Full text of "Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the cosmopolitan spirit in literature; a study of the literary relations between France and England during the eighteenth century"

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE

Authorised Translation
All Rights Reserved

^T^s^sg^-

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

AND THE

COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE

A STUDY OF THE LITERARY RELATIONS BETWEEN
FRANCE AND ENGLAND DURING THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

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

Ipteface

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. FuUerton 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 1 899.

5ntrot)ttctton

" 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 Articles, by M. Jules Lemaitre on " L'influence des Htteratures du Nord "
(Revue des Deux Mondes, December 1894), by M. Melchior de Vogii^ on the
"Renaissance latine" (ib. January 1895), by M. Andr^ Hallays on ''L'influence

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.^ \

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" (Hevue de Parts, February 1895). See also M. F.
Brunetiere's essay : Le cosmopolitisme et la Utterature nationales, reprinted in Etudes
critique sur Phistoire de la Utterature fran^aise, 6th series.

1 Study on Alexandrinism {Revue des Deux Mondes, May 1 894).

INTRODUCTION xi

origins of romanticism or of Mme. de Stael. The majority,
after devoting a few hurried pages to the an^lomania 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
**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-estaMished community of blood, of
native soil, of speech, of history and of custom, by which nations
appear to be formed and divided."^ 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 j 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 ^

^ E. Hennequin, Ecrivains francises, p. iii. Cf. H. M. Posnett, Comparative
Literature (London, 1886), book iv., ch. i (^IVhat is JVorld-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 Voglie
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 j one ivhich 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." ^ 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." ^

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

^ History of Civilization, vol. il. p. 2 1 4.
^ Journal ency clop edique, April 1 75 8.

xiv INTRODUCTION

had " transmigrated into the heroine of La Nouvelle HeldtseJ^ ^
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 ^oz^^^oix. 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 C/arr/j-j-^ Harlowe stands to La Nouvelle ////o/V^ in this same
relation as La Nouvelle Heldi'se 'stS^^s to Werther, Rene and Jacopo
OrtisT 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 Heldise 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 d'aujourcChui (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 nvill ivin the day against France,^^^

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,^ 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
I 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 45lace 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 "

VV-'y mentioned by Mme. de Stael. England was thus the first
y y: y jcountry to exe rcise an influence upon France ; an influe.a£e wiiich
y y >^aye the-.CPsniopolitan movement the tendency it has maintained
*) ^ V throughout the present century — namely, to raise a protest, in
tRe name of foreign and modera^Iitexature, against the influence
^ oflhe classical spirk. .

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." ^ 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 ^yhich some writers havp attempted ^ ,
to draw from moral ethnogr^'hyi akdjuredly tlie' most difficult arm \

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.

^ Introduction to English Literature.
2 Angellier, Hol^ert Burns, 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 had 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 jj
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 inuch 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; 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, I
runs from mind to mind, and always, as it passes on to the next, U
carries with it a fresh principle of life and movement. A

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."^ 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 cosmopol itan spirit in
literature has manifes ted itself in the reaching out ot the Fre nch
m md, accord mg to the e xample set by Rousseau, tow ards 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 Hterature 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 undertakij
and have had my own incapacity fully brought home to^e, 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 MonJes, loth May 1 891.

(

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.

xrable of Contents

PAGB

Introduction . . . . . . . . . vii

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 ........ z

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 zi

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 Frangais (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

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 (Tun homme de qualite and Histoire de Cleveland —
His magazine, Le Pour et Contre (i 732-1 740): 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

3B00ft U

JEAN-JACQIJES 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 Nowuclle Helo'ise—MWoxdi Bomston, or the
Englishman — Rousseau's work reflects the anglomania of his age . 102

CONTENTS XXV

Chapter II

Rousseau's first studies in engush

PAGE

I. Rousseau's early associations in Paris : Diderot and the admirers of
England . . . . . . . . .iii

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 . . . . . . 1 1 5

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 Harloive 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 ....... 193

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 ......... 205

^li— 2.y

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 muvelle Helo'ise — The resemblance between Helo'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

:fi3ooft 111

ROUSSEAU AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND DURING THE
LATTER HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

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

277

I. Sterne and the sentimental novel — Sterne, like Rousseau, brought
sentimental confession into fashion — His visit to Paris — His amours
— The ' ' culte du moi " . . . . . .

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

XXVll

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 .... 292
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. Tn what way the success of these works was assured by Rousseau . 331

Chapter IF

THE REVOLUTION AND THE SECOND MIGRATION OF THE FRENCH SPIRIT.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND MME. DE STaKl

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 Litterature (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

IE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

370

Index

381

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, Dest ouches,
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 en quiri ng turn of mind, to live
beyond the confines~of"Fn[TIce7"andprincipalIy 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 Jnterpreters 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, t o bring Fr£nGbmeainta,com-
munication with the mind of E urope .

Begun ty the refugees, and carried on by Prevost and Volta ire,
this propaganda on behalf, more~parTicTrtefry,~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.^

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 thejiat]ire-o£-the
propaganda jcarried on by the refugees, and of that of their
French imitators, we shall therefore T5e 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."
I 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 3

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,^ be thought capable of poetry or/
art ? I

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." ^
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 visu, having seen "the malignant
Roundheads, to whom the very throne is an object of suspicion," ^
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 Steele 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 ;

^ See M. Langlois's study on Les Anglais au moyen age (^Revue historique, 1 894).
2 A. Babeau, Les voyageurs en France, p. 99.
' V Albion (CEuvres, 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 ^ — 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 conducteur four le voyage d^ Angleterre^ by the sieur Coulon. Paris, Gervais
Clouzier, 1654, i2mo. In the sixteenth century had appeared Le guide des chemins
d^Angleterr effort 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 BouUaye 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 socialet
et intellectuelles entre la France et VAngleterre, 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." ^ Such writers as had visited England
during the previous century — for instance, Brantome, Ronsard,
Monchrestien, Bodin, Henri Estienne, La None, 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,^ 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,^ 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,* 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 himselt ever crossed the straits. Exeter becomes Exceste, Bristol,
Brestel, the- Thames, la Tamese, etc

2 Cf. Li vet, Precieux et Precieuses, vol. i;, p. 191.

'^ See the account of Marie de Medicis' entry into London, by Puget de la Serre :
the event occurred in 1639. ilOf' Edward Smith, Foreign Visitors in England, p. x.)

■* Cf. Albion, caprice herot-comique, 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."^ 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.^

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^^Tsing th ^ir ow n. 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.^ 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. (Ewvres de M. Pavilion^ Paris, 1720, iimo, p. no.
'^ 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 Bas, Angleterre et Ecosse (Amsterdam, 1646,
1 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,
i2mo).

2 Lantoine, Histoire de Venseignement secondaire en France au xvii^ siecle, p. 181.

FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND

Greek, Latin, French, Italklli^and Spanish languages." The I
writers of the day, Mmer~3e Sevigne, Racine, Corneille, La j
Fontaine, read Spanish or Italian, and sometimes both ; but for j '
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
&cr(?^/«^j-_ofjheR£yd Society of London. "The EngHsh," />
wrote Le Clerc, " have many gooSTworks ; it is a pity that authors ' j
in that country seldom write any language but their own." ^

English- was ^^afded-as-aJaarbaxqu s j argon . Corneille used
to show his friends, as a curiosity, an English translation of Le
Cidy 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,^ 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." ^ Sorel, in his Francion, obtains a I
cheap success with a burlesque of the jargon spoken by an
English lord.*

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.^ One of them, Claude Mauger, in a grammar

1 Rathery, part iii. 2 /^/^^

' Lettre a V Academie^ iii. ■* Francion^ bk. ii., pp. 70-72.

5 Gabriel Meurier's work (Traite pour apprendre a parler francois et angloii) dates
from 1653. The Alphabet anglois of Louis Oursel is dated 1639 (Rouen, 8vo, 32 pp.).
The same writer's Grammere anglois e bears the same date (Rouen, 1639, 8vo, 205 pp.).
Festeau's Nouvelle grammaire anglaise belongs to 1672. The Dictionnaire anglais-
francais et francais- anglais of Miege is dated 1 685.

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.^

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 f 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 Argenis ; 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\^ almost the whole of Bacon, whose
Essays were rendered into French in 161 1 by a certain Jean
Baudouin,* 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 Montague 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 Pancien regime ( Cosmopolis,
1896 and 1897).

3 Histoire de Petat present de Vemp'tre ottoman, trans, by Briot. Paris, 1670, 4to.

4 See the list of these translations in Charles Adam's Phitosophie 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, 4to.

FRENCH IGNORANCE OF ENGLAND 9

English works which found their way across the-Channel in the
seventeenth_centUTy.*

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 andy
comedies that were finding their way abroad at this period, and^^
were exerting a strong influence beyond the borders of France.^ /
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 Vhomme dam la lune^ an imaginary journey to the Moon, by Dominique Gonzales
[Jean Baudouin], Spanish adventurer. Paris, 1648, 8vo,

Becouverte d'un nowueau 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 Montague. Rouen, 1655, 2 vols. izmo.

Histoire tragique de Pandosto, rot de Boheme, et de Bellaria safemme; together with the
Amour i de Dorastus et de Favina, translated from English into French by L. Regnault.
Paris, 1615, izmo (mentioned by Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Bibliotheque des romans,

P- 44).

Mention is also made of certain Memoires du chevalier Hazard, traduits de P anglais
sur l^ original manuscrit, Cologne, 1 603, i2mo, which I have been unable to identify.
(^Bibliotheque des romans, March 1 779.)

Le Blanc (^Lettres, 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 Basiliie,
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.

'^ Cf. Beljame, Le public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre, p i/^ et seq. — J. Jus-
serand, The English Novel, chap. vii.

lo 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^Ev remond a lone, 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
langua^ge; 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 Shakesp^areTor^at any rate he alludes to
him only in a vague and cursory manner.^ 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 Phedrey 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," ^ and Hke
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." *

^.ILLJi^!l!jj^]^];;£l?f^'^» ^^^^ FoTLtgli^^^^j i*' ^" jsnlflfpfi example.

1 Letter to Mme. de Mazarin, 1682. (CEuvres melees de Saint-fivremond, ed.
Giraud, vol. iii., 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." i

What would Father Bouhours have said if he had been in- j
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 jj
triumphantly contrasted with the bright sunshine of Italy ? i
** 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

^ Les ^Entretiens d^ Ariste et d'' Eugene^ new edn., Amsterdam, 1671, pp. 231-232.

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

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 thusV
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 _certaiji^_Miltonius, whose writings have
made his name more infamous than ^ose of the executioners
and assassins of the English king." ^

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. ;

The revocation of the Edict of Nantesjiad 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, le Roman anglais^ p. 37.

THE REFUGEES IN LONDON 15

heroic land," as Michelet ^ calls it, was the chief asylum of the
refugees. Some estimate the number of those who came over
at seventy thousand, others at eighty thousand ^ ; and it may
be safely asserted that they repaid British hospitality in a liberal
manner, not only by the importation of their industrial skill,
but also by their determined and fruitful efforts to spread abroad
in France the science, the philosophy, and the literature of their
adopted country.

Before 1688, the colony of refugees in London had been but
small : Charles IL was not fond of them and did not make them
welcome. But in 1688 they flocked to London. There they
found an asylum, pensions, and places : Desmaizeaux received
an Irish pension, Justel was appointed librarian to the king.
They very soon became the defenders of the new government,
and its advocates in opposition to the rest of Europe. Protected
by the Whigs and zealously opposed to Sacheverell and the
Tories, they took their share also in the internal politics of
England, and were not long in forming a party. When, in
1709, their friends the Whigs introduced in parliament a bill
for their naturalisation, harmony of disposition had already
rendered it an accomplished fact. Why, however, should
their British zeal have driven some of them to lend their
financial support to their adoptive country against that which
they had quitted ?

It is in this colony of P rotestants in London — which flourished
from 1688 to 1730, or thereabouts — that we must seek the
original nucleus of that body of men whose limited but singularly
restless and well-informed intelligence made them the most active
agents of the cosmopolitan spirit in the world of science and of
letters, and whose unwearying mediocrity peculiarlyi-fitted them
for the dissemination of knowledge in a popular form. J Many of
them became so far anglicised as to win for themseltrs^ place in
English literature. Among these were Pierre Antoine Motteux,

1 Michelet, Histoire de France, vol. ii., p. 90.

2 Cf, Weiss, Histoire des refugies protestants de France^ vol. i., p. 272. — See also
Sayous, Histoire de la litteraturefran^aise a V itr anger, 1853, 2 vols. ; Rathery, 4th article,
and an article in the Revue Britannique (May 1868).

i6 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

who wrote plays in English which were produced with some
success, and founded a monthly magazine called The Gentleman ^ ;
and Abel Boyer, who started a review named The Postboy, wrote
an English tragedy, and compiled a dictionary of the language.
Most of them spoke English, could write it if necessary, and
were on familiar terms with the writers of the day. '^ In London
they used to meet at the The Rainhoiv Coffee-House in^lhe neigh-
bourhood of Mary le Bone, and there they formed one of the
earliest agencies in Europe for the supply of information on
English affairs;'" Doubtless Voltaire sat at their table during his
stay in London, and profited by the experience of those who
frequented The Rainhoiv,

The doyen of these gatherings, Pierre Daude, a clerk of the
Exchequer, was a fervent admirer of Bacon, had translated
Chubb, and was looked upon as a sort of oracle on points of
English philosophy and theology.^ Such another was " the
celebrated M. de Moivre," the friend and disciple of Newton,
no less well-informed, if we may believe one who had personal
knowledge,^ upon Corneille and Racine than upon Newton and
Leibnitz, and " consulting grammarian to all the transfetTJrs and
crrtte8..-of the place." AlLJia4 the ^encyclopaedic spmt._ They
discussed everything at The Rainboiu, and kept abreast of all the
knowledge of the day. There, by the side of theologians like
Colomies or Misson, of an orientalist like de la Croze or a
historian like Rapin de Thoyras, you might see Durand, historian,
poet and authority on numismatics ; Cesar de Missy, preacher ;
Le Clerc, one of the leading journalists of the time ; or the
honest and excellent Coste, the translator of^oc^. In this
grave and st^'dious circle we can discern the dawn of the spirit
of the eighteenth century, less inquisitive concerning literature
than concerning science, but eager above all things to take in,
with however superficial a glance, the whole field of human
knowledge. "It were much to be desired," wrote Le Clerc in

1 Cf, Beljame, Le public et es hommes de lettres, Bibliographic.

2 See the eulogium on Daude in the Bibliotheque Britannique, 1733, vol. i.,
pp. 167-183.

3 Le Blanc, Ldtres, vol. i., pp. 77 and 142 ; vol. iii., p. 86.

THE REFUGEES IN LONDON 17

1703,^ "that, since the mind of man is very limited and the
duration of life so short, each man would devote himself to one
particular kind of reading and study. It must be confessed that
by the opposite practice nothing is brought to perfection, and
life is frittered away. . . . But how can it be helped ? The
sciences, especially those which are concerned with facts, such
as history and criticism, and all the others which are related to
them, are so intimately connected together that we are compelled
to study them in connection with one another, and that, do what
we will, we find ourselves launched upon an inexhaustible ocean
of reading. Besides, it is impossible to quench the natural
curiosity of the human intellect, which, as a rule at any rate,
desires instruction in every branch of knowledge."

/These facts — namely, that they were industrious, inquiring
an^ withal superficial — explain how it was that the refugees in
England and in Holland were such excellent journalists. They
compiled, translated and made excerpts. They w^re the most
indefatigable translators and adapters the eighteenth century had
seen :, not even " the inevitable M. Eidous himself," as Grimm
call^him, could compete with them. Armand de la Chapelle
kept up the BihliotJSeque anglaise for ten years, gave active assist-
ance to the Bibliotheque raisonnee des savants de V Europe — a sort of
international tribune which, for five-and-twenty years was the
organ of Protestant Europe — translated Ditton's Discourse con-
cerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and, as a recreation, Steele's
Tatler.

Desmaizeaux, the same who was the soul of the gatherings at
The Rainbow, wrote biographies of Bayle, Boileau, and Saint-
6vremond, contributed to all the newspapers in Holland and
London, acted as the non-official correspondent of the Journal des
savants and of Leibnitz, made translations for booksellers, wrote
lives of Chillingworth and Hales in English, issued the unpub-
lished works of Clarke, Newton, and Collins — and all without
prejudice to an enormous private correspondence which lies
buried in the archives of the British Museum. " He is the man
who knows all the eminent persons : he writes to them, receives

^ Bibliotheque choisie, introductory remarks.
B

1 8 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

letters from them, and is indefatigable in their service." ^ He
was a literary factotum. Editor, translator, compiler and
journalist, Desmaizeaux belonged to no- onr-eettatry ; he was a
citizen of learned and thinking Eurape,^

There were 'many like him ; some of them serious-minded men,
fully convinced of the lofty nature of their task, others mere
literary adventurers, like Themiseul de Saint-Hyacinthe, the half-
starved author of the Chef-d'oeuvre dun inconnuj who after having
served, if we may believe Voltaire, as a dragoon during the per-
secution of the French Protestants, had crossed over to England,
there had been converted, had translated Robinson Crusoe, and
though always a destitute wanderer, had been nominated a
member of the Royal Society of London.
j\ ^It was English_£hilosophy that the refugees, who were fol-
! lowers of Bacon and Lo cke, endeavoured first of all to render
popular upon the Continent. From the English colony in
' Amsterdam Locke met with an enthusiastic reception. , Several
of his writings were published in the Bihliotheques of Le Clerc,
and a certain " extract from an English work as yet unpublished,
entitled A philosophical essay concerning the understanding . . . con-
tributed by Mr Locke,"^ appeared first of all in the Biblioth'eque
Universelle. It was Pierre Coste, one of the refugees, who pub-
lished the earliest translations of the master, in particular one of
the Essay on the Human Understanding, in 1 700, and who, as tutor
in the house of Lady Masham, shared her admiration for the
philosopher, attended him during his last moments, and closed
his eyes. The Dutch newspapers made the first undisguised
attempt to disseminate Locke's principles in France, and attacked
the philosophy of Descartes with the weapons of sarcasm.* Lastly,
it was Le Clerc who, upon the death of the master, printed a
panegyric upon him in his paper, and wreathed his memory with
respectful homage.^ Thus the refugees assumed the responsi-

^ Sayous, Le xviii' Steele a l^etranger, vol. i.j p. l6.
2 See the article Desmaizeaux in la France protestante.
* Bibliotheque universelle, January 1688 : the abstract contains 92 pages.
^ Cf. Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne, iv, 230 ; xiii. 225.

^ This " historic eulogium of the late Mr Locke " will be found in the " (Euvres
diverses de M Locke,^' Anisterdam, 1732, 2 vols. i2mo.

THE REFUGEES IN LONDON 19

bility before Europe for the spread of " English philosophism."
They made themselves its apostles, if not its martyrs, and it
was not without good reason that after having made mention^
of Locke, Clarke and Newton, " the greatest philosophers 1
and the best writers of their time," Voltaire associated 1
with these illustrious names the now more modest name oL<
Le Clerc.i

Liberals in philosophy, the refugees adhered also, and with>
zeal, perseverance and bitterness, t o liberalisni in politics.^
Through their agency a knowledge of the English constitution
was diffused throughout Europe. The English revolution had'^
already given rise to a sort of theoretical republicanism in France.
About 1650, a breath of liberty had passed over Europe. Coelumj
ipsum respublicaturity it was said in Germany. " At that epoch,"
says a contemporary,^ " there was more controversy concerning the
right of kings than ever before, owing to the case of the English
sovereign. Hence, both in private conversation and in public
speeches, numberless tirades against kings, as though they were
so many tyrants." It was said that Retz had even taken the
trouble to have a narrative of the revolutions in Great Britain
written by one of his own men, Salmonet the Scotchman, ** in
order to teach every one the proper method of procedure."*^
But the horror occasioned by the revolution of 1649 outweighed
the sympathy it inspired, even among the opponents of
royalty. >

That of 1688, on the contrary, gave shape to these aspirations,
and provided them with a programme, while at the same time it
formed at the very doors of France, in London and at the Hague,
two active centres for the diffusion of parliamentarian principles.
In England the refugees openly acted as the champions of
Liberalism in politics. Timid at times on theological questions,

1 Lettres anglaises, vii.

2 Le Blanc, Z^/Zr^j, vol. iii., p. 243 : " We might condemn the satirical disposition
which the refugees contracted among our neighbours, did not the misfortunes which
embittered them render it in a manner excusable ; but we cannot excuse the English
for judging us by what are merely idle declamations."

2 Alexander Morus to Mestrezat, quoted by Rathery, /oc. cit.
^ Cf.z. letter by Mazarin, Rathery, third part.

20 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

they were daring in their praises of the English government.
On this point the Journal Litteraire published at the Hague is
most instructive. The pulpit was no less loud in its praises of
William IIL, nor did it deny itself either threats or the hope of
revenge. " If ever," said Cesar de Missy, in a sermon preached
at the French chapel in the Savoy, ^ " we have been seen sitting
together beside the waters of an unclean Babylon, that Babylon
was France, our step-mother, and not England, which is for us
a second fatherland, and worthy of that beautiful name, a Judaea,
a Jerusalem, a Zion. . . . Happy banks watered by the Thames !
If ever the persecuted religion could compare you in any respect
to Babylon, it would be because from you as from Babylon there
might come forth a Cyrus or a Darius to restore the sanctuaries
w^ich a Nebuchadnezzar has pillaged and overthrown."

(Accordingly the Protestant journalists openly lent their assist-
ance to every scheme of reform which was mooted in France.'
They were in full sympathy with the Polysynodle of the Abbe de
Saint-Pierre. Having neither a Republic nor a Parliament to
which they might appeal, they aroused public opinion on political
questions, and prepared it for the boldest solutions.

It was by them that the first history of English institutions
was written. Gregorio Leti, Larrey, and especially Rapin de
Thoyras obtained a knowledge of the facts from the English
themselves. ** But for the French, and for Rapin de Thoyras,
the English would never have had a general history of their own
nation." ^ In fact, Ra£in^a_E«gli*h--hktary, which appeared, in
eight volumes, at the Hague in 1724, marked an epoch, and long
remained a classic. Rapin, who was a nephew of Pellisson, and had
fought at the battle of the Boyne, had become, by aid of the royal
favour, tutor to the sons of Lord Portland, and had turned his
thankless office to account by observing aristocratic society in Eng-
land from a near standpoint. His book, which is really the history
of the growth of the power of Parliament, was in truth the first
philosophical treatise on British institutions. Translated by
Tindal, nephew of the deist, it aroused the liveliest curiosity

1 Sayous, op. cit., i. 24.

2 Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. iii., p. 71.

THE REFUGEES IN LONDON 21

in England. Nn J}oo k did more to make Europe acquainted
with Gre at Brit ain.^ ,; ' "^

Little by little these efforts of the refugees produced their
effect. The greatness of England, contrasted with the decline
of France, attracted everyone's attention to the Government of'
William of Orange.? It is true that by its politics and its religious
tradition the bulk of the French nation still remained in sympathy
with the Stuarts, and one only needs to glance through the
novels of Prevost — through Cleveland, for example — to see that,
as Michelet phrased it, " France kept a corner of her heart for
little Joas, I mean the Pretender." 2

Gradually, however, " the Jacobite spirit, that unhealthy
passion for intrigue and gallantry," lost ground. Fenelon, who
derived his knowledge of the English Constitution from the
Scotchman Ramsay, was already dreaming of a form of Govern-
ment which should leave " kings all-powerful for good, and
powerless for evil,"^ and Ramsay informs us that ** the English
Constitution, which he believed to possess this merit, pleased
him better than any other." * With the arrival of the Regency
and the conclusion of the English alliance this sympathetic
influence grew stronger. Montesquieu says somewhere that
in the days of his youth ministers " knew no more of England
than a^child six months old,"^ but froni 1715 this ceased to be
true. 1 Even the public began to follow English politics some-
what closely, and to make enquiries concerning the English
theories of civil government which had been popularized by the
refu gees.^ J lh" ceiTuiu miudTlEe^ ideas of Locke were making
their way. JA few years later d'Argenson wrote: ** Fifty years

1 On Rajiin de Thoyras, cf. the judgment of Voltaire ; Lettres anj/aises, end of
Letter xxii. in the edition of 1 734.

2 Histoire de France, vol, xv. , p. 46.

3 It will be observed that the formula was appropriated word for word by Vol-
taire. — Leitres anglaises, viii.

^ Vie de Fenelon,

^ Notes sur r Angleterre {CEuvres completes, ed. Lefevre, 1 839, vol. ii., p. 484).

^ In 1702, at the Hague, Samson translated Algernon Sidney's Discourse on Civil
Government (3 vols. 8vo), which was afterwards read by Rousseau. Scheurleer and
Rousset translated Mrs Manley's Atlantis, a satire upon the authors of the Revolu-
tion of 1688 (1714-16, 3 vols. 8vo), &c.

22 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

ago the public had no curiosity as to political news. . . . Now,
however, English reasonings on politics and on liberty have
crossed the sea, arrd-rrreH^eing adopted here:- on all subjects we
are growing more -philosophical." ^ The Entresol Club was the
meeting-place of anglomaniacs, ^' who like to discuss everything
that goes on " ; there the Dutch gazettes and English news-
papers could be read, and Boiingbroke was to be met. The
attention of Frenchmen was aroused with regard to our neigh-
bours. The_£rQjpaganda of the refugees, aided by circumstances,
wasbeaniig-i«i-it.^ "

III

But the Dutch, English, and Swiss Protestants did more than
merely disseminate a knowledge of English philosophy and the
principles of English politics ; they also made the French public
acquainted with the manners, the science, and the literature of
their neighbours. fThe earliest narratives of travel in England
were the work of Protestants.

Even in the seventeenth century, so early as 1664, Samuel
Sorbiere had expressed himself frankly, indeed too much so,
with regard to the English. The author of a version of
More's Utopia, and the friend, correspondent and translator of
Hobbes, Sorbiere had offended the sensibilities of the English
by a certain expression of opinion on the Comte d'Ulfeld, who
had married an illegitimate daughter of the King of Denmark,
and also by reproaching them " with not being so attached to
their sovereigns as might be desired." In consequence of this
imprudence, the book was suppressed and the author exiled to
Nantes. It also brought upon him the severe censure of
Voltaire. He speaks of *' the late M. Sorbiere, who, after

^ Remarques en lisant^ '^IS^- (Bibliotheque elzevirienne).

2 On the influence of English political ideas in France, see especially Buckle's
History of Civilisation. — Observe that English Freemasonry was introduced into
France during the Regency, and that it rapidly became a centre for the dissemina-
tion of liberal and philosophic principles. The good Abbe Le Blanc mentions a
society of drinkers and freethinkers as existing in 1745 : " Its orgies," he says, " are
its principal mysteries." — (Lettres, vol. i., p. 35.) In 1738, moreover, they had
been condemned by the Pope

PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM

spending no more than three months in London, and knowing
nothing of either the language or the customs of the country,
had thought proper to publish an account which was simply a
[«atire upon a nation of which he was entirely ignorant." ^ Vol-
taire, however, was here no less unjust than inaccurate.^ The
Relation d^un voyage en Angleterre is in no sense a satire ; taking
into account the date of its publication, it was one of the earliest
properly grounded appreciations of the English mind to appear
in the French language. For the most part, indeed, it was
a favourable one. Sorbiere is exceedingly courteous in his
remarks on the nobility of the English character, and finds it
" not unlike that of the ancient Romans." He calls attention
to the wonderful prosperity of a country where " you never
see a countenance which excites your pity, nor a garment
which betrays destitution," and as he passes through the rural
districts ** the hue of the grass seems to him brighter than
elsewhere." He anticipates Taine in his enthusiasm for Eng-
land's gardens and beds of flowers, her parks where " wander
great herds of deer," the luxuriance of her trees, and of the
hedges which intersect the landscape.

He cannot sufficiently admire English -science. He was most
faithful in attending the meetings of the Royal Society, and/
describes its organisation in great "detaTL He associated with
the most prominent physicists, and is loud in praise of the in-
dependence of their thought. He cultivated the acquaintance
of Hobbes, and Wallis showed him over the Oxford colleges.

He passed, it is true, a somewhat hasty judgment upon
Enghsh books, " which contain," he said, ** nothing but dis-
connected rhapsodies." But he makes some exceptions, and
writes : ** I have been very glad to let Frenchmen see that
wit, good sense, and eloquence are to be found everywhere." ^
Of the English drama, in particular, and long before the oft-
quoted Saint-Evremond, he spoke with discrimination. After

1 Preface to the Essai sur la foesie epique^ edn. of 1727. Cf. Bengesco, Bibliografhie
de Voltaire, vol. ii., p. 5.

2 Cf. on Sorbiere's travels, the Journal des Savants ^ ^l^^i Supplement^ p. 432,

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 :
" 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 1 664, and was reprinted two
years later. Misson's Memoires et observations faites par un voyageur
en Angleterre appeared in 1668, and Remarques sur T Angleterre faites
par un voyageur, by Le Sage de la Colombiere, in 1 7 15* 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 1688, and there occupied an import-
ant position in the religious world ; ^ 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 Steele a Petranger, 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. 117.

PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM 25

sented in a connected fashion/ and collected in a slender volume
a certain number of observations, often trivial and sometimes
:oarse, upon English manners.

BuLJt i-*^ rhieflj;_tojlie^ gazettes and newspapers of the refugees
that we must turn to find a rearmme oriiifofinattoii on all matters
relating to England^^ 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.

^^'JotT-itis^true, in Bayle's Nouvelles de la Republique des lettres ;^
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." *

Bayle^sjuccessors responded to this appeal. Le Clerc, a man

1 Le Mecanisme de P esprit, by Le Sage de la Colombiere. Geneva, 1700 (cf. Sayous,
xvHi' Steele, vol. i. , p. 103),

2 In reference to the Dutch Gazettes, cf. Koenen, Histolre des refugies fran^ais 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 presse, by the same
w^riter ; also the two works by Sayous, especially La Litteraturefranfaise a Vetrangerj
vol. ii., p. 27 et seq,

^ 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 CEuvres completes. His successors
were La Roque, Jacques Bernard, Barrin, and Le Clerc.

^ 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 universelky 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." ^ LeCierc 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
treatiseSj_book^onJii§tqry, 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 .^ On the other hand he never
wearies of.piaising,Tn his successive miscellanies,^ jthe commercial,
maritime and political greatness of England.

MoreoFa~ SCholafHian 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 Repuhlique des lettres,^ and, in an indiscriminate fashion,
devoted several numbers to Hobbes, Sherlock, Locke, Boyle, and
W. Temple,^ to the dispute between Jeremy Collier and Dennis
on the moral condition of the stage, to Milton,^ and to Milton's
later poems.'' 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." ^

1 Bibliotheque uni'verselle, vol. xxvi., preface. ^ Bibliotheque choisie, 1 707, vol. xi., 198.

^Bibliotheque universelle et historique, Amsterdam, 1686-93, 26 vols. I2mo; Biblio-
theque choisie, Amsterdam, 1703-13, 27 vols. i2mo; Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne ,
Amsterdam, 1714-27, 26 vols. i2mo. On England see, especially, vol. i. of the
Bibliotheque Universelle, pp. 1 18-120.

* In his Hisioire des ouvrages des savants, Rotterdam, 1687-1709, 24 vols. i2mo.

•^In reference to this, c^^. a passage on the English character, June 1692.

^ July 1698. 7 February 1699. ^ 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.^ 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
especialLyL.Qf_English, literature. ** To a country so prolific of
great men," we read^liT'the Histoire critique de la Repuhlique 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, ^o 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 reaHty, 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 V Europe^
down to the Nouvelle bibliotheque ou Histoire Utteraire des principaux
ecrits qui se publient^^ and including among others P Europe savante,^
and r Histoire Utteraire de f Europe ^^ the series of encyclopaedic

^ Lett re a M, Simon de Troyes.

2 Utrecht, 17x2, vol. i., preface.

2 By La Chapelle, Desmaiseaux,Van Effen, Saint-Hyacinthe. Amsterdam, 1 728-53,
52 vols. i2mo.

* By Chaix, Barbeyrac, d'Argens, La Chapelle, etc. The Hague, 1738-44, 19
vols. i2mo.

'^ By Saint-Hyacinthe, Van Effen and others. The Hague, 1718-20, 12 vols. 8vo.

^ 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
I 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.

xiS'^hen 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 cTceuvre dhm inconnuy 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 Litter aire, which,
founded at the Hague by Sallengre, Sgravesande, and Van
EfFen, attempted to take up the work relinquished by Basnage.^
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 BacolK
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,^ 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,'^ 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.

s Or Histoire litteraire de la Grande- Bretagne, Amsterdam, 1717-28, 15 vols. limo,
■* 17 10- 14, 4 vols. 4to.

30 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 hud founded some new
Memoires litteraires de la Grande Bretagne — mainly scientific, in
spite of their title,^ while Desmaizeaux, Bernard, and others
started the Bibliotheque 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.^ 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." ^

jj ( Repeatedly interrupted, the work of popularization undertaken

:1 by the refugees was resumed again and again with extraordinary

fj tenacity.

;^,,, ^The Bibliotheque britannique ceased to appear in 1 747- 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

^ 1720-24, The Hague, 16 vols. i2mo.
2 Histoire dfun voyage litter aire fait en 1733, p. 1 59.

' Bibliotheque Britannique ou histoire des ouvrages des savants de la Grande- Bretagne, the
Hague, 1733-47, 25 vols. i2mo.

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.^ 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.^ Gibbon, who speaks
of him in most grateful terms,^ 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-
mopoli tanism w as_fi1ainIy.jL.K.irt]iP comm on to the Maty family.

"When Maty retired, several writers disputed the position he
had vacated. De Joncourt established a Nouvelle bibliotheque
anglaise ;^ de Mauve resumed the Journal britannique ^ and con-
tinued it for two years ;^ while in 1 767- 1 768 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."^

Not only, however, was Gijyjon scarcely the man for so thank-

^ 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.

^ Memoires, vol. i. p. 126.

^ The Hague, 1756-57, 3 vols. izmo.

^ I know nothing of this series beyond the mention made of it by Pictet in his own
Bibliotheque britannique (vol. ii., 1 796, pt. v.).

^ Cf. Memoirs of Edivard 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 journaHsts 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.^ 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 EngUsh as soon as they were published. Collins's
Discourse of Freethinking appeared in 17 1 3, and was rendered into
French in 1 7 14. S haftesbury's Letter concerning: Enthunasm^^bz..
lished in 1708, was translated in the same_^£ai^- Very few
works of ^noTerp^^eciatljTof 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.^

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 Bibliotheque fran^ahe of 1737.

2 Bibliotheque raisonnee des ouvrages des savants de l^ Europe, vol. iii., 1 729, p. 402
et seq.

PIONEERS OF COSMOPOLITANISM ^ 33

English themselves paid scarcely any attention to them.^ But
the whole of contemporary literature was conscientiously
analysed, adapted, or translatec). Addison and Steele were
especially favoured: the Spectator was transtsrr^-ia.^ 1714, the
Guardian in 1 725, the Freehol^r in 1 727, the Tatler in 1 734.
Bbyer "translated Addison's Cato in 1 7 14? and the Journal des
Savants contains a notice of it.^ About the same period Pope's
Essay on Criticism found two trans lU Luis orlm itators,^ and both
the Boo5: and its author were mentioned in the^journals.* Swift's
works crossed the channel scarcely less quickly. Several of them
were advertised in the Journal litter air e^ so early as 1713, and the
same review printed portions of Gulliver and The Tale of a Tub,
In 1720 the Biblioth'eque anglais e translated the~~"Tr6posal for
correcting, improving and ascertaining the English Tongue." ^
Van EiFen'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 1 727
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
l72o7THe year after its publication.^

These examples suffice to show the activity of the refugees.
It may be said without hesitation that they were familiar^ ^vith
the whole of contemporary English literature^ and that through

1 Boyer, however, as has been already observed, mentions Shakespeaire In his gram-
mar (1700) together with Ben Jonson, Dryden and Milton, and, moreover, he prefers
Dryden. In 171 6 the Journal litteraire (vol. ix.) devoted an article to Shakespeare,
quoting Hamlet^ Richard III., Henry Fill., and Othello.

'^ 1 71 4, p. 448 et seq.

3 Essaisur la 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 Tr evoux, AwgMst 1717). — Essai sur la critique, imite de I'anglais de M. Pope, by
J. Delage. London, 171 7.

^ Cf. Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne, vol. vii., part i. ; Journal des savants, July 1717;
Bibliotheque anglaise, 1719, part ii.

5 May and June 171 3. ^ Vol. viii., part i.

7 Lenglet Dufresnoy {De fusage des romans) attributes this translation to Saint-
Hyacinthe. The writer of the panegyric on Van EfTen mentioned above, attri-
butes it, from the middle of the first volume onwards, to the latter. The translation
is, besides, anonymous.

34 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

th em Fra nce was made acquainted with all its most important
piodiictionsi 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,^ 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 exploratorP

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.^

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 w?iS 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 Deafbataines, the most active
if not the most il lustri ous rival of the refugees in France before
Voltaire and Pjrevost^. 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. ^ p^rt i., section 18.

3 The first three; see Nouvelles litteraires (the Hague, October 171 6), vol. viii.,
p. 285. Cf. in the same periodical (January 1717) tw^o letters on Cato by Boyer.

* Cf. Desnoiresterres, Voltaire et la societe franfaiscj vol. i., p. 215 Villemain,
Tableau de la litterature au xviiit Steele, 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
{i'J2'j) 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.^ "What is certain is
that the irascible critic, for all his pretensions, had a very
poor knowledge of English,^ 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. Fabbe
Desfontaines."* Lastly, the abbe translated Fielding's Joseph , ^
Andrews, but the result is scarcely more creditable to his'A^^^'/
knowle^e 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 E Dg;lish literature. ^

■•^Vhat they lacked was ability. They were compilers and
abs ^ctors7~Bu F^tTj>y riters. Their part was to rougl^tew^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 'ng cL ' s&aiy -to
say7smce it has too often-^^een-^ergotten, that the work of the
latter was rendered possible only by the persevering labour of
the former. ,

1 E. '^\szrA;'L'ST ennemis de Voltaire, p. 49.

2 Cf. Clement, Les cinq annees litteraires, vol. i., p. 61. 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, 19th Nov. 1736, and to
Thieriot, 14th 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, 20th September 1735.)

^ Le Nouveau Gulliver ou Voyage de Jean Gulliver, Jils du Capitaine Gulliver, translated
from an English manuscript by M. I'abbe D. F. Amsterdam, 1730, 2 vols. iimo.
■* Bibliotheque des 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, B^at de Muralt, the
author of the Lettres sur les Anglais et Its Frangais (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 P Histoire de Cleveland — His magazine, La Pour
et Contre (i 732-1 740) : 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,

i*f he did not anticipate, the work of the refugees, and is very
:losely 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

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, i XP
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." ^
And certainly the author of the Lettres^.jmglaisds~ 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 1 734, Muralt's Lettres sur les
Anglais et les Franfais had appeared in 1 725, while the most
important of Prevost's novels, as well as the first volume, at any
rate, of Z^ 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.

** 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." ^

' Voltaire to Horace Walpole, 15th July 1768.

2 On Muralt see the excellent monograph by M. de Greierz : Beat Ludiulg von
Muralt (Frauenfeld, 1888, 8vo) ; an article by M. E. Ritter in the Zeitsckrift fur
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 toEngland,
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, lamenlt the
extravagant errors of that sensible man." ^ '

To these " extravagant errors " we owe certain religious
works, now, deservedly it would seem, forgotten.^

Muralt's reputation, however, rests not on these works hvn
on his Lettres sur les Anglais et les Frangais et sur les voyages,^
frequently reprinted during the eighteenth century, and even
nder 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" mox^^ 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 cfhistoire 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 Nowvelle Helo'ise, vi. 7. Eloisa (published by Hunter, Dublin, 1761), letter 159.

2 Vmstinct di-vin recommande aux hommes, 1727 ; Lettres sur l^ esprit fort , 1728 ; Lettres
fanatiques, 1 739. Muralt also left some fables, and collaborated with Marie

Ruber.

2 (Geneva) 8vo. Possibly the book was on sale as early as 1724. {Cf, Bibliotheque
fratifaisey vol. iv., part ii., pp. 70-82).

MURALT AS PROPAGANDIST 39

led him to withhold his book from publication for conscientious
reasons.^ He was fond of observing, and of recording what he
saw with all tjie 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." ^ 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 waSvj io Frenc h
"levity" about him that he was able, in 1694, to form an
admirable estimate of the English genius, su_ch as had neve£^
before been formed in the Frencli 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 waT^lligty yt ars 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 NouvelUs litieraires at the Hague
(May 1718).

2 Letter IV.

40 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

illusions of th0 eighteenth century. **His mind is French,"
said^S abFe Le Blanc, referring to him, ** but his heart is
English." ^ 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, l^oFman 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 elemenrln
their character. " May we not venture to say that ^afnation
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.^ ** 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
X f)rofesses to despise " genius of an Inferior order," and believes
P> vp^i^ that to clothe common thoughts in beautiful l anguage is to give
p^ -''^us the semblanceot poetry, but nofpoetry itself." Unfortunately
^V^ he has not made it sufficiently clear that the English are more

1 Lettres, vol. i., p. 87. 2 Edition of 1725, p. 55.

^ 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 (Amile, 1. ii. note 26).

MURALT AS PROPAGANDIST 41

truly poets than the classical writers of France.^ Like Saint-/
Evremond he does not go back to the fountain-heads, to Shake-v
speare— though he makes casual mention of him — or to Spenser. I
He confines himself to Ben Jonson, whom he compares and finds
inferior to Moljere, " 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." ^ 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 welLacqu^inted
with-EnglisL-diiimatir Titerftture^- He judges it^_as a nioralist, and (^ .,_>^^
a severe one. It oifends his good sense and his conscience.
" Humour," or, as he calls it, ^'houmourj^ 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 yy
grandeur. ** England is a country of passions and catastrophes.^ y*^ ^
. . . 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 anglaise.

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
rj the English intelligence was widely appreciated during the eigh-
■S^eenth 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 Vtention
to manners by which the intellect may be squandered and im-
poverished. ;. . J There are people among the English ivho 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 fincLtheir_
im aginative 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." ^ Here again, why has he not
^1 i , explained what he meant by means of examples ? Certainly
C, ! ' no one, in 1694, could have given the French nation a more
complete and well-founded opinion on a subject still so new.

Mur^lt's intention was merely to give a sketch. Incomplete
as it was however, his~sketch achieved a^brilliant success. The
book was^ranslated into English ^ and read in Germany.^ But it
was in France, more especially, that the collection of letters
made its way. Never, before Muralt suggested it, had the
qu estion of the intellectual supremacy of England been brought
before the public as a wKoteT^His" presumption in domg 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.

3 See Hirzel's edition of Haller's poems (Frauenfeld, 1882).

MURALT AS PROPAGANDIST 43

greatj and was thought extreme^ His criticism of French
"poUteness" gave offence. "Our author is guilty of a para-
dox," says the Biblioth}que fran^aise^ " when he refuses to hear
of anything but good sense, as though_^od_sen^ejw^rejncoin-
patible with politeness." The Journal des savants devoted two
long articles to "an abstract of the book.^ 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.^ Desfontaines
caught the infection and published an Apologie du caracfere des
Anglais et des Frangais,^ 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, isjiQt, if you please,„a Frenchinan in jisguise, nor a Swiss
*■ spectator'.^; he is a Swiss^a real S wiss, but^ Swiss w ho is
at once both an Englishmaii^nd a Frenchman, that is to say, his x^Ly^ ^
mindJias^ been fonnedT)y intercourse with these two nations.(^>^^^ \
As a SwissTie has both good_sense and simplicity, as an English- j-^

man plenty of deptliji id penetration ; as a Frenc hman animation ]\ .^
and a certain amou nt of subtlety ." The merit of Muralt's mind, t v

1 Vol. iv., part ii., pp. 70-82, and vol. vi., part i., pp. 102-123.

2 August 1726. Cf. Blbliotheque des livres nowoeaux (September, October, and
December 1726); Journal litteraire de la Haye, 1731, vol. xviii., pp. 50 and 240;
Mercure Suisse, 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 30th 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.

* Ou observations sur le livre intitule : Lettres sur les Anglais et les Franfais et sur let
voyages, avec la defense de la sixieme satire de Despreaux et la justijication du bel esprit
franfais [the last two pieces are by Brumoy]. Paris. 1726, i2mo.

^ 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."^

Voltaire was an admirer of Muralt — ** the wise and clever M.
de Muralt," as he calls him once more in the Lettres anglaiiesP- He
certainly made him his guide in his first studies in Englis!\. " M.
de Muralt's letters," wrote one who knew,^ " are highjv_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 j ^uralt , 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 E nglish intellect, and to
s how 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.

\^^.*^Stimulated by Muralt, public curiosity with regard to England
nT} soon found fresh nourishment in the cosmopolitan novels of the
^ [^bbe Prevost.

The abbe had twice soufi:ht ref uge^ inJEagland ; 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. Erp-
ploy^d as secretary or tutor in the house of an English peer, he
seems to have been obliged" tHrougli a "love affanL" to leave
both his ** agreeable position" and the country he had found so
attractive.^

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 re fugees, who, on the occasion of his firstf ^A^
visit, had probably welcomed the unfrocked Benedictine, so rest-^^ \
less-minded andjng^uisrti ve ^ with open afmX* ^ He is^ a shr"ewd y^\ t^
man," wrote Jordan, who saw him in London in 1733, " and has - i^' X,
a knowledge not only of polite literatuxe..but also of theology^ *- .^"[^
history and philosgpliy^- . . I will say nothing of his conduct, p^^ ^)■
nor of a criminal action of which he has been guilty in London.
. . . It is no business of mine."* Whatever this mysterious crime
may have been, Prevost, who was obliged to live in England and
to earn his own living, became jnore-Oim^etelj jynglicised than
any_joj!:ber writer of the eighteent h centu ry. He acquired a
thorpiigh^ 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, Drydjea's
tragedy All for Love. His Histoire des voyages is itself nothing
more than an adaptation of a book by Green,^ 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 V abbe Prevost, by
M. H. Harrisse, p. 150. On the 20th 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. iii., p. 195.
^ Prevost translated Van Loon's History in conjunction with Van Effen.
^ Jordan, Histoire (Pun voyage litteraire fait en 1733, p. 148.
^ A new general collection of voyages 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.^

But, above all, he took a keen interest JiLthe^ountry^in its

customs, laws_and^ lit^ratuxe^ Naturally inquisitive with regard

to foreign nations, he endeavoured to introduce in his earlier

. novels almost every country in Europe. The originality of the

^^>«r- Mermires^unJ^omm^ during his first residence in

Cy"^!^^^\^~\ England, consists not so much in their romantic but disconnected

YJ>^' thread of action, which is constantly hindered by unexpected

J^*^'^- incidents, as in the representation of foreign manners — German^

Spanish or Italian, as^ well as Turkish7 Dutch, andT 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." ^ 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 d^un homme de qualite^ which obtained so
great a success in their day, are quite^pprulinrly 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." ^ And few

1 There is an English letter from Prevost to Thieriot extant (CEuvres de Voltaire^
vol. xxxiii., p. 467).

2 Memoirts (Tun homme de qualite {CEuvres choisietf vol. i., p. 330).

3 Vol. ii., p. 237.

^-J

PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST

writers have laboured so earnestly to^j:emove ** certain , childish
prejudices^comino^n_to_masl:_-mea, but. especially to the French,
which lead them to arrogate to themselves a superiority over
every other nation in the world." ^

England occupies an important pl ace in the Memoir es. First of
all, we have some attractive pictures of nianners^ and custom s j 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.'' ^ Here,
again, is a full account of a journey through England, full of
shrewd and accurate observaFionsZ^n d vivid a s a_picture. The
descriptioiTof 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 jwork 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 appeafedTcTme 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." * He mentions
Shakespeare's Hamlety Dryden's Don Sebastian, Otway's Venice

1 Vol. ii., p. 251. 2 cf. vol. ii., pp. 281, 288, 289, 326.

3 Book. xi. ^ 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 _freej_ jwise, 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--QfJibe:rty^ to begin with. "^W^iair-ar---
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_c_qfiee:LhQuses_are, aa it were, the seat of English liberty." ^
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,
J. ^ii-i-^*\ prudence and happiness as among the English. Love of the
'' public weal, a taste for.practicaLscience, 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

^^^ V Jnheritance." - The English, in short, are " one of the first

nations in the universe."

Then follows a comp arison 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. 293.

2 See M. Morel Fatio's curious study of the vicissitudes of Spanish influence in
France. (^Etudes sur VEspagne. )

" 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 short7the 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."!

But if such be the case, whence this people's evil reputation i
It is due, in the first place, to their bloodj: 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 "—-tntndivi^nt nrhp Fif^nnnnc — they
are less known, because less seen. ** People seldom travel
England," or so at least J PreVost assures us, and consequently
they form incorrect conceptions of its inhabitants. Y^umust
know them in their own country. Then ^jerhaps, like the^-«-^^-''^^t
author "or]V}anon"Eescaut, you will desire to see " all who are fj^ \
dear to you " resemble._the English-. f>^^\

Here the author's feelings are aroused. He is carried away by
enthusiasm, and he too exclaims, O fortunatos 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 ? Asr. » t>»>A-J^^^
regards the aspect of nature, their summer is not excessive iny^^' >
point of heat, nor is the cold of their winter extreme. Their ( I ^^~^
soil produces in abundance everything they require for their v- ^ ^
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"lhe^injusfice and violence of those who hold the reins

^ Vol. ii., pp. 247-252.
D

so INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

of power : every citizen is fully acquainted with his own rights ;
the people Eaye 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 reli giou s
matters." They have recognised that every form of compulsion
is a violation of the spirit of the Gospel. They know that Jthe^
human heart is_tM_^ngdoin 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 childr^jri^^^^
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 ? " ^

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 Salenj;iun or marvellous Ile-de-France .'*
And is it not true that iii 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, on Histoire
de Monsieur Cleveland, fils 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 deemieJ it
needful to exhibit them in action, and this is the main object of
these six large volumes, wherein a w hole chapter of the histo ry
,of England under Cromwel l__and jCharle s II. is in a _ manner

1 Vol. ii., pp. 379-381.

2 Cf, The Lettres de Mentor a unjeune seigneur. London [Paris], 1764, i2mo. 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

novelized. The hero of the book, the philosopher Cleveland, is
a scrft 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.^

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 diffusio n of Eng lish thought in.
France : he had founded Le Po ur et Contre^ There was novelty
in the undertaking; in the words of^revost's biographer, it
" bore no resemblance to the journals of the period." ^ 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.*
The public, whom Prevost had intended to mislead, was not to
be deceived. He was obliged to resume the pen/ and did

^ Book vii. Cf. Brunetiere, Etude sur Prevost.

2 Le Pour et Contre was issued from 1733 to 1740, and comprises 20 volumes.

^ Cf. The Essai sur la vie de Vabbe Prevost, prefixed to the (Euvres choisies.

^ Editor of Boileau, Chaulieu and Malherbe, and author of an Abrege chronologique
de VH'utoire de L'ltalie.

° To satisfy his readers Provost 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 wji
stand the influence of his fellow-journalists.^

However this may have been, the success of his mi^^ellany
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.^ This treacherous insinuation was
apparently without foundation.^ The public remained faithful
to Prevost.*

■\iLji,e 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

^ Btbliothequefranfaise, vol. xxix., p. 155.

2 Observations sur les ecrits modernes, 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.).

* Cf. the Mercure for December 1733, October 1735, etc.

PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST 53

of the journalist's professional virtues, Prevost majL-daim^a:
honoureH^ "place in the ^ nnals^p f mndern perindiral . lit p ratnr e.
-The^nfofination accumulated in his magazine is of the utmost
variety. He~forgets neither fashions, sports, theatres, nor wit
an^^iiumour; 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 divisibihty of matter and its existence, and on
the nature of the souls of the lower animals, of man, and of
superior intelligences." ^ 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. maUers of trifling, jiUet£St^"^e_^oes_j]^^jos£_sig.hl^
his m ain obj ect. " An entirely original feature of this paper

1 Vol. ii., p. 38. 2 Vol. xiii., p. 169.

54 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

I will be the publication, in each issue, of some special fact re-
./spectingjb.e-genius of the English, the curiosities of London
Land 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." ^ Is not London, in fact,
"a point of convergence, as it were, for all the wonders and
curiosities the world contains "^ — 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." ^ The method proved highly effective. He himself
states that he has an advantage over his competitors "in bejj
able to give to the subject of his articles, and even-^o'Xsingle
thought, a novelty of expression, an English /Cmouring, if the
words be allowed, which cannot fail to hit the taste of the
French." * 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 poUtical 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 th^t th*^ F^^"^h h?^^ _every th ing to learn. While
Moliere is being played in London, and also Bfuius aild Zaire ^
while French novels are being read and plundered, Frenchmeji

1 Vol. i., pp. 10- 1 1. ^ Vol. iii., p. 50.

3 Vol. viii., p. 325. * Vol. iii., p. 50.

PREVOST AS PROPAGANDIST $$

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." ^ 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 reacLeyeJi by the EngUsh themselves,
receive no more than a passing allusion>_as_curioslties. But in
compensation he makes all the more of Shakespear (sic,),^ 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 y
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,^ 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 JDryden
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, Ber k eley, and oth ers —
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. 128. ^ Nqs. 62, 82, and 96-101.

sy\

S6 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

V amour confident de lui-meme ^ ; a review of Pope's letters ; an
abstract of Glover's Leonidas, a " masterpiece of EngRsE poetry,"
which was shortly afterwards translated ; some scenes froni
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 j>ursuit of his calling
as literal^ -Cbxoaicler. He kept ppinipnLjiLJLJState of healthy
activity. He established a connection between Paris and London.
When his journal ceased to appear it was keenly regretted.
Prevost ever mapped out a programme of life — and^tbis-i^ex-
tremely doubtful — he could say, when he iaid down his pen,
that the first part of his task was accomplished. Following
Muralt, and_,anticipating, -4>y- a-bFief iat^rvaly-VGltaire, , Ke ha3~
naturalized the taste for English literature in France. j^JBut 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
RichardsonT^

III

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
Lettx£.s phi In rnphiques of Vokake.—

In every respect the Lettres philosophiques or anglaises — for
Voltaire made use of both titles — is a work of tTTelSrst 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 aipon
politi qal ins titutions ; thence, also, and above all, the rise of that
new— spiri t, 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-_

^ No8. 109 et seq. ^ Vol. xiii.

VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST t"" 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 .SlXQ. 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 contemjapraryLevidencg'^,
**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." 1 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 pubhc. 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 EngHsh 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,^
" 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 EnglandygS&a turning-point in his^ hfe. Hithejto_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, i2tK August 1737. Cf. also his letter of 2nd January 1723 to the
same person. He had been introduced to Bolingbroke in 17 19, 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." ^

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 ; 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^pitre a

Uranie, and many other unanswerable arguments which show

clearly that even before 1 7 26 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 Vlndiscret. 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 :

i** Our priests are not what a foolish populace supposes ; their

. -. (learning rests on the foundation of our credulity." ^ *' Let us

^.X \;^trust in ourselves alone," was his conclusion ; " let us view

^ jC. everything with our own eyes ; 'tis they are our tripods, our

;• >i ' Jj oracles, our gods." ^ Before ever he set foot in England he

K^r^;/^ 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." ^ Finally, before

he fled from M. de Rohan-Chabot, he had already found mental

^ Bibliothequefranfahe, on Histoire littlraire 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 {U Eglise et les philosophes au xviii^ siecle^.

3 (Edipe, iv. i. 4 Ibid., ii. i.

■5 Quoted by M. Brunetiere, Revue des Deux Mondes, ist November 1890.

VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 59

sustenance in Bajle^sJ^jn£mnparahIe.didiQnary,'' as Locke calls
it,i the arsenal whence all the sr eptics of the eig hteenth century,
English anrl_£rench aUke, had taken . their weap€HW. The
Dictionnaire critique had twice been translated into English, and
even sold in parts to encourage its circulation,^ and Toland,
Collins, Tindal and others, not to mention Bernard de Mandeville,
had borrowed unsparingly from " the greatest dialectician who
ever wrote." ^

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 hasiHade-iip-his mind
either to have it in earnest or to have none at all, and that

^ Cf. Le Clerc, in the Bibliotheque ancienne et moderne, vol. xiii., p. 458.

^ Desfontaines, Lettre (Tune dame anglaise, at the end of the translation of Fielding's
Joseph Andrews. ConcnT.ing English translations of Bayle, cf, Histoire des outrages
des savants, June 1 709, p. 284 ; Bibliotheque btitannique, 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.

^ Voltaire, Poeme sur Lisbonne, Preface.

6o INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

England, in distinction from other countries, contains no

hypocrites." ^ In France, liberty of thought, however widely

spread, was not, as in_England, a £an_of_thejiational spirit j it ,

j shrank from displaying itself openly and did not adopt the same /

/ aggressive attitude. In this respect, therefore, Voltaire foun(i

/ England in advance of his native country. Similarly, he

\ discovered in English books a new and complete philosopny,

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,^ but theyiwere not read beyond the

limits of a very small circle. Voltaire absorbed the substance of

them» and transmitted llLto, the public in general. We find the

author of CEdipe and the Henriade writing a Traite de metaphysique,

which is an abridgment of Locke, and publishing Element s^e la

philo Sophie de iV<?w^^«. _ JjLthis sense, then, England gave Voltaire,

the~wisely and worldly-minded scepticTan entirely fresh^char-

acter^^::th at of a philosopher . His unbelief deriv ed suSsta nce

Trom English_philosophy. In the phrase ot iVLF'John Morley,

" Voltaire left France a poet, he returned to it a sage." ^

What is certain is that during the three years, or thereabouts,
which he spent in England, he gave evidence of remarkable
activity of mind.* Through the agency of Bolingbroke, the
first to receive him as his guest, and also of BubbJUodiag-

^ Lettre sur les Anglais et les Franfais, p. i6.

2 Tabaraud, Histoire du phiiosophisme anglais, vol. ii., p. 338.

3 Voltaire^ p. 58. See Taine, Litterature 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, Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii. ; Tabaraud, Histoire du phiiosophisme
anglais ; and the unknown author of the Preservatif contre ranglomanie (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 30th
May 1726 to February or March 1729.

VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 6i

-ton and Falkener, the doors alike of Tory, Whig and middle-
class society: _were~al once opened to admit him. Of the Eng-
lish political world — which treated him, moreover, in princely
fashion by subscribing ^^2000 towards the Henriade'^ — 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 w orld, Voltaire also associated much
with men of science. He attended_^Jewtoxi'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
I all English no ve lties. Meanwhile'lTr attended the meetings of
the Royal Society, of which he was afterwards elected a member,
and acquired a knowledge o f the latest advances in science. He
rendered himself familiar with religious and philosophical con-
troversies, obtained information concerning the Quakers, and
visited Andre.w.JPitt 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, Till otson» 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 ;^6ooo 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.^ He knew^^wift fairly-
well, and spent three months with him at Lord Peterb_orougli*s
house : when Swift thought of visiting France, Voltaire offered
him a letter of introduction to M. de Morville, while Swift, oi
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."^ He went
much to the theatre, witnessed performances of_ShakWpeare,
which filled him " with ecstasy," * became friendly with CoUey
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.^

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 ^
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.^

And, lastly, hejn ade himself fan iih'ar with th^ language. He

^ Villemain (Tableau de la litterature du xviii^ Steele^ 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, of. cit., pp. 86-90).

2 Bengesco, Bibliographie de Voltaire, vol. ii., p. 4.

^ Ballantyne, p. 99. * Discours sur la tragedie.

5 Leitres anglaises, edn. of 1734s letter xix. Cf Johnson, Life of Congreve.

^ 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.i 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.^ 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 .^ On the other hand
he wrote letters in English to his friends, especially to Thieriot,
and composed verses in the language.*

It was in English that he wrote the first act of Brutus ^ and
Charles XlIS* 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 Essai sur
les guerres civiles de France and the Essai sur la poes'ie epique, ** a
mis-shapen English embryo" which he afterwards recast in a
French form,^ — both pieces being so correct and even elegantly
written that a good judge has proposed to include Voltaire
among the number of English classics.^

Throughout his life Voltaire retained his liking for the lan^
guage, which he never altogether mastered, though he wasf
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 poesie epique, reprinted by Bengesco
(vol. ii., p. 5).

^ Lettres tPun voyageur anglais^ xxv.
4 These will be found in Ballantyne, pp. 68-69.

"5 Goldsmith gives a fragment of this earliest version (^V>{j, ed. Cunningham,
vol. iv., p. 20).

8 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 dotvn to Milton^ by M. de
Voltaire. London, 1727, 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
Ferney in 1 765, found him perfectly familiar with English oaths.^

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.^ 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 1 729, 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 h ej was conce irnffd ^"d IrrifafpH at th^J"^"*^"^^
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, a fter 1 7 2 0. he devoted— hifiwelf to
praising the 'English is only too well known. His«^^|forts, it is

1 Cf. A. Ballantyne, p. 50 <rf seq.

2 Voltairomanie, pp. 26, 27 and 46. Memoires, vol. iii., p. 362. Cf. also Baretti,
in his letter to Voltaire concerning Shakespeare.

VOLTAIRE AS PROPAGANDIST 6s

true-^were not entirely disinterested : ** What ! Is England the
only land in which~~ifiortals 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." ^ '

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." ^

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 JLettrxs-Miighijes.

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 1732.^ 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>TTilIoEsQn^_^lilton, Boyle and others^Tt was lioTTliSW-
ever, until he had returned to I'lance that lie carried out his
-deftigc. The framework was ready to haiKT, in ttre-ietteM-he
had addressed to Thieriot, at the latter's request, concerning the ,
manners and customs of the country.^ They were simply
njodified^^omp^leted^andji^^ instri ct sequen ce.

1 Zjines on the death of Mil e, Le Coiivreur, '731' '■^ ist May I731.

* 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.

•* 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 {Bibliographie , vol. ii,, p. 5).

^ Cf. Bengesco, vol. ii., p. 12, and Voltaire to Cideville, 15th December 173X.

66 INFLUiENCE 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 editio n w as brought out in London, during August
1723. Prevost assures us that it met with great success.^
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.^ In spite
of what Voltaire has said, it does not materially differ from the
English one.^

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-4nore xiontroversy.

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.

It would be a waste of time to attempt to prove that
Voltaire's ill-feeling perverted his judgment. The-JwcliokL of
the e arlier parl _of Jii&-~.bQQk is si mply a satire . The four
letters on the Quakers are a^c^arse_attark 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.

3 To Cideville, 4th January 1732.

VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 67

His comm ones t_error is that of exaggerating characteristics.
He is well enough aware tTiat 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,^ and to another that, while the Lettres might be
" amusing " reading, '* it was a question-wliether 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 s_ubiect of the religious condition of England, and
upon toler ation and liberty~oF tTiougEt, there are palpable and
deliberate exaggerations. But there are exaggerations also on
less burning topics : on com merce, f or instance, and the,j:ir-
cumstances of men of letters.

If we may believe Voltaire, there is nothing. jnore enviable
than the condition of literary men in this land, of freedom. A
sweet spiriT ofTrotHeHiood^Teigns 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 ;^8ooo
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

^ Jordan, Histoire (fun voyage I'ltteraire fait en 1733, p. 1 8 6.
2 Pour et Contre, Nos. xi., xii., and xiii.

68 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

night in the streets ; that Johnson, at the beginning of his
career, once went forty-eight hours without food ; in short that
the poet painted by Hogarth, living in a miserable lodging,
forced to wear his dressing-gown while his wife mends his only
pair of breeches, was a figure not unknown to reality.^ In the
years between 1726 and 1729, the good times when Priors were
ambassadors and Addisons ministers were past and done with.
This Voltaire knew, yet he has not mentioned it.

The reasons are that he is before all things a _pamphleteer« and
that he is writing a satire. A good critic ^ has reproached him
with having ~sp"oken~ very unjustly of English institutions, with
having made no effort to understand the machinery of English
government, and with having failed to perceive the relation
between that government and the genius of the race. This is to
forget that Voltaije-ia . rather satirizing his own country than ^
writing a historical study.

He was neither very accurate nor y£Ty^scrupulc?ii.s in speaking
of Englishliterature^ But "since he was better acquainted with ;
it than with English politics, and not only had a very sincere :
admiration for it, but keenly appreciated the pleasure of making
it known to his fellow-countrymen, it happens that the literary
portion of the book is the best even to-day.

It is certainly ^too^discursive. Voltaire was a ^ rapid wr iter.
He says that Shakespeare was living two centuries before 1734.
He takes a scene in Venice Preserved, which is a satire upon
Shaftesbury, for a simple piece of comedy — merely from want
of careful reading. In a picture of contemporary literature he
forgets to mention The spectator, which first appeared in lyil, .
Robinson Crusoe, which belongs to 1719, and Thomson's Seasons^.^
the first canto of which appeared in the year of his arrival in
England. He scarcely mentions Gulliver, and, in the first edition,
he did not even make any allusion to the Essay on Man, which
was published in 173 1*

Hence it follows that the picture is___a£iiQ. usly inco mplete.
Worse still, it is also, seriously and wil fully in accarate^ What

1 Beljame, Le public et les hommes de lettres, pp. 364-377.

2 Mr John Morley in his fine study on Voltaire.

VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 6<)

are we to say, for example, of this pretended translation — this
thoroughly " philosophical " version of Hamlefs soliloquy :

On nous menace, on dit que cette courte vie
De tourments kernels est aussitot suivie.
O mort 1 moment fatal I affreuse eternite /
Tout coeur a ton nom seul se glace epouvante.
Eh ! qui pourrait sans toi supporter cette vie,
De nos pretres menteurs benir V hypocrisie ? ^

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 Tartuffe ? *' 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 ?

TJjereis an art of quotation which is itself a process of satire ;
and of this art VoIFajrejwas a master. irTie~desires~R5~pTOve
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 f 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
^ CEuvres,ed. Molandj vol. xxii., p. 151.

70 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

so long that they reached even the father, ^^ ^ 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,^ by the side of theologians like Warburton and
Tillotson.

If, therefore, we set aside such o f Voltaire^s opinio ns on_
English literatur e as ma y have been prompted Jby:_wilful mis-,
^onception^andbad faitE^the r esguF^o Flmpartial and com-
prehensive criticisinls 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 I
Voltaire's keen and enquiring mind was genuinely critical. y

His early taste in English literature was for the poets_of_the
RestorationT~Rochestei7"Wanef7^orset, and Roscommon, all of
whom he^ quotes. Though v^:;iYssx^^prrar^i2NG\v[, 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 uj) history and life into colossal caricat ures — an
art which implies much individuality, however inferior it may
be in type — had evidently a great attra ction for Volt aire. He
comes 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, 13th 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 jK

spirit, good or bad, which reigns in this work, would still ^U>^'**t!P'
be very amusing."^ In comparison with such a masterpiece '
the French Menippe an 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- ^""^iX^
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'^chappa de son poulailler,
Avec son sabre et I'Evangile.^

In the same way he^relishei th£_^pix:y and. cynical .En^glis^^
comed y of the Restorat ion. He liked its blunt naturalness, and
the almost impudent fidelity with which Jt 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 En glish dram a-was. no school_of all the virtues. It had
to be acknowledged, however, that iTwas " the schooL ofjarit
and of good coj oedy." Classical by the higher side^ of his ^ind,
Voltaire always had ^ a "sec reTlondness 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. (Bohn's Library edn., p. 4. )

Voltaire was always fond of Hudibras \ cf. Nichols, Illustrations of the eighteenth
century^ vol. iii., 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 favour," and whose humour
Voltaire was iine 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-apponl to all nationalities"; we may~fgther 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
Shakes£eare appears to us " unnatural," it is because his style
is " too close an imitation of the Hebrew writers, who are full

(of Asiatic inflation." V©itaire_5Kas__undoubtedly the^rst French
cntic~4a.-poiftUxmt-Xhis~affinityJi£n^^
the gen ius of th e JBible— -the chief_of_Engllsh 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-

^ Essai^sur la poesie epique^ chap, i.

VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 73

mens. The T.pttrpx philnrnphigufx^ we must repeat, are not a
synopsis of English literature : any one who looked to find in
them a sketch ot that literature in 1730 would be greatly
disappointed. But by way of compensation they created__the
^jdfisire- to be acgomnt ^ with it ^-am Lthat was th e jnain^^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,^ " 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 e poch i n the ^V*
historyu2£ criticism. T^rfprr p^dnhythe refugee s , aodjl UgfttlH
by Muralt and Prevost, opinion was„definitely won over by
Voltaire. The ten years which followed the publication of
the Lettres assured the success oFEnglish literature in France.
Four years later, J. B. Rousseau recognised with regret thei\
progress of " this miserable English spirit, which has insinu-ll
ated itself into our mid^st" during ihepasT^TweM^^
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.^ Five years later, however, Goujet declares
that *nEngirsh poetry is_ scarcely less known to-day than that of

1 Bibliotheque britannique, 1733, vol. ii., pp. iZi-2.

2 Letter to Louis Racine, Brussels, i8th May 1738.

2 Les fr'tncipes de la morale et du gout, tn^nslated from the English of Mr Pope.
Paris, 1737, 8vo, p. xxiii.

74 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

the Italians or the Spaniards."^ The Memoires de Trevoux

^^ state that France had become "a very good friend to English

t * ' literature," and express concern at the fact.^ The Correspondance

Utter aire remarks that the vogue of translations from English " is

lasting longer than such fashions usually last in this country." ^

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 als the eq ual

_ of ours in genius, its superior in power, and its inferior only

^ in subtlety and elegance." ^ 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 tl;at curiosity with regard to English

il works had been th oroug Hly {^rnnspH^ it reni^ned t o recommend

1 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.
B ooks are li ke "the fire on o ur hearth s." We obtain kindling
Y from our neighbours, lightour own fire with it, hand it on
V J:o others, and it becomes common pro^exty. The fortunate ones
K^. are those who manage to borrow in season ! Sinc^ therefore'fhe

r ^ Bibliotheque fratifaise, vol. viL, 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, 1741, 4to.

2 October 1749. Cf. V Esprit des journalistes de Trevoux, Paris, 1 771, 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 I St August 1753.

* Journal etranger, September 1 75 5, p. 4. See also La Harpe, Cours de litterature,
vol. iii., p. 208.

VALUE OF VOLTAIRE'S WORK 75

English have profited largely by works in the French language,
** we, who have l ent to them, oughJLla borrow from them in our
turn."^

Coming, as it did . at.,,the^right.j]iioment, 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.

(^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." ^ In
France the invasion of English literature took place more slowly.
Nevertheless, between 1700 and 1760, approximately speaking,
a few of those who aspirexi-to^ducate the masses were promoting

^ Manuscript letter preserved in the Zurich Library and quoted by M. de Greierz,
in his Muralt.
76

DECLINE OF PATRIOTISM 77

the cross-fer tilization o f 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 hasHbeen justly -
said, ** was neither Christian nor French." ^ 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, andy
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." ^ 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." ^

The author of a Petit catechisme politique des Anglais, par de-
mandes et par reponses,'^ 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

^ E. Faguet, xviii^ siede, preface.

2 Les Sauvages de V Europe. Berlin, 1750. (See the Journal encyclopedique, 1st June
1764.)

3 D'Arnauld, A la Nation, 1762.

* 1756. {Journal encyclopedique, September 1756). See also the Adresse a la nation
anglaise, a patriotic poem, by a citizen, Paris, 1757, i2mo: "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 patriotisme national chez les 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
C his nation's glory illumined every Englishman, and he was always
\ supposed to be a patriot and a philosopher born." ^ ** 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 a Bordeaux :
.^'"Courage and honour knit nations together, and two peoples
I equal in virtue and intelligence throw down the barriers their
xiecrees have raised, that they may be for ever friends."^ 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.
/ y We _must therefore note^ as one of the causes which assisted
^ ."^he diffusion of anglomania, tjie decline of th e patriotic idea.

By a strange inconsistency, tl ielYJrtu ^s whlcK^THe French
admired in their neighbours were just those in which they them-
selves were most'jdeficientT They envied the patriotism of the
English, with all its fierceness and brutality.* Even in 1728,
Marivaux expr"essed~his-a*tofM^ment at these inconsistencies in a

^ Memoires, ch. xv. 2 Lettres d'un voyageur 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 encyclopedtque 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.)

* 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 ; 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 5 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" ^ — the cosmopolitan.

To be a ci tizenV ^j^o£..eYery'^arioa»!l not tq^ belong_ t_o_one's .
"native country_!!=zrdiis_--Was— th£~dream -of^-^i^refic^ -writers in
the eighteenth century, and that is why -**-the silly nonsense
which comes from a dis^rxce-'-' met ^ith such success. Is it not
a mark of the"'* philosopher " to possess just this absolute de-

1 V Indigent philosopher 5th No. (1728).

8o COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE

^ /tachment from that national bond which may very well be one
"No/ 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 essehtTaT chliractenstics. Now that which dis-
■" tmguisherTratiDTTS~from-one another, rhat 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. Tnie_j[elativity pf_the
former is opposed to the universality of the latter. And, by a
natural consequence, as the influence o f science increases, the
power of art wane.s.

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 Steele,
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 17 1 1 Boileau, and in 17 15 Fenelon 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, Gresset and Mably in
1709, Rousseau in 1 712, Diderot and Raynal in 17 13, 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 c onnec ting 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 1707 ; the
Politique tiree de Vi.criture Sainte, in 1 709 ; the Memoires of Retz,
in 17175 the Dialogues sur P eloquence de la chaire, in 17^8 ;
followed by the Traite de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-meme
(1722), the Memoires of Mme. de Motteville (1723), the Lettres

DECLINE OF PATRIOTISM 8i

of Mme. de Sevigne (1726), the Elevations sur les Mysteres and
the Traite de la concupiscence (1727 and f73l). 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 a dvent of a new l iterature for
jvJTJrh fhp wrnn?r^QfJE nglishme n provid £d--ar-ti^ saTisfarfion.

For if, by a sort of posthumous vitaHty, 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.
CEdipe did not make its appearance miAf^lS, nor the Lettres
persanes until 1 72 1. 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 1 709, and even this piece, so far as form
was concerned, remained entirely in accordance with tradition.

In. histo ry likewise, as also in moral and political philosophy,
these years were unproductive. ATTew 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, Gi^^^,_began to appear in 1 7 15' 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

82 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE

any rate in arousing attention with respect to it. T hat lite rajjire
was destined gradually to become the refuge of all who were
disgustedSl5~TKeimr f€ifflee«-t7f ^e"l:^^ ; and

all that the latter was to lose the literature of England was
destined to gain.

Angther-influence- which prepared the way for the success of
English works in France was the scientific and philosophical
^piritT" " "^

Even in the s event eenth century^^jigland 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." ^ 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." ^ " 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." ^ 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." *
\^ 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"^ — the name of Bacon, symbolized all the aspirations then
beginning to be aroused by the empirical sciences, and afterwards
so magnificently realised by NewtonT Ts it any wonder that the
-jn.an who spoke so eloquently^fprogress, and so contemptuously

1 30th March 1 665.

2 Lettres de Chapelain, ed. Tamizey de Larroque, vol. ii., p. 393.

' CEuvres, 17^5, vol. ii., p. 365. The passage was written in 1676.

4 Le Renard anglais, published in 1694.

' Garat, Mmoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 45.

THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 83

of tradition, who considered that " we ought to look, not to
the daf^nes^ 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." 1 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-Tevrrat^oT the human intellect
since ancient times. It did more for the glory of^jlie English
geni us th an all the Addisons and— the Popes together. The
expe rimen tal 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." ^

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," ^ 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 EngHsh: 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

^ Discours preliminaire de V Encyclopedie.

'^ Letter to Louis Tronchin, Sayous, La litterature fran^aise aPetranger, vol. ii., p. 41.

^ Discours sur la Figure des astres, 1 732. Cf. d'Alembert, Discours preliminaire.

* The Optics was translated by Coste in 1722. The Eloge of Newton, by Fon-
tenelle, dates from 1727. The Elements de la philosophic de Newton, 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." ^

I And so the homag e pa id-JiL English science, by turning_all
eyes upon the country of Newton^^preceded liid prepared the
way for the wors hip" of Sh akespeare and-^KSSrdson. ^ns"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 superi ority of art to science^ jForgot both ]ts
admiratioiTfor 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 soHd, 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,^irit of t he eighteenthx enLur^: contempt
ifor all needless specuTation^ absolute indifference to problems,
the solution of which does not directly "affect our happiness in
this worldr,"exctT Jsive" concern with physical or -moral: comfbr-t.
Our busmess 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 i
century, to Pascal and Descartes, it had seemed that the object '\

1 Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. i., p. 63.

2 Locke, De Arte Medica, Shaftesbury papers, series viii., No. 2.

THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT

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'! y^
existence. It maintained that there were ingenious yet useless |
truths which, like stars *' too remote from our sphere, afford usj
no light." ^ 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." ^

Such _a conce ption as this carries with it a contempt for
everything Jn_. the — nature of mere amusement, intellectual
diversion, or superiluousthought. Poetry becomes ** ingenious
nonsense." The rationalism of a Locke will tolerate~itterature
only "as a modest clothing for ideas. The anglomaniacs, who,
according to Voltaire, profess a great respect^Fot^^-^i-the^our
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.^
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 a/iglaises, xxiv.

2 TAe Rambler^ No. xxiv.

Garat, Memoir es sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 48.

86 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE

soul," ^ and thus provided a notable example of what modexn-
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

I "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," ^ 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." ^

France, in short, to borrow once more the actual language of
contemporary writers, ^^ owes to England the great revolution ivhich
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

^ D'Alembert, Discours preliminaire.

2 Locke's Journals, as quoted in The Life of John Locke, ivith 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.

^ U'Alembert, Discours preliminaire.

ROUSSEAU— THE MAN FOR THE HOUR 87

everything which can contribute to render peoples more happy
and States more flourishing." ^

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,' tTieTegttlftFity: of their
scientific and philosophical intercourse had accustomed thiem
to a kind of7 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, ConsoHdated
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 ^

y
m

Such was the negative influence, if one may say so, of the
English mind upon France, at the time immediately following the —
publication ot the Lettres philosophiques. Kb great literary work
had' as yet achieved a' decisrveTconquest 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." ^ The abbe
Le Blanc complained that a contempt, for which there was no

1 Journal encT/clopedique, 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 15th September 1763. Cf. to Mme. du Deffand, 17th September 1757.
^ Lettres sur quelques ecrits de ce temps ^ vol. ii., p. 134-

88 COSMOPOLITAN TENDENCIES IN FRANCE

justification, had given place to a " blind prepossession," and
havTiTg"gtvgTrev idcncc of t he adv ance of aug lomania, he expressed
the hope that tHe worship of new gods might not cause the old
ones to be forgotten.^

France having thus become acquainted with England — the two
nations having been brought into contact, it merel}^ remained
to infuse the French mind with all th at3;asJ3je£tJjiJtbgjninds_of
^ng]islim^ftr-or^-i^-the-exp^res&iQJi_be_ preferred ,_J:Q_iiiiile_J:he_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. iii., p. 227.

^3Booft It

JEAlsl-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND ENGLISH
LITERATURE

Chapter I

ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

I. Origins of Rousseau's genius : what it owes to Geneva, and tiirough 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 Helo'ise — Milord Bomston, or the Englishman —
Rousseau's wor k reflects t he anglomania of the age.

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 Rous seau — swept by the current of
life, as he was in early youth, far away from his native town —
had he not himself d\y£lJL-U pon the idea with sa tisfaction.
Voltaire irreverently said of Geneva that it imitated England as
the frog imitated the ox : it was the Gille of the English
nation.^ 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 y»

1 Quoted by Ballantyne, of. cit., p. 283. Letter to George Keate.

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." ^ Some part, therefore,
of their gravity:, their Griindlichkeit, 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 ; 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 EngHsh 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 formeH~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 ^imiJajityL of
genius an4_religion, this intercourse became, in the eighteenth
century, still more close. Dehating_dubs were formed at
Geneva, with a membership half Genevan, half English.^
Sismondi informs us that the Geagvanswrote in French, but
" read and thought in English," and Napoleorrfound~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 intimite"tEan"'3irring-tl TC--eighteettth century.

^' T^ouvelle Helo't'se, vi. 5.

2 Two Casaubons became church dignitaries, while four men of the name of
Provost 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 Rochemonty p. 61, See also Sismondi, Con-
siderations sur Geneve dans ses rapports avec V Angleterre el les Etats 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, tl3£^j::eatr.e-xi£_^
cosmopolitan^ te ndenci es in Europe," that Marie- AugusTe and
Charles Pictet first issued the Bibliotheguebntannique, the true
successor to the coainopolitan reviews established by the
refugeeSj_andjdesignedy according to the intention oF its original
editors^_to_s^read-£ftg4kh-ideas wherever the French tongue
was spoken.^

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 EngHsh 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 habit s^ 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 / {y"
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

^ Concerning the establishment of this periodical see M. Pictet's book, Pidei de
Rochemont (Georg, 1892, 8vo, p. 53 et seq.). 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."

ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

p^ ^

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." ^ 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
esult of an exaggerated sociability, which weakens the soul's
brces of resistance, destroys its capacity for investigation and
personal conviction, and kills in it the worship of the ideal." ^
Too sociable and trained to too strict a uniformity, the French
n^ind 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 venera tion for ** the current coin of the ,
intellectual realm."

The expresyioh 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_dig nity o f the jndividual. It
was to the individMFconsciousness 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. 220.)

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." ^
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,^ 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.^

But it is none the less true that .JRousseau, though of French
extraction, o nly half bd f>ngs to France. Foreign critics commonly
look upon him as the most Gernian of Frenchmen, if not indeed as
the most English. Hp wns, af an y rate, a cosm opolitan. 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
rlas^ii^al literat ure of the French, aJlieratuxe not only essentially
sociable in charac ter, but finding in society at once the bond of

1 See H. F. Amiel, in the interesting volume entitled Rousseau juge par Us Genevois
J'aujourd'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^
15th March 1895.

3 Nouvelle Helotse, vi. 7. Saint-Preux laments the " aberrations " of Muralt, who
had become a pietist and persuades Julie not to read the Instinct divin. 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." ^

Now it is the fir^t_p^rson that Rousseau employs, never the
'^ I third. No genius was ever more individual, morejlyrical, and
therefore less French — in the sense in^which the classic authors
of the language understood the word. The Nouvelle HeJotse, 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." ^ The
same might be said of most of his books : the y 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 iFby^is jdeep]je nse' oF ^* in ward dignity," by his
love of detail and his close observation of trifles,~by^hrs love of
that " home~" which he so passionately~^tolledpTnd by his
yearnings ^t^r nature— the nature whicET^omson had dis-
covered thirty years before him ! Prone to mo rbid j eyelation 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 ^omRntirism^was
^ ** a kind of rebellion against the spirit of a race steeped in the

ly^ LatnT'traditionT' ^ wKcr~was itThaF^dded to it not only the fer-

1 Nouvelle Helohe, ii. I7. ^ De la litterature^ i. 15.

^ F. Brunetiere , V evolution de la poesie lyrique^ vol. i., p. 1 78.

CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU'S GENIUS

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
fQreig.ner by genius, because he had derived his talent entirely
*' fEQm the depths of his own soul ? " ^

What is certain is that in the histor^fjthe growt h of cosm o-
)olitantendencies, 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 jieitheii the- refugees, nor Prevost,
nor VoitaireTiadT succeeded in doing ; he inoculated the FrencHTj
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 conc eptions of^art ; and it happened^
that this n^w_riotion_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 4)rofoundly religious, deeply poetic

In like manner it was En gland n ext_^g_Geneya that Jie loved
the best. To his contemporaries it seemed that the Nouvelle
Heldise, 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 PAllemagne, v. i.

96 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

It is n ot in its literature only that the influence of one nation
over another makes itself manifest, nor in t he mere imitat ion of
works_ that literary influence finds its expression. Such influence
consists also, and principally, of tho se curr ents 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 partic ular j^itera r^x.jnQral--a£piration,
-ascertain ideal oFlife, a collective soul, the heartand 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 1 630 ? Of Germany in 18 15 ? 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, ad miration overlooks jwhat
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 the y resolved that she should correspond with their
dream.

** E|iglisli," said La Harpe, " wa s introdu ced among us with
the taste for_£hilosophy, 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." ^ Accordingly, the
first characteristic jnEnglislLworks to strike the attention of men
in the eighteenth century was t he b oldness of thought and the j
profound genius they revealed. " Those people think more
than we do," said Marivaux ironically. But Voltaire, quite I
seriously, wrote : " Everything proves that the English are/
bolder and more philosophical than we are " ; ^ Diderot, in one of
his early works represents England as *' the^country^of^philoso-
pherSj_systfimatisjers„aM_jnen. of^m 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." *

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, ** arg„exti:e«reiy
deficie nt in rc c traint and mod efatlOtVnot only as regards conduct
and manners, but also in^j j]eir tnrn of mind : their waatoa
imagination entirely exhausts itself in comp arisons and-jneta-
phors" ; and he makes it a reproacE'^othem that by their
singularity they depart from the " noble simplicity " of the
ancients.^ This quality^of independence m 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

^ Cours de litterature, vol. iii., 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, 13th October 1759 ; to Helvetius, 25th
August 1763, and to Marmontel, ist August 1769.

8 Lettre sur les aveugleSy ed. Toumeux, vol. i., p. 312.

* Letter to Mme. Necker, 2nd January 1777.

^ Le Conte du Tonneau, by Jonathan Swift. Translated from the English, the
Hague, 1732, vol i., preface.

pS ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

those of Vanini, Cardan and Paracelsus.^ But the depth of the
English genius was also becoming a commonplace of criticTsm,

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 y 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 Engli shman has_g ood sense, but no
wit.' — * Very good ' — * And'^aTEr^^nchman wit, withouTcommon
sense.' — * Capital.' " Whence it follows " t har^the En glish
are profound without being brilliant." ^

From the momenf "when tEe 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." ^ But one cannot, without surprise, read

^ JMemo'ires eTun homme de qualite, vol. iii. , p. 1 1 .

2 Le Franfais a Londres (1727), scene xvi.

' The Abbe Millot, introduction to a translation of the Essay on Man,

FRENCH RESPECT FOR ENGLAND 99

in d'Argenson's Journal that " the English nation is philosophical,
it consists of men who think much and constantly ; we may see
it in their books." ^ These books, it is true, are destitute of
art ; their matter is disconnected, ex abrupto. But they contain
*' fresh ideas and great penetration," and they are ** free from the
commonplace." D'Argenson adds that the only men of real
originality and individuality that he knew in France were those
men of letters who had frequently visited England : namely,
Voltaire — which is perhaps correct, and the abbe Le Blanc —
which is paradoxical, to say the least.

But if the English were applauded for t he independence_ ofL__
thei r though t, and if there was already a disposition to admit
that ** the English mind is a mind of a different stamp, created
by itself," ^ they were no less admired for their iligh_spirit.

From England, the land of freedom, there blew, as d'Argenson
said, " the breath of liberty." Voltaire had greatly admired
the strength of the English middle class, Montesquieu the
excellence of the constitution and of public morals. In Le
Frarifais a Londres the merchant Jacques Rosbif, puffed up with
his own importance, assumed the character of a philosophising
rustic who speaks his mind to the ruling classes : " What do I
care for an imaginary nobility ? The honest folk are the true
nobles ; nothing is really plebeian except vice." The terrible
irony with which Voltaire handled the subject in his Lettres
anglaises is only too well-known. He satirizes the country
squires who come up from the depths of their province, a name
ending in ac or ille their only fortune, and play the part of slaves C\

in a minister's antechamber. He extols the honest merchantjwho, \\ y^ ^
in the seclusion of his office, gives orders on Surat or Cairo and ' \ ^

contributes to the happiness of the world.^ He does more ; he fv^^ ^ -
dedicates Zaire ** to Mr Falkener, an English merchant." The Q^^ A,^
idea seemed funny, and the Comedie Italienne put upon the i^^''*^

stage " Mr Falkener, or the honest merchant." Voltaire took ^{^^"^r >f
up the challenge, and, in a second dedication which, to his satis-
faction, he was able to address to " M. le Chevalier Falkener,

1 Journal et memotres, October 1747 (ed. Jannet, v. 232).

2 Garat, Memotres tur Suard, vol. i., p. 70. ^ Letter x., Sur le commerce.

loo ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

English Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte," had the pleasure of
once more humbling the national pride, which could not conceive
how a merchant could become a legislator, a good officer, or a
public minister. Could the reader possibly find any difficulty in
believing that the Royal Exchange in London was " a more re-
spectable place than many courts ? " Or could he really be so
/" blind as not to acknowledge that the occupation of wool-merchant
^->^was the highest of all professions ?

Voltaire's assertions, in which he possibly had no very strong
belief, were substantiated by Montesquieu. — Imagine a nation of
an unusual character, — unambitious of conquest, thinking nothing
of military men, and a great d'eal of " civil titles " j imagine this
people invested with the empire of the sea, situated in the centre
of the commercial world of Europe, and bringing to its transac-
tions a good faith and integrity never exhibited by others ;
imagine it blessed with a virtuous nobility, an active and chari-
table clergy, a well-informed and industrious populace ; attribute
to it further an ingrained habit of judging men solely by their
, rx real qualities, and of neglecting the false splendour of idleness in
"^ ^jfevour of solid worth ; conceive, lastly, in the intellectual pro-
X' f" ducts of this nation — the work of men of meditation, " nvho have
N y thought in solitude ^^ — a " bold and original spirit of discovery,"
'l '^ the fruit of a certain fierce integrity of disposition — and would
not such a nation be the happiest of all ? In short, and here the
\^ } author throws off the mask, ** this is the nation which, more than
^ any other, has succeeded in making the best use of three great
'^. ^ " possessions : re ligion, commerce and fre edom." ^

So magnificent a panegyric from such a pen set the seal de-

r\Q\^^\y upon jR.n glish virtue, whJch became one of the idols of

the age. In vain a few obscure voices were lraise3~w"pT0test

againsr the ** astounding metamorphosis " which was turning

y' every one's head. What ! a nation formerly regarded as the in-

\ carnation of arrogance, jealousy, selfishness, and cruelty — the

\ modern Carthage — was now represented as all that was generous,

magnanimous and humane ! " What a reckoning that great man,

the renowned, the illustrious Voltaire will have to pay before

1 Esprit des lois, book xix., ch. xxvii., and book xx., ch. viii.

FRENCH RESPECT FOR ENGLAND

loi

God for the vast host of those whose heads he has turned ! " ^
But the infatuation was too strong : a journalist of the day, criti-
cising one of Jean- Jacques' expressions, wrote : " As an untamed
courser erects his mane, paws the ground, and struggles violently
at the mere approach of the bit, whereas a horse that has been
broken in patiently endures both switch and spur, so. tlie English- V
man refuses to bow his head beneath a yoke which the greater >
part of mankind endure without a murmur, and prefers the most y
stormy liberty to peaceful subjection." ^ X

The illusion was a gross one, or^ to^say the very least, th&
exaggeration wa s palpab ley~ Looked at closely, eighteenth-cen- \
tury England appears anything but*the privileged home of virtue
and honour. Its nobility is brutal and dissolute, its clergy ignor-
ant, its justice venal : Fi elding's n ovels abound in characteristic
and only too faithful touches which £ive us but aTsorryTdea ofs
tl^upper classes aLtiiat time.^ Montesquieu himself observed
that in England '* money was held in sovereign estimation, while
virtue was scarcely esteemed at all."* Yet he too gave way
before the general enthusiasm, which amazed even the English
themselves. "We may be dupes to French follies," wrote
Horace Walpole, ** but they are ten times greater fools to be
the dupes of our virtue."^

In truth, admiration magnified and transformed everything.
The brutality of the J ^pgU.<ih was a matter of common repute,
but it was regarded as a si gn of e nergy ; ^^ nature in England
seems to he
French^ ^

more vigorous and Itraightforward than among the
"It is there that you will find true love of duty and
respect, tender reverence for parents, unqualified submission to
their will. . . . An Fng1i^'?h-jdllagg..i naiden is a kind of celestial
being." ^ This is the tone taken by novels of the"^riod. A
certain survival of barbarism was not displeasing. Lord Carlisle

1 Preservatif contre C anglomanie, Minorca and Paris, 1757.

2 Journal emyclopedique, April 1758.

^ An English critic, Mr Forsyth, has composed an entire picture of the period out
of material supplied by its novels alone {Cf. Forsyth, Novels and Novelists). — See also
Lecky.

* Notes sur I' Angleterre. ^ Letters, vol. iv., p. 1 1 9.

• D'Arnaud, GEuvres, vol. i., pp. xv.-xvi. ^ I6id.

."^iM^-

I02 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

wrote from France : " They think we are very little altered since
the days of Julius Caesar ; that we leave our clothes at Calais,
having no further occasion for them," and that every Englishman
conceals his nakedness by means of a sunflower, " like the prints
in Clarke's Caesar." ^ This- touch of barh arism--gave additional
flavour to insular virtue, and the Danubian peasant only preached
the better for being~a~Danubian. The French were under the
spell of the English sensitiveness, of that virginity of heart and
senses by which the source of great emotions, exhausted in the
gay youths of France by scepticism and pleasure, is kept unim-
paired. "However vivid," it was said, ** the colours in which
/ Southern passions are painted, neither Italy nor Spain can produce

^ examples as grand and tragic as those of England." ^

Philosophical, contemplative, passion^ite : such was the impres-
sion of the English ^B ioduced on the mind of a French reader
towards the middle^f .th£_C£iitiiry. Such too was the conception
gathered ot English__literature : a literature produced by men of
discernment and sombre~3isposition, dialecticians by nature and
in the highest degree philosophical. All these features may be
summed up in a single characteristic : individualism. In contrast
to a people in whom all native originality^Kas been obliterated by
over-sociability, and all relief worn down by constant friction,
England presented the spectacle of a lusty and vigorous nation,
\ whose genius, like a freshly struck medal, still retained all its

) brilliant distinctness of outline.

Ill

' Ro usseau .sha red the admir ation Qf his r ontempor^^ripsj anH gavp
expression to it in the most eloquent form.

At Les Charmettes he had read the Lettrej^^Mlo^ophiques with
deep interest. There, too, he had discovered a few English
hooks — the '^^cnjj^ th Up^^rstcndr^J^'^^'^ t he Spectator.^ — and

1 G. Selivyn and his contemporaries ^ by J. Heneage Jesse, vol. ii., p. 202.

2 Journal etranger, June i 755, p. 237.

3 See the Confessions : CEuvres, ed. Hachette, vol. viii., p. 78.

ANGLOMANIA OF ROUSSEAU 103

had begun to study the English language. Mme. de Warens
had taught him to love Bayle and Saint-Evremond : " Her
taste, if I may say so, was of a somewhat Protestant character ;
she talked of no one but Bayle, and thought very highly of
Saint-Evremond, who had died long before in France." From
the latter Rousseau, too, may have derived a few ideas con-
cerning England. He had certainly read the novels oLPreyost,
and especially Cleveland ^ with passionate interest.

At Paris, in 1 744, he was brought into contact with all
the literary men who were interested in English matters :
Marivaux ; Desfontaines, who assisted him with his counsel ^ -,
Saurin, the future author of a drama called Beverley, an imitation
of Edward Moore ; Grimm, a man of open mind and inquisitive
with regard to foreign topics ; Prevost, " a most amiable and
simple character, the author of writings inspired by a warm dis-
position and well worthy of immortality," ^ who was introduced
to him in the house of Mussard, a fellow-countryman, at Passy ;
above all, Diderot, the anglophile, whose mind was already/
turned, as it remained throughout his life, to England, the land^^
of his dreams. An atmosphere so propitious to everything that
came from beyond the Channel did much to strengthen in
Rousseau the sympathies which he afterwards expressed with
such warmth.

He read the Esprit des Lois on its first appearance, and, in
1756, the Lettres sur les Anglais et TeTF ran^ais of M uralt, who was
not only Hrs"^ett ow-LuunLi)/ura n7~"bTir in mOTe"Tharr one respect
his precursor. The book was sent him by Deleyre ; ^ he had a
great admiration for it and borrowed from it extensively ; indeed
most of his ideas concerning England were derived from Muralt.
But he was also indebted to him for several reflexions in the Lettre
sur les spectacles. " Virtue," Muralt had written, speaking of\
comedy, ** is held up as a spectacle for popular curiosity ; men
relegate it to the theatre as its only appropriate sphere, and all ^
these fine feelings seem to them as remote from ordinary life as i

1 Cf. H. Beaudoin, Jean- Jacques Rousseau, vol. i., p. 1 54. ^ Confessions, ii., 8.

'^ Letter of 2nd November 1756 (cf. Streckeisen Moultou ; Jean-Jacquet Rousseau,
ses amis et ses ennemis^.

I04 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

the dresses and postures of the theatre are from those they see
in their own homes." ^ " The theatre," said Rousseau, " has its
own rules, maxims and morality, as well as the dress and diction
which are peculiar to it. These things, it is said, would not do
for us at all, and we should think it just as absurd to adopt our
hero's virtues as to speak in verse and put on a Roman toga."
Nor does he make the least attempt to disguise the fact that he
has borrowed ; indeed he refers to his author on the following
page.2

Rousseau borrowed largely from Muralt in the Nouvel le
\ Helo'ise, wliere he frequently mentions him by name.^ He kept
Muralt's book before him when writing his descriptions of
Parisian manners. Sometimes it is an opinion on French con-
versation that he appropriates, sometimes a criticism on the
French intellect. ** You read Muralt," Saint-Preux writes to
Julie; "I indeed read him, too; but I make choice of his
letters, you of his Divine instinct. But remark his end, lament
the extravagant errors of that sensible man."* It was this
" sensible man " who suggested certain of Rousseau's reserva-
tions concerning the English character : " I know," he wrote,
f " the English are very boastful of their humanity and of the
J kindly disposition of their nation, calling themselves ^ good-
/ natured people ' ; but, shout this as loud as they will, no one
repeats it after them."^ The expression, as we have seen,
is taken from Muralt.^

It is Muralt agai n who often suggests to h imthe very
terms in which to express his fervent admiration. " I have
taken a liberty with the English nation," he wrote to Mme.
de Boufflers, " which it never forgives in any one, least of

1 Letter v.

2 See M. L. Fontaine's excellent edition of the Lettre sur les spectacles, pp. 135 and
136. " It is a mistake, said the solemn Muralt, to expect an author to represent the
actual relations of things upon the stage," &c. : an allusion to a passage in Muralt's
fifth letter.

3 Cf. the passages quoted above, and vi., 7.

4 Nouvelle Helo'ise, vi., 3. ^ Emile, book ii.

^ Letter iv. — He also borrows from Muralt (letter v.), a few ideas upon English
juries which he expresses in the letter of 4th October 1761, to M. d'OfFreville ; and
a passage in the Lettres ecrites de la JMontagne, letter v. (C/*. letter iv. of Muralt).

ANGLOMANIA OF ROUSSEAU 105

all in foreigners, namely, that of saying the worst of them as
well as the best." ^ To tell the truth, however, he had spoken
well of them much more frequently than he had spoken ill.

He liked the fierce patri otism^ of the English. "The only
nation of w^«," he calls them, " which remains among the various
herds that are scattered over the face of the earth." ^ Rousseau's
Swiss are proud of their nationality : they lead the life of the
Genevan or of the peasant of the Valais, and live it with pride.
** It is a fine thing to have a native-land ; God help those who
think they possess one, but in reality have nothing more than a
land to dwell in ! " ^ Now the English have the faults of their
nationality : they are Genevans hailing from beyond the Channel,
reserved and unapproachable, neither hospitable nor frank.
" We must agree in their favour, however, that an Englishman
is never obliged to any person for that hospitality he churlishly *i^

refuses others. Where, except in London, is there to he seen any of > li^^^t ty
these insolent islanders servilely cringing at court ? In what country, //^^ i/A
except their own, do they seek to make their fortunes ? They ^
are churlish, it is true, but their churlishness does not displease
me, while it is consistent with justice. I think it is very well the
should he nothing hut Englishmen, since they have no occasion to he
men''' *

It is interesting to note that Muralt had felt obliged to make
a few reservations concerning the brutality of English vices.
Rousseau extenuated them, if he did not actually make them a
subject of commendation. A comparison of the two passages is
instructive. ** Their women," Muralt had written, ** easily give
way to tender feelings, they make no great effort to conceal them,
and . . . are capable of the greatest firmness for the sake of a
lover ; in spite of this they are gentle, almost entirely without

1 August 1762. On the English constitution, see the Contrat Social and the
Gouvernement de Pologne^ ch. X.

2 Nouvelle Helotse, vi. — This and many other of the quotations from La Nowvdle
Helo'ise are taken from a translation published by Hunter, Dublin, 1761.

3 Ibid,, vi., 5.

4 Nouvelle Helo'ise, ii., 9. Rousseau returns to the same idea and the same expres-
sions in Emile, book v. : " Englishmen never try to get on with other nations. . . .
they are too proud to go begging beyond their oivn borders, &c.

io6 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

. V ^ cunning and artifice, natural in conversation, and little spoiled
N*> by the flattery of the men, who only devote to them a very small
^ I portion of their time. Most Englishmen, in fact, prefer wine

<*' '^\ ^^^ g^^ii^g- • • • It is quite true that when they fall in love
J /\y i their passion is violent : with them, love is no weakness to be
k^ ) ashamed of, but a serious and important matter, in which the

^ \^ alternative to success is often enough the loss of reason or of

f Mife." ^ "English women," says Rousseau, "are gentle and

timid ; English men, harsh and ferocious. . . . With this excep-
tion, the two sexes are closely similar. Each likes living apart
from the other ; and each sets great store by the pleasures of the
table. . . . They both indulge in play, but luHhout extravagance,
and both make a merit of it rather than a passion : both have a great
respect for honourable conduct ; both esteem conjugal fidelity [Muralt
had not said so much] ; . . . both are silent and reserved, diffi-
cult to arouse, yet violent in their passions : for both of them
love is a terrible and tragic affair, involving; said Muralt, no less
than the loss of reason or of life, . . . Thus both sexes are more
self-collected, less given to indulge in frivolous imitation, have
more relish for the true pleasures of life, and think less of ap-
pearing happy than of being so." ^
j In writing his novel, Rousseau was careful to place certain
j scenes in an English setting, and was complimented thereon by
all his contemporaries.

In the Heldise there is a **jnoiJiijig__ap£nt_iiL t]l?__^i^Sli?-^

fashion," with which he was undoubtedly very well satisfied.

i What is the English fashion of spending a morning ? Rousseau

describes it as a state of contemplation, a silent communion, " a

1 Letter iii.

^ Lettre sur les spectacles. — It will be observed that the severe expression which
occurs in the Confessions : " I never liked either England or the English," was written
subsequently to Rousseau's residence in England, and, consequently to the persecu-
tion to which he thought he was subjected there. It is not a sober opinion, but an
outburst of ill-humour. Moreover, Rousseau himself makes a formal recantation of
the expression in Rousseau juge de Jean- Jacques (^Premier dialogue, nott). Speaking of the
English nation, he writes : '• It has been too often misled concerning me for me not to
have been sometimes mistaken concerning it," and he speaks of choosing an English-
man as confidant, in order " to repair in a properly attested manner the evil I may
have thought or said of his nation." See also the Third Dialogue (vol. ix., p. 280).

ANGLOMANIA OF ROUSSEAU 107

motionless ecstasy," which the light French temperament would
find unendura^ble. Here again his account is merely an ampli-
fication of a passage from Muralt : ** The English," the philoso-
pher of Berne had said, *' have seen plainly enough that people
who speak for the sake of speaking seldom fail to talk nonsense,
and that conversation should be an exchange of sentiments, not
of words ; and since, on this assumption, matter for conversa-
tion is not always forthcoming, it sometimes happens that they
are silent for a long time together." ^ This is precisely the
way of spending the morning described by Rousseau. Madame
de Wolmar's friends find it delightful to hold their peace for
two hours at a time, passing the morning " in^omp.aiiy_^nd_m
silence^j tasting^at once _the^leasure of being t^^ther, and the
sweetn e ss of se lf - r eGoll€€t4on»-" ^ Rousseau had been greatly
impressed by this picture, and accordingly selected it as the
subject of on(B~of the engravings executed for his book by
Gravelot : the persons represented are taking tea and reading
the newspapers — or at anyrate holding them in their hands.
Observe the ** air of sweet and dreamy contemplation" in the
three onlookers : Julie in particular " is evidently in a delicious
ecstasy." ^

To-day this strikes us as somewhat trivial. Such, however,
was not the opinion of Rousseau's contemporaries. They had a
lively appreciation of the " morning spent in the English fashion "
just as they delighted in Tulie's English gard en. " The men
who have produced the grariH^d colossal scenes of Shakespeare
and the whimsical figures of Hudibras show the effects of the
same spirit in their gardens, just as they do in morals, medicine
and philosophy." The whole of the eighteenth century agreed
with the opinion here expressed by the Prince de Ligne.*
Grimm declared that whenever he left an English garden he felt
as deep an emotion as on coming away from the theatre after

^ i., 4. 2 v., I. 3 CEuvres, vol. v., p. 97.

4 Coup (fail sur lesjardlns. — Cf, the same author's Coup d'ail sur Bel-CEH ; Le Blanc,
Lettres, vol. ii., p. 63 (which Rousseau appears to have read) ; de Chabanon, Epitre
sur la manie des jardim anglais, 1775 ; Masson, Le jardin anglais^ a poem in four cantOS,
translated into French, 1789; Delille, &c. — See also Vitet, Etudes sur les beaux-arts^
vol. ii.

io8 ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

seeing a tragedy .^ Julie's Elysee, conceived in the *' English
] style " invented by Kent, the landscape-gardener, was immensely
I popular, and for long enough there was,ji ot a good sentiment^
I novel published which had not its grove, its avenue of trees and
\ its ** arbour." — Therein ,none of man's handiwork was^ to be
w \ seen ; everything was the work gf n ature. The garden was a
4 simple orchard ; not a foreign plant within it. Here was a thick
>^ .; and verdant carpet of turf, wild and garden thyme, marjoram,
V\ *« thickets of rose-trees," and " masses of lilac," festoons thrown
^ V carelessly from tree to tree, wild yet delicious fruits, a back-
ground of verdure which produced the effect of a forest, yet con-
sisted merely of creepers and parasitic plants, and a stream which
displayed its meanderings to the best advantage. The birds,
** inseparable mates," encouraged the mind to yield itself to the
sweetest sentiment in nature. Everywhere there was moss, and
Lord Edward had sent from England the secret of making it grow.
-^ Symmetry there was none, jFor it Js^nature's_ _eneniy, nor fine
\^ pYoKpects, for *' the taste for views and distances arises from the
^ properisity^of most men to find enjoyment only in places where
they are not." — Muralt had repeated the story that Le Notre,
I when summoned to London by Charles IL in order to beautify St
' James's Park, declared that all his art could not rival its simplicity .2
Rousseau, who borrows from him this anecdote, also found in the
English garde n the realisation oft he ideal he had conceived. ^
"^^or is it the manners and'"tEeletting only, that have something
English about them ; what is more significant, the most sympa-
thetic character in the story is Lord Edward, ** or the English-
man," as he is called in the brief description the author wrote for
the engravings.

About his person you observe " aa ^r of grandeur w hich

1 Ed. Scherer, Melchior Grimm, p. 254.

2 Letter vi. — See all the concluding portion of the letter, on English scenery. —
Observe that in Rousseau's chapter {Nou-velk HUo'ise, iv., ii)Lord Cobham's garden
at Staw, which he criticises, is a « Chinese," not an English, garden.

* Garat, in his Memoires sur Suard, speaks of England " where so many landscapes
resemble those of the Helo'ise, though they have not the same May sunshine " (vol.
ii., p. 157). A fine specimen of the nonsense a man may write under the influence
of a preconceived idea.

ANGLOMANIA OF ROUSSEAU 109

proceeds rather from the soul than from rank " ; the stamp of a
somewhat fierce courage and of a virtue not free from austerity,
and a li grave and stoical "-bearing beneath which "he conceals
^sdth_difEculty an extreme sensibility ; he wears the dress of an
English lord without ostentati6n7"and carries himself with just a
touch of swagger. Mentally, Lord Edward is sensitive and phil-
osophical,__a worthy countryman of both Richardson ancL-Locke.^
His conversation is sensible, r acy and animatedj_ He betrays
more energy than grace7"aTrd to Julie it seems at first that there
is "something harsh about him."^ He is quick-tempered, and
avoids like the plague " the reserved and cautious politeness
which our young officers bring us from France." He provokes
Saint-Preux to a duel brutally enough ; but when he has per-
ceived his fault he is sufficiently generous to ask pardon on his
knees before witnesses. For after all, as Muralt said, is it not
well-known that English bravery " never descends to duelling,"
and that in that " sensible country " men have a loftier idea of
honour ? ^ Besides " in this honest Englishman natural humanity
is not impaired by the philosophical lack of feeling common to
his nation."

When in Italy Lord Edward had fallen passionately in love,
and in the most romantic manner : deprived of the friendship of
Saint-Preux, he was not proof against a sudden assault upon his
senses and his heart.* He falls a victim to the charms of Julie at
first sight, and prides himself on his sensibility : " it was by way
of the passions " he says artlessly, " that I was led to philosophy."
At the same time he is greatly interested in painting and music,
especially, like Jean-Jacques himself, in Italian music.

1 Many features of Lord Edward's character are reminiscences of the portrait of
Cleveland. Prevost's novel was read by Jean-Jacques with passionate interest.

(^Confessions^ i., 5.)

2 Nouvelle Helo'ise, i., 44. ^ Lettres, p. 4.

4 See the short novel entitled Les Amours de Milord Edouard^ which forms a sequel to
the Helo'ise. Contemporaries were much engrossed with Rousseau's story. See Les
Aventures d"* Edouard Bomston, pour servir de suite a la Nouvelle Helo'ise, Lausanne, 1789,
and the Lettres d''unjeune lord a une religieuse italienne, imitated from the English [by
Mme. Suard], Paris, 1788. — See also Letters of an Italian Nun and an English gentleman,
translated from the French of J. J. Rousseau, London, 1 781, 1 2mo, which, in spite of
dates, seems to be a translation of the preceding.

no ROUSSEAU AND ENGLAND

But to mention the more dignified aspects of this figure, drawn
by Rousseau with so much partiality.

A " veneer of stoicism " is thrown over all Bomston's actions.
He can be solemn when confronted with serious events : to
Saint-Preux, who sacrifices everything to love, he says, " Throw
off your childhood, my friend, awake ! Surrender not your
entire existence to the long lethargy of reason " ; and, rallying
him upon his weakness : ** Your heart, my dear fellow, has long
deceived us as to your intelligence ! " ^ Ah, Bomston ! Is this
the tone of a philosopher ? Can wisdom consistently express itself
in language at once so turgid and so bitter ? Again, would a
prudent man advise a young girl, as you do, to fly from her father's
roof in company with her tutor ? This spoils Lord Edward for
me. I prefer him in the famous letter on suicide, even if he does,
to some extent, presume upon his privilege of being English :
" Mine is a steadfast soul ; I am an Englishman. I know how to
die, because I know how to live, and to suffer as a man." It is a
good thing to have a native land, but not quite such a good thing
to sing its praises so loudly. " We are not the slaves of our
monarch, but his friends ; not the tyrants of the people, but
their leaders. . . . We allow none to say : God and my sword,
but simply God and my right.''^ We may excuse Bomston, since
it is Jean-Jacques who is speaking through his mouth, and
making him say all these fine things. Lord Edward, happily for
Rousseau, is not a real Englishman.

Yes, Bomston, " generous soul, noble friend," you were but
the sincerest and most artless expression of the anglomania of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau !

1 N. H., v., i.

Chapter II

'y>

I. Rousseau's early associations in Paris : Diderot and the admirers of England.
II. His first studies in English : Pope, and his popularity — Influence of his common-
place philosophy upon his age and upon Rousseau — Daniel Defoe : success of
Robinson Crusoe.
III. Rousseau's admiration for English literature is directed mainly to the bourgeois
variety — Why ? Because of his literary tendencies — His admiration for the
English drama ; translation of The London Merchant (1748).

Rousseau's early studies in English were those of the majority
of his contemporaries : the authors he had read at Les Charmettes^
were Loc ke an d AddiscHU— JBop^- Mikonj^Rjchardson's novels,
RobinsonXkusQ£^ and a few other works of less importance, were
probably read during his second residence in Paris. We may
believe, though without positively asserting so much, that he
was among the earliest French admirers of some of these mas-
terpieces. Knowing ho^^^^reatly he apprecia ted it^,-we cannot
help believing that he read ^PameUL, immediately after its first
appearance in Paris, in 174^ . Just at that moment he was very
intimate with Desfontaines, and we know that Pamela involved
Desfontaines in a very unpleasant affair.^ And what is more
probable than that Prevost, whom he frequently met during
1 75 1, talked to him of Clarissa Harlo ive, which had appeared in
the original in 1 748, and had just been translated into French —
with what enthusiasm, the reader will recollect — by Prevost
himself? Finally, we cannot doubt that Di derot, Diderot the
anglophil^, with whom Rousseau became intimate immediately
he arrived in Paris, drew his attention to some of the English

^ See below, p. 209.

112 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES

works which at that time were beginning to make a great
sensation.

rit is important here to remember that -^Diderot, whose ac-
quaintance Rousseau had made in 1741, when he first came to
] Paris, Teffiained his liferafy~~corrfidant for sixteen .years-— the
decisive years of Jean- Jacques^ life, and those which witnessed
the elaboration of his greatest works. There were similarities
between them in point of age, taste and fortune : Diderot, like
Rousseau, was poor and of humble birth ; like him, of a sensi-
tive disposition and musical. Diderot had his Nanette, Rousseau
had his Therese, and intercourse between the two households
was frequent. It will be remembered how the two proposed to
take a walking tour in Italy with Grimm. The reader knows
how they conceived the plan of starting a newspaper together, to
be edited by each alternately, called the Persifleur, which, how-
ever, did not survive its first number. And every one will
recollect the friendship which Rousseau manifested for Diderot
when the latter was imprisoned at Vincennes. I believe, he
says, that if his captivity had lasted, ** I should have died from
despair at the gate of that miserable dungeon." ^ This was the
golden age of their friendship. It was also the period when
-- — they were working in concert. Rousseau showed his friend his
Discours sur les sciences, and accepted his good advice. He con-
sulted him likewise on the Discours de Pinegalite, and on the
Nouvelle Heldise. In return Rousseau assisted, at any rate by his
suggestions, in the composition of the Entretiens sur le Fils
Naturel ; Diderot entrusted him with the secret of his dramatic
attempts, and made him acquainted with the outline of the Pere
de famille.

Nn\ y pf all the eighteenth-century writers, D iderot — the fact
has perhaps scarcely received sufficient attention — is the most
inq uisitive concerning foreign and par ticuladx,£nglish Jit era tare. ^
He is " quite English," as M. Brunetiere has well said.^ No

^ Confessions ^ ii., 8.

2 See the works of Rosenkrantz and Mr. John Morley, where this point of view is
cogently presented. M. L. Ducros has likewise adopted it in his book on Diderot^
Vhomme et r ecrivain. (Paris, 1 894, i 2mo.)

^ Les epoques du theatre f ran fats, p. 295.

ROUSSEAU IN PARIS

113

one " went begging" more freely, as Crebillon forcibly put it,
from neighbouring peoples, who moreover rewarded him with
fervent admiration. The German anglophiles found their
opinions almost as well represented in his works as in those of
Rousseau. Lessing declares that " no writer of a more philo-
sophical mind had concerned himself with the theatre" since
Aristotle. Herder calls him " a true German," and drew
Goethe's attention to his works. Goethe became fascinated by
him. " Diderot — is Diderot," he wrote to Zelter even so late
as March 9, 183 1, shortly before his death, "a unique in-
dividuality. The man who turns up his nose at him and his
works is a Philistine." ^

By _the e xtremely modern character of his genius, no less than/ i.d
by hi^ essentially cosmopolitan taste, Diderbt~stands by hiln- *^
self in the history of eighteenth century criticism. He had
lea f n e^ EngT is Ii~thorou ghly, and Mr. John Morley testifies that
his knowledge of it was remarkable.^ He turned his knowledge
to account during the early years of his career — at the very time
when he became intimate with Jean-Jacques — by translating '
several works from the English ^ : Stanyan's History of Greece, in J
1743 ; Shaftesbury's Essay on merit and virtue, in 1 745; and m ^ /Xr^H ,_
1746, witK'lhF assistance ' of Eidous and Toussaint, James's ^^-k^o^^^^
Dictionary of Medicine, the introduction to which was useful to
him later on in his own Encyclopedic. At the same time he

enriched his mind by studying Bacon, from whom he borrowed

the essential portions of the Pensees philosophiques, and Bernard de
Mandeville, whose Eahle of the Bees supplied him with the greater
part of the ideas subsequently developed in the famous Supplement
au voyage de Bougainville, Again, it was to an English work.
Chambers' Dictionary, that he was indebted for the plan and the
idea of the Encyclopedic. Throughout his life, Diderot counselled
admiration of England, the land, as he wrote in 1749, '* of philo-
sophers, systematisers and men of enquiring mind." All his life,

1 See C. Joret, Herder, pp. loi, 372, &c., and Gandar's essay on Diderot et la critique
allemande in Souvenirs d'enseignement.

2 On his method of learning it see the article Encydopedie.

3 Observe that Diderot had also got together the materials for a history of Charles
I. {Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, vol. i., p. 46).

114 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES

too, we see him surrounded by Englishmen, such as Hume,
Garrick, Wilkes and ** father Hoop," or friends of the English,
like Toussaint, Suard, and Deleyre the " Baconian." His house
^^rasua kind of rendezvous for all the anglophiles of Paris.

From the literary point of view, it is scarcely necessary to
remind the reader that he claims, as regards his plays, to belong
to the school of Lillo and Moore, and, as regards his novels, to
that of Richardson andTSterne^ No man, in pomt of" taste if
not of intellect, co uld be less E ren ch than he ; no man was more
ready to look beyond the borders of his native country ; none
cut himself off so completely and with such determination " from
the Latin tradition." All Jiis .iiisciples, too, cultivated and
developed with the utmost^ c^are the taste for whatjwas exotic.
** How greatly,^'~says GeofFroy, " the taste of French autKors
had been led astray by anglomania since 1765 ! " The principal
author of the error deplored by GeofFroy is Diderot ; it was he
who taught Sebastien Mercier to extol the g.enius-o£-Richardson
and Fielding,^ and Baculard d'Arnaud to praise Germany, the land
** where THe wings of genius are not clipped by the timid shears
of fine wit." ^ He it was who constituted himself the patron of
Lessing's Sara Sampson on its appearance in France, who wrote a
preface to the French version, and declared that in Germany
** genius had taken the high-road of nature."^ He, too, it was
who compared the London Merchant to Sophocles, and himself

1 Essai sur Part dramatique, p. 326. " Let yourselves revel, ye fresh and sensitive
souls, in the reading of Pamela, Clarissa, and Grandison ; of Fielding, with all his
variety . . . &:c." Elsewhere he praises " the immortal Richardson, who (says the
narrative of his life) spent twelve years in society almost without opening his lips,
so bent was he upon catching what passed around him." Mercier also admires the
Germans : " The foundation of their dramatic art is excellent. ... If they improve
upon it, as they give promise of doing, it will not be long before they excel us."

2 Cf. Liebman, anecdote allemande. He says, further, of Germany, <where he had
spent some years : " There is no country where more real men are to befound. . . .
These towns are the home of truth and of simplicity, of what the English have
called good nature. . . . The moment the Germans subject themselves to the slavery of
imitation they will take the first step towards decadence." See Gottsched's letters
to Baculard, edited by M. Th. Siipfle (^Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Literaturgeschichte^
vol. i., p. 146 et seq.).

^ Journal etranger, December 1761. It is highly probable that the article is by
Diderot. — See Crousle: Lessing et le gout fran^ais en Allemagne, p. 376.

EARLY READING 115

translated The Gamester^ a work which he considered the
masterpiece of the modern drama.

Such was the man in intimacy with whom Jean-Jacques spent"
the most fruitful years of his life ; the man of whom it could be
said, now that he was the most German of Frenchmen, and no-^
that he was the most English ; the one man, at anyrate, of all th^
great writers of the age, whose taste was most thoroughly alive
to the productions of other countries.

The i nfluence of Diderot, sufficiently evident in its eflfectupon
Rousseau's literary ideas, was no less apparent in his selection of
models.

In adjirtbnjp Richard son, whose decisive influence on Rousseau's
genius must be studied by itself, the writers whom Jean- Jacques
seems to have chiefly admired were I^ope^ ddisQ.t\ and the author
of Robinson Crusoe?- "^^^ ; '

Translated by the refugees, praised by Voltaire, celebrated,
from the very commencement of the century, in Germany, Italy,
Sweden, Holland, and throughout reading and thinking Europe,^
Jopej_in^Jiis_day > ^^^ ^hp r ep resentative of all that was most
attractive in Engli sh moral philosophy an d jnetaphysics. The
Essay on Man, the first part of which appeared in 1 732, had
made him thejiopular poet of de ism^ It had been immediately
translated by the abbe du Resnel.^ Other versions, by Silhouette,
de Sere, de Schleinitz, the abbe Millot, and de Saint-Simon, had

1 We must add the name of Milton, thus eloquently apostrophized in Emile :
" Divine Milton, teach my clumsy pen to describe the pleasures of love," &c. (book
vii.). Dupre de Saint-Maur's translation (1729) did not succeed in naturalizing
Milton's works in France. For the eighteenth century Milton is no more than a
gr^Lnaine.

2 Translations of the Essay on Criticism and the Rape of the Lock are very numerous.
The principal translators of the former were Robeton, Delage, and de la Piloniere in
17 1 7, and du Resnel in 1730. The famous Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard was also
translated and imitated.

' On du Resnel's translation (1736), see Memoires de Trevoux, June 1736 ; Journal
des savants, April r736 ; Observations sur les ecrits modernes, vol. iv., letter 47. — See
also La Harpe, Cours de litterature, vol. iii.

Ii6 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES

followed, pending the appearance of those by Fontanes and
Delille.i The Essay on Man may be said to have been truly
gallicized. A dispute broke out concerning Pope's doctrines : de
Crouzas attacked him, Warburton, Silhouette and others de-
fended him. *' I am sure," writes Jean- Jacques, "that M. de
Crouzas' book will never inspire a good action, and that there is
nothing good which one might not be induced to attempt after
reading the poem of Pope." ^

For Rousseau, the Essay on Man, as has been excellently said,
was a kind of sacred volume7 a " metrical gos^l," wherein the
men of his day delighted to find their most flattering illusions
and their loftiest hopes vindicated in beautiful verse.^ Pope
" carries the torch into the abysses of man's being. With_him
alone does m an at tain to self-knowIedgeT*'"*

Pope's teaching invoIves,"TnrtEe~hrst place, a contempt for all
futile investigation of insoluble problems. We must commune
with our"owiirs^ves7-and-within^ ourselves seek that rule of con-
duct which no metaphysic can ever give us, the rule which
nature herself supplies. She speaks loudly within us ; she cries
out that our duty is to be happy, in so far as we may without
prejudice to the happiness of others. Now happiness— and here
we s ee the dawn of that sensibility which was destined to be-
come the actual moraF]pnndpIe~oriEe^ age — happiness consists
mainly in the satisfaction of our passions, and this the various
religions unjustly- condemn. Pope believes in the moral excel-
lence and the original purity of our instincts :

These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind :
The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.^

In this harmony lies not happiness only, but also the actual
personality of man. Reason is one ; passion, on the contrary,
infinitely diverse. It is, in truth, that which differentiates one

^ On these translations see Goujet, Bihliotheque franfaise, vol. vii., pp. 227-267.
^ Nowoelle Helo'ise.

* See M. fimile Montegut's remarkable study on Pope.

* Voltaire, Poeme sur la lot naturelle. ^ Essay on Man. Ep. ii., II. i 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 'I
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 i§ complete. He ve nerate s
passioa-as — the — rnling .prnK^L-LQ nian, 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 s o_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 beg inning^fjyjrtue':

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,^

or, if Voltaire be preferred to Pope,^ let the reader peruse once
more the sentimental tirade on benevolence, at the end of the
Discours stir la vraie vertu ; the subject is the same, and the
expressions are almost identical.

The Esja^Qn_Mji n H id m^^** tft ffpreaH Engli s h doi ft m -iB - Frao cfr

1 Voltaire, Cinquieme discours en vers. ^ 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

feh^nallthe works of Shaftesbury. At bottonL-the-jlQCtrine js \
Shaftesbury's/butTt I?~slhQrnJ3£Hi-ag-gjpe&siv£iie§Sj purified from/
all leaven of scepticism and pantheism, rendered more vague andr
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 ? " ^ What the author of the Profession de foi du
Vicaire Savoyard discovered in Pope was himself.

It^ was__aL_§xstem of morals again, a homely, b ourgeois system,
that he sought in the Spectator y one of the m ost_,pQpjiiaiLbooks of
the^cen niryT

" "^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 anglaiseP' 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.^

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

\ lauthor of the Spectator, "would be an excellent model in any

1 1 8th August 1756. 2 Vol. vi., pp. 213-220.

3 Caton (TUtique, 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 sur les theatres deV Europe,
Paris, 1738, 8vo. — La pretendue veuve ou fepoux magicien, a comedy in five acts, Paris,
1737, 8vo, was also a translation from Addison.

EARLY READING 119

country." ^ 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.^ 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
tlioroughly English. I t shou ld_bg_rj£inarked ^'hnf ^^ ^hp rr»r"-
mencemerir^of^ the century he was, for foreigners,_the pe^soni-
ficati on oTTh e'fegy ^/j e leuieuL in the Eng lish 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." ^ 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 spirituelle\ ^ 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.^

In Francfi_.Jiieii_.po2ularity was equally great. " There is
not a person but has readtKe Spectator y''^ writes Tabaraud ; " its
success has been prodigious. ^^ ^ fir 17 16 the Memoires de Trevoux^

^ Steele de Louis XIV., ch. xxxivr ^ Qr Voltaire, Lettre a Milord Harvey, 1740.

3 Cf. Joret, Herder, and an interesting pamphlet by Th. Vetter : ZUrich ah
Vermittlerin englischer Literatur im achtzehnten Jahrhundert, Zurich, 1 89 1, 8vo. See the
same writer's edition of Bodmer's Discourse (Frauenfeld, 1891, 8vo).

* Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, Fr. trans., p. 166.

5 Hatin, Les Gazettes de Hollande, p. 200. * Cf. The Academy, 25th March 1882.

^ Histoire du philosofhisme anglais, vol. i., p. 66. Cf. I St, with regard to the Specta-
tor ; Le Spectateur ou le Socrate moderne ou ton voit un portrait naif des moeurs de ce siecle^

I20 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." ^ 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.^ D'Argenson considered that
no one could read anything *' more agreeable or better done."^
In shor£^Jts_auc-ees5 was general, and imitations of it innumer-
abIe^;_some, and the greater portion, absolutely forgotten to-day,
others, such as Marivaux's Spectateur franpaisj 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.* 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, 17 14, lamo, 456 pp. The other volumes follow in order, to the number
of seven, down to 1754. The translator of the first six is unknown ; th^^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 Tatler : Le Babillard ou le Nouvelliste philosophe, traduitde V anglais
de Steele by A. D. L. C. [Armand de la Chapelle], Amsterdam, 1723, i2mo. — 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. i2mo. — In bibliographical lists there are
many erroneous details.

1 Camusat's Bibliotheque frangaise (vol. vii., 1726, p. 193).

2 Cf. Ballantyne, p. 309, and see Sharpe, Letters from Italy.
^ J\^emoires,ed. Jannet, vol. v., p. 164.

** See in Hatin's Histoire de la presse a long though incomplete list of these imita-
tions. In Caylus {(Euvres badines^ 1 7^75 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 eiFect.^

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 En glish -afc e asi er to please than we
are," it was said, " with regard to works on morality : they do
not mind what is co mmonplac e, provided only it be useful, and
presented in popular form ; witiL .us. moralizin g only goes down
when it is clevgiuand-pointed." ^ Their very l^ck-"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,^ 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 aj
pleasing sort of virtue, made for man, responsive to all his'
natural faculties . . . and capable of affording them the most,
exquisite sensations : " * 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, JUarivaux, 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).

•* Preface to the Mentor moJerne (The Hague, 1724, vol. i.).

122 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES

Bruyere ; ^ 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." ^ 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 Coverley, 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 opusculet of J. de Maistre, vol. ii., p. 177.

2 Voltaire, fifth Ducours en vers sur Vhomme.

EARLY READING 123

He _cQa&titiil:eiJiimself adviser, co nfessor, and familyd octor . No
question is too mean for^him, provided it alFectsTeither 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." ^ 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." ^ The work of Addison was drawn
upon to an unlimited extent *, sometimes for simple tales, some-
times for philosophical allegories,^ 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
him the subject of a tragedy,* Boissy the plot for a comedy,^
La Chaussee several ideas and more than one entire situation.^
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 natureA
while La Bruyere makes you dread it." ^ \

Rousseau read it at Chambery, on his return from Turin, and

^ 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).

* Euphemie. ^ Les Valets maitres.

^ Lanson, Nivelle de la Chaussee, p. 133. 7 Essai sur la vie de Bolingbroke (1796).

124 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES

appreciated it highly. "The Spectator ^^^ he says, "pleased me
greatly, and did me good." ^ Like his contemporaries he loved
its bourgeois moraHzing, so simple, so appropriate to " the family
circle. It is Addison whom he advises Sophie to readHn order
to learn the duties of an honest woman.^ 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.^ 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.* The point of interest to us is that Rousseau |
understood and loved an Addison whose genius, in commoaK
with his own, possessed a rare and precious quality of moraTr^
elevation, and who, in more than one respect, may perhaps/oe /
considered a champion of the same causes.^ I

Lastly, among the English books with which he was familiar
there was one upon which he pronounced a magnificent eulogy, '
namely. The Life arid Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson
Crusoe y of Tork, Mariner, ivho lived Eight-and-twenty 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 1 7 19 and I720j Defoe's novel, as we have seen,
had been translated by the refugees in 1720 and 172 1, 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 ;

^ Confessions, \.^ 3. '^ Emile^ book v. ^ Confessions^ ii., 7.

^ Cf. L. M^zieres, Histoire de la litterature anglaise, vol. i., p. 145.

'^ 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 d'Athenes, de Rome, et de France . . . [translated from Jeremy Collier by de
Courbeville], Paris, 1715, i2mo. 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, ''■7^ St P* ^^9? ■M'emoires de Trevoux, July 1716, and May,
June, July and August 1732. — See also a letter from Brossette to J. B. Rousseau,
25th December 1715.

V.I

EARLY READING 125

the attention of the newspapers had been attracted to it immedi-
ately it appeared,^ and Lesage, assisted by d'Orneval, had founded
upon it the story of a comic opera for the theatre de la FoireP-
Very early too the book became launched upon the great stream
of European literature : there had appeared a Robinson allemandy a
Robinson italien, 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.^ 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.^

In spite ofits .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.^ * * With him they
seemed to be ^eTiding''wHoIe'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." ^ Many of the details, indeed,
seemed minute or unworthy of notice. A few years earlier Mari-

^ Cf. Journal des savants y lyiO, p. 503 et seq.

'^ This comic opera is lost. (See Barberet: Lesage et le theatre de la Foire, p. 222).

^ Perry, English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, p. 264.

^ Cf. Kippenberg, Robinson in Deutschland bis xur Inscl Felsenburg (1713-43),
Hanover, 1892, 8vo.

5 H. F. Wagner: Robinson in (Esferreich, Salzburg, l886, 8vo. A list of Dutch
imitations will be found in the Annates typografhiques, J759j ^o^' ^'j P* 5^-

^ 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.

'' 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, ^ 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 RobinsotL Crusoe was a curious
sto ry of tfav^T^^i ch readersof the^^housan d and one n ights^ 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.^ The

1 See Les Effets surprenants de la sympathie (17 1 3), 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-^^liveiy-knpression. 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.^ 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." ^ 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.^

Rousseau, however, was the^first_ to point QxU-th e wide -fihi4e" —
sophic import of the bo ok. It " constituted ^a-v^i^rable treatise
on nat ural pliilasophy ^" and was to be the one and only volume
in the library of Emile. The author, it is true, he does not
name : the men of that century did not know who he was ;
Freron, speaking o^ Robinson Crusoe in 1 768, thought it necessary
to remind the reader in a note that the author was ** a certain
Daniel de Foe " ; * while another translator attributes it to
Steele.^ Nothing whatever was known of the writer's person-
ality and talent. But Jean- Jacques pronounced a splendid eul(3gy
upon the educatiaaaljqualities of thejwork, 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.

^ 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 Helo'ise, iv., 3. 3 Maury, Bernardin de St Pierre^ p. 6.

* Annee litter aire, 1 768, vol. i., p. 235.

^ Les avantures ou la vie et les voyages de Robinson Crusoe, traduction de i^ouvraTe anglais
attribue au celebre Richard Steele, Francfort, 1 769, 2 vols., i2mo.

128 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES

to Aristotle, Pliny and BufFon.^ " 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

I 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

III

For English literature of the more common and popular type
RousseaiTEad an even greater admlraHon than for "the Spectator
or ior~RdBTnsd}rCrusoe7' ' l^erei^ 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_o^era, Iphis et j4naxarete. While tutor
in M. de Mably's household at Lyon he wrote his Decouverte du
Nouveau Monde, It is needless to enumerate here the opexas for
which he provided the libretti. But Narcisse, Les Prisonniers de
guerre, L Engagement temeraire, and all the otherattempts, which,
after all, add nothing to his fame, afford ample proof of the

1 Entile, 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, 2 vols. i2mo, and L'fle 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 litteraturCy vol. iii., p. 1 90).

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 l^amant 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 Lettr^sur Jes^ spectacles. Men impugn
nothing so savagely as what they have greatly loved.

Not only, howeve r, was the theatre the subject of his thoughts
and aspirations ; there is no doubt that Tie~too k a liv ely interest
in the dr amatic r eform 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 tra.fted:y:i ias had its day,
and that Corneilleand__Ra£iae, for all their genius, " are but
speech-maRers.'^ ^ 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 upoiTany other — they " give no sort
of information qn_the manners characteristic of those whom thej
amuse?^ They contain no simple and^ natural sentiments, but
merely *» sniart things " which catch the ear of the crowd.^ 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 ? " ^ 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." ^ Hence it follows* M:hat the true models ^

for taste are to be found in nature," which always leaves some-
tHng^o be revealed, and is a thousand times richer than French j i\ K"

poets have supposed. If the anci^iTtsiiTe-superiur-tor-trs, 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

^ Nouvelle Heto'ise, ii. 17. With this passage cf. ch. xxxviii. oi Bijoux indiscrets.
2 Lettre sur les spectacles. '■^ N. H., ii. 1 7. ^ Emthf book iv.

-tP^

130 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 agaja, the-true_man
beneath thp pnlishfi d and unnatural man o f 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, ivith their liberty, the privilege of being each
individually exactly ivhat 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 inlnerest are such
pleasant reading."^ 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.''^'^ 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 avjm_jnterestJnjqii£stions
^JL gjp ^^l p hilosophy. With the majority of Protestant writers
he regarded the beautiful as in its essence notJiing_ but a form of
the good. " If the moral system~Ts~c6rrupt," his friend wrote,
** it follows of necessity that the taste is false." ^ 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 litierair'e^ August 1 75 3. ^ N. H.^ iv. 3.

^ De la poesie dramaiique^ xxii.

PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 131

therefore, have Jragedies which breathe patriotism and the
love of freedom, and they will be fiae- tragedies. Let us have
dramas whicb call forth our tears Dn_J3ehalf 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,"^ 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 " actiolTlhat is impressive," such as was
introduced by English playwrights,^ 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.^ 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, Memo^res sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 127.

^ Discours sur, la trageaie, prefixed to Romulus.

^ Pensees diverses. In the Memoires de Trevoux, April 1 704, 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 historiques et critiques sur les differ ents theatres
deV Europe {l^liy

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," ^ St. Christopher of Notre-Dame, if it is added
that there is not one of his scenes " of which, ivith a little talent,
something great might not be made." ^ 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.^ 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.^ 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—the^
were dreaming of was the bourgeois dram a, invented, wid i^siich a
flourisir~bf trumpets, by Diderot; "tragedie s rendered interes t-
ing by patriotism and l ove of libert y ; " ^ in short. The London
Merchant and'T^ Gamester.

In reality, it was La Chaussee who had produced the earliest
specimens of p athetic 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.^ 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.'^ Moreover, as Prevost had

1 Paradoxe sur le comedien, ed. Moland, vol. viii., p. 384.

2 Letter to Voltaire, Z9th September 1762. ^ N. H., ii. 17.
4 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre : Fragments sur Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

^ N. H., ii. 17.

6 (Euvres de Diderot, vol. xix., p. 314. After a performance of the Pere de
fam'tlle 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. 1 65.

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,^ 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 mid^e class who,~tnThe^ghteenth century, tried their hands
at fiction and the drama, he at first pursued a handicraft7 and was
somewhat^ Igte. in_entenng_jipon_J^ career. After a

fruitless attempt at opera he produced George Barnivell or the
London Merchant in 1 73 1. In spite of the season^the Feight 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 feehngs, 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.^ 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 contre, 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 nou-veau theatre anglais, Paris, 1769,
vol. i.). Paul Lacroix mentions Melanide as having been reprinted in Dublin
(1749). {Catalogue de Soleinne, vol. ii., p. 91.)

2 Perry, Litterature anglaise au xviii^ Steele^ p. Z77.

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 BarnivelW ^ 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.^ 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." ^ 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
i 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-

^ Biographta Dramatica (The London Merchant).

2 None of them were known in France. (C/. Grimm, Correspondance litteraire
April 1764).

'^ The Champion, in Biographta 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 1 73 1, 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 take 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."^ This is really
too simple and abrupt ; the reader is amazed and stupefied.
But even so long ago as 1 73 1 an author could acquire a
reputation for being very profound by slurring over transi-
tions, destroying gradations, and boldly skipping problems in
psychology.

The courtesan, Millwood, is n ot 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

^ George Barnivell, Act i. sc. iii. (^Modern British Drama, vol. ii.).

136 ROUSSEAU'S ENGLISH STUDIES

of Dumas fils^ 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." ^ 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."^ 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." ^ 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 asjheembodi-
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," * 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 w^hich 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 X)umas/f/i, Preface to V Etrangere.

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 JValk at some distance Jrom 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 I 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 therewith 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 ivalk. Barniv ell puts on a vizor, and dratvs a pistol, unperceived.

Barnwell's Uncle. — Oh, death I 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 draivs it back again.

Barnwell. — Oh I 'tis impossible.

\Thro'wing doivn the pistol. Uncle starts ^ and attempts to draiv his sivord.

Uncle. — A man so near me ! Armed and masked —

Barnvstell Nay, then, there's no retreat.

\JPlucks 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 1 — 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. — \_Sivoons aivay upon his uncle's dead body.]

Artless as it is, the scene is full of jjatho&i 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.^ 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 Barnivell, 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.^ Yet, strange
j> 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, ShakespeaxJ s predecessors in the English
drama, p. 418 et seq. Observe that Lillo, at his dearfi, 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." ^ Many were the tears shed over this
** assize-court story," before it was relegated from the tragic
stage to the boards of the Joire.

Prevost, in Pour et Cofitrey 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." ^
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 translateji a scene from the play.

A few years later George Barnwell 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^ was an avowed admirer of
England. The writer of a ** hyperdrama," Les Frimafons, 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 '

^ W. Schlegel, Litter ature dramatique, 34th lesson.

2 Pour et Contre, 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 aire 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." ^ —
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! "* 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 I
What intensity of interest ! " The workmanship is not good ;
but there is ** genius in abundance," which covers a multitude of
faults.^ 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,^
Anseaume with the subject of a comedy, and Sebastien Mercier^

■^ Les cinq annees litteraires, 15th March 1 752.

2 Le NLarchand de Londres ou Vhistoire de George Barnivell, tragedte bourgeoise en cinq
actes, traduite de V anglais de Lillo, by M , . ., 1 748, i2mo, 139 pp. In the edition
of 1 75 1, the hanging scene is also included. A further edition was issued in
1767.

3 Journal ency clop edique, 15th June 1768.

■* Journal etr anger, February 1760. Journal encyclopedique, March 1764.
^ Colle, Journal, ed. H. Bonhomme, vol. i., p. 21.

^ Paris, 1764. Cf, Freron, Annee litteraire, 1764, vol. i., and Journal Encyclo-
pedique, I St March 1764.

7 Lettres du marquis de\Roselle.

PREFERS BOURGEOIS LITERATURE 141

with the idea for a drama.^ 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." ^
Throughout his life he meditated publishing an annotated edition
of the work, together with one of the Gamester.^

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^dmirable piece of
work," we read in a note to the Lettre sur les spectacles, ** with a
moral w^^ic-k-gues mure-straig^ht^ -the- point than that of any
French £lay_X-aiiu-a€-^uainted with." ^ The man who thought it
needful to teach the young ** to distrust the illusions of love," and
" to beware aF~fimes oT surrendering a~vrrtuous 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 excitfid^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 Heloise, who,
after all,jwas rather a novelistthan_j_dramatist,-cauId only feel
at home, if I may say so, in English fiction.

^ Vecole de la jeunesse ou le Barne'velt fram^ais^ a comedy in verse in three acts by
M. Anseaume, played at the Italiens, 24th January 1765. Jenneval ou le Barnevelt
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 " V ostrogothie anglais e.'''' 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 vvras printed in the edition of
1781.

Chapter III

EUROPEAN POPULARITY OF ENGLISH FICTION

L 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, Provost and
Marivaux — Wherein the French novelists, and Marivaux in particular, had
anticipated Richardson and Rousseau.
III. Prevost translates Richardson (1742, 1751, 1755-56)— Importance of these
translations — Their value.

QjELjaLll the creations of English literature during the eighteenth
century, the. jnost originaLwas certainly the novel of middle-class
manners, or, as Taine calls it^ lEeJm^ajrrTmih^imtams^us. 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 s ubstitut e the
nrrnraj^i^ s<-"dy "f Cf?nte mporary socie ty for narratives of adven-
ture of the French or Spanish type. ^^nd, "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." ^ 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, untxanunelled in its glorious flight
by any classic models, and absolutely, free fVomany taint of tra-
ditional influence. The Harlowes and the Joneses seemed to
usurp in the wearied imagination of mankind the place held

1 Taine, Litterature 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.^ ,-Tfee-4iQvel — a form of literature almost
unknown to the ancients — be came with the E nglish the epic of
modern world.

th^^mo

neyare the first," says Mme. de Stael with justice, " who (/ fj./Z
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 withou.t 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 t o mo ral enthusiasm, and may
invent a fprm of hprnism of their own."^ Fiction, a type of
literature previously regarded as inferior, was thereby revolu-
tionized. Thereby also, theJEnglish became the models of ^very
q pvelistj flow 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- tmtlijihe Englis hnovelists
rendered this frivolous .branch of literature capable of conveying
iHeas 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- ^ v"

sciously, they^dealt an effective blow at the long domination of S- >
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

^ De la litterature, i. 15.

144 T^HE 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.
\ i^cwr^^- literature, that is. lo. .say_n£5xLy--all_ the literature of

^ \imodern times, has i^s roo^in the English-novel. -^--^

Of the two greatest novelists of the eighteenth century,
excluding Defoe, one, Fielding, was a„m-a]i_Qf _caltivated mind,
was an ardent admirer of antiquity, and had been educated at
"'tton, where, however, the process of classical training had not
destroyed his vigorous native originality. The other, the son of a
carpenter named^Eichardaon^Jwas devoid of literary culture, or

V possessed at any rate no more than a smattering which he had

\y 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.^ Both proved the truth of
Montesquieu's saying concerning the English : " They admire
the ancients, but will not even imitate them." ^ Thanks to
them, and to a few less brilliant lights, the English novel, freed
\ at last from the ancient domination of heroic fiction,^ shed abroad
an incomparable lustre.

In the first place there was the group of works consisting
oi 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. 275).

^ Pensees diver ses.

* On the prolonged popularity of the French novel in England, see Beljame,
p. 14 et seq^ and J. Jusserand, The English Novell ch. vii.

ITS POPULARITY 145

augurated by the famous Clarissa (1748). One after the other
came Smollett's Roderick Raftdom (1748) and Peregrine Pickle
(ly^l), 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 1 754 with
5/r 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 "^^^^
his first appearance with the first part of Tristram Shandy ; Gold-
smith, who produced the Ficar of Wakefield in 1 766; 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 Waverley — 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 thelvay to many hearts, but was not regarded as a very
great writer. Fielding, the most original of all, attained cele-
brity, but m 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.^ 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.

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 I/iad is to other epics ? ^ It is impossible, without close
examination, to credit the extent to which the translator of
Tom Jones has misrepresented his author.^ 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.^ Lastly,
and this is the main reason. Fielding, like Smollett, with whom,
indeed, he was confused, appeared too_^*_£icaresgue." France
had had enough of her Lesage, the very writer whose ** infinite
humour ariH^lagacity " atfrTcted 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."^ What do we find in their books ? "Tavern-scenes,
brawls on the high road, innumerable assaults with fist or
stick" — fine subjects forsooth!^ 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 Memoir es dhin touriste, vol. i., p. 39.

2 See Les Aventures de Joseph Andreivs et du mimstre Abraham Adams, translated into
French [by Desfontaines], London, 1743, z vols, izmo, frequently reprinted;
Histoire de Jonathan Wild le Grand, translated from the English of Mr Fielding,
London and Paris, 1763, 2 vols. i2mo [this translation is by Charles Picquet] ;
Amelie, histoire anglaise, a free translation from the English [by De Puisieux], Paris,
1762, 4 vols. i2mo; the same work w^as also adapted by Mme. Riccoboni ;
Histoire de Tom Jones ou V Enfant trowve, 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. i2mo), really by Montagnac ; Les malheurs du sentiment (1789, i2mo) ; Julien
VApostat (1765, i2mo), &c. These frauds prove at any rate the popularity of
Fielding's name.

3 Journal etr anger, February 1 760.

4 Correspondance litteraire, September 1 76 1.

^ Lett res sur quelques ecrits de ce temps, vol. X., p. 226.

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, thevalTant and healtBy_realism
of a great and candid mind, wasnor appreciatedT Tom Jones
was turned into comic-operas and comedies : Poinsinet made a
laughable vaudeville out of it, and Desforges more than one
pathetic play.^ 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.^ In vain
Mme. du Deffand praised *' the true lessons in morality" and
the " infinite truth " ^ it conveyed ; in vain La Harpe wrote
bravely ; " For me the first novel in the whole world is Tom
Jones.^^ Th«— g e ne r al publi €— did^-Jiot— p£rceive-4ts importance.
It praised its "truth and joviality," ^ 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 Lo~ve 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,

^ Poinsinet's Tom Jones was played at the Comedie Italienne on the 27th
February 1765, with music by Philidor {cf. Journal encyclopedique, 15th 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 17th April 1787. (^Cf. Correspondance litter aire, November 1782 and
May 1787.)

- Lettres sur quelqties ecrits, 1751? vol. v., p. 3.

3 To Mme. du Deffand, 13th October 1759.

* 14th 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. iii., 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." ^ The heart of the
reader of Jean- Jacques declined to be taken for a juggler's
" petticoat."

The fame of-ftiehardson, on the other hand, was spreading
throughout the length and breadth of Europe, and carrying the
reputation of ^English ficrtorTinto every country. In Holland he
was transTaied ~by PasfSinStinstra. 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.^ The Discourse der Mahlern 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 Lehen der schwedischen Grafin ; ^ 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 Andrenvsy 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.

2 See Erich Schmidt : Richardson, Rousseau und 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.

^ Das Leben der schivedischen Grafin von G . . ., 1 746, 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. . . .
A 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 Ric hardson 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~ d bp a ssi uua te' cfifrc against what he called the
furor anglicanus : he himself, when it came to the point, ranked
Lovelaceamong the heroes, together with Alexander, Charles
XII., Richelieu and Masaniello.^ 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., char m o f Richardson's
heroines proved the stronger. Numbers of travellers in
England weiTt to visit Hamp^tead 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.^

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. iii,, pp. 139-159.
^ Knigge, Die Verruirrungen des Philosophen.
3 Mrs Barbauld, vol. i., p. clxv.

i5o THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD

\ x^immortal than the immortality of Homer is the fame among
Christians of the Englishman Richardson." ^

Such, too, was the opinion, or rather the feeling of the
French public, when once it had become acquainted with
Clarissa Harloive.

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
anglomani a had very soon_ ceased_tOLj)g^egarded as^~pas«iSg
fashion of no special si gnificance : 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 noveHst something^which neither Lesage

1 Gellert, Ueber Richardson's Bildniss : —

Dies ist der schopferische Geist,
Der uns durch lehrende Gedichte
Den Reiz der Tugend fnhlen 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 fils had as yet given them ? To |
ask the. reason for— tfeAs^-conteiB pt i s t ^ a a k why -Jldehardsen, )
and Rousseau after hini, metjwithsiiclL-SllcceMl^^^

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 or
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 Rousseauf
refused to regard Gil Bias as anything else than a humorous|^ j
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 ^
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 I5g

Hence it follows that since Lesage only studied tlie lowest
and most superficial of the feelings which go to make lip 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-

f purse. But seek the least information in reply to the hundred

y and one problems of every-day life and of man's inward experi-
f I fence which hourly suggest themselves — and you will find nothing i

111 but an arid waste of satire. It is impossible to be more completely 1
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 Steele 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.^ As Sainte-Beuve remarked, Lesage was but sparingly
praised by the critics, even after he^Kad~~t)een writing for a

. quarter of a century. How are we to account for this .'* By the

s/j fact that he no longer satisfied the needs-of-th^age. His work

did no.t_ appear sufficientty' 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
novehsts 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).

\ trc

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 toLesage, he is alwaySL-S^ous, and even.„gLQomy. His
biographer praises him for haymg brou ght the_ terrors_o£. tragedy
within the scope of fiction.^ The encomium was but too well
merited. IiTthe next place, he lacks artistic skill — no bad re-
commendation from the reader's point of view, in 1 750 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, ex cept in^ JJ/fnmn Lescautr, is
inferit5f. He is unable either ** to keep to his design, or to re-
gulate his progress."^ He accumulatese^iSiodjes-aiid^ incidents,
in volume after volume, without ever cr eating a fir t-p ronnprfion
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." *
V 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 (Tun 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^ ^ 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," ^ — and at certain periods

^ Essa't sur la vie de Prevost, introductory to the CEuvres choistes. This point has
been developed by M. Brunetiere in his study on Prevost.

2 Confessions, i. 5. ^ La Harpe, Cours de litterature, vol. iii., p. 186.

■* Marmontel, Essai sur les romans. ^ Pour et Contre, 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 .siirceRR of Ricliardson, as also of Rousseau, was
due to the fact that both were moralisTs, educators, spiritual
difecLurs hifhet^sF^^^ce, — and novelists only in the second, i
Pre vosTp excellent man, reforms nothing, not even the novel. \
Until he read Richardson, he still held the same conception o{~^
fiction as the author of Cassandre and Cleopdtre — 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."^

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 Harlonve 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." ^ Sheltering himself therefore
in this manner behind the English, from that day forward he
strove to walk in their footsteps.^ In truth it would have been
discourteous to protest, and the public was careful not to do so.
Of all the French nov elists of the eighteenth century, Mari-
_yanx.js ^the one who bears_jiio*t-Fegemblance 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 J.esage delighted, and the easy style of romance
which Prevost handled with such success. He deliberately set
himself to de pict the soul of average humanity in his own day,

1 Memoir es d\n homme de qualite, vol. i., p. 406.

2 Preface to the French version of Clarissa.
^ Compare with Clarissa the Memoires pour servir a Phistoire 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." ^ 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 j^ 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
y anxiety to reveal them in all the richness and variability of their

C nature. ** No one," as he says, ** can present people altogether

\ as they are,"^ and "the human soul has many more modes of

\^ behaviour than we have words wherewith to describe them." *

/ This almost morbid desire to be true and to be modern renders

f Marivaux unique in his generation.

\v^ 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 J ten whole years to appear ? ^ 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 P ay san 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."

5 1731-1741.

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 ?

,J 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 f
chatter should have aimed at being the artist of the masses is
simply paradoxical. He lacks both the robust coarsene_ss_pf*
Fielding 'a'M'the^fearless prolixity ot Richardson^ How could
he paint a picture of contemporary manners^witE" 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."^ No
wonder Desfontaines wrote: "What a tissue of insipidity and
emptiness is La Vie de Marianne \ ^^ "^ — La Harpe : ** Everything
is portrayed with a sincerity of language which is intended to
appear simple, but only betrays artifice" j^ — Marmontel : "He
scarcely ever allows himself a chance to use a vigorous,
masculine touch ; he is the Girardon of fiction " •, * — and BufFon,
in regard to Marianne : " The small-minded, and those who
are fond of affectation, will admire both thought and style." ^
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. Eiehardson 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 to o well and that
his perceptio ria,wprp too-^trfatfephis pictures, which were merely
true, appeared trivial. The contrast between the choice of

^ Paysan pavuenu, part i.

2 Translation of Joseph Andreivs, vol. ii., p. 326.

8 Cours de litierature, vol. iii., p. 186.

4 Essai sur les romans. ^ Letter to President Bouhier, 8th February 1739.

158 THE ENGLISH NOVEL ABROAD

models and the method of treatment caused offence. What
e 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." ^ 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.^ 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." ^ 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.*

For all these reasons, Marivaux was not, in his own day,
estimated at his true worth as a novelist. His place, Sainte-
Beuve has jusriy said, was at that time merely beside and a
little above Crebillon Jils.

England and Germany treated nim with greater justice. " Of
all French authors," wrote Diderot, ** M. de Marivaux is the one
whom the English like the best," ^ and Gray declared that he
desired no other paradise than to read the novels of Marivaux
and Crebillon J'?// for ever and ever.^ 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 Causeries, vol. ix., p. 358. ^ q._ Larroumet, Marivaux, p. 334.

3 Four et Cofitre, vol. ii., p. 346.

* 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 modernes, vol. xxxiii., p. 313.)

'^ Lettre sur les aveugles, ed. Tourneux, vol. i., p. 301.

^ 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.^

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,^ and Mme. Du
Boccage wrote from England in 1750: "When dining with,
people of literary taste, we did not fail to praise the clever /
authors of T mi Jones and Clar issa. I was asked for news of the \
creator of Marianne and the Paysan parvenu, nvhich has possibly
been the model for these neiv stories^'' ^ On the appearance of
Clarissa, English journals compared the author to Marivaux.* ^

In spite of this tradition — generally adopted by critics ^ — 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.^
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

^ 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 1 749, 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.'''

^ From M, Jusserand I hear of The Life of Marianne, or the adventures of the
Countess o/* . . ., by M. de Marivaux, translated from the French, the second
edition revised and corrected, London, Charles Davis, 1743, i2mo, 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.

i6o 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, Jgjchardson^ as we need hardly
repeat, isjustas^areless with regard to art as Mariyaux is over-
x areful. It appears, therefore, that the debt of one towards the
other, if it exists at all, is insignificant.^ In the history of
European literature Majivaux anticipated Richardson, but it
does not appear that we can regard him as his maste£^

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.

' III

While the fame of Lesage and Marivaux was increasing in
England, English fiction was, as La Harpe says, ** being_trans-
planted to French soif, anH 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 (Ji-es 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,

PREVOSrS TRANSLATIONS i6i

that of their author." ^ This, though a palpable exaggeration, is
not so monstrous as one might suppose. The eighteenth century
was just as grateful to PrevosLfor his adaptations of Clarissa and
Grandison 2i% for his own novels, Cleveland and Marion^ and he him-
seif 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 remarked^
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 1 741 and 1742. En-
grossed just then with other occupations, Prevost seems to have
employed the services of a collaborator.^ 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."*

Clarissa Harlonve^ published in 1 748, was translated in 1 75 1,
just at the time when Prevost became friendly with Rousseau.^
Prevost's version was incomplete, and thereby gave offence to
Richardson. Ten years later Diderot also complained of it in
his celebrated i.loge,^ and at the same time the Journal Stranger

1 (Euvres 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)5 where English fiction is dealt with at considerable length. (See Biographic
generate, and Haureau, Histoire litteraire du Maine, 1870, vol. i., p. 1 14.)

^ See Provost's preface. Pamela, ou la vertu recompensee, translated from the
English, London, 1742, 4 parts, i2mo ; frequently reprinted.

^ Lettres anglaises ou Histoire de Clarisse Harloive, translated from the English,
Paris, 1 75 1, 4 vols. i2mo. (The Nouvelles litteraires announce the appearance of
the first part in January 1751.)

^ 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."

i62 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."^ 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
I faithful translation ; and a more complete version of the master-
\3 J piece was issued by Letourneur.^

Finally, in i754> appeared Prevost's version of Grandison,^

which was followed by a more complete and more painstaking

translation, published in Germany.* The author was a Protestant

minister, Gaspard Joel Monod, and, according to Prevost, his

ljy^; 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 Harloive,
translated from the English, with a panegyric oh the author.

2 Clarisse Harlo-we, 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, oi Lettres anglaises at
St Petersburg and Frankfort, in 1774, as a sequel to Clarissa.

^ Nowvelles 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, V 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.

^ Histoire de sir Charles Grandisson, a complete version of the original English
edition, Gottingen and Leyden, 1756, 7 vols. izmo. (With regard to this transla-
tion, see Correspondance litteraire, August 1 748; and upon the author, Senebier,
Histoire litteraire de Geneve^ vol. iii., p. 251).

PRfiVOST'S TRANSLATIONS 163

unerrin g as to make it impossible for him to co nfine hi m-
lelF^to me rely tran slating his_originaE" He himself loudly
maintained " the supreme right of every author who employs
his mother-tongue for the purpose of giving pleasure,"^ —
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 175 1,
" 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^i ghts of a translator do not include that
of * ^transforming' the substance of a book," and besides, ** a
foreign air is no bad recmmnendatioh 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.^

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 Grandison : " 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?-
/ 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 suiFered 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
fre5h~t&-^^rench 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 Harloive 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 poi nt of path os^and if Tom Jones^t^veTlcar of ]Vakejield and'
"^Robinson Crusoe are still read, Clarissa Harloive is read no more
than Clelk 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, liyjreason_^f
the_magnilude..Qf tjiexevpjjaiiai^

His very faults even, obvious as they are, stamp him with
originality.

We can imagine the shock it would give, not Voltaire or

^ No satisfactory monograph on Richardson exists. The principal source of
information concerning him is Mrs Barbauld's collection : Life and Correspondence
of Samuel Richardson, 1 806, 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.

16S

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." ^ So much for the
lajiguageof gallantry. When the characters talk naturally
they speak in~tEe 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." ^ Such is the language of that affected little pro-
vincial, the immortal Clarissa.

.But^ff ectation go es_hand^_aiid_ 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 vulp;ar and affected, but he is a
pedant as well. When Clarissa is dying, Lovelace exclaims :
" bhe 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." ^ Then follow ten or twelve pages in

^ The novels oj Samuel Richardson (Ballantyne^ s Novelists* Library)^ vol, ii,, p. 1 97.

2 Ibid.^ vol. i., p. 669.

^ 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, hje 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." ^
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 istHeTo'west oT~Iow"comedy. On one occasion Lovelace,
in a FrightTul dream7"fbresees~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 peculiar ities of form Jiis want-of taste, his coarseaess,-
hj j pedantix_a nd_^ffbctatiQn^iiow, if he has studied good novels,
can he tolerate the perpei n nl i n tru s io n of th e au thorJA-pe r s on a l i i-y ,
that pre aching / 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 : " Pamelay\
or virtue rewarded, in a series of FamiHar 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 ; ^ 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." ^
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, ^or is this all : this world of scribblers makes
ita_pra£ticfi-JQ_jgreserve a duplicat e 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.^ It is the
I triumph-of the scribbling habit : everything po^dbl£-ia-5aid^^aii3_
\n! eyery thing that is said is put on paper j one after the other the
characters make their appearance, each with his oriier 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 afteF
another, each bearing above his head a great placard whereon the
public may read the part he has to play.^

Howjremote aret hese heav j^ formal nov els 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 Provost's translation, vol. iv., pp. 208 and 236.

2 Litter ature et philosophie melees : on Walter Scott.

I70 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.^

When taken to task for his proHxity, 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

J 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, . ^t I do not write^o dive rt you ;
-I merejiy des ire to instruct you ^__^Ar£4mu-f ond ofljffiiatc^hingj^^
drama of a human life } If so you will like my books.^

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_Jiellig— i mprobable in form^, are_often_ also
romantic in point of matt er. While it may be said that Ee
"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, andl
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

\j ^ setting,^ 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
Helo'ise^ remains faithful, in this respect, to the old conception
of this branch of literature. And this perhaps, as in the case of

""- 1, 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.
j It is a minute, a pat ient , a lab orious ar tj_what he gives us is

\) ' a mosaic of delicat e impressi ons, 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
TTItFTtrfind art in the snTallest 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.
N^ H Hej^dfistitUrte- of-art; Of , if h'e lias any , 1 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 Lettres fersanes, 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 coloiir 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 f 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} But, awkward and embarrassed as is his
utterance, this man has nevertheless the ^ft of deep_ernotion
^ ! before the s pectacle of _life. He was born with the necessity
for observing the world^, and for giving expression to what he
sees with. alLthe accuracy of which heJs 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." ^ Such is the classical

1 Mr Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library^ I St series. 2 Bictionnaire philosophique.

174 T^HE 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,
'"--v^^^ I \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
V is the art ^f_giying__tlie_4inpres8ion of life, Richard soifls" the
' greatest_ofj^alista-

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 natu re, 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 nvhich
represents nature is ever despised,^'' ^ 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." ^ 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 " th e goo d 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

I domestic interest. See how complacently the author of Pamela,

Grandison and Clarissa lingers over it ! See how forcible, how

1 Desfontaines, Lettre d'une dame anglaise, printed at the end of his translation of
Joseph Andreivs, vol. ii. Similarly du Resnel, in the remarks preliminary to his
translation of the Essay on Man : " They [the English] are exceedingly happy in
their imitation of nature ; but, like the Flemish painters, they are not in the least
particular about choosing ivhat is beautiful in nature, everything which truly represents
it gives them pleasure; whereas we require selection from what nature offers, and
blame the workman, however delicate and faithful his touch, if he has not chosen
a sublime and elevated subject."

2 E. Fromentin, Les maitres d'' autrefois , p. 165.

176 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

significant, how pathetic it renders his language ! I see the
character ; I see him whether he speaks or is silent . . ." ^ I
see Colbrand, the Swiss, in Pamela, with ** his frightful long
hair," and the " something on his throat, that sticks out . . .
like a wen," beneath his neck cloth. I see Mrs Jewkes, '*a
broad, squat, pursy ya;/ thing,^^ with her " huge hands," her '' flat
and crook'd " nose, her ** spiteful, grey, gogghng eye," and a
complexion that makes her face look ** as if it had been pickled a
month in salt-petre." I see Solmes, Clarissa Harlowe's poor
suitor, with his ** splay feet," always seeming to count his
steps when he walks, and stupidly " gnawing the head of his
hazel ; a carved head almost as ugly as his own." ^ And if
they speak the smallest inflexion of voice is noted, and dots
and dashes are used without stint. " See how many pauses,
full stops and interruptions there are, how many speeches are
broken off," — and how scrupulous the author is about truth of
detail !

Just as certain facts formerly considered insignificant are now
placed in a prominent position, so certain characters also^ hitherto
restricted to the narrow limits of the ridiculous, step boldly forth
into the s unlight. The_ characters belonging to the inferior
classes are not, in this case, as with Marivaux, merely a coach-
man or a little seamstress, introduced as pleasing subjects for
vignettes •, the whole action of the story passes between servants,
and a waiting-maid is its heroine. Excluding the squire, who
attempts the seduction of Pamela, and is odious in other respects,
what are the characters in this story ? The gardener Arthur,
the coachman Robert, Isaac the lackey, and even Tommy, " the
poor little scullion-boy." May not all these people be as worthy
of your interest as the comtes and marquises in your comedies ^
Away with your Mascarilles, Frontins, Scapins, and Lisettes,
crafty, designing and depraved, every one of them, and utterly
conventional in type. See our good steward here, weeping
because his beloved Pamela is so ill-treated : " Was ever the like
heard ! 'Tis too much, too much ; I can't bear it. As I hope to
live I am quite melted. Dear sir, forgive her ! " ^ Truly, the

1 Diderot, Eloge de Richardson, ^ Ballantyne, vi., p. 559. 3 Letter xxviii.

HIS REALISM 177

best of men. Pamela, too, is the best-behaved of housemaids.
You will not be surprised, therefore, to find quite a volume
devoted to the question as to whether or not she shall be dis-
missed. Is she to leave or not ? Is she to be driven or to walk ?
Is she to hire a carriage, or will some one allow her the use of
one ? If she goes on horseback, will it be proper for her to ride
behind a servant on the same horse. Shall she take one, two, or
three bundles ? Shall she carry away her old clothes or leave
them behind her ? Shall she wear her best Sunday gown or her
working-day dress ? Never, said Keats, was any one so con-
scientiously devoted to '* making mountains out of mole-hills."^
Nor was any one ever so passionately fond of "a good
likeness." Here, again, for your amusement, is a correct
inventory of our waiting-maid's dresses, petticoats, stockings,
collars, cuffs, hats and mittens. No milliner would give a better
description of the calico night-gown, the " quilted calimanco
coat," the pair of pockets, the new flannel coat. In her exile
Pamela provides herself with ** forty sheets of note-paper, a
dozen pens, a small bottle of ink," some wax and wafers. Like
her biographer, she has a practical mind. You are told how she
makes tea, the number of nubs of sugar she puts in, and the kind
of cakes she provides. You are taken to the kitchen and shown
how to clean the pots and pans. ** I, t'other day, tried, when
Rachel's back was turned, if I could not scour a pewter
plate ; ... it only blistered my hand in two places. ... I
hope to make my hands as red as a blood-pudding and as
hard as a beechen trencher. . . ."2 I dare not attempt to yjj
reckon up the number of tea-drinking scenes in Richardson's . {/
three novels : the consumption is appalling, but nothing can - ^
weary the author.

The ^onversatJQr i of the characters is corresponding ly insipid.
The servants talk the queerest jargon. Leman, in Clarissa^ writes
letters containing the most amusing spelling. If some women
and coachmen are talking around the kitchen table the author
takes his seat in a corner, records what they say — sparing us

1 Keats, Works, ed. Buxton Forman, vol. iv., p. 15.

2 Ballantyne, vi., p. 46.

■y/

178 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

neither blunders nor scurrility — and revels in dragging his reader
through a morass of vulgarity and platitude.

It is of-th^"esseiice'"ot all true realism, not_only to bring us
into ^actual contact with the vulgar side of things, but also to
show usjhelijbru_tality and hideousness. For in those by-places
of existence, where every form of distress that life can inflict
seems to be accumulated, the poverty of human nature is fully
revealed. When a man lies stretched on the hospital bed in the
agonies of death, everything in him that savours of the beast
forces its way out. The mask thrown over his face by social
convention falls, and nothing is left but a naked shivering figure,
trembling with fever and with terror. There is no better way
of stripping a man of all prestige, as of a vesture in which he has
wrapped himself, than that of bringing him face to face with
anguish and death ; nor is there any subject which lays such a
fierce hold upon the interest of the reader, certain as he is, in
this case at any rate, that he is reading his own history.

In Clarissa Richardson introduced descriptions of the pangs of
death, and of the preparations for it, to an even unjustifiable
extent. Clarissa buys her coffin beforehand, has it placed in her
bedroom, uses it as a kind of desk, and gives precise orders
concerning the manner in which her body is to be placed in it as
soon as cold. She dies a lingering death before our eyes. The
libertine, Belton, too, is ten or fifteen pages in dying. Else-
where, again, we have the never to be forgotten picture —
marvellous and horrible in its power — of the death agony of the
woman Sinclair. Here Prevost's resolution failed him. " This
scene,'* he writes, *Ms essentially English; in other words it is
depicted in colours so vivid and, unfortunately, so repugnant to
our national taste that however toned down it would be intoler-
able in French. Suffice it to add that the subject of this
remarkable picture is everything that is infamous and terrible." ^
But the curious, among whom was Diderot, read the original,
which was rendered in full by other translators.^

In a house of ill-fame an old woman, abandoned by the
doctors, lies dying, the women of the establishment, fresh from

Vol. iv., p. 480, 2 Ballantyne's edn., vol. ii., letter ccccvi.

HIS REALISM 179

the arms of their last night's lovers, gathered around her. The
paint has run on their wasted faces, ** discovering coarse wrinkled
skins " ; their hair is black only where the black-lead comb had
left its trace. " They were all slip-shod ; stockingless some ;
only under-petticoated all ; their gowns, made to cover straddling
hoops, hanging trollopy, and tangling about their heels." Some,
" unpadded," their eyes heavy with sleep, yawned and stretched
themselves. The room was filled with the odour of plasters,
liniments, and spirituous liquors.^

Meanwhile the dying woman struggles with death, ** spreading
the whole troubled bed with her huge quaggy carcase, clenching
her broad hands, and rolling her great red eye-balls." " Her
matted grizzly hair, made irreverend by her wickedness (her
clouted head-dress being half off, spread about her fat ears and
brawny neck) ; her livid lips parched and working violently ;
her broad chin in convulsive motion ; her wide mouth, by reason
of the contraction of her forehead (which seemed to be half lost
in its own frightful furrows) splitting her face, as it were, into
two parts ; and her huge tongue hideously rolling in it ; heaving,
puffing as if for breath ; her bellows-shaped and various-coloured
breasts ascending by turns to her chin, and descending out of
sight, with the violence of her gaspings."

Her end being spoken of: **Z)/>, did you say, sir?" — she
exclaims, — ** * Die ! — I luill not, I cannot die ! — I know not honv to
die ! Die, sir ! — And must I then die ? — Leave this world ? — I
cannot bear it ! — And who brought you hither, sir ? [her eyes
striking fire at me] who brought you here to tell me I must die,
sir ? — I cannot, I will not leave this world. Let others die, who
wish for another ! who expect a better ! I have had my plagues
in this ; but would compound for all future hopes, so as
I may be nothing after this ! ' And then she howled and
bellowed by turns. By my faith, Lovelace, I trembled in
every joint. ... * Sally ! — ^Polly ! — Sister Carter ! said she,
did you not tell me I might recover ? Did not the surgeon
tell me I might ? ' "

The surgeons appear, and carry on a long discussion with

1 Vol. ii., p. 687.

i8o THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

regard to tibia, jihula and patella. Finally they give her up,
and she is told of their verdict.

'' Then did the poor wretch set up an inarticulate frightful howl, such a one
as I never before heard uttered, as if already pangs infernal had taken hold of
her; and seeing every one half-frighted, and me motioning to withdraw, O pity
me, pity me, Mr Belford, cried she, her words interrupted by groans — I find you
think I shall die 1 And nvhat I may be, and ivhere, in a very few hours — who can
tell ?

"1 told her it was in vain to flatter her: it was my opinion she would not
recover.

" I was going to re-advise her to calm her spirits, and endeavour to resign her-
self, and to make the best of the opportunity yet left her : but this declaration
set her into a most outrageous raving. She would have torn her hair, and beaten
her breast, had not some of the wretches held her hands by force. . . ."i

III

Minute, tedious, and sometimes repulsive as a painter of
l^umarr~Kuifeing-, -Rirrhardson excelled in the delineation ^f
cEaracter, but of one "partlcii I^^fflDe of characte r^only — the
V-gry,_type, in fact, whic-hj-^ip^-to-^at tithe, had ''^Been most
neglected by French novelists.

When he meant to reflect upon the habits of the fashionablej
world, his work was not even second-rate. This was only to
be expected. The carpenter's son who had taken to printing
failed in depicting aristocratic society, not only because he had
seen very little of it, but also because certain delicate shades of
difference can only be caught by an art more subtle and flexible
than his. Like Rousseau, Richardson had a great fear of in-
truding upon persons "oT rank, and at the same time a great
desire to enjoy'their favour ; like him, in spite of his^wnTTumble
origin, he had a profound respect for birth and rank. But
Grandison and Clementina are no more genuine aristocrats than
Julie d'Etanges or M. de Wolmar.

Grandison, the model man of the world, is a splendid speci-
men of physique without a soul. His figure is " rather slender
than full," " his face in shape a fine oval," his complexion clear,
his clothes of the best cut, and his morals above reproach.

1 Vol. ii., p. 691.

SUCCESS WITH BOURGEOIS TYPES i8i

** "What a man is this, so to act ! " cries the unreserved Miss

Byron. She can find but one fault in him : " What I think

seems a httle to savour of singularity, his horses are not

docked ; their tails are only tied up when they are on the

road. ... I want, methinks, my dear, to find some fault in

his outward appearance." ^ To such trivialities can Samuel

Richardson descend when he attempts to depict the manners

of fashionable society. His Grandison, whose face seems

always radiant with the pleasure of having practised all his

virtues, is a lay figure. The world in which he moves is an

assemblage of grimacing puppets. They neither cry nor walk

nor live but according to sound principles and well-established

rules. When they love, it is in the most exalted fashion :

Grandison avows his feeling for Henrietta " with all the truth

/ and plainness which [he thinks] are required in treaties of this

j nature, equally with those set on foot between nation and

nation," ^ and is scrupulous in his observance of the prescribed

formalities. His courtly and sonorous verbiage intoxicates all

these pompous creatures, each puffed up with his own per-

; fection. The desire to think generous thoughts and to do

1 noble deeds is contagious. This insufferable Celadon keeps

'V I a school for instruction in the sublime as regards both sentiment

] and behaviour.

Richardson, poor man, thought he was drawing a picture of
— society. At most he merely depicted its^ exteri or^jnd_eyen of
that his portra it is^ in places^ a caric ature^. His aristocrats are
,upstarts_i some of the Lombard Street mud still clings to their
heels. The source and origin of their elegance is a life as
regular as though it were spent in a business office. Clarissa
sleeps six hours, reads and writes for three, devotes two to
domestic tasks and household accounts, five to drawing, music,
needlework, and conversation with the clergyman of the parish ;
"the two morning meals occupy two hours ; one is spent in visit-
ing the poor ; and four are left for supper and chatting — the
very apotheosis of method. So, too, Grandison sleeps, eats, and
makes his bow according to rigorous rules. When, on entering

1 Vol. iii., p. 91. '^ Ballantyne, viii., p. 585.

i82 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

church, he sees some ladies of his acquaintance, and among them
the object of his affections, does he turn to greet them ? By no
means ! Sir Charles knows too well that his respects are due in
the first place to the Deity. Reverently he bows his head, then,
raising himself, accords his second bow to Miss Byron,, and
follows it with successive salutations of the other ladies. His
behaviour is most elaborately thought out, and the author is
careful to draw our attention to the fact. A figure like Grandi-
son, who constantly acts in accordance with certain formulas by
which his life is regulated down to the smallest detail — a *' man-
machine," whose gestures we can anticipate as we can those of
an automaton — scarcely comes within the pale of real human
nature, and in so far as he does so is an intolerable moral pedant.
C How greatly inferior is Richardson in work of this sort to the
) classical writers of France ! They write for an aristocratic
public ; the souls they portray are of the finest temper ; they
penetrate the innermost recesses of the human heart, and dis-
tinguish the most delicate shades of feeling.

Richardson succeexia only when he portrays^sijnpLa— natures.

Whatever the social plane from which they are taken — and it is

worth noting that with the exception of Grandison and his circle

his characters belong at best to the upper strata of provincial

v;rmiddle-class society — they are all, if one may say so, people of

K the common herd, whose natures are made up of two or three

?iv^lementary feelings, and whose moral life derives a unity from

^ rihe clear and easily discernible aim it has set before it.

VlWe need make no exception in favour of the much discussed

character of Lovelace, though mistaken attempts have been

made to hold him up as a kind of hero of vice, an impossible

monster, ** an almost fantastic mixture of qualities intended to

fit him for the difficult part he has to play." ^

Lovelace was certainly never drawn from life. It is doubtful
whether, as has been maintained, he represents the Duke of
Wharton, or any other famous Ubertine.^ If he does, it is
unquestionable that the portrait is not in every respect a faithful

1 Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library, vol. i,, p. 105.
- Villemain, xviiii siecle, 27th lesson.

SUCCESS WITH BOURGEOIS TYPES 183

one. For, if Richardson conceived the idea of drawing from a
living model, his acquaintance with polite society was too im-
perfect to admit of his fully succeeding. Taking this fact into
consideration,^ everything which belongs to the exterior of the
character, everything in the portrait of Lovelace which describes
the gentleman, will be found conventional. Lovelace, like
Grandison, is only a make-believe aristocrat.

Moreover, since he required to paint a criminal, Richardson,
good, pious man, evidently strained certain features in order to
increase the horror his character inspired. In particular, he sur-
rounded him with a crew of myrmidons, sharpers, and thieves,
who make him appear at certain moments a regular hero of
melodrama. In order to magnify him, the honest printer's imagi-
nation invested Lovelace with the halo of a famous criminal —
after the fashion of Cartouche or Robert Macaire. Like them,
he writes letters in cypher, assumes false names, and dreams of
conspiracies, arson and ambush.^ On one occasion he disguises
his followers as men of fortune and family, that he may take
them to dine with his mistress, and commits his instructions
to them with the strictest formality. " Instructions to be ob-
served by John Belford, Richard Mowbray, Thomas Belton and
James Tourville, Esquires of the body to General Robert Love-
lace, on their admission to the presence of his goddess." And,
his orders once given, he cries, like Mephistopheles addressing
the spirits of the air : " Here's a first faint sketch of my plot.
Stand by, varlets, tanta-ra-ra-ra ! Veil your bonnets and con-
fess your master ! " ^ He is choked with his own pride : " Now,
Belford," he writes to his friend, " for the narrative of narra-
tives." He has anticipated everything, arranged everything,
contrived everything. Success is certain, and posterity will do
justice to him as a consummate artist in vice : what a figure he
will cut in the annals of profligacy ! This is puerile, and the
character of a man like Lovelace rather suggests the hero of the

1 '< Had I been a military hero, I should have made gunpowder useless ; for I
should have blown up all my adversaries by dint of stratagem, turning their own
devices upon them" (vol. ii., p. 48).

2 Ballantyne, vii., p. 124.

1 84 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

travelling booth, fashioned out of the coarse materials of legend,
than an eighteenth-century EngHshman of rank.

Stripped of these trappings, however, Lovelace is thoroughly
representative both of his country and of his time. He is one of
the most living of all the characters in Richardson's gallery.

Like Don Juan he is an atheist, and glories in the fact. But
while he allows himself the broadest jokes on certain subjects,
outwardly he professes to respect things sacred. He is a con-
summate master of cant. He declares to Clarissa that he has
always preserved " a great admiration for religion," appears at
church, and grants reductions of rent to such of his tenants as also
attend it. This he does in the gravest manner in the world,
with a suppressed irony which finds vent in his letters to his
bosom friend Belford, — " diabolical" letters, essentially English
in their clumsy fervour, and full of droll and sentimental pathos,
at which we do not know whether to laugh or to cry.

His failing is not so much debauchery as pride — and this is
characteristic of his age. Was it not the eighteenth century
which produced the peculiar type of man who is a seducer only
from motives of vanity ; who is cruel and cold, and sacrifices
everything not so much to sensuality as to the pride of conquest
and of reckoning up his victims ? This " species of perverted
Quixotry," ^ to use Scott's phrase, is not so well understood at
the present day. Nowhere can the thoughts and ideals of an
epoch concerning love and gallantry be seen more clearly than in
its fiction : Lovelace, like Valmont in the Liaisons dangereuses, is
the personification of the type of gallantry peculiar to the eigh-
teenth century, the age of Richelieu and Lord Baltimore. Love
of this sort demands intrigue, strife and bloodshed ; it intoxicates
man like a chase which excites his self-conceit before it inflames
his senses. Of this type is Lovelace, a profligate who boasts of
his profligacy. He lusts after every woman the possession of
whom would enhance his reputation. He desires Clarissa,
but he also desires her friend Miss Howe. ** One man
cannot have every woman worth having. — Pity though —
when the man is such a very clever fellow ! " ^ In the tavern

1 Lives of the novelists, vol. ii., p. 39. 2 Ballantyne, vii., p. 31.

SUCCESS WITH BOURGEOIS TYPES 185

to which he carries his victim he becomes enamoured of
the landlord's daughters, as soon as he perceives that their
mother is suspicious of him. His difficulty is to find an
adequate stimulus. The virtue, social position, and moral
worth of Clarissa Harlowe are so many spurs to his desire.
When she kisses him he considers this simple favour more
delicious than complete possession of any other woman, such is
the value which it derives from respect, timidity and the fear of
scandal. It depends entirely on him, observe, whether he will
marry her or not. He thinks of doing so, and is ready to yield
to the temptation, but suddenly pride obtains the mastery, the
blood of the Lovelaces forbids the last of their stock to " lick
the dust for a wife."^ "To carry off such a girl as this, in
spite of all her watchful and implacable friends : and in spite of
a prudence that I never met with in any of her sex : — what a
triumph ! — What a triumph over the whole sex ! — And then
such a revenge to gratify ! " A revenge upon love, which
he hates because he is consumed by it : " Love, which I hate,
heartily hate, because 'tis my master ! " Truly these are, as
Diderot said, " the sentiments of a cannibal, the cries of a wild
beast," maddened and intoxicated by the sight of blood. Is
Lovelace happy when his victim is once within his power ? By
no means. He is seized with a fresh desire to torture her. In
his letters to Belford he loads her with insult and contempt : he
would have her for his mistress, but he would also have her
ruined, polluted in the eyes of men, and absolutely at the mercy
of his " own imperial will." ^ He even laughs with satanic
merriment : " Hah, hah, hah, hah ! — I must here — I must here
lay down my pen, to hold my sides ; for I must have my laugh
out, now the fit is upon me." What ? She expects some
mischief from me .'' ** I don't care to disappoint anybody I have
a value for."

His punishment is that at last he comes to believe what he

says. "The modest ones and I are pretty much upon a par.

The difference between us is only, what they think, I act^^

The man who has come to this has shut himself off from real

1 Vol. ii., p. 39. 211., 23. 8 II., 48.

1 86 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

love. Thus when Lovelace endeavours to love Clarissa with a
pure passion, it is no longer within his power. Suspicion, paltry
jealousy and withering doubt are too strong: "Is virtue to be
established by common bruit only ? Has her virtue ever been
proved ? " ^ With cogent and mischievous logic he convinces
himself that no woman is honest. All his mistresses vernal
bloom and grace is nothing but trickery and falsehood. tlThis it
is which constitutes the profound truth of Lovelace*^s~"ch^Ta:cter :
that there is a fatality which imposes evil-doing upon the man
who begins his career in evil, that a man's whole existence has
Is, to bear the weight of his first transgressions, that for him who
\l has exhausted its living sources within himself, happiness is
f henceforth radically impossible. The whole series of Love-
lace's triumphs is a lingering expiation,land when at last he
falls beneath the sword of Colonel Morden, his punishment has
already long ago begun.

Thus, in spite of the author's concessions to convention, the
character of Lovelace remains an admirable creation, inasmuch as
Richardson managed to embody a profound characteristic of
human nature in the living picture of a man of his time.

His portraits of the Harlowe family constitute a richly fur-
nished gallery of base characters, though their meanness and
repulsiveness are of various kinds. Here is Clarissa's brother,
an English country squire, coarse, spiteful and avaricious, caring
for nothing in the world but to add to the money he has got
together, and hating his sisters with the hatred of the son and
heir whose patrimony they are consuming : his opinion, as he
himself affirms, is that " a man who has sons brings up chickens
for his own table, whereas daughters are chickens brought up
for the tables of other men." ^ He is subject, moreover, to a
most violent temper, a constant savage ill-humour ; one would
take him for a character of Fielding's. Here, again, is the sister,
Arabella, sour and treacherous in disposition, and incapable of
forgiving Clarissa for having the advantage of her in beauty
and good-nature. And here her father, as relentless as he is
tyrannical; her uncle James, concealing a kindly disposition

1 Vol. ii., p. 39. 2 Vol. i., p. 536.

SUCCESS WITH BOURGEOIS TYPES ^ 187

beneath a rough exterior, and her uncle Anthony, whose
harshness borders on ferocity. How many variations upon a
single sent iment !_ With regard to this novel we may honestly
share^the admiration of Diderot for the marvellous_diversit^
of Richar dson's character^ ^

Kut his women are more lifelik gjtill. He had associated with
them more, and had got to know them more thoroughly. His
own nature was a feminine one. From childhood he had always
had his audience of girls, to whom he was accustomed to relate
stories, and had acted as confidant to a circle of ladies, whose
love-letters he had been accustomed to write. In later Hfe he is
represented as a weak, but kindly and soft-hearted creature, all
imagination and sentiment, with a touch of romance to boot.
The sight of a woman sharpened his wits : to Lady Bradshaigh
he described himself as ** by chance lively ; very lively it will be
if he have hope of seeing a lady whom he loves and honours j
his eye always on the ladies."^ Like Jean- Jacques he was
nervous, impressionable and feeble in health. Ir; him too, as
in Rousseau^ there was something feminine. He never had
the courage to mount a horse. Wine, meat and fish were
forbidden him. His nerves at last became so excitable that his
hand shook too much to allow of his lifting a glass of wine to
his lips, and that he held none but written communication with
his foreman, so as to avoid speaking aloud.

A man of this sort — capable of shedding tears over Clementina
and Clarissa, as though they were members of his own family —
must have been as ten der-hearted _aiid as^sgnsitiKfi— to-pain as
Cowper or Rousseau. Hence the genius he displayed in writing
I the biographies of two or three women.

The first of these, the modest little waiting-maid Pamela, is
almost too familiar to be regarded as the heroine of a novel.
The daughter of peasants, she takes her three meals with hearty
appetite, and brings to the service of her employer a practical
mind and good sense — we might almost say, a good return. Once
married, she says to her master, " I will assist your housekeeper,
as I used to do, in the making jellies, comfits, sweetmeats, mar-

1 Quoted by W. Scott, vol. ii., p. 22.

1 88 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

malades, cordials . . . and to make myself all the fine linen of
the family, for yourself and me." She wants to convince him
that their marriage, great as the honour would be for her, would
at the same time be no bad thing for himself.

She is fully sensible, moreover, of differences in rank. When
she leaves her place, the servants shed tears and wish to give her
little presents in token of their friendship. She refuses, being
unwilling to receive anything from "the lower servants" —
which is characteristic of her type.

She is fond of admiration and longs to put on her fine silk
dress. But then would not her doing so imply a vain disposi-
tion ? And she argues the question out before us. — Again, she
is timid. Placed in confinement by her master, she wishes to
escape ; unfortunately there is in the meadow a bull which has
already injured the cook. So, on a certain occasion when she has
opened the garden gate she sees the bull glaring fixedly at her
with fiery eyes : ** Do you think there are such things as witches
and spirits ? If there be, I believe in my heart Mrs Jewkes has got
this bull on her side." ^ After a few moments she goes out once
more, and this time plucks up all her courage. But again it fails
her : "Well, here I am, come back again ! frighted, like a fool, out
of all my purposes." And then, besides the bull, are not thieves
said to be wandering about the country ? — This is all very natural
and life-like, and gives us a good picture of the little country girl,
with her simplicity, folly and timidity.

Pamela loves with a humble and melancholy fidelity. She
endures without murmuring a thousand insults and mortifications.
Her master insults her, yet she will not have him ill thought of.
The old steward sees her setting off and guesses the reason of her
leaving : " You are too pretty, my sweet mistress, and it maybe
too virtuous. Ah ! have I not hit it ? " Proudly she answers :
" No, good Mr Longman, don't think anything amiss of my
master," and there is something almost heroic in her simple reply.
Her master flouts her. She falls on her knees, and before wit-
nesses declares herself " a very faulty and very ungrateful
creature to the best of masters." " I have been very perverse

1 Ballantyne, vol. i., p. 77.

SUCCESS WITH BOURGEOIS TYPES 189

and saucy ; and have deserved nothing at your hands but to be
turned out of your family with shame and disgrace." ^ She
takes a sort of cruel pleasure in abasing herself at the feet of the
man she loves. In spite of all his persecution she is unable to
hate him, and when, though placed in confinement and grossly
insulted by him, she learns that he has just had a narrow escape
from death, her joy breaks forth in spite of herself: '* What is
the matter, that, with all his ill-usage of me, I cannot hate him ?
To be sure, in this, I am not like other people ! " She loves, in
fact, as few women have loved. When she thinks her master
appreciates her, she seems to hear " the harmony of the spheres
all around " her. She is filled with terror at the thought that at
the day of judgment she may possibly have to accuse the man
she loves above everything else, " the unhappy soul, that I could
wish it in my power to save ! " A sober expression of the most
intense feeling, purer a thousand times than the love-language of
a Marianne or a Manon.

Like a true Englishwoman of the lower class, Pamela's religion
is at once artless and conscientious. It is odd that Richardson
should have been blamed for the very thing which gives his
creation the unmistakable impress of truth. Like George
Eliot's heroines, whose prototype she is — like Dinah Morris
the preacher, she says, with blind faith in God : " Bread and
water I can live upon . . . with content. Water I can get
anywhere . . . and if I can't get me bread, I will live like
a bird in winter upon hips and haws ... or anything." 2
Pamela's scruples, it is true, are some of them childish, but
even this characteristic is eminently faithful to life. One day,
in her trouble, she repeats the 137th Psalm, with a few altera-
tions to make it applicable to her own situation. These changes
make her uneasy : is it not sinful to introduce them ? The trait
is at least as natural as the innocent pride she takes in her first
ride in a carriage. It is just this mixture of candour, innocence, .
and impulsiveness, in an English country girl, possessed with 'I
fear of the devil and haunted by the thought of the Judgment '
Day, that gives this character its charm.

1 Ballantyne, vol. i., p. 44. 2 Pamela^ letter xxix.

ipo THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

At times her religion reaches the level of the sublime. On
one occasion she slips out of the house, succeeds in reaching the
garden, climbs a wall, falls down and injures herself. What is
to become of her ? ^

" God forgive me ! but a sad thought came just then into my head, I tremble
to think of it ! Indeed my apprehensions of the usage I should meet with had
like to have made me miserable for ever 1 O my dear, dear parents, forgive your
poor child ; but being then quite desperate, I crept along till I could raise my-
self on my staggering feet ; and aw^ay limped I ! what to do, but to throw myself
into the pond, and so put a period to all my griefs in the world ! — But oh 1 to
find them infinitely aggravated (had I not, by the divine grace, been withheld)
in a miserable eternity ! "

She sits down therefore on the grass, and the devil tempts
her :

" And then, thought I (and oh ! that thought was surely of the devil's instiga-
tion ; for it was very soothing, and powerful with me), these wicked wretches
who have now no remorse, no pity on me, will then be moved to lament their
misdoings ; and when they see the dead corpse of the unhappy Pamela dragged
out to these dewy banks, and lying breathless at their feet, they will find that
remorse to soften their obdurate heart, which, now, has no place there. And
my master, my angry master, will then forget his resentments, and say : O, this
is the unhappy Pamela ! that I have so causelessly persecuted and destroyed 1
Now do I see she preferred her honesty to her life, will he say, and is no
hypocrite, nor deceiver ; but really was the innocent creature she pretended to
be. Then, thought I, will he, perhaps, shed a few tears over the corpse of his
persecuted servant ; and though he may give out, it was love and disappoint-
ment ; and that, perhaps (in order to hide his own guilt), for the unfortunate
Mr Williams, yet will he be inwardly grieved, and order me a decent funeral,
and save me, or rather this part of me, from the dreadful stake and the highway
interment ; and the young men and maidens all around my dear father's will pity
poor Pamela ! But O I I hope I shall not be the subject of their ballads and
elegies ; but that my memory, for the sake of my dear father and mother, may
quickly slide into oblivion."

Clarissa, in virtue of the strength and sincerity of her
religious feelings, is sister to Pamela. Like Pamela, too, she
is essentially English; that is to say, she has a firmness and
stability of judgment which distinguish her..at _once from^thg'
heiFokiesr^fTTerich fiction] She knows what she wants and
wh^Tshe ~wanls~'if. SITe "has none of the whims and caprices
of the pretty woman. She claims for her sex the right to

1 In reference to this scene, see Saint-Marc-Girardin, Cours de litterature
dramatique, vol. i., pp. 109-111. Ballantyne, vol. i., p. 86.

SUCCESS WITH BOURGEOIS TYPES 191

show that it possesses prudence and " steadiness of mind," a
quality which is denied it by none but the ill-intentioned. She
regards herself as the mistress of her own life, and, with all her
respect for her parents, intends to keep the disposal of herself
within her own hands. Practical, moreover, and quite at home
in money matters, she talks of them with the knowledge of a
steward ; nor will she ever be the one to forget that fortune is
an element of happiness. Melancholy as it may seem to the
romantic mind, Clarissa is eminently reasonable. Such she
appears in the earlier letters of the collection, before her
passions have been so violently stirred ; and such she remains
to the end. In the opinion of her friend, the witty and sprightly
Miss Howe, she is " over-serious." Nothing, in fact, deceives
her ; with unerring discernment she unravels the plots which
are being woven around her, detects the underhand tricks of
her brothers and sisters, defends herself against them to the
best of her ability, like a prudent girl who has no advocate but
herself, and amidst all her trials preserves a clear and at times a
somewhat harsh judgment.

Thoroughly English also, like Pamela, in her prejudices, she
entertains the whole stock of opinions common to every middle-
class girl who has been properly brought up, and, in particular, a
very keen consciousness of res^^ ectability. Whether she would love
Lovelace, if he were a working man or a small tradesman, I cannot
say; we may venture to doubt it. She is too well aware of what
she owes to herself, and too much wedded to decorum. She
strongly commends Lovelace for paying his tenants in order to make
them attend church, for otherwise they would not go. And it is
good for them to go : it is the natural order of things, and belongs
to a well-organised state of society. Her ideas on marriage, too,
are almost irritating in their good sense: she would have conformity
in rank, in family, in fortune and in everything else. Occasion-
ally she is calm and self-possessed to an extent that is depressing ;
one wants her to be more at the mercy of her impulses, more
free and unconstrained. The truth is that Richardson's admir-
able art would not allow him to make a weak-minded, romantic
creature like Julie d'Etanges the heroine of a drama of fierce

192 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

passion, but led him rather to choose a girl whose strict^yirtue
___approaches austerity. And how niuch more impressive the lesson
becomes in consequence, the drama how much more painfully
effective ! What does it matter, the reader may say, if the
heroine is rendered less womanly, provided her portrait is true
to nature.

But Clarissa remains a thorough woman. She is gentle, kind,
sympathetic, an excellent counsellor and a faithful friend. In
the midst of her troubles she retains an unalterable affection for
all her relations, even for her weak-minded mother ; insomuch
that she cannot forgive Miss Howe for a few harmless reflexions
upon her parents. She is determined to be always the best of
daughters, and such she remains till death. And with all her
soundness of judgment, on the other hand, she is never proof
against sudden emotion. She never manages to credit the full
extent of human malignity. Observe the strange agreement she
signs when she is in the hands of Lovelace : if her parents persist
in their opposition to her marriage she will remain single. How
serious, how candid a pledge to give ! With charming reserve
she adds that he must not take this promise as a favour, but
merely as a sort of recompense for the trouble he has had on her
account.

Clarissa, therefore, is a truly living creation. Even if she did
not love, she would still be better than the doll of a court or a
drawing-room. Hers is the first complete biography of a woman
in modern fiction.

But, in order thoroughly to understand Richardson's char-
acters, we must restore the conditions of thought which give
them a background of reality and make them live. Some of
these ideas have had their day, some are eternal. To quote a
/^remark of Mr Leslie Stephen's, these men and women " show all
\ the weaknesses inseparable from the age and country of their
1-^ origin. . . . They are cramped and deformed by the frigid
[ conventionalities of their century and the narrow society in which
\ they move and live. But for all that they stir the emotions of a
\ distant generation." ^

\«,,,^_^_^^ ^ Hours in a Library^ vol. i., p. 84.

RICHARDSON AS MORALIST 193

It cannot but be that these ideas were entertained by Richard-
son himself. Whatever a novelist's jiower of observation, however
versatile his talent, there is always one type' of character which
he draws in preference to others, because it is more closely
related to his own nature. Lesage was especially successful with
the vulgar and practical jGil Bias, Marivaux with Marianne — the
type of affectation, and Prevost with the weak-minded and
susceptible Des Grieux, just as Balzac incarnated himself in his
adventurers, Rastignac and Vautrin, and as George Sand put
something of herself into Lelia.

religious and strongly_attached to Christianity. RichaMson-'s;-
charactersTsai^ Villemain, became'orie'of the^forms of his own
existence. The form in which his genius by preference em-/
bodied itself was the character of Clarissa Harlowe — affectionate J
yet prudent ; passionate, yet self-controlled. This sin gle chax-l '
acter epitomizes in itself the moral philosopliy--of^he pious
prinTer who Xvas " Lhe gieaLesL illld pelliaps the most uncon-
scious of Shakespeare's imitators." ^

Richardson, it is true, moralizes because he is an Englishman,^
and because the English, as Tacitus had observed, " cannot laugh
at vice " : from its earliest days the English novel was a sc hooT
of morals, and ancestors of Ricterdsonhave been discovered
even in Lyly and Greene.^ But there are many degrees in
this tendency of the race and of this particular branch of litera-
ture, and no one has ever moralized more undisguisedly than
the author of Clarissa, As a child he was given to inventing
stories, all of which " carried with them, I am bold to say, an
useful moral." ^ When he takes up his pen it is to " turn young
people into a course of reading different from the pomp and
parade of romance-writing," and ** to promote the cause of

1 Villemain, xvi'iie siecle, lesson 27,

^ Cf. J. Jusserand, Le roman anglais au temps de Shakespeare.
3 Life, quoted by Sir W. Scott.
N

194 'THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

religion and virtue." Plainly he is a moralist first and a novelist V
afterwards, "Why, sir," wrote^ Johnson to ErsMne, who con-
demned Richardson for being tedious, ** if you were to read
Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much
fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him
for the sentiment, and consider the story only as giving occasion
to the sentiment." ^ Now **the sentiment," here, means chiefly the
moral sentiment. So true is this that the author had appended
to his own copy of Clarissa Harloive an alphabetical index of the
maxims and moral disquisitions contained in the work, and had
taken such pains over it that even the most trivial thoughts were
to be found in the list,^ such as "habits are not easily changed,"
or " men are known by their companions." Johnson encouraged
him in this work, considering that " Clarissa is not a performance
to be read with eagerness, and laid aside for ever ; but will be
occasionally consulted by the busy, the aged, and the studious." ^
In the Postscriptum to Clarissa, moreover, Richardson was
careful to explain himself as clearly as possible on this point :

'< It will be seen, by this time, that the author had a great end in view. He
has lived to see scepticism and infidelity openly avowed, and even endeavoured
to be propagated from the press ; the great doctrines of the Gospel brought into
question ; those of self-denial and mortification blotted out of the catalogue of
Christian virtues ; and a taste even to wantonness for outdoor pleasure and
luxury, to the general exclusion of domestic as well as public virtue, indus-
triously promoted among all ranks and degrees of people. In this general
depravity . . . the author . . . imagined, that if in an age given up to diversion
and entertainment, he could steal in, as may be said, and investigate the great
doctrines of Christianity under the, fashionable guise of an amusement," he should
be most likely to serve his purpose."^

In the mind of its author, his novel is an " amusing " apology
for religion.

In this demonstration, if the truth be told, the "amusement"
is often conspicuous only by its absence. The author is terribly

^ Boswell, Life of Johnson.

2 D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, edn. of 1889, p. 200.

3 Life of Johnson, Boswell (Croker's edn., p. 73). In fact a series of extracts
was published, entitled : A collection oj the moral and instructive Sentiments, Maxims^
Cautions and Reflexions contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa and Sir Charles
Grandison, 1755, I2mo.

4 Ballantyne, vol. fi., pp. 778-9.

RICHARDSON AS MORALIST 195

addicted to platituilfi^ He is the kind of man who will bring a
score of good reasons to prove that the most immaculate virtue
is insecure against a man who is careless of his own honour, or
again, that a man of gooij)rinciples, wh ose love is fou nded upon
reason, and is directed rathe r to the mind^ than to the body^Iwill
make any honest woman happy.

As amoralist, moreover, he is^a jnan of a small _aiui-Jiarrow_^
mind ; he believes in the most tyrannical social conventions as ./
tKbugh they were so many dogmas ; he establishes really too
close a connexion between virtue and the doctrines of the
English Protestant Church ; he is at once a Pharisee and a
utilitarian. Virtue, for him, is a sort of investment at compound
interest, and the beneficiaries are a little too apt to congratulate
themselves on the excellence of their schemes. *'That his
pieces," wrote Jeffrey, " were all intended to be strictly moral,
is indisputable ; but it is not quite so clear that they will
uniformly be found to have this tendency."^ Coleridge could
not tolerate Richardson's cant, and frankly avowed his preference
for the simpler and healthier moral philosophy of Fielding.^
Scott detects in Pamela a *' strain of cold-blooded prudence . . .
to which we are almost obliged to deny the name of virtue."
Even in his own country Richardson was occasionally considered
more of a preacher than a moralist.

Nevertheless, however disposed we may be to question certain
of his opinions, the fact remains that the feeling which inspires
these big volumes is profoundly moral. That they affected their
age to the extent they did was due to the fact that the age found
in them what was previously unknown in fiction — the boldly//
avowed pretension to treat the most serious problems through^
the medium of the novel. The pleasure which readers derivecr
from Clarissa Harlonve was that of feeling[ within themselves a
rggeneration of those sources of moral emotion which mighOiave ^
been supposed exhausted . The author's teachers had been
Berkeley and Bunyan.^ But the preaching of philosophers
and sermon-writers only goes down with converts. Richard-

1 Edinburgh Revieiv, vol. V., pp. 43-44. ^ Literary Remains.

'^ J. Jusserand, The English Novel, p. 68.

196 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

|\ son convinced the worldlings that to be, or to believe oneself,
Mgood, might be a source of the keenest pleasure. These works,
following their slow and leisurely course like some listless stream,
are pervaded by a kind of beneficent calm. Here were men spoiled
by excessive indulgence in keen sensations — pleasure, curiosity,
and weariness of the worldly life ; men whose individuality, in the
torrent of these small impressions, had become attenuated to the
vanishing point ; reduced to mere echoes of their restless environ-
ment they were no longer capable of giving forth an independent
sound. In these unsatisfied readers Richardson created afresh the
taste for the inner life, the illusion that they could be and feel
themselves useful, and the firm foundation of everyday thought and
activity. The study oi Pamela and Clarissa is a lesson in hygiene.
To reproach him with laying too much stress upon the moral of
his work would thus be to deceive ourselves as to the nature of his
genius. Deprive the Nouvelle Heloise of its moral, and what remains ?
Very little. The case is the same with Clarissa. T he work o wed
both its novelty and its influence to its moral inspiration.

Further, it effect ed a tran sformation in the art of fiction. In
Richardson^s hands the novel becomes a j narveil ous mstfument of ^^
psychological analysis. " The analytical novel," wrote Vigny,
" is the offspring of confession. It was Christianity that sug-
gested the idea, through the practice of self-revelation." ^ We
might amend Vigny's remark by saying that it is perhaps the ab-
sence of the confessional in Protestantism that has given birth to
the novel of moral analysis. Richardson, who was a kind of lay
spiritual director — " a Protestant confessor," as an English critic .
calls him 2 — possibly owed his success to the disappearance of
'the priest from English society in the eighteenth century. How-
ever this may be, we have in fiction a branch of literature which
is entirel y Christi an, and b y consequence entirely modern . The
novel with a moral, unknown to antiquity, is the most perfect
expression of the society of to-day. It reflects its anxiety, its
morbid uneasiness, its secret unrest. Chris|ian casuistry, the
" natural history of the soul,"^ is unrivalled as a teacher of prac- -

1 Journal d^un poke, p. 192. "^ Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library.

3 Taine, Litterature anglaise, vol. iv., p. 103.

RICHARDSON AS MORALIST 197

tical philosophy. To introduce it in fiction was to open up fresh
fields for the novelist's art.

No one could be better versed is casuistry than Richardson.
His dream in early life was to be a theologian, and for lack of a
pulpit he preached in his novels. "It is he," as Diderot justly
observed, ** who carries the torch to^the very depths of the
cavern, and teaches us to_jdeteiL.t.b^ subtle and dishonest motives
that hide or slink away behind the other honest motives which
are always the first to appear." No one can be more deeply in-
terested in qjiestion i o£xQasden££^. A thousand minor problems
of the moral Mej-}ptkheno^onsideYed unworthy of good literature;
or touched upon only by professional moralists, such as Addison/
and Steele, are by Richardson treated seriously and at length^
How should a virtuous girl behave towards a scolding ilW
tempered mother ? What consolation can she find for the little
weaknesses of her lover — for the sight of his untidy boots or
ill-tied neck-cloth ? How should her lover behave towards his
betrothed ? How is he to make himself lovable without sacri-
ficing his manly dignity ? Miss Howe asks her friend's opinion
as to the amount of importance a woman should attach to a
man's physical beauty. Clarissa replies with a carefully ordered
disquisition, in which she approaches the question, (l) from a
general, and (2) from a particular point of view. She considers
the part which love plays in life, in reference, (l) to our relative
duties ; (2) to our social duties ; (g) to our highest duties and
when considered from the divine point of view. She numbers
her arguments, underlines those which are most essential, and
distinguishes fresh points of view in those she has distinguished
already.^ She asks herself whether she loves Lovelace, and finally
accords him " a sort of conditional love." Keeping a journal is
with her a method of determining, supplementing, or amending her
own resolutions and of " entering into a compact with herself." ^

1 Cf. vol. i., p. 572 et seq.

2 " When I set down what I ivill do, or what I have done, on this or that occa-
sion, the resolution or action is before me, either to be adhered to, withdrawn or
amended, and I have entered into compact with myself, as I may say ; having
given it under my own hand to improve, rather than to go backward, as I live
longer." (Vol. ii., p. 82.)

ipS THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

This is the method of the casuist, who divides ideas into the
slenderest shreds, nay, even into imperceptible filaments.

Moral dialectic is to be found on every page. Is one bound.
Miss Howe queries, to rescue a friend from an awkward
situation at the risk of falling into one no less, or more,
awkward oneself ? A delicate question this ; it deserves an
entire letter. Should marriages be founded on interest or on
love ? Clarissa's letters contain matter enough for a volume on
this point. Ought one to marry contrary to one's own inclina-
tion and in obedience to parental desire ? In other words, is it
Clarissa's duty to marry Solmes ? It must not be supposed that
the mere prospect of doing so throws her into despair, like a
vulgar stage-heroine. She weighs her reasons. By refusing
Solmes she will inflict deep pain on her mother; is this a
sin ? If so, what excuse has she for her conduct ? Here is
one, perhaps : however the controversy terminates, her mother's
troubles cannot last long, for if she marries Lovelace her mother
will immediately console herself, whereas, if she marries a man
she detests, Clarissa will be for ever unhappy. A temporary
sorrow for her mother is therefore preferable to eternal sorrow
for Clarissa. It would be impossible to weigh duties more in-
geniously, or in a more sensitive balance.

Occasionally the habit amounts almost to a mania. Shall
Pamela stay with her master or not ? She draws up a balance-
sheet of arguments. Reasons for : she will be sustained
by divine grace, and a happy future will be secured for her
parents, etc. Reasons against : her inexperience, the danger
to her innocence, etc. Richardson drew up this balance-
sheet with the same perfection of method as he employed
in determining the liabilities and assets of his printing
establishment.

Yet even this brings his characters nearer to us. It humanizes
them, as it were, and endows them with life. The heroes of
tragedy struggle against love for the sake of honour, or against
infamy for the sake of glory. Such motives are noble ones, it
is true, but they are somewhat abstract. They do not come
home to us so closely, because, as they appear to our eyes, they

HIS SENSIBILITY 199

are deprived of the train of definite and sometimes paltry circum-
stances by which they are attended in real life. Richardson does
not know what '* love" and '* honour " are. He observes each
particular case, describes it, turns it over and over, weighs it
twice or thrice, and finally comes to a conclusion upon it — at the
price of having to repeat the whole process when the next case
occurs. It is the method adopted by spiritual directors and
writers of sermons.^ It had to be introduced into fiction, and
this could only be done by an author with a passion for ethical
problems.

Lastly, if, in addition to his faithful observation of the external
world, to the art with which he manages to bring his characters
before the reader, and to the richn ess a nd abundance of his
moral reflexions, we take into account his intensely sensitive
nature and his peculiar g'f^" ^f pfiQ'ri'^nfl^^ attachmenOo his own
creations, we shall have included all, or nearly all, the prineipal
characteristics of Richardson's genius.

His s ensibility wns ox trn ordinary, and, even at that maudlin
period, seems to have beeii_sincere. Consequently, the tears of
every reader, during his own dayTwere at his command. When
I read Clarissa^ Miss Fielding wrote to him, " I am all sensa-
tion ; my heart glows." Another of his correspondents abandons
the attempt to describe her feelings, and lays down her pen:
" Excuse me, good Mr Richardson, I cannot go on ; it is your
fault — you hav^ done more than I can bear." ^ Richardson's
'successors in English fiction felt at liberty gently to banter the
" enraptured spinsters" who " incensed" the master " with the
coffee-pot," kissed the slippers they worked for him, and

1 M. Brunetiere (Ze roman naturaliste, p. 292) maintains that Richardson drew
much of his inspiration from Bourdaloue. It is, at any rate, beyond doubt that
the works of the French sermon-writer were very popular in England. Burnet
said to Voltaire that Bourdaloue had "effected a reformation among English as
well as among French preachers." (JO,f. Lettre au due de la Valliere.')

2 Mrs Barbauld, vol. iv., p. 241 (Letter from Lady Bradshaigh).

200 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

believed they saw a "halo of virtue" around his night-cap.^

Some of the forms taken by sensibility in the eighteenth century

were extremely ludicrous, but does it follow that Richardson

and Rousseau were insincere ?

-N.,^^^ j Richardson was not gnlx. sensitive, but also — it must be

I admitted — sensji^l. In Pamela there is noticeable a singular

freedom in touching upon certain delicate subjects. Pamela

receives from her master a present of a pair of stockings ; she

blushes. ** Don't blush, Pamela," he says ; " dost think I don't

know pretty maids wear shoes and stockings ? " Amenities of

this sort are not rare. The author may seem to dwell at too

great length on the advances to which a girl of fifteen is exposed

from her master. Certain details are repulsive, and other

features astonish us. Pamela seems too familiar with the fact

that dejection commonly follows sensual pleasure : " We read in

Holy Writ, that wicked Ammon, when he had ruined poor

Tamar, hated her more than ever he loved her, and would

have turned her out of door." ^ In Clarissa there are long scenes

which take place in a disorderly house, and are anything but

1^ chaste. Does the fault He with the age ? Is it not that

\^ I with Richardson, as with Rousseau, sensibility borders upon

\ sensuaHty ?

Works which appeal so constantly and so powerfully to the
stronger emotions certainly cannot be read with impunity. There j
is something sickly and sensual in Richardson's melancholy, a
melancholy, as Diderot said, " at once sweet and lasting." It is
too palpably an enjoyment of a morbid state of physical de-
pression. Written for women, about women, and by an essen-
tially feminine writer, these novels did much to prepare the way
for the " vague lachrymosity " of Hervey, Ossian, and Rousseau.
To Richardson must be accorded the most important place in
the history of " melancholj[/l^ It was he who made languor
of soul and hidden tenderness fashionable, and developed the J
popular taste for soft and melancholy feelings. All his readers

1 Thackeray, The P^irginians, vol. i. 2 Ballantyne, vi., p. 35.

^ On this topic see Leslie Stephen, History of English thought in the eighteenth
century, vol. ii.

HIS SENSIBILITY 201

have mourned with Lovelace over the lost reflection of Clarissa,
and all have sympathized with his words —

" I have been traversing her room, meditating, or taking up everything she but
touched or used : the glass she dressed at I was ready to break, for not giving me
the personal image it wras wont to reflect of her, whose idea is for ever present
with me. I call for her, now in the tenderest, now in the most reproachful
terms, as if within hearing ; wanting her, I want my own soul, at least everything
dear to it. What a void in my heart ! what a chillness in my blood, as if its
circulation were arrested ! From her room to my own ; in the dining-room, and
in and out of every place where I have seen the beloved of my heart, do I hurry ;
in none can I tarry ; her lovely image in every one, in some lively attitude,
rushing in upon me. . . ."i

The exquisite sadness of passion^ though from Rousseau and
Goethe it received a more lyrical expression, was already to
be found in Richard