where she has promised to meet him for the first time, exclaims : " How glad I am that I have found ink and paper ! I give expression to my feelings in order to moderate their violence ; by describing my raptures I check their extravagance." What is there that they do not write ? What suggestions, what odd con- fidences, they set down ! Rousseau, like Richardson, makes an improper use of the method, and gives us sermons in the form of letters : we have a letter concerning gardens, a letter on duelling, letters upon suicide, education, music, and adultery : he gives us not so much a correspondence as a system of moral precepts for everyday life and for solemn occasions. The digressions are even more numerous than in Clarissay and frequently are no more happily expressed. In spite, also, of Rousseau's immense 1 Freron, Annee litteratre^ vol. ii., p. 306. RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 239 superiority, his style, like Richardson's, is here sometimes, as the preface observes, " pompous and dull," and worthy " of the provincial, the foreigner, the recluse, or the young person," as the case may be, who employs it. Rousseau did not know how truly he spoke : many passages in these letters are just what would be written by an affected Vaudoise. " Thou throne of the world," writes Saint-Preux to Julie, "how far above me do I now behold thee ! " Or again: "My heart is overwhelmed with the tears which flow from your eyes." Their souls "touch in all points, and everywhere feel an entire coherence." The hut in which Julie receives her lover is " the temple of Cnida," and her " inquietude increases in a compound ratio of the intervals of time and space." 1 Richardson may be suburban, but Rousseau, with all his greatness, is unquestionably pro- vincial. As for the interest, "it is for everyone, it is nothing at all." Is it worth while to keep a register " of what anyone can see every day in his own or his neighbour's house " ? Similarly, Richardson claims to present nothing but what is " true and founded upon nature itself." The two novelists take equal pleasure in tedious and minute descriptions of middle-class manners. But Richardson was the simpler : Rousseau is more aggressive, and accompanies his portraiture of common people with a homily for the benefit of the great. Nevertheless, the change he introduces is important. French works of fiction were essentially " society " and " drawing-room " novels, wherein certain truths were never stated, certain subjects never mentioned, except to raise a laugh. In the works of Prevost and Crebillon fils there was no cooking or washing of clothes, and the housekeeping was carried on behind the scenes. In Pamela, for the first time outside picaresque fiction, the public had been treated to descriptions of objects which previously it had always been considered improper to mention : kitchens, saucepans, and scullions. Rousseau, in his turn, tries to get nearer the truth by condescending to enter the larder, and writes a manual for use of the good housewife. Therein we II., 5; III., 16; I., II ; I., 36; I., 13. 240 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON learn how good servants are trained ; how oil, bread, worsted and lace are economically made ; how cloth of good quality is to be distinguished ; how a garden should be laid out ; and how out of simple vin de Lavaux we can manufacture sherry, rancio or malaga, as we please l : quite a modern Oikononomikos. An article of " German pastry " is honoured with a full description. You must be able "to take a delight in the pleasures of children": have two dining-rooms, one for every day use, the other for entertaining ; do not take coffee, except on great occasions ; make yourself acquainted with familiar little recipes for refresh- ing the mind, and, like the author, abjure all contempt for people of the common sort, who delight in these simple pleasures. On the other hand Rousseau intentionally spares us such too forcible scenes as Richardson's realism would not allow him to forego ; his book contains nothing so distressing as the death of the woman Sinclair, the imprisonment of Clarissa, or her funeral. The death of Julie is managed in a becoming and almost cheerful manner; she is dressed in holiday attire and surrounded by flowers. He spares us the coffin, the train of mourners, the tolling of the bell and the grave. His one anxiety is to appear truthful ; an effect which, in his opinion, was only to be produced by dealing almost exclu- sively with the life of the common people. Like Richardson he portrays scarcely any characters but those of the lower or upper middle class. Neither M. d'Etanges, who is proud of his name, nor M. d'Orbe, are very lofty personages. Saint-Preux is a man of no fortune. " Let our noble authors choose more humble models ..." Rousseau introduces us to a few plain citizens of a little Swiss town, who have neither carriages nor brilliant clothes, and are neither comtes nor chevaliers. In Fanchon Regard and Claude Anet we meet people who are ignorant of the customs of society. You find their history dull ? Then trouble yourself no further ; I do not write for you. The hearts I lay bare before you are simple ones, neither perfect nor depraved. Their virtues are average virtues, their vices average vices. IV., 2. SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 241 Only a bourgeois soul could create the bourgeois novel. And this is why the first writer who ventured to tell the story of a persecuted little servant-girl is, in this respect also, the master of Jean-Jacques and has the best right to be regarded as his pre- decessor. Others had openly professed their desire to make the novel a picture of human life. The younger Crebillon had himself spoken of a literature " wherein man might at last behold man as he is, and be dazzled less but instructed more." l Similar declarations occur in the prefaces of novelists and dramatists. A theory of literature is easily constructed. But a reformation in fiction demanded a thoroughly plebeian type of art, an eloquent ruggedness of form, and sincere emotion in presence of these fresh and simple materials. IV But if Rousseau resembled Richardson in the bourgeois character of his mind, he resembled him also in that he was a Protestant and preached his religion. It is plain that there were marked differences between his credo and that of the pious Englishman, and Richardson would perhaps have treated the author of the Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard as he treated the deists of his own country. But this hatred of the philosophizing spirit — though they did not entertain it either to the same extent or in the same manner — was common to them both. Each held that all one could learn in philosophic circles was "how to undermine all the foundations of virtue." The whole ethical system of the philosophers was " the merest verbiage," and its professed teachers were " fit apologists for crime, who never seduced any but those whose hearts were already corrupt." 2 Like Richardson, Rousseau preaches against the idol of the age ; and like him is given to quoting somewhat ostentatiously, though with less reverence, from the Old Testament.3 As 1 Preface to Egarements du ceeur et de V esprit (1736). 2 Nouvelle Helo'ise, ii., IJ and 1 8. 3 V., 7 : " O Rachel, sweet maiden, beloved with so much constancy . . ." Q 242 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON his novel approaches its conclusion, its moral and religious purpose declares itself. The work assumes not only a more Christian, but even a more sectarian character. It is true that in his letters, Jean- Jacques asserts his wish to avoid hurting any- one's feelings, and even " to draw opposite parties together by a bond of mutual esteem " : " Julie, with her piety, affords," he says, " a lesson to the philosophers, and Wolmar, with his atheism, a lesson to the intolerant." 1 But when Malesherbes speaks of excisions he loudly insists on the religious character of his work. He does not imagine that a " Genevan novel " need be appreciated by the Sorbonne. He observes that the suppres- sions have been so carefully made " that his Calvinists have nothing left in the shape of doctrine " but what might be pro- fessed by the most superstitious Catholic : " one might just as well expect every Protestant who is coming to Paris to abjure his religion before he crosses the frontier." Why is not Prevost's Cleveland subjected to the same treatment ? "It seems rather strange that a Catholic priest may make Protestants express their opinion more freely in his novels than a Protestant may in his." 2 This is plain speaking. If the letter to Voltaire in answer to the Poeme sur Lisbonne, or the Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard should leave us in any doubt as to the sentiments of Rousseau, his novel would suffice to enlighten us. The moral of the book, in fact, lies in Julie's conversion — and even in that of Wolmar. For the conversion of the atheist, as Rousseau himself remarks, is " so plainly indicated that any further elaboration would turn it into a dull sermon." The atheist Lovelace dies of a sword- thrust, and Julie entrusts her husband's soul to Saint-Preux : " Be a Christian, that you may persuade him to become one. Success is not so far off as you think . . . God is just, my trust will not prove mistaken."3 This is edifying. But is this coup de la grace any less romantic than Colonel Morden's coup d^epee ? Julie, on whom all the sympathies of the author are expended, is, like Clarissa, a thorough Protestant, and even a pietist. She makes a study of Muralt's Instinct divin, much as Mme. de 1 To Vernes, zyth June 1761. 2 Observations adressees au libraire Genin, vol. v., p. 87. 3 VI., 12. SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 243 Warens, who also had " a somewhat Protestant mind," was influenced by Magny. It is true that she has long neglected religion : incapable of reconciling the worldly spirit with the spirit of the Gospel, she has " reserved her piety for the church, and cultivated philosophy at home " 1 ; but on her marriage she returns to the doctrine of " our Church." She prays, and it is from prayer and prayer alone that she derives the strength which keeps her from further transgression : when philosophy fails her, religion comes to her support. She seeks to convert her lover, and quotes St Paul to him. As the wife of an atheist, she sheds bitter tears over her husband's irreligion. On her deathbed she openly avows the faith of her fathers : " I die, as I have lived, in the Protestant communion, which derives its sole precept from Holy Scripture and from reason " 2 ; and to confirm her declara- tion she piously invokes a curse on Catholicism. When the pastor reminds her that a dying Catholic is surrounded by clergy who frighten him " in order to obtain the more control over his purse," she devoutly answers : " Let me thank Heaven that I was not born in the bosom of a venal religion which kills people in order to inherit their property." Is the writer who puts these words into Julie's mouth a philosopher simply, and nothing else ? And what more could Richardson have said ? In virtue of this, as also of many other characteristics, Julie is the sister of Clarissa. The woman whom Jean-Jacques loved when he was writing his novel assumed a foreign and Protestant character. The fact is significant. He gave her, it is true, a few of the characteristics of Mme. de Warens ; her vulgarity, sensuality, and coarse effrontery. But he gave her also the terrible clear-sightedness of Clarissa or Pamela. The reader will remember a certain strange reflexion of Pamela's concerning the dejection which follows upon transgression. In the same way Julie, even in her maidenhood, is aware that "the moment of fruition is a crisis in love."3 Like her English sister, she is thoroughly familiar with things of which young girls in French novels and plays either are — or pretend to be — ignorant. She knows that she is her own mistress, and why. She is neither an nil., 18. 2vi.,n. 3It>9. 244 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON Agnes nor a Henrietta. She has been called a highly improbable character ; all that can really be said is that she is not French. Once her character is restored to its natural atmosphere and stripped of any unpleasant attributes with which the polluted imagination of Jean- Jacques has invested it, the picture appears both real and life-like. " Like HeloYse in your love," says Claire to Julie, " you now resemble her also in your piety." The devout Julie is the true one. The other is a phantom, born, in Rousseau's mind, of the two figures of Mme. de Warens and Mme. d'Houdetot. Julie is pious. Her faith is a rule of life, enjoining respect for lofty problems, and distrust of whatever is merely human. " The lessons of philosophy need purifying by Christian morality." But philosophy is brought in merely for form's sake, as a concession to the age ; for " Christian morality " is sufficient in itself. Under the influence of her belief Julie becomes cold and argumentative. She considers that virtue, integrity, and resemblance in certain points of character can take the place of love between husband and wife, provided only there be religion as well.1 Observe how she breaks with Saint-Preux : she gives him permission to write to her, using Claire as a medium of communication, but on condition that the latter will suppress anything that requires it, " if," says she, " you should prove capable of abusing your privilege." Her perspicacity is truly appalling : " My dear friend, I have always found you most agreeable. . . . But I have never seen you in any other character than that of a lover : how do I know what you would become if you ceased to love me ? " She tells him frankly that if she were twenty years old and free she would not have him ; she has too clear a perception of the conditions necessary to happiness. The truth is that women like Julie, if they can love at all, cannot love as the heroines of French novels do. They have a much keener sense of their moral personality. Like their descendants, the heroines of the Nor- wegian drama, they require love to be consecrated by equality of rights. Apparently they have an abundance of pride and some 1 III., 20. SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 245 austerity. Clarissa asks whether a man who has nothing but faults can expect to win her esteem, and what, she would like to know, are the virtues of Lovelace ? Yet the gift of such a soul has the greater value. It was his conception of religion and morality that led Rousseau, just as a different conception had led Richardson, to create female characters which were entirely new to French literature. Are we to say that Rousseau derived his taste for moral problems from Richardson ? Not exactly. But if Clarissa Harloive seemed to him the finest novel in the world, it was doubtless because he discovered in it something of his own aspirations. The author of Clarissa was eloquent on behalf of the family; and, similarly, Jean- Jacques pleaded the cause of marriage. We may hold that his pleading is ineffective, and that the first part of his book anticipates and destroys the effect of the second ; we may feel, moreover, that a happiness founded not so much on affection as on " a certain correspondence of character and disposition" does not sound very promising. Yet after all the cause was defended with zeal, and this in itself was something fresh. Marriage, in French literature, was either a means to getting on in the world, or a subject for coarse pleasantry. In the opinion of Moliere's Madelon, to start with a marriage was " to begin a novel at the wrong end"; marriage brought upon Dandin the mishaps which every reader will re- collect, while Gil Bias retreated, as it were, into wedlock in the most perfunctory manner, and in order to get it over. Marivaux's Jacob, who fell into the hands of a woman as old as she was devout, never was the same man afterwards. In every instance married life was the source of distressing or ridiculous mishaps. No one had written, or thought of writing, the novel of marriage. It was this that Richardson, with sorry results it is true, endeavoured to do in Pamela, while in Clarissa he exhibited the dangers of love without the sanction of marriage. Rousseau, in the second part of his story, attempted a more direct and more complete demonstration. From its very novelty the undertaking gave offence. A novel without passion ! The notion seemed a paradox. But Rousseau had a weakness for this second part : 246 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON this "case of morals and conjugal fidelity " seemed to him more original. The fact is, he was not afraid to preach — we can scarcely help saying — with effrontery. This was not the way with French classical authors. They were not so profoundly convinced that " the beautiful is nothing but the active form of the good." They avoided all direct instruction, and Richardson would have horri- fied them. Above all they did not import into fiction problems which were the peculiar province of the pulpit or the schools. The Princesse de Cleves does not contain lengthy dissertations on the duties of a father, nor on suicide, duelling, the relief of beggars, chastity, adultery or free will. Such questions were treated, if at all, only by the way, and with the lightest possible touch. At most Marivaux had seasoned the novel with a dose of worldly morality, tempered with plenty of wit. He never ascended either the pulpit or the tribune. With him it was the novel that carried the moral, not the moral that included and justi- fied the narrative. With Richardson and Jean- Jacques it was the sermon, bare and undisguised, that invaded literature ; an effect, I admit, of a philosophizing age, but also, and mainly, the effect of a profoundly religious education, even when, as in Rousseau's case, that education has been incomplete. Education, domestic economy, the functions of a parent, agriculture, religious duties, immorality, suicide — what a list of homilies and sermons for a single novel ! It seems as though fiction had inherited the eloquence of an exhausted pulpit. Modesty sets no limits to his preaching. " Every covering of the heart," says Mme. de Stael,1 " has been rent asunder. No ancient writer would have made his own soul the subject of fictitious experiences in this manner." The same might be said of the classical writers of France, the disciples in this respect of the ancients. But here we find an insatiable curiosity with regard to the moral life, not of humanity, but of each individual. Fiction no longer speaks through the third person, but exclusively through the first. Nothing less than the complete hygiene, the complete pathology, of the soul will suffice for Rousseau. 1 DeVAllemagne, II., 28. SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 247 If " cases " are wanting, they are invented. Richardson had already manifested a strange interest in cases of conscience. In the Nouvelle Heldise casuistry flourishes on every page. Wolmar explains to Mme. d'Orbe how it is that Julie and Saint-Preux are "still lovers," though they "are nothing more than friends." How can they be so ? The case is a strange one: "He is in love not with Julie de Wolmar but with Julie d'Etanges ; he hates me not because I possess the person of the woman he loves, but as the ravisher of her whom he has loved. ... He loves her in the past, that is the truth of the enigma ; take away his memory, and he will love no longer." So Wolmar is perfectly tranquil. " The more they see of one another alone, the more easily they will under- stand their mistake, because they will compare what they feel with 'what they 'would once have felt in a similar situation" Such is Rousseau's way of solving the problem of conscience which, from sheer love of dialectic, he is so kind as to discuss. Hence the numerous paradoxes that have so repeatedly been pointed out in his book. Hence, too, however, fiction acquires all at once a singular dignity. For Rousseau's very sophistries indicate an unusual interest in moral questions. At certain periods, if the atten- tion of mankind is to be brought back to questions of vital importance, certain truths must be set forth with all the pomp of paradox : moral doctrine, bare and unadorned, seems quite vapid; this our apostles of to-day — Ibsen, Tolstoi', Dumas fils — have clearly perceived. Similarly, Rousseau, in order to inoculate the French novel with the noble and aspir- ing unrest of English fiction, to give it the character of " a moral treatise, whence obscure virtues and destinies may derive incentives to enthusiasm " x — has strewn his work with paradox of the most provocative kind ; first of all because he was Rousseau, but also because it was in his case almost a neces- sity to be over impressive if a strong impression was to be produced at all. However this may be, no more complete revolution had ever before transformed the novel in France. For centuries the 1 Mme. de Stael, De la /literature, i., 15. 248 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON Latin literatures had maintained their position by means of the drama, the epic, and poetry of the classical type. The novel, as an inferior branch of literature, was reserved to beguile a leisure hour. No other branch, however, was so essentially capable of a profound renovation. Sufficiently comprehensive in scope to include and absorb everything essential to the other forms, admirably fitted to develop that obstinate faculty of precise observation which is the distinctive feature of the modern genius, and susceptible also of adaptation to different varieties of talent, and even to the caprices of humour, the novel, in order to win for itself the place left void by tragedy and the epic, simply needed to attack the gravest problems with confidence. And this is what it did in the hands of the English first of all, and afterwards in those of Rousseau. Others before them had written novels characterized by intelligence, subtlety and even pathos ; others had charmed or amused their age, or stirred it to emotion. None had introduced, in a work apparently of so frivolous a nature, the same elevation of thought, the same intensity of faith, and, if the expression be allowed, the same fervour of apostleship. None had boldly substituted the portrait of the individual, with his peculiarities and eccentricities, but with all the power of his personal conviction and of his native originality as well, for conventional types and traditional forms of narrative. In virtue of these characteristics the English novelists deserved to be what Voltaire desired that Locke and his fellow-philoso- phers in England might become, " the instructors of the human race." Through the agency of the former, as has been justly remarked, the purest and healthiest ideas of the latter have been diffused throughout the universe, "as well as all that is noblest and most exalted in the doctrines of English preachers." l Thanks to them the novel attained a dignity it had never known ; it became the most powerful of all instruments for the propagation of ideas. Thanks to them, in the last place — since they had prepared the way and cleared the ground — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, their brother in genius, was enabled to 1 J. Jusserand, Le roman anglais, p. 69. SUPERIORITY OF ROUSSEAU 249 write the most eloquent and the most impassioned work in all French fiction. In this sense, therefore, the Nouvelle Heloise is the offspring of Clarissa Harloive. V But because Richardson's work was capable of being further improved upon, and, above all, because he was Rousseau, Jean- Jacques introduced in his novel what they had been incapable of introducing in theirs. In the first place, their conscientious representation of life required a setting. The novel as exemplified by Richardson was a play without scenery. This Rousseau had perceived. He had one general fault to find with this author, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre tells us, " that of never having connected the idea of his heroes with any locality of which his pictures would have been recognized with pleasure by the reader." "It is im- possible," he said, " to picture Achilles without at the same time beholding the plains of Troy. We follow Aeneas on the shores of Latium : Vergil is not only the painter of love and war, he is also the artist of his own country. This characteristic of genius was wanting in Richardson." 1 It was wanting indeed, to an incredible degree. In this respect he belongs to the age of Queen Anne : Addison, after crossing the Alps, described how his head was still giddy with mountains and precipices ; no one, he said, would credit the delight he felt at once more beholding a plain.2 Grandison, as he crosses Mont Cenis, declares that the prospect around him is wretched in the extreme — and this is the only reflection he has to make. Richardson's ideal landscape is " a large and convenient country house, situated in a spacious park," which contains a few structures " built in the rustic taste." Clarissa's garden is merely a place in which she may walk and dream. It is not described in a manner which brings it before us, 1 Fragments sur J.-J. Rousseau. '2 Letters : December 1701. 250 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON any more than the famous " willow walk," humorously quoted by Stendhal as a specimen of the seventeenth century's love for nature, is described by the author of the Princesse de C/eves. Rousseau, we need scarcely remind the reader, placed the story of the sorrows of the soul in a setting it is impossible to forget. With his other characters he associated a new actor — nature, who often takes the leading part. " Ah, Eloisa ! too much sensibility, too much tenderness, proves the bitterest curse instead of the most fruitful blessing ; vexation and disappoint- ment are its certain consequences. The temperature of the air, the change of the seasons, the brilliancy of the sun, or thickness of the fogs, are so many moving springs to the unhappy posses- sor, and he becomes the wanton sport of their arbitration ; his thoughts, his satisfaction, his happiness depend on the blowing of the winds." l Now it is difficult to imagine the noble and pious Grandison committing the control of his well-regulated person to the winds. We cannot picture him making nature — the friend for all times and seasons — the participator in his restrained enjoyments and formal sorrows. He is too careful of his per- sonal dignity to ask of the " vast sea" — " the immense sea" — " the calm which flies his agitated heart." 2 He would feel himself wanting in the self-possession which marks the gentle- man, if in Clementina's presence he gave utterance to a passionate outcry like this : " I find the country more delightful, the verdure fresher and livelier, the air more temperate and serene than ever I did before ; even the feathered songsters of the sky seem to tune their tender throats with more harmony and pleasure ; the murmuring rills invite to love-inspiring dalliance, while the blossoms of the vine regale me from afar with the choicest perfumes. ... I am tempted to imagine that even the earth adorns herself to make a nuptial bed for your happy lover, worthy of the passion which he feels, and the goddess he adores."3 This, nevertheless, is the practice of Shakespeare, and also of Milton. But Richardson, in this respect, departs from the national tradition ; his narrow piety closes his eyes. 1 Neuvelte Hcloue, i., 26. 2 III., 16. 3 I., 38. SUPERIORITY OF ROUSSEAU 251 It has been said that Christianity, by concentrating man's thoughts upon himself, dries up within him the sources of the feeling for nature, and that in opening the eyes of the soul it has closed the eyes of the body. The theory is contestable ; for it takes no account of the songs of St Francis, of Bossuet's Meditations, of the poetry of Lamartine, and many other works which are at once Christian in character and picturesque. But there is a kind of devoutness, such as Jansenism or Pietism, which savours too much of the cloister — too much of the cell. There are heavens which do not declare the glory of God. There are souls which wither and fade away through ex- cessive devotion to the inner life. Further, it must be confessed, it is but an indifferent sign of moral health to commit one's soul " to the mercy of the winds." Nature, with its purity of atmosphere, with its vast horizons, with so much in it that is primitive or awe-inspiring, may act as peace-maker ; but it is none the less true, as Rousseau more than once with sufficient emphasis remarks, that " all great passions are born of solitude," and that Rousseau himself is full of gratitude that it is so. Lastly, to consider that mere sensibility to natural beauties is a virtue, or even, as the disciples of Jean- Jacques would have it, the whole of virtue, becomes a paradox as soon as we cease to admit that wisdom consists in losing or annihilating oneself in nature. A famous follower of Rousseau, the poet Shelley, pushed the master's theory to its extreme consequence, when he wrote that " whosoever is free from the contamination of luxury and licence may go forth to the fields and to the woods, inhaling joyous renovation from the breath of spring, or catching from the odours and signs of autumn some diviner mood of sweetest sadness, which improves the softened heart." l This delicious exaltation becomes a recompense, an encouragement, a talent conferred on virtue by " the divine." It differs little, if at all, from virtue itself. But what sort of a virtue is that which totters at the faintest breath ? And how much more sure of himself was Grandison than the weak and wavering Saint-Preux ! 1 Essay on Christianity. 252 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON The truth is that Rousseau's genius was profoundly lyrical, whereas Richardson's was not, or was so only during those rare moments when the pathos of his subject lent him wings and carried him beyond the reach of the sordid things of life. This lyrical quality of Rousseau's genius is due to his concep- tion of love. For him it is more violent, more enthralling, more sensual. Clarissa cannot help loving Lovelace, but she strives against her passion. Julie acknowledges herself vanquished at the outset, with the excuse that she has " only the choice of her faults." Genuine love, in fact, " is a devouring fire, which inspires the other sentiments with its zeal, and animates them with fresh vigour."1 Richardson had depicted its matchless power and nobility, but he had also set forth its dangers. Rousseau, thoroughly convinced that "cold reason never did a great deed," reached the same conclusions, but at the same time took a delight in portraying the exquisite agitation experienced by a fiery soul under the sway of passion, a passion " which penetrates and burns even to the marrow." In short, it is repugnant to the poet in Jean- Jacques to bring himself into harmony with the moralist. But what the moralist has lost thereby, the poet, the great poet, has gained. Moreover, Rousseau describes not only the sensual, but also the melancholy aspect of love. In this there was nothing absolutely fresh : Prevost, in Cleveland and Manon Lescaut, and Richardson himself, in certain parts of Clarissa, had attempted to portray the fierce yet sweet unrest which follows sensual pleasure. But their delight in indulgence was unaccompanied by the same exaltation. Their heroes had never sought love for the sake of the bitter taste it leaves behind it. To them the yearning for " enchanting sadness," for the " languor of the melted and impassioned soul," 2 were unknown. They had never experienced to the same extent that sense of the irreparable which accom- panies trangression and leaves the heart " empty and swollen U., 12. 2 " O enchanting sadness ! O languor of the melted and impassioned soul ! By how much you surpass the stormy pleasures, the wanton gaiety, the passionate delight, and every other transport, which the unbridled desires of lovers can derive from passion unrestrained." — I., 38. SUPERIORITY OF ROUSSEAU 253 like a balloon filled with air." 1 They had not fostered within themselves " the sweet yet bitter recollection of a lost happi- ness." Rousseau is infinitely their superior, and all comparison would be futile. No novelist had shed tears so sincere over " the sweet charm, now vanished like a dream, which attends on virtue." No poet had said to his mistress, with a richness of language previously unknown : " Our souls, exhausted with love and anguish, melt and flow like water." 2 Nor, lastly, had any one clothed sentiments so sincere in so poetical a form. " It may be very funny," wrote Voltaire, " to see a soul flow ; but as for water, it is usually just when it is exhausted that it ceases to flow." 3 Voltaire says no more than he is entitled to say ; but neither do we when we assert that Voltaire understands neither Rousseau, nor what constitutes the essence of lyricism, nor what separates the author of Julie from the author of Clarissa. Richardson wrote a novel, and Rousseau writes a poem. The one is a very great novelist, but a very bad writer ; the other is an incomparable artist in words. The one has no style at all ; the other renewed the French language from its very foundation. Feeling for nature, melancholy, the lyrical faculty : — in each of these respects, which at bottom may be reduced to one, Rousseau excels Richardson by the full stature of genius. Nevertheless, something of Richardson is transmitted to every one who reads Rousseau. It should be remarked that for nearly a century, most of the disciples of Jean-Jacques have been disciples of Richardson as well. All the romantic writers who preceded or followed the Revolution piously associated his name with that of his glorious imitator. From Rousseau Bernardin de Saint Pierre learned to love and imitate the author of Clarissa.41 Andre Chenier praises him in the warmest terms. Mme. de Stael acknowledges that the abduction of Clarissa was " the great event of her early life." 6 " Let neither man nor woman, of grovelling mind or corrupted 1 II., 17. 2 I., 26. 3 Lettres sur la nou-velle Helo'ise. 4 See Fragments sur J.-J. Rousseau. 5 Lady Blennerhasset, Mme. de Stael et son temps, vol. i., p. 185. 254 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON heart, dare to touch the books of Richardson, . . . they are sacred ! " l Chateaubriand earnestly invokes a revival of his reputation.2 Charles Nodier admires his nobility and freedom from affectation.3 Sainte Beuve, in his earliest lines, recalls with emotion "the pure passion" of Clarissa and Clementina.4 Lamartine, as well as Michelet, makes Richardson one of the studies of his early life.5 George Sand is enthusiastic in her ad- miration of the writer whom Villemain describes as " the greatest and perhaps the least conscious of Shakespeare's imitators," 6 and of whom Alfred de Musset says that he has written " the greatest novel in the world." 1 Du sentiment, 1801, p. 221. 2 Essai sur la /literature anglaise, pt. v. 3 Des types en litter ature. 4 Poesies completes, p. 352. 5 F. Reyssie, Lajeunesse de Lamartine, p. 89; Michelet, Mon journal, p. 81. 6 XV 111* siecle, lesson 27. ffioofe w ROUSSEAU AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND DURING THE LATTER HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURT Chapter I ROUSSEAU AND THE DIFFUSION OF THE LITERATURES OF NORTHERN EUROPE I. Development of English influence in the latter half of the century — Inter- course with England — Influence of English manners. II. Growth of the cosmopolitan idea — Diffusion of the English language and literature : newspapers and translations. III. Wherein Rousseau assisted the movement — The revolution accomplished by him in criticism — Manner in which he effected the union of Germanic with Latin Europe. THE influence of England had paved the way for the literary revolution accomplished by Rousseau, and, conversely, during the latter half of the century, the influence of Rousseau furthered the spread of English and of the Northern literatures generally among the French. The cosmopolitan spirit in France was born of the union of the Latin with the Germanic genius in the person of Jean- Jacques Rousseau. By the year 1760, the date of the appearance of La Nouvelle Heloise, " an experiment extending over a period of thirty years " — to use the expression, already quoted, of an eighteenth century writer 1 — " had been made upon one of the neighbours of France, namely England : it had long been impossible to doubt that the crossing of races is beneficial to every species of plants and animals ; and it was a necessary conclusion that in the human species, which the faculties of thought, speech, and conscience render so especially capable of being brought to perfection, the 1 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. i., p. 153. 355 256 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE crossing of minds, since they, too, have their races, would produce a species little short of divine." In the preceding pages we have endeavoured to show what we are to understand by this crossing of races and of minds. We have attempted to prove that Jean-Jacques Rousseau inoculated the French mind, as Mme. de Stael says, with " a little foreign vigour." We have striven to draw the reader's attention to a fact which has been too little noticed, " the union of the French with the English mind, which, if its immense consequences are borne in mind, is the most important fact in the history of the eighteenth century." 1 It has been our object to exhibit the effect of the example set by a great French writer — the most popular of his epoch — in frankly imitating an English model : even were Rousseau's debt less important than it really is, it would be none the less true that his contemporaries thought they perceived it, and that they hailed with delight — without, at the same time, very clearly discerning its consequences — the influence exercised by England upon his genius. The ancient prestige of the Latin spirit in France had received a blow from which it never recovered. It remains to show how the revolution in French taste accom- plished by Rousseau has in its turn facilitated the comprehension of the noble literature of a neighbouring country ; how, from 1760 onwards, he came to be pre-eminently the spokesman of those who, wearied by the long domination of the classical spirit, dreamed more or less vaguely of a renovation of art through the agency of the English genius ; and how, thanks to him, France was invaded by foreign works which up to that time had been misunderstood and regarded with suspicion, or admired, if at all, only by a few elect spirits. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, from the close of the Seven Years' War down to the Revolution, the social and intellectual influence of England was on the increase in France. The movement inaugurated by Voltaire, Prevost, and Montesquieu 1 Buckle, History of Civilization in England, vol. ii. GROWTH OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE 257 attained during these decisive years its full strength. Since these are just the years when the genius of Jean-Jacques was revolutionizing French literature and unsettling what up to that time had been recognized in France as the principles of criticism, it is necessary briefly to call to mind the extent to which circum- stances lent their assistance, unsuspected by Rousseau, to a work of which he himself doubtless failed to gauge the true import. Between 1760 and 1789, the intercourse between the two countries became closer and closer. The favour with which every- thing English was received in France attracted thither a large number of distinguished foreigners, including adventurers like Hales, poets like Gray,1 novelists like Smollett,2 economists like Arthur Young, actors like Garrick, critics like Johnson, and philos- ophers such as Hume or Dugald Stewart. In the same drawing- room — d'Holbach's, for example — such visitors as David Hume, Wilkes, Shelburne, Garrick, Priestley, and Franklin the American would come and go one after the other. Some of these guests created a sensation ; among them "the English Roscius," as Diderot calls Garrick, who inspired Mme. Riccoboni with a "warm, indeed a very warm, friendship,"3 and dreamed of converting Voltaire to the worship of Shakespeare 4 ; Wilkes, described by Jean- Jacques as " that mischief-maker," who posed as a great victim, astonished all Paris by his fiery eloquence, and went about everywhere with his daughter, " like Oedipus with Antigone " 5 ;. Hume, whom people rushed to behold as they formerly crowded "to see a rhinoceros at a fair" — David Hume — "heavy and silent," described by Rousseau, who at first befriended him but afterwards became his enemy, as " the truest philosopher I know, 1 Gray's visit was paid some years earlier. See the journal of his tour in France and Italy in Gray and his friends , by Duncan C. Tovey (Cambridge, 1890). 2 See Peregrine Pickle, ch. xxxv.-l. 3 See the dedication to the Lettres de Mme. de Sancerre. 4 Cf. Ballantyne, op. cit., p. 271. 5 Garat, Memoires sur SuarJ, vol. ii., p. 91 et seq. (Cf, Legier, Amusemeittt foetiques, Paris, 1769, p. 182 : Ce republicain intrepide Qui brave les plus grands revers, Des mains d'une beaute timide, Vient a Paris prendre des fers). R 258 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE and the only historian who ever wrote in an impartial manner " l ; and many others as well. The name of Englishman, said Gibbon, who came to Paris in 1761, was clarum et venerabile nomen gentibus? and a key to the door of every salon. Conversely, the French learned to cross the Channel, and the "pilgrimage to England" became almost obligatory. Buckle observes with pride that during the two generations which separated the close of the reign of Louis XIV. from the com- mencement of the Revolution, there was scarcely a single Frenchman of note who did not cross the straits. With regard to the period anterior to 1750, the assertion would be hazardous. Messieurs de Conflans and de Lauzun, Mmes. de BourHers and du Boccage were quoted as having been to England. A writer of the day remarks with interest that Mme. de BoufBers is the first lady of quality to attempt the journey.3 But during the latter half of the century a trip to England formed a part of the education of every intelligent man. The practice was adopted by the majority of such scholars and men of learning as Buffon, La Condamine, Delisle, Elie de Beaumont, Jussieu, Lalande, Nollet, and Valmont de Bomare ; by the greater number of politicians and economists, from Montesquieu to Helvetius, from Gournay to Morellet, from Mirabeau to Lafayette or Roland ; and, to a constantly increasing extent, by ordinary men of letters — Grimm, Suard, Duclos, and many others. In the philosophical circle of which Rousseau was so long a member, what was preached was also practised. Helve- tius's friend, the abbe Le Blanc, spent several years in England, and on his return brought back three great volumes of letters, heavy in style, but not lacking in discernment, which complete the work of Voltaire and Muralt.4 Raynal, the author of 1 Letter to Mme. de Boufflers, August 1762. See also Confessions, ii. 12. 2 Miscellaneous Works, p. 73. On English travellers in France during the eighteenth century, see Rathery : Les Relations sociales et intellectuelles . . ., 4th part, and A. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France. 3 Dutens, Journal d'un voyageur, vol. i., p. 217. 4 Le Blanc's Lettres were translated into English in 1747 (London, 2 vols. 8vo) and discussed by English critics. See Memoires de Trevoux, May and June 1746 ; NOU-V. //'#., January 1751 ; Clement, Les cinq annees litteraires, Hi. 26 ; Tabaraud, Histoire du philosofhisme anglaise, vol. ii., pp. 443-444. GROWTH OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE 259 the Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, so highly esteemed by Franklin and Gibbon, visited London and became a member of the Royal Society. Helvetius, who crossed the straits in 1763, came back "quite crazy about the English," and talked of " packing up his wife and children" to go and settle in London.1 But the only thing which d'Holbach, who was less of an anglo- maniac, found to his liking in that land of liberty was that " the Christian religion was almost extinct there " ; nevertheless, on his return he became a voluminous translator of English books, especially of such as had as little flavour of Christianity about them as possible.2 Grimm was charmed " with the simplicity, natural- ness and good sense " he met with in England, and would have been glad to remain in that happy country.3 Necker, his wife, Duclos, Morellet and Suard are scarcely less enthusiastic. It should be observed, as a highly interesting fact, that the pre- vailing fashion even led several youths to complete their educa- tion in England: young Walckenaer, who was sent by his uncle to Oxford, and afterwards to Glasgow, was four years absent from France ; while Fontanes spent eighteen months in England shortly before the Revolution, and there acquired a love for the poetry of Gray and Ossian.4 What was taking place was, in short, a revolution in French habits, big with significant consequences. Of these consequences the first is the growth of the influence of English customs. "Anglomania," says Grimm, a thoroughly trustworthy witness, " and the appalling progress it makes, threaten alike the gallantry, the social disposition, and the taste in dress of the French nation." In a more general sense, it endangered a whole tradition of genial grace and sociability, which formed as it were the stay of French classical literature. In France, as elsewhere, it tended to replace the social spirit by individualism ; in other words, by its very negation. 1 Diderot, (Eu-vres, vol. xix., p. 187. - Ibid., vol. xx., pp. 246 and 308. 3 E. Scherer, Melchior Gr'imm^ p. 254. 4 Observe also the great number of accounts of travels in England ; Grosley's oft-reprinted Londres ; and books by Lacombe, Chantreau, de Cambry, etc. We may call especial attention to that curious document, Un voyage philosophique en Anglelerre, by Lacoste (Paris, 1787, 2 vols. 8vo). 260 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE A certain pleasant comedy of the day satirizes English ways in a very agreeable manner. Eraste is an anglomaniac — that is to say, he turns his garden into a heap of ruins, has Hogard and Hindel (sic) always on his lips, drinks nothing but tea, rides none but English horses, and reads no authors but Shakespeare, Otway, and Pope : " The teachers of mankind have been born in London, and it is from them that we must take lessons. I am going to see this land of thinkers." His craze is flattered by Damis, who makes fun of him : "In France people laugh at everything ; but you must know, sir, that in England, though men sometimes hang themselves, they never laugh." Note, especially, that " in London every one assumes just what character he pleases ; there you surprise no one by being yourself."1 Accordingly, anglomaniacs make a point of being like no one else. Women are dressed " in hat, chemise," and short skirts, as in Emile, that they may take their constitutional in comfort ; men, in frock coat and vest, " walk with their chins in the air and assume a republican bearing."2 A learned justice of the period wants to know how Frenchmen are benefited by such close intercourse with England : " It only introduces queer tastes, less courtesy in tone and manners, and an increase of obnoxious absurdities. . . . Would you recognize this ecclesiastic, this magistrate, this new favourite of Fortune, with his high shoes, a whip or light cane in his hand, his hair turned up beneath a broad-brimmed hat which flaps about his eyes, his frock-coat fitting so tightly that it scarcely covers his back, and his neck muffled in a thick cravat ? Will you have time to get out of the way of this young madcap, seated like a quack in a carriage as flimsy as it is dangerous, driving like the wind at the risk of his own life and of those of the passers by, hatted, dressed and booted like his jockey, in a manner which befits the back seat of his carriage quite as well as the front, and makes it impossible for any one to say which is the master and which 1 Saurin, I1 Anglomane ou I 'Orpheline leguee, 2 See Grimm, Correspondance litteraire, May 1786 ; Mercier, Tableau de Paris, vol. vii., p. 38 ; Quicherat. Histoire du costume en France, p. 60 1. GROWTH OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE 261 the servant ? " 1 The English type of coxcomb, " bundled up in a hideous great cloak," splashed with mud up to his shoulders, and with a comb under his hat, sets up for a philosopher, quotes Addison and Pope, and seems to say : " Now am I a thinker" This thinking creature, "dressed in green," whose coat shows not a single crease, whose hair is innocent of powder, and whose head is always covered — is the anglomaniac. " Well ! " said one of them to the abbe Le Blanc, " what do you think of me ? Don't I look thoroughly English ? " 2 Touches like these, absurd as they are, afford evidence of a social transformation which struck the attention of all who were contemporary with it. The fashion was a democratic one, and was adopted by the common people. It reflected a ruder and more primitive form of society, or rather a society which was ambitious of being so. Louis XV. strove against the infatuation, but Louis XVI., who, at Necker's instigation, had made a study of England, encouraged it.3 From 1774 onwards, everything was in the English style — costumes, horse-races, and clubs.4 The evening meal is taken in the English fashion, about four or five o'clock ; and as for intellectual refinement, who would any longer expect it of the French ? A club a I'anglaise is a place of perdition, where, as Fox is surprised to find, you eat the vilest dishes, drink ponche made with bad rum, and read the news- papers : "I am very glad," Fox concludes after an evening of this kind, " to see that as regards imitation we cannot be more ridiculous than our dear neighbours."5 This fresh social 1 Rigoley de Juvigny, De la decadence des litres et des mtrurs, Paris, 1787, izmo, p. 476. 2 Preservatif centre Fanglomanie, Minorca and Paris, 1757. Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. i., p. 63. 3 Tabaraud, vol. ii., p. 451. 4 Ladies wore head-dresses said to be the outcome " of the union between France and England " (Mercier, Tableau de Paris}, In many shops English signs were displayed and English goods sold. Grimm (Corresfondance litteraire. May 1786) says that horses, carriages, furniture, jewellery, and woven materials were sent over from England. Vauxhalli were built at Paris in imitation of London, and there were a Coliseum, a Ranelagh, and an Astley's circus, the latter of which drew all Paris to see it. For horse racing there was quite a mania (see Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. iii., p. 151), etc. 5 Quoted by Rathery. 262 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE influence modifies the French disposition. " Elegance consisted in having none. Society had been spoilt by dinners attended by men only, by those who supposed themselves to be men of intelligence, or by military men who were destitute of it. Platitudes about liberty and abuses made them fancy themselves Englishmen ; how many times have I not said to them — the speaker is the Prince de Ligne : — ' Let them alone, these enormously long newspapers which you cannot read. What have you to do with Pitt and Fox, who ridicule anglomaniacs every day ? You don't even know the name of the lord-lieutenant of your own pro- vince'1 . . ." Social life is disappearing, and with it a part of the heritage the French have received from their ancestors. A drawing-room is now an ante-chamber, where everyone remains standing, including even the women : " You praise the hostess's wit, but what good does it do you ? A lay figure placed in a chair would do the honours of an evening like this quite as well. There she is bound to remain until three o'clock in the morning, and she will go to bed without having had a glimpse of half the people she has received. . . . And that is what is called an assemblee h F anglais e" 2 II In a society of this type, the highest virtue is to be a cosmo- politan in an intellectual sense. The word "cosmopolitanism" is of earlier origin, but it was at this period that it came into 1 Prince de Ligne, Memoires, vol. iv., p. 154. We read in the same author that " Horses and traps for the morning drive are ruining the young fellows in Paris. The French will take more harm from the English habits they adopt than from all the English fleet. . . . All these clubs will be the end of them. Farewell to good manners, to gallantry, to the desire to please. Now we talk of Parliament and of the House of Commons. We read the Courrier de T Europe, and talk horses. We bet ; play at crefs ; we drink wretched pale wine instead of the champagne which used to make our ancestors merry and inspire them with song. Barbarians ! You should give the tone; never receive it" (CEt/vres, ed. 1796, vol. xii., p. X73\ 2 Mme. de Genlis, Memoires, vol. v., p. 101, and vol. vii., p. 10. DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 263 general use.1 " The true sage is a cosmopolitan," says a writer of comedy.2 "Happy the man," exclaims Sebastien Mercier, "whose literary taste is cosmopolitan!"3 A traveller declares that " the highest title in Paris, after that of woman, is that of foreigner."4 And Franklin also remarks that a foreigner is treated with the same respect in France as a lady is in England.5 Thanks largely to this infatuation for everything exotic, Frenchmen began to have a more accurate acquaintance with at least one foreign language, and the knowledge of that language increased in a very remarkable manner. English had long repelled the student by the harshness of what La Harpe — who never knew the language — called its "inconceivable" pronunciation. None "but a northern ear," thought Le Blanc, "could endure sounds so harsh that they seem to conflict with the principles of human articulation."6 " I cannot imagine," wrote Freron nai'vely to Desfontaines, " how so subtle and so keenly intellectual a nation can employ such a language for the composition of works of genius. Can I conceive of Gulliver, Pamela, or Joseph Andrews as having been written in so harsh a language as this ? " And he uttered the hope that soon the English would make up their minds to write their books in French, which was " smooth, expressive, flowing and harmonious."7 Louis XV., moreover, was opposed to the teaching of English, and when Paris-Duverney, the super- intendent of the military school, suggested the institution of classes in that language, for the benefit of naval recruits, he replied peevishly : " The English have destroyed the intelligence 1 In the sixteenth century the word appears chiefly in the form cosmopolitain. In 1605, a Swiss writer published at Berne la Comedie du cosmopolite (Virgile Rossel, Histoire de la litterature franf aise en Suisse, vol. i., p. 464). The form cosmopolite is mentioned in the Trevoux Dictionary in 1721, and was recognized by the Academy in 1762. In 1750, a writer of the name of Monbron published Le Cosmopolite ou le Citoyen du monde, and in 1762 CheVrier produced Le Cosmopolite ou les Contradictions. ~ Palissot, les Philosophes, iii. 4. 3 Sebastien Mercier, preface to Jeanne d'Are. 4 John Moore, Lettres a"un voyageur anglais, Paris, 1788, vol. i. 5 Correspondance, translated by Ed. Laboulaye. 6 Lettres, vol. i., p. 75 et seq. 7 Observations sur les ectils modernes, vol. XXXlii. (1743), p. i86. 264 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE of my kingdom ; let us not expose the rising generation to the danger of similar perversion." l Voltaire had been the first to resist this prejudice. On his return from England, he had converted Thieriot, Mme. de Chatelet, and the abbe de Sade.2 To a young man who asked his advice with regard to journalism as a profession, he boldly replied, in 1737 : "A good journalist ought at least to have a knowledge of English and Italian, for these languages contain many works of genius, and genius is scarcely ever translated. I consider these the two European languages most necessary to a Frenchman." 3 A few years later his efforts at dissemination had borne fruit. About the middle of the century it was the fashion for women, even in the provinces, to learn English. " Not an Armande or a Belise " could be found who did not devote herself to the study of it.4 The means thereto were multiplied : Boyer's grammar and dictionary gave rise to numerous imitations.5 In 1755 the Journal etranger gave a long account of Johnson's dictionary, with a translation of the preface.6 But, so early as 1739, Pre- vost declares that the study of English has become an essential part of " fine literature." 7 An English traveller was struck by the change that had taken place : " Thirty years ago a French- man with a knowledge of two or three foreign languages would have been looked upon as a marvel ; to-day there are many people who read the speeches delivered in Parliament in the original." 8 In the reign of Louis XVI., a Societe philosophique was founded in Paris with the object of promoting the study of foreign languages, and of assisting foreigners in the acquisition of 1 Tabaraud, vol. ii., p. 447. 2 Letter to the abbe de Sade, i3th November 1733. 3 Conseils a un journalists : (Eu-vres, vol. xxii., p. 261. 4 Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. ii., p. 465. See also La Harpe, Cours de litterature, vol. iii., p. 224. 5 E.g. the grammars of J. Wallis, Mauger et Festeau, Peyton, Siret, Rogissard, Lavery, Gautier, Berry, O'Reilly, Flint, Dumay, &c. ; and the dictionaries of Boyer, Brady, Chambaud et Robinet, &c. 6 June 1755 and December 1756. 1 Pour et Contre, vol. xviii. 8 Premier et second voyage de Milord . . . a Paris, vol. iii., p. 153. DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 265 French.1 Grimm states that the language of Shakespeare 2 is the only one which forms an essential part of the scheme of a fashionable education. Mercier observes that the reading of English papers has become as common in Paris as fifty years ago it was rare.3 Every week Les Papiers anglais, a journal devoted to the study of English, published in both languages the most inter- esting articles from English journals, and Freron remarks on the success of the idea, which enabled students at one and the same time to learn the language and to make themselves familiar with the events of the day.4 Buckle has drawn up a long list of all the well-known Frenchmen who, during the eighteenth century, took the trouble to learn English ; it includes all, or nearly all, the noted writers of the period,5 and enables us to estimate the depth and extent of English influence better than many general considerations would do. This knowledge, it is true, was not uniformly accurate or thorough, but it was most widely spread, and indeed almost general — a fact which speaks volumes. A considerable number of English words, which were introduced into the French language at that time, bear witness to the fashion ; new customs bring new words : men go to the club, drink ponche and play whisk ; now-a-days, says Voltaire, "your major-domo serves up rostbifs of mutton . . . our poor French tongue must simply make the best of a bad case." 6 In truth the anglomaniacs put it to some pretty severe tests : dame becomes ladi1 \ lot becomes bit* ; while tnonsieur is replaced by sir, even when every rule forbids its use. " Sir, voulez-vous du the ? " may pass muster, but " a Sir donnez un verre d'eau " 9 is neither 1 Babeau, Paris in 1789, p. 339. 2 Correspondence litteraire, May 1786. 3 Tableau de Paris, vol. xi., p. 128. 4 There was also a goodly number of Musees a Vanglaisc in several towns : the Musee de Paris , the Societe olymplque, etc. 5 Buckle, vol. Hi., p. 81. 6 Letter to Linguet, published in the Journal encyclofedique, September 1769 7 Prevost, Memoircs d'un homme de qualite, vol. ii., p. 254: " C'est une charmante ladi." 8 Francois de Neufchateau, Pamela, iv. 12: Dans vos bills des longtemps mon supplice est £crit. The word is found even in the Trevoux Dictionary (1704). 9 Hid., ii. 12. 266 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE English nor French. Un plaisant serieux becomes un homme d'humour,1 and it is good form to have the spleen rather than the vapeurs? In the latter half of the century the " demon translator" raged furiously. Every publisher had his translating staff.3 Desfon- taines, Mme. du Boccage, Dupre de Saint-Maur, Du Resnel, Saint-Hyacinthe, and Van EfTen had led the way. His version of Paradise Lost had even obtained for Dupre de Saint-Maur a chair in the Academy. Their successors were legion, from Leclerc de Septchenes to Frenais, the translator of Sterne ; from the abbe Yart, the author of a voluminous Idee de la poesie anglaise, to the " inevitable M. Eidous," who, if Grimm is to be believed, translated a volume every month. Women took part in the work, and produced their " traductionette," in order to gain the reputation of being authors 4 ; Mme. de Boufflers translated English songs, the wife of the president de Meynieres turned her attention to the historians, and the duchess d'Aiguillon attacked Ossian. Prominent writers such as Prevost, Diderot, d'Holbach, and Suard devoted themselves to translation. Others, more modest or less capable, attribute all their success to their knowledge of English ; among them the first adapter of Shakespeare, La Place, who flattered himself that he knew two languages because he had been educated in the college of the English Jesuits as Saint-Omer, whereas in reality he did not know one. His knowledge of English, however, was "the cause of any little success he had had." La Place produced a translation of Otway's Venice Preserved, a Theatre anglais in eight volumes, a version of Tom Jones, and translations of everything that came in his way ; thanks to all these versions and to Mme. de Pompadour, he became editor of the Mercure.5 Another, the 1 Suard, Melanges de /literature, vol. iv., p. 366. Muralt is responsible for the first definition of fiumour. See also Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. i., p. 79. Attempts were also made to distinguish /tumour, or, as Garat spells it, hyumour {Memoires sur Suard vol. ii., p. 92) from ivhim (see Journal encyclopedique, ist June 1786). 2 On the spleen or vaf>eurs anglaises, see Prevost's Cleveland '• Le Blanc, vol. i., p. 169 ; Bezenval, Memoires, vol. iv., etc. 3 Journal encyclopcdique, February 1761. 4 Mercier, Tableau, vol. xi., p. 130. 5 La Harpe : remarks on La Place, in the Cours de literature. DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 267 celebrated Letourneur, described by Voltaire as " secretaire de la librairie, mais non secretaire du bon gout," extended this branch of commerce still further, founded together with Fontaine-Mai herbe, the Comte de Catuelan, the chevalier de Rutlidge, and others, a regular translating firm, rendered Shakespeare, Richardson, Young, and Ossian into French, and, in addition to this mass of work, was able at his death to leave behind him certain fragments of translation in manuscript which were piously published by his friends, together with his biography.1 A fact of greater importance is that, in order to satisfy this increasing taste for foreign productions, journals were started — not, as heretofore, at the Hague, or in London — which allotted the greater part of their space to English affairs, or were even exclusively devoted to them. Most of the literary journals of the period declare that the cosmopolitan spirit gives rise to " a social intercourse thoroughly worthy of the enlightened nations of which the European federation consists." 2 Those even who had once been hostile to the movement ultimately fell in with the fashion : Freron, who had at first shown no disposition to welcome foreign literature, now became very curious about it : assigned much of the space in his Annee lltteraire to German and English books, became intimate with Letourneur, and corresponded with Garrick. Pierre Rousseau's Journal encyclopedique is a mine of information for the student of the relations between France and Europe during the eighteenth century, and as much might be said of the Esprit des journaux — an immense series containing a most curious selection of the best articles from every periodical in the world, and the delight of Sainte-Beuve. Those who have never turned over the pages of the two hundred and eighty- eight volumes of the Journal encyclopedique, or the four hundred and ninety-five volumes of the Esprit des journaux? have no 1 Le Jard'm anglais, or Varieties both original and translated : a posthumous work with a notice of the author, Paris, 1788, z vols. izmo. 2 Correspondance litteraire, August IJJ2. 3 V Esprit des journaux fran^ais et etrangers appeared from July 1772 to April 1818. The Journal encyclopedique appeared from 1756 to 1773. 268 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE idea of the curiosity which foreign productions aroused in France. But, in addition to these magazines of a general character, special reviews were established : following the example of the Bibliotheque germanique and the Bibliotkeque ita/ique, there was a Traducteur, which gave a summary of the English periodicals, a Bibliotheque des romans anglais, a Censeur universe! anglais, or " General, critical, and impartial review of all English produc- tions"1— a list of efforts which would have greatly astonished Ariste, one of the characters of Father Bouhours, who considered " that people of refined intelligence are somewhat rarer in cold countries." The most famous of these cosmopolitan magazines, and the one most worthy of remembrance, was the Journal etranger, which was issued from 1754 to T7^2» anc^ edited successively by Grimm, Prevost, Freron, Arnaud, and Suard. Established in April 1754, ^e J°urnal was by turns mainly scientific in character under Prevost, political under Freron, and literary under Arnaud and Suard. Its title, and the sections into which it was divided, were frequently altered.2 After Freron left it, in October 1756, the scope of the magazine was enlarged ; regular correspondents were secured in the East, and in Rome, Leghorn, Florence, Gottingen, Leipzig, Dresden, Stockholm and London, and foreign contributions became both more accurate and more abundant. But the spirit of the magazine remained un- changed; from the outset its object had been to combine "the genius of each nation with those of all the others," to bring " writers of every nationality" into relation with one another, "to decide 1 See Hatin, Histoire de la presse, vol. iii., p. 114. 2 The descriptions of the Journal etranger given in bibliographies have, as a rule, been inaccurate. Its successive titles were Journal etranger, outrage periodique ; a Parts, au bureau du Journal etranger, . . . then Journal etranger, ou notice exacte et detaillee des outrages de toutes les nations etrangeres, en fait d'arts, de sciences, de litterature, etc., by M. Freron . . . (Paris, Michel Lambert). In 1760 it bore on the title- page the name of tbe abbe Arnaud, and appeared under the patronage of the Dauphin. The entire collection extends from April 1754 to August 1762 (42 vols. izmo); though no issue was made for December 1754, nor during the whole of 1759. Prevost's editorship lasted from January to August 1755 ; Freron's from August 1755 until October 1756. DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 269 those idle differences of opinion upon questions of taste which set the peoples of Europe at variance with one another," and to teach France " no longer to lay exclusive claim to the gift of thought, the mere pretension to which would almost afford evidence of its absence, no longer to venture upon the unseemly jests which are enough to make one people detested by all the rest, nor any longer to evince that offensive contempt for estimable nations which is nothing but a relic of the brutal prejudice due to former ignorance." l In short, the Journal etr anger proposed to resume, and at the same time to develop, the idea which had guided the refugee critics in the work of editing their magazines. Side by side with a letter on the condition of literature in Poland, it inserts an account of the German fable-writers. Here it speaks of Portuguese writers, and there of the poets of Arabia. Winckelmann, Kleist, Klopstock, and Lessing are mentioned in the same breath with Goldoni and Metastasio. But England, above all, furnished the material for whole numbers of the magazine. " We are aware," wrote the authors, " how necessary to our journal English literature has become. The lively and almost exclusive interest which is everywhere taken in the productions of the British intellect makes it imperative that we should conform in this respect to the general wish." 2 From the earliest volumes the journal derived its materials largely from Hume, Johnson, Foote, Glover, Milton, and even from Chaucer, Spenser, and Ben Jonson, either in the shape of translated excerpts from their works, or of biographical articles. Under Suard's influence the journal was still further devoted to the study of English writers. Suard, a man of subtle and acute intelligence — of whom it has been said that he was, " as it were, the full length portrait of a Frenchman " 3 — had made England peculiarly his own province. He had a thorough knowledge of the language, translated Robertson, and possibly Mrs Montague's Essay on Shakespeare, visited London thrice, once in the company of Necker, and saw 1 April 1754. Compare Arnaud's Discottrs prelimtnaire sur la caractere des prin- cipales langues de r Europe, which occurs in the year 1760. 2 September 1757. 3 Garat, Memoircs sur Suard, vol. i., p. 133. 270 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE Garrick play King Lear. He became remarkable, his biographer tells us, for his "absolute and unshaken confidence in the know- ledge of Great Britain he had thus acquired." The moment England was in question he " seemed, as it were, to take the chairman's seat," l and his drawing-room was the rendezvous for all the anglomaniacs in Paris. In 1764 the Journal Stranger was succeeded by the Gazette litter aire? under the same management and conducted in a similar spirit. The Gazette forms a natural continuation of the Journal. Like its predecessor it was " intended especially to afford information concerning foreign literature, the knowledge of which has more to do with the progress of reason and good taste than may be supposed." 3 It would rely for its information upon the diplomatic staff, and would enjoy the support of the minister for foreign affairs.4 Voltaire became a contributor, and wrote for it accounts of several English books, more especially of Sidney's Discourses upon Government, and Lady Mary Montagu's letters. But these dis- tinguished contributions appeared irregularly ; the directors, too, were negligent, being too much occupied with the Gazette de France^ which they edited as well. When, in August 1765, the Gazette litter air e ceased to appear, they had at least proved to every European nation that, as the abbe Arnaud expressed it, " no one was at liberty to assume a tyranny over others." " In the absurd dispute concerning the ancients and the moderns, the partisans of antiquity justly required that before forming an estimate of Homer we should transport ourselves to the period of which the manners and characters are described by the poet. We oive a like justice to everything 'which comes to us from abroad. We must place ourselves at their point of vieiu if ive are to judge of the ivay in 'which foreigners live."5 Thus it came about 1 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. i., p. 78. 2 Gazette litteraire de r Europe, printed in Paris at the printing office of the Gazette de France, Louvre Gallery (March 1764, August 1765). 6 vols. 8vo. 3 Vol. i.,p. 7. 4 This official protection caused the Journal des savants much concern ; it considered that its rights were infringed upon, and, through Choiseul, raised an ineffective protest. 5 Journal etranger, January 1760. HIS SHARE IN THE WORK 271 that periodical literature, always a faithful mirror of public opinion, provided nourishment for the confused aspirations of all who hoped to see France and the Teutonic nations drawn more closely together. Ill The common bond between all the vague aspirations which the study of English works aroused in France was provided by Rousseau. He gave them vigour, life, and substance. Thanks to him — and to his writings — Frenchmen read and appreciated Sterne, Ossian, Young, Hervey, and Shakespeare himself, all of whom had uttered in another language sentiments similar to those expressed by Rousseau, and all of whom were, like him, sensitive, melancholy, and lyrical. The admirers of these writers — most of whom preceded him — are the very people who admired Jean- Jacques. Between the two currents which, in France on the one hand, in England and in Germany on the other, were guiding literature towards a renewal of the sources of inspiration, a junction was about to take place. France, a Latin-speaking country, was for the first time to be conscious that her feeling, her imagination and her thought were those of the German- speaking nations, and those who seek for the ancestors and forerunners of Rousseau must look for them not in a classic antiquity, but beyond the borders of France. Henceforth criticism could not fail to distinguish, with Mme. de Stael, a northern genius — represented by the English, by Rousseau, and by the Germans who drew their inspiration from him — and a southern genius, developed by the Latin nations without foreign admixture. The distinction, it is true, cannot be strictly maintained, and is perhaps not even a natural one. But here we are writing the history of an idea which has borne fruit in the world, rather than examining the accuracy of a theory. The cosmopolitan idea in literature has its origin in Jean- 272 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE Jacques Rousseau — because Rousseau altered the very founda- tions of criticism. Before his time no one, in France at any rate, had doubted that there were certain rules which must regulate the composi- tion of a book, whether it be an epic or a satire, a drama or a sermon. Though the nature of these rules was disputed, their existence was never called in question, and there was a pretty general agreement with regard to certain essential principles bequeathed by ancient criticism. It was believed, in short, that there was an art of correct thought and even of correct feeling and imagination. Jean-Jacques felt and imagined in defiance of every rule. He boldly declared that he was not made like any man he had seen, nor, he " ventured to believe, like any man in existence." There was nothing in merely saying so ; but he gave a practical exemplification of the fact, and claimed for the individual the right to like and to admire without consulting any other guide than himself. This was a momentous revolution, but it was a revolution in France alone. It is in vain, Rousseau declared, to pretend to remould every mind "according to a single pattern." To change a mind you must change a character, which is itself dependent on "a temperament." For temperament — or sensi- bility— is the substratum of the man. "It is thus not a question of altering the character and subduing the disposition, but, on the contrary, of pushing it to its utmost limits." Yet as much had been said by his English predecessors, and Young, the author of Night Thoughts — in his Conjectures on Original Com- position, which, published in the form of a letter to Richardson, enjoyed some reputation in the eighteenth century — had, long before, expressed himself as follows : " By a spirit of imitation we counteract Nature, and thwart her design. She brings us into the world all originals : no two faces, no two minds, are just alike ; but all bear Nature's evident mark of separation on them. Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies ? . . . Nature stands absolved, and the inferiority of our com- position must be charged on ourselves." The remedy he suggested was that proposed by Jean-Jacques : let us commune HIS SHARE IN THE WORK 273 with ourselves, and seek to develop that which is our very own property — our temperament. " Know thyself. Of ourselves,, it may be said, as Martial says of a bad neighbour, . . . Nil tarn prope, proculque nobis" Rousseau never said more than this j perhaps, even, he did not deduce the inevitable consequence of his principle quite so rigorously as Young, who contrasted all the endeavour of antiquity with the boundless horizon of the future. " Who hath fathomed the mind of man ? Its bounds are as unknown as those of the creation." " Men as great, perhaps greater than the great ones of antiquity (presumptuous as it may sound) may, possibly, arise." 1 The part played by Rousseau in the evolution of criticism was that of substituting the notion of a relative aesthetic, variable both from one period, and from one country, to another, for that of an absolute aesthetic — which has found perfect expres- sion in a few works of genius. ^Esthetic discernment, he expressly declares, is nothing more than the faculty of judging what pleases or displeases the greatest number." 2 See how man varies according as he dwells in the North or in the South, and according as he is born in the first century or in the fifteenth. See him in the earliest stages of his development, try to picture his rude yet simple life, the slow awakening of his intelligence to a more complete form of existence, his struggle with a soil " surrendered to its natural fertility, and covered with immense forests never yet mutilated by the axe." 3 What affinity has this uncultivated creature with the modern society man, whom books would foist upon us as the type of humanity ? — And so we find St Preux making the tour of the world, and endeavouring to acquire the illusion of remoteness in time by transporting himself to remote distances in space ; traversing " the stormy seas of the antarctic zone," the Ocean, where man is the enemy of man, and " those vast, sorrow-stricken lands which seem to have no other destiny than to people the earth with droves of slaves." 4 What 1 Conjectures on Original Composition, London, 1759, p. 4-2. - Emile, i. iv. 3 Discours sur finegalite, part i. 4 Nouvelle He/o'ise, iv. 3. S 274 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE analogy is there between the Hottentot, the Indian of the Congo, or the cannibal of the Antilles,1 and the heroes of our tragedies and novels. Again, to return to our own doors, can we help thinking of the countless souls never mentioned in our books and scarcely better known to our writers than the souls of African negroes or the inhabitants of China ? Thus no one could be more conscious than Rousseau of the almost infinite diversity of human nature — a consciousness entirely unknown to classical criticism ; and he deduces therefrom the consequence that, if the types are almost infinite in number, almost the whole of humanity still remains to be portrayed. "One would suppose," says Rousseau's faithful expositor, Mme. de Stael, " that logic is the foundation of the arts," and that the " unstable nature " spoken of by Montaigne is banished from our books. This unstable nature we must restore to the position suited to it, and must convince ourselves that taste does not consist in confining it within the narrow limits of French and Western logic. This, however, had been vaguely perceived by many writers — Young, for instance — before Rousseau. The superiority of Jean- Jacques lies in the fact that he proved it by his own example, and found the most signal justification of his ideas within himself. It is this that made him the guide and master of Europe. France, but Germany, England, Italy, and Spain no less — all those, of whatever nationality, who had already found their own consciousness voiced by English writers — felt themselves still more completely reflected in Rousseau. No writer has made so many countries his own at the same time ; none has appealed to so many hearts or so many minds j none has thrown down more barriers or removed more boundaries. In him, European, as distinct from national, literature takes its rise. By German writers he was hailed as a deliverer. Schiller nourished his mind upon Julie, and composed The Robbers and Fiesco under the inspiration of its author. The youthful Goethe was fascinated by him, and every day, at Strasbourg, made extracts from his works. Herder addressed him in passionate 1 See the curious notes to the Discours sur Vinegalite. HIS SHARE IN THE WORK 275 terms : " It is myself that I would seek, that at last I may find and never again lose myself; come, Rousseau, be you my guide!"1 Lessing entertained for Jean- Jacques a "secret respect." Kant hung his portrait in his study. Lenz demanded that a statue should be erected in his honour, opposite to that of Shakespeare. Many writers of the period regarded him as an apostle, or, as Herder said to his betrothed, as "a saint and a prophet. I am almost tempted to address him in prayer." At his decease, Schiller extolled him as a martyr : " In these enlightened times the sage must die. Socrates was martyred by the sophists of old ; and Rousseau, who endeavoured to render Christians more manly, must suffer and fall beneath their hands."2 In England, the home of his literary predecessors, his suc- cess was scarcely less. There, to tell the truth, his art did not perhaps seem quite so new as in Germany ; since many of the sentiments he expressed were already familiar to English literature. Richardson, Fielding and Sterne had created the sentimental novel of middle class life before Rousseau. Even in his lyrical quality there was nothing absolutely fresh. " Thirty years earlier than Rousseau, Thomson had given expression to the same sentiments, and almost in the same style." 3 An entire school of poetry had sung the praises of melancholy before he did, from Young's Night Thoughts, which appeared in 1742, down to the first fragments of Ossian, which were published in 1760. But these same sentiments were expressed by Rousseau in a more truly poetical manner. This is why he became one of the masters of the English romantic school ; of Cowper, by whom he was addressed in beautiful lines ; of Shelley, who is never tired of appealing to Rousseau as his teacher ; and of Byron, who read him in youth and remained faithful to him in maturer years.4 Many an English poet of the eighteenth, and even of the nine- 1 C. Joret, Herder, p. 323. 2 See Marc Monnier: Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les strangers, in Rousseau juge par les Genevois d'aujourd'hui. With regard to Rousseau's popularity in Germany consult also Erich Schmidt : Richardson, Rousseau tend Goethe, 3 Taine, Litterature anglaise , vol. iv., p. 224. 4 See O. Schmidt, Rousseau und Byron, Greifswald, 1889, 8vo. 276 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE teenth, century could have said with George Eliot : " Rousseau's genius has sent that electric thrill through my intellectual and moral frame which has awakened me to new perceptions [and] . . . quickened my faculties." l It would be impossible to write any portion of the history of European, as distinct from national, literature during the last one hundred and fifty years without pronouncing his name, for the reason that in him the genius of Latin Europe became one with that of Teutonic Europe. But if his philosophical work is mainly an expression of the Latin genius, it was mainly the Teutonic genius, or, as Mme. de Stael said, the literatures of the North, that benefited by the revolution he accomplished. Rousseau's triumph marks the advent of these literatures ; his influence was henceforth insepar- able from theirs. And this union dates from the eighteenth century, and from pre-revolutionary times. I do not propose to write here the history of the intercourse of France with England and Germany between 1760 and 1789. I shall simply attempt to show how the success of Jean- Jacques Rousseau brought success to certain foreign writers whose careers preceded, or were contemporary with, his own, whose genius was very closely related to his, and whose influence became blended with that which he exerted. 1 George Eliot's Life, vol. i., p. 168. Chapter II ENGLISH INFLUENCE AND THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL I. Sterne and the sentimental novel— Sterne, like Rousseau, brought the sentimental confession into fashion — His visit to Paris — His amours — The culte-du-moi. II. The eighteenth century failed to understand his humour, but appreciated the way in which, like Rousseau, he affected to talk of himself, and to be deeply touched by his own condition — Nature and extent of the influence exerted by his work in France. I SOME months after the appearance of La Nouve/Ie Heldise, and simul- taneously with the publication of Diderot's famous Eloge de Richard- son, there appeared in Paris one of the most remarkable characters of the age. Laurence Sterne was a man of weak health, effusive disposition, profound sensibility and singular genius. A con- temporary says that " by the frank simplicity, the readiness and the touching character of his own sensibility, he inspired sensitive hearts with fresh emotions." * Suard once asked him to explain his own personality. Sterne replied that he could distinguish three causes which had made him like nobody else : the daily reading of the Bible, the study of Locke's sacred philosophy, " without which the world will never attain to a true universal religion or a true science of ethics, and man will never obtain real command over nature " ; lastly, and above all, the possession of "one of those organizations, in which the sacred constitutive principle of the soul is predominant, that immortal flame by which life is at once nourished and devoured." 2 Endowed with the originality of an Englishman, Sterne, like Rousseau, was also sensitive, passionate, and, at times, lyrical. 1 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii,, p. 135. 2 Ibid., p. 149. 277 278 STERNE When he arrived in Paris, Tristram Shandy — the first volume of which had recently appeared — was already famous there ; so that Sterne wrote to Garrick : " My head is turned with what I see, and the unexpected honour I have met with here. Tristram was almost as much known here as in London."1 The Seven Years' War being then at its height, it was neces- sary to find a guarantor for one's good behaviour ; accordingly d'Holbach became his patron and admitted him to his salon. There he met with all the anglomaniacs of Paris, and astonished them, now by his exuberant gaiety, now by his philosophical gravity. But what gave most pleasure was his ostentatious contempt for the "eternal sameness "of the French mind and disposition. Being asked whether he had not found in France some character which he could introduce in his novel : No, he replied, Frenchmen are like coins which, " by jingling and rubbing one against another, . . . are become so much alike you scarcely can tell one from another." 2 This sally in the manner of Jean-Jacques was immensely successful. " What sort of a fellow is this ?" cried Choiseul in astonishment. — On another occasion he halted before Henri IV.'s statue on the Pont-Neuf ; a crowd gathered around him ; turning round, he called out : " What are you all looking at me for? Follow my example, all of you ! " — and they all knelt with him before the statue. "The Englishman," says the narrator, "forgot that it was the statue of a king of France. A slave would never have paid such homage to Henri IV." 3 Just as Rousseau, who had his Therese, fell in love with Mme. d'Houdetot, so " the good and agreeable Tristram," as a contemporary calls him, though possessed of a devoted helpmeet, loved Eliza Draper, the wife of another man, and neither the one nor the other, nor both together, could keep him from falling in love with every woman he met. "By loving them all," says Garat, gravely, " in such a transient manner, the minister of the Gospel maintained his religious belief in all its purity." To Eliza, " wife of Daniel Draper, Esq., chief of the English 1 Traill, Sterne, p. 67. 2 Garat, vol. ii., p. 147. Sentimental Journey, ch. li. 3 Garat, p. 148. THE SENTIMENTAL CONFESSION 279 factory at Surat," he addressed the most passionate letters, " with the easy carelessness of a heart which opens itself any how, every how . . ." l She, writing to him, said : " Think of me waking, and let me, like an illusion, glide through your fancy while you sleep." In reply he tells her about himself, his low spirits, the age of his body, and the youth of his soul, and pro- poses to marry her if both should be bereaved of their partners. Eliza, at twenty-five, was consumptive, and made preparations for a journey to India, whence there was little hope that she would ever return. " Best of all God's works," writes Sterne, " farewell ! Love me, I beseech thee ; and remember me for ever ! " The romantic story deeply affected its readers. When Eliza died at the age of thirty-three, Raynal wrote a panegyric on her in the Histoire philosophique des deux Indes. "Land of Anjinga," he cried, addressing her country, "in thyself thou art nothing ! But thou hast given birth to Eliza. A day will come when the emporiums which Europeans have founded upon Asiatic shores will no longer exist. The grass will cover them, or the Indian, avenged at last, will build upon their ruins. . . . But if my writings are destined to endure, the name of Anjinga will dwell within the memories of men. Those who read me, those whom the winds shall carry to these shores, will say : < There was the birthplace of Eliza Draper,' and if among them a Briton should be found, ' the offspring,' he will hasten to add, ' of English parents.' " Thus Sterne, like Jean- Jacques, permitted the public to feed its curiosity upon his private life. Like him, he gloried in his own failings. Like Mme. de Warens and Mme. d'Houdetot, Eliza Draper — the beloved of Laurence Sterne, who, after all, forgot her — became the theme of novelist and poet. "Deign, noble Eliza," writes the excellent Ballanche,2 " to accept my homage : pattern of true friendship, Heaven brought thee forth in a calm and peaceful hour : God presented thee to weak mortals as a convincing proof of his unspeakable goodness, of which thou wert a faithful image upon earth. . . . Accept my homage, woman without a peer. . . . Let all whose souls are alive to 1 Letters from Yorick to Eliza. 2 Du Sentiment, p. ZI$. 28o STERNE feeling gather around this monument, erected in friendly rivalry by Sterne and Raynal." 1 Sterne was received in Paris with open arms. He became a frequent visitor at the houses of d'Holbach, Suard, Choiseul, the Comte de Bissy — an ardent anglomaniac, who supplied the material for an amusing chapter in the Sentimental Journey — and Crebillon fils, with whom he formed the project of carrying on an extraordinary controversy, in which each was to accuse the other of immorality, in order to catch the ear of the gallery 2 — a scheme, however, which was never carried out. Diderot he also met, who was delighted by his eccentricities, and com- missioned him to procure him English books. A lady submitted to him Le fils nature/ — whether with or without the author's consent we do not certainly know — and under the impression that it was " English in character," suggested that he should induce Garrick to play the piece. Sterne, however, considered that the speeches in it were too long, and " savoured too much of preaching" ; what was more, it had " too much sentiment" to suit him.3 The last and not the least amusing act of this comedy 4 was a sermon preached by Sterne at the English embassy before the most prominent free-thinkers in Paris, Diderot, d'Holbach, David Hume, and others. He chose as his text that passage from the Book of Kings, in which Isaiah reproaches Hezekiah for his vanity in showing his treasures to the Babylonish ambassadors : 4 'All the things that are in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them." The text lent itself to allusions, the significance of which did not escape the audience, and in the evening, at the dinner which followed, Hume rallied Sterne upon his sermon. " David was disposed to make a little merry with the parson, and in return the parson was equally disposed to make a little merry with the infidel. We laughed at one another, and the company 1 Lettres d'Yorick a Elisa, followed by RaynaPs Eloge, 2 Traill, p. 71. 3 Traill, p. ?o. 4 The Magazln encyclopedique (1799, vol. vi., p. 121) mentions the title of a vaudeville which was founded on Sterne's visit to Paris — viz. , Sterne a Paris ou le Voyageur sentimental, by Revoil and Forbin. EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 281 laughed at us both." l A strange party, forsooth, and a strange man ! Though at the present day we do not take Sterne very seriously, his contemporaries not only appreciated him as a humorist, but delighted especially in the depth and originality of his genius, in his " gloomy and mournful appearance," and in what his translator called " an aroma of sentiment, and a suppleness of thought, impossible to define." 2 By his country- men he was praised for his joyous spirit, while in France he was looked upon as a kind of prophet of the new religion just brought into fashion by Rousseau, the religion of the self. II Sterne's works very quickly became known in France, where they met with a success not inferior to, though very different from, that which they attained in London. It was in May 1760 that the Journal encyclopedique first made mention of " that famous book, Tristram Shandy" In England this singular work of fiction gave rise to keen controversy. Those whose well-balanced minds were full of respect for tradition spoke of it only with pity. Goldsmith and Johnson did not disguise their contempt ; Richardson pronounced it execrable ; it made Walpole '* smile two or three times at the beginning, but in recompense" made him yawn for two hours; "the humour," he says, "is for ever attempted and missed."3 But the public in general, by Walpole's own showing, went wild over the new novel : a portrait of the author, who but yester- day had been leading an obscure existence in the retirement of his parish, was painted by Reynolds, and a frontispiece for his works was designed by Hogarth. Gray asserts that it was impossible to dine with the author without making the engage- ment a fortnight beforehand.4 But the success of the book was due to curiosity more than to anything else, and readers were 1 Traill, p. 86. 2 Frenais's translation of the Sentimental Journey, p. 213. 3 April 1760. 4 Letters, zznd June 1760. 282 STERNE amused by Tristram's eccentric humour rather than convinced of the depth of his genius. Abroad, however, it was by no means the same. Sterne's reputation increased when it crossed the water. The Germans hailed him as a philosopher. Lessing was taken with him, and when Sterne died, wrote to Nicolai that he would gladly have sacrificed several years of his own life if by so doing he could have prolonged the existence of the sentimental traveller. Goethe writes: "Whoever reads him, immediately feels that there is something free and beautiful in his own soul." l The philosophy of Sterne is the most brilliant invention of eighteenth century anglomania. In France the Gazette litteraire published extracts from Shandy, and three translators contended for the honour of producing a complete French version of the work.2 The Sentimental Journey was translated in the year following its publication ; the Sermons, which the author was enabled to publish by the subscriptions of d'Holbach, Diderot, Crebillon fils, and Voltaire, were also issued in French, as well as the famous Letters to Eliza, which were regarded as a precious autobiographical document.3 His chief work, that wonderful, amazing, wearisome book, Tristram Shandy, with its extraordinary medley of every language and every art — French, Greek, Latin, medicine, theology, and the art of fortification j with its parentheses of two volumes, its dedica- 1 See Hettner, vol. i., p. 508, and, for the numerous German imitations of Sterne, vol. v., p. 410. 2 Frenais's translation of Tristram Shandy (Paris, 1776, z vols. izmo) contains only the first part of the novel. Two translations of the remainder were pub- lished [concurrently in 1785, by de Bonnay and G. de la Baume. (See Journal encyclopedique, I5th March 1786.) Finally, the two translations of Frenais and de Bonnay were reprinted together (1785, 4 vols. izmo). 3 Voyage sentimental, by Mr Sterne, under the name of Yorick, translated from the English by M. Frenais, Amsterdam and Paris, 1769, z vols. izmo (often reprinted). Sermons choisis de Sterne, translated by M. L. D. B. [de la Baume], London and Paris, 1786, izmo. Lettres de Sterne a ses amis (translated by the same), London and Paris, 1788, 8vo ; another translation (by Durand de Saint- Georges), the Hague, 1789, izmo. Lettres d'Yorick a Elisa (translated by Frenais), Paris, 1776, izmo. A volume entitled Beautes de Sterne, Paris, z parts, 8vo, was also published, and several editions of the (Euvres completes (1787, 1797, 1803, etc.). EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 283 tions in the midst of chapters, its insertion of a chapter xviii. after chapter xxviii., and its serpent-like twisting and turning of words ; " this great curiosity shop," as Taine calls it, excited amazement rather than genuine admiration. How indeed should it have been appreciated ? " Mr Sterne's pleasantries," says his trans- lator, " have not always struck me as particularly happy. I have left them where I found them, and have put others in their place." Let us see what this heavy hand makes of the humorist's delicate fabric. Speaking of a village midwife, Sterne says that her fame was world-wide : and by the " world," he says, we are to understand a circle "about four English miles in diameter." The irony is subtle, or at all events delicate. Frenais remarks : l " But let us not deceive ourselves : he does not allude to the whole of the world. She was not known, for instance, to the Hottentots, nor to the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope, who, it is said, bring forth their children in the same manner as Mme. Gigogne ; the world, for her, was but a small circle," &c. Sterne's eccentricities become absurdities. The public looks for subtle and lively satire ; and getting nothing but " a riddle to which there is no answer,"2 it seeks in vain for "some deep meaning in drollery which contains none." Yet, even in the mutilated versions of his translators, Sterne delighted Voltaire. According to him " the second English Rabelais " had drawn " several pictures superior to those of Rembrandt and to the sketches of Callot." 3 Elsewhere, how- ever, he makes certain reservations ; in an article on Tristram Shandy in the Journal de politique et de litter aturef he pronounces it " from beginning to end a piece of buffoonery after the style of Scarron." The book is empty — empty as the bottle which a certain charlatan had promised to enter. " There was philosophy in Sterne's head," nevertheless, queer fellow as he was. In 1 Vol. i., p. 22. 2 Gazette litteraire, 2oth March 1765. The first two volumes " excited the curiosity of their readers, who took them for a subtle and lively satire in which the sage hid his face behind the jester's mask. The sage has published four other volumes which tbe public has read with eagerness, but, to its amazement, has entirely failed to understand." 3 Dictionnaire phtlosophique : article on Conscience, 4 25th April 1777. 284 STERNE him, as in Shakespeare, there were flashes of a superior reason. In truth, the eighteenth century failed to understand Sterne's inimitable humour. What impressed it was the spasmodic, dis- connected progress of his thought, the tangles in the thread of his ideas, the abrupt flights taken by his imagination, all so opposed to French classical habits of systematic and coherent exposition. Diderot endeavoured to adopt some of his methods : " How did they meet ? By chance, like every one else. Whence did they come ? From the next place. Whither were they going ? Which of us can tell whither he is going ? What did they say ? The master said nothing, and Jacques said his captain had told him that everything that happens to us here below is written above." This passage, at the opening of Jacques le fataliste, is worthy of Sterne : it is even taken from Sterne, liter- ally.1 Diderot borrowed freely from Tristram Shandy : the young woman who receives Jacques when he is wounded is the one who has already given shelter to Toby ; 2 and a certain broad anecdote is derived from the same source.3 These instances of borrowing are palpable, and they are not happy. Diderot de- lighted in this roving, disconnected mode of progress — and he, too, wrote his Jacques le fataliste at odd times, in the postchaise which carried him to Holland and to Russia.4 The superficial character of the work he succeeded in reproducing, but the fine edge of Sterne's humour escaped him. The Englishman's true heirs in this respect came after the Revolution, in the persons of Xavier de Maistre and Charles Nodier.5 The eighteenth century appreciated Sterne primarily as the disciple of Richardson, the minute and punctilious painter of everyday life, "a life wherein there can be no sublimity either in 1 See de Wailly's translation, ch. cclxiii. 2 Diderot, (Euvres, vol. vi., p. 14. 3 Ibid., p. 284. 4 Ibid., p. 8. M. Ducros. in his Diderot, has given a most acute study of that author's imitations of Sterne. 5 See especially Un voyage autour de ma chambre, chaps, xix. and xxviii., and Nodier's Histoire du rot de Boheme et de ses sept chateaux. An imitation of Sterne may also be found in V. Hugo's Bug-Jargal, in which Captain d'Auverney and Sergeant Thadee are reminiscences of Captain Toby and Corporal Trim. EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 285 events or things or thoughts, a life which has always lacked observers, as though it were unworthy anyone's interest because it is that which each one of us leads." x Following Richardson's example, Sterne observes insignificant facts and faint fluctuations of thought : he writes the novel of gesture. "I paused," says Henrietta Byron, "I hesitated. . . . Then I stopt, and held down my head." — " Speak out, my dear," said Lady L. "Thus called upon; thus encouraged — and I lifted my head as boldly as I could (but it was not, I believe, very boldly). . . . " 2 Such is Richardson's method of present- ing his characters, whether in action or in repose. He sees them completely, and at each successive moment. Sterne does the same, and thereby earns the compliments of his French readers, who at the same time mildly banter him for carrying the process too far. Of one of the characters in Faublas we are told that " by a mechanical movement, his left arm was raised in the air, where it became fixed " . . . ; and the writer adds : " Why, fair lady, am I not Tristram Shandy ? I might then tell you to what height it was raised, in what direction and in what position." 3 This hits the mark ; Sterne's work is so distinctly the novel of gesture that his characters even resemble automata or wax- work figures. In the second place he displays the most exquisite art in paint- ing tiny gems of pictures in the smallest of frames. Sometimes he drops into triviality ; but on the other hand, when he is at his best, he brings to light forgotten yet delightful recesses in the lives of the humble, both animals and men. His province, as a phrase of singular felicity has described it, is that of mental entomology.4 He seizes the most delicate impressions in their flight and deftly pins them down. " Sterne's merit," wrote Mme. Suard, his passionate admirer, "lies, it seems to me, in his having attached an interest to details which in themselves have none whatever ; in his having caught a thousand faint impressions, a thousand evanescent feelings, which pass through i Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 143. 2 Ballantyne, vi., p. 35. 3 Edition of 1807, vol. iii., p. 8. 4 See fimile Montegut's fine study of Sterne. 286 STERNE the heart or the imagination of a sensitive man. He enters the human heart, as it were, by portraying his own 'sensations, . . . he adds to the stores of our enjoyment." l But he would add nothing to them were he not gifted with sensibility. The slightest agitation, the faintest tremor of the soul, is enough to excite his emotion. A hair upon a hand, a spot upon a cloth, the crease in a coat, will provide the matter for a paragraph, and even for a chapter. Moods, whims, fits of unaccountable dejection, passion in its rudimentary stages, the germs of great crises, these constitute the province of Sterne. This is the secret of the unrivalled popularity attained in the eighteenth century by that charming little volume, so witty, so unconstrained, with all its tearfulness and affectation, the Senti- mental Journey in France and Italy. " Sentimental ? " wrote John Wesley in his journal,2 " what is that ? It is not English : he might as well say, Continental" With the appearance of Clarissa Har/oive, however, in I749> the word, as well as the thing it denotes, had come into fashion. " The word sentimental," wrote Lady Bradshaigh, " is much in vogue amongst the polite." 3 Be this as it may, Sterne's little book won the hearts of all readers who had taken alarm at the eccentricities of Shandy and of Shandeism. It even pleased Horace Walpole.4 It was shorter, more lucid. It spoke to the French, and spoke to them of France. True, it did not treat them altogether kindly. La Fleur, one of the characters, has " a small cast of the coxcomb," is simple, of good address, and ignorant as a Frenchman, though the best fellow in the world. But then every one knows that Englishmen, like medals which have been kept apart, and have passed " but few people's hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine hand of Nature has given them." 5 Then, how could one resist an author who, after being hurried from one salon or from one party to another all over Paris, loudly proclaims that such rewards are but " the gain of a slave," and, sickened by the " most vile prostitution " of himself 1 M. Suard's Melanges, vol. iii., pp. 111-122. 2 nth February 1772. 3 L. Stephen, Hours in a Library, vol. i., p. 58. 4 Letter dated I2th March 1768. 5 Sentimental Journey, chap. li. EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 287 "to half a dozen people" of high position, calls for his post- chaise and makes his escape from the good friends that flattery has given him. That is all one need do to acquire the reputation of a philosopher. The Sentimental Journey, "one of the most inimitable produc- tions existing in any language,"1 charmed all France by the sensibility Sterne had breathed into it, and provoked a whole school of imitators. Sterne was the kind of man to set a fly at liberty with a sermon and a tear : " ' Go,' said he, lifting up the sash . . . ' go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee ? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me/ " 2 His admirers were touched by the noble-mindedness of a butcher who renounced his occupation rather than kill a sheep he had grown fond of.3 Mile, de Lespinasse, in a couple of chapters, after the manner of Sterne, told the story of Mme. GeofFrin's milkwoman, who, on the loss of her cow, received one or even two others from her kind-hearted patroness: she de- scribed how Sterne himself, on hearing of this kind act, clasped Mme. GeofFrin in his arms, and embraced her with ecstasy : " My soul," he said, " had a moment of rapture. ... It will make me the more worthy of my Eliza : she will mingle her tears with mine when I tell her the story of Mme. GeofFrin's milkwoman ! " 4 For Sterne's contemporaries that sensibility which made the hearts of his readers swell within them was merely the outward sign of a profound yet genial philosophy. " If you do not fee! this author, you will often find him over-solicitous about trifles, frivolous, extravagant, and childish ; but fathom the secret of his genius and you will perceive one of the great teachers 1 Correspondance litteraire , December 1786. 2 Tristram Shandy, chap. xii. 3 Le voyageur sentimental ou une promenade a Tverdun, by Vernes, Lausanne, 1786, izmo. There were also a Nouveau voyage sentimental [by Gorgy], a Voyage dans plusieurs provinces occidentals de la France [by Brune], a Voyage sentimental dans les Pyrenees, &c. The Nouveau voyage de Sterne en France, translated by D. L. . . . (Lausanne, 1785, izmo), is taken from Tristram Shandy. 4 The anecdote told by Mile, de Lespinasse has been reprinted in the (Euvres posthumes de d'Alembert, 1799, vol. ii., pp. 22-43. On this subject, see Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol ii., p. 150. 288 STERNE of mankind." He shows you, on every hand, " fresh sources of interest, sensation, and enjoyment." Shandeism is the philosophy of the man who is " clever and emotional, and loves his fellow- men."1 Sterne declares that when he travels he does so "with his whole soul," and this, at that precise period of French history which extends from 1760 to 1789, was the best of recommenda- tions.— Yet he is lively, and even broad. — As Voltaire said, he resembles " those little satyrs in ancient times which were meant to hold precious essences." Now, the precious essence in Sterne is simply his capacity for emotion where no one had been affected before, and of shedding a flood of tears when a few modest drops had previously sufficed. He provides, it was said, " a feast for tender hearts." 2 In reality he is changeable and impression- able as a woman, his intelligence is at the mercy of the slightest whisper, he surrenders his heart to the first breath of desire, and throws wide the portals of his soul before the idle and the inquisitive. He does not blush to shed tears when tears are becoming, nor even when they are not : therein lies the whole secret of Sterne. He wrote confessions before Rousseau, and with no more false shame than he. He is more "personal," and if the neologism be allowed, more frankly an " impressionist " than any other writer of his age. Upon us, who read him to-day, he no longer produces, to the same extent, the effect of novelty. But we can understand that his method must have seemed new in his time. Sterne writes without a plan, without arrangement, one might almost say without an object : he lets his soul wander where it lists. His whole work is, in reality, nothing more than a long account of journeyings — always sentimental — through the world. Does he discover in the courtyard of an inn an old " desobligeant"- forthwith Sterne grows sentimental over the fate of the forgotten vehicle, falling to pieces where it stands. — An old Franciscan monk presents him with a horn snuff-box. He preserves it that it may " help his mind on to something better " ; and one day, on 1 Journal encyclopedique, 1st August 1786. 2 Garat. Michelet, too, found the Sentimental Journey a book "after my own heart" {Man Journal, p. I2Z). EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 289 his way through Calais, he visits father Laurent's grave, and seating himself beside it takes out the horn snuff-box and bursts into a flood of tears. Elsewhere, in Tristram Shandy, we have the story of Marie de Moulines, by Garat considered superior to Clementina's madness or the funeral of Clarissa, and again, in the Journey, the incident of the starling. Sterne, alone in Paris, is without a passport, and in danger of the Bastille ; a starling, hanging in a cage, begins to sing ; forthwith the miseries of con- finement present themselves to his mind : he sees a captive in his dungeon, pale and wasted by fever, a rude calendar of notched sticks by his side ; he sees him take a rusty nail and scratch the little stick in his hand ; his chains rattle with the movement ; he gives a deep sigh. . . . Here, as on so many other occasions, Sterne's heart overflows, not without satisfaction to himself. " Dear Sensibility ! " he exclaims elsewhere, " source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows ! " l Sterne's readers, like himself, felt some self-gratitude for their own emotion. Like him they easily persuaded themselves that the gift of tears is a proof of the excellence and loftiness of our nature, and exclaimed when their tears were over : "I am positive I have a soul ! " 2 With him, said one of them, " we become more susceptible of every possible emotion of the heart, and of enjoying the multitude of good things strewn by nature in every path of life, yet lost to all, because their hearts are dried up by poverty or wealth, by meanness or by pride." 3 Accordingly Sterne commits himself to the turbulent current of his impressions. His manner of confession is not only in- genuous, but cynical. And he too, moreover, flatters the sociable tendencies of his age. One evening he reaches, at nightfall, a farm in Anjou. Everyone is seated at table : the bill of fare consists of a wheaten loaf, a bottle of wine, and lentil soup — a " feast of love and friendship." Invited by his hosts the traveller takes a seat ; with the old man's knife he cuts himself a large slice of bread, and reads in every eye an expression of gratitude for the liberty he takes — a subject ready to hand for 1 Sentimental Journey, The Bourbonnois. 2 Ibid., Maria: Moulines. 3 Garat, ibid. T 290 STERNE a Greuze. Supper over, there follows a dance on the sward to the sound of the vietfe; youths and maidens dance together in decorous freedom ; in the midst of the second dance the traveller notices that all eyes are raised heavenward, and " I fancied," he says, " I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity." He questions the father of the family, who explains that it is in this manner they express their gratitude to God, believing "that a cheerful and contented mind is the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant can pay." This combination of the religious spirit with the spirit of enjoyment, of moral improvement with the pleasures of a ball, this uplifting of conscience amid the intoxication of a dance, seemed delightful to the readers of Jean- Jacques. Sterne was hailed as a philo- sopher, and it was even complacently asserted that he stood "above all philosophers and above all preachers in his power of solving the most mysterious problems." Suard went further, — he compared Laurence Sterne to the Bible. Such was the revolution effected by the influence of Rousseau in the manner of judging the productions of literary art. Let us suppose that the work of Sterne, disconnected, paradoxical, and almost maudlin in its pathos, had made its appearance in France thirty or forty years earlier, and had come under the observation of Montesquieu or Fontenelle. I imagine it would have caused a certain amount of astonishment, and would have incurred some contempt. It was not the practice, in 1730, to present a succes- sion of desultory impressions to the public as a work of art. A traveller's note book, which was neither novel, pamphlet, moral treatise, nor satire, but each and all of these at the same time, and was also meant to be a noble monument of literature, could never have been offered to the world. Still less would an author have been forgiven for speaking of himself with such unblushing sentimentality. The man of feeling, " the sport and plaything of temperature and season, whose happiness is at the mercy of the winds," has got on in the world since that day. His soul, sometimes joyful, sometimes disconsolate, has been allowed to roam hither and thither at the EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 291 mercy of northern gales or western breezes ; to them he has shouted his sorrows and his victories ; he has found a strange delight in fusing himself with the elements, in incorporating himself with the universe, in feeling that, puny creature as he is, his life forms a part of the mighty symphony or tempest of the heavens. Of this melancholy and poetic race Rousseau was the first representative. Was Sterne the second ? To-day we can hardly connect the two names without hesitation, for we no longer have the same belief in Sterne as readers who were contemporary with him. Yet such readers — and the fact is significant — were conscious of a gift in him similar to that of Rousseau. " Man, under Sterne's treatment," to quote Garat once more, " is not so much held captive, as tossed hither and thither" His characters, " in some vague borderland between sleeping and waking, tread the brink of every form of error and of crime, like the som- nambulist upon the verge of roof or precipice." In a word, Sterne, like Rousseau, reveals " the somnambulist " in man — the creature of instinct, given over to the fluctuations of sensation and of feeling. And he reveals himself also, quite artlessly it would seem, in his true colours — passionate, sensitive, and not particularly reasonable. "He makes us smile," said Ballanche — one of his warmest admirers — " but it is the smile of the soul ; he makes us weep, but the tears we shed are gentle as drops of dew." It gave the impression of perfect sincerity, and this was the secret of his success. His readers were grateful to him for speaking of himself, and of himself alone. The time had come when, im- pelled by the genius of Rousseau, literature was becoming ever more and more narrowed down to " the confession of a soul," and when all that was needed to obtain the public ear was to tell the story of oneself, — provided only one happened to be Yorick, "jester to his Majesty the King of England." Chapter III ENGLISH INFLUENCE AND THE LYRICISM OF ROUSSEAU I. The Love of nature — Rousseau's English predecessors — Thomson : his talent — Gessner — Their popularity in France. II. Melancholy — English melancholy proverbial in France — Popularity of Gray — Young and the Night Thoughts : the man and his work ; his popularity. III. Mournful feelings inspired by the past — Macpherson and Ossian — Origins of Celtic poetry — The fame of Ossian European — How he fared in France. IV. In what way the success of these works was assured by Rousseau. NOT only however did Rousseau excite in readers of his day the taste for sentimental confession ; he opened their eyes at the same time to physical nature, and inspired them with the taste for melancholy. Sensibility, the feeling for nature, and the sadness of the poet are simply three forms of the same disposition of soul, and constitute the whole of Rousseau's lyricism. How far, in this further respect, was he in harmony with foreign writers, both among his predecessors and his con- temporaries ? " The picturesque " — wrote Stendhal — " like our good coaches and our steam-boats, comes to us from England," l and he adds, " a fine landscape is no less essential to an Englishman's religion than to his aristocratic station." Frenchmen of the eighteenth century had already remarked this characteristic, and, in the frenzy of their anglomania, had endeavoured to appropriate it themselves. Fashion, following the example set by the English, had driven them to live in the country, — " certainly one of the best customs," wrote Arthur Young, " they have 1 fyTemoires (fun touriste^ vol. i., p. 87. 292 ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 293 taken from England." 1 And it was in imitation of the English that they planted those strange parks in which crooked paths, flights of winding steps and mazes took the place of the broad avenues of Versailles ; in which antique statues were replaced by grottoes, tombs and hermitages ; in which you beheld a castle in flagrant discord with a Hindoo temple, or a Russian cottage with a Swiss chalet, and in which Petrarch's urn stood side by side with the tomb of Captain Cook. They merely mimicked nature, under the impression that they were imitating her. The English garden was a school of virtue : " When you are think- ing," wrote a famous amateur,2 " how to make a ravine shady, or trying to control the course of a stream, you have too much to do to become a dangerous citizen, a scheming general or a plotting courtier. One whose head is full of his stand of flowers, or his clump of judas-trees," cannot be a bad man. Preoccupied in so virtuous a manner, one cannot commit a guilty act. " One would scarcely arrive in time to take advantage of the frailty of a friend's wife, and afterwards would hastily make one's escape to the country, there to expiate the sweetest of crimes." Such was the character of descriptive literature from 1760 to the Revolution. Rousseau's beautiful pages apart, it is inferior and insipid, nor did the influence of Rousseau bear fruit until five-and-twenty years after the publication of La Nouvelle Heloise? The love of nature is not a feeling to be acquired in a day. It demands a whole education of eye and heart. And it may be that certain races, prepared by certain climates or certain condi- tions of social life, can more easily sustain that abrupt disturbance of the moral equilibrium which must precede the love of physical nature. It was neither central nor northern France — the France which produced most of the French classical writers, the gentle France of Touraine or Anjou, the nursery of the Pleiade — that^gave birth to Rousseau, Chateaubriand, and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre : one of them came from the Alps, the others from the sea. 1 Travels, vol. i., p. 72. a The prince de Ligne, quoted by de Lescure : Rivarol, p. 310. 3 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: Etudes de la nature, 1784 ; Paul et Virglnie, 1788. 294 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM But the English had loved and described the material universe long before Rousseau. The feeling for nature is common to all their great poets : Shakespeare is full of it, a fact which had been noticed even by Letourneur ; l Milton abounds in admirable descriptive passages which would have greatly astonished his French contemporaries ; and in the least productive years of the century, Thomson, Gray, Collins, and Chatterton, not to come down to Burns and the lake poets, are great painters of nature. What French writer in 1739 would have said, with Gray, dur- ing the ascent to the Grande-Chartreuse : "Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief." It was in 1730 that Thomson — the only one of these poets to obtain any celebrity in France — had published his admirable poem The Seasons? so shamefully misrepresented by Saint-Lambert and by Roucher. It is true that in this work man as a social being still occupies too large a place. Thomson cannot describe winter without giving a sentimental picture of the horrors of cold, nor spring without introducing a hymn to Love. Too frequently also there are suggestions of the Georgics, and apostrophes to those "who live in luxury and ease," or to the "generous Englishmen" who "venerate the plough." Nevertheless, Thomson has the painter's eye. His winter and his spring are no mere adaptations from Vergil. He has a true and deep understanding of the English landscape. With delicate subtlety he renders the impressions produced by spring or autumn, the charm of the indefinite periods when season gives way to season, the approach of rain, the forebodings of storm, the scudding of heavy clouds across skies grey and overcast. Even in the awkward French version something of the charm of these pictures lingers yet. Rising slow, Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the Moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Seen through the turbid fluctuating air, The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray ; 1 See the introduction to his version of Shakespeare. 2 See Leon Morel's able book : James Thomson, sa vie et ses auvres (Paris, 1895). ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 295 Or frequent seen to shoot athwart the gloom, And long behind them trail the whitening blaze. Snatch'd in short eddies, plays the wither'd leaf; And on the flood the dancing feather floats.1 It is in these grey-toned pictures that Thomson excels. But in others he revels in precision of detail : there is one of a farm, for instance, redolent of the dunghill, damp grass, and new milk ; another of a flower-garden with its " velvet-leaved " auriculas, variegated pinks, and " hyacinths, of purest virgin white, low bent, and blushing inward " ; 2 the whole perceived with the artist's glance and described in the language of a poet. Occa- sionally, too, Thomson can command richness of colouring and splendour of imagery.3 The downward Sun Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush Of broken clouds gay-shifting to his beam. The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes The illumined mountain, through the forest streams, Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist, Far smoking o'er the interminable plain, In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems. Moist, bright and green, the landscape laughs around. What French author wrote in this style, in 1730 ? The author of the Seasons had visited France as a young man, without, however, attracting any notice. But since then Voltaire had made the public acquainted with his name, if not with his talent.4 The Seasons, if Villemain is to be credited, came as a revelation in I759:5 a certain Mme. Bontemps had taken upon herself to introduce the work to the French public in a transla- tion which she described as " scrupulously simple," adding, at the same time, an earnest apology for the " extravagant and almost hideous " images employed by its author. Villemain affirms that the climate of the North, the Scotch mountains, 1 Winter, 1. 122. 2 Spring. 3 Spring, 1. 187. 4 Voltaire represents his own play Socrate (1759) as a posthumous work of Thomson's. In 1763 Saurin produced Blanche et Guiscar, a tragedy imitated from Thomson, who had himself, it was said, taken his subject from Gil Bias (see the Journal encyclopedique, March 1764). See an English letter of Voltaire's on Thomson, published by Ballantyne, Voltaire 's Visit to England, (pp. 99-101). 5 Lesson xxvi. 296 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM and the exultation inspired by storm and tempest, fascinated men's minds and prepared them for the admiration of Ossian a few years later. To me it seems that just at first the work surprised French readers still more than it captivated them. The Mercure finds fault with its disgusting images : the descrip- tion of fields putrid with decaying locusts is unendurable. Grimm, while recognizing its wealth of imagery, found the poem monotonous.1 Freron complains that the reader seems to be breathing an atmosphere of coal-dust.2 Even in translation the work remained too faithful to fact and gave the impression of triviality. Its success was due to its philosophy and its love of humanity. Thomson was considered a worthy pupil of Addison, Pope, and Steele, and his poem was ranked with Paradise Lost and the Essay on Man.3 The truth is that in Thomson there was not only the faithful painter of nature as she appears in England, but also the philosopher in whom the emotions aroused by the thought of eternal life or conjugal happiness found vent in beautiful verse. It was the latter more especially who was imitated by Leonard, Bernis, Gentil-Bernard, Gilbert, Dorat, and Delille4; the "gentle bard" whose melancholy genius was celebrated in an admirable poem by Collins was beyond their comprehension.5 Saint-Lambert ventured to praise him because he had "embellished" nature, and had seen the peasant "in his picturesque aspect"; he congratulated him on having done for the labourers what Racine and M. de Voltaire had done for their heroes — on having "elevated our species." The true descriptive poet, he said, will mention only the nobler birds : he will not speak of the jay or magpie. Nevertheless Thomson had given a minute description of the hen and " her chirping family," the crested duck, the turkey-cock, the thrush, the linnets that warble " o'er the flowering furze," and the jay 1 Correspondance litteraire, June 1760. 2 Annee litteraire, 1760, vol. i., p. 142. 3 Journal ency clop edique, March 1760. 4 Imitations of the Seasons were innumerable. With regard to translations the most important, next to that by Mme. Bontemps, which was several times reprinted, are those by Deleuze, Poulin, de Beaumont (1801, 1802, 1806), &c. 5 Ode on the death of Mr. Thomson. ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 297 himself with his " harsh, discordant pipe." l But this did not prevent Saint-Lambert from saying : " That which Homer, Tasso and our dramatic poets have done for the moral world should be done for the material world also: it should be magnified, beautified, and made interesting." 2 The country is for him merely the temple of Love ; thither he escorts " Doris, his sweet and gentle friend " ; he brings nature within the reach of " those enlightened judges of manners and of pleasures " who dwell in towns. He is vapid, false and arid. Voltaire's admiration for these would-be disciples of Thomson was not indeed shared by the whole of the eighteenth century.3 " It is the very essence of sterility," said Mme. du DefFand of Saint-Lambert's work, " and without his reeds, and birds, and elms with their branches, he would have very little to say."4 "Saint-Lambert," wrote BufFon, with more severity, " is nothing but a cold frog, Delille a cockchafer, and Roucher a bird of night. Not one of them has succeeded, I will not say in depicting nature, but even in placing clearly before us a single characteristic of its most striking beauties."5 Thomson had his worshippers, who read him for his own sake. When Mme. Roland was taken to prison, in 1793, she took with her Tacitus, Plutarch, Shaftesbury, and Thomson, to console her in captivity, and of the last of them she said : " He is dear to me for more reasons than one." 6 But neither Mme. Roland nor any of her contemporaries did full justice to his descriptive gifts. What they sought in Thomson, as in Gessner, whose incredible popularity dates from the same period,7 was descriptions in which man, and man of the eighteenth century, still occupied an important place. Andre Chenier, who borrowed freely from 1 Spring. 2 Preface to the Seasons (1769). 3 Cf. the letter to Dupont, yth June 1769 : " If the decision rested with me, I should have no difficulty in giving the preference to M. de Saint-Lambert. He seems to me not only more charming, but more serviceable. The Englishman describes the seasons, and the Frenchman tells us -what should be done in each." 4 " Les roseaux, les oiseaux, les ormeaux, et leurs rameaux." 6 To Mme. Necker, i6th July 1782. 6 Letter to Buzot, 22nd June 1793. 7 Der Tod Abels was translated by Huber in 1759 ; the Idyllen in 1762. On Gessner in France see Th. Siipfle's book, Geschichte des dsutschen Cultureinflusset auf Frankreich, Gotha, 1886-1890, vol. i. 298 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM " the Good Swiss, Gessner" and from Thomson, adopted from both the art of blending professions of philanthropy with quiet pictures of nature in her milder manifestations. The following lines are a fairly close rendering of a passage in Thomson's Autumn. Ah ! prends un coeur humain, laboureur trop avide, Lorsque d'un pas tremblant 1'indigence timide De tes larges moissons vient, le regard confus, Recueillir apres toi les restes superflus. Souviens-toi que Cybele est la mere commune. Laisse la probite que trahit la fortune, Comme 1'oiseau du ciel, se nourrir a tes pieds De quelques grains epars sur la terre oublies.i This somewhat mawkish kind of work no longer affects the reader as it did. But we must not fail to realise that these little pictures, with their modest colouring and their disguised yet not ungraceful sentiment, enchanted our forefathers. From 1760 until the Revolution, and even afterwards,2 Thor son and Gessner were regarded as great poets, and the English and 1 Bucoliques, LX., ed. Becq de Fouquieres. Cf. Thomson's Autumn. Be not too narrow, husbandmen ! but fling From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth, The lib'ral handful. Think, O grateful think ! How good the God of Harvest is to you, Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields ; While these unhappy partners of your kind Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven, And ask their humble dole. See also Becq de Fouquieres (Lettres critiques sur Andre Chenier, p. 182 et seq.~} upon Chenier's indebtedness to Gessner, from whom the following exquisite lines are taken : — Ma muse fuit les champs abreuves de carnage, Et ses pieds innocents ne se poseront pas Oil la cendre des morts gemirait sous ses pas. Elle palit d'entendre et le cri des batailles Et les assauts tonnants qui frappent les murailles ; Et le sang qui jaillit sous les pointes d'airain Souillerait la blancheur de sa robe de lin. 2 Legouve, La Mart d'Abel (1792). Translations of Thomson were published even during the time of the Revolution (Episodes des saisons de Thomson, Paris, an vii., 8vo., &c.). ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 299 Germans were believed to have created " descriptive poetry."1 Diderot admired Gessner and imitated him ; 2 Mile, de Lespinasse detected " the charm of Gessner, combined with the vigour of Jean- Jacques," in the man she loved. Chenedolle, who read the Idylles as a youth, said that he had rarely fallen under " a spell like Gessner's."3 Grimm calls him "a divine poet." In the judgment of the Almanack des Muses "he has the pure and lofty soul of a Fenelon ; in his artless descriptions of simple scenes he surpasses Theocritus ; as we read him we seem to behold nature herself, and when we see him we believe in virtue.4 Such, also, was the verdict passed by Jean-Jacques himself. He, too, was doubtless an admirer of the Seasons, and discovered therein his own manner of feeling and thinking. At any rate it is certain that his Levite (TEphraim was written in Gessner's artless, rustic fashion, and that he wrote to Huber, who had sent him the Idylles: " I feel that your friend Gessner is a man after my own heart. . . . To you, in particular, I am extremely grateful for your courage in throwing aside the senseless and affected jargon which falsifies imagery and renders sentiments unconvincing. Those who attempt to em- bellish and adorn nature have neither souls nor taste, and have never come to know her beauties." 5 Neither for Rousseau nor for his contemporaries was there any " senseless and affected jargon " in Gessner or in Thomson. They considered that these poets portrayed nature " with the nicety of a lover enumerating the charms of his mistress."6 They relished these artificial pastorals, these highly-sweetened idylls, and the languid grace of these descriptions. It should be noted that the famous Lettres a M. de Malesherbes — which contain Rousseau's finest descriptive passages — were not published before 1779, that the Confessions appeared in 1782, and that the Reveries d'un promeneur solitaire are also posthumous. Between 1760 and 1780 Thomson and Gessner shared with Rousseau the glory 1 Saint-Lambert, Preface to Les Saisons, p. 9. 2 In Les Peres malheureux. (See (Euvres, vol. xiii., p. 19.) 3 Sainte-Beuve, Chateaubriand et son groupe, vol. ii., p. 149. 4 Almanack des Muses, 1786. 5 Letter to Huber, Z4th December 1761. 6 Dorat, Recueil de contes et de foemes, the Hague, 1770, p. 1 1 8. 300 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM of having drawn the attention of the French public to nature. Of these two, one — the Zurich printer — cannot for a moment be compared with Jean-Jacques ; the other — the author of the Seasons — was a true poet, and gave expression, long before Rousseau, to many sentiments which the latter introduced into the great current of French literature. The pious Thomson sang of golden broom and purple heather before he did, just as he anticipated him also in raising his thoughts to the incompre- hensible Being in whom all things are contained. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasant Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense, and every heart is joy.1 Thomson anticipated Rousseau, but was not his teacher. It would scarcely be paradoxical to say that Rousseau discharged the debt he had incurred towards English literature when he made it possible for Frenchmen to appreciate Thomson, Young, and Ossian. II Just as Rousseau inspired his contemporaries with a feeling for physical nature, so also he was the great poet of melancholy. He it was who became the interpreter of those burning hearts that, in the words of Chateaubriand, " have felt themselves strangers in the midst of mankind" ; he, who " with a full heart dwelt in an empty world," he, who knew what it was to be miserable in the midst of happiness, and had lost every illusion before he had exhausted anything. By the right which genius gives, he is father to Rene, Oberman, and Adolphe. But in the history of European literature he had his own predecessors in the English, and here dates speak more eloquently than any argument can do. Not to mention Shakespeare or the 1 Hymn which concludes the Seasons. THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 301 author of // Penseroso, from whom every poet of melancholy in modern times has drawn his inspiration,1 Thomson's Seasons appeared in 1730, Young's Night Thoughts from 1742 to 1744, Collins's Odes in 1747, and Gray's Elegy in a country churchyard in I75*> while the earliest fragments of Ossian are earlier by a year than the Nouvelle Heloise, and by several years than the Reveries. Long before Rousseau had written anything the poetry of melan- choly in England was very rich, and was prolific of powerful and characteristic works if not of masterpieces. English melancholy had long been proverbial in France, and French authors were not slow to turn it into ridicule. In Favart's L? Anglais a Bordeaux there is a certain Milord Brumton, who is proud, gentle, brave, sensitive and melancholy, — a distant cousin of Hamlet. Brumton envies the wanton French gaiety which he can never acquire ; at sight of a timepiece he exclaims : " While for me this swinging disc numbers the steps of approach- ing death, the Frenchman, at the mercy of every breath of desire, regards the dial but as the record of a round of pleasures ! " As for him, Locke, Newton and Haendel's severe music are his study. In vain an attractive marquise who secretly loves him says prettily : " Cease to seek for reasonings in which your melancholy may find its daily food. You think ; we enjoy. Trust me and cast your philosophy aside : it gives men the spleen and hardens their hearts. Our gaiety, which you call foolishness, colours our minds with smiling hues. . . ." Brumton remains melancholy, and, in reality, the marquise does not object to it. As the century advances melancholy becomes an ever more certain mark of the English genius. Another comic poet and man of good sense becomes indignant at it, and favours these islanders with some plain speaking : " Your melancholy vapours make your very tastes more gloomy, and the same dark gloss covers both your books and your arts. Seeking everywhere the funereal aspect of things you would like to find cemeteries even in your gardens."2 But the "cemetery" which gave such offence to Fra^ois de 1 See William Lyon Phelps : The beginnings of the English romantic movement, Boston, 1893, especially chap. v. : The literature of melancholy. 2 Pamela, by F. de Neufchateau, ii. iz. 302 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM Neufchateau was just what fascinated sensitive souls. Mme. de Genlis declares that in England lovers are accustomed in the evening to meet by moonlight among the tombs, and considers that no love but that which is "honourable, deep and pure" can express itself in such a spot.1 Ducis praised the "sombre, melancholy " genius of the English before the whole Academy, and Sebastien Mercier makes immense efforts, he says, to give men some idea of "these sad and melancholy souls"2: Know, O Frenchmen, whose "false gaiety" is so highly extolled, that " frivolous minds can neither reason nor enjoy ! " Prevost, in his Cleveland, had already imitated the English in some pages of a strange and penetrating melancholy, which give, as it were, a foretaste of Chateaubriand. Already, too, Cresset, in his Sidnei, which appeared in 1745, had rendered the depression of Hamlet into verse of some beauty : " To the pleasures I once adored I am now indifferent ; I know them no longer, and in those self-same joys I now find nothing but vanity and sorrow. Life, with its scenes of changeless monotony, cannot awaken my soul from its torpor. . . . The world I have exhausted, it affects me not. . . . Destitute of feeling, dead to every pleasure, my soul is no longer capable of delight." Accordingly the poet Gray, who had read much of Cresset, called him a great master, and his tragedy a fine work.3 But it is necessary to point out that Cresset — himself the offspring of an English family which had settled in France a century earlier — simply imitates, and imitates closely, the soliloquy of Hamlet,4 so that the Frenchman who, in this respect, anticipated Rousseau, had recourse, like Prevost, to foreign sources. 1 Memoires, vol. iii., p. 357. 2 See Discours de reception a V Academle francaise^ by Ducis, and Mercier's Essai sur I'art dramatique, p. 207. a See Gray's Worh, ed. Gosse, vol. i., p. 123, and vol. ii., p. 182, 183, &c. 4 See in particular the long speech which occurs in act ii., scene I, and also the one in act ii., scene 2 : "In the noisy pageant, amidst which I have dwelt so long, there is nothing which I have not seen and seen again, nothing that I have not tasted and known ; I have had my day upon this frivolous stage : if each one of us quitted it when his part was ended, everything would be as it should be, and the public would no longer see so many everlasting people of whom it is weary." THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 303 It is beyond doubt that Young, Ossian, and Gray, whose works were all introduced into France between 1760 and I77°> shortly after the appearance of Heldise, owed their success in that country mainly to Rousseau. He had tapped the spring, and the French public fell with avidity upon these English poets whose genius was so nearly related to his. Gray was not so well known as the others. The only one of his poems to be read in France was the Elegy written in a country churchyard, which was translated by the Gazette litter aire in 1765, and was freely copied by French poets, from Lemierre to Marie- Joseph Chenier, and from Fontanes or Delille to Chateaubriand. The Elegy is quite the most popular of Gray's works, but it by no means represents the profound and unique originality of the author of The Bard and the Descent of Odin, than whom few poets have been more sincere. Nevertheless this work, so modern in the sentiments it expresses yet at the same time so subtly classical in taste, attained something like celebrity in France. Gray's studious and highly cultivated talent provided, as it were, a connecting link between new aspirations and the classical methods to which Frenchmen were accustomed ; he was spoken of as a*" sublime philosopher, and a child of harmony." x A few who were curious as to foreign literature sought information about him : Bonstetten went to see him at Cambridge ; Fontanes, on a visit to London in 1786, made the acquaintance of Mason, Gray's biographer, and learnt from him a few details concerning one who was among his favourite poets. Voltaire, even, had attempted to enter into correspondence with him, but Gray had declined : his devout and gentle soul could scarcely conceal its aversion to the author of so many irreligious works, and to a friend who was starting for France he said : " I have one thing to beg of you. . . . Do not go to see Voltaire ; no one knows the mischief that man will do." 2 Melancholy, Gray once said, was his most faithful companion : it rose with him, retired to rest with him, was with him when he went abroad and when he returned. The Elegy written in a 1 Journal encyclofedique, 1st November 1788. 2 Gray's Works, ed. Milford, vol. v., p. 32. 3°4 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM country churchyard is his most perfect expression of this deep inward feeling : The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. By virtue of the sincerity of his religious feelings, of the delicious vagueness of his impressions, and of his serene and lofty inspiration, Gray is beyond dispute the predecessor of Chateaubriand and Lamartine, and of Rousseau before them. " With him," says his translator, the author of Rene, " begins that school of the melancholy poets, which in our day has been transformed into a school of poets of despair." l A valuable testimony, considering the authority with which it comes. Collins, Chatterton, and Cowper were known to Frenchmen in the eighteenth century only through rare allusions to them in the newspapers.2 The author of Night Thoughts, on the other hand, was famous not only in France, but throughout Europe, much more so, even, than in his own country. Edward Young, the "sepulchral Young," as he was called, was really a survivor from the seventeenth century, having been born before Pope, in 1684. Fr°m whatever standpoint we con- sider him there is something singular about the man. He was nearly sixty years old when he revealed himself, not as a great poet, but as an eloquent interpreter of the melancholy of his age. He had in succession been a candidate for parliamentary honours, taken holy orders, aspired to a bishopric, enriched himself by 1 Essai sur la litterature anglaise. 2 On Chatterton, see Journal ency clop edique^ ist March 1790. THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 305 marriage with a lady of fortune, and had been throughout insati- able. He excited the pity of Europe in his behalf, but appears to have lied in the history of his misfortunes. He stated that he had lost his wife, his step-daughter, and the betrothed husband of the latter, within a few months. A serious matter, and one which should cover the French nation with confusion, is that this girl, who seems to have died at Montpellier, whither she had been taken by her father for the sake of her health, was refused burial by the unfeeling inhabitants of the country, on the ground that she was a Protestant : For ch ! the cursed ungodliness of zeal ! While sinful flesh relented, spirit nursed In blind infallibility's embrace, The sainted spirit petrified the breast ; Denied the charity of dust, to spread O'er dust ! a charity their days enjoy. What could I do ? what succour ? what resource ? With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole ; With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd ; Short in my duty ; coward in my grief! More like her murderer, than friend, I crept, With soft-suspended step, and muffled deep In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh. I whisper'd what should echo through their realms ; Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies.1 The gruesome story of the father burying his daughter in secret went the round of Europe ; and a lugubrious engraving representing Young interring Narcissa by the light of a lantern was introduced as a frontispiece to the second volume of Letourneur's translation of the Night Thoughts. Such intolerance on the part of the French seemed monstrous. Young, the victim of fate, appeared also to be the victim of fanaticism, and for many a long year English visitors made pilgrimages to the melancholy grotto where this drama had been enacted. Un- fortunately for the poet's sincerity, the story is of his own invention. The death of Young's step-daughter did actually occur in France, but at Lyon, as a learned inhabitant of that town has shown, and not at Montpellier : she was buried at the i Night iii. u 306 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM latter place, not in a nameless grave, but in the enclosure formerly reserved for Protestants, and not by stealth, but with all befitting ceremony. At most it appears that the cost of inter- ment was excessive, and it was this trifling grievance that was dramatically treated by Young.1 Thus a strong suspicion of insincerity lingers about the nine books and the ten thousand lines of The Complaint or Night Thoughts, which legend asserts to have been written by the light of a candle burning in a skull. To our ears there is a false ring about his misfortunes as depicted in his poetry, however real they may have been. But the actual Young, the satirist and intriguer, was unknown in France. Whereas in his own country he enjoyed but a moderate celebrity and had fallen somewhat into disrepute, Young was looked upon by Frenchmen as an eloquent victim with strong claims to compassion, and his book as " the noblest elegy ever written upon the miseries of human exist- ence.2 At heart insatiably ambitious, the man enjoyed in France the reputation at once of a priest and a philosopher, fond of retirement and obscurity, who lived in quiet wedlock with a virtuous woman, and whom nothing but the sense that he had a duty to perform had driven forth into the world. The story went that he had served as almoner during the war in Flanders, and that even at that period his " dark and brilliant imagination " constantly subjected him to fits of absent mindedness : having on one occasion wandered away from the English camp with a copy of ^Eschylus in his hand he came upon the French troops, who, taking him for a spy, brought him before their general ; but he, on learning the prisoner's name had him safely escorted back to his friends, thus doing sincere homage to his genius.3 Stricken in the hour of his happiness Young " went down alive into the tomb of his friends, buried himself with them and drew a curtain between the world and himself." His genius, like a sepulchral lamp, burnt for ten years in honour of the dead ; then 1 See Breghot du Lut, Nouveaux melanges bibliographiques et litteraires , Lyon, 1829, 8vo, p. 363 ; where there will also be found a note by Dr Ozanam on the same historical point. 2 Les NuitS) a translation by Letourneur, vol. i., p. 7. 3 Journal encyclopedique , 1 5th September IJJZ. THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 307 he himself died, forgotten. No bell tolled for him ; the very poor whom he had befriended neglected to follow his body to the grave, " and the frame to which a virtuous soul and a glori- ous genius had lent such lustre did not even receive the com- monest funeral honours." His soul was "by nature majestic"; his character serious and noble. Men compared him to Pascal. But this need cause the sensitive no apprehension : though solemn, Young was no misanthrope ; " death and the grave were not always on his lips " ; he was fond of pleasure, and even started a bowling-alley in his parish. His was a gentle melan- choly, though profound. Such was the eighteenth century legend with regard to Young.1 His book, like its author, has a legend of its own. In 1 760 there appeared anonymously a little collection entitled Pensees anglaises sur divers sujets de religion et de morale? It was a selection of thoughts taken from The Complaint, which had been published sixteen years before, and was intended by the compiler to be a sort of manual of holy dying. Some of these reflexions are commonplace to the last degree ; others appear profound, because they are obscure ; while some owe their singularity to the form in which they are expressed, such as : " Night is a curtain drawn by Providence between man and his vanity " ; or, " The firmament, like the vestment of the high priest under the law, is strewn with precious stones, which utter oracles."3 Some, too, are of an apocalyptic type : Silence how dead ! and darkness how profound ! . . . Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause ; An awful pause ! prophetic of her end.4 This seemed original, though fantastic and disconnected. Some praised the freshness and singularity of the ideas ; 5 others were in ecstasies over the gloomy yet powerful character of the English imagination.6 The appetite of the passionate admirers 1 See Letourneur's Nuits, Introduction. 2 Amsterdam, 1760, izmo. 3 These fragments are not literal quotations from Young, but appear to be imita- tions of certain passages from that author. 4 Night i. 5 Journal encyclopedique, October 1760. 6 Freron, Annee litteraire, 1761, vol. vii., p. 47. 308 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM of England was whetted ; they asked for a more complete trans- lation. In 1762, the Journal etranger, always on the watch for foreign works, gave a version of the first Night. The translator was the Comte de Bissy, lieutenant-general of Languedoc and member of the French Academy, the same whom we have already met with as the patron of Sterne. Though according to Colle his knowledge of French was very poor and his spelling still worse, Bissy was a determined anglomaniac and had translated — some said by means of a substitute — Bolingbroke's letters on patriotism. His translation of Young was accompanied by a curious address which shows clearly what it was that the eighteenth century admired in the author of Night Thoughts : Works of this character — filled with grand and gloomy, yet exquisitely pleas- ing ideas ; works which leave an impression of melancholy behind them, and plunge the reader in the depths of meditation — are unknown to French literature. With our authors, the soul is, so to speak, all on the outside ; more devoted to pleasure, less solitary, than English authors, they dwell too much with other men, and since, as a rule, they only meet them in the fashionable world, where none but cheerful thoughts are recognised as pleasing, they suit their works to what their observation leads them to suppose the taste of the greatest number of readers. But why do we not follow these readers to the privacy of their study ? Then we should see that the works which please and captivate the most are the sad ones. Returning to Young, Bissy added : " I will venture to say that in point of depth this poet is what Homer and Pindar are in point of grandeur. I should find it difficult to explain the effect produced upon me by my first perusal of this work. I might experience much the same impression in the heart of the desert on a dark and stormy night, when the surrounding blackness is pierced at intervals by flashes of lightning." 1 Bissy had touched a sensitive cord : his Nuit proved a great success. For twenty years translators vied with one another in producing, either in prose or in metre, a version of one or more of the Nights.2 And when the Night Thoughts were 1 Journal stranger, February 1762. 2 The first Night was translated by Sabatier de Castres, and by Colardeau (1770) ; the second, which was translated in the Gazette litteraire (vol. ii., p. 101), was rendered into metre by Colardeau (1770) ; the same writer also produced versions of the fourth, twelfth, and seventeenth (1771), and a further translation, by Doigni du Ponceau, was published in the same year ; the fifteenth was trans- lated again, by L. de Limoges (1787). There were also Verltes philosophiques THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 309 exhausted they betook themselves to the satires, the tragedies, and the minor works, until the whole of Young had been dealt with.1 Of these versions, the most famous, and the only approxi- mately complete one, was that by Letourneur,2 which created a sensation. It was prefaced by a curious dissertation intended to introduce " a great poet, who is certain to share the immortality of Swift, Shaftesbury, Pope, Addison, and Richardson." We have seen what Letourneur said of Young as a man ; as a writer he praises him no less. " Born to be original," incapable of slavish adherence to a model, he was distinct from all others. Letourneur is lavish of big words : the French have laid them- selves open to the charge " of cowardice in the field of genius " : they restrict their talent " by keeping it in bondage to fixed rules of art." Will no one rouse the soul with the " shock " it needs ? Will no one give it an impulse in the direction of new beauties ? Writers must do what Young has done ; they must be themselves. Each should " express his ideas and sensations as they are received " — a doctrine which is pure Diderot, and also pure Sterne. Now of this poetic method Young affords the best example, by giving expression to " that vague and confused feeling called ennui , the true remedy for which lies in rousing the emotions of the soul." With all his admiration for Young's work Letourneur did not feel bound to give a faithful rendering of it : he suppresses, or relegates to his notes, everything which seems to him to savour of the preacher : " these passages," he says pleasantly, " belong exclusively to theology." Young is no longer a Christian, though still a philosopher. tirees des Nulls d'Young (by Mouslier de Moissy), Paris, 1770, 8vo ; Le triomphe du chretien, one of the Nights, translated by Dom Devienne, Paris, 1781, 8vo, &c. Various scattered fragments of Young will be found in the magazines of the day. (See, especially, Journal encyclopedique, I5th October 1784, I5th July 1786). The Abbe Baudrand published : Esprit, Maximes et Pensees d'Young, Paris, 1786, I2mo. 1 (Euvres diverse* by Young, translated from the English by Letourneur, Paris, 1770, 2 vols. 8vo. Satires d'Young ... a free translation by Bertin, London and Paris, 1787, 8vo. 2 Les Nuits d'Young, translated from the English by Letourneur, Paris, 1769, 2 vols. 8vo, (copyright, 2nd May 1769). Frequently reprinted, four editions being issued between 1769 and 1775. 310 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM He is still, also, quite sufficiently " sepulchral." The majestic harmony of blank verse, which renders certain pages of Young, justly quoted in anthologies, so admirable as self-complete passages, has of necessity disappeared, as well as the truly oratorical pomp of phrase, and the breadth of effect Young obtained from his ample use of poetical platitude. His rhetoric appears in all its poverty. His persistent denunciations ring false. In truth, Young in translation is too barren of ideas. "We know moreover that wit is simply the art of " combating truth with sophisms," and having read Jean-Jacques are aware that nothing is more uncommon than that " precious wisdom which examines thoroughly and goes to the root of its subject." The theme of the author of Night Thoughts is the old opposition between the social and the natural man. Every other element in the book — its expression of fellowship with nature, its appeal to the human conscience, its sincere conviction of man's miserable condition, has since been expressed by many others whose voices are more persuasive than his. Yet it may be that, if we carry our minds back to 1742 an(l 1744 — t^le Years 'm which Young's collection of poems appeared — and especially if we reflect on the condition of French lyrical poetry just at that time, we shall feel, even to-day, the partly vanished charm of such lines as these : O majestic Night ! Nature's great ancestor ! Day's elder-born ! And fated to survive the transient sun ! By mortals and immortals seen with awe ! A starry crown thy raven brow adorns, An azure zone thy waist ; clouds, in heaven's loom, Wrought through varieties of shape and shade, In ample folds of drapery divine, Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout, Voluminously pour thy pompous train. Thy gloomy grandeurs (Nature's most august, Inspiring aspect !) claim a grateful verse .... Heaven's King ! whose face unveil'd consummates bliss ; Redundant bliss ! which fills that mighty void, The whole creation leaves in human hearts ! Thou, who didst touch the lip of Jesse's son, Rapt in sweet contemplation of these fires, And set his harp in concert with the spheres ! . . . . THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 311 Loose me from earth's enclosure, from the sun's Contracted circle set my heart at large, Eliminate my spirit, give it range Through provinces of thought yet unexplored ; Teach me, by this stupendous scaffolding, Creation's golden steps, to climb to Thee.1 Can we not recognise, in these lines, something of the true poet that at times was revealed in Edward Young ? Are our wearied perceptions entirely proof against the spell which so fascinated our fathers ? The influence of this spell was almost universal. Twice trans- lated into German, the book created quite a revolution in Klop- stock's circle. In spite of Lessing's protestations, Kremer, in the Northern Spectator, declared that the author was a greater poet than Milton and full " of the spirit of God and of the prophets." Klopstock, the leading spirit, wrote a poem on Young's death.2 Young brought death and moonlight into fashion in literature : by moonlight Werther roams about the forest in order to soothe his soul, and by moonlight he bids farewell to Charlotte. For many a long year Young reigned supreme as the poet of night.3 In France he encountered sceptics, Voltaire among the fore- most. Voltaire had made his acquaintance when staying with Bubb Doddington at Eastbury, in the days before Young took holy orders. He had found him witty, sarcastic, and worldly. Young had even made him the object of a somewhat caustic epigram.4 At a later period the poet dedicated to the philosopher certain lines as a reminder that Life's little drama done, the curtain falls ! — Dost thou not hear it ? I can hear, Though nothing strikes the listening ear ; Time groans his last ! Eternal loudly calls ! 5 1 Ninth Night. 2 Imitated in the Journal encyclopedique, ist December 1785. 3 See Erich Schmidt, Richardson, Rousseau, und Goethe, p. 190. 4 They were arguing together about the characters Death and Sin in Paradise Lost. Young addressed Voltaire in the lines : You are so witty, profligate, and thin, At once we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin. 5 Letourneur translated the piece and published it together with the Nuits, vol. ii., pp. 318-321. 312 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM I do not know if Voltaire was offended by this sermon, but to Letourneur, who had sent him his translation of Night Thoughts, he replied: "Sir, you have conferred a high honour on my old acquaintance Young ; the taste of the translator appears to be better than the author's. You have done all that could be done in the way of bringing order into this collection of confused and bombastic platitudes." And after contrasting the poem on Religion with the Night Thoughts, he concluded by saying, "I think that every foreigner will prefer your prose to the poetry of one who is half poet and half priest, like this Englishman." l A certain Abbe Remy went further. Writing in the character of a " black musqueteer," he published Les Jours, pour servir de correctif et de supplement aux Nuits ;2 in which he pleaded the cause of laughter, and protested that " the man who introduced so simple, so innocuous, and so universally accessible a form of enjoyment as the use of tobacco would deserve an altar (autel) in every heart, had he not already sufficiently brilliant ones in the homestead (hotel) of every farm." If a book is parodied it is being read. In fact, the Night Thoughts, in spite of Voltaire, were all the rage. "It is an unanswerable proof," said Mme. Riccoboni, " of the change that is taking place in the French mind."3 Everyone who desired to see a reformation in French poetry caught the infection. One writer describes the poem as the masterpiece "of a melancholy imagination and a sensitive soul," 4 another — Baculard d'Arnaud — regards it as a perfect example "of the sombre type" of literature: "my soul," writes this lover of tears, "has buried itself among the tombs. ... I have penetrated and explored a new nature to its very heart ! Ah ! what wealth have I not discovered therein ! " 5 Mercier, who of course gave his opinion, thinks that the book translated by Letourneur will give the French language " an entirely fresh appearance."6 Another, one of the same clan, compares Young to ^Eschylus in respect of 1 7th June 1769. 2 London and Paris, 1770, izmo. (See Journal encyclopedique, I5th June 1770.) 3 Garrick, Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 566. 4 Journal encydopedique , 1 5th August and 1st September 1769. 5 Preface to the Comte de Commlnges. 6 Essai sur Vart dramatique, p. 299. THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 313 " his colossal imagination, and the frenzy of his oriental style."1 Grimm is more calm, and considers that the work is magnificently sombre ; but is it nothing to get oneself read by a people " whose disposition it is to see everything in rosy hues ? " Encouraged by his success Letourneur translated Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs, another work of the same stamp, and the Journal encyclopedique bears witness to " the strange revolution which French literature has been undergoing for some years past." 2 But Young had more famous admirers still. Grimm had ventured to express some doubt. He was of opinion that Young's poetry, with its " fitful and uncertain gleams," could not succeed in France. "It is all too full of tolling bells, tombs, mournful chants and cries, and phantoms ; the simple and artless expression of true sorrow would be a hundred times more effective."3 Grimm was right enough. But Diderot was on the watch, and rated him soundly. " Do you ever retract what you have said, Mr Shopkeeper at the sign of the Evergreen Holly ? If so, here is an excellent opportunity for you." It may be well to inform you that Letourneur's trans- lation is " most harmonious, and characterized by the greatest richness of expression," that the first edition has been exhausted in four months, "and that nothing but exceptional merit could induce a frivolous and light-hearted nation to read jeremiads " such as this. . . . "Ah! Mr Grimm! Mr Grimm! Your con- science has assumed a very heavy burden ! " 4 How could Grimm help bowing to the decree of " Cato Diderot ? " And so he submitted, and the entire French public with him. The Night Thoughts continued to cause a " a general ferment." They were accused of spreading suicidal mania.5 It is beyond 1 Essai sur la tragedie, by a philosopher, 1773, 8vo. 2 1 5th November 1770. It was in 1770 that Letourneur's translation appeared (Paris, 8vo). Concerning Hervey see also Meditations sur les tombeaux, translated [by Mme. d'Arcouville], Paris, 1771, izmo ; Les Tombeaux [by Bridel], Lausanne, 1779, 8vo ; Abrege des ceuvres d'Hervey, Ball, 1796, l6mo ; and the imitations in verse by Baour-Lormian. See also, on Hervey, Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought, vol. ii., p. 438. 3 May 1770. 4 Corresfondance IHteraire, June 1770 5 See the Gazette universelle de litter ature, IJJJ, p. 236. 314 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM doubt that Young's work, unequal as it was, yet heady, eloquent yet false, declamatory and at the same time poetic, exerted a great influence over many minds. Robespierre kept it under his pillow during the days of the Revolution. Camille Desmoulins read it through once more, together with Hervey's Meditations, on the eve of his death ; " you wish to die twice over, then," said Westermann, jocosely.1 Above all, Chateaubriand, Byron, and all the leading romantic writers, both English and French, were readers of Young, and this is why it may be said, with Villemain, that his power is not yet exhausted. Like Rousseau, and earlier than he, Young had perceived the charm of " en- chanting sadness " ; like him had known " the mighty void which the universe leaves in the heart of man " ; and like him, in the words of Chateaubriand, had created the " descriptive elegiac " style, of which " the after effect is a sort of lamenta- tion, as it were, within the soul." 2 If melancholy is one of the sources of modern poetry, few have a better claim than Young to the honour of having anticipated the poets of the present day. Ill It was at the very time when France became subject to the spell wielded by Young that she acquired an enthusiasm also for Ossian, and this again, if we examine it closely, is but another natural result of the revolution effected by Rousseau. Young's melancholy seemed a natural characteristic of the poet and the sage. But his lamentations were only for the present, for man's corruption, his sufferings and his approaching death. He never allows his imagination to wander among vanished centuries or ancient civilizations. He is insensible to the depth and the poetry which sorrow acquires from regret for the past. Nevertheless, it was practically inevitable that the poetry of melancholy should become the poetry of the past. The past, because it has vanished, has a melancholy of its own, i Lamartine, Histoire des GironJins, vol. viii., p. 51. a Essai sur la litterature anglaise. THE POETRY OF THE PAST 315 and of this, Rousseau, who had known " the sweet yet bitter recollection which stimulates our anguish with the vain senti- ment of departed happiness," was well aware. But, just as the individual, in the decline of life, turns back with delight to his earliest years, so too, the race, when it has known the in- toxicating consciousness of its own energy, when it has enjoyed to the full its own virility and proved it vigorous and keen, feels itself smitten with fond yearning for centuries that are past, a longing which seizes it like a mighty desire to become once more a child. It dreams of finding again the freshness of its first impressions ; again it crosses the seas of remembrance, and, by the diffused light of imagination, recognises in a mysterious distance the vague and wavering lineaments of humanity as once it was and now can be no longer. The very fierceness of primitive man seems then like a sign of vigorous adolescence : distance attenuates and, if one may say so, shades away his savage and monstrous aspects ; his haughty stature, his native fidelity, daring and nobility are all that strike the eye. So may the marble faun shine through the mist like the statue of Apollo. The eighteenth century, like many another age, surrendered itself to this spell. With Rousseau, with Ossian, with Chateau- briand in his youth, it fell in love with the past. The twilight ages of the human race supplied a marvellously appropriate setting for the need of reverie which was beginning to torment the men of that day. What books for the pillow like Homer and the Bible, wherein man is tempted to bury himself in his hours of weariness, not because of their eloquence or sacredness alone, but also because of their antiquity ? But Homer, who moreover was little known, was regarded with suspicion by the innovators as the fountain-head of classical literature ; while the Bible, of which it has been justly remarked that "it has never been a French book,"1 was looked upon with twofold more suspicion than Homer. Thus the new literature, the ideal of which was taking vague shape in certain minds, was in need of ancestors which should 1 J. — J. Weiss, A propos de theatre, p. 168. 3i6 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM be peculiarly its own. It became necessary to discover, in the past history of humanity, a race whence the descent of a whole line of poets could legitimately be traced, and worthy of being placed in opposition to an antiquity properly so called, that is to say, to Greece and Rome. Lastly, it was needful, as Garat expressed it, " to supply the somewhat effete poetry of the south with images, scenes, and manners wherein poetic talent might renew its youth as in a freshly created world."1 This modern Homer, so eagerly sought, was discovered by a very clever man. Macpherson's Caledonia, and Ossian, its poet, were accepted with enthusiasm by the whole of Europe.2 For years already there had been shaping itself among the English a movement which drew the attention of many dis- tinguished minds towards a past, not perhaps more remote than classical antiquity, but at any rate more mysterious and more pregnant with the unknown. Some, like Walpole, Warton, and Kurd, sought to bring mediaeval poetry and architecture once more into fashion.3 Others devoted themselves to the collection of old songs — English, Irish, or Welsh. Percy's famous book, which appeared in 1765, is simply the most celebrated collection among a long series which began in the early years of the century.4 Others again, with more ambition, restored in its entirety the dead civilization of the Celts and of the Northern races in general, contrasting it triumphantly with the worn-out civilizations of Greece and Rome. In some fine stanzas, written in 1749, Collins sang the praises of ancient Scotland, and of her highlands, where, beneath the showery west, The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid ; Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest, No slaves revere them and no wars invade ; 1 Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 153. 2 See The Life and Letters of James Macpherson, London, 1894, 8vo, by Bailey Saunders. 3 Thomas Warton, Observations on the Faery Queen (1754). Richard Hurd, Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762). 4 A very accurate account of this movement will be found in Mr Phelps's book : The beginnings of the English romantic movement, ch. vii. (Revival of the pasf). Percy's collection was known in France. (See Suard, Melanges de litterature.} THE POETRY OF THE PAST 317 Yet frequent now, at midnight solemn hour, The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power, In pageant robes, and wreathed with sheeny gold, And on their twilight tombs aerial councils hold.1 This, however, was merely the presentiment of a poet. It was a historical work — one of importance in the evolution of the literature of the age — that provided restless imaginations with the material they required. This was Mallet's Introduction a I'histoire de Danemark, published in I755» anc^ followed after a short interval by Monuments de la mythologie et de la poesle des Celtes et par tiddier ement des anciens Scandinaves.^ Paul-Henri Mallet was a Genevan. At the age of twenty-two he had become professor of literature at Copenhagen,3 where he had been seized with a strong passion for the then unknown literatures of the North, and had taken upon himself the task of revealing them to Europe. With the help of Danish or Swedish versions he read and translated the Edda, and it was a German version of his translation which inspired Klopstock and his school with their taste for bardic poetry.4 Mallet was thus the occasion of a European movement which had only been awaiting a vivify- ing impulse. His book was translated by Percy, and attained great celebrity in England. Gray read it with avidity,5 and Percy produced some runic poems in the style of the Scandinavian sages. Through Mallet a whole generation of poets and critics was made acquainted with northern Europe, and from him Mme. de Stael herself derived a large number of her ideas.6 A new antiquity had come to life. An entire civilization made its appearance ; one very different from those of Greece and Rome, untouched as yet by the imitator, and offering a fine field to the eager imagination. Such ungracious spirits as found fault with Mallet's undertaking, or blamed him for resuscitating "childish An Ode on the popular superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland. 2 1756. See Sismondi, De la -vie et des ecrits de P.-H. Mallet, 1807, and Sayous, xi>liie siecle a V stranger, vol. ii., p. 46 et seq. Joret, Herder, p. 20. See Gray's Works, ed. Gosse, vol. ii., p. 352. See De la litter ature : Preface to the 2nd edition. 318 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM fables," 1 were very few in number. It is not too much to say of his book that it was the starting-point of the entire Ossianic literature. In 1760 Macpherson brought out his Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands, and translated from the Gaelic or Erse Languages. In 1762 — or perhaps at the close of 1761 — he produced Fingal, and in 1763 Temora. Such was the birth of Ossian. From these dates it will be seen that Ossian came into exist- ence at the very moment when Rousseau was giving a new direction to French literature — in the same year, or nearly so, as the Nouvelle Helo'ise. Besides, Macpherson owes as little to Rousseau as Rousseau owes to Macpherson : there is a remark- able coincidence between them, but neither was influenced by the other. Macpherson, moreover, was by no means a reformer in literature : his individual taste was extremely diffident, and he good-humouredly derides the old English poets — for instance, Spenser, with his giants and his fairies. He has a very poor opinion of those who imitate them, and of their "romantic com- positions," so " disgustful to true taste." 2 It is as an antiquary that he publishes Ossian, not as a poet : he does it to gratify contemporary taste for literary curiosities. He would have been amazed to learn that critics of the succeeding generation regarded him as one of the best authenticated ancestors of romanticism. Nevertheless Ossian very soon effected a revolution. He was almost immediately recognised as the leading spirit of the new literature — " the modern Homer " of Mme. de Stael. In England every genuine adherent of the classical school regarded him with distrust and uneasiness. " It tires me to death," wrote Walpole, " to read how many ways a warrior is like the moon, or the sun, or a rock, or a lion, or the ocean."3 Johnson, an Englishman and a member of the classical school, detects in Macpherson, the Scotchman, an impostor and a dangerous innovator. He indulges in amenities of this sort : "I received your foolish and impudent 1 Preface to the edition of 1773. 2 Note to Cathloda. 3 8th December 1761. THE POETRY OF THE PAST 319 letter ... I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian."1 Macpherson, however, but yesterday a schoolmaster and salaried tutor, could already count as his warm admirers all who believed in his Caledonia. Even those who were doubtful as to the authenticity of the fragments discovered in them a singular beauty which excited their admiration. The subtle intelligence of Gray found them "full of noble wild imagination,"2 and "infinite beauty." What does it signify whether they are by Ossian ? " I am resolved to believe them genuine, spite of the Devil and the Kirk." Beyond doubt " this man is the very Daemon of poetry," and if there be really no fraud in the case, imagination must have " dwelt many hundred years ago in all her pomp on the cold and barren mountains of Scotland." Macpherson was soon enabled to make the proud assertion that Ossian had achieved a European success. Ossian was translated into Italian by Cesarotti ; there were two versions of him in Spanish, several in German, one in Swedish, one in Danish, and two in Dutch, of which one was by Bilderdyk. In Germany, especially, he created a furor. The true originator of Northern poetry was found at last ; " Thou, too, Ossian," cried Klopstock, " wert swallowed up in oblivion ; but thou hast been restored to thy position ; behold thee now before us, the equal and the challenger of Homer the Greek." "What need," wrote Voss to Bruckner, "of natural beauty ? Ossian of Scotland is a greater poet than Homer of Ionia." Lerse, in a sonorous discourse at Strasburg, acknowledged three guides of the "sacred art of poetry": Shakespeare, Homer, and Ossian — two Northern poets to a single classic. Herder wrote a comparison between the Homeric and the Ossianic epics, spoke of Ossian as " the man I have sought," and contemplated a journey to Scotland in order to collect the songs of the bards. Burger imitated him, and Christian Heyne constituted himself his champion at the Uni- 1 Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. Croker, 1847, P- 43°- 2 Letters of zgth June 1760, July 1760, i7th February 1763. 320 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM versify of Gottingen. Lastly, Goethe, need we remind the reader, drew inspiration from him in Werther and elsewhere. When his spirits are high Werther's taste is for Homer, but in sorrow he feeds upon Ossian, and when " it is autumn within and about him," he cries : " Ossian has completely banished Homer from my heart ! " It is a fragment of Ossian — the lamentation of Armin over the death of his daughter — that throws the distracted Charlotte into the disorder which almost proves her undoing : Why dost thou awake me, O gale ? I'm covered with dew-drops, it says, But the time of my fading is near, The blast which my foliage decays. To-morrow the traveller shall come, Who once saw me comely and bold ; His eyes shall the meadow search round, But me they shall never behold ! l In his Memoirs Goethe has given an admirable explanation of the Caledonian bard's popularity. It was Macpherson who developed among young people in Germany the taste for " the gloomy reflections which lead him who yields to them astray in the infinite." It was he who, with Young and Gray, excited and "stimulated these fatal workings within them." "That all this melancholy might have a theatre adapted to it Ossian had carried us away to distant Thule, where, as we traversed the vast and gloomy heath, amid the moss-grown stones of tombs, we beheld the surrounding herbage swayed by a mighty blast, and above our heads a sky leaden with cloud. Then the moon changed this Caledonian night into day ; dead heroes, and women, beautiful yet pale, hovered around us ; we dreamed at last that we saw, in her own awful form, the very spirit of Loda."2 Nothing affords a better proof of the growing interest taken by the French in foreign matters than the rapidity with which Ossian became known among them. It is worthy of remark 1 From Gotzberg's translation of Werther, letter xci. On Ossian in Germany, see Erich Schmidt, loc. cit., p. 225 et seg. 2 Memoirs, part iii. THE POETRY OF THE PAST 321 that, contrary to received opinion, he was famous in France almost before he had become so in the countries of the North.1 Macpherson's first volume was issued early in 1760, and in September of that year the Journal etr anger published two frag- ments of "ancient poetry, translated into English from the Erse, the language of the Scotch highlanders," these fragments being Connal and Crimora and Ryno and Alpin. The translator commented upon " the singular way in which the action advances, the rapid movement from one idea to another without any transi- tion, the accumulation of images, the frequent repetitions, and, in addition, all the defects of what we call the oriental style." From these examples he concluded that the imagination of the northern nations was no less poetic than that of the Asiatics. " A race which speaks a barren language, and has made no progress in the arts, is obliged to make frequent use of figures and metaphors. . . . Grandeur and profusion of imagery, daring methods of expression, and a certain irregularity in the sequence of ideas, must of necessity characterize its poetry." This writer, the first Frenchman to translate and to criticize Ossian, was Turgot.2 The experiment proving successful, the same journal inserted two other fragments, with a brief notice on Macpherson's selection. This time it was remarked that Erse poetry was more akin to Homer than to Pope or Dryden, whence it was concluded that poetry "knows neither nation nor language.'7 It may even be that " heroic poetry, as it was conceived by the ancients, belongs rather to races which are still in a state of barbarism than to more educated and more civilized nations." Uncivilized men whose soul, so to speak, is entirely "on the outside," whose passions are held in check neither by education nor by law, whose intelligence speaks no language but that of the imagination, because it is incapable of accommodating itself to abstractions — such men as these are poets by nature. 1 On the success of Ossian in France see Mr Bailey Saunders's book above- mentioned (chap, i.), and two articles by Arvede Barine {Journal des Debats, i3th and zyth November 1894). 2 See CEuvres, vol. ix., p. 141 et seq, X 322 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM "By the art of introspection the soul is in a manner detached from external objects ; the practice of reflection and of thought blunts the sensibility and the imagination, and restrains the activity of the passions ; the intelligence becomes more austere and less tolerant of that vague and indefinite latitude in respect of ideas 'which poetry demands" l This, more clearly expressed, was the theory of Diderot and Rousseau. Man is poetical only in the primitive stage, and consequently the primitive man alone is a poet. We know for a certainty that these fragments achieved a brilliant and European success. " It is as beautiful as Homer," wrote Grimm.2 Accordingly the Journal published successive translations by Suard of Fwgal, Lathmon, Oithona, Dar-Thula, and Conlath and Cuthona, all of them "poems from the Erse."3 A new translator, the duchess d'Aiguillon, produced a version of Carthon.^ This gave rise to a great controversy upon the authenticity of all these poems, the conclusion of the dispute, which filled the columns of the Journal des savants? being " that the honour of having created these sublime and touching poems was quite as great as that of having been so fortunate as to discover them." For ten years the Ossianic dispute occupied the attention of critics, but neither in France nor in England did anyone manage to convict the fortunate Macpherson of imposture. How should French journalists have succeeded 6 where the cleverest members of the most learned societies in Scotland had failed ? For fifty years and more, bardic, Erse, Runic or Gaelic poetry, as it was variously called, maintained its popularity in France. In 1764 the Gazette litteraire contrasted this new type of 1 Journal etr anger, January 1761. 2 Correspondance litteraire, April 1762. 3 December 1761, January, February, April, and July 1762. 4 Carthon, a poem translated from the English by Mme. , London, 1762, I2mo. On this subject the Memoires secrets (2oth February 1763) may be con- sulted. Querard asserts that the duchess — who was the mother of the opponent of La Chalotais — had a collaborator named Marin. 5 February and November 1762 ; May, June, September, December 1764. Gazette litteraire (ist September 1765) ; Cesarotti's reflections upon Ossian. 6 See Mr Archibald Clerk's edition of Ossian 's poems (London, 1870, 2 vols. 8vo). THE POETRY OF THE PAST 323 poetry with that of the Greeks, just as Herder himself or Goethe might have done, and while recognising in it " that quality of enthusiasm which the Greeks called poetic frenzy," it pointed out the differences due to climate, race and religion. "The poems of the North abound in awful and impressive images, but rarely contain such as are pleasing or cheerful. . . . All their imagery is representative of mournful skies, the wildest scenes of nature, and savage manners." In them, nevertheless, is to be found that essential gift which constitutes the poet, the power of "realising the phantoms of one's own imagination": may it not be that "what we call the days of barbarism were in very many respects favourable to poetic genius ? " Now Ossian, though less ancient, appears a hundred times more un- civilised than Homer : his inspiration is simpler, more artless, more faithful to nature. It is like a gushing spring. Better still, "it is genuine, heartfelt poetry, for throughout we can detect a heart stirred by noble feelings and tender passions." 1 Opinion was thus occupied by the question of the Erse poems, and was leaning towards the cult of the new divinity, when Letourneur, an indefatigable purveyor of foreign literature, brought out his translation of the " Gaelic poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal," with the addition of a few " bardic " poems by John Smith,2 and achieved therewith a prodigious success. Letourneur's translation, however, was far from deserving the praises which La Harpe generously bestowed upon it ; the harmony of the prose-poetry, so admired by Gray, and, to Macpherson's honour, not indeed invented but brought into fashion by him, is difficult to recognize in the somewhat inferior prose of Letourneur ; as a parallel case we may imagine Atala translated into the style of Johnson. Letourneur's Ossian re- mains, nevertheless, a book of much importance in the history of French literature. 1 Gazette litteraire, 1764, vol. i., p. Z38 ; ist July and 1st August 1765. 2 Ossian, Jlls de Fingal, poesies galliques, translated by Letourneur from the English of Macpherson, Paris, 1777, ^ vols. 8vo. Frequently reprinted, the principal editions being those of 1799 and 1810, the former containing additional matter, the latter a preface by Ginguene. A translation of Temora, by a writer named Saint-Simon, had appeared at Amsterdam in 1774. 324 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM "I no longer believe," Chateaubriand once wrote, "in the authenticity of Ossian's works. . . . Yet still I listen to the sound of his harp, as one might listen to a voice, monotonous indeed, yet sweet and plaintive." 1 This voice we hear, even to-day, and find, when we take the trouble to look for it, just what Chateaubriand found in the false Ossian, " a lofty and noble spring of poetry," as an excellent judge expressed it, "through which, whatever others may have said, there breathes a blast as mighty as the storm-wind." 2 On the other hand, we no longer believe either in Fingal or in Oscar. The " Cale- donian " civilization, which had for eighteenth century readers the charm of something new and striking, seems to us an artificial compound of heterogeneous elements. Macpherson's clans and bards and druids no longer wield their ancient spell : we have admitted — a little too readily perhaps — that Macpherson was nothing more than a dexterous impostor. But those who seek to explain the vogue of the Ossianic poems must not forget that contemporaries held a very different opinion. They believed, with the faith that imagination gives, in the Caledonians, sturdy men with white skins, fair hair, and blue eyes. They believed in the druids, who fulfilled the functions of priests and legislators, and in the bards, who were not only poets but also ambassadors. They believed in that singular race which had neither industries nor agriculture, knew no metals but gold and iron, launched their rash barks upon the ocean, and chose the loftiest sites for their dwellings that they might be near to Heaven. They believed in that vague and poetic religion, ac- cording to which the clouds were inhabited by souls who commanded the winds and storms, spoke to the living at solemn seasons, and challenged them to combat. They believed that the gods, in the darkness of night, waged mysterious warfare with men — and they loved the sombre poetry of their idea. The wan, cold moon rose in the east. Sleep descended on the youths! Their blue helmets glitter to the beam ; the fading fire decays. But sleep did 1 Preface to the translation of Poemes traduits du gallique. 2 Angellier, Burns, vol. i., p. 59. Mr. Clerk admits the authenticity of the poems of Ossian. THE POETRY OF THE PAST 325 not rest on the king : he rose in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill, to behold the flame of Sarno's tower. The flame was dim and distant : the moon hid her red face in the east. A blast came from the mountain, on its wings was the spirit of Loda. He came to his place in his terrors, and shook his dusky spear. His eyes appear like flames in his dark face ; his voice is like distant thunder. Fingal defies the spirit. Dost thou force me from my place, replied the hollow voice ! The people bend before me. I turn the battle from the field of the brave. I look on the nations and they vanish : my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on the winds: the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is calm, above the clouds. . . . The hero does not quail before him. He lifted high his shadowy spear ! He bent forward his dreadful height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleam- ing"path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air, like a column of smoke, which the staff of the boy disturbs, as it rises from the half-extinguished furnace. The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into himself, he rose on the wind.1 Scenes like this, though they bear too close a resemblance to those of Homer or the Bible, are not without their grandeur. But they do not affect us as they affected the contemporaries of Macpherson. We find them less original. Of the two poets, one epic, the other lyric, that go to the making of old Ossian, we prefer the latter, who really is original. But eighteenth century criticism was largely occupied with the former, the poet whom it was possible to compare with Homer. Some years before the publication of Letourneur's translation, Voltaire had already introduced in one of his plays an amusing conversation between a Florentine, an Oxford professor, and a Scotchman, who had met at Lord Chesterfield's house.2 The Scotchman stands up for Ossian. " How beautiful," he exclaims, "were the days of old; FingaPs poem has passed from mouth to mouth down to us of to-day for nearly two thousand years, without ever having been altered: such is the power of genuine beauties over the minds of men ! " And he 1 Carric-thura. The Poems of Ossian , London, 1812, p. 171. 2 Dictionnaire philosophtque : Anciens et modernes, 1770. 326 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM recites a translation or rather a paraphrase of the opening lines of Fingal.1 " Ah ! " says the Oxford professor ; " there you have the true Homeric style ; but what pleases me still more is that I can detect in it the sublime eloquence of the Hebrews." And the man proceeds to quote a few passages from the Psalms, carefully selected by Voltaire, as the reader will perceive, so as to give an idea of the " oriental style." The Scotchman grows pale with rage. But the Florentine, with a smile, engages to hold forth in this so-called "oriental style" for any length of time ; with a little dexterity any one can " reel off bombastic lines of irregular metre," "pile one combat on another," and " describe idle flights of fancy." In fact he improvises on the spot a nonsensical fragment on the first subject suggested to him. The satire was cheap, but not altogether unjust. Ossian is monotonous; he does cultivate "the oriental style"; and will anyone venture to maintain that he never " described empty dreams ? " But Voltaire fails to perceive, or pretends not to see, that the true cause of his success lay elsewhere. To not a few super- ficial minds the Caledonian epic undoubtedly seemed to be the successful rival of the Homeric : " Farewell the tales of ancient days, the gods of Greece and Troy ! Hail to the heroes of the clouds, in their aerial palaces ! " 2 But Ossian's epic qualities by no means exhausted his merit. What made English and French readers so fond of him was the lyric, still more than the epic, poet in him — more indeed than anything else : the poet who gave form, or at all events a new setting, to the love of nature, to melancholy, to " passion's vague unrest," the sweet pain which they had experienced in the pages of Rousseau. It was the poet who, by the mouth of the blind bard, addressed the following pathetic apostrophe to the sun : 0 thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers ! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks 1 Cuchullin was seated by the wall of Tura, " by the tree of the rustling sound." Voltaire gives a parody of these lines. 2 Creuze de Lesser. THE POETRY OF THE PAST 327 in the western wave ; but thou thyself movest alone. . . . But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more ; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps like me, for a season ; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth ! age is dark and unlovely ; it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills. . . .1 It is in fragments such as this, full of deeply impressive yet hidden poetry, that the real Ossian is to be found, the poet of whom Chateaubriand could write that he had "added to the melody of the Muses a note until his time unheard." 2 It was this poet whom the readers of Letourneur appreciated and understood. " Why can I not dwell among the snow-clad mountains which hem the happy sons of Scotland round ; while my dreams, as I watch the seas which bathe Norwegian coasts, are lulled by the sound of the wind beneath a lowering sky, and the dweller among those rugged rocks recites, it may be within my hearing, the mournful hymns which Ossian erstwhile sang upon the self-same shores." Such was the impression produced by the French Macpherson upon one of his earliest readers, Fontanes, then quite a young man, who, addressing the translator of Ossian with ill-restrained emotion, adds : " O Le Tourneur ! whose bold prose ventured almost to imitate the inimitable melody of daring verse, more than once have you revealed treasures unknown to the poets of our day."3 These lines are of no great merit ; but the feeling they expressed was sincere, and Fontanes composed his Chant du Earde after the manner of Ossian, in order, as he wrote to Joubert from London, to try his hand at reproducing "that sweet, slow music which seems to come from the distant shore of the sea, and to linger echoing among the tombs." Thus, even in the eighteenth century, Frenchmen discerned the originality of one who was to be among the teachers of Chateaubriand and Lamartine. They divined his subtle poetry, 1 Carthon. Poems, p. 190. 2 Preface to Poemes traduits du gallique. 3 (Euvres, 1839, vol. i., p. 398. 328 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM if they did not succeed in making it fully their own. They delighted to read him, like Mme. de Genlis, seated on a green bank " shaded by a pair of poplars," " a wild yet melancholy scene before them," and an ^Eolian harp within hearing.1 Like Fontanes they attempted to reproduce the music of his strange flights of melody. With La Harpe they praised that " sort of melancholy imaginativeness," which calls up before the reader " a remote and dismal region where the mountain-mists, the monotonous sound of the sea, and the soughing of the wind among the crags, inspire the mind with a contemplative sadness which becomes habitual."2 Before the Revolution, thanks to Ossian, " the poetry of the North " counted its adherents in France : " sorrowful as their ever cloud-wreathed skies, turgid as the sea that whitens their shores, dense and dismal as the curtain of mist wrapped thickly round them in their gloomy isle,"3 the northern poets seemed destined to renew the ex- hausted literature of France. They were not imitated as yet, or if they were, they were imitated badly.4 But a time was at hand when a Chateaubriand was to make all that was best in their genius his own, and when, an exile in Macpherson's own land, he was to prepare himself for the composition of Rene by translating the poems of Ossian.5 Ossian's fame lasted from 1789 down to the imperial epoch. Arnault borrowed the subject of a tragedy from him ; 6 Labaume and David de Saint-George produced a continuation of Letour- 1 Memoires, vol. Hi., p. 353. 2 Cours de litter attire, vol. iii., pp. 214-217. 3 Andre Chenier, Elegie XXI. 4 See Athos et Dermide, the matter for which is derived from a note by Mac- pherson. {Journal encyclopedique, ist June 1786); Essai d'une traduction d' Ossian en versfranfais, by Lombard (Berlin, 1789, 8vo), etc. 5 "When, in 1793, the Revolution drove me to England, I was a devoted ad- herent of the Scottish bard : lance in rest I would have maintained his existence in the face of the whole world, and against that of old Homer himself. I read with avidity a host of poems unknown in France. ... In the fervour of my zeal and admiration, ill, too, and extremely busy as I was, I translated certain Ossianic pieces by John Smith." (Preface to Translations from the Gaelic.} These pieces are Dargo, and Duthona and Gaul, and are included in Chateaubriand's works ; they are imitations rather than translations. 6 Oscar, f Is d' Ossian, 1796. THE POETRY OF THE PAST 329 neur.1 The story goes that under the Directory those who lived in the Bois de Boulogne were one day alarmed to see a great blaze amongst the trees, and that when they came close to it they perceived some men, attired in Scandinavian fashion, endeavouring to set fire to a pine and singing to the accompani- ment of a guitar with an air of inspiration : they were admirers of Ossian who intended to sleep in the open air and to set the trees alight in order to keep themselves warm, like the heroes of Caledonia.2 Under the Consulate Ossian enjoyed a far greater vogue, even, than before ; the first consul had made him " his own poet," thereby enlisting the sympathies of Mme. de Stael ; he read him on board the vessel which brought him back from Egypt, as at a later period he read him on his voyage to St Helena.3 " How beautiful it is," he said to Arnault. It has been said that he imposed the Ossianic stamp upon the art of his time. It would be more just to say that having been brought up in the literary traditions of the eighteenth century, he shared the veneration of his contemporaries for the Caledonian bard. It was under the Consulate, and at his suggestion, that Baour Lormian composed his Poesies galliques, that Girodet painted his picture of Fingal and Ossian welcoming the shades of the French warriors, and that Lesueur wrote his opera Les Bardes, which Napoleon proclaimed a "brilliant, heroic and truly Ossianic" piece.4 When, after the Revolution, Mme. de Stael and Chateaubriand attempted to lay down the rules of a new theory of poetry, both 1 Poemes d' Ossian et de quelques autres bardes, intended as a sequel to Letourneur's Ossian, and translated from the English by Hill (pseudon.), Paris, 1795, 3 vols. i8mo. 2 G. Renard, De /'influence de Vantiquite class ique sur la litterature franfaise pendant les dernieres annees du xviiie stecle et les premieres annees du xixe> Lausanne, 1875, 8vo. 3 See the Journal de la traversee d'Angleterre a Sainte-Helene, by an English officer, published in the Journal des Debats. 4 The Poesies galliques belong to i8oi. Girodet's picture was exhibited at the Salon of 1802. Lesueur's opera was played in 1804. See also Catheluina, or the Rival Friends, a poem written in imitation of Ossian (by General Despinay), Paris, 1 80 1, 8vo ; Traductions et imitations de quelques poesies d' Ossian, an old Celtic poet, by Charles Arbaud Jouques, Paris, 1801, 8vo ; Traduction libre, en vers, des thants de Selma, from Ossian, etc., by J. Taillasson, Paris, 1801, 8vo, etc. 330 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM accepted Ossian as a precious legacy from the century which had just come to a close. Through them he became appreciated by the youthful band of writers that was destined shortly afterwards to form the romantic "Pleiad": "Ah, plaintive harp, once, as the faithful comrade of Ossian, wont to sing of love and heroes ! No longer shalt thou hang in mournful silence on these walls."1 These lines are by Alphonse de Lamartine, and were written in 1808. All his life Lamartine remained faithful to the object of his youthful admiration, and even in the Confidences he placed Ossian on a level with Dante and above Homer. The harp of Morven is the emblem of my soul. Many indeed were the imaginations whose dreams were haunted by Ossian, between 1 800 and 1830 ! Edgar Quinet, as a youth, in the depths of his native province, was amazed at an infatua- tion he did not share, and remarked with curiosity the unrivalled popularity of Fingal, Malvina, and Carril.2 Distributions of prizes, Villemain says, resounded with the names of the Caledonian heroes, Oscar and Temora, and it is possible that Bernadotte owed the throne of Sweden to the Ossianic fore- name borne by his son.3 Nodier, like everyone else, became fascinated with Macpherson's prose, and George Sand consoled herself for the sorrows of her married life by reading Fingal^ " Four moss-covered stones " — Chateaubriand had written in his Genie du Christianisme — " stand amid the Caledonian heather to mark the tomb of the warriors of Fingal ; Oscar and Mal- vina have departed, but nothing has changed in their lonely land. Still the Scottish Highlander loves to recite the songs of his ancestors : still he is brave, generous, and obliging ; but the hand of the bard himself, if the image be allowed, no longer strikes the harp; what we hear is the tremulous vibration of the strings produced by the touch of a spirit, 1 Letter to Mme. de Virieu, 1808. 2 Histoire de mes idees, p. 132. 3 See Brunetiere, L 'evolution de la foes ie lyrique, vol. i., p. 82. 4 Nodier, Essais d'un jeune barde (1804). G. Sand, Histoire de ma vie, vol. iv., chap. i. ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN POETRY 331 when, at night, in a deserted hall, it forebodes the death of a hero."1 Many and many are the readers who, from the close of the eighteenth century down to the appearance of the romantic generation, have heard this murmur from the strings of Ossian's harp. IV Yet such readers heard it and, above all, appreciated it, mainly because Rousseau had written. Just as there was an occasional coincidence between Thomson's or Gessner's manner of feeling and portraying nature, and Rousseau's, so it was mainly because Jean-Jacques had led the way that Young, Ossian, and even Werther — which made its somewhat unsuccessful appearance in France about the same time 2 — found it so easy to obtain a hold over the minds of Frenchmen. They may indeed be, in the history of European literature, his precursors ; that, in fact, is what they are. But in the history of French literature, they are merely his successors. He owes nothing to them, nor they to him. What, however, admits of no doubt, is that their melancholy is but a form of his melancholy, their lyricism a variety, or a development of his lyricism. "But behold, alas, the incon- ceivable swiftness of that fate which is never at rest. It is constantly pursuing, time flies hastily, the opportunity is irretrievable, and your beauty, even your beauty, is circum- scribed by very narrow limits of existence : it must some time or other decay and wither away like a flower that fades before it was gathered. . . . O fond, mistaken fair ! you are laying 1 Genie du Christianisme, pt. iv., ii. 5. 2 On this subject, see Th. Siipfle (Goethes literarischer Einfluss auf Frankreich, in the Goethe-Jahrbuch, 1887, P- 208), and F. Gross, Werther in Frankreich, Leipzig, 1888. Besides translations by SeckendorfF and Aubry, there was a play by La Riviere, Werther ou le Delire de ? Amour (la Haye, 1778). On the subject of Goethe's novel, the Correspondance litteraire (March 1778) says : " All that we have found in it is ordinary events set forth without art, unpolished manners, a bourgeois tone, and a heroine apparently utterly uneducated and absolutely provincial." 332 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM plans for a futurity at which you may never arrive, and neglecting the present moments which can never be retrieved. You are so anxious, and intent on that uncertain hereafter, that you forget that in the meantime our hearts melt away like snow before the sun." l If the writer of these lines followed Ossian and Young in order of time, he preceded them in order of genius, and for this reason may be regarded as the creator of modern lyric poetry. Nevertheless — and the fact is one which Frenchmen are too apt to forget — the sentiments he expresses were also expressed in foreign works, and through them were introduced into France as soon as, or even earlier than, through the pages of Rousseau. To the new art which he created, English literature furnished ancestors, Germany disciples. What more inevitable than that those who were weary of classical tradition and impatient to escape from the leading strings by which they felt they had been confined for ages, should turn with an ever more and more lively curiosity to England, in their eyes the intellectual birthplace of Rousseau, and to Germany which welcomed him — and English writers as well — with such youthful enthusiasm ? " Every method of imitating the ancients," it was said, " has been ex- hausted. Let us therefore fathom these deep mines (of English literature) ; let us separate the gold from the dross which con- ceals it ; let us polish it and turn it to a useful purpose." 2 But thus to imitate foreign models was to reject the heritage, hitherto enjoyed exclusively by the French nation, bequeathed by Greece and Rome. It was to break with all the traditions of French classical literature. Rousseau himself, who owes so many ideas to the ancients, is not indebted to them for a single one of his artistic methods ; rather is his art the very negation of theirs. Thus, with the growth of foreign influence, whether English or German, in France, the influence of Rousseau proportionately increased, while that of antiquity, and even of the national classics, was further and further undermined. "O Germany," wrote a French critic in 1768, " the days of our greatness have 1 Nouvelle Helo'ise, i. 26. 2 Yart, Idee de la poesie anglaise, vol. i., preface. ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN POETRY 333 departed, and thine are only in their dawn. Within thy breast dwells every quality that can raise one race above the others, and our conceited frivolity is compelled to do homage to thy mighty offspring ! " 1 In the Germany of the eighteenth century we have the incar- nation of what Mme. de Stael was to call the Ossianic literatures, of the " genius of the North," of everything that was novel, poetic and disturbing in Rousseau, in so far as he seems to personify the influence of the Germanic nations. "lean see," says Chateaubriand, " that in my early youth Ossian, Werther, the Reveries (Fun promeneur solitaire, and the Etudes de la nature must have become wedded with my own ideas." 2 He makes no distinction between them ; on the contrary he treats the genius of Rousseau, the genius of Ossian, and the genius of Goethe as one. So too Mme. de Stael, when writing off-hand, speaks of " Rousseau and the English," or of" Rousseau and the Teutonic ideal " ; the idea in her mind is always the same, whether she speaks of the Teutonic spirit as opposed to the Latin, or of the genius of the North as opposed to that of the South. There is no doubt whatever that this substitution of the cosmopolitan and exotic spirit for the old-fashioned humanism which satisfied our fathers was a revolution of very great im- portance. To tell the truth, it only came to fulfilment during the present century, with Mme. de Stael and the romantic school. But we have seen that it was in preparation before '89. The five-and-twenty years which preceded the Revolution paved the way for the invasion of Europe by the literatures of the North. Can we wonder that Herder, blinded by prejudice, thought himself justified in writing : " French literature has had its day '* ? 3 The only thing that had had its day, and that after three centuries of glory, was one particular form of the French spirit, one of the fairest it ever assumed, but in which, whatever may be said to the contrary, it neither exhausted itself nor revealed the whole of its limitations. 1 Dorat, Idee de la poesie allemande, 1768, p. 133. ^ Essai sur la litterature anglaise, Lebensbilder . Chapter IV THE REVOLUTION AND THE SECOND MIGRATION OF THE FRENCH SPIRIT. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND MADAME DE STAEL I. How it was that in the eighteenth century cosmopolitanism was nothing more than an ill-defined aspiration — Reaction of the classical spirit, due to Voltaire and his school ; inadequacy and inferiority of classical criticism — Revival of antiquity at the approach of the Revolution. II. The Revolution brings back the worship of antiquity — Intellectual rupture with the Teutonic nations — Decrease of the literary influence of Rousseau — But the springs which the Revolution had exhausted were rendered afresh accessible to the French mind by the emigration. III. Publication of De la Literature (i8oo)— It was the expression at once of the cosmopolitan spirit and of the influence of Rousseau— Its origin mainly traceable to English influence — It was the last production of eighteenth century criticism — The author's judgment upon the classical spirit — Her substitute for it — Cosmopolitanism becomes a literary theory — Triumph of the influence of Rousseau and of the northern literatures. " THERE exist, it seems to me, two entirely distinct literatures, that which springs from the South and that which springs from the North, one which finds its primal source in Homer, another which had its origin in Ossian. The Greeks, the Latins, the Italians, the Spaniards, and the French of the age of Louis XIV., belong to that branch of literature which I shall call the literature of the South. The work of the English and the Germans, and a few writings by Danes and Swedes, must be ranked as be- longing to the literature of the North." * In these lines Mme. de Stael expressed with remarkable clearness the very principle of cosmopolitanism in literature as she herself conceived it. A few years later she gave her idea still greater precision in the following words : " On every occasion during our own times when the French habit of strict conformity to rule has been supplemented by a little fresh life and spirit from abroad, the 1 De la litterature , i . 1 1 . 334 THE CLASSICAL REACTION 335 French have been enthusiastic in their applause : Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Chateaubriand, etc., are all, in one or other of their works, though they may not be aware of it themselves, members of the Germanic school."1 Thus the course of French literature has been successively directed, according to the period we consider, either towards antiquity or towards Germanic Europe, towards humanism or towards cosmopolitanism, and the most important agent in the transformation has been Rousseau. The eighteenth century had an obscure perception of Mme. de StaeTs theory, but did not formulate it in a clear and definite manner. Previously to the publication, in 1 800, of De la Litterature, cosmopolitanism had been rather an undefined aspiration than a theory properly so called. It took some time for Rousseau's influence, personified in Mme. de Stael, to develop its extreme results. It was long before the opposition between cosmopolitanism and humanism became as distinct as was to be desired. I The reason is, in the first place, that if the twenty years which preceded the Revolution witnessed an incipient renova- tion and broadening of taste, they witnessed also the dawn of a genuine classical reaction. With the spread of anglomania, the admirers of the great French writers felt the need for a sturdier defence of a cause which was ever more and more threatened. " When we had once tasted of the springs of English literature," says a critic, " a revolution quickly took place in our own : the Frenchman, who readily becomes an ardent partisan, no longer welcomed or valued anything that had not something of an English flavour about it. ... Our genius deteriorated from its unnatural fusion with a genius foreign to its character."2 It was against this perversion of the national genius that the classical party, headed by Voltaire, 1 De VAllemagne, ii. I. 2 Dorat, Idee de la poesie allemande (1768), p. 43. 336 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL rose in revolt. The cause was good ; what a pity it was that it should have been so badly defended ! Herein, in truth, lay the danger of the cosmopolitan spirit. Briefly, the question at issue was, whether or not the French mind would remain faithful to the ideal of universality and humanity which for two or three hundred years had been the strength of French literature, and had been inherited by it from the literatures of antiquity. The ideal of the classical writers of France had been to portray man by means of all the most general and least accidental qualities of his nature — not indeed in ab- stracto, for that would have been to deprive him of all reality — but in so far, at anyrate, as he resembles that " ideal of humanity " which everyone bears within himself. " I acknow- ledge," said Voltaire in reference to Shakespeare, "that we ought not to condemn an artist who has understood the taste of his countrymen ; but we may pity him for having pleased no other nation." From this principle Voltaire never departed, and therefore always obstinately refused to admit that the object of literary criticism is to make us admire what is most national in the genius of each people. In his youth he felt a curiosity with regard to the geniuses of the different nations, but simply because they struck him as singular. He could understand that one could write a comparative history of customs and laws ; but he never fully recognised, though he sometimes advocated, the comparative and disinterested criticism of literatures ; and therein he remained truly French and truly classical. " We have long taken upon ourselves to utter generalities for the edification of the universe. We are manufacturers of good rough furniture for general purposes and of the fashionable article as well." This neat phrase of Doudan's l is one which Voltaire might have acknowledged. He claimed the manufacture of " furniture for general purposes " as an honour to the French intellect. He considered, also, with the pure classicists of his time, that everything had been said, and that form alone was renewed. " There is no more poetry to write," said Fontanes, speaking of Racine. All the books are written, thought the classical school. 1 Lettres, vol. ii., p. 346. THE CLASSICAL REACTION 337 "The imitation of the beauty of nature," wrote d'Alembert, " seems confined to certain limits which are reached in a genera- tion or two at most ; nothing is left for the succeeding generation to do but to imitate" l If this is the case, and if poetry is the art of enhancing an old theme with a fresh variation, those who come last are at a great disadvantage, and for us who have to follow the masters it is a high honour to succeed through beauty of form alone. Innovators, on the contrary, admit that in literature there are, as Sebastien Mercier said, "austral lands," where everything still remains to be discovered. They hold that the last has not yet been said concerning man. They believe that literary progress is limited only by the confines of the human intellect itself, and that these have not yet been determined. They extol Dante for his " stupidly extravagant flights of imagination,"2 Milton for descriptions which "sicken every one whose taste is at all delicate," 3 or Ossian, again, because he ex- presses bombastic platitudes in pompous verse. Voltaire, faith- ful to the tradition of the grand siecle, was honestly unable to comprehend. "What is it to me," he wrote to an Englishman, who had vaunted Shakespeare to him, " that a tragic author has genius, if none of his pieces can be played in all the countries of the world ? Cimabue had genius as an artist, yet his pictures are of no value ; Lully had great talent for music, but his airs are never sung beyond the borders of France." 4 . . . And this is his final verdict, not only upon Shakespeare, but also upon Young, Ossian, Milton, Dante, Swift and Rabelais. The mark of genius is universality, and do we not find the Transylvanian, the Hungarian and the Courlander, uniting, as Voltaire observes, with the Spaniard, the Frenchman and the German, in admira- tion of Vergil and Horace ? These, the great masters, belong to every age. Dante belongs merely to the thirteenth century, 1 Discours preliminaire. 2 Voltaire to Bettinelli, March 1761 : " I think very highly of your courage in daring to say that Dante was a madman and his work monstrous. . . . Dante may find his way into the libraries of the curious, but he will never be read." 3 See Candide, ch. xxv. 4 Letter published by G. Bengesco, Lettres et billets inedits de Voltaire (1887), p. 12. Y 338 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL and Milton to the seventeenth; the one is but an Englishman, the other only an Italian. Nor was Voltaire the only writer to lay himself open to the charge of narrowness. He is simply the mouthpiece of a tradi- tion to which many intelligent people remained faithful. The "literature of the North" irritated them, because it was neither human nor artistic, qualities which are practically identical. For the art of writing is not what Sterne and Young would have it to be — the art of giving expression to " one's sensations and impressions," or of recording, as inspiration may dictate, the variations of a " temperament " ; it consists in speaking to the understanding in a language that every educated man can under- stand : " what is accurately conceived is clearly expressed." Now, the conceptions of Young and Sterne are inaccurate, and their expression of them is obscure ; indeed, these writers can scarcely be said to think ; they are content to feel, and to abandon themselves to the flow of trivial impressions. Rousseau, speak- ing of himself, said : "He is largely dependent on his senses."1 So, in reality, are all these innovators, and they glory in being thus dependent. But if the. art of writing consists in arranging correct ideas in a harmonious whole, how then can they be writers ? Shakespeare, who knows nothing of orderly arrange- ment, is no writer, and Letourneur gives us nothing but an " abominable jargon." Hence the transcendent superiority of the great French poets. "In Shakespeare, genius and sublimity gleam forth like flashes of lightning during a long night, but Racine is always Racine." Whence comes this thought ? From Voltaire ? No ; from Diderot.2 Genius begins where art begins, and cannot get on without it. Such was the opinion of all who had been brought up on tradition, and in whose eyes the reverence for foreign models was responsible for " that anti- national taste, the ravages of which were only too obvious " ; 3 and some even of those who spoke of reforming everything could not succeed in shaking off the prejudices they had imbibed 1 Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques, second dialogue. 2 Article entitled Genie. 3 Discours sur les progres des lettres en France, by Rigoley de Juvigny (Paris, 1773? ?vo, p. 190). THE CLASSICAL REACTION 339 in the course of their education. Sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that classical art is not the whole of art, they found it difficult to believe that in breaking away from it they were not lapsing into barbarism. This explains how Condorcet could write to Voltaire, in reference to Necker, that he had no hopes of a man who " took Shakespeare's tragedies for masterpieces,"1 and how it was that Marie-Joseph Chenier, one of the best critics of his time, asserted that the degree to which Shakespeare "carried passion and indecency was enough to put humanity to the blush."2 We are amazed to find opinions like these enter- tained by anyone besides Voltaire. We can understand them, however, if we reflect that revolutions in taste are, with most men, changes in their manner of feeling rather than in their manner of judging. For many men in the eighteenth century the intellectual revolution had already taken place, while the revolution in feeling was yet to come. Some, like Voltaire, remained absolutely faithful to the objects of their youthful admiration, refusing to associate with them other and fresh objects which could not be brought under their conception of beauty. Classical beauty, the object of their devotion, was compounded of art and of humanity. Now it is quite true that the cosmopolitans took credit to themselves for extending the boundaries of the intellect, and for widening the province of art. In reality, however, they restricted them by substituting for the antique ideal, which up to that time had been generally accepted by all nations, the imitation of what is most exclusively national, that is to say least communicable, in each one. " Though I am no great admirer of the human mind," wrote Vauvenargues in reference to Shakespeare, " I nevertheless cannot dishonour it so far as to place a genius so defective and so defiant of common sense in the first rank." 3 If each people and each race have their special modes of sensibility to which other nations are strangers, it can no more be possible to transfer incommunicable beauties from one country to another 1 Sainte-Beuve, Causeries, vol. iii., p. 342. 2 Fragments appended to his Tableau de la lltterature, 3 (Euvres, ed. Gilbert, p. 486. 340 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL without defying common sense than to make palm-trees grow in Norway or to rear reindeer under the equator. This was forcibly expressed by Rivarol in his famous treatise1 on the universality of the French language, where, after granting that English works "will be the eternal glory of the human mind," he added that those works had nevertheless " not become the common possession of all the world." They have never left the hands of certain people ; " precaution and tentative effort are needful if one is not to be repelled by the husk of the fruit and its foreign flavour." In short, the Englishman makes a book " out of one or two sensations " ; he is dull, taciturn, gloomy and solitary ; he writes for himself alone, and it follows therefrom that English literature "suffers from the isolation of the people and of the writer." The Frenchman, on the other hand, " looks for the humorous side of things " ; he is all elegance, wit, and subtlety, and has conquered the universe by means of a sociable disposition. Are the French wantonly to sacrifice a position of influence so laboriously attained in order to take lessons of a nation whose originality has gone so far as to obscure its own conception of humanity ? The classical revolution witnessed by the close of the century was thus founded on two ideas and supported by two principles : respect for art and the tradition of humanism. And at bottom these two ideas are reducible to one, — the imperious necessity that the writer should win the ear of all men and not that of his countrymen only — should be read in all ages, and not by his contemporaries alone. So that for the first time in the history of French criticism the defenders of the national genius found, or supposed, themselves engaged in the defence of the genius common to humanity. For the question as to the pre- eminence of the ancients or the moderns had been discussed even in the seventeenth century. But the dispute had never gone beyond the frontiers in any country. For Italy of the Renaissance, the only rival to Greek or Latin antiquity was Italy, for France of the following century it was France ; and the most resolute upholders of the idea of progress persistently 1 1784- THE CLASSICAL REACTION 341 refused to take up any other position. Neither Perrault nor La Motte contrasted the sterility of the French intellect with the literary fertility of England or even of Italy. The con- troversy was between Vergil and Racan, Horace and Boileau, Euripides and Racine. It was a courteous debate in which the adversaries were agreed as to first principles, and only disputed as to the degree of success with which this or that writer had applied them. But even the most zealous of the "ancients" no more revolted against an alleged aberration of the national genius than the most resolute of the " moderns " appealed to exotic influence. Now, on the contrary, it was a question, in the mind of Voltaire, of rescuing not only the national tradition, but also the still more sacred tradition of humanity, from the sacrilegious hands of barbarians. " Imagine, gentle- men," he said to the Academy, " Louis XIV. in his gallery at Versailles, surrounded by his brilliant court : a Gilles in battered garments forces his way through the crowd of heroes, great men and beauties of whom it consists, and suggests that they shall forsake Corneille, Racine, and Moliere for a mountebank who makes a few happy sallies and pulls wry faces. How do you suppose such a proposal would be received ? " l The wry-faced mountebank was Shakespeare, but it might as well have been Richardson, Young, Sterne, Ossian, and everyone who owned no authority but " his own temperament," and pretended to substitute individual caprice for that worship of beauty which had been established in France by communion with antiquity, and had made the Latin genius the very type of human genius in general. For Voltaire, therefore, cosmo- politanism is individualism, which is as much as to say it is barbarism. " He is what nature has made him," wrote Jean- Jacques of himself.2 Now nature, unassisted by the art which restrains and the reason which guides it, can do nothing. Abandoned to itself it is mere disorder and caprice; it can only make occasional " happy sallies " ; it produces nothing but monstrosities, such as Hamlet or Tristram Shandy. 1 First letter to the Academy on Shakespeare. 2 Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques (second dialogue). 342 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL But when he assumes the post of defender of the national genius Voltaire does not see as clearly as we do that cosmo- politanism may after all be nothing but a new form of humanism. For him it is no bond between nations, but rather merely an element of discord and of mischief. He seems to have no suspicion that when Rousseau, whom he detests, appeals to what is most individual in man, he may be simply giving ex- pression to sentiments common to the whole of a new genera- tion that is more disposed to find its own feelings reflected in him and in foreign writers than in the classical poets of France. Voltaire does not argue, he has recourse to abuse: "The abomination of desolation is in the temple of the Lord " ; the French are the prey of " savages " and " monsters," and, when Letourneur translates Shakespeare, are going to be "devoured by Hottentots."1 Observe that by making Shake- speare the object of his attack he obtains an advantage : of all the writers introduced to the French public during the eighteenth century Shakespeare was the least understood because he was the most English and the most original. Accordingly he makes Shakespeare the point of his attack upon all the anglomaniacs. He is anxious for a combat in the lists, a tournament. " Either Shakespeare or Racine must be left dead upon the ground!" We must cry, "Long live Saint- Denis Voltaire and death to George Shakespeare ! " 2 A strange method, truly, of stating the problem ! Unfortunately for Voltaire he proves but a poor advocate of a cause which deserved to be well defended. He fights " like an old hussar against an army of freebooters," blindly, and with any weapon that comes to hand. Was it not he who, before the assembled Academy, appealed, on behalf of Racine, " to our princesses, to the daughters of so many heroes who know how heroes should speak " ; 3 and, imploring the due de Richelieu's protection against Shakespeare, summoned up the spirit of the great cardinal "who did not like the English?"4 Methods like these savour of burlesque. Public opinion daily 1 Letter of 24th July 1776. 2 D'Alembert to Voltaire, zoth April 1776. 3 First letter. 4 nth September 1776. THE CLASSICAL REACTION 343 became more clearly conscious of the weakness of such criticism ; it felt the inanity, the pompousness, and the utter want of exact information and accurate knowledge such criticism betrayed ; it had an impression that in attacking Shakespeare Voltaire was attacking a rival of his own fame as a tragedian ; l and even those who were the most disturbed at the prevalence of anglo- mania regretted that it should be met with such weapons as those he employed. The classical reaction, whether it fell foul of Shakespeare or of Ossian or of Rousseau, was thus more violent than really effective. Voltaire speaks of English authors without having studied them closely. La Harpe, his most eminent disciple, who supposed himself destined to administer a rebuff to the " stage- playing barbarian," criticizes Othello without knowing a word of English,2 but, as Grimm says, "wit makes up for everything." It was La Harpe, again, who declared that certain "madmen" wanted " to bring Bedlam and Tyburn upon the French stage, and to erect the huts of savages round the colonnade of the Louvre."3 "Whatever Shakespeare has copied out of Plutarch," wrote Marie- Joseph Chenier, "is well enough, but I cannot admire what he has added himself."4 How indeed was it possible to argue with prejudice so inveterate, or with ignorance so gross, as this ? The influence of Voltaire, who was now old and embittered, was in this case disastrous. Like every other champion of the same cause he needed a little more information upon the subject of which he treated. Vir est, said Johnson, acerrimi ingenii et paucarum litterarum. As foreign literatures became more widely known, and as Rousseau inspired the French mind with a more perfect sense of the diversity of epochs 1 At the meeting of the Academy of 25th August 1776, when d'Alembert had finished reading the famous letter against Shakespeare, he went up to Mrs. Montague and asked her whether she was annoyed by its contents. " Not in the least," she replied, " I am not one of M. de Voltaire's friends." " The union between England and France is an accomplished fact," wrote Grimm (Corre- spondance litt'eraire , July 1776). . . . " Such is our memory of old hatreds." 2 Mme. de Genlis, Memoires, vol. iii., p. 193. 3 De Shakespeare (CEu-vres nouvelles, 1788, vol. i). 4 Letter to Andre Chenier, I7th February 1788. 344 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL and of races, the inadequacy of classical criticism became more irritating and almost more scandalous. Nevertheless, during the years which preceded the Revolution, the ground was admirably prepared for a renaissance of the classical literature of France. Antiquity was restored to unex- pected favour. The discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii gave fresh life to the science of archaeology. Historical as well as aesthetic criticism of carved monuments was founded by Winckelmann, in his Histoire de Part chez les anciens.1 Brunck published his Analecta in 1776, and Villoison his notes on Homer in 1788. Journeys in the East and in Greece were made by such travellers as Wood, Choiseul-GoufHer and Guys.2 The abbe Barthelemy produced a condensed yet spirited state- ment of the results of classical scholarship in his delightful Voyage d'Anacharsis, published in 1788. In 1780 David initiated the school of painting to which we owe the Serment des Horaces and the Enlevement des Sabines. A few enthusiasts talked of "denationalizing themselves and of becoming Greeks and Romans in soul."3 But the whole movement, which was of real importance, remained without influence upon the criticism of works of literature. Its effect was neither to extend the controversy nor to define the point at issue. Its consequences were mainly political, nor did it result in any renovation of the French genius, as this was understood by Voltaire. " Our public education," said Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, going back to his school-days, " alters the national character . . . : men are made Christians by means of the catechism, pagans by the poetry of Vergil, Greeks and Romans by the study of Demosthenes and Cicero, but Frenchmen never."4 In truth the very study of antiquity, as Winckelmann or Barthelemy understood it, was as yet nothing 1 Twice translated into French before 1789 ; first of all at Amsterdam in 1766, and afterwards at Leipzig in 1781. 2 Guys, Voyage litteralre de la Grece (1776). Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage pittoresque en Grece (1782). 3 The phrase is quoted by Chamfort. On the movement as a whole see the interesting study by M. G. Renard, quoted above. 4 (Euvres posthumes, p. 447. THE CLASSICAL REACTION 345 more than a means of getting away from one's own country and one's own environment. Left to its own strength and to the impetus it had acquired, the classical influence produced Delille's Georgtques, or the Eloge de Marc Aurele of Thomas ; no very brilliant result. Refreshed by archaeology and by the breath of individual inspiration, it was the source of Chenier's most beautiful lines. Chenier alone, during the last twenty years of the century, is a true disciple of the ancients : " A devout worshipper of the great ones of old, I would bury myself in the sacred relics they have left." He alone triumphantly contrasts the faultless beauty with the disturbing charm of Ossian or of Shakespeare : " Seek the tempting banquets provided by this bright train of Greeks ; but avoid the sodden intoxication of the treacherous and stormy waters of Parnassus with which the harsh singers of the misty North assuage their thirst."1 He alone, having read and, during his residence in London,2 translated portions of Milton, Thomson, and Shakespeare,3 and having spoken of Richardson in the manner we have mentioned, boldly proclaims the superiority of ancient art: "Too proud to be slaves, English poets have even cast off the fetters of common sense." But antiquity, as Chenier conceived it, was no longer the an- tiquity which France of the seventeenth century had loved and understood, and one feels some concern as to what Voltaire would have said of it. On the other hand Chenier was entirely without influence during the eighteenth century, since no one 1 Ed. Becq de Fouquieres, Poesies diverses, xi. 2 Chenier seems to have been depressed by his residence in London as though it were an exile. He found England, as Alfieri told him, " more bitter than absinthe " (Becq de Fonquieres, Doc. nouv., p. 21). Writing from London in 1787, he said : " Bereft of parents, friends and countrymen, forgotten on the face of the earth and far from all my relatives, cast up by the waves upon this inhospitable island, I find the sweet name of France frequently on my lips. Alone, by the ashes of my fire, I lament my fate, I count the moments, I long for death." On the other hand his brother writes to him (7th February 1788): " You are enjoying yourself in London ; I thought you would. . . ." 3 In addition to the imitations of Thomson quoted above, Chenier translated a fragment from Shakespeare. His admiration for the piece provoked his brother's condemnation. 346 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL read his poetry. It neither stimulated criticism nor furnished it with a text. More effectually than was possible through the agency of any books, the controversy was cut short by the Revolution. II The primary effect of the Revolution was to restore the wor- ship of antiquity to a degree not far short of superstition. The innovators had at first looked to it for the regeneration of art. In a curious letter to the authors of the Journal encyclopedique?- Daunou anticipated Mme. de Stael in giving expression to the idea that " the monotony of a despotic form of government " confines poetic genius to a narrow circle of ideas, adding that "the Revolution now about to regenerate the French empire may infuse genius with new vigour, render talent more fruitful, ennoble the subjects of art, extend its methods, multiply its forms and revive not poetry only but also eloquence and history." This hope was disappointed, at all events at the outset ; far from renewing poetic art, the Revolution led it back to classical or pseudo-classical sources, to an art the very antithesis of that of Rousseau, whose political theories it rated so highly while it failed to recognize his literary genius. The Revolution marked at first a step backwards in the pro- gress of cosmopolitanism, because it occasioned a rupture, lasting from 1789 to 1814, with the rest of Europe, and with the Germanic section of it in particular. Within the course of a few months France found herself as isolated — to employ the metaphor used by a historian — as an island in mid-ocean. How was it possible, during these troublous years, to maintain literary rela- tions with England or with Germany ? Great Britain was spoken of as a "guilty island, haughty Carthage."2 In 1792, when the Institute had received a scientific memorandum from a 1 1 5th March 1790. On the classical reaction in France see M. L. Bert rand's book : La Jin du classicisms et le retour a I' antique (Paris, 1897, l6mo). 2 In an opera entitled La Reprise de Toulon. EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 347 German, Roland, who was minister of the home department at the time, added the following brief, but expressive, marginal note : "We cannot look to Germany for any light on such sub- jects as this." l Under the Empire matters were still worse. We know what Mme. de StaePs praises of Germany brought upon her, and Napoleon made no secret of his contempt for " German nonsense, the admirers of which are constantly dis- paraging French literature, French newspapers and the French drama, for the sake of magnifying the absurd and dangerous productions of Germany and the North at the expense of our own."2 Sundered, therefore, by political circumstances, the threads which had been stretched from the continent to the North and vice versa remained broken for twenty years and more. Several prominent revolutionists remained, it is true, faithful to the objects of their youthful admiration : Robespierre read Gessner and Young ; Camille Desmoulins Hervey and the author of Night Thoughts ; Mme. Roland Thomson, and Collot d'Herbois Shakespeare, whose Merry Wives of Windsor he had formerly imitated.3 There were translations and adaptations of various German writers: Lessing, Goethe, Wieland, Klopstock* and the writer whom the Moniteur called " Monsieur Scheller," " a strong advocate of the republic against the monarchy, a true Girondist," of whose plays several met with considerable success upon the French stage.5 We may go so far as to say that a 1 J. Simon, Une academie sous le Directoire, p. 213. 2 Esmenard's report, in Welschinger : La Censure sous le premier Empire, p. 249* ^ L'amant loup-garou ou fyf. Rodomont (lJJJ\ 4 Lessing's Dramaturgic was translated in 1795, Laocoon in 1802 ; Nathan der Weise provided M.-J. Chenier with the inspiration for a drama. Werther was imitated several times (Stellino cu le nouveau Werther, 1791, etc.). Stella, translated by Du Buisson, was played at Louvois in 1791 ; Wilhelm Meister was translated by Sevelinges in 1802, under the title of A Ifred. 5 1 2th February 1792. The Robbers was adapted by La Marteliere [Schwind- enhammer, the Alsatian] in 1793 and by Creuze in 1795 ; in 1799 A. de Lezay translated Don Carlos, and in the same year La Marteliere published his Theatre de Schiller (Paris, year viii.) ; in 1802 Mercier brought out his Jeanne d'Arc, an imitation of Schiller. See Dr Richter's work, Schiller und seine Rduber in der franzosischen Revolution, Griinberg, 1865, 8vo, and Th. Supfle's book already quoted. 348 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL certain limited public took a lively interest in German literature, and William de Humboldt wrote from Paris in 1800 that "people here have German names on their lips more than ever." l But it must be added that the public in general remained indifferent to these foreign productions, and that those even who claimed to be connoisseurs spoke of writers from beyond the Rhine upon hearsay only. " Frenchmen think they are very well informed concerning our literature/' writes the same witness ; " they suppose themselves thoroughly familiar with it and very fond of it. ... But you only need to hear them talk a little to know what to think of their knowledge of it and their fondness for it. ... The French are still too different from us to be capable of understanding us in respect to those points upon which we too are beginning to be a little original." The influence of the intellect of Germany upon that of France acquired sub- stance with the publication of De PAllemagne in 1812. With regard to English literature, the novelists, Richardson, Sterne, Miss Burney and even Anne RadclifFe still found an audience, and even playwrights who adapted their works for the stage,2 nor were the reputations of Young and Ossian on the wane.3 Shakespeare himself supplied the French stage with the subject of a drama almost every year.4 Are we to conclude therefrom that these writers were more highly appreciated and better under- stood ? A glance at Frangois de Neufchateau's Pamela, or at the Jean sans Terre of Ducis, will suffice to convince us that the contrary was the case. In short, the literature of the Revolution, like its criticism, was pseudo-classical, that is to say inferior. The men of the period, who had antiquity always upon their lips, knew in truth but little 1 Lady Blennerhasset, Mme. de Stael, vol. ii., p. 560. 2 Pamela, by F. de Neufchateau (1793). Clarisse Harloive, by Nepomucene Lemercier (1792). 3 Young's Nuits, translated into French verse by Letourneur, Paris, 1792, 4 vols. i2mo. 4 Jean sans terre, by Ducis (1791); Othello, by the same (1792); Epicharis et Neron, by Legouve (after Richard III.') (1793); Timon (fAthenes, by Sebastien Mercier (1794) ; Imogenes, by Dejaure (after Cymbeline) (1796), etc. EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 349 about it. How could they find the leisure and the means to acquire a knowledge of the ancient languages ? Was it not Lakanal who complained before the Convention that lads spent all their time " in jabbering Greek and Latin " ? Was it not the re- volutionary government that gave science and modern languages the preference over the classics in its syllabus of instruction,1 and proposed to substitute schools of arts and handicrafts for the Sorbonne and the colleges ? The educational work of the Con- vention was, it is true, of much importance, but who would venture to maintain that it did anything to promote the know- ledge of ancient literature ? Whatever admiration the democrats of the period may have felt for Socrates, Scaevola, Brutus or Cato of Utica, there are reasons for doubting whether they had read much of Plutarch or Tacitus. " My friends," said Camille Desmoulins, " since you read Cicero, I will answer for you ; you will be free " ; but how many of the Revolutionists were readers of Cicero ? Nevertheless, considered from a merely superficial point of view, the literature of the revolutionary epoch does draw its inspiration from the antique. Just as the art of David, Letronne and Lemercier derives its subjects from antiquity, so the poetry of Delille and Lebrun-Pindare is cast in traditional moulds. "It did not require much effort," says Charles Nodier, " to pass from our schoolroom studies to the pleadings in the forum and the Servile Wars. We were already convinced admirers of the institutions of Lycurgus and of those who played the tyranni- cide at the Panathenaic festival."2 The Contrat Social not only begot constitutions ; it inspired tragedies and odes. But greatly as the influence of Rousseau's political theories increased, it might almost be said that to the same extent the influence of his genius as novelist and poet waned. Of his subtle and tender comprehension of the heart, of his deep and sincere feeling for nature, of his " enchanting sadness," of all the quali- ties, in fine, which make him a poet of the highest order, little enough is to be found in the second-rate works the indiscriminate 1 See Condorcet's report to the Legislative Assembly. 2 Jeanroy-Felix, La litteraturefran$aise sous la Revolution, p. 349- 350 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL aggregate of which constitutes the literature of the revolutionary period — practically nothing, indeed, save an insipid and faithless copy, not unlike the grimace of a mimic. Mme. de Stael, at the close of the century, complained that the public had forgotten " the writer who more than any one else had infused language with warmth, vigour and life," and ought to be " the friend, the beguiler, the leader of all ! " l He was no longer read, and, though some affected to quote him, was no longer under- stood. Ten or twelve unfruitful years were to pass, and Chateaubriand would simply need to resume the poetic tradi- tions of Rousseau, and to find anew, in the author of the Contrat Soda/, the poet whom the public had forgotten to seek in him. And just as the purely literary influence of Rousseau decreased almost, in fact, to the vanishing point, so a comprehension of the foreign works which Rousseau had rendered popular became more and more rare. The superstitious veneration for a little understood antiquity shut off every approach to that English literature which, but a few years earlier, had raised so many hopes. Mythology rose again from its own ashes, and ancient Olympus dethroned the gods of the North. " Long life to Homer and to his Elysium, to his Olympus and his heroes, and to his muse, on whom the god of Claros smiles ! Apollo keep us all, my friends, from Fingals and from Oscars, and from the lofty sorrows of a bard who sings amid an atmosphere of fog ! " 2 The majority of the public agreed with Lebrun-Pindare, and allowed themselves to fall once more beneath the bondage of a tradition which the genius of Jean-Jacques had nevertheless impaired. Very few were those who said with the still youthful Beranger : "Neither the Latins nor even the Greeks should be taken as models. They are torches, which one must learn how to 1 De la litterature, 2nd preface. 2 The poem continues, " His rivers have lost their urns ; his lakes are the prison of the dead, and their silent naiads stand like spectres on their gloomy shores. In his heaven, as in his verses, Hebe and her ambrosia are alike unknown ; his vague and dismal poetry is daughter to the rocks and to the seas." (Lebrun : Ode sur Homere et Ossian, in book vii. of the Odes.} EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 351 use." 1 Under the Revolution antiquity was rather mimicked than imitated sympathetically, and this is why such imitation remained unfruitful. When order was restored, and criticism attempted to explain the course which literature had followed, it was quite natural that men like Geoffroy, Dussault, and Fievee should join the broken links in the chain of tradition. In 1 800 or thereabouts there was, as Sainte-Beuve says, a sort of " solemn restoration" of classical criticism ; in the Debats, under Dussault and Geoffrey ; in the Mercure, under Fontanes, Bonald, Gueneau de Mussy ; and at the Lycee, in La Harpe's lectures on literature. It was just at this time that proposals were made to re-establish the old French Academy, that Delille, the " French Vergil," was recalled from London, and that the classical spirit awoke once more to a measure of its old vigour and brilliancy. The time had come for putting some check upon such as would again attempt to lay hands upon the sacred ark : "It is almost certain," wrote Fon- tanes, " that those who are incapable of passionate admiration for masterpieces which have been the wonder of every age ; who would abate the enthusiasm they inspire, and would compare with them to their disadvantage some of the barbarous productions which are generally condemned by men of taste, have not received from nature that sensibility of the organs, and that accuracy of judg- ment, without which it is impossible to speak well concerning the fine arts." 2 It seemed that in the face of Europe in arms France felt, as it were, the need of meditation, and of returning yet once more to the great masters who had obtained for her a time- honoured supremacy in the intellectual sphere. Thus, to look no further than the borders of France, the Revolution marks a temporary cessation of the development of cosmopolitanism in France. But neither Bonaparte nor any of his coadjutors had the least suspicion that to those who, instead of studying its consequences at home, followed its results beyond the French frontier, the Revolution was shortly to appear in an entirely different light. The effect of the emigration in driving from France some 1 Ma biographie. 2 (Euvres, vol. ii. p. 183. 352 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL thousands of the most enlightened members of the community was in reality very similar to that produced by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In spite of political hostilities, it had pro- moted the formation of new bonds between France and Europe. For many minds it had been a painful but often fruitful introduc- tion to a knowledge of the interests of other nations. In the solitude of exile, during the long years of expatriation, the emigres, such as Chateaubriand, Narbonne, Gerando and even Fontanes, could not but learn and retain something of the man- ners, the art and the literature of neighbouring countries. A history of the literature of the emigres has been written by a foreign critic.1 There is room also for a history of the influence which the emigration exerted upon French literature, for, diffused and fragmentary as this influence was, it was also extremely fruit- ful. Many indeed were those of whom it might be said, as it was said of Mme. de Stael by Lamartine, that " they made English and German thought their refuge," 2 and yielded to the attractions " of the only nations whose life was at that time sustained by moral ideas, by poetry and by philosophy." They sought shelter chiefly in Germany, England and the Low Countries. They certainly had no literary prepossessions when they arrived, and they abused their exile as Fontanes abused Hamburg, when he requested to be transported to Corfu, rather than remain in Germany. But necessity compelled them to learn the language of the country, and to observe the manners of its inhabitants, so that a very natural curiosity, begotten of enforced leisure, soon brought them into contact with foreigners who were able to open new horizons before them. Narbonne, de Gerando and Camille Jordan settled at Tubingen, and issued translations or studies, the first of them of Schiller's Wallenstein, the second of the German philosophers, and the third of Klopstock. Mounier became the manager of a boarding-school at Weimar and formed an intimacy 1 M. G. Brandes, Die Emigranten-Literatur. See Joseph Texte, Les origines de finjluence allemande dans la litterature fran$aise du xixe siecle {Revue tfhistoire litteraire de la France •, January 1898). ^ Des Destinees de la poesie. EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 353 with Wieland, while at Hamburg Rivarol, Senac de Meilhan, Chenedolle, Esmenard and Delille witnessed the performance of German and English plays in the theatres of the town where Lessing had written his Dramaturgic. Intimate relations were formed between the emigres and several of the great German writers : de Serre, the marquis de la Tresne and Chenedolle conceived a warm admiration for Klopstock, sought his acquaint- ance, and learnt through him to appreciate the poetry of the North. Of northern literature, at that time little known in France, and still counting its most famous representatives among the living, they formed a lofty opinion. "It is when I read men like Goethe, Schiller, Klopstock and Byron," wrote Chenedolle, " that I feel how small and insignificant I am. I declare with all the sincerity of which I am capable, and with the deepest con- viction, that I have not a tenth part of the thinking power, talent and poetic genius of Goethe." l Many others too there were, who confessed that light as was the esteem in which she was held, Germany was the storehouse of unknown and precious treasures* In England were to be found not only Montlosier, Lally- Tollendal and Cazales, but also Rivarol, de Jaucourt, Delille, Fontanes and Chateaubriand.2 Some of them, it is true, like Saint-Evremond at an earlier date, persisted in maintaining their French habits of life, and in holding aloof from the English. "I don't like a country," said the incorrigible Rivarol, " where there are more apothecaries than bakers, and where sour apples are the only ripe fruit to be got." 3 But others resigned them- selves to their exile and even profited by it. Chateaubriand, who spent eight years away from France, delighted to remind himself of all that he owed to his prolonged intercourse with foreigners 4 : in his long conversations with Fontanes, on the banks of the Thames at Chelsea, they used to talk of Milton — whom he translated — of Shakespeare and of Ossian. He prides himself upon having, in the course of his exile, learnt " as much of 1 In Sainte-Beuve, Chateaubriand et son groupe : the article on Chenedolle. On the emigres in Germany see Lady Blennerhasset, Mme. de Stael et son temps, and Rivarol et la societefranfaise, by de Lescure. 2 See de Lescure, ibid., book iii., and Memoires d'Outre-Tombe, ed. Eire, vol. ii. 3 De Lescure, p. 414. 4 Essai sur la litterature anglaise : preface. Z 354 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL English as any man can learn of a foreign language," and it was during these fruitful years that he translated the Ossianic poems, which he acknowledges had inspired him with a strange liking, and were more than once in his mind when he wrote Rene and the Martyrs. Then, too, it was that he collected the materials for his Essai sur la lltterature anglaise. Then it was, above all, that he acquired that varied and sympathetic comprehension of the genius of each of the different peoples of Europe, which ranks him, with Mme. de Stael, as the greatest critic of the early years of this century. Examples might be multiplied to show that the result of the Revolution, as of all great historical movements, such as the crusades or the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was the mixture of races and the crossing of intellectual strains. But for the Revolution there could never have been a career like that of Chamisso, who, the offspring of natives of Champagne, became, in consequence of the emigration, page to the Queen of Prussia, then, after his return to France, a master in a French lycee, next, during a second residence in Prussia, the occupant of a post at the botanical gardens in Berlin, and finally, after his death, one of those classics of German literature whom the French schoolboy has to construe at college. Nor, but for the Revolution, which led to his banishment, would Charles de Villers, a French officer, have settled at Gottingen and Lubeck, become acquainted with Goethe, Jacobi, Klopstock and Schell- ing, or have made German his second mother-tongue and Ger- many his intellectual fatherland.1 Sufficient notice has perhaps scarcely been taken of the fact that the Revolution marks the appearance of such cosmopolitans in literature as Benjamin Constant, Bonstetten, Sismondi and Mme. de Stael, all of them imbued no less with the Germanic than with the Latin spirit, and all, through the agency of Rousseau, heirs to the literary criticism of those who were refugees in the early part of the eighteenth century. 1 See the curious essay by Charles de Villers : Idees sur la destination des hommes de lettres sortis de France et qui sejournent en Allemagne, (In le Spectateur du Nord, 1798, vol. vii.) MADAME DE STAEL 355 If any doubt were felt as to whether this was really one of the results of the revolutionary period, one would but need to turn the leaves of one of the Reviews which were established under the Directory with the co-operation either of the refugees or of foreigners, such as the Bibtiothlque britannique , the Journal de litter ature etr anger e^ the Decade philosophique, the Magasin encyclo- pedique, or better still the - Spectateur du Nord or the Archives litteraires de /'Europe. Of the two last-mentioned journals the former, which was started at Hamburg by an emigre de Baudus, and counted as its contributors Chenedolle, the abbe Louis, Delille, Rivarol, and Charles de Villers, was designed to propagate German literature and philosophy 1 in France, and was for that reason suppressed in 1798 ; the other, with a staff con- sisting of Schweighauser, de Villers, Morellet, Vanderbourg, and Quatremere de Quincy, published in its first issue an article by de Gerando on "literary and philosophical intercourse be- tween the nations of Europe," 2 in which the author endeavoured to prove that, rightly interpreted, patriotism authorizes and even justifies literary intercourse between one people and another, and that those who manage to borrow in season thereby prove them- selves rich. It is therefore permissible to say of the French spirit that it migrated during the revolutionary period ; that unconsciously, and, above all, unintentionally, it became broader and less im- pervious to external influences through contact with the rest of Europe, and that through this intercourse between races and individuals it acquired a thirst for new forms of knowledge. Ill There is a book, not so much the first of the nineteenth as the last of the eighteenth century, which not only summarizes these 1 The Spectateur du Nord, a journal of politics, literature, and morals, Hamburg, January 1797-December i8oz, ^ vols. 8vo. (See Siipfle, vol. ii., p. 93, and Hatin, Histoire de la presse, vol. vii., p. 576.) 2 Archives litteraires de rEurope, a literary, historical and philosophical miscel- lany, by an association of literary men. Tubingen and Paris, 1794-1808, 51 numbers, 8vo. 356 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL acquisitions, but at the same time marks a revival, in criticism, of the influence of Rousseau and of the northern literatures. Published in 1800, the book entitled De la Litter ature considers dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales closes one epoch in the history of criticism and opens another. It is the first properly thought out, though as yet imperfect, expression of cosmopolitanism in all the dignity of a theory. It is an unquestionable indication that the movement which has been the object of this study had come to a head. No one was more plainly indicated than Mme. de Stael for the delicate task of determining the two great classes of mind which, according to her, were henceforth to divide European literature between them. The most faithful of all Rousseau's disciples, she may without hesitation be said to have completed and crowned the work of which he laid the foundation. In truth Mme. de Stael's criticism is nothing more than a statement of Rousseau's theories with regard to poetry and beauty, selected from his works by the most brilliant of commentators. She, like him, was of Genevan origin, a Protestant, born on the confines of two races and where two distinct types of genius met. With her, as with him, this was a source of pride, and at times also of sadness. " Heavens ! " she wrote one day to a foreign friend, Frederika Brlin, "if only there were but a few sparks from your hearth in this country of mine, this land of my mother tongue, what would I not make of myself! I know I have faculties which are capable of more than I have accomplished ; but to be born French with a foreign character, with French tastes and habits, and the thoughts and feelings of the North, is a contrast which ruins one's life." * Everyone who came near her was struck with this contrast : " To me," wrote Humboldt to Goethe, "as to you, it has always seemed that the French atmosphere into which she was thrown during her education was too narrow for her. ... It is a strange phenomenon, the fact that we sometimes find in a nation intelligences animated by a foreign spirit."2 To this fruitful antithesis Rousseau owed at once his greatness and his misfortune. Like him Mme. de Stael 1 I5th July 1806 (Lady Blennerhasset, vol. iii., p. ZZ3). 2 1 8th October 1800 (#«/., vol. iii., p. n). MADAME DE STAEL 357 may be described, in a happily expressed formula, as " a European mind in a French soul." l The extent to which she was indebted to Rousseau, and the manner in which she had dedicated to him one of her earliest and most interesting works, are sufficiently well known. It was not with her, as with many of her compatriots, admiration only, or a mere passing infatuation, that attached her to Jean- Jacques. It was that in him she found again her own innermost aspirations, whether religious, political or literary ; or rather that in him she came to a consciousness of herself. In his school she had been trained ; she had grown up in the habit of respect for his name ; and to his influence she remained faithful throughout her life, even in error. Very early too she had felt herself drawn towards the countries of the North. In Mme. Necker's salon she had been brought into close and frequent contact with the most determined anglomaniacs of the age, such as Grimm, Raynal, Diderot and Suard. Her father, like a true Genevan, had directed her early attention to the English constitution as a pattern for all nations. Her mother had been careful to make her learn English, and she took to Milton, Thomson, Ossian and Young as naturally as though they had been old favourites, as well as to Richardson, her reading of whom had marked an epoch in her early life, and whose manner she had endeavoured to imitate in one of her first attempts.2 Like everyone else during the eighteenth century, she felt, even in 1800, but little curiosity with regard to Germany, and the fact is worthy of remark. She had not yet met Charles de Villers, who introduced her to German literature, nor Wilhelm Schlegel, her principal teacher next to Rousseau. It is difficult to-day to imagine Mme. de Stael unacquainted with and indifferent to German concerns. She was so, nevertheless, when she wrote her book De la Litterature. The whole of the chapter it devotes to Germany is irresolute and vague. She praises, though not very accurately, Wieland, Schiller, Gessner, and " the one book above all others which the Germans possess," namely Werther. In reality she merely retailed the opinions of Chenedolle, who was 1 E. Faguet, Politiques et moralists*. 2 Pauline, a novel. 358 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL on his way back from Hamburg, and happening to be thrown into her society just at the time when she was writing her book — during the winter of 1798 — endeavoured to inspire her with a little of his own enthusiasm. But she did not know German, and replied to Goethe, who had sent her his Williamsmeister (sic), that she was no judge of the value of his gift : " As it was in German," she writes to Meister, " I could do no more than admire the bind- ing."1 In 1797, the same Meister wrote from Zurich asking her to come and see Wieland. She answered with vivacity : " Go to Zurich for the sake of a German author ? You will never find me doing that. ... I think I know everything that is said in German, and even everything that will be said in that tongue for the next fifty years." It was not until afterwards that she learnt the language and studied the people at close quarters. In 1800, Humboldt reproached her because the phrase of father Bouhours : " Can intellectual refinement exist in a German ? " was too often on her lips, and because in speaking of his country she displayed a want both of " philosophy and erudition."2 With England, on the contrary, she was familiar. Her acquaintance with it dated almost from her birth, for she had grown up in a circle which was enamoured of all things English. She had spent several months there in 1793, aiK* had become intimate with Miss Burney, one of the most prominent writers of the period.3 She had read all that an intelligent man of the eighteenth century would be likely to know of English writers, and on more than one point she shared that century's prejudices. In a disquisition, somewhat wanting in knowledge and discern- ment, upon " the bards of the fourth century," she simply follows Mallet ; she considers that Spenser is " the most tedious stuff in the world " ; she believes, on the authority of Voltaire, who never 1 Lady Blennerhasset, vol. ii., pp. 564-565. 2 3oth May 1800, in a letter to Goethe on the subject of De la Literature. 3 Mme. de Stael's second residence in England took place in 1813 and 1814. On that occasion she became acquainted with Byron, Rogers, Sheridan, Coleridge, Godwin, Kemble, and others. It was during this visit that she conceived the idea of doing for England what she had done for Germany, but only the political portion of the contemplated book was written, and this was inserted in the Considerations sur la Revolution franfaise. MADAME DE STAEL 359 departed from his erroneous opinion, that " blank verse presents very few difficulties " ; above all, like everyone else in the eighteenth century, she innocently supposes Ossian, who was a Celt, to be a Saxon and the father of Germanic poetry. Failings like these, however, may be set down to the age in which she lived. The philosophers, on the other hand, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and even Ferguson, whose utilitarianism "has given, if I may use the expression, so much substance to the literature of the English," received adequate treatment at her hands. She read the political writers, including Bolingbroke and Junius, the moralists, like Addison, and, among dramatists, Shakespeare, Congreve and Sheridan. Like all her contemporaries she did not greatly care for the humorists, and remembered nothing of them except the philosophy of Swift, whom she admired, it seems, partly upon hearsay. But Shakespeare, Ossian, Milton and the novelists, the very writers that were most closely akin to Rousseau, were the objects of her especial admiration. They were the typical specimens she had in mind when she contrasted the English with the French spirit, the North with the South, a literature founded upon the social instincts with one based upon reverence for the individual as a moral being. But while she drew attention to this contrast, it must be admitted that as yet she failed to shake off certain of the pre- judices of eighteenth century criticism. In the first place she belongs to her century by her inability to comprehend antiquity, the spirit of which escaped her. Her acquaintance with it was in truth no better than that of Voltaire or d'Alembert. She admired its great characters upon trust, but her reading of ancient writers was very limited. For her the unpardonable fault of the ancients is that their literature is essentially masculine. It is masculine because it knows nothing of the power of love : " Racine, Voltaire, Pope, Rousseau, Goethe, etc., have portrayed love with a kind of delicacy, reverence, melancholy and devotion " which the ancients never knew. Their literature is neither tender, pensive, sorrow- ful nor despairing ; it is uninfluenced by intercourse with women. It is masculine because it is calm and undisturbed ; because in 360 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL the work of the Greeks there is neither the horror of death, the anguish of despair, nor the despondency caused by the irre- parable. But the only great poetry is the poetry of sadness. Theirs is masculine because it refuses to recognize the existence of pain : the Greeks bear up under misfortune and stand erect beneath whatever blows may fall to their lot. With them it is a part of their primitive conception of decency not to admit their suffering. They look with distrust upon the representation of " secret passions " ; they are not lyrical in the least. It is they who have restricted literature to the study of man as a social being, and have observed society "just as one describes the growth of plants." Thereby they have cut themselves off from the principal province of art, which is the representation, inspired by lofty moral sentiment, of our most intimate affec- tions. The Greek race was "non-moral": "they neither blamed nor approved : they simply transmitted moral truths in the same way as physical facts." They are said to be profound ; but who could compare Thucydides with David Hume ? What they wanted, if they were to inspire emotion, was the mighty power of sensibility : " The human race had not yet reached the age of melancholy." Hence it follows that the Greeks, being neither sensitive nor sad, " left few regrets behind them." We see, therefore, the narrowness of Mme de StaeTs ideal. She judges Euripides, Thucydides and Homer by the ideals of Richardson and Rousseau. Small wonder that she failed to understand them. In common with her age and with her master, Rousseau, she preferred the Romans. They were better known, and " the sublime Montesquieu " had made it fashionable to admire them. She loved their republican dignity. She praises them because they had " more of true sensibility than the Greeks had, because they attributed more importance to woman, because they gave expression, however discreetly, to a certain "vague tenderness not unmixed with philosophy," which had found utterance in the works of Tibullus, Propertius and Vergil. She considers them more truly poetical and also more philosophical. Taken as a whole, however, the literature of antiquity has one MADAME DE STAEL 361 incurable defect j it portrays man, not as an individual, but as a social being. It is political, satirical, epic, but never lyrical. Now, Mme. de StaeTs models are " Tancrede, La Nouvelle Heloise, Werther, and the English poets." To put it in more general terms, she is for the North as against the South : she prefers Thomson, she says, to Petrarch, and is more affected by Gray than by Anacreon. The reason why " almost all the French poets of the age," from Rousseau, its typical example, down- wards, have imitated the English, is that they are lyrical and passionate. But let us understand what we mean. Poetry is not simply the art of speaking of oneself with emotion. The emotion must also be moral : "it is only the most subtle moral teaching that can produce the lasting beauties of literature," and, by conse- quence, " literary criticism is very often a treatise upon ethics." This is Rousseau pure and simple •, but here is something more characteristic of him still. Poetry, eloquence, reverie " should act upon the organs " ; virtue must be an involuntary impulse, an intellectual " movement passing over into the blood," the virtue- passion dear to Rousseau. Lastly — and this is the third and most important condition — the literature of a nation should be sober; for " human nature is serious." The Northerner, in con- trast to the Greek, the Roman and the Frenchman, likes only " those writings which appeal to the reason or move the feelings," by preference the latter. At all costs we must avoid what Dante called " the inferno of insensibility." If, therefore, we consider modern literature " in its relations to virtue, glory, liberty and happiness," we shall " detect two differ- ent ways of judging, which to-day form, as it were, two distinct schools " — those who stand by the Southern literatures, and those who stand by the literature of the North. This is the central and, at the same time, the most definite idea in the book. Mme. de Stael had no intention of writing a treatise on the poet's art j on that point she is content to accept current opinion, and refers us back to Voltaire, Marmontel and La Harpe, whom she has read and does not as yet repudiate. But to inspire literature with the idea of progress, nay, even, by setting up fresh models as 362 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL rivals to those of antiquity, to give definite shape to the confused aspirations which had been agitating men's minds for a century, was indeed a fruitful achievement. It was a resumption of the long-standing quarrel between the ancients and the moderns upon broader grounds than heretofore, and with Rousseau's example, and others from various modern literatures, in the shape of evidence. The Journal des Debats, criticizing Mme. de StaeTs work, maintained " that men have always been the same, that nothing in their nature is capable of change, and that rules for present guidance are only to be found in the lessons of the past."1 A very precise statement of the opposite thesis to that maintained in De la Literature. The weak point in Mme. de Stael's book is her attempt to explain the historical origins of the movement she is defending. She reminds the reader how the invasion of the barbarians, which was one of the most fertile events in the history of the world, resulted in the crossing of races and the fusion of intellects ; how Christianity came to be " the connecting link between the peoples of the North and those of the South " ; how from the whole era of the middle ages the modern Christian world emerged as from a sort of crucible ; how the North remained more faithful to woman, to melancholy, to " a truly sympathetic moral philosophy," and the South to the artistic sentiment, to the love of sensuous pleasure, and to the worship of form.2 In this part of her work, full of ideas as it is, there is a good deal of confusion. In what mann'er, by the operation of what laws, and under the influence of what circumstances, did this separation of Europe into two intellectual groups become accentuated ? How are we to account for the supposed fact, above all how are we to prove, that antiquity had lost its 1 See ii and 14 messidor, year viii. 2 It may be remarked, in this connexion, that Mme. de Stae'l is extremely ill- informed as regards the literature of the South. She knows nothing of Spain and very little of Italy. She believes that ''there is nothing remarkable in Italy beyond what comes from France." The fine lectures of her friend Sismondi upon Literatures du Midi de V Europe were not delivered until 1804; and she did not herself cross the Alps before 1806. See M. Dejob's book : Mme, de Stael et MADAME DE STAEL 363 power over the Teutonic nations ? If there is so much difference between France and certain other nations, how is it that she has exercised so deep and lasting an influence upon them? This Mme. de Stael does not explain, or at any rate does not explain correctly. In virtue of her general opinions upon history she remains a child of the eighteenth century, and of the epoch of the Encyclopedic. She borrows freely, even in the form of expression, from d'Alembert.1 Like him, she holds that the history of the human mind during the interval between Pliny and Bacon, between Epictetus and Montaigne, "between Plutarch and Machiavelli " presents no features of interest ; thereby frankly contradicting herself. Like him, she fearlessly asserts that " from the time of Vergil down to the institution of the Catholic mysteries, the human mind, in the sphere of art, has been simply receding towards the most preposterous barbarism." 2 Lastly, she actually affirms, by a still more strange contradiction, that since imitation is the essence of the fine arts, " all that the moderns do, or ever can do, is to repeat the work of the ancients " 3 — a proposition which entirely destroys her thesis. We see, therefore, how deeply De la Litter -attire was rooted in the century which had just reached its close. Evidently the author was writing at the point where two epochs met. She dreams of a new art, but like Rousseau himself cannot make up her mind to break with the art of the classical era. Having proclaimed that taste is merely observation of nature — which is characteristic of Jean- Jacques — she comes round to the statement that good taste is absolute — which is the opinion of d'Alembert. She holds, with Voltaire, that Shakespeare is too English, and that this greatly detracts from his glory 4 ; and again, with Ducis, that one must be on one's guard against the incoherencies of the English and German writers of tragedy. In short, she seeks a compromise, and declares that "talent consists in importing into 1 See especially book I., chaps, viii. and ix.; compare d'Alembert, Discours preliminaire, ed. Picavet, p. 81, et seq, 2 Gibbon somewhere points out, as one of the most striking evidences of the decrease of the influence of antiquity during the eighteenth century, the easy way in which d'Alembert treats Justus Lipsius and Casaubon as mere pedants. 3 I., viii. 4 I., xii. 364 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL our literature all that is beautiful, sublime and touching in the melancholy aspect of nature portrayed by the writers of the North, without, at the same time, ceasing to respect the true laws of taste." But these contradictions and hesitations notwithstanding, the book in other passages gives clear expression to what the eighteenth century had but dimly perceived. Had Mme. de Stael entertained any doubts upon the point, the tone of official criticism would have been enough to convince her that she had attained her object, seeing that she was reproached with taking no account of " the experience of the ages," and with " wander- ing off into idle theories." 1 " The experience of the ages," she was told, proves that the French mind keeps to its natural path only when it follows the footsteps of the Latins and the Greeks. Her answer was : It is true that all modern literature is founded upon the ancients : the English and Germans themselves owe them much. But it is none the less clear that, taken as a whole, northern, that is to say Germanic and Protestant, literature — and to this literature Rousseau belongs — has new and original beauties of its own, which have nothing in common with those of classical works, whether Greek, Latin, or French. In the first place, the philosophical spirit, by which, if pressed a little, she is found to mean the capacity for the life of medita- tion, coupled with a sense of the solemnity of existence. In this sense the Frenchman is rarely a philosopher ; he sees " the humorous side of things," and sees it readily. Ossian, on the contrary, is a philosopher. — He scarcely ever reasons ? — What of that ? He " disturbs the imagination " in a manner which predisposes it to the most serious meditations. — But in this sense Homer is a philosopher too? — Yes, but he is not melan- choly, or is so merely by way of exception. It is only the " northern imagination" that can find a pleasure on the sea- shore, in the sound of the winds, upon the desolate heath ; it alone can pierce the clouds which skirt the horizon and seem to typify "the dim passage from life to eternity." All that * Journal des Debats, ibid. MADAME DE STAEL 365 Rousseau, Young and Ossian had known of the poet's sadness she feels keenly and expresses with power. Three years later, and Atala and then Rene were to justify her vague previsions. Mme. de Stael, the interpreter of those aspirations of her age which had been kindled and quickened by the Revolution, in this respect anticipated Chateaubriand. If Ossian and Shakespeare are melancholy, they owe it also to their climate, which encourages meditation rather than activity ; to their passionate temperament — for like Rousseau Mme. de Stael thinks the passions are fiercer in the North than in the South — and to their sensibility to the beauties of nature, which implies a restless soul. To their other characteristics must be added a certain spiritual elevation, an aloofness from life, due to the rugged nature of their country ; the passion for heroism, enthusiasm tempered by deliberation, unreserved exaltation in the presence of the sublime ; lastly, the strong emotional capacities of the northern writer, reverence for woman, and that indefinable romantic thrill in virtue of which Goethe, and even Thomson or Pope, must always appeal directly to the heart of man as Petrarch can never do. But herein what does Mme. de Stael add to the aspirations of the eighteenth century ? All she does is to state them in definite form. On one point only did she go beyond them, as Rousseau had done. She declared that the superiority of the "Ossianic" literatures had its source in Protestantism. Rousseau, as we have seen, had gloried in being a Protestant, and in the most eloquent manner had proved or attempted to prove that no Christianity is consistent with the spirit of Christ but that which recognizes the moral consciousness as the only court of appeal. Religious individualism was the mainstay of his philosophical teaching, and the nutriment of his eloquence. He congratulated himself even at the close of his life on having continued faithful to the "prejudices" of his childhood, and on having "remained a Christian"1 in the midst of a Catholic en- vironment. Thus by merely generalizing an idea of Rousseau's Mme. de Stael came to represent Protestantism as the chief cause 1 Reveries 3°9> 359- ./Eschylus, 8, 306, 312. Aiguillon, Duchesse d', 266, 322. Alembert, Jean d', 80, 223, 337, 359, 363- Alexander's Feast, Dryden, 55. Alfieri, Vittorio, 375. All for Love, Dryden, 45. Almanack des Muses, 299. Almoran et Hamet, Prevost, 46. Amadis de Gaule, 232. Amant confident de lui-meme, L', Prevost, 5 6 . Amelia, Fielding, 145. Amiel, Henri Frederic, 92. Anacreon, 361. Analecta, Brunck, 344. Angellier, Auguste, xv. Anglais a Bordeaux, L', Favart, 78, 301. Animal dans la lune, La Fontaine, 9- Anne Bell, d'Arnaud, 224. Annee litteraire, Freron, 267. Anseaume, N., 140. Anti-Pamela, 211. Apologie du caractere des Anglais et les Franfais, Desfontaines, 43. Arabian Nights' Entertainment, 126. Arbuthnot, John, 28. Archives litter air es de F Europe, 355- Arcadia, Sidney, 8. Arden of Fever sham, 138. Argents, Barclay, 8. Argenson, Marc d', 21, 99, 120, 214-5. Argental, Charles Augustin d', 221. Ariosto, Lodovico, 74. Aristotle, 113, 128. Arnaud, Baculard d', 114, 123, 224, 270, 312. Arnaud, Fran$ois d', 217, 268. Arnault, Vincent A., 328-9. Art of Sinking, Swift, 56. " Artus," King, 6. Assoucy, Charles [Coypeau] d', 5. Atala, Chateaubriand, 323, 365 Atterbury, Francis, Bishop, 57. Aubigne, Agrippa d', 24. Aubigny, d', 10. Aucour, Godard d', 212. Austen, Jane, 145. Aventures de Beauchene, 126. Babillard, Le, 119. Bacon, Francis, Lord, 6, 7, 8, 14, 16, 18, 29, 61, 82-86, 97, 113, 359, 363. Bagatelle, La, I2O. Baillet, Adrien, 8. Bajazet, Racine, 8. Ballanche, Pierre Simon, 233, 279, 291. Baltimore, Lord, 184. Balzac, Honore de, 193. Balzac, Jean de, 9. Baour-Lormian, Louis, 329. Barclay, John, 8. Bard, The, Gray, 303. Bardes, Les, Lesueur, 329. Barine, Arvede, viii, 372. Bartas, Guillaume du, 5. Barthelemy, Abbe, 344. Bastide, Jean F. de, 215. Baudouin, Jean, 8. Baudus, Jean Louis Amable de, 355. Bayle, Pierre, 17, 25, 58, 59, 60, 80, 103. Beaumarchais, Pierre de, 214. Beaumont, filie de, 258. Beaumont, Mme. de, 140, 238. Beauval, Basnage de, 26, 29, 37. Beckford, William, 64. Beggar's Opera, The, Gay, 62. Bentley, Richard, 28, 55. Beranger, Jean P., 350. Bergerac, Cyrano de, 8. Berkeley, George, 55, 61, 195. Bernadotte [Charles XIV. of Sweden], 33°. Bernard, Gentil, 296. Bernard, Jacques, 27, 30. Bernis, Francois de, 296. Berquin, Arnaud, 224. 382 INDEX Beverley^ Saurin, 103. Bibliotheque anglaise, 1J, 29, 30, 33, 43, 118. Bibliotheque britannique, 355. Bibliotheque britannique (de Geneve), 91. Bibliotheque britannique (de la Hague), 30. Bibliotheque des romans anglais , 268. Bibliotheque fran$aise, 27. Bibliotheque permaniquc, 268. Bibliotheque italique, 268. Bibliotheque raisonnee des savants de V Europe, /?• Bibliotheque universelle, 26. Bilderdyk, William, 319. Bissy, Comte de, 217, 280, 308. Blount, Charles, 60. Boccage, Mme. du, 159, 258, 266. Bodin, Jean, 5. Bodmer, John J., 119. Boiardo, Matteo M., 74. Boileau, Nicolas, 6, 10, 12, 17, 26, 27, 40, 80, 143, 341, 371. Boisrobert, Francois, 9. Boissy, Louis de, 98, 123, 212. Bolingbroke, Henry St J., 22, 57, 60, 64, 65, 308, 359. Bomare, Valmont de, 258. Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise de, 351- Bonstetten, Charles Victor de, 303, 354, 366- Bontemps, Mme., 295. Bossuet, Jacques, 3, 12, 80, 81, 251. Boswell, James, 64, 207. Boufflers, Mme. de, 104, 258, 266. Bouhours, Pere, n, 26, 268, 358. Bourdaloue, Louis, 80, 81, 121. Boursault, Edme, 81. Boyer, Abel, 7, 16, 33, 264. Boyle, Robert, 25, 26, 65. Bradshaigh, Lady, 187, 286. Brantome, Pierre [de Bourdeilles], Seigneur de, 5. Breitinger, Johann J., 119. Bruckner, Johann, 319. Briin, Frederika, 356. Brunck, Richard, 344. Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 58, 112, 372. Brutus Marcus, 349. Brutus, Voltaire, 54, 63, 65. Bucanan, George, 14. Buckingham, Duke of, 10. Buckle, Henry T., x, 265. BufFon, George, 80, 128, 157, 224, 258, 297. Bunyan, John, 195. Burger, Gottfried August, 319. Burnet, Gilbert, 8. Burney, Fanny, 145, 348, 358. Burns, Robert, xvi, 294. Butler, Samuel, 34, 70. Byron, Lord, 275, 314, 353, 371, 374. Ctesar, Clarke, 102. Calderon, Don Pedro, 375. Callot, Jacques, 283. Calvin, John, 90. Camden, William, 52. Camusat, Denis, 27, 120. Cardan, Jerome, 98. Carlisle, Lord, 101. Carlyle, Thomas, 201. Caroline, Queen, 61, 133. Carthon, Ossian, 322. Cassandre, La Calprenede, 155. Catherine II., 119. Catilina, Ben Jonson, 10. Cato, Addison, 33, 34, 118. Cato of Utica, 349. Catuelan, Comte de, 267. Cazales, Jacques Antoine Marie de, 353- Censeur, Le, I2O. Censeur unii)ersel anglais, 268. Cesarotti, Melchior, 319. Chambers, Ephraim, 113. Chamisso, Adelbert von, 354. Chant du barde, Fontanes, 327. Chapelain, Jean, 82. Chapelle, Armand de la, 17, 25, 30. Chappuzeau, Samuel, 5. Chardin, Jean, 156, 173. Charles II., 15, 50, 108. Charles XII., Voltaire, 63. Chateaubriand, Francois Rene de, 254, 293> 3°°> 3°*-4, 3J4-5> 3*4. 327'33°> 333, 335> 35o» 35^-3» 365> 373. 376. Chatelet, Mme. du, 264. Chatterton, Thomas, 294, 304. Chaucer, Geoffrey, 55, 269. Chaulieu, Guillaume, 58. Chef d'eeuvre d'un inconnu, Saint-Hya- cinthe, 18, 28. Chenedolle, Charles Julien [Lioult] de» 299» 353> 355» 357- Chenier, Andre, 96, 150, 227, 253, 297, 345- Chenier, Marie-Joseph, 303, 339, 343. Chesterfield, Lord, 31, 210, 325. Chillingworth, William, 17. Choiseul, Due de, 278, 280. INDEX 383 Choiseul - Gouffier, Marie Gabriel Florent Auguste de, 344. Christian Hero, or Fatal Curiosity, Lillo, 134- Chubb, Thomas, 16, 61. Cibber, Colley, 62. Cicero, 344, 349. Cid, Le, Corneille, 210, 371. Cimabue, Giovanni, 337. Clarissa Harloive, Richardson, xii, III, 145, 147-150, 155, 159-187, 190-205, 208, 212-8, 220-3, 225"238j 24°j 242-3. 245, 249, 252-3, 286. Clarke, Samuel, 17, 19, 61. Clary, ou le retour a la vertu recompensed, d'Arnaud, 224. Clelie, de Scudery (1654), 165. Clement, de Geneve, 136, 139, 140, 141, 213. Clementine de Porretta, Wieland, 149. Cleopatra, Dryden, 55. Cleopatre, La Calprenede (1647), 155. Cleveland, Hisloire de Monsieur, Prevost, 21, 50, 51, 103, 127, 146, 150, 154, 161, 164, 170, 217, 242, 252, 302. Coleridge, Samuel T., 195. Colle, Charles, 140, 308. Collier, Jeremy, 26. Collins, Anthony, 17, 32, 58, 59, 60. Collins, William, 294, 296, 301, 304, 316. Colombiere, Le Sage de la, 24, 91. Colomies, Paul, 16. Complaint, The, Young, see Night Thoughts, Comminges, Comte de, 14. Condillac, fitienne de, 80. Condorcet, Marie Jean, 57, 339. Conduit, Mrs, 61. Confessions, Rousseau, 230-1, 236, 299. Confidences, Lamartine, 330. Conflans, Comte de, 258. Congreve, William, 41, 48, 62, 64, 72, 359- Conjectures on Original Composition, Young, 272. Conlath and Cuthona, Ossian, 322. Connal and Crimora, Ossian, 321. Conscious Lovers, Steele, 55. Conspiracy of Fiesco, Schiller, 274. Constant, Benjamin, 92, 354, 366, 37*-3- Contes moraux, Marmontel, 225. Conti, Prince de, 52. Contrat social, Rousseau, 349, 350. Controleuse spirituelle, 119. Corinne, de Stae'l, 235. Corneille, Pierre, 7, 16, 48, 129, 210, 341 > 368> 37J-x Correspondance litter -aire, 74, 214, 224. Coste, Pierre, 16, 18. Coulon, 4. | Cowper, William, 187, 275, 304. | Crebillon y?/j, 151, 158, 209, 225, 236, 239, 241, 280, 282. Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot de, 81, 113, 210. Critical Review, The, 232. Cromwell, Oliver, 3, 50, 77. Crouzas, John P. de, 116. Dacier, Mme., 236. Dante, Alighieri, xvi, 330, 337, 361, 367> 375- Darthula, Ossian, 322. Daude, Pierre, 16. Daunou, Pierre, 346. Davenant, Sir William, 34. David, Jacques L., 344, 349. Decade philosophique, Le, 355- Decouverte du Nouveau Monde, Rousseau, 128. Deffand, Mme. du, 147, 210, 221, 223^ 238, 297. Defoe, Daniel, 62, 115, 124, 126-128,. 141, 142, 144. Dekker, Thomas, 138. De I'Allemagne, de Stae'l, 348, 374. Deleyre, Alexandre, 103, 114. Delille, Jacques, 116, 296-7, 303, 345, 349> 35'5 353> 355- Delisle, Guillaume, 258 Delolme, Jean Louis, 91. Delphine, de Stae'l, 235. Demosthenes, 344. j Denis, Mme., 64. ! Dennis, John, 26, 55. iDeroute des Pamela, La, Godard d'Aucour,, 212. Descartes, Rene, 3, 18, 83, 84. Descent of Odin, Gray, 303. Deschamps, 118. Desfontaines, Pierre, 33, 34, 35, 43,. 44, 52, 64, 103, in, 146, 153, 157,, 209-10, 263, 266. Desforges, Pierre, Jean Baptiste [Chou- dard], 147. Desmaiseaux, Peter, 15, 17, 18, 30,. 61. Desmarais, Regnier, 7. Desmarets, Samuel, 12. Desmoulins, Camille, 314, 347, 349. Destouches, Philippe, 34, 81, 132. INDEX Deux Amis de Bourbonne, Diderot, 225. Deyverdun, Georges, 31. Dialogues sur I' eloquence de la chair e, 80. Dictionary, Chambers, 113. Dictionary of Medicine, James, 113. Dictionnaire critique, Bayle, 59. Diderot, Denis, xi, 80, 97, 103, m- 115, 124, 128-132, 134, 141, 158, 159, 161, 164, 178, 185, 187, 197, 200, 216-223, 225, 230, 232-3, 266, 277, 280, 282, 284, 299, 309, 313, .3"> 338> 357. 366> 37°- Didot, Francois, 370. Discours de Vinegalit'e, Rousseau, 112,231. Discourse concerning the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Ditton, 17. Discurse der Mahler n, 119, 148. Discourse of Freethinking, Collins, 32. Discourses upon Government, Sidney, 270. Discours sur la vraie vertu, Voltaire, 117. Discours sur les sciences et les arts, Rous- seau, 112, 129. Discovery of a Neiv World, Wilkins, 8. Ditton, Humphrey, 17. Divina Commedia, Dante, 375* Dodington, Bubb, 60, 62, 311. Don Quixote, Cervantes, 210. Don Sebastian, Dryden, 47. Dorat, Claude Joseph, 140, 296. Dorset, Earl of, 67, 70. Doudan, Xavier, 89, 205, 225, 336, 375- Doujat, Jean, 7. Doyen de Killerine, Le, Prevost, 154. Dramaturgie, Lessing, 353. Draper, Eliza, 278-9, 287. Drummer, The, Addison, 34. Dryden, John, 34, 37, 45, 47, 55, 62, 321. Dubois, Cardinal, 34. Dubos, Abbe, 34. Ducis, Jean, 302, 348, 363. Duclos, Charles, 80, 229, 258-9. Dufresny, Charles, 81. Dumas j£/r, Alexandre, 136, 247. Durand, David, 16. Dussault, Jean Joseph, 351, 374. Eckermann, Johann Peter, 143. Ecossaise, L', Voltaire, 221. Edda, The, 317, 367. Edinburgh Review, The, 374. Effiat, Marquis d', 6. Egarements du cKur et de V esprit, C re- billon j?/j, 209. Eidous, Marc-Antoine, 17, 113, 266. Elements de la philosophic de Ne'wton, Voltaire, 60. Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Gray, ,301, 303-4. Elevations sur les Mysteres, 8l. Eliot, George, 189, 276, 369. Elmerick, Lillo, 134. Eloge de Marc Aurele, Thomas, 345. Eloge de Richardson, Diderot, 161, 21 6- ,222, 225, 230, 232, 277. Emile, Rousseau, 124, 260. Encyclopedic, Diderot and others, 113. "3, 363-^ Engagement temeraire, L1 , 128. Entretiens sur le Fils Naturel, Diderot, 112. Epictetus, 122, 363. Epitre a Uranie, Voltaire, 58. Epreuves du sentiment, d'Arnaud, 224. Esmenard. Joseph, 353. Esprit des Journaux, 267. Esprit des Lois, Montesquieu, 103. Essai sur la litterature anglaise, Chateau- briand, 354. Essai sur la poesie epique, Voltaire, 62, 63. Essai sur les guerres civiles de France, Voltaire, 63. Essay on Criticism, Pope, 33. Essay on Man, Pope, 68, 115, 116, 117, 296. Essay on Merit and Virtue, Shaftesbury, IJ3- Essay on the Genius and IVritings of Shake- speare, Montagu, 269. Essay on the Human Understanding, Locke, 18, 102. Essays, Bacon, 8. Estienne, Henri, 5. Etourdi, L', Moliere, 371. Etudes de la nature, 333. Eugenie, Beaumarchais, 214. Euripides, 220, 341, 360. Europe savante, 27. Fable of the Bees, Mandeville, 32, 113. Faguet, fimile, viii, 77. Falkener, 57, 61, 64, 65. Fantasque, Le, 1 2O . Farinelli, 54. Farquhar, George, 48. Fatal Curiosity, Lillo, 134. Faublas, Louvet de Coudray (1787-9), 285. Faust, Marlowe, 136. Favart, Charles, 78, 301. Fenelon, Francois, 7, 12, 50, 80, 97, 216, 299. INDEX 385 Ferguson, Adam, 359. Festeau, 7. Fielding, Henry, 35, 56, 101, 114, 134, 142, 143-150, 156, 157, 160, 186, 195, 2IO, 228, 275. Fielding, Sarah, 199. Fiesco, Schiller, 274. Fievee, Joseph, 351. Fils naturel, Le, Diderot, 219, 280. Fingal, Macpherson, 318, 322, 330. Fontaine-Malherbe, Jean de, 267. Fontanes, Louis, 116, 259, 303, 327, 328, 336, 351-3, 373, 376. Fontenelle, Bernard de, 10, 29, 58, 80, 290. Foote, Samuel, 269. Force of Religion, The, Young, 312. Ford, John, 138. Fox, Charles James, 64, 261-2. Fragments d'anciennes poesies, JVIacpherson, 318. Fran^ais a Londres, Le, Boissy, 99. Francion, Sorel, 7. Francis, St, 251. Franklin, Benjamin, 64, 257, 259, 263. Freeholder, The, 33. Frenais, 266, 283. Freron, filie C., 74, 80, 87, 127, 147, 232, 236, 263, 267-8, 296. Frimafons, Les, De Geneve, 139 Furetiere, Antoine, 147. Gamester, The, Moore, 115, 132, 141. Garat, Dominique, 234, 278, 289, 291, 316. Garrick, David, 114, 257, 267, 270, 278, 280. Garth, Sir Samuel, 62. Gassendi, Pierre, 6. Gay, John, 62, 64. Gazette de France, 270. Gazette litter air e, 221, 270, 282, 303, 322. Gellert, Christian, 148, 220. Genie du Christianisme, Chateaubriand, 33°. Genlis, Mme. de, 64, 226, 302, 328. Gentleman, The, 1 6. Geoffrin, Mme., 287. Geoffroy, Julien, 114, 227, 351. George Barnivell, see London Merchant. Georgics, Vergil, 294. Georgiques, Delille, 345. Gerando, Joseph de, 352, 355. Gessner, Salomon, xiv, 297-9, 33*» 347» 357- Gibbon, Edward, 31, 78, 215, 258-9. Gilbert, Nicolas-Joseph-Laurent, 296. Gil Bias, Lesage, 81, 150-152, 210, 245. Girodet, Anne L., 329. Gleichen, Baron de, 170. Glover, Richard, 56, 269. Godwin, Francis, 8. Goethe, J. W. von, 113, 143, 150, 201, 208, 282, 320, 323, 333, 347, 353-4, 356, 358-9, 365? 374- Goldoni, Carlo, 148, 269. Goldsmith, Oliver, 143, 281. Gottsched, Johann, 76, 119, 138 Goujet, Claude-Pierre, 27, 73. Gournay, 258. Gower, John, 55. Gozzi, Carlo, 119. Graffigny, Mme. de, 63, 238. Grand Cyrus, Le, Scudery, 165, 236. Grandison, see Sir Charles Grandison. Grandison II., Musaus, 149. Grand Mystery, or the Art of Meditating over an House of Office, The, Swift, 35- Granet, Francois, 27. Gravelot, Hubert, 107. Gray, Thomas, 94, 158, 232, 257, 259, 281, 294, 301-4, 317, 319-320, 323, 361. Green, John Richard, 45. Greene, Robert, 8, 193. Gresset, Jean-Baptiste, 80, 302. Gretser, Jakob, n. Greuze, Jean B. , 289. Grimm, Frederic M., 17, 32, 80, 107, 112, 160, 232, 258-9, 265-6, 268, 296, 299> 3'3> 3"» 343> 357- Guardian, The, 33. Guibert, Comte de, 223. Gulliver's Travels, Swift, 29, 33, 35, 68, 263. Guys, Pierre, 344. Hales, Stephen, 17. Hamlet, Shakespeare, 47, 55, 69, 341, 367- Handel, George F., 260, 301. Hatin, E., 25. Hawkesworth, J., 46. Helvetius, Claude, 80, 87, 258-9. Hennequin, £mile, ix. Henriade, La, Voltaire, 60, 6l. Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 60. 2 B 386 INDEX Herbois, Collot d', 347. Herder, J. Gottfried von, 113, 274-5, 3X9> 323> 333- Hervey, James, 200, 271, 313-4? 347- Hervey, Lord, 64, 69. Heureux orphelins, Les, Crebillon^/f/j, 225. Heyne, Christian, 319. Hey wood, Thomas, 138. Histoire critique de la Republique des lettres, 27. Histoire de Cleveland, see Cleveland. Histoire de Fart chez les anciens, Winckel- mann, 344. Histoire de Mile, de la Chaux, Diderot, 225. Histoire des voyages, Prevost, 45, 126. Histoire litter air e de I' Europe, 27. Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, Ray- nal, 259, 279. History of Greece, Stanyan, 113. History of the House of Stuart, Hume, 45. History of the Life of Cicero, Middleton, 45- History of the Loiv Countries, Van Loon, 45- Hobbes, Thomas, 6, 8, 23, 26, 97, 359. Hogarth, William, 68, 260, 281. Hoguette, de la, 7. Holbach, Paul Henri d', 80, 257, 259, 266, 278, 280, 282. Homer, 13, 150, 220, 270, 297, 308, 3!5> 3'9-323> 325> 33°. 334, 344, 360, 364, 373. Hoop, Father, 114. Horace, 5, 67, 337, 341, Houdetot, Mme. d', 244, 278-9. Huber, Michel, 299. Hudibras, Butler, 9, 34, 70, 107. Hugo, Victor, 169, 371, 374, 376. Humboldt, Guillaume de, 348, 356, 358. Hume, David, 31, 45, 114, 257, 269, 280, 359-360. Humphry Clinker, Smollett, 145. Hurd, Richard, 316. Ibsen, Henrik, xvi, 247, 369, 375. Idee de la poesie anglais e, Yart, 266. Idyllen, Gessner, 299. Iliad, Homer, 146. II Penseroso, Milton, 301. Indiscret, L', Voltaire, 58. Ingenu, L' , Voltaire, 225. Inquiry concerning Virtue, Shaftesbury, "3; Inquisiteur, /', I2O. Instinct divin, Muralt, 242. Introduction a Phistoire de Danemark, Mal- let, 317. If his et Anaxarete, Rousseau, 128. Ivernois, Fran9ois d', 91. Jacobi, Johann G., 354. Jacopo Ortis, xii. Jacques lefataliste, Diderot, 284. James, Robert, 113. Jaucourt, Louis de, 353. Jean sans Terre, Ducis, 348. Jeffrey, Francis, 195. Jenneval, Mercier, 138. Johnson, Samuel, 68, 194, 207, 257, 264, 269, 281, 318, 323, 343. Jonathan Wild, Fielding, 144. Joncourt, Elie de, 31. Jonson, Ben, 5, 10, 41, 269. Jordan, Camille, 30, 45, 352. Jordan, Charles, 67. Jore, Claude-Frangois, 65. Joseph Andreivs, Fielding, 35, 144, 21 o, 263. Joubert, Laurent, 151, 327. Journal, d'Argenson, 99. Journal britannique, 3 1 . Journal de litter ature etr anger e, 355- Journal de police, 209. Journal de politique et de litter ature, 283. Journal des Debats, 351, 362. Journal des savants, 8, 17, 33, 43, 82, 118, 322. Journal encyclopedique, P. Rousseau, 267, 281, 313, 346. Journal etranger, 119, l6l, 216-7, 224, 232, 264, 268-270, 308, 321-2. Jo urnal litter air e , 20, 29, 33. Jours , pour servir de correct if et supplement aux Nuits, Remy, 312. Jugements des savants, Baillet, 8. Julie, see Nouvelle Helo'ise. Junius, 359. Jusserand, J. J., 8. Jussieu, Antoine, 258. Justel, Henry, 15. Kant, Immanuel, 275. Keats, John, 177. Kent, William, 108. King Lear, Shakespeare, 270. Kings, Book of the, 280. Kleist, Edward von, 269. Klopstock, Frederic, 119, 148, 269, 311, 317, 319, 347, 352-4. Knox, John, 90. Kremer, 311. INDEX 387 Labaume, 328. La Bruyere, Jean de, n, 119, 121, 122, 123. La Calprenede, Gautier de, 155. La Chaussee, 123, 132, 133, 211-2. Laclos, Pierre Ambroise Francois [Choderlos] de, 226. La Condamine, Charles de, 258. La Croze, Mathurin de, 16. Lade, Robert, 45. La Fare, Marquis de, 58. Lafayette, Marquis de, 258. La Fontaine, Jean de, 7, 9, 26, 82. La Fosse, Antoine de, 9. Lagrange-Chancel, Joseph de, 81. La Harpe, Jean de, 96, 147, 1579 160, 215, 233, 263, 323, 328, 343, 351, 361. Lakanal, Joseph, 349. Lalande, Joseph de, 258. Lally-Tollendal, Thomas, 353. Lamartine, Alphonse de, 251, 254, 304, 327> 35*> 37°> 374- Lambert, Mme. de, 236. La Motte, Antoine de, 12, 131, 341. Langlois, Charles V., 3. La Noue, Francois de, 5. La Place, Pierre, 131, 132, 146, 228,266. La Rochefoucauld, Frangois de, 121, 218. Larrey, Isaac de, 20. Lathmon, Ossian, 322. Lauzun, Duchesse de, 233. Lauzun, N. de, 258. Lavater, John, 226. Leben der Schiuedischen Grafin von G . . . , Gellert, 148. Le Blanc, Abbe, 40, 87, 99, 258, 261, 263. Lebrun, Ecouchard, 349, 350. Le Clerc, Jean, 16, 18, 19, 25, 26, 83. Leibnitz, Gottfried W., 16, 17. Lemaitre, Jules, vii, 368. Lemercier, 349. Lemercier, Nepomucene, 214. Lemierre, Antoine Marin, 303. Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Nicolas, 35. Lenz, Reinhold, 275. LeoX., 12. Leonard, Nicolas-Germain, 224, 296. Leonidas, Glover, 56. Leopardi, Giacomo, 375. Le Pays, Rene, 6. Lesage, Alain Rene, 46, 48, 80, 125, 146, 150, 152, 153, 155, 160, 175, 193, 201, 205, 214, 223. Les Papier s anglais, 265. Lespinasse, Mile, de, 223, 287, 299. Lessing, Ephraim, 113, 114, 138, 149, 269, 275, 282, 311, 347, 353. Lesueur, Jean, 329. Leti, Gregorio, 20. Letourneur, Pierre, 162, 267, 294, 305, 309, 312-3, 323, 327-8, 338, 342. Letronne, Jean Antoine, 349. Letter concerning Enthusiasm, Shaftesbury, 3*- Letter from Italy, Addison, 118. Letters of Helo'ise and Abelard, 236. Letters to Eliza Draper, Sterne, 282. Lettre de Barnevelt dans sa prison, Do rat, 140. Lettres, Mme. de Sevigne, 80. Lettres a M. de Malesherbes, Rousseau, 299. Lettres anglaises, or philosophiques , Vol- taire, 37, 43, 48, 56, 57, 65-73, 87, 98, 99, 102. Lettres de Juliette Catesby, Riccoboni, 225, 238. Lettres de la marquise de , . . au comte de R . . ., Crebillon//j, 236. Lettres de Milady Linsay, 224. Lettres du marquis de Roselle, de Beau- mont, 238. Lettres peruviennes , De Graffigny, 238. Lettres persanes, Montesquieu, 8l, 122, I70. Lettres portugaises , 236. Lettres sur les Anglais et les Franfais, Muralt, 37, 38, 44, 98, 103. Lettre sur les spectacles, Rousseau, 103, 124, 129, 141, 228. Levite a" 'Ephraim, Rousseau, 299. Liaisons danger euses, Les, Laclos, 184? 226. Life of Cicero, Middleton, 45. Ligne, Prince de, 107, 262. Lillo, George, 114, 133-141. Litterature consideree dans ses rapports a*vec les institutions sociales, De la, De Stael, xiii> 335» 356~7> 36*-3> 37°> 373'4- Locke, John, 16, 18, 19, 21, 26, 29, 37, 59, 60, 61, 65, 77, 84, 85-86, 97, 109, in, 248, 277, 301, 359. Lockman, John, 66. London Merchant, The, Lillo, 114, 132- 141. Louis, Abbe, 355. Louis XIV., i, 12, 13, 80, 258, 334, 37.6. Louis XV., 261, 263. Louis XVI., 261,264. INDEX Luc, Andre de, 91. Lucrece, Rousseau, 119. Lully, Jean Baptiste, 337. Lyly, John, 193. Lyttelton, Lord, 64. Mabillon, Jean, 80. Mably, Gabriel, 80, 128. Macbeth, Shakespeare, 367. Machiavelli, Niccolo, 363. Mackenzie, Henry, 145. Macpherson, James, 95, 316, 318-325, 327-8, 330-1,^373. Magasin encyclopedique, 355- Magny, Claude-Francois, 93, 243. Maistre, Joseph de, 216. Maistre, Xavier de, 284. Malebranche, Nicolas, 80. Malesherbes, Chretien, 229, 242. Malherbe, Francois, 3, 376. Mallet, Paul-Henri, 317, 358. Mandeville, Bernard de, 32, 113. Man in the Moon, The, Godwin, 8. Manlius, La Fosse, 9. Manon Lescaut, Prevost, 49, 135, 154? 161, 170, 201, 252. Mariana, Jean P., 74. Marechal, 9. Mariamne, Voltaire, 58. Marina or Elmerick , Lillo, 134. Marivaux, Pierre de, 78, 80, 97, 103, 119, 120, 121, 125, 126, 150, 155- 160, 166, 176, 193, 201, 205, 213, 245. Markan, Abbe, 35. Marlowe, Christopher, 136. Marmontel, Jean Fransois, 80, 153, 157, 213, 215, 223, 225, 361. _ Martinus Scriblerus Peri Bathos, Swift, '5 6. Martyrs, Chateaubriand, 354. Mary Tudor, 90. Masham, Lady, 18. Massillon, Jean-Baptiste, 81. Mason, William, 303. Maty, Matthew, 25, 30, 31. Mauger, Claude, 8. Maupertuis, Pierre, 83. Maury, Cardinal, 121. Mauve, de, 31. Mazarin, Cardinal, 5. Medical Dictionary, James, 113. Media's, Marie de, 5. Meditations, Bossuet, 251. Meditations among the Tombs, Hervey, 313-4. Meditations poetiques, Lamartine, 370. Meilhan, Senac de, 353. Memoires, Mme. de Motteville, 80. Memoir es, Retz, 80. Memoires de Clarence Welldonne, 224. Memoires de Miled'i B . . ., Riccoboni, 225. Memoires de Trevoux, 74, 119. Memoires du chevalier de Gramont, 8l. Memoires d'un homme de qualite, Prevost, 46, 47, 154. Memoires et observations faites par un voya- geur en Angleterre, Misson, 24. Memoires litter air es de la Grande Bretagne, 30, 31. JMemcires pour servir a Vhistoire de la vertu, Prevost, 225. JMemoires sur Suard, Garat, 2, 60, 80, 82, 85, 99, 108, 131, 234, 255, 269, 270, 277-8, 285, 287, 289, 316. Memoirs, Goethe, 320. Ibfemoirs of literature, 29, 30 • Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph, Mrs Sheridan, 225, 233. Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare, 140. Mercier, Sebastien, 114, 138, 140,222, 263, 265, 302, 312, 337. Mercure, Le, 266, 296, 351. Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare, S5i 347- Mestrezat, Jean, 19. Metastasio, Pietro, 269. Meurier, Gabriel, 7. Meynieres, Mme. de, 266. Michelet, Jules, 15, 21, 58, 371. Middleton, Conyers, 45. Miege, Guy, 7. Millot, Claude, 115. Milton, John, 13, 14, 26, 37, 47, 55, 64* 65, 70, 94, 97, in, 250, 269, 294, 301, 311, 337-8, 345, 353, 357, 359- Mirabeau, Marquis de, 228, 258. Misanthrope, Le, Moliere, 141. Misanthrope, The (magazine), 120. Miser, The, Fielding, 56. Misson, Francois Maximilien, 16, 24. Missy, Cesar de, 16, 20. Maurs du Jour, &c., les, 224. Moivre, Abraham de, 16, 33. Moliere, Jean Baptiste, 13, 41, 54, 69, 81, 128, 245, 341, 371, 376. Monchrestien, Antoine de, 5. Moniteur, le, 347. Monnier, Marc, xii, 208, 275. Monod, Caspar Joel, 162. Montague, Elizabeth, 269. INDEX 389 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 270. Montaigne, Michel de, 8, 29, 218, 274, 363- Montesquieu, Charles de, 21, 46,50, 59, 74, 97, 99, 100, 101, 122, 131, 144, 256, 258, 290, 360^ 366. Montlosier, Francois Dominique de, 353- Monuments de la mythologie et de la poesie des Celtes, &c.t Mallet, 317. Moore, Edward, 103, 114. More, Sir Thomas, 8, 22. Morellet, Andre, 258-9, 355. Morley, John, 60, 113. Morus, Alexander, 14. Morville, M. de, 62. Motteux, Pierre Antoine, 15. Motteville, Mme. de, 3, 62, 80. Mounier, Jean Joseph, 352. Muralt, Beat de, xi, 36-44, 48, 56, 59, 73, 76, 92, 98, 103-109, 242, 258. Muszus, Johann, Karl August, 145, 149. Musset, Alfred de, 254, 371, 374. Mussy, Gueneau de, 351. Nanine, Voltaire, 212, 221-2. Napoleon Buonaparte I., 329, 347, 351. Narbonne, Louis de, 352. Narcisse, ou Vamant de lui-meme, Rousseau, 128, 129. Naude, Gabriel, 5. Necker, Jacques, 259, 261, 269, 339, 357- A Neufchateau, Francois de, 301, 348. Newton, Sir Isaac, 16-19, 24, 29, 53, 61, 67, 77, 82-86, 91, 97, 301. Nicolai, Christopher F., 282. Nicole, Pierre, 121, 218. Night Thoughts, Young, 62, 272, 275, 301, 304-310, 312, 347. Ninon de 1'Enclos, 58. Nisard, Desire, viii, ix, xvi, xvii, 375. Nodier, Charles, 254, 284, 330, 349. Nollet, Jean, 53, 258. Northern Spectator, 311. Notre, Le, 108. Nouvelle bibliotheque anglaise, 3 1 . Nouvelle bibliotheque ou Histoire litteraire des principaux ecrits qui se publient, 27. Nouvelle Clementine, Leonard, 224, Nouvelle Helotse, Rousseau, x-xii, 95, 104, 106, 112, 124, 129, 141, 172, 196, 208, 218, 227-236, 238-240, 242-4, 247-253, 255, 274, 277, 293, 301, 303, 318, 361. Nouvelles de la Republique des lettres, 25, 26. Nutty Bissy, 308. Observations, Desfontaines, 210. Odes, Collins, 301. (Edipe, Voltaire, 60, 81. Oithona, Ossian, 322. Optics, Newton, 83. Orleans, Due d', 210. Orneval, d', 125. Osservatore, 119. Ossian, xii, xiv, 200, 259, 266-7, 27X> 275, 296, 300, 303, 314-6, 318-334, 337> 34i, 343> 345> 34^, 353, 357> 359> 364-5> 3$7> 373-4- Ossian, Letourneur, 323. Othello, Shakespeare, 55, 132, 343. Otway, Thomas, 9, 47, 260, 266. Oursel, Louis, 7. Pamela, Richardson, ill, 144, 148, I55» 156, 158-161, 166, 167, 175, 176, 188-192, 195-6, 198, 200, 208-214, 217, 220-2, 226, 228, 237-240, 245, 263. Pamela, de Neufchateau, 348. Pamela en France, Boissy, 211. Pan, Mallet du, 91. Panckoucke, Andre, 230. Paracelsus, Philippus, 98. Paradise Lost, Milton, 55, 266, 296. Paris, Gaston, 371. Paris-Duverney, 263. Parnell, Thomas, 62. Pascal, Blaise, 84, 307. Pasquier, fitienne, 6. Patin, Guy, 5. Pavilion, fitienne, 5. Paysan Parvenu, Le, Marivaux, 150, 159. Paysan Per-verti, Le, Restif, 226. Pellisson, Paul, 20. Pennant, Thomas, 64. Pensees anglaises sur divers sujets de religion et de morale, 307. Pensees philosophiques, Diderot, 113. Percy, Thomas, 316-7. Pere de famille, Le, Diderot, 112, 219. Peregrine Pickle, Smollett, 145. Pericles, 12. Perrault, Charles, 12, 13, 341. Perron, Cardinal de, n. Persifleur,> Le, 112, 124. Peterborough, Lord, 62. Petit catechisme politique des Anglais, &c., 77- 390 INDEX Petit Grandison, Berquin, 224. Petrarch, 292, 361, 365. Petronius, 122. Phedre, Racine, 10. Philosophique anglais, Le, see Cleveland. Philosophical essay concerning the Human Un- derstanding, Locke, 1 8. Pictet, Charles, 91. Pictet, Marie-Auguste, 91. Pindar, 308. Pitt, Andrew, 61. Pitt, William, 64, 262. Pliny, 128, 363. Plutarch, 297, 343, 349, 363. Poeme sur Lisbonne, Voltaire, 242. Poesies galliques, Baour-Lormian, 329. Poinsinet, Antoine-Alexandre -Henri, 147. Polexandre, 236. Politique tiree de V Ecriture Sainte, 80. Polysynodie, Saint-Pierre, 20. Pompadour, Mme. de, 266. Pope, Alexander, 28, 33, 37, 56, 61, 64, 6?> 72» 73> 83> 95> 97> '"» 115-118, 133, 166, 260-1, 296, 309, 321, 359, 365- Portland, Lord, 20. Postboy, The, 1 6. Pour et Centre, Le, Prevost, 37, 51, 52, 56, 123, 139. Prevost d'Exiles, Antoine, xi, 2, 21, 34> 35> 37> 44-56> 65> 67» 73> 76> 8o> 87, 95, 97, 103, in, 123, 127, 132, i39> IS°» J5J5 iSS-^SS* 161-164, 172, 178, 193, 201, 205, 212, 214, 217-8, 223, 225, 227, 239, 242, 252, 256, 264, 266, 268, 302. Priestley, Joseph, 257. Princesse de Cleves, 206, 246, 250. Principia, Newton, 83. Prior, Matthew, 67, 68. Prisonniers de guerre, Rousseau, 128. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 8. Profession defoi du Vicaire Savoyard, Rous- seau, 1 1 8, 241-2. Propertius, 360. Proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English Tongue, Swift 33- Pulci, Luigi, 74. Pygmalion, Rousseau, 129. Quincy, Quatremere de, 355. Quinet, Edgar, 330. Rabelais, Francois, xiii, 29, 283, 337. Racan, Honorat de, 341. Racine, Jean, 7, 8, 13, 16, 27, 96, 129, 296> 336> 338> 34i-2> 359' 368> 371* 374, 376- Radcliffe, Anne, 348. Radoteur, I2O. Ramsay, Andrew, 7, 21. Rapin, Rene, 82. Rathery, E. J. B., 7, 15, 19. Raynal, Guillaume, 80, 258, 279, 280, ^357- Reflexions sur la poesie et la peinture, Dubos, 34- Regnard, Jean F. de, 81, 153. Relation d'un voyage en Angleterre, Sor- biere, 23, 24. Religieuse, la, Diderot, 217, 225. Remarques sur I' Angleterre faites par un voyageur, Colombiere, 24. Rembrandt, Paul, 283. Remy, Abbe, 312. Renan, Ernest, 376, 379. Rene, Chateaubriand, xii, 354, 365. Resnel, Abbe du, 73, 115, 266. Restif de la Bretonne, Nicolas Edme, 226. Retz. Cardinal, 19, 80. Reveries d' un promeneur solitaire, Rousseau, 23I, 236, 299, 3OI, 333. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 281. Ricaut, Paul, 8. Riccoboni, Mme., 225, 238, 257, 312. Richardson, Samuel, xi, xiv, 45, 84? 95, 109, in, 114, 133, 142, H4-I5I> 155-241, 243, 245-7, *49> 267> *75» 281, 284-5, 3°9> 34i> 345> 348> 357» 360. Richelieu, Due de, 6, 184, 342. Rivarol, Antoine de, 340, 353, 355,^377. Robbers, The, Schiller, xiv, 274. Robert Burns, Angellier, xv. Robertson, William, 269. Robespierre, Francois Maximilian, 314, 347- Robinson Crusoe, De Foe, 1 8, 32, 33, 68, III, 115, 124-128, 165. Robinson (German, Italian, Silesian), 125. Roche, Michel de la, 29, 30. Rochelle, Nee de la, 214. Rochester, Earl of, 37, 64, 70. Roderick Random, Smollett, 145. Rohan-Chabot, M. de, 57, 58. Roland [de la Platiere], Jean Marie, *58> 347- INDEX 391 Roland, Mme., 297, 347. Ronsard, Pierre, xiii, 5. Roscommon, Earl of, 70. Ross, David, 133, 134. Roucher, Jean Antoine, 294, 297. Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste, 73. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ix-xiv, xix, 2, 40, 41, 44, 80, 88, 89-95, 97» 98> 101-118, 123, 124, 127-133, 136, 141, 148, 150, 151, 154, 155, 161, 163, 164, 172, 180, 187, 200, 207, 208, 212, 217-8, 221-4, 227-258, 271-9, 28l, 288, 290-4, 299-304, 310, 314- 315, 318, 322, 326, 331-3, 335, 338, 34*-3> 346, 349» 35°> 356"7> 359"366> 368-370, 372, 374, 379. Rousseau, Pierre, 267. Rowe, Nicholas, 138. Rutlidge, Chevalier de, 267. Rymo and Alpin, Ossian, 321. Sabliere, Mme. de la, 24. Sade, Abbe de, 264. Sade, Marquis de, 226. Saint-Amant, Marc Antoine de, 3, 5. Sainte-Beuve, Charles, 37, 153, 158, 254, 267, 351, 372, 375. Saint-Evremond, Charles de, 10, 17, 23, 41, 103, 201, 353. Saint-George, David de, 328. Saint-Hyacinthe, Themiseul de, 17, 18, 28, 61, 125, 126, 266. Saint-Lambert, Charles de, 123, 294, 296-7. Saint-Marc, Le Fevre de, 51. Saint-Maur, Dupre de, 266. Saint-Pierre, Abbe de, 20. Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 50, 127, 228, 253, 293, 335, 344. Saint-Simon, Claude, 7, 115. Salle, Mile., 54. Sallengre, Albert Henri de, 29. Salmonet, 19. Samson, Joseph Isidore, 21. Sand, George, 193, 254, 330. Sante, le P. de la, 43. Sara Sampson, Lessing, 114, 138. Saumaise, Claude de, 3. Saurin, Jacques, 103. Saussure, Horace de, 91. Sauzet, Jean-Pierre-Paul de, 27. Savage, Richard, 67. Sayous, Pierre-Andre, 15, 18, 20, 24, 25. Scaevola, Mucius, 349. Scarron, Paul, 147, 210, 283. Scenes anglaises, Destouches, 34. Schelandre, Jean de, 5, 9. Schelling, Friedrich von, 354. Scheurleer, 21. Schiller, Johann von, 274-5, 347, 352-3, 357> 37°> 374- Schlegel, Wilhelm, 139, 357. Schleinitz, 115. Schweighauser, Jean, 355. Scott, Sir Walter, 184, 195, 374. Seasons, The, Thomson, 68, 294-5, 298- 301. Sedaine, Michel Jean, 133. Sejanus, Jon son, 10. Seneca, 5, 34. Sentimental Journey, Sterne, 280, 282, 286-9. Septchenes, Leclerc de, 266. Sere, de, 115. Sermons, Bourdaloue, 80. Sermons, Sterne, 282. Serre, Puget de la, 5, 353. Sevigne, Mme. de, 7, 81. Sgravesande, Guillaume Jacob, 29. Shadwell, Thomas, 41. Shaftesbury, Earl of, 32, 60, 64, 68, 97, 113, 118, 297, 309. Shakespeare, William, xiii, 8, 9, 32, 41, 47, 55, 62, 64, 68, 69, 72, 84, 94, 118, 131, 132, 138, 140, 193, 207-8, 222, 250, 254, 257, 260, 265, 267, 271, 275, 284, 294, 300, 319, 336-9, 341-3, 345, 347-8, 353, 359, 363> 365> 367"8> 37X> 374~5- Shelburne, Earl of, 257. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 251, 275. Sheridan, Richard B., 359. Sherlock, Martin, 63, 64, 78. Sidnei, Gresset, 302. Sidnei et Silli, d'Arnaud, 224. Sidney, Algernon, 270. Sidney, Sir Philip, 8. Siecle de Louis XV., Voltaire, 153. Silhouette, Etienne de, 115, 116. Sir Charles Grandison, Richardson, 145, 148-150, 161-4, J68, 170, 175, 202-4, 208, 214, 217, 228, 233. Sismondi, Jean Charles, 354, 366, 376. Sloane, Sir Hans, 63. Smith, John, 323. Smollett, Tobias, 145, 146, 150, 257. Socrates, 123, 275, 349. Sophocles, 8, 13, 114, 220. Sorbiere, Samuel, 22-24. Sorel, Charles, 7, 9. Southerne, Thomas, 138. 392 INDEX Spectateur du Nord, 355. Spectateur fran^ais, I2O. Spectateur hollandais, 119. Spectator, The, 28, 29, 33, 68, IO2, 118-123, 128, 236. Spener, Philipp Takob, 93. Spenser, Edmund, 13, 41, 47, 269, 318, 358. Stael, Mme. de, vii-x, xii-xv, 2, 91, 94, 96, 143, 150, 246, 253, 256, 271, 274, 276, 317-8, 329, 333-5, 346-7, 35°, SS^, 354, 356~7> 36°-374, 376- Stair, Lord, 57. Stanyan, Abraham, 113. Steele, Richard, 17, 33, 55, 118, 123, 127, 197, 296. Stendhal [pseud, of Henri Beyle], xiii, 146, 250, 292, 371, 374, 376. Stephen, Leslie, 192. Sterne, Laurence, xiv, 145, 222, 266, 271, 275, 277-291, 308-9, 338, 341, 348, Stewart, Dugald, 114, 257. Stinstra, Pastor, 148. Suard, Jean Baptiste Antoine, 114, 131, 161, 258-9, 266, 268-9, 277> 280, 357. Suard, Mme., 285, 322. Supplement au voyage de Bougainville, Diderot, 113. Swift, Jonathan, 28, 29, 33, 35, 56,62, 67, 69, 70, 72, 86, 94, 97, 309, 337- Tabaraud, Mathieu Mathurin, 119. Tacitus, 67, 193, 297, 349. _ Taine, Hippolyte, xiv, xvi, 23, 142, 2&3, 369> 373-. Tale of a Tub, Swift, 29, 33, 69, 97. Tambour nocturne, Destouches, 34. Tancrede , 361. Tartujfe, Moliere, 69, 215. Tasso, Torquato, 297. Tatler, The, 17, 33. Taylor, Jeremy, 70. Temora, Macpherson, 318. Tempest, The, Shakespeare, 34, 55. Temple, Sir William, 3, 26. Tesse, Mme. de, 227. Theatre anglais, La Place, 131, 266. Theocritus, 299. Thieriot, 63, 65, 264. Thomas, Antoine Leonard, 345. Thomson, James, xii, xiv, 47, 62, 67, 68, 94, 95, 275, 294-301, 331, 345, 347, 357, 36l> 365- Thoyras, Rapin de, 16, 20. Thucydides, 360. Tibullus, 360. Tillotson, John, 61, 65, 70. Tindal, Matthew, 20, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61. Toland, John, 59, 60, 97. TolstoV, Lyof, 207, 247, 375. Tom Jones, Fielding, 145-147, 159, 165, 217, 228, 266. Toussaint, Francois Vincent, 113, 114. Traducteur, Le, 268. Traits de la concupiscence, 8 1 . Traite de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi- meme, 80. Traite de metaphysique, Voltaire, 60. Travels in Italy, Addison, 118. Travels of Robert Lade, 45. Tresne, Marquis de la, 353. Tristram Shandy, Sterne, 145, 278, 281- 286, 289, 341. Tronchin, Theodore, 91. Turcaret, 8l. Turgot, Anne, 321. Turretin, Alphonse, 91. Ulfeld, Comte d', 22. Urfe, d', Honore, 9. Utopia, More, 8, 22. Vanderbourg, Martin Marie Charles, 355- Van EfFen, Justus, 29, 32, 33, 37, 125, 126, 266. Vanini, Lucilio, 98. Van Loon, 45. Vauban, Sebastien, 80, 202. Vauvenargues, Luc [de Clapiers] de, 80, 339. Vayer, La Mothe le, 7. Venice preserved, Otway, 47, 68, 266. Vergil, 5, 13, 28, 249, 294, 337, 341, 344, 360, 363, 375. Viaud, Theophile de, 5. Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith, 145, 165. Vie de Marianne, Prevost, 150, 156-160, 166. Vie d'une comtesse suedoise, Gellert, 148. Vigny, Alfred de, xvii, 196, 202, 371. Villemain, Abel F., 193, 207, 254, *95> 3'4> 330. Villers, Charles de, 354-5, 357, 366. Villoison, Jean B., 344. Vogue, Melchior de, x, 377. Voiture, Vincent, 5. Volland, Sophie, 216. INDEX 393 Voltaire, Arouet de, xi, xviii, 2, 6, 16, 18, 19, 22-24, 34, 35, 44, 48, 56-76, 78, 80, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 95, 97, 99, 100, 115, 117, 118, 120, 132, 141, 143, 147, 153, 165, 173, 212-4, 220-3, 225, 242, 248, 253, 256-8, 264-6, 270, 282-3, 288, 295-7, 3°3> 311-2, 325-6, 335-9, 341-5, 358-9, 361, 363, 366, 368, 370, 376. Voss, Johann, 319. Vossius, Isaac, 82. Voyage d'Anacharsis, Barthelemy, 344. Walckenaer, Jan, 259. Waldegrave, Lord, 139. Wallenstein, Schiller, 352. Waller, Edmund, 10, 37, 70. Wallis, John, 23. Walpole, Horace, 101, 170, 223, 281, 286, 316, 318. Warburton, William, 70, 116. Warens, Mme. de, 93, 243, 279. Warton, Thomas, 316. Waverley, Scott, 145. Weiss, J.-J., 376. Werther, Goethe, xii, xiv, 208, 235, 3*°, 33'» 333» 357» 36l« Wesley, John, 286. Westermann, Francois Joseph, 314. Wharton, Duke of, 182. Wieland, Christopher, 145, 149, 347, 353> 357-8 Wilhelm Meister, Goethe, 358. Wilkes, John, 64, 114, 257. Wilkins, John, 8. William III., 20, 21. Winckelmann, Johann J., 269, 344. Wood, Robert, 344. Woolston, Thomas, 61. Wycherley, William, 71, 72. Yart, Abbe, 266, 332. Tor ks hire Tragedy, A, 138. Young, Arthur, 257, 292. Young, Edward, xii, xiv, 62, 217, 267, 271-3, 275, 300, 303-4, 306-314, 320, 331-*! 338, 34i, 347'8> 357> 365- Zaire, Voltaire, 54, 65, 99. Zelter, 113. PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS. EDINBURGH RETURN (Li ^J)A a(t ^ . LOAN PERIOD 1 2 ff 3 4 5 6 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW DEC 07 1990 REC'D SEP zs-go UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DDO, 15m, 2/84 BERKELEY, CA 94720 ®$ YC 49791 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY