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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: yjcountry to exercise 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 cosmopolitan spirit in
literature has manifested itself in the reaching out ot the French
mmd, accordmg to the example set by Rousseau, towards the
literatures of northern Europe.

The present volume owes much to the teaching and advice
of M. Ferdinand Brunetiere. He has said somewhere that it
^* would be well to subordinate the history of individual litera-
tures to the general history of the 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 enquiring 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, to bring Fr£nGbmeainta,com-
munication with the mind of Europe.

Begun ty the refugees, and carried on by Prevost and Voltaire,
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 own. Etienne Pasquier had already remarked
that there was not a nobleman's mansion in the whole of
Germany, England, and Scotland but had its French tutor.
French, in the seventeenth century, was, after Latin, the inter-
national language. It was in French that Bacon wrote to the
Marquis d'Effiat, and Hobbes to Gassendi. The foreign
languages taught in the schools of Port Royal were Spanish
and Italian.^ 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-aJaarbaxqus 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^Evremond alone, among the critics of his time, has
spoken of it with a measure of understanding. Obliged to live
in London, the friend of Waller, Buckingham, and D'Aubigny
succeeded at any rate in forming a fairly accurate idea of the
English genius, if he never obtained a knowledge of the
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 Protestants 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 Locke, 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, to 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}ook did more to make Europe acquainted
with Great Britain.^ ,; ' ■ "^

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
refugees.^ Jlh" 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-
mopolitanism was_fi1ainIy.jL.K.irt]iP common 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. Shaftesbury'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 translULuis orlmitators,^ 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

them France 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 illustrious 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 EDg;lish literature. ^

■•^Vhat they lacked was ability. They were compilers and
abs^ctors7~BuF^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 'ngcL'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 waSvjio French
"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 ytars 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 language 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_
imaginative works over-weighted with thought." Does it there-
fore follow that they are wanting in imagination ? " Most of
them possess it, but its fire resembles that of their coke ; it is
powerful, but yields little light." ^ 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
question 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 Swiss, but^ Swiss who 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 deptlijiid penetration ; as a Frenchman animation ]\ .^
and a certain amount 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 English intellect, and to
show a preference for the latter. And since he was in addition
a writer of talent, the success of his Lettres^ published nearly
ten years earlier than the Lettres anglaises, should be noted as
a symptom.

\^^.*^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 refuge^ 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 refugees, 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 eighteenth century. 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 place in the Memoir es. First of
all, we have some attractive pictures of nianners^ and customs 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^nd vivid as 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 comparison between English, French and
Spaniards,. It is worth noting that Spain is very harshly treated
by Prevost : she was gradually sinking in public estimation, and
had to pay dearly for the long spell of good fortune she had
enjoyed in France 2 from Corneille to Lesage. The Frenchman,
fascinating as he is on first acquaintance, does not improve as
he becomes better known. The Englishman, though somewhat
rough, is the only one who promises much to observant eyes.

1 Vol. i., p. 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 JPreVost 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 religious
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 whole chapter of the history
,of England under Cromwell__and jCharles 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 diffusion of English thought in.
France : he had founded Le Pour 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^pf mndern perindiral . litpratnre.
-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 main object. " An entirely original feature of this paper

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

54 INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND UPON FRANCE

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 thing 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, Berkeley, and others —
with which Prevost enlivens his pages^ A translation of Steele's
comedy. The Conscious Lovers, or, according to Prevost's version,

1 Vol. ii., p. 272, 2 Vol. xii., p. 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
politiqal institutions ; thence, also, and above all, the rise of that
new— spirit, contemptuous of questions of art+ critical, eager for
reform, combative and practical, which concerned itself rather
with political and natural science than with poetry and elo-_

^ 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 sreptics of the eighteenth 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^^::that of a philosopher. His unbelief derived suSstance

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 world, 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 novelties. Meanwhile'lTr attended the meetings of
the Royal Society, of which he was afterwards elected a member,
and acquired a knowledge of the latest advances in science. He
rendered himself familiar with religious and philosophical con-
troversies, obtained information concerning the Quakers, and
visited 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, Tillotson» Berkeley, Woolston and Tindal. With these,
and with Clarke, whose " metaphysical imagination " appalled
him, he became friendly. In the society of ** these intrepid
defenders of natural law " he contracted new and fruitful habits
of thought.

He knew almost all the great English writers, concerning
whom Desmaizeaux and the starveling Saint-Hyacinthe —
whose relations with him very soon became somewhat strained
— had doubtless given him more than one piece of useful
information. He visited Pope at Twickenham, and owing to
his still imperfect knowledge of English, their interview was
rather an awkward one ; this, however, did not prevent them

1 Michelet errs in stating that Voltaire only received " a few guineas from the
queen " (vol. xvi., p. 69). Longchamp and Wagnere {Memoires sur Voltaire, vol. ii.,
p. 492) even speak of ;^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, hejnade himself faniih'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 hejwas conceirnffd ^"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, after 1 7 20. 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^^ instrict sequence.

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 edition was 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 earlier parl_of Jii&-~.bQQk is simply 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 commonest_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 toleration and liberty~oF tTiougEt, there are palpable and
deliberate exaggerations. But there are exaggerations also on
less burning topics : on commerce, for 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 writer.
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 incomplete.
Worse still, it is also, seriously and wilfully inaccarate^ 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 of Voltaire^s opinions on_
English literature as may have been prompted Jby:_wilful mis-,
^onception^andbad faitE^the resguF^oFlmpartial 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 caricatures — an
art which implies much individuality, however inferior it may
be in type — had evidently a great attraction for Voltaire. 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 Menippean Satire is " of very indifferent quality."
The platitudes of the poem ; the obscenity, the strange com-
bination of frivolity and ponderous buffoonery, the musty odours (^
of kitchen and stable, which render Butler's work, considered- ^""^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^^
comedy of the Restoration. 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 English drama-was. no school_of all the virtues. It had
to be acknowledged, however, that iTwas " the schooL ofjarit
and of good cojoedy." Classical by the higher side^ of his ^ind,
Voltaire always had^ a "secreTlondness 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 genius of the 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^-amLthat was the 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 epoch in the ^V*
historyu2£ criticism. T^rfprrp^dnhythe refugees, aodjlUgfttlH
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 nationals the equal

_ 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 thorougHly {^rnnspH^ it reni^ned to 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.
Books are like "the fire on our hearths." 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 lent 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-fertilization of the two literatures. Many circum-
stances assisted them in their endeavour.

In the first place, it must be admitted, the decay of the^
patriotic idea. " The eighteenth century," it 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 the patriotic idea.

By a strange inconsistency, tlielYJrtu^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 citizenV^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 of 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 connecting link between the two centuries. Montes-
quieu, Voltaire, Marivaux and Prevost were just taking the
field, and indeed already opening fire.

But if the period witnessed the disappearance of many figures
in the literary world, it was marked also by the publication of
many posthumous works ; Bourdaloue's sermons, in 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 advent of a new literature for
jvJTJrh fhp wrnn?r^QfJEnglishmen 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. history 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. That literajjire
was destined gradually to become the refuge of all who were
disgustedSl5~TKeimrf€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 seventeenth 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
genius than all the Addisons and— the Popes together. The
experimental or^Baconian. method triumphantly resisted the dis-
tinctively French method of Descartes. "I believe," wrote Le
Clerc, '* that the world is beginning to abandon that positive
manner with which Descartes, who is responsible for it, used ,
to set forth his conjectures in place of demonstrations ; you
do not find a single man of learning who is such a systematiser,
so to speak, as he was. The English, in particular, are more
averse to it than any other people." ^

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 homage pa id-JiL English science, by turning_all
eyes upon the country of Newton^^preceded liid prepared the
way for the worship" of Shakespeare 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 superiority 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 the eighteenthxenLur^: contempt
ifor all needless specuTation^ absolute indifference to problems,
the solution of which does not directly "affect our happiness in
this worldr,"exctTJsive" 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 conception 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"gtvgTrevidcncc of the advance of auglomania, 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 that3;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 work reflects the 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 Rousseau — 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-Upon the idea with satisfaction.
Voltaire irreverently said of Geneva that it imitated England as
the frog imitated the ox : it was the Gille of the English
nation.^ 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-tlTC--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^ tendencies 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 veneration 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_dignity of 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, only half bdf>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 any rate, a cosmopolitan. Looking
at the question broadly, it will readily be granted that he was the
embodiment of all the depth, the variety and the individuality
with which protestantism, when it was no longer confined to
France, was able to imbue the French mind. Contrasted with the
rlas^ii^al literature of the French, aJlieratuxe not only essentially
sociable in character, but finding in society at once the bond of

1 See H. F. Amiel, in the interesting volume entitled Rousseau juge par 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 : they depart entirely
from the French classical tradition. The work of a foreigner,
'they are singularly at variance with the practice of French
classical art. They are its absolute antithesis : its very negation
even. They have deprived those who have sought inspiration
from them of the power of comprehending it.

How easily one pictures him on the other hand as taking his
place in the genealogy of English literary art ! How thoroughly
he belongs to iFby^is jdeep]jense' oF ^* inward 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 morbid jeyelation 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 growth of cosmo-
)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 conceptions 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)rofoundlyreligious, deeply poetic

In like manner it was England next_^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 not in its literatureonly that the influence of one nation
over another makes itself manifest, nor in the mere imitation of
works_ that literary influence finds its expression. Such influence
consists also, and principally, of those currents of opinion, those
mysterious trains of thought and feeling, which at certain
periods impel one people towards another people, France of
the sixteenth century towards Italy — the land of beauty, France
of the seventeenth towards Spain — the land of heroism,
France of the early part of the present century towards Ger-
many— ** the land of thought," as it was called by Mme. de
Stael. Nor is it merely, in such cases of international influence,
some particular book or writer that commands admiration^ it is
an aggregate of works, a particular j^iterar^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, admiration 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 they resolved thatshe should correspond with their
dream.

** E|iglisli," said La Harpe, " was introduced 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 the boldness 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
deficient in rcctraint and modefatlOtVnot only as regards conduct
and manners, but also in^jj]eir tnrn of mind : their waatoa
imagination entirely exhausts itself in comparisons 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 Englishman has_good sense, but no
wit.' — * Very good ' — * And'^aTEr^^nchman wit, withouTcommon
sense.' — * Capital.' " Whence it follows " thar^the English
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 the independence_ofL__
their thought, 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 : religion, commerce and freedom." ^

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

r\Q\^^\y upon jR.nglish 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 was palpabley~ 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 : Fielding's novels 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 sign of energy ; ^^ 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..inaidenis 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 barharism--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 ^Bioduced 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

' Rousseau .shared the admiration Qf his rontempor^^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^'^^'^ the 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 TeTFran^ais of Muralt, who was
not only Hrs"^ettow-LuunLi)/uran7~"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 Nouvelle
\ 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 again who often suggests to himthe 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 patriotism^ 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
sweetness of self-reGoll€€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 inTulie's English garden. " 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,jiot 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 nature. 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 garden the realisation ofthe 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 which

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, racy 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 Locke and 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 appreciated 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 Harloive, 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 Diderot, 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, Diderot — the fact
has perhaps scarcely received sufficient attention — is the most
inquisitive concerning foreign and particuladx,£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 extremely 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
leafne^ EngTisIi~thoroughly, 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, could be less Erench 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 influence 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 representative of all that was most
attractive in English moral philosophy and jnetaphysics. The
Essayon Man, the first part of which appeared in 1 732, had
made him thejiopular poet of deism^ 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 Miltonis 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 man attain 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 see 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 venerates
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 so_dear to the_whole period.
If Pope does not actually cause our tears to flow, he at least
excites a certain tender feeling and a certain melting mood, which
he regards as creditable to man. Sensitiveness, if it is not virtue,
is at least the beginning^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_Mjin Hid m^^** tft ffpreaH English doiftm-iB-Fraocfr

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, bourgeois system,
that he sought in the Spectator y one of the most_,pQpjiiaiLbooks of
the^cenniryT

" "^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. It should_bg_rj£inarked ^'hnf ^^ ^hp rr»r"-
mencemerir^of^ the century he was, for foreigners,_the pe^soni-
fication oTThe'fegy^/j eleuieuL in the English intelligence. *' My
heart was Addison's," writes Breitinger at Zurich ; " with him
I left my humble retreat, and took my first steps in the society
of men." Bodmer started his Discourse der Mahlern (1721) in
imitation of the Spectator, and dedicated them ** to the august
Spectator of the English nation." ^ 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 English -afc easier to please than we
are," it was said, " with regard to works on morality : they do
not mind what is commonplace, provided only it be useful, and
presented in popular form ; witiL.us. moralizing 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, confessor, and familydoctor. 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
story of tfav^T^^ich readersof the^^housand and one nights^ the
Aventures de Beauchene or the Histoire des voyages found gratify-
ing to that appetite for tales of adventure and of expeditions to
remote regions which was so widely spread in that day.^ 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-the wide-fihi4e" —
sophic import of the book. It " constituted ^a-v^i^rable treatise
on natural 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, however, was the theatre the subject of his thoughts
and aspirations ; there is no doubt that Tie~took a lively interest
in the dramatic reform contemplated by his friend. Among the
ideas expressed in his Lettre sur les spectacles and in the literary
chapters of the Nouvelle Heldise there are some which he un-
doubtedly acquired from Diderot, or held in common with him.

Like Diderot, he is of opinion that tra.fted:y:iias 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 pnlishfid and unnatural man of society. In the circle
of which Diderot and Jean- Jacques were members it was con-
sidered that in France ** all ranks and conditions had become fused
together for social purposes " : seigneurs, magistrates, financiers,
men of letters and soldiers were all alike, and only one condition
of life remained, that of man of the world. ^[The English^ on the
contrary, have preserved, 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 philosophy. 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 drama, invented, widi^siich a
flourisir~bf trumpets, by Diderot; "tragedies rendered interest-
ing by patriotism and love of liberty ; " ^ in short. The London
Merchant and'T^ Gamester.

In reality, it was La Chaussee who had produced the earliest
specimens of pathetic comedy, but him they did not greatly ap-
preciate. Diderot cared little for him because he merely heralded
a new type, and because, moreover, he was but an indifferent
herald.^ 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 not a woman, but an idea — the
beast of the Apocalypse, which has declared war against humanity.
By ruining Barnwell she avenges herself on all the male sex.
Like certain heroines of the modern drama, like the stranger

^ 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 substitute the
nrrnraj^i^ s<-"dy "f Cf?ntemporary society 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 — became with the English 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 to moral 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
qpvelistjflow 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 Englishnovelists
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«— general 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 Richardson the creator of middle-class literature,
and drew from him the inspiration for his own plays. Imitations
and panegyrics were alike innumerable. Futile were the pro-
tests oF a"'more~dbpassiuuate' 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., charm of 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
anglomania had very soon_ceased_tOLj)g^egarded as^~pas«iSg
fashion of no special significance : Richardson's success was
European, and it is unreasonable to suppose that minds like
those of Diderot, Rousseau, Goethe, Andre Chenier, and
Mme. de Stael were merely the dupes of a feverish and
absurd infatuation. And if these writers were unanimous
in placing Clarissa and Grandison far above Gil Bias and the
Paysan Parvenu, is not that a sign of a profound alteration
in the public disposition ? Does it not also show that they
found in the English 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^-conteiBpt is t^ aak 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 brought 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, except 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 creating a firt-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 novelists 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 depict 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 too well and that
his perceptioria,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 Tmi Jones and Clarissa. 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-
xareful. 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

unerring as to make it impossible for him to confine him-
lelF^to merely translating 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^ights 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 point of pathos^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^ffectation goes_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 peculiarities of formJiis want-of taste, his coarseaess,-
hjj pedantix_and_^ffbctatiQn^iiow, if he has studied good novels,
can he tolerate the perpeinnl intrusion of the authorJA-personalii-y,
that preaching / which buttonholes you on every page and shouts
into your ears: "Whatever you do, mark the moral of this
tale ! " The mere title of one of his novels takes up a whole
page — so that we may be in no doubt as to its object : " 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 duplicate of the most trifling note.

1 Ballantyne, vol. vi., p. 52.

DEFECTS OF HIS ART 169

Clarissa dockets all her missives, and, as she herself acknow-
ledges, collects documents for the use of her future biographer.
On her deathbed she writes a long will, besides eleven letters
for various people, and copies of those letters as well. " No
wonder," says her executor, <* that she was always writing."
But how did she find the time to live ?

This is the documentary novel with a vengeance. Everything
is in the form of a report or a draft of minutes. Every letter is
a memorandum, containing references, errata, corrigenda, and
addenda. On every page we find resumes of previous resumes,
and analyses of analyses. Some of these letters are of the nature ,
of an official statement ; reasons are classified, numbered, docketed,
and have their preambles and their vouchers. Everything is
described, nothing omitted : a word, a frown, the position of a
chair — everything is set down. The author is a shorthand- /
reporter of the most diffuse and scrupulous type. In fact, in ^
the most important scenes, a corner is found for a clerk, who
writes from dictation. When Pollexfen resolves to fight
Grandison and has it out with him, he takes care to have a
** writer " in a recess, who is instructed to note down every little
word. Grandison's declarations of love, even, are duly formu-
lated and initialled. When Clementina is reconciled to her
family, Grandison draws up an agreement in six clauses which
gives rise to an elaborate interchange of comments.^ 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 arethese heavj^formal novels from the light and
airy little books of the earlier part of the century, such as the
Lettres persanes or Manon ! What a difference there is between

1 See 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 divert you ;
-I merejiy desire 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— improbable in form^, are_often_ also
romantic in point of matter. 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 patient, a laborious artj_what he gives us is

\) ' a mosaic of delicate impressions, not one of them worth report-
ing in itself, but which, accumulated, produce the effect of life.
Nothing could be less French, nothing less classic. The French
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 spectacle 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 nature, whatever it
may be, is always' beautiful ; nothing is excluded from our
works save the filthy and the loathsome, which is banished also
by the painter. Do we not hold the pictures of Heemskirk and
other Dutch painters in high esteem, although their subjects are
of the lowest ? ... If you are so prejudiced by your lofty

HIS REALISM 175

French ideas as to find something contemptible in certain of the
images in this book, / beg you to reflect that among us nothing 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 " the good likeness."

When a person of consequence enters a room we are told his

gestures, his attitude, and the number of steps he takes. ** The

description of movements is what pleases, especially in novels of

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 sunlight. 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 ^onversatJQri of the characters is correspondingly 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 "partlciiI^^fflDe of character^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^ exterior^jnd_eyen of
that his portrait is^ in places^ a caricature^. 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 sentiment !_ With regard to this novel we may honestly
share^the admiration of Diderot for the marvellous_diversit^
of Richardson's character^^

Kut his women are more lifelikgjtill. 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 tender-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.

Richardson's ideal was that of a noble and tender soul, liable
to temptitioR-4>y^n-ea9©a-_^Mts extreme^^

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 single 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 schooT
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, whose love is founded upon
reason, and is directed rather to the mind^than to the body^Iwill
make any honest woman happy.

As amoralist, moreover, he is^ajnan 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 wasthat 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. The work owed
both its novelty and its influence to its moral inspiration.

Further, it effected a transformation in the art of fiction. In
Richardson^s hands the novel becomes a jnarveilous 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 entirely Christian, and by 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 qjiestioni 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 richness and 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 sensibility 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 Richardson. His emotions, like theirs, were con- -
stantly being stirred by the thought of love, because, for him as ^ ^

for them, love is what the soul demands with irresistibje force.
With all its attendant moods of agitation, anxiety and depressionj---
it is the highest and the deepest manifestation of our innermost
self. This, for our pious novelist, is beyond doubt. Carlyle once
maintained that in the lives of the majority love occupies but an
insignificant place. In the novels of Richardson it occupies not
only the most important, but every place. Of all— moral-and|(
sociarquesTiDTrs^il is ihe'chrer Nor is the love here treated
of the^ere gallantry whtch foTmed the staple of French fiction
and French drama in the seventeenth century, but rather that
" tragic. jjid^lemWe^Movje^di^

Love, in the novels of Marivaux, Lesage and Prevost, whatever
importance they attach to it, is, it should be remarked, as yet a
mere accident or a means to getting on in the world. Nowhere,
even in Manon Lescaut^ does it attain the dignity of a social duty.
"With Richardson it takes possession of the whole man, and
absojFbs'-tiTr'elltrre -interest. " 0»i^^elings," Saint-Evremond
once said, " are wanting in a certain intensity ; the impulses
which half-roused passions excite in our souls can neither leave
them in their usual condition nor carry them out of themselves." ^
This intensity in which the passions were deficient was expressed

1 Ballantyne, vol. i., p. z66. ^ gur les tragedies (1677).

3I02 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

by Richardson with genius, because love, as he conceived it, was
no mere accident or stroke of good fortune, but, in a sense, the
^'>^^ i most essential of human duties.
J ' Love, passionate love, is the main point of all his novels.
Pamela loves her unwortliy master, Clarissa loves the monster
Lovelace, Henrietta Byron and Clementina are distracted with
love for Grandison, and innumerable trials are the reward of

. passion in every case. Pamela is reviled, imprisoned and over-
whelmed with outrageous insults ; Clarissa is done to death ;
^\ Clementina loses her reason. Who will say that passion is not
tragic ? What a subject for study in this lingermg angulstrxrf-^
heart! And what wonder that Richardson devoted so much
labour to the task ? " Clarissa,^* wrote Alfred de Vigny, " is a
treatise on strategy. Twenty-four volumes to describe the siege
and capture of a heart : it is worthy of Vauban."i Such a feat

/^is possible only to the man who is thoroughly convinced that if
X K- \ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ source of man's greatest sorrows, it is also the sole
^' Kprinciple of his nobility.

But when this man happens to be an Englishman and a Pro-
testant, there is also, of course, a moral to be drawn from
these adventures in the field of love. Two objects have to be

f reconciled, that of arousing the reader's feelings and that of
instructing him, of being at once impassioned and thoroughly

j moral, very pathetic and highly improving. And this being
so, one subject only is possible: love thwarted yet struggling^
whether against external obstacles or against itself. This, in
truth, is the only story Richardson has to tell, and the victims
of this fatality are always women. All four — Pamela, Clarissa,
Clementina, Henrietta — or, if Miss Jervins and Olivia be in-
cluded, all six — strive either against their passion or against

j their duty. By one happiness is sacrificed to innocence, by

I another to filial duty, and by a third to religion ; while

^ Henrietta, who suffers the least of all, heroically leaves the
field to her fortunate rival when she perceives that Clementina
is the object of Grandison's affection.

Now no one has ever described these inward struggles as

1 Journal d^un poetCf 1833.

HIS SENSIBILITY 203

Richardson has done. Who had thought of depicting the con-
flict in a woman's heart between love and religion before he
did ? ^ What heroine of fiction or of tragedy had refused, like
Clementina, to give herself to the man she loves rather than
renounce her religion ? Or, rather, what novelist had ventured
to transfer such a subject to the days in which he was writing —
to introduce characters, Protestant or Catholic, belonging to
1750 ? Pathetic is the struggle in Clementina's soul when
she learns that Grandison refuses to renounce his belief. The
noble girl has but to say one word in order to ensure her happi-
ness : she need not even sacrifice her faith ; but that one word
will impair the dignity of her love. So she refuses to say it,
and it is under these circumstances that she writes Grandison
the following admirable letter : ^

''O thou whom my heart best loveth, forgive me I — Forgive me, said I, for
what ? — For acting, if I am enabled to act, greatly ? The example is from thee,
who, in my eyes, art the greatest of human creatures. My duty calls upon me
one way : my heart resists my duty, and tempts me not to perform it. Do thou,
O God, support me in the arduous struggle 1 Let it not, as once before, over-
throw my reason. . . . My tutor, my brother, my friend ! O most beloved and
best of men ! Seek me not in marriage 1 I am unworthy of thee. Thy soul was
ever most dear to Clementina ! Whenever I meditated the gracefulness of thy
person, I restrained my eye, I checked my fancy: and how? Why, by meditat-
ing the superior graces of thy mind. And is not that soul, thought I, to be
saved ? Dear, obstinate, and perverse I And shall I bind my soul to a soul
allied to perdition ? That so dearly loves that soul as hardly to wish to be
separated from it in its future lot. O thou most amiable of men ! How can
be sure, that, if I were thine, thou wouldst not draw me after thee, by love, by
sweetness of manners, by condescending goodness ? I, who once thought a heretic
the worst of beings, have been already led, by the amiableness of thy piety, by the
universality of thy charity to all thy fellow-creatures, to think more favourably of
all heretics, for thy sake. Of what force would be the admonitions of the most
pious confessor, were thy condescending goodness, and sweet persuasion, to be
exerted to melt a heart wholly thine ? . . . O most amiable of men I — O thou
whom my soul loveth, seek not to entangle me by thy love! Were I to be
thine, my duty to thee would mislead me from that I owe to my God. ..."

The love which inspires such a letter is _a_jLoble_feeling. It
is rendered greater by contact with the religious sentiment which

1 We must not, however, forget the famous Lettres d^une religieuse portugaisey nor
Mme. de La Fayette's master-piece La Princesse de Cleves.

2 Ballantyne, vol. iii., p. 508.

204 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

is mingled with it, and transforms it. Thence spring new shades,
dQlicatejand^ unsuspected varieties, of passion. DBserve; more-
over, that each of these heroines loves even to the point of
absolutely forgetting herself, and even voluntarily abasing her-
self before the man she loves. In contrast to the cold Astree or
the haughty Alcidiane, they yield themselves beforehand, are all
humility and submission, all tenderness and modesty. " O my
dear ! " Henrietta cries with humility, " what a princess in every-
one's eye will the declared love of such a man make me ! " Like
Milton's Eve they would be the last — whatever the witty Miss
Howe may say — to think themselves the equals of their masters.
But this only renders the struggle more touching. The wonder-
ful resolution with which they struggle against love is due to the
fact that they, too, have souls of their own, for which they are
accountable to God. The source of their dignity is their faith ;
never had the religious sentiment triumphed more brilliantly in
fiction than in these love-distracted hearts, which the tortures of
passion drive to madness or to death. No scenes of pathos can
equal the spectacle of this inward anguish, nor does any language
contain anything superior to the last volume of Clarissa Harloive,
Let us try for a moment to imagine a happy ending to the book
— such as was clamoured for by Richardson's readers : the con-
sequence would be the absolute destruction of its moral, with all
that constitutes its exquisite beauty. The death of Clarissa, as
a martyr to duty, is essential. It is necessary that Lovelace should
love Clarissa, but it is no less so that he should be the victim of
his past errors, the recollection of which interposes between her
and him. It is inevitable that he should become incapable of
loving her as she deserves to be loved. It is essential that it
should be for ever impossible for him to become the husband of
her whom he has treated as a mistress. It is essential, in the last
place, that she should forgive him, as she forgives her parents,
and that her obedience to conscience should entail her death. No
other denouement is possible.

It matters little that Clarissa seems prudish, bigoted, or
pedantic. Gradually, as the drama approaches its end, what
is absurd disappears or loses consequence. Just as when, in

IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK 205

real life, we stand before a death-bed, unhallowed recollections
steal away, arid above and beyond all paltry or trivial realities
we behold the image of the departing one, purified and already
less human, so, beside the bed of the dying Clarissa, the meek
little zealot, the affected provincial, the prolix and fastidious cor-
respondent of the earlier chapters is forgotten, and all that re-
mains before us is a girl dying because, amidst the most terrible
trials, she steadfastly retained command of her conscience and
her soul. Slowly prepared by a host of accumulated incidents,
the emotion aroused by the multiplication of painful impressions
is greater even than would be occasioned by a sudden and
violent shock. Our feelings are deeply rather than abruptly
stirred.

" Most happy," says Clarissa upon her death-bed, " has been
to me my punishment here I " In this glorification of suffering l^
as a means of purification lies the whole moral of the work.
This was something altogether new. No novel had previously
been made the vehicle of such teaching ; none had so deeply
probed such serious questions ; none had conveyed so lofty a
lesson in a drama so moving. Even to-day, little as it is read,
the last volume of Clarissa retains all its beauty. " I make my
apologies," wrote Doudan in surprise, ** to the old bookseller
Richardson, the closing scene of his drama is all of it very
beautiful and very touching." Every one who reads these
admirable pages without prejudice will be of Doudan's opinion.

This was all quite new, and, what was more, it seemed so to
the reader.

The novel had not yet been transformed into a branch of
literature capable of conveying ideas. Neither Lesage, with
his short-sighted philosophy and indulgent optimism, nor Prevost,
with his purely romantic conception of life, nor even Marivaux,
who, with all his intellectual charm, was of too amiable a dis-
position, had/ achieved more than an imperfect success. The

2o6 THE WORK OF RICHARDSON

only work at all comparable, in point of moral significance, to
English novels, was a short master-piece called the Princesse
de Cleves,

Before the novel could become a branch of serious literature
it required, first of all, to be re-constructed in point of form,
purged of its crude dramatic interest, and shorn of its elements
of romance and gallantry. Richardson attempted this, but did
not altogether succeed ; his work retains something of the
romantic element, though but little in comparison with that of
his predecessors. He at all events limited the amount of
incident in fiction, and confined it to simple events. He wrote
big books about little facts.

In the next place new types of character had to be chosen.
Richardson selects them from the middle-class, or from the
lesser nobility, as much because these strata of society were
more familiar to him as because in them he had happened to
find more souls that were souls in the true sense of the word
— capable, that is to say, of self-communion and of living a
^ \ fruitful inner life apart. They had to be exhibited as analysing
\ >y/ their own minds, and this is why he chose the epistolary form

' of novel ; a form which, even in his hands, did not attain per-
fection, but proved, nevertheless, an adequate vehicle for that
study of the commonplace tragedies of the soul which it was
designed to express.

It was necessary to get rid of any preoccupation of a purely
literary character which might have hampered observation and
detracted from the moral effect. Excellent in point of matter,
the work of the carpenter's son, the pedantic and ill-educated
printer, is at the same time inferior as regards form.

j It was also needful to portray life in the very meanest detail,
\ ; with the patiente of the naturalist who is passionately interested
in everything. This he attempted, and with a success which
often rendered him tedious, but enabled him at the same time to
present such complete and accurate pictures as make him the
greatest realist of his time.

But necessary as it was to be an acute observer, it was even
more so to be heart and soul a moralist, that is to say, to com-

IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK 207

bine deep religious convictions with the taste for moral prob-
lems : a condition, however, essential, but seldom realised
among literary men in the eighteenth century. Richardson,
like Rousseau in his own day, and like Tolstoi in ours, had
the immense advantage of being a believer.

Lastly, it was also necessary that with all these gifts there
should be combined the gift of emotion, intense sensibility,
I extreme soft-heartedness, a really feminine partiality to tears,
and, above all, that talent for making his creations live, which,
as Villemain said, render him " the greatest and perhaps the
most unconscious imitator of Shakespeare."

The work which resulted from all these qualities, crude,
pedantic, and unequal as it was, was nevertheless profoundly
original, very English, though at the same time very human, and
undoubtedly, when we consider the period to which it belongs,
very new. Even at this distance of time its power remains
unimpaired, and sufficiently explains — if it does not absolutely
justify — the expression used by Johnson, when, with his rough
good sense, he said to Boswell that " French novels, compared
with Richardson's, . . . might be pretty baubles, but a wren
was not an eagle." ^

^ Life of Johnson, ed. Napier, vol. i., p. 516.

Chapter V

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND ENGLISH FICTION

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 — Richard-
son's influence upon the French novel.

II. Rousseau's admiration for him — He had Richardson in mind while writing
Helo'ise — The resemblance between Helo'ise and Clarissa a commonplace of
eighteenth century criticism — Reasons for this.

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.

IV. Analogy between the two writers in point of religion — How Rousseau,
following Richardson's example, transformed and elevated the novel.

V. Wherein he surpassed his model : feeling for nature, conception of love,
melancholy — The success of Helo'ise increased the fame of Clarissa Harloive —
Richardson and the romantic school.

It has been truly said that Clarissa Harloive is to La Nouvelle
Helo'ise what Rousseau's novel is to Werther : ^ the three works are
inseparably connected, because the bond between them is one of
heredity. But while Werther and Helo'ise are still read, Clarissa
is scarcely read at all, and this, beyond doubt, is the reason
that, while no one thinks of disputing Goethe's indebtedness to
Rousseau, it is to-day less easy to perceive the extent to
which Rousseau is indebted to Richardson.

To realise how far this was so, we need to recall the un-
paralleled good fortune which attended Pamela, Clarissa and
Grandison from the very moment of their appearance in France.
The story of this controversy concerning English fiction con-
stitutes an entire chapter, and not the least curious one, in the
history of French literature. It inflamed public opinion almost
to the same extent as the controversy over Shakespeare, and its

1 Marc Monnier, Rousseau et les etrangers (in Jean- Jacques Rousseau juge par les
Genevois d'' aujourd^ hui^.

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 209

last episode reflected dazzling glory upon Richardson, by pro-
claiming him the model, and often even the master, of Rousseau.

, The success of Pamela was in the first place due to the fact
\j I that it impressed the reader as being at once moral in tendency
' and true. " An English girl, without birth or property, sets an
example which might put to shame the comtesses and marquises
of our most famous novelists."^ Desfontaines, the accredited
champion of literary novelties from England, strongly 4nsisted on
the novelty of Pamela, declaring that the book departed from the
*' beaten track" by restoring the credit of woman, who had been
insulted in so many fashionable books (Crebillon Jils had just
published [1736] his Egarements du coeur et de V esprit), and by
returning to what was simple and natural. In Pamela " there
are neither daring descriptions, nor lewd suggestions, nor epi-
grammatic obscurities." *'True, these are not the adventures
of the princess, marquise, comtesse, or haronne, who commonly
figures as the heroine in our novels." But if the author *'had
credited some lofty personage in the upper ranks of society with
so much virtue and power of resistance, where would truth to
nature have been ? " The style, it is true, has not the " elegant
symmetry of a geometrical figure," but it is full of a *' happy
carelessness." In short, Pamela, in spite of being an English
novel, was an excellent pattern to set before French authors.^

English the book was, unfortunately for Desfontaines, and at
that very moment England had declared herself on the side of
Marie-Therese, in the war of the Austrian succession. A
pamphlet appeared in patriotic denunciation of the dangerous
tendencies of a novel so loud in its praises of insular virtue.^
The Journal de police proclaims its ** indignation against the

^ Journal etr anger ^ February 1 755.

"^ Observations sur les ecrits modernes, vol. xxix., I'J^'i,.

' Lettre a Pabbe Desfontaines sur Pamela, Paris, 1742. (See the Journal de police,
published with the Journal de Barbier, Charpentier's edn., vol. viii., p. 158, and
Observations sur les ecrits modernes, vol. xxix., p. 2 1 3.)

2IO ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

author of the Observations for having written a defence of
Pamela," and its amazement that a license should have been
granted to the translator of a book, " the preface of which is a
panegyric on the English and an insult to the entire French
nation." Just as, at an earlier date, Corneille had incurred the
suspicion of the authorities for having eulogized Spain in the
Cid, so the anglophiles of the eighteenth century were readily
taken foT'enemies of the State.

Was It out oF resentment that Desfontaines translated Joseph
Andrews f which is a satire upon Pamela ? It is possible. But
his efforts to promote the success of Fielding's novel, and to
commend it " as a popular compendium of moral teaching and
knowledge of the world," ^ were in vain. He had to acknow-
ledge his failure, and laid the blame for it on the ultra-classical
taste of the French. " It is nothing that the entire population
of a country which is the home of intellectual refinement and
good taste is charmed with the original. They are English, it is
said ; do they know what a work of genius is ? " The book is
supposed to be deficient in interest. ** Where, I venture to ask,
is the interest of such novels as Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and those
of Scarron ? " ^ But since its discovery of Richardson the public
would have none of Fielding, and contrasted a novel " so full of
paltry meanness " with the biography of " the discreet and modest
Pamela, whose famous adventures have been the admiration of
such a multitude of readers."^ Mme. du DeiFand was incon-
solable because she had read the new master-piece.* " But for
Pamela, wrote Crebillon to Chesterfield, we should not know here
what to read or to say," ^ and the heroine's name rapidly became
popular. Even at the close of the century the due d'Orleans gave
it to a girl who was supposed to be his natural daughter.^
flj Richardson's novel provoked continuations, imitations and
t||urlesques. There were sequels to Pamela on the one hand,

» 1 Lettre d'une dame anglaise, printed with Joseph Andreivs.

'^ Observations, vol. xxxiii., p. 313.

^ Bibliotheque fran^aise, or Histoire litter aire de la France, 1744, p. 203.
4 5 th July 1742.

^ 26th July 1742 ; see J. Jusserand, The English Nontel, p. 414.
^ Lamartine, Histoire des Girondins, vol. iv., p. 182, and v., p. 227.

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 211

and " anti-Pamelas " on the other.^ Powerfully yet clumsily
treated in English,^ the subject attracted the attention of
dramatists just at the time when La Chaussee had produced
his first comedies of middle-class life ; but it did not bring
them good fortune. In Boissy's Pamela en France the modest
waiting-maid is transformed into a coquette, who swoons and
faints away with almost mathematical regularity. " Faint," says
one of the characters to her, in order to save her from an
awkward situation. " I would," she replies, " only the public
would take it amiss again."

In truth the public accorded a somewhat cool reception to this
clumsy imitation of the latest success in fiction. Its hero is a
marquis, who, disguised as Cupid, finally marries the maiden
he loves in a grand transformation scene.^ La Chaussee was
no more fortunate, in spite of the manifest affinity between
his talent and Richardson's genius. In his piece, one of the
poorest plays he wrote, the flavour of originality possessed by
the novel has entirely disappeared. Pamela reclines " on a sofa
of turf." She has some scruples with regard to angling : " Alas !
can an act of destruction be turned into sport ? I could not
inflict pain on a living creature, whatever its species." Charming
in the original, this touch becomes ridiculous upon the stage.
At a certain point one tame and inoffensive line :

" You will take my carriage, that you may go more quickly,"

provoked such laughter from the audience that the author had to
withdraw his piece.* A few days later the Comediens Italtens
took advantage of the twofold disaster of Boissy and La Chaussee

1 See Lettres amusantes et critiques sur les romans en general, anglais et fran^ais, tant
anciens que modernes [by Aubert de la Chesnaye Desbois], Paris, 1743, 2 parts
izmo. — Fanny ou la Nouvelle Pamela, by d'Arnaud (1767): Histoire de Pamela en
liberie (1776), &c. Upon the parodies of Pamela consult H. Harrisse, Vabhe
Prevost, p. 338. See, for example: L* Anti-Pamela ou la fausse innocence decowverte
dans les aventures de Syrene, histoire veritable traduite de P anglais, 1 743, IZmo.

2 Clement, Les cinq annees littcraires, vol. i., p. 234.

** Pamela en France ou la vertu mieux eprouvee : a comedy in verse, in three acts,
played at the Italiens, 4th March 1743.

4 Played at the Fran<;ais, 6th December 1743. (See M. Lanson's book on
Nivelle de la Chaussee, p . 159^' •'^f* )

212 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

to play La Deroute des Pamela, by Godard d'Aucour, which
proved extremely diverting.^

But the success of the novel was by no means at an end. Six
years later Voltaire, in his turn, borrowed from it not only the
\ plot for his Nanine, but even his heroine's name — Nanine for
Nanny.2 "It is Pamela herself, in the guise of a French
miniature," a critic was generous enough to remark ^ ; but this is
a great deal to say. Nanine is beloved by the generous and
open-handed d'Olban j there is no obstacle between them but
the difference in their stations ; hence, all the pathos that
arises out of the situation of the enamoured though virtuous
^ waiting-maid disappears. Nanine turns to Richardson's novel for
lessons in philosophy: "I was reading." — **What was the
work ? " — ** An English one which has been given me as a
present." — "Upon what subject?" — "It is interesting. The
author maintains that all men are brothers — all born equal ; but
such notions are absurd."

A few of these absurd notions, presented in a somewhat
insipid style, were unable to redeem the piece.* Rousseau
afterwards regretted its failure, and accused the French public
of incapacity to appreciate a play which treated "honour, virtue,
and the natural sentiments in their original purity as preferable
to the impertinent prejudice of rank," ^ and possessed, moreover,
what in his eyes was the great merit of being inspired by
Richardson.^

But if public opinion refused to accept the adaptations of
Boissy, La Chaussee, and Voltaire, it had adopted the original
work, and when, eight years later, Clarissa was translated by
Prevost, the earlier effort had prepared popular taste to admire
the master-piece.

1 23rd December 1743. — See the Mercure for 1743, p. 2722.

2 See M. Holzhauser's study on the comedies of Voltaire {Zeitschrift fur neu-
franzosische Sprache und Literatur, vol. vii., supplement, p. 69) on the subject
of Voltaire's indebtedness to Richardson.

' GeofFroy, Cours de litterature dramatique, vol. iii., p. 7.

^ Played i6th June 1749. ^ Lettre sur les spectacles, notes.

6 A version of Pamela, by Franqois de Neufchateau, was played even during the
revolutionary period.

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 213

If we may believe Voltaire, the success of this second novel
was not to be compared with that attained by the first.^ But
Voltaire, who is never a very reliable witness, is particularly
untrustworthy when any English book is in question. Every-
thing goes to prove that Clarissa was no less, but even more^

successful than Pamela. The first part, which appeared by
itself, caused, it is true, some disappointment : readers found
fault, and not without reason, with its prolixity." ** Your re-
flexions weary us to death," wrote Clement de Geneve; "a
plague on the subtle and weighty reasoner who gives us a dis-
quisition instead of a story ! " ^ gut the work created a sensation, J
and from Clarissa onwards, English novels were translated " the^" —
whole day long."

On the publication of the English original, there had appeared
at Amsterdam a highly appreciative criticism of it in French.
The author drew a parallel between Richardson and Marivaux,
commending the latter, though without much warmth, for his
efforts to bring the novel back to reality, and praising the former
to the skies for having made his work true to life in point of
detail, and provided it with a lofty moral. This estimate of
his work had fallen into the hands of Richardson, who had
made use of it in the appendix to Clarissa.^ Once in possession
of the entire master-piece, the French public confirmed this
opinion and became loud in praise of the work. Richardson,
who, after the appearance of Pamela^ was regarded simply as ^
an original writer, now became a great man. " I do not think,"
writes Marmontel,* " that the age can show a more faithful,
more delicate, more spirited touch. We do not read, we see,
what he describes," and he praises the consummate art of the

1 Gazette litteraire, 30th May 1 764: "English novels were scarcely read at all
in Europe before the appearance of Pamela. This type of work seemed highly
interesting ; Clarissa met with less success, but deserved more." — Observe, more-
over, that he contradicts himself elsewhere (Preface to V ^cossatse).

2 Les cinq annees litteraires, 15th March 1 75 1. — Cf. Nouvelles litteraires for 25th
January 1751.

3 This expression of opinion will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine (June
1749, vol. xix.). I am unacquainted with the name of the author.

^ Mercure de France, August 1758.

214 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

author who " captivates at the same time as he wearies, or rather
does not weary simply because he captivates " : his genius is life
itself. D'Argenson admires English novels for their vigour of
thought and freedom from the commonplace. " The great
characteristic of English writers and of the whole of that
deeply penetrative and thoughtful nation, is a thorough good
sense in everything." ^ Voltaire himself acknowledges that the
perusal of Clarissa " inflamed his blood," and after regaining his
self-possession, confesses that the English stand alone as regards
their naturalness : in them there is no pitiful desire to present
the author when it is the characters only that should be pre-
sented, ** nor any anxiety to be witty out of season." ^

Was it reverence for the master-piece or the failure of the
adaptations of Pamela that preserved Clarissa from the play-
wrights ? However this may be, no piece founded upon it
was produced for several years. Contemporaries, it is true,
insinuated that Beaumarchais had drawn upon it for the subject
of his Eugenie,^ but has not Beaumarchais himself confessed that
he borrowed his idea from Le Sage ? The first attempts to
dramatize Richardson's masterpiece, which retained its popularity
down even to the time of the Revolution, were those of Nee
de la Rochelle in 1786, and Nepomucene Lemercier six years
later.*

When, in I755> Grandison made its appearance, the fame of
the English novelist was at its height. Nothing affords better
evidence of the growth of his reputation than the outcry
occasioned by the emendations Prevost had allowed himself
to introduce : " One must have a fair opinion of oneself," we
read in the Correspondance litteraire,^ " to act as the sculptor of
Mr Richardson's marble. In him we have indeed a glorious
artist, and if you, his translators, must venture to touch his

^ Remarques en lisant.

2 Letter to Mme. du Deffand, 12th April 1760 ; — Preface to V Ecossaise (1760).

^ See Journal encyclopedique, I St November 1 756.

* The drama of Nee de la Rochelle is anonymous ; Clarisse Harloive, a prose
drama in three acts, Paris, 1786, 8vo. — The Clarisse Harloive of Nepomucene
Lemercier was acted in 1792.

^ January 1756.

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 215

masterpieces, remove, if you can, any trifling specks and any
dust which may here and there conceal these admirable statues ;
relieve them of the soil which occasionally hides their contours ;
but beware of even touching the statue with profane hands, lest
you betray your ignorance and want of feeling."

In this case, however, the feet of the statue were of clay,
though at that time the fact was unsuspected. Gibbon re-
commends the new book to his aunt as greatly superior to
Clarissa.^ Marmontel, while he admits that in France its
success is not equal to that of the author's preceding novel,
warmly refutes those who find the hero's character **too stiff
and unnatural." "If we dared," wrote d'Argenson, '* we
would say that in Sir Charles Grandison another Christ has
appeared upon earth, so perfect is he." ^ But the character
of Grandison is, in Marmontel's opinion, " a marvellous and
extraordinary one " : it is neither extravagant nor romantic :
" He is nothing more than a good man, such as it is possible
for everyone to be," and the book, taken as a whole, remains
" a masterpiece of the most healthy philosophy." ^ Admiration
hjj become infatuation. This novel, "ineffective," to quote La
Harpe,* " in spite of all its merit," did not repel French
readers ^ : its moral seemed to them a noble one, and its hero
became popular. Grandison was a type, and had as good a
claim to the title as Tartuffe or Don Juan. The Clementina
episode, from which a person named Bastide constructed a play,^
was considered an unrivalled piece of work, and in popular esti-
mation the author of Clarissa had never before attained such a
pitch of excellence. " Antiquity," Marmontel wrote, " can show
nothing more exquisite." ^

1 Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 240. Translated in 1797.

2 Memoires, edited by Jannet, vol. v., p. 112.

3 See the Mercure, August 1758 ; and Essai sur tes romans (JEuvres, vol. X.,

P- 340-

4 Cours de litterature, vol. iii., p. 190.

^ See Journal encyclopedique, Feb. 1756 ; Mercure de France, Jan. 1 756 ; Annee
litteraire, 1755, vol. viii., p. 136, and 1758, vol. iv., p. 3.

6 Gesoncour et Clementine, " tragedie bourgeoise " in prose, in five acts. Played
4th November 1766.

7 Mercure, August 1 75 8.

2i6 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

On the death of Richardson, 4th July 1 76 1, popular enthusiasm
rose to frenzy. The admirers of England were not slow to take
advantage of so favourable an opportunity. From September
1757 onwards, the Journal Stranger kept its readers informed
as to the great man's health. In the issue for January 1762,
after his death, the following lines appeared : *' There has fallen
into our hands an English copy of C/arissaj containing some notes
in manuscript. The author of these, whoever he may be, is un-
doubtedly a man of keen intelligence, but one who was nothing
more than this could never have written them. . . . Through
all the absence of method and the pleasing carelessness of a pen
unconscious of restraint, it is easy to recognise the sure and
skilful hand of a great artist."

The "great artist" was Diderot; ** Diderot, the possessed,"
as Joseph de Maistre calls him, who loaded Richardson ** with
praise which he would not have bestowed upon Fenelon," ^ and
— as his contemporaries with more justice observed — extolled,|
of all English writers, the one whose, genius bore the closes^
resemblance to his own.^

His contemporaries were right. But during the present
century many critics, and those not the least eminent, have
thought the same, or nearly so, as Joseph de Maistre. The
E/oge de Richardson seemed to them a mere piece of rhetoric.
It almost makes them blush for Diderot, and they would gladly
expunge it from his works. The truth is that they fail to
appreciate both him and Richardson. The 'Eloge is certainly
not perfect : but, pompous as it is, it remains a most interesting
piece of criticism.

In the first place, Diderot is absolutely sincere. In the month
of October 1760, he wrote from Grand val to Sophie Volland :
" There was a deal of discussion concerning Clarissa. Those
who despised the work regarded it with supreme contempt ;
those who thought highly of it were no less extravagant in
their esteem, and considered it one of the most marvellous
achievements of the human intellect. ... I shall not be

1 Soirees de Saint- Petersbourg, vol. i., p. 347.

2 Marmontel, CEu-vres, vol. x., p. 339.

RICHARDSOlsrS INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 217

satisfied either with you or with myself until I have made
you appreciate the truth of Pamela^ Tom Jones, Clarissa, and
GrandisonP ^ His novel La Religieuse was written in the same
year, and he wrote it with the lamentations of Clementina
sounding in his ears, " the ghost of Clarissa " hovering before
him ; above all, he borrowed not only the English author's
method of presentation and his style of pathos, but almost, even,
his subject as well, since La Religieuse, like Clarissa Harloive, is
the story of a girl who is imprisoned and subjected to the worst
form of outrage.

On the death of Richardson, Diderot, seizing his pen, pro-
duced within twenty-four hours, and without pausing for fresh
inspiration, a work that was less a study than a funeral oration,
not so much a criticism as a panegyric. By so doing he gratified
the desires of a great number of readers ; what strikes us as
declamation seemed, when his encomium first appeared, simply
eloquence and nothing more. The Comte de Bissy, who trans-
lated Young, wrote to Arnaud : " I have read, and re-read, this
sublime and touching panegyric ; and have been made sensible
of the power and the charm which genius and virtue derive from
one another when found in combination." ^ Diderot, in fact,
had simply accepted a part assigned to him by public opinion,
and had earned its gratitude thereby. His Eloge very quickly
became a classic, and was henceforth reprinted in all editions
of Richardson.

Some have regarded it as an indirect attack upon Prevost.^
But if it is so, how can we account for the fact that it was
Prevost who first prefixed the piece to his own translation .?
Moreover, if certain allusions are applicable to Cleveland — the
work which drew tears from Rousseau — had not Prevost him-
self been the first to condemn the fluent romantic style of his
early works ? Again, had not Prevost, the friend of Rousseau,
and doubtless of Diderot as well, been quite recently the editor
of the Journal etranger, by which the rlloge was published ?

1 20th October 1760. Cf., in the (Ewvres, vol. xix., pp. 47, 49, 55.

'^ Journal etranger, February 1762, p. 143.

8 Brunetiere, Etudes Critiques, vol. iii., p. 243.

2i8 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

Lastly, what grounds have we for doubting Diderot's sincerity,
and why should the fact that he praises Richardson be a reason
for supposing that he is attacking Prevost ? It would be far ;
more reasonable to suppose that the Eloge was intended to remind
the numerous admirers of the Nouvelle Heloise^ which had been!
published a few months before, that Rousseau — with whom'v
Diderot, as we are aware, had now quarrelled — had had both a '
predecessor and a master •, and this, indeed, as we shall see, is the :
way in which Rousseau seems to have interpreted its publication. '^

Having said so much, it would be a waste of time for us to
point out the instances of palpable exaggeration in this fragment,
did they not afford a singular testimony to the progress of anglo-
mania. Is it not odd to find French novelists condemned for
describing the ** secret haunts of profligacy," when we recollect
the places in which many of the scenes in Clarissa take place ?
Is it not, to say the least, paradoxical to reject Montaigne, La
Rochefoucauld, and Nicole in favour of Richardson as a por-
trayer of the human heart ? Is it not a gross mistake to praise
in a novelist of a popular, and sometimes of a vulgar type, that
delicate art, appreciable only by a very limited number of readers,
which is just the very thing he did not possess in the slightest
degree ? Diderot was thus in error — possibly not without in-
tention— upon certain points. But he distinguished the char-
acteristics of the work as a whole with much truth and eloquence.
No ; one who has just laid down the last volume of Clarissa will
find the Eloge something more than a mere piece of rhetoric.
f^ He clearly perceived the novelty of Richardson's precise, de-
liberate and circumstantial art, of his detailed descriptions, of \
those pictures of his which produce the effect of life, and give
^ us the illusion "of having added to our experience." Every
unprejudiced reader of Richardson can say with Diderot : "I
know the house of the Harlowes as well as I know my own ; .
I am no less familiar with Grandison's dwelling than with my j
father's." When Richardson carries his reader away he does so >
entirely : this is because he has a complete, varied, and penetra- /
tive comprehension of the chaos of incidents and trifling events
called life. He endeavoured to portray it in its complexity and

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 219

its totality. This characteristic has been excellently described
by Diderot.

" You accuse Richardson of being tedious ! Have you then forgotten the trouble,
the attention, the manceuvring that are necessary before the humblest enterprise
can be brought to a successful issue — before a law-suit can be concluded, a
marriage arranged, or a reconciliation effected ? Choose of these details which
you will, they will all be interesting to me if they call the passions into play and
illustrate character. ' They are commonplace,' say you ; ' this is what we see
every day ? ' You are wrong ; it is what passes before your eyes every day,
without your ever seeing it. Beware ; in attacking Richardson you are bringing
an action against the great poets. A hundred times you have watched the
sun set and .the stars appear; you have heard the fields ringing with the shrill
song of the birds ; but which of you perceived that it was the sounds of the day
that charged the silence of the night with emotion? Well I It is for you, with
moral as with physical phenomena ; outbursts of passion have often fallen upon
your ears, but you are very far from knowing all the secrets implied in its accents
and manifestations. There is not one of the passions but has its characteristic
facial expression ; all these different expressions succeed one another upon a
countenance, without its ever ceasing to be the same ; and the art of the great
poet or the great painter consists Jn makiji^ you see something that had escaped
your notice before. . . . Learn that it is upon this multitude of little things that!
illusion depends ; it is a very difficult thing to picture them ; it is a very difficult I
thing, also, to reproduce them."

^ Diderot has caught the very essence of Richardson's **_realism."
But behind the^portraiture of" the external world, we must look|
for that of human souls. Richardson has a rare faculty of analysis.
He portrays eveiy chaiacter and every station in life ; but, above)
all, he discerns the secret feelings, those which escape your'
indifferent eye, the "fissures," so to speak, of the soul. "If
there is a hidden feeling in the depths of the soul of any one of
his characters, listen closely, and you will hear a discordant note
which will betray its presence." ... Or again, "it is he who
carries the torch to the darkest part of the cavern." Hejs^^n,
admirable anatomist of the moral life.

AH this7Tt~must bT^bserved, was most seasonable as a con-
firmation of Diderot's own theories on truth to nature in art.
Similarly, this apotheosis of Richardson — immediately following
the publication of Le Fils naturel {l"] ^'])y and the production of
Le Pere de famille (l']6i) — came at a time most appropriate for
the justification of his ideas concerning morality on the stage and
in fiction.

220 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

How could Diderot fail to appreciate one who used the novel
as a pulpit or a rostrum, and wove in with the thread of the
story a continuous lesson for the benefit of the reader ? The
briefest passage affords opportunity for discussion on " the most
important questions of morality and taste." Leave Pamela or
Clarissay he said, lying about upon a table, and those who read them
will soon become as passionately attached to the actors in these
dramas as though they were living characters. From differences
of opinion with regard to them, ** secret hatreds" have been
known to spring, veiled contempt, in short the same divisions
between those bound together by natural ties as might have
occurred if a matter of the utmost gravity had been at stake.
Strange that such an effect should be produced by a novel !
How rare a genius, too, must that be which has rendered the
most frivolous branch of literature capable of producing a book
worthy of comparison — these are Diderot's words — " to a book
more sacred still," namely, the Gospel ! The word once out,
Diderot can contain himself no longer. " O Richardson,
Richardson, you who have no rival in my eyes, it is you whom
I shall always read ! Under the stress of pressing circumstances
I may sell my books, but you I shall keep : you I shall keep,
upon the same shelf as Moses, Homer, Euripides and Sophocles ! "

Moses, Homer, Euripides and Sophocles ! Great names,
these, and grand words. We must not forget that it is
Diderot who utters them, nor that the date is about 1760, a
, time of change and regeneration for French literature, which
III was awaiting its Homer, and believed it had found him. *'0
Richardson ! If, during your lifetime, you did not enjoy all
the reputation which is your due, how great will you appear
in the eyes of our descendants, when they behold you at the
distance from which we look back upon Homer ! " The modern
Homer : such is Richardson. Here Diderot is in agreement with
Gellert and the Germans, because he, like them, felt the need
for a new genius who should be capable of directing a virgin
literature into fresh paths.

This was extremely daring ; so much so that Yoltaixe became
concerned.

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 221

Hitherto he had regarded the popularity of English novels
with toleration, if not with favour. He had even endeavoured,
in Nanine and VEcossa'ise^ to shelter himself behind " these re-
markably successful English novels." Now, however, his secret
antipathy came to light. Already, and not without malice, he
had pointed out the author's faults, at the very time when he con-
fessed that the perusal of Clarissa ** fired his blood." He had
called him "a clever fellow . . . who keeps making promises
from volume to volume," but never fulfils them. " I said, if all
these people were my relatives and friends, I could not feel
interested in them."^ In vain Mme. du DefFand maintained that
Richardson **had great intelligence." "It is painful," he re-
plied, **for an energetic person like me to read nine whole
volumes and find nothing in them whatever." In reality he
is standing up for his old idea of the novel as a very ligh
form of literature, unworthy the attention of a serious min
But after the appearance of the i.loge de Richardson, and as
anglomania gained ground, his mistrust turned into opei/
hostility. An article of his in the Gazette litteraire'^ finds an
explanation and an excuse for the English taste for such
" twaddle " in the Englishman's habit of spending nine months
out of the twelve on his country estate *, without reading, during
his long winter evenings, what would he find to do ? But in a
letter to d'Argental he throws off the mask, and confesses his
astonishment and contempt : " I don't like those long and in-
tolerable novels Pamela and Clarissa. They have been successful
because they excite the reader's curiosity even amidst a medley
of trifles ; but if the author had been imprudent enough to
inform us at the very beginning that Clarissa and Pamela
were in love with their persecutors, everything would have
been spoiled, and the reader would have thrown the book
aside." ^ He adds, not without some irony and ill-humour :
" Is it possible that these islanders are better acquainted with
nature than your Welches}" Still, the Welches persist in their
admiration, and a certain Jean-Jacques supplies them with

1 To Mme. du DefFand, 12th April 1760.
' 1 6th May 1767.

2 30th May 1764.

222 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

books of the same character : it is too much of a good
thing. To read Clarissa one must be crazy and have plenty
of time to lose.^ Is it not really disgraceful that the English
should allow themselves to be imposed upon with such
"jugglers' tricks as novels," and that a nation which has
afforded a pattern to Europe should forsake the study of
Locke and Newton for works of the most frivolous and ex-
travagant kind ? " 2 This was Voltaire's last w:ord upon

English fiction. At bottom, no one could have less romance
about him than he ; but neither could anyone view with greater
anxiety the infatuation of France with these foreign novels, which
in his opinion were inferior or barbarous. It was this which
led him ultimately to treat Richardson and Sterne as he treated
Shakespeare.

But public opinion was no longer with him. Readers of
Rousseau and the followers of Diderot were all looking to him
for a reasoned opinion on Richardson. He refused to give one.
As Diderot had nothing to say, Sebastien Mercier, one of his
disciples, took upon himself to ask Voltaire the reason of his
silence. ** M. de Voltaire, in his numerous writings, which I
have read and re-read, has avoided, so far as I know, all mention
of Richardson, whether favourable or otherwise, though he has
treated of every other writer, however obscure." — In justice it
should be mentioned that in 1773 — ^^^ 7^^^ ^^ which Mercier
was writing — Voltaire's opinion, quoted above, had not been
printed. — **It is impossible," Mercier continues, "that the
author of Nanine should fail to appreciate Pamela-^ he has
certainly read Clarissa and Grandison, poems to which antiquity
can produce no worthy rival. He must know that these master-
pieces of feeling, truth, and moral teaching have found readers
of both sexes, in every country and of every age. I suppose
that, since M. de Voltaire's manner of writing is diametrically

^ Lettres chinoises, xii. (1776): <' My attention is engaged with a problem in
geometry ; and straightway there arrives a novel called Clarissa, in six volumes,
which the anglomaniacs praise to the skies as the only novel fit for a sensible
man to read. I am fool enough to read it, and thereby I lose both my time and
the thread of my investigations."

2 Journal de politique et de litterature (1777), article on Tristram Shandy.

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 223

opposed to Richardson's, the silence he has preserved in
regard to this author of genius is founded on principle."^
Mercier had discerned the truth. Voltaire's_silence_jHfas_that__
of contempt.

But the^oolisJie-_sajl££pised.,v^ere makin the French nation
** stupid," aa-HQiace-W.alpole said! Tlie^women became crazy
about" them. Mme. du DefFand discussed them with Walpole
and could not forgive him his contempt. Clarissa was certainly
not like other novels ; it was " but a poor antidote to depression."
But " the play of every day interests, tastes, and feelings, when
their subtle gradations are so finely indicated as in Richardson,
is enough to absorb my attention and to give me infinite pleasure."^
How superior it all is to La Calprenede and to French fiction !
** After your novels I find it impossible to read any of ours."
Such was the opinion of Mile, de Lespinasse : she was very
fond of Prevost and Lesage, M. de Guibert tells us, but she
placed "the immortal" Richardson above everyone else. In
vain her friend d'Alembert declared that "it is well to imitate
nature, but not to do so to a wearisome extent." She wrote
to her lover, in a fit of despondency : "'I believe, if I read
Clarissa to-night, I should find neither love nor passion in it.
Good heavens ! can one fall lower than this ? " ^

But it was not the women only, as Voltaire maintained,* who
were responsible for the success of these novels. ^11 the
associates of Diderot and Rousseau and the whole of the re-
forming party adopjeU Lliem almust williuul leseive. They
held" that " there was more philosopEy~m"~nl05r English novels
than in many a moral treatise." ^ The EncycJopadia made" them
the subject of a pompous eulogy.^ Marmontel, the faithful
disciple of Diderot, placed the English novelist above all writers,

1 Essai sur Part dramatique^ p. 326.

2 See the Lettres de Mme. du Deffand a Horace Walpole, especially that of 8th
August 1773.

3 17th October 1775 ; see also the letter of 7th July 1775.

^ Gazette litter aire, vol. i., p. 334. ^ Journal encyclopedique, ISt March I763.

^ In an article entitled Roman : '< Novels written in this excellent manner are
perhaps the only remaining form of instruction that can be given to a nation so
corrupt that no other can be of service to it."

224 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

ancient or modern. Even Buffon, with all his calmness and his
ready contempt for literary novelties, admired him " for his
intense truthfulness, and because of his close observation of
every object he portrayed."^

For more than half a century France remained subject to the
spell. Richardson brought the English type of novel into fashion.
" Our novelists," said the Journal etr anger ^ " are almost com-
pelled to disguise the products of their fancy in this foreign
garb if they wish to be read." Who has not seen upon the
quays, or hidden away in old provincial libraries, some of these
faint and sterile imitations of the master ? Some pretend to be
sequels, such as La Nouvelle Clementine, by Leonard, or the Petit
Grandison of Berquin. Others, more candid, actually claim the
sanction of his name ; for example : " Les Moeurs du jour, ou
Histoire de Sir William Harrington, ecrite du vivant de M. Richard-
son (sic), editeur de Pamela, Claris se et Grandisson, revue et retouchee
par luiy sur le manuscrit de Pauteur,^^ ^ Volumes similar to these,
or still more obscure, were produced by the dozen : Les Lettres
de Milady Linsay, the Memoir es de Clarence Welldomie, Milord
d^Ambi, histoire anglaise ; a catalogue of them would be long
and unprofitable. It is of more importance to note that all the
authors in vogue make use of the British hall-mark : Baculard
d'Arnaud, the popular author of the Epreuves du sentiment, never
loses an opportunity of praising Richardson, and brought out in
succession Anne Bell, Sidnei et Silli, Clary ou le retour h la vertu
recompense, Adelson et Salvini, " an English anecdote," and any
number of other books, now no longer read, which ran through
sixty editions, and were translated into several languages ! Eng-
lish novels, said Rousseau, are either ** sublime or detestable."
The imitations of them, for the most part, are not sublime. But
the foreign livery made everything go down. English novels
are not all good ones, it is true, said the Correspondance litteraire,^
\.but at any rate they are always better than "our insipid French
^productions of the same sort."

Not a single noveli&L of notp piSrap^d tho tnint nf-irrr^lnmnnin

^ Sainte-Beuve, Causeries, vol. iv., p. 364. 2 February 1757.

3 See the Correspondance litteraire, February 1 773. ** February 1767.

RICHARDSON'S INFLUENCE IN FRANCE 225

Crebillon fils announced his Heureux orphelins as a translation.^
Mme. Riccoboni, who was so famous in her day, and so much
admired by Doudan,^ wrote the Memoir es de Miledi B ' ' ^ and
the Lettres de Juliette Catesby, which evoked the congratulations of
Marmontel. '* It is by following English models," he said, " that
a woman has attained such great and well-deserved success among
us." ^ Prevost contributed the Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire
de la vertu^ — an inferior work translated from Mrs Sheridan's
Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph. Marmontel derived the inspira-
tion, and even the subjects, for several of his Contes moraux^ from
Richardson. Voltaire himself had Clarissa in mind when he
wrote a certain chapter of VIngenu, describing the sufferings of
the fair Saint- Yves on her death-bed, as a companion picture to
those of the heroine of the English novel.^

From_ 1^760^ to the end of the century scarcely a novel was
published that escaped this all-absorbing influence. It was
Richardson who furnished Diderot '^th-^he^ inspiration for Les
Deux Amis de Bourhonne and UHistoire de Mile, de la Chaux ; it
was from him that he derived his abounding wealth of detail,
the accuracy which makes his presentation almost palpable, and
his slightly crude colouring ; and it was Richardson also whom
he had in mind while writing La Religieuse, As his editor points
out, the Eloge de Richardson explains the immense advance which
this novel marks in comparison with his earlier efforts ; in the
interval he had read Clarissa Harloive, and felt that he had been
initiated."^ Whether Richardson would have acknowledged him
as a disciple is doubtful. It is certain that he would have frankly

1 Les heureux orphelins^ a tale imitated from the English (1754).

^ Lettres, vol. i., p. 271. ^ (Euvres, vol X., p. 346.

^ All the newspapers of the period attribute this novel to Prevost (^Mereure,
July 1762 ; Journal encyclopedique, 15th July 1 762 ; Memoires secrets , 30th April
1762). It has also been included in his (Ewvres choisies.

5 See especially Vecole de Vamitie.

^ The resemblance has been pointed out by Villemain. Sqq V Ingenu , chap. xx.
(1767): " She made no show of vainglorious fortitude ; she did not understand
the paltry honour of giving a few neighbours occasion to say, < Hers was a
courageous end . . .' How many there are who praise the pompous death-beds
of those who meet annihilation with apathy ! " &c.

7 See Assezat, (Ewvres de Diderot, vol. v., p. 211.

226 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

disowned Laclos and Restif, though they professed themselves
his followers. Contemporaries had pointed out how far the
author of Les liaisons dangereuses was indebted for the character
of Valmont to that of Lovelace ; Valmont is simply Lovelace in
the guise of a Frenchman.^ And as for Restif, a coarse but
powerful artist, who dealt with the vulgar side of life, he wrote
his Paysan perverti " under the inspiration of Pamela^"* and boasted
of having done so ; when he described in detail " the progress
of corruption as it invades an upright and innocent heart," ^ he
claimed to be following Richardson. Lavater, one of his numerous
foreign admirers, surnamed him " the French Richardson," and
his worshippers ranked him higher than the English novelist
whose disciple he professed to be, because, with equal genius,
he had set before himself a still more ambitious project.^ Every
one of the novelists who belong to the closing years of the
century — including the Marquis de Sade* — call upon the name
of Richardson.

He had therefore quite a progeny of imitators, distinguished
and otherwise. Some loved him for his fai^ful jdelineatieft-of
the vulgar side of existence, others, more numerous, because he
surpassed all other novelists in his command -of~pathos. Many
produced bad imitations of him, because they imitated him too
closely. Others, who call themselves his disciples, owe him in
reality little or nothing. But all speak of him with respect.
In fiction his is the greatest name of the century. A French
critic of that period states that " Clarissa, the greatest among
English novels, has also become the first among our oivn^ ^

The eloquent printer's tomb became a resort for pilgrims.
Mme. de Genlis, when in England, called upon Richardson's
son-in-law, asked to see the great man's portrait, sat in his own

^ La Harpe, Correspondance litteraire, vol. iii., p. 339. — Observe moreover the
success attained by Les liaisons dangereuses in England (Dutens, Memoires d'un
voyageur qui se repose^ vol. iii., p. 221.

"^ See Avis de Pierre R • ' ', prefixed to the Paysan perverti.

3 Cf. P. Lacroix, Bibliographie de Restif de la Bretonne, pp. 69, 1 27 ; and Mes
Inscriptions, edn. P. Cottin, 1889, p. Ixx.

* See his Idee sur les romans, edn. Uzanne, i2mo, p. 25.

•* Journal des savants, September 1785.

CLARISSA AND HfiLOLSE 227

particular seat, and paid a visit to his grave. Another visitor,
Mme. de Tesse, threw herself upon the tomb-stone and gave
way to such despair that her guide became alarmed.^

But a few years had passed when a great poet, lost in reverie
on a bright summer's day in the country, summoned before his
mind the images of Richardson's heroines : " Clarissa ! with
Heaven itself radiant in your saintly beauty ; free, in all your
pain, alike from hatred and from bitterness, suffering without a
groan, and perishing without a murmur ; beloved Clementina !
pure, and heavenly soul, who, amidst the harsh treatment of an
unjust household, never lost your innocence with the loss of
your reason : — your eyes, bright souls, hold me with their
charm ; your sweet likeness hastens to fill my fairest dreams ! " ^

What could afford more signal evidence of Richardson's 1
popularity than this tribute of reverence for his genius from/
Andre Chenier, the least English of all French poets ? J

Rousseau began to write La Nouvelle Heldise at L'Ermitage
in the winter of 1756, when the sensation caused by the still
recent publication of Clarissa Harloive was at its height.

Like everyone else, Rousseau read the new masterpiece, and
read it in the translation of Prevost, who had possibly shown it
to him in manuscript. It is unlikely that he had recourse to the
original, for he never knew much English.^ He was none the
less impressed with the originality of this novel, as with that of
the master's other works. In a certain place he demands that the
composition of novels shall only be entrusted ** to well-bred but

1 Mme. de Genlis, Memoires, vol. iii., p. 360.

2 A. Chenier, Elegie xiv.

3 On receiving the English translation of La Nouvelle Helo'ise, he asked Mme.
de Boufflers, who was acquainted with the language, to look through it, and tell
him what she thought of it, adding: " I do not understand the language well
enough" (To Mme. ,de Luxembourg, 28th August 1761). Three years later,
Panckoucke asked him to undertake the abridgment of Richardson, and he declined
on the ground of his ignorance of English (25th May 1764).

228 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

sensitive persons, whose writings will reflect their own hearts," ^
» ^ and on reading Richardson's masterpiece he at once declared that
m never yet had " a novel equal to, or even approaching, Clarissa,
uibeen produced in any language whatever." ^ What GeofFroy's
^'authority may be for discerning in this statement a disparaging
allusion to Tom Jones, which had recently been translated by
La Place, I cannot say.^ Nowhere does Rousseau make any
mention of Fielding. On the other hand, at the very moment
when he was expressing this opinion in the Lettre sur les
spectacles, he was himself putting the last touches to La Nouvelle
Heldise, in which he had evidently drawn inspiration from
Clarissa. Everything therefore tends to convince us that he
was expressing quite sincerely, and without the least reserva-
tion, an admiration which lasted throughout his life.

When, at a later period, he visited England, he wrote to the
Marquis de Mirabeau as follows * : " You admire Richardson,
monsieur le marquis j how much greater would be your admira-
tion, if, like me, you were in a position to compare the pictures
of this great artist with nature ; to see how natural his situations
are, however seemingly romantic, and how true his portraits,
for all their apparent exaggeration ! " And he regretted that he
came across so many Captain Tomlinsons, and so few Belfords.

On this point Rousseau never swerved from his opinion.
Bernardin de Saint Pierre, who knew him during the latter
part of his life, tells us that " he never spoke of Richardson
without enthusiasm. Clarissa, according to him, contained a \
complete portrait gallery of the human race ; of Grandison he
thought less highly."^

While writing his novel he undoubtedly kept Clarissa before \
him, and possibly Pamela^ as well. In his second preface he '
protests against the foolish affectation of designing the moral

^ Nouvelle Helo'ise, ii., 21. ^ Lettre sur les spectacles.

^ See Cours de litterature dramatique, vol. iii., p. 262. ^ 8th April 1767.

5 Fragments sur J. -J. Rousseau, in Aime Martin's edition of the works of
Bernardin de St. Pierre.

^ Cf. z. letter written by La Roche, Streckheisen-Moultou : J.- J. Rousseau,
ses amis et ses ennemis, vol. i., p. 493. Rousseau also quotes Pamela in the Lettre
sur les spectacles.

CLARISSA AND H^LOlSE 229

of a novel for the benefit of young girls, without reflecting
that young girls can have no part in the disorderly life the
author condemns ; and in a note he adds : ** This has refer-
ence only to modern English novels," evidently thinking of
Richardson. Similarly, when sending the fifth part of Julie
to Duclos, he adds that he adheres to his belief that reading
of this sort is dangerous for girls: '^I go so far as to think
that Richardson makes a gross mistake when he attempts to
instruct them by means of fiction ; it is the same thing as
setting a house on fire to make the pumps work." ^ On
another occasion he interrupts the thread of his narrative in
order to refute an opinion of the English novelist : " My
heart," says Julie to Saint-Preux, " was yours from the first
moment I saw you." Rousseau inserts a note : " Mr Richardson
pours a good deal of ridicule upon these attachments at first
sight, founded on indefinable affinities. It is all very well to
make fun of them ; but since there are in reality only too many
cases of the kind, would it not be better, instead of wasting time
in denying them, to teach us how to conquer them ? " ^ Plainly,
therefore, Clarissa^ the success of which was filling the world
with its clamour, was in Rousseau's mind when he wrote
Julie.

It would even seem that this success caused him annoyance.
In response to a request from Malesherbes that certain portions
of Helo'ise should be suppressed, he wrote the following signifi-
cant lines : " A pious woman of the lower class who humbly
submits to the authority of her spiritual director, a woman who
forsakes a dissolute life for one of devotion, is not a sufficiently
rare or instructive subject to fill a large volume ; but a woman
who is at once lovable, devout, enlightened and reasonable is a
newer and, to my mind, a more useful subject. This novelty
and usefulness, however, are the very things that the suggested
excisions would remove j if Julie has not the sublime virtues of
Clarissa, her virtue is of a more prudent and judicious kind,^ and
is independent of public opinion : deprived of this counterbalancing

1 19th November 1760. The expression occurs again in the second preface.

2 Nouvelle Helo'ise y in., 18.

230 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

characteristic y she nvould have no choice but to hide her face before the
other ; ivhat right nvould she have to show herself ? " ^

After the publication of Diderot's sonorous Eloge, Rousseau's
feeling became stronger. Rightly or wrongly — but not without
some appearance of justification — he thought there were signs
that the work was directed against him. He was unquestion-
ably conscious that the parallel between Clarissa and Julie was
in everyone's mind, and was somewhat concerned in conse-
quence. He himself touched upon this delicate subject in the
Confessions y and, in 1 769, wrote a reply to Diderot's Eloge. He
points out with regard to his own novel that the simplicity of
its subject and the small number of characters introduced, in
which respects it is a unique work, have not been sufficiently
praised. ** Diderot has complimented Richardson very highly
on the prodigious variety of his scenes and the multitude
of his characters. Richardson has, indeed, the merit of
j having given each of them a distinct individuality ; but as
j far as their number is concerned he is on a par with the
\ most insipid novelists, who make up for the poverty of their
i ideas by the quantity of their characters and adventures."
Surely it is a more difficult thing to sustain attention with
j but slender resources : " and if, other things being equal, the
; simplicity of its subject adds to the beauty of a work, Richard-
: son's novels, which, whatever M. Diderot may have said about theruy^
are superior in so many other ways, cannot, in this respect, affi^rd
any parallel to mine." ^ It is evident that Rousseau is disturbed
by the recollection of the Eloge — the publication of which, follow-
ing close upon the success of Julie, had revived Richardson's
glory at the expense of his own — and that he is annoyed with
Diderot in consequence.

Three years after Richardson's death — at the very moment when
the master's glory was at its height — Panckoucke had committed
the indiscretion of asking Rousseau to undertake the task of

1 Date unknown. (Ewvres et correspondance inedites, Streckheisen-Moultou, p. 390.

2 These significant words were suppressed by the first publishers of the Confes-
sions, but appear, without erasure or addition, in the manuscript, which is in the
library of the Chamber of Deputies

^ Confessions, ii., ll.

CLARISSA AND H^LOISE 231

abridging his works. Rousseau replied from Motiers that he
had a good many scruples about abridging such books, though
" they unquestionably needed it. Richardson's club-conversa-
tions, in particular, were unbearable, since he had seen nothing of
high life, and was consequently entirely ignorant of its manners."
But, no ! Rousseau's health, his indolence, the great number of
translations it would be necessary to compare, and his own work,
all discourage him.^ Must we not add to the motives which he
here admits, a certain repugnance in the author of Heldise to
spend labour in magnifying still further the author of Clarissa ?
I am inclined to think so.

However this may be, the parallel which annoyed him was
being remarked by all those about him.

We find it difficult in the present day to picture the state of
mind of the contemporaries of Richardson and Rousseau who
could weigh the two men against one another. But we are
acquainted with the whole of Rousseau's work, whereas his
contemporaries were not. In 1 76 1 Jean-Jacques had as yet
written neither the Confessions nor the Reveries. Though his
reputation was of ten years' standing he had not hitherto
unbosomed himself for the benefit of his readers with all the
unhealthy exuberance that characterised his later effusions. JIe_
was known only as a philosopher_and_a politician. Ahove^all, as
a novelist he was making a first appearance. Though awaited
with impatience, La Nouvelle Heloise was'_[not crowned as a master-
piece until after publication. Is it likely, sensible people asked
themselves, that, if the author of the Discours sur Pinegalite venixxres
into the domain of fiction he will excel the author of Clarissa at
the first attempt ? All this explains how it was that, to the
amazement of certain historians, critics should have been found
who could compare the two works and the two men.

It seems clear that in England the comparison was unfavourable
to Rousseau. The work was immediately translated and was fre-
quently republished.^ Richardson, it is said, derived no pleasure

1 25th May 1764.

2 E lots a, or a series of original letters collected and published by J. -J Rousseau, translated
from the French. London, Becket, 1761, 4 vols, iimo, "Milord Mar^chal "

speaks of several English editions. (Letter of znd October 1762, Streckheisen-
Moultou, vol. ii., p. 68.)

232 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

from its perusal. A fact of greater significance is that the refined
intelligence of Gray, catholic as it was and usually so inquisitive
with regard to French works, was repelled by the want of veri-
similitude in a book '* more absurd and more improbable than
Amadis de Gaule^ In vain he goes on hoping that a wonderful
denouement will " bring something like nature and interest out of
absurdity and insipidity." If the book is really by Rousseau it
" is the strongest instance I ever saw that a very extraordinary
man may entirely mistake his own talents." ^

A lengthy comparison of Rousseau with his rival was published
by an English journal, The Critical Revie'w,2ind. was immediately
reproduced by the Journal etranger, in which it appeared — and
the fact is significant — a month before the publication of
Diderot's Eloge^ and as though to pave the way for it. ** Our
ingenious author," says the writer of this article, ** has formed
his Eloisa on the plan of the celebrated Clarissa, the favourite
work of our late countryman, the amiable Mr Richardson."
" Eloisa is a less perfect Clarissa, Clara a Miss Howe, as fervent
in her friendship, as witty and charming, but less humorous.
... It is indeed the highest encomium on Mr Richardson, that
he has been deemed worthy the imitation of a writer of Mr Rous-
seau's eminence." But in respect of moral teaching the palm must
be awarded to the English author, who is also the more weighty
and the more faithful to nature, if he is the less brilliant of the
two. " Rousseau's performance is infinitely more sentimental,
animated, refined and elegant ; Richardson's more natural,
interesting, variegated and dramatic. The one everywhere
appears the easy, the other the masterly writer ; Rousseau
raises your admiration ; Richardson solicits your tears." The
one is a master of rhetoric of the most brilliant talent ; the
other is a painter of genius.^

Such was the verdict of all the enemies of Rousseau.

In Freron's opinion, Rousseau was most likely indebted to

1 Letter of 22nd January 1761. (^Works, edited by Gosse, vol. iii., p. 79.) See
Mrs Barbauld, vol. i., p. cvii. : "Rousseau, whose HeloTse alone, perhaps, can
divide the palm with C/arissa."

^ Critical Revieiv^ September 1 761, vol. xii., p. 203. Cf. Journal etranger,
December 1761.

RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 233

Clarissa for the plot and the principal characters of his book.^
Grimm — the friend of Diderot — thinks that "it is the fate
of great works to give rise to numbers of feeble imitations :
Miss Biddulph and La Nouvelle Helo'ise will not be the last."
A few pages only of the new novel deserve comparison with
Grandison. The three novels of the master stand forth as
** prodigious works." ^ La Harpe, also, points out the analogies
between the two, and gives the credit to Richardson, without,
however, failing to appreciate the genius of Rousseau.^

In short, the parallel between the two works was a common-
plaori5f~eighfeemh"centufy criticism." The general public, less
partial, was divided in opinion with respect to them. The one,
as containing the history of Rousseau's own love-affairs, was
more keenly interesting, and possessed the attraction which
scandal always affords ; the other, for very many people,
remained the more truly great work of the two. Readers
were by no means rare, who retained, like the duchess de
Lauzun, a preference for the English novel, and derived " a
thousand times more pleasure"^ from its perusal. "The one
made me weep no less than the other," said Ballanche, refusing
to choose between them. Many a reader preferred " the
naturalness, the pathos, the truth, and the moral excellence " ^
which render Clarissa the masterpiece of modern fiction, to
the " artificial " though " dazzling and fascinating " eloquence
of Rousseau.

Ill

To-day we read Jean- Jacques' novel with less prejudiced eyes.
But if we restore the conditions which prevailed at the time
of its publication, and if, in addition, we read the two works

1 Annee litter aire, 1761, vol. ii., p. 306 et seq.

2 Correspondance litteraire, February 1 76 1 and June 1762.
^ Cf. Coiirs de litter ature, vol. iii., p. 192.

4 D'Haussonville, Le salon de Mme, Necker, vol. i., p. 239.

5 Marmontel, Essai sur les romans (1787). A curious comparison between
Richardson and Rousseau will be found in Ballanche (Z)« sentiment, Paris, i8oi,
8vo, p. 221).

234 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

with attention, we can account for the comparison drawn by
those who were contemporary with their authors.

He'lo'ise appeared at the precise moment of the eighteenth cen-
tury when~auglouiauia-w^s at its height. ** If a telescope Hke
thog^ uf Ileibchell," said Gaial, ^^ and an ear-trumpet of similar
range had existed at that period, they would have been directed
towards England still more frequently than towards the moon and
the other celestial bodies."^ ^At no time during the century was
this enthusiasm more keen than tow ard s "The close j)f.. the Seven
Years' War. To a few reactionary spirits who were concerned
thereat, it was boldly answered : *' Gentlemen, there are a
thousand whose voices are raised in declamation against anglo-
mania : what they understand by the word I do not know ; if
they mean the craze for turning a few useful customs into
burlesque . . ., they may be right ; but if by any chance
these ranters should presume to treat it as a crime on our part
that we desire to study, to observe and to philosophize like
the English, they would certainly make a very great mistake." ^
We have seen how, in his novel, Rousseau had humoured this
current of opinion by giving an English colour to the sentiments
and manners of his characters. TJiis was one preliminary reason
for comparing him with Richardson ; but there were others
besides.

In the first place the plot of his book recalls that of Clarissa.
It is, as in Clarissa, the story of an unfortunate girl, who is
victimized by her father's endeavour to force her inclinations.
In a certain sense, Rousseau's novel even forms a sequel to
Richardson's : Clarissa's father schemes to win from his daughter
a consent which violence has failed to extract from her, but her
flight prevents him from carrying out his design. What is
suggested by Richardson is put into execution by Rousseau,
and accordingly the baron d'^tanges induces Julie to marry
M. de Wolmar. It is true that Clarissa heroically defends
her virtue, while Julie yields at the outset. But the analogy is
in a manner restored by Julie's marriage ; as Wolmar's wife she

^ Memoires sur Suard, vol. i., p. 72.

2 Letter to the authors of the Gazette litter aire (14th November 1764).

RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 235

resists Saint-Preux, whom she still loves, just as Clarissa resists
Lovelace, whom she has always loved and to whom she has once
belonged, though against her own will. Love thwarted by
duty, and conquered, is the theme of both works.

Again, there is a symmetry in the arrangement of the char-
acters. Julie resembles Clarissa, as Claire resembles Miss Howe:
the two former are alike gentle and serious, their two confidantes
malicious and sprightly. Just as Miss Howe marries the stupid
but excellent Hickman, so Claire becomes the wife of the good-
natured and honourable M. d'Orbe, the man of whom she dis-
respectfully remarks that he lacks the ** virile intelligence of
strong souls." ^ Like Miss Howe, Claire, whose affection for her -—
husband is of a very tranquil order, loves her friend with an ,
almost inordinate affection, which causes her even to lose her I
reason when Julie dies. So too, Julie, like Clarissa, has a harsh
and unfeeling father, and a good-natured but insignificant mother.
As Clarissa finds a protector in Colonel Morden, so Julie and
Saint-Preux have a bosom-friend in Lord Bomston. Bomston,
like Morden, is the soul of honour, and like him, again, is proud
and generous. Wolmar, though as virtuous as Lovelace is
profligate, is, like him, an unbeliever, and reasons in a similar
manner, if with the best of intentions. Lastly, Julie purposes
flight from her father's roof, just as Clarissa does ; she cor-
responds in the same way with her lover through the agency of a
friend ; her letters are intercepted ; and, like Clarissa, she dies in
the end, after philosophizing at much length for the edification of I
those around her. J

Was it then inexcusable, for contemporaries, who remarked all

these analogies, to conclude therefrom that Jean-Jacques had

copied the plot and the general arrangement of the English

novel ? But he owes to Richardson another and heavier

debt.

I Tn H^Ioisejhere are two works : in the first place a novel of ^^^

\ the bourgeois type— the newest, most eloquent, most improving

' of eighteenth century novels7 the~eaHresrntnDde1~~f(5r 'Uelphine,

Corinne and Werther^ and the work which realises, as no

236 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

other does, the literary aspirations of the age. la -the- .second
place H^gtsiuzontsiins a prose poem, a first "confession" by
Rousseau, disguised and incomplete as yet, but, already even,
how full ,of pathos ! Here, in germ^is all thejjricism destined
afterwards to shine forth in the Confessions and the^^Jveries, the
intercourse_with nature, the melancholy, thepoetic communion
withJihp heart — or, as Freron said, immediately after tTie publica-
tion of the book, " an exquisite appreciation of nature, physical,
and moral, a touch often pleasing and voluptuous, a gentle
melancholy which can be known only in retirement." ^ This it
was which constituted the unlooked for gift of genius, and herein
Rousseau had no teacher but himself. His lyricism springs
from himself alone. But the roman bourgeois contained in Julie ,
\ the art of portraying the characters and presenting them in
action, " the eloquent language of the heart, the accents of
emotion " — Freron is still the speaker — all this he derived from
Richardson.

In the first place he is indebted to him for th^^epistolary form
^ — -^ of novel.

Was Richardson really the inventor of this form ? The
question was asked even in the eighteenth century : some assert-
ing, others denying, that he had taken the idea either from the
semi-romantic letters to be found here and there in the Spectator^
from Mme. de Sevigne, Mme. Dacier, and Mme. de Lambert,
whom, of his own accord, he quoted as models, 2 or, lastly, from
the Lettres portugaisesy or from those of HeloYse and Abelard.^
The Lettres portugaises, especially, had frequently been reprinted,
.and often in the same collection with those of Heloise,^ while
amorous epistles were to be found in French novels — in Polex-
andre and in Cyrus ; and Crebillon fils, who had attained a great
reputation in England, had published his Lettres de la marquise

1 Annee litter aire, 1761, vol. ii. 2 See Mrs. Barbauld, vol. vi., p. 121.

3 On this subject see Freron, Annee litteraire, vol. ii., p. 306 ; Journal encyclopedique,
February 1756, p. 32, and February 1775, p. 459. See also J. Jusserand, Les
grandes ecoles du roman anglais.

* For example : Recueil de lettres galantes et aimureuses d'' Helo'ise et Abelard, d'une
religieuse portugaise au chevalier . . . ., avec celles de Cleante et de Belise, Amsterdam,
1711, i2mo.

RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 237

de . . . au comte de R. . . . m 1738.^ All this, however, in no
way detracts from the glory of Richardson. Novels in the form
of letters had plainly been published before his time ; but it is no
less evident that no one had turned this method to the same
account as he did. In Pamela, not only is the diary method
employed concurrently with the other, but his art is still very un-
certain, and shows but few traces of the imitation of good models.
In Clarissa, on the contrary, the author has, by his own con-
fession, acquired confidence in himself 2; the correspondents are
more numerous, the style has become flexible, and the characters
have the leisure to present themselves to us in all the complexity
r\ of their nature. The epistolary novel has really become what it
/ ' should be, a form of the analytical novel. If it is not this it is
nothing, and the originality of Richardson consists in the very fact
that he made it such. The essence of the novel in epistolary form
, J lies in the invention ^jnot so much of facts as of feelings," and of
[j ( " observations u£on what takes_£lace in the heart " rather than
events, however cleverly contrived.^ A letter is a journal, and
in a large mea.suYe jl Journal intime^.^. As a journal it throws light
upon hidden feelings ; and as a letter it is suggestive of romance,
intrigue, and the seductLv:e--ad¥ances of both intellect and heart.
It is a confidence, but a confidence tempered by that dose of
vanity"whTd:^-ea€h one of us unintentionally mingles with words
spoken to another. The epistolary type of novel is thus a
delicate one to deal with, one which readily becomes tedious and
is very easily rendered unendurable. A bundle of homilies on
suicide, duelling, or marriage does not deserve the name of
novel, for this demands a thread of events which shall leave its
impression now on one, now on another, of a certain number
of minds, wherein, with sufficient clearness, but without too
much repetition, we are enabled to follow its consequences.
The characters must have the capacity and the leisure for writing
to one another, and if they are to be interesting, must have the

1 The Hague, z parts, izmo. Crebillon fils, according to Voltaire, is also the
author of the Lettres de Ninon, published by Damours (Amsterdam, 1752,
2 vols. i2mo).

2 See the Postscript to Clarissa. 3 Mme. de Stael, De VAllemagne, ii. 28.

238 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

inward yearning for confession and analysis. Lastly, it is

necessary that the public should have a taste for confidences of

this kind — a circumstance which occurs at certain epochs only,

and under the influence of certain moral ideas. Now Richardson,

. in spite of a certain coarseness in the use of his means, is the

\^^f I actual creator of the confession-novel, and this is why Rousseau —

I ' the ^very incarnation of confession — borrows the form invented

by him.

In fact, he is the only writer to borrow it from him. For in
spite of the publication of Mme. de Graffigny's Lettres peruviennes
— inspired, it was said, by Pamela ^ — of Mme. Riccoboni's Lettres
de Juliette Cateshy, and Mme. de Beaumont's Lettres du marquis
de Roselle, the first genuine example of the epistolary novel
to appear in France was La Nbuvelle Heloise, because it alone
corresponds to the definition of the class.

Rousseau's characters, like those in Clarissa Harlowe, make
their confessions " in the bosom of friendship." Like them they
have, as Mme. du DefFand expressed it, the gift of " verbose
eloquence." Like them, too, when swayed by strong emotion,
they amaze the reader by rushing to the inkstand. Wolmar
quits the bedside of his dying wife, and enters his study in order
to set down what she has just said to him ; Julie writes to her
friend from her deathbed ; Saint-Preux, confined in the apartment
where she has promised to meet him for the first time, exclaims:
" How glad I am that I have found ink and paper ! I give
expression to my feelings in order to moderate their violence ; by
describing my raptures I check their extravagance." What is
there that they do not write ? What suggestions, what odd con-
fidences, they set down ! Rousseau, like Richardson, makes an

improper use <^^J^^ method^ and givps ns Rprmnns in thgjorm of

lettexs^: we have a letter concerning gardens, a letter on duelling,

NJ /letters upon suicide, education, music, and adultery : he gives us

Ij not so much a correspondence as a system of moral precepts

vfor everyday life and for solemn occasions. The digressions

are even more numerous than in Clarissa, and frequently are no

more happily expressed. In spite, also, of Rousseau's immense

1 Freron, Annee litteraire, vol. ii., p. 306.

RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THEIR WORKS 239

superiority, his style, like Richardson's, is here sometimes, as
the preface observes, " pompous and dull," and worthy " of the
provincial, the foreigner, the recluse, or the young person," as the j
case may be, who employs it. Rousseau did not know how truly -
he spoke : many passages in these letters are just what would be
written by an affected Vaudoise. " Thou throne of the world,"
writes Saint-Preux to Julie, "how far above me do I now
behold thee!" Or again: *'My heart is overwhelmed with ,
the tears which flow from your eyes." Their souls ** touch
in all points, and everywhere feel an entire coherence." The
hut in which Julie receives her lover is " the temple of Cnida,"
and her " inquietude increases in a compound ratio of the
intervals of time and space." ^ Richardson may be suburban, \
but Rousseau, with all his greatness, Js unquestionably pro- -»
vmciair~

As for the interest, ** it is for everyone, it is nothing at all."
Is it worth while to keep a register " of what anyone can see
every day in his own or his neighbour's house " ? Similarly,
Richardson claims to present nothing but what is " true and
founded upon nature itself." The two novelists take equal'^
pleasure in tedious and minute descriptions of middle-class
manners. But Richardson was the simpler : Rousseau is more
aggressive, andaccompanies his portraiture of 'common people
with a homily for the ben^eEt of the'^eatT^ Nevertheless, the
change he introHuces is important. French works of fiction
were essentially " society " and " drawing-room " novels,
wherein certain truths were never stated, certain subjects
never mentioned, except to raise a laugh. In the works of
Prevost and Crebillon fils there was no cooking or washing
of clothes, and the housekeeping was carried on behind the
scenes. In Pamela, for the first time outside picaresque fiction,
the public had been treated to descriptions of objects which
previously it had always been considered improper to mention :
kitchens, saucepans, and scullions. Rousseau, in his turn, tries
to get nearer the truth by condescending to enter the larder,
and writes a manual for use of the good housewife. Therein we
M., 5; III., 16; I., II ; I., 36; I., 13.

240 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

learn how good servants are trained ; how oil, bread, worsted
and lace are economically made ; how cloth of good quality is to
be distinguished ; how a garden should be laid out ; and how
out of simple vin de Lavaux we can manufacture sherry, rancio or
malaga, as we please ^ : quite a modern Oikononomihs, An article ,^
of " German pastry" is honoured with a full description. You
must be able ** to take a delight in the pleasures of children":
have two dining-rooms, one for every day use, the other for
entertaining ; do not take coffee, except on great occasions ;
make yourself acquainted with familiar little recipes for refresh-
ing the mind, and, like the author, abjure all contempt for people
of the common sort, who delight in these simple pleasures.

On the other hand Rousseau intentionally spares us such too
forcible scenes as Richardson's realism would not allow him to
forego ; his book contains nothing so distressing as the death of
the woman Sinclair, the imprisonment of Clarissa, or her funeral.
The death of Julie is managed in a becoming and almost cheerful
manner; she is dressed in holiday attire and surrounded by
flowers. He spares us the coffin, the train af mourners, the
tolling of the bell and the grave.

His one anxiety is to appear truthful ; an effect which, in
his opmion, wa^s^hly'to be produced .by: dealiag aJjQiiiat--exclu-
V sLvely with the life of the common people^ Like Richardson he
portrays scarcely any characters buttho^exxf the lower or upper
middle— class. ISIeitlier M. d'Etanges, who is proud of his
name, nor M. d'Orbe, are very lofty personages. Saint-Preux is
a man of no fortune. " Let our noble authors choose more
humble models ..." Rousseau introduces us to a few plain
citizens of a little Swiss town, who have neither carriages nor
brilliant clothes, and are neither comtes nor chevaliers. In Fanchon
Regard and Claude Anet we meet people who are ignorant of
the customs ^of society. You find their history dull ? Then
trouble yorff self no further ; I do not write for you. ' The
hearts I lay bare before you are simple ones, neither perfect nor|
depraved. Their virtues are average virtues, their vices average\j|
vices. I

lV.,2.

SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 241

Only a bourgeois soul could cxe^Xe^tho^bourgeois novel. And
this IS why~"tlie hrst writer"who ventured to tell the story of a
persecuted little servant-girl is, in this respect also, the master of
Jean-Jacques and has the best right to be regarded as his pre-
decessor. Others had openly professed their desire to make the
novel a picture of human life. The younger Crebillon had
himself spoken of a literature " wherein man might at last
behold man as he is, and be dazzled less but instructed more." ^
Similar declarations occur in the prefaces of novelists and
dramatists. A theory of Hterature is easily constructed. But
a reformation in fiction demanded a thoroughly plebeian type
of art, an eloquent ruggedness of form, and sincere emotion
in presence of these fresh and simple materials.

p But if Rousseau resembled Richardson in the bourgeois^ ^
f character of his mind, he resembled him also in that he was a /V
' Protestant and preached his religion. ) /

It is plain that there were marked differences between his
credo and that of the pious Englishman, and Richardson would
perhaps have treated the author of the Profession de foi du
vicaire Savoyard as he treated the deists of his own country.
But this hatred j^f the philosophizing spjrit— though they did
not entertain it either to the same extent or in the same
manner — was common to them both. Each held that all one
could learn iii__philQSophic circles was^**how to undermine all
the foundatio,as_Qf_xirtue." The whole ethical system of the
philosophers was " the merest verbiage," and its professed
teachers were " fit apologists for crime, who never seduced
any but those whose hearts were already corrupt." 2 ]J\ie
Richardson, Rousseau preaches ^against the idol of -thQ- -ag^ ;
and like him is given to quoting somewhat ostentatiously,
though with less reverence, from the Old Testament.^ As

^ Preface to Egarements du cceur et de V esprit (1736).
2 Nouvelle Helo'ise, ii., 1 7 and 1 8.

^ v., 7 : " O Rachel, sweet maiden, beloved with so much constancy ..."

242 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

his novel approaches its conclusion, its moral and religious
purpose declares itself. The work assumes not only a more
Christian, but even a more sectarian character. It is true that in
his letters, Jean- Jacques asserts his wish to avoid hurting any-
one's feelings, and even " to draw opposite parties together by a
bond of mutual esteem": " JuHe^^nth^he^^iieiy,^ affords," he
says, " a lesson__to_Jthe -philosophers, and Wolmar, with his
atheismT^ TTesson to the intolerant." ^ But when Malesherbes
speaks oTTxcisions he loudly insists on the religious character of
his work. He does not imagine that a " Genevan novel " need
be appreciated by the Sorbonne. He observes that the suppres-
sions have been so carefully made " that his Calvinists have
nothing left in the shape of doctrine " but what might be pro-
fessed by the most superstitious Catholic : ** one might just as
well expect every Protestant who is coming to Paris to abjure
his religion before he crosses the frontier." Why is not Prevost's
Cleveland subjected to the same treatment ? "It seems rather
strange that a Catholic priest may make Protestants express their
opinion more freely in his novels than a Protestant may in his." ^
This is plain speaking. If the letter to Voltaire in answer to the
Poeme sur Lishonne, or the Profession de fit du vicaire Savoyard
should leave us in any doubt as to the sentiments of Rousseau,
his novel would suffice to enlighten us. The moral of the book,
in fact, lies in Julie's conversion — and even in that of Wolmar.
For the conversion of the atheist, as Rousseau himself remarks,
is ** so plainly indicated that any further elaboration would turn
it into a dull sermon." The atheist Lovelace dies of a sword-
thrust, and Julie entrusts her husband's soul to Saint-Preux :
"Be a Christian, that you may persuade him to become one.
Success is not so far off as you think . . . God is just, my trust
will not prove mistaken."^ This is edifying. But is this coup
de la grace any less romantic than Colonel Morden's coup d^epee ?

Julie, on whom all the sympathies of the author are expended,
is, like Clarissa, a thorough Protestant, and even a pietist. She
makes a study of Muralt's Instinct divin, much as Mme.- de

^ To Vernes, 27th June 1761.

2 Observations adressees au libraire Genin, vol. v., p. 87. ^ VI. , 12.

SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 243

Warens, who also had " a somewhat Protestant mind," was
influenced by Magny. It is true that she has long neglected ~j
religion : incapable of reconciling the worldly spirit with the
spirit of the Gospel, she has " reserved her piety for the church,
and cultivated philosophy at home " ^ ; but on her marriage she
returns to the doctrine of ** our Church." She prays, and it is
from prayer and prayer alone that she derives the strength which
I keeps her from further transgression : when philosophy fails her,
\ religion comes to her support. She seeks to convert her lover,
' and quotes St Paul to him. As the wife of an atheist, she sheds
bitter tears over her husband's irreligion. On her deathbed she J
openly avows the faith of her fathers : *' I die, as I have lived,
in the Protestant communion, which derives its sole precept from
Holy Scripture and from reason " ^ ; and to confirm her declara-
tion she piously invokes a curse on Catholicism. When the
pastor reminds her that a dying Catholic is surrounded by clergy
who frighten him " in order to obtain the more control over his
purse," she devoutly answers : " Let me thank Heaven that
I was not born in the bosom of a venal religion which kills
people in order to inherit their property." Is the writer who
puts these words into Julie's mouth a philosopher simply, and
nothing else ? And what more could Richardson have said ?

In virtue of this, as also of many other characteristics, Julie 1 1
is the sister of Clarissa. The woman whom Jean- Jacques love3~iv
when he waswritmg his novel assumed a foreign and Protestant ]
character. The fact is significant. He gave her, it is true, a
few of the characteristics of Mme. de Warens ; her vulgarity,
sensuality, and coarse effrontery. But he gave her also the
terrible clear-sightedness of Clarissa or Pamela. The reader will
remember a certain strange reflexion of Pamela's concerning
the dejection which follows upon transgression. In the same way
Julie, even in her maidenhood, is aware that " the moment of
fruition is a crisis in love."^ Like her English sister, she is
thoroughly familiar with things of which young girls in French
novels and plays either are — or pretend to be — ignorant. She
knows that she is her own mistress, and why. She is neither an
MIL, 18. 2 VI., II. 3 1,^^.

^'(

244 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

Agnes nor a Henrietta. She has been called a highly improbable
-character ; all that can really be said is that she is not French.
Once her character is restored to its natural atmosphere and
stripped of any unpleasant attributes with which the polluted
imagination of Jean-Jacques has invested it, the picture appears
both real and life-like. " Like Heloise in your love," says Claire
to Julie, "you now resemble her also in your piety." The
devout Julie is the true one. The other is a phantom, born,
in Rousseau's mind, of the two figures of Mme. de Warens and
Mme. d'Houdetot.

Julie is pious. Her faith is a rule of life, enjoining respect for
, lofty problems, and distrust of whatever is merely human.
" The^essons _of philosophy need purifying by Christian
.jnoiFftltty;" But-pyiosopEy is, brought in merely for form's sake,
j,as a concession to the age ; for " Christian morality " is sufficient
in itself. Under the influence of her belief Julie becomes cold
and argumentative. She considers that virtue, integrity, and
resemblance in certain points of character can take the place
of love between husband and wife, provided only there be
religion as well.^ Observe how she breaks with Saint-Preux :
she gives him permission to write to her, using Claire as a
medium of communication, but on condition that the latter will
suppress anything that requires it, " if," says she, " you should
prove capable of abusing your privilege." Her perspicacity
is truly appalling : " My dear friend, I have always found you
most agreeable. . . . But I have never seen you in any other
character than that of a lover : how do I know what you
would become if you ceased to love me ? " She tells him
frankly that if she were twenty ye^rs old and free she would not
have him ; she has too clear a perception of the conditions
necessary to happiness. The truth is that jwomen^ like Julie,
if they can love at all, cannot love as the heroines of French
novels-^dtCT'hey have a much keener sense of their moral
personality. Like tTieir~descen3ants, the lieroines of the Nor-
wegian drama, they require love to be consecrated by equality
of rights. Apparently they have an abundance of pride and some

1 III., 20.

SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 245

austerity. Clarissa asks whether a man who has nothing but
faults can expect to win her esteem, and what, she would like to
know, are the virtues of Lovelace ? Yet the gift of such a soul
has the greater value. It was his conception of religion and
morality that led Rousseau, just as a different conception had led
Richardson, to create female characters which were entirely new
to French literature.

Are we to say that Rousseau derived his taste for moral
problems from Richardson ? Not exactly. But if Clarissa
Harloive seemed to him the finest novel in the world, it was
doubtless because he discovered in it something of his own
aspirations. Thg_author oi__Clarissa was eloquent on behalf
of the family; and, similarlyjeanjac^ues pleaded lTie~cause of

marriage. We may hold that his pleading~~is~nTeffectire, and

that the first part of his book anticipates and destroys the
effect of the second ; we may feel, moreover, that a happiness
founded not so much on affection as on *' a certain correspondence
of character and disposition" does not sound very promising.
Yet after all the cause was defended with zeal, and this in itself
was something fresh. Marriage, in French literature, was either
a means to getting on in the world, or a subject for coarse
pleasantry. In the opinion of Moliere's Madelon, to start with a
marriage was " to begin a novel at the wrong end"; marriage
brought upon Dandin the misl^ps which every reader will re-
collect, while Gil Bias retreated, as it were, into wedlock in the
most perfunctory manner, and in order to get it over. Marivaux's
Jacob, who fell into the hands of a woman as old as she was
devout, never was the same man afterwards. In every instance
married life was the source of distressing or ridiculous mishaps.
No ^ne -had written* or thought of writing, the novel of marriage.

It was this that Richardson, with sorry results it is true,"^
endeavoured to do in Pamela, while in Clarissa he exhibited the
dangers of love without the sanction of marriage. Rousseau, in
the second part of his story, attempted a more direct and more
complete demonstration. From its very novelty the undertaking
gave offence. \ novd wifhont paasion ! The notion seemed a
paradox. But Rousseau had a weakness for this second part ;

246 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

this "case of morals and conjugal fidelity " seemed to him more
original.

The fact is, he was not afraid to preach — we can scarcely help
saying — with effrontery. This was not the way with French
classical authors. They were not so profoundly convinced that
" the beautiful is nothing but the active form of the goodP They
avoided all direct instruction, and Richardson would have horri-
fied them. Above all they did not import into fiction problems
which were the peculiar province of the pulpit or the schools.
, The Princesse de C/eves does not contain lengthy dissertations
I on the duties of a father, nor on suicide, duelling, the relief of
^^^ beggars, chastity, adultery or free will. Such questions were
treated, if at all, only by the way, and with the lightest possible
touch. At most Marivaux had seasoned the novel with a dose
of worldly morality, tempered with plenty of wit. He never
ascended either the pulpit or the tribune. With him it was the

J novel that carried the moral, not the moral that included and justi-
fied the narrative. With Richardson and Jean-Jacques it was the
sermon, bare and undisguised, that invaded literature ; an effect,
I admit, of a philosophizing age, but also, and mainly, the effect
of a profoundly religious education, even when, as in Rousseau's
case, that education has been incomplete. Education, domestic
economy, the functions of a parent, agriculture, religious duties,
immorality, suicide — what a list of homilies and sermons for a
single novel ! It seems as though fiction had inheritpd thp
" ^ eloquence of an exhausted pulpit. Modesty sets no limits to his
.yuAv • preaching. " Every covering of the heart," says Mme. de Stael,^

^ .fO}' ^^^ been rent asunder. No ancient writer would have made
'vV^^s own soul the subject of fictitious experiences in this manner."
The same might be said of the classical writers of France, the
disciples in this respect of the ancients. But here we find an J
insatiable curiosity with regard to the moral life, nofof humanity,
but^f each individual. Fiction no longer speaks through the
third person, but exclusively through the first. Nothing less
than the complete 1\ygi6fte, the (Complete pathology, of the soul
will suffice for Rousseau.

1 DeTAlkmagne, II., 28.

SIMILARITY OF THEIR RELIGION 247

If ** cases" are wanting, they are invented. Richardson had
already manifested a strange interest in cases of conscience. In J
the Nouvelle Helo'ise casuistry flourishes on every page. Wolmar
explains to Mme. d'Orbe how it is that Julie and Saint-Preux are
" still lovers," though they "are nothing more than friends." How
can they be so ? The case is a strange one: " He is in love not
with Julie de Wolmar but with Julie d'Etanges ; he hates me not
because I possess the person of the woman he loves, but as the
ravisher of her whom he has loved. . . . He loves her in the past,
that is the truth of the enigma ; take away his memory, and he will
love no longer." So Wolmar is perfectly tranquil. *' The more
they see of one another alone, the more easily they will under-
stand their mistake, because they will compare what they feel
with ivhat they 'would once have felt in a similar situation ^ Such
is Rousseau's way of solving the problem of conscience which,
from sheer love of dialectic, he is so kind as to discuss. Hence
the numerous paradoxes that have so repeatedly been pointed out
in his book.

Hence, too, however, fiction acquires all at once a singular
dignity. For Rousseau's very sophistries indicate an unusual
interest in moral questions. At certain periods, if the atten-
tion of mankind is to be brought back to questions of vital
importance, certain truths must be set forth with all the
pomp of paradox : moral doctrine, bare and unadorned, seems
quite vapid; this our apostles of to-day — Ibsen, Tolstoi,
Dumas fils — have clearly perceived. . Similarly, Rousseau, in_
^-order to inoculate the French novel with the noble and aspir-
.ing nnifest of English fiction, to give it the character of ** a
moral treatise, whence obscure virtues and' destiniesjtnay derive
jncentives to_entEusia&mL!ij'^^^has strewn his worlTwitli -paradox
of the most provocjiixe^Jdnd ; first of all because he .was
RousseauTBut also because it was in his cas*^e almost a neces-^
sity to be over impressive if a strong impression was to be
produced at all.

However this may be^o more complete revolution had--ever
1>efore traasformed^ the novel in France. For centuries the

1 Mme. de Stael, De la litterature, i., 15.

248 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

Latin literatures had maintained their position by means of the
drama, the epic, and poetry of the classical type. The novel, as
an inferior branch of literature, was reserved to beguile a leisure
hour. No other branch, however, was so essentially capable of
a profound renovation. Sufficiently comprehensive in scope to
include and absorb everything essential to the other forms,
admirably fitted to develop J;hat_obsUiiate-^iaetrky~-43£ precise
observation which is the jdi stinctJKJe -feature -of - -the modern
genius, and susceptible also of adaptation to different varieties
of talent, and even to the caprices of humour, the novel, in order
to win for itself the place left void by tragedy and the epic,
simply needed to attack the gravest problems with confidence.
And this is what it did in the hands of the English first of all,
and afterwards in those of Rousseau. Others before them had
written novels characterized by intelligence, subtlety and even
pathos ; others had charmed or amused their age, or stirred it to
emotion. None had introduced, in a work apparently of so
frivolous a nature, the same ekYation_of_thQji^ht^ the same
intensity of faith, and, if the expression be allowed, the same
fervour of apostleship. None had boldly substituted the portrait
of the individual, with his peculiarities and eccentricities, but
with all the power of his personal conviction and of his native
originaHty as well, for conventional types and traditional forms
of narrative.

In virtue of these characteristics thi^r^ftghoh novelists deserved

- > to be what Voltaire desired that LockeL and his fellow-philoso-

\^^". phers in England might become, ** the, instructors_of th^_hunian

>" .^^^ '^ . race." ThiougL^tjie^ agency of the former, as has been justly

yf,T If remarked, the_purest and healthiest ideas of the-latterJiave been

V^ diffused throughout the universe, **as well as all that is noblest

and most exalted in the doctrines of English preachers." ^

Thanks to them the novel attained a dignity it had never

; known ; it became the most powerful of all instruments for

"""^-^ ■ the propagation"of ide^^s: Th"anks to them, in the last place —

since they had prepared the way and cleared the ground —

, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, their brother in genius, was enabled to

^ J. Jusserand, Le roman anglais, p. 69.

SUPERIORITY OF ROUSSEAU 249

write the most eloquent md the most^impassioned work in all
French^tion.

In this sense, therefore, the Nouve/k Helo'ise is the offspring of
Clarissa Harloive.

But because Richardson's work was capable of being further
improved upon, and, above all, because he was Rousseau, Jean-
Jacques introduced in his novel what they had been incapable of
introducing in theirs.

In the first place, theiT_^onsciendou^^
required a setting. The novel as exemplified by Richardson was
a play without scenery. This Rousseau had perceived. He
had one general fault to find with this author, Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre tells us, " that of never having connected the idea
of his heroes with any locality of which his pictures would have
been recognized with pleasure by the reader." "It is im-
possible," he said, " to picture Achilles without at the same
time beholding the plains of Troy. We follow Aeneas on the
shores of Latium : Vergil is not only the painter of love and war,
he is also the artist of his own country. This characteristic of
genius was wanting in Richardson." ^

It was wanting indeed, to an incredible degree. In this
respect he belongs to the age of Queen Anne : Addison, after
crossing the Alps, described how his head was still giddy with
mountains and precipices ; no one, he said, would credit the
delight he felt at once more beholding a plain.^ Grandison, as
he crosses Mont Cenis, declares that the prospect around him
is wretched in the extreme — and this is the only reflection he
has to make. Richardson's ideal landscape is " a large arid |
convenient country house, situated in a spacious park," which j
contains a few structures "built in the rustic taste." Clarissa's !
garden is merely a place in which she may walk and dream, i
It is not described in a manner •\yhich brings it before us, \

1 Fragments sur J, -J. Rousseau. - Letters : December 170 1.

250 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

any more than the famous " willow walk," humorously quoted
by Stendhal as a specimen of the seventeenth century's love for
nature, is described by the author of the Princesse de Cleves. ^^

Rousseau, we need scarcely remind the reader, placed the
story of the sorrows of the soul in a setting it is impossible
to forget. With his other characters he ..aaspciated a new actor
— aatuxe^ who_often takes theieading part. " Ah, Eloisa ! too
much sensibility, too much tenderness, proves the bitterest curse
instead of the most fruitful blessing ; vexation and disappoint-
ment are its certain consequences. The temperature of the air,
the change of the seasons, the brilliancy of the sun, or thickness
of the fogs, are so many moving springs to the unhappy posses-
sor, and he becomes the wanton sport of their arbitration ; his
thoughts, his satisfaction, his happiness depend on the blowing of
the winds." ^ Now it is difficult to imagine the noble and pious
Grandison committing the control of his well-regulated person to
the winds. We cannot picture him making nature — the friend
for all times and seasons — the participator in his restrained
enjoyments and formal sorrows. He is too careful of his per-
sonal dignity to ask of the ** vast sea" — "the immense sea" —
" the calm which flies his agitated heart." ^ He would feel
himself wanting in the self-possession which marks the gentle-
man, if in Clementina's presence he gave utterance to a passionate
outcry like this : "I find the country more delightful, the
verdure fresher and livelier, the air more temperate and serene
than ever I did before ; even the feathered songsters of the sky
seem to tune their tender throats with more harmony and
pleasure ; the murmuring rills invite to love-inspiring dalliance,
while the blossoms of the vine regale me from afar with the
choicest perfumes. ... I am tempted to imagine that even the
earth adorns herself to make a nuptial bed for your happy lover,
worthy of the passion which he feels, and the goddess he
adores."^ This, nevertheless, is the practice of Shakespeare,
and also of Milton. But Richardson, in this respect, departs!
from the national tradition j his narrow piety closes his]
eyes.

1 NouvelU Heloise, i., 26. 2 ni., 26. 3 J.^ 38.

SUPERIORITY OF ROUSSEAU 251

It has been said that Christianity, by concentrating man's "^
thoughts upon himself, dries up within him the sources of the
feeling for nature, and that in opening the eyes of the soul it
has closed the eyes of the body. The theory is contestable ; for
it takes no account of the songs of St Francis, of Bossuet's
Meditationsy of the poetry of Lamartine, and many other works
which are at once Christian in character and picturesque. But
there is a kind of devoutness, such as Jansenism or Pietism,
which savours too much of the cloister — too much of the
cell. There are heavens which do not declare the glory of God.
There are souls which wither and fade away through ex-
cessive devotion to the inner life.

Further, it must be confessed, it is but an indifferent sign of
moral health to commit one's soul " to the mercy of the winds."
Nature, with its purity of atmosphere, with its vast horizons,
with so much in it that is primitive or awe-inspiring, may act as
peace-maker ; but it is none the less true, as Rousseau more than
once with sufficient emphasis remarks, that " all great passions
are born of solitude," and that Rousseau himself is full of
gratitude that it is so. Lastly, to consider that mere sensibility
to natural beauties is a virtue, or even, as the disciples of Jean-
Jacques would have it, the whole of virtue, becomes a paradox
as soon as we cease to admit that wisdom consists in losing or
annihilating oneself in nature. A famous follower of Rousseau,
the poet Shelley, pushed the master's theory to its extreme
consequence, when he wrote that " whosoever is free from the
contamination of luxury and licence may go forth to the fields
and to the woods, inhaling joyous renovation from the breath of
spring, or catching from the odours and signs of autumn some
diviner mood of sweetest sadness, which improves the softened
heart." ^ This delicious exaltation becomes a recompense,
an encouragement, a talent conferred on virtue by ** the divine."
It differs little, if at all, from virtue itself. But what sort of
a virtue is that which totters at the faintest breath } And
how much more sure of himself was Grandison than the weak
and wavering Saint-Preux !

1 Essay on Christianity,

252 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

j The truth_js that Rousseau's genius was profoundly lyrical,

i' whereas Richardson'sjwasjiot, or was so only during those~rare
momentr when the^pathos of his subject lent him wings and
carried him beyond the reach of the sordid things of life.
» Thrgj^yrical quality of Rousseau's genius is due to his concep-

I / tion of love. For him it is niore violent, more enthrallingTmore
*^ / sensual. Clarissa cannot help loving Lovelace, but she strives
against her passion. Julie acknowledges herself vanquished at
the outset, with the excuse that she has " only the choice of
j her faults." Genuine love, in fact, " is a devouring fire, which
1 inspires the other sentiments with its zeal, and animates them
I with fresh vigour." ^ Richardson had depicted its matchless
power and nobility, but he had also set forth its dangers.
Rousseau, thoroughly convinced that " cold reason never did a
great deed," reached the same conclusions, but at the same time
took a delight in portraying the exquisite agitation experienced
by a fiery soul under the sway of passion, a passion " which
penetrates and burns even to the marrow." In short, it is
repugnant to the poet in Jean-Jacques to bring himself into
harmony with the moralist. But what the moralist has lost
thereby, the poet, the great poet, has gained.

Moreover, Rousseau describes not only the sensual, but also
the .tpelancholy^ aspect of love. In this there was nothing
absolutely fresh : Prevost, in Cleveland and Manon Lescaut, and
Richardson himself, in certain parts of Clarissa^ had attempted to
portray the fierce yet sweet unrest which follows sensual
pleasure. But their delight in indulgence was unaccompanied by
the same exaltation. Their heroes had never sought love for the
sake of the bitter taste it leaves behind it. To them the yearning
■\/ j for " enchanting sadness," for the " languor of the melted and
I impassioned soul," ^ were unknown. They had never experienced
' to the same extent that sense of the irreparable which accom-
panies trangression and leaves the heart " empty and swollen

II., 12.

2 '< O enchanting sadness I O languor of the melted and impassioned soul 1 By-
how much you surpass the stormy pleasures, the wanton gaiety, the passionate
delight, and every other transport, which the unbridled desires of lovers can
derive from passion unrestrained." — I., 38.

SUPERIORITY OF ROUSSEAU 253

like a balloon filled with air." ^ They had not fostered within
themselves ** the sweet yet bitter recollection of a lost happi-
ness." Rousseau is infinitely their superior, and all comparison
would be futile. No novelist had shed tears so sincere over
" the sweet charm, now vanished like a dream, which attends on
virtue." No poet had said to his mistress, with a richness of
language previously unknown : " Our souls, exhausted with
love and anguish, melt and flow like water." ^
^^ ,NQivia&tly.»Ji^d any one clothed sentiments so sincere in so
poetical ^^Qn]it_ " It may be very funny," wrote Voltaire, " to
see a soul flow y but as for water, it is usually just when it is
exhausted that it ceases to flow." ^ Voltaire says no more than
he is entitled to say ; but neither do we when we assert that
Voltaire understands neither Rousseau, nor what constitutes the
essence of lyricism, nor what separates the author of Ju/ie from
the author of Clarissa. Richardson wrote a novel, and Rousseau
writes a poem. The one is a very great novelist, but a very
bad writer ; the other is an incomparable artist in words. The
one has no style at all ; the other renewed the French language
from its very foundation. ^

Feeling forjiature, melandiDiy, the lyrkaLikculty : — in each of
these respects, which at bottom may be reduced to one, R.ousseau
excels Richardson by the full stature of genius.

Nevertheless, something of Richardson is transmitted to every
one who reads Rousseau. It should be remarked that for nearly
a century, most of the disciples of Jean-Jacques have been
disciples of Richardson as well. All the romantic writers who
preceded or followed the Revolution piously associated his name
with that of his glorious imitator.

From Rousseau Bernardin de Saint Pierre learned to love and
imitate the author of Clarissa.^ Andre Chenier praises him in
the warmest terms. Mme. de Stael acknowledges that the
abduction of Clarissa was " the great event of her early life." ^
*' Let neither man nor woman, of grovelling mind or corrupted

^11., 17. 21^26. ^ Lett res sur la nowvelle Helo'ise.

^ See Fragments sur J.- J. Rousseau.

^ Lady Blennerhasset, Mme, de Stael et son temps, vol. i., p. 185.

254 ROUSSEAU AND RICHARDSON

heart, dare to touch the books of Richardson, . . . they are
sacred ! " ^ Chateaubriand earnestly invokes a revival of his
reputation.2 Charles Nodier admires his nobility and freedom
from affectation.^ Sainte Beuve, in his earliest lines, recalls
with emotion "the pure passion" of Clarissa and Clementina.*
Lamartine, as well as Michelet, makes Richardson one of the
studies of his early life.^ George Sand is enthusiastic in her ad-
miration of the writer whom Villemain describes'^as " the greatest
and perhaps the least conscious of Shakespeare's imitators," ^ and
of whom Alfred de Musset says that he has written " the greatest
novel in the world."

1 Dit sentiment, l8oi,p.22l. ^ ^ssai stir la litterature anglaise, pt. v.

2 Des types en litterature. ^ Fojsies completes, p. 352.

^ F. Reyssi^, La jeunesse de Lamartine, p. 89; Michelet, Mon journal, p. 81.
« XV 111'' siecle, lesson 27.

ROUSSEAU AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND

DURING THE LATTER HALF OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURT

Chapter I

ROUSSEAU AND THE DIFFUSION OF THE LITERATURES OF
NORTH ERN^ EUROPE

I. Development of English influence in the latter half of the century — Inter-
course with England — Influence of English manners.

II. Growth of the cosmopolitan idea — Diffusion of the English language and
literature : newspapers and translations.

III. "Wherein Rousseau assisted the movement — The revolution accomplished by
him in criticism — Manner in which he effected the union of Germanic
with Latin Europe.

The influence of England had paved the way for the literary
revolution accomplished by Rousseau, and, conversely, during
the latter half of the century, the influence of Rousseau
furthered the spread of English and of the Northern literatures
generally among the French. The cosmopolitan spirit in France .
was born of tjie union of the Latin with the Germanic genius
in the person of Tean- Jacques Rousseau.

By the year i,y<5o, the date of the appearance of La Nouvelle
Heldise^ " an experiment extending over a period of thirty
years " — to use the expression, already quoted, of an eighteenth
century writer ^ — " had been made upon one of the neighbours of
France, namely England : it had long been impossible to doubt
that the crossing of races is beneficial to every species of plants
and animals ; and it was a necessary conclusion that in the human
species, which the faculties of thought, speech, and conscience
render so especially capable of being brought to perfection, the

1 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. i., p. 153.

255

256 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

crossing of minds, since they, too, have their races, would
.4)rqdjice~a~speciesTittle short of divine." In the preceding^ pages
we have endeavoured to show what we are to understand by this
crossing of races and of minds. We have attempted to prove
that Jean-Jacques Rousseau inoculated the French mind, as
Mme. de Stael says, with " a little foreign vigour." "We have
striven to draw the reader's attention to a fact which has been
too little noticed, " the union of the French with the English
mind, which, if its iitrSTense consequences are bornFlrnrnnd, is
thejUQslimportantiact in the-hi»tory of the cightQ€Jith.century." ^
It has been our object to exhibit the effect of the example set
by a great French writer — the most popular of his epoch — in
frankly imitating an English model : even were Rousseau's debt
less important than it really is, it would be none the less true
that his contemporaries thought they perceived it, and that they
hailed with delight — without, at the same time, very clearly
discerning its consequences — the influence exercised by England
upon his genius. The ancient prestige of the Latin spirit in
France had received a blow from which it never recovered. j

It remains to show how the revolution in French taste accom-
plished by Rousseau has in its turn facilitated the comprehension
of the noble literature of a neighbouring country ; how, from
1760 onwards, he came to be pre-eminently the spokesman of
those who, wearied by the long domination of the classical spirit,
dreamed more or less vaguely of a renovation of art through the
agency of the English genius ; and how, thanks to him, France
was invaded by foreign works which up to that time had been
misunderstood and regarded with suspicion, or admired, if at all,
only by a few elect spirits.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, from the close of
the Seven Years' War down to the Revolution, the social and
intellectual influence^of England_-was on the increase in France.
The movement inaugurated by Voltaire, Prevost, and Montesquieu

^ Buckle, History of Civilization in England, vol. ii.

GROWTH OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE 257

attained during these decisive years its full strength. Since
these are just the years when the genius of Jean-Jacques was
revolutionizing French literature and unsettling what up to that
time had been recognized in France as the principles of criticism,
it is necessary briefly to call to mind the extent to which circum-
stances lent their assistance, unsuspected by Rousseau, to a work
of which he himself doubtless failed to gauge the true import.

Between 1 760 and 1789, the intercourse between the two
countries became closer and closer. The favour with which every-
thing English was received in France attracted thither a large
number of distinguished foreigners, including adventurers like
Hales, poets like Gray,^ novelists like Smollett, ^ economists like
Arthur Young, actors like Garrick, critics like Johnson, and philos-
ophers such as Hume or Dugald Stewart. In the same drawing-
room — d'Holbach's, for example — such visitors as David Hume,
Wilkes, Shelburne, Garrick, Priestley, and Franklin the American
would come and go one after the other. Some of these guests
created a sensation; among them "the English Roscius," as Diderot
calls Garrick, who inspired Mme. Riccoboni with a " warm, indeed
a very warm, friendship,"^ and dreamed of converting Voltaire
to the worship of Shakespeare * ; Wilkes, described by Jean-
Jacques as " that mischief-maker," who posed as a great victim,
astonished all Paris by his fiery eloquence, and went about
everywhere with his daughter, ** like Oedipus with Antigone " ^ ^
Hume, whom people rushed to behold as they formerly crowded
*' to see a rhinoceros at a fair" — David Hume — "heavy and
silent," described by Rousseau, who at first befriended him but
afterwards became his enemy, as " the truest philosopher I know,

1 Gray's visit was paid some years earlier. See the journal of his tour in
France and Italy in Gray and his friends , by Duncan C. Tovey (Cambridge, 1890).

2 See Peregrine Pickle, ch. xxxv.-l.

^ See the dedication to the Lettres de Mme. de Sancerre.

4 Cf. Ballantyne, op. cit., p. 271.

5 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 91 et seq. (Cf. L^gier, Amusement
foetiques, Paris, 1 769, p. 182 :

Ce republicain intrepide
Qui brave les plus grands revers,
Des mains d'une beaute timide,
Vient a Paris prendre des fers).
R

258 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

and the only historian who ever wrote in an impartial manner " ^ ;
and many others as well. The name of Englishman, said
Gibbon, who came to Paris in 1 76 1 , was clarmn et venerabile nomen
gentihus^ and a key to the door of every salon.

Conversely, the French learned to cross the Channel, and the
"pilgrimage to England" became almost obligatory. Buckle
observes with pride that during the two generations which
separated the close of the reign of Louis XIV. from the com-
mencement of the Revolution, there was scarcely a single
Frenchman of note who did not cross the straits. With
regard to the period anterior to 1750* the assertion would
be hazardous. Messieurs de Conflans and de Lauzun, Mmes. de
Boufflers and du Boccage were quoted as having been to England.
A writer of the day remarks with interest that Mme. de Boufflers
is the first lady of quality to attempt the journey.^ But during
the latter half of the century a trip to England formed a part
of the education of every intelligent man. The practice was
adopted by the majority of such scholars and men of learning
as BufFon, La Condamine, Delisle, Elie de Beaumont, Jussieu,
Lalande, Nollet, and Valmont de Bomare ; by the greater
number of politicians and economists, from Montesquieu to
Helvetius, from Gournay to Morellet, from Mirabeau to
Lafayette or Roland ; and, to a constantly increasing extent,
by ordinary men of letters — Grimm, Suard, Duclos, and many
others. In the philosophical circle of which Rousseau was so
long a member, what was preached was also practised. Helve-
tius's friend, the abbe Le Blanc, spent several years in England,
and on his return brought back three great volumes of letters,
heavy in style, but not lacking in discernment, which complete
the work of Voltaire and Muralt.* Raynal, the author of

1 Letter to Mme. de Boufflers, August 1762. See also Confessions^ ii, 12.

2 Miscellaneous Works, p. 73. On English travellers in France during the
eighteenth century, see Rathery : Les Relations sociales et intellectuelles . . ., 4th part,
and A. Babeau, Les Voyageiirs en France.

^ Dutens, Journal (Tun njoyageur, vol. i., p. 21 7.

* Le Blanc's Lettres were translated into English in 1747 (London, 2 vols. 8vo)
and discussed by English critics. See Memoires de Trevoux, May and June 1746 ;
Nowv. Utt., January 1751 ; Clement, Les cinq annees litteraires, iii. 26 ; Tabaraud,
Histoire du philosophisme anglaise, vol. ii., pp. 443-444.

GROWTH OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE 259

the Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, so highly esteemed by
Franklin and Gibbon, visited London and became a member of
the Royal Society. Helvetius, who crossed the straits in 1763,
came back ^<<^nite crazy about the Engr^n.s^h," and talked of
** packing up his wife and children" to go and settle in London.^
But the only thing which d'Holbach, who was less of an an"glo-
maniac, found to his hking in that land of liberty was that " the
Christian religion was almost extinct there " ; nevertheless, on
his return he became a voluminous translator of English books,
especially of such as had as little flavour of Christianity about them
as possible.2 Grimm was charmed ** with the simplicity, natural-
ness and good sense " he met with in England, and would have
been glad to remain in that happy country.^ Necker, his wife,
Duclos, Morellet and Suard are scarcely less enthusiastic. It
should be observed, as a highly interesting fact, that the pre-
vailing fashion even led several youths to complete their educa-
tion in England : young Walckenaer, who was sent by his uncle
to Oxford, and afterwards to Glasgow, was four years absent
from France ; while Fontanes spent eighteen months in England
shortly before the Revolution, and there acquired a love for the
poetry of Gray and Ossian.*

What was taking place was, in short, a revolution in French
habits, big with significant consequences.

Of these consequences the first is the growth of the influence
of English customs. "Anglomania," says Grimm, a thoroughly
trustworthy witness, *' and--th«~appallmg 4?rQgress^ it makes,
threaten alike_the_jyallantry, the social disposition, and the taste
in dress-of-thF-TT^ch nation." ~ In a rnore general sense, it
endanger£d_a__whole tradition of genial ^race and sociability,
which formed as it were the jtay^of French classical literature.
In France, as elsewhere, it tended to replace the social spirit l^y
individualism ; in other words, by jtf? ve^y ripg^finn- —

^ Diderot, (Euvres, vol. xix., p. 187. ^ 7^/^.^ vol. xx., pp. 246 and 308.

3 E. Scherer, Melchior Grimm, p. 254.

* Observe alsc^the great number of accounts of travels in England ; Grosley's
oft-reprinted Lon&res ; and books by Lacombe, Chantreau, de Cambry, etc. We
may call especial attention to that curious document, Un voyage philosophique en
Angleterre, by Lacoste (Paris, 1787, 2 vols. 8vo).

26o ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

A certain pleasant comedy of the day satirizes English ways in
a very agreeable manner. Eraste is an anglomaniac — that is to
say, he turns his garden into a heap of ruins, has Hogard and
Hindel (sic) always on his lips, drinks nothing but tea, rides none
but English horses, and reads no authors but Shakespeare,
Otway, and Pope : " The teachers of mankind have been born
in London, and it is from them that we must take lessons. I am
going to see this land of thinkers." His craze is flattered by
Damis, who makes fun of him: '^In France people laugh at
everything ; but you must know, sir, that in England, though
men sometimes hang themselves, they never laugh." Note,
especially, that ** in London every one assumes just what
character he pleases ; there you surprise no one by being
yourself."^

Accordingly, anglomaniacs make a point of being like no one
else. Women are dressed *' in hat, chemise," and short skirts,
as in Emi/e, that they may take their constitutional in comfort ;
men, in frock coat and vest, ** walk with their chins in the air
and assume a republican bearing." ^ A learned justice of the
period wants to know how Frenchmen are benefited by such
close intercourse with England : " It only introduces queer tastes,
less courtesy in tone and manners, and an increase of obnoxious
absurdities. . . . Would you recognize this ecclesiastic, this
magistrate, this new favourite of Fortune, with his high shoes, a
whip or light cane in his hand, his hair turned up beneath a
broad-brimmed hat which flaps about his eyes, his frock-coat
fitting so tightly that it scarcely covers his back, and his neck
muffled in a thick cravat ? Will you have time to get out
of the way of this young madcap, seated Hke a quack in a
carriage as flimsy as it is dangerous, driving like the wind at the
risk of his own life and of those of the passers by, hatted,
dressed and booted like his jockey, in a manner which befits the
back seat of his carriage quite as well as the front, and makes it
impossible for any one to say which is the master and which

^ Saurin, V Anglomane ou VOrpheline leguee.

2 See Grimm, Correspondance litteraire, May 1786 ; Mercier, Tableau de Paris, vol.
vii,, p. 38 ; Quicherat, Hisioire du costume en France, p. 601.

GROWTH OF ENGLISH INFLUENCE 261

the servant ? " ^ The English type of coxcomb, " bundled up in
a hideous great cloak," splashed with mud up to his shoulders,
and with a comb under his hat, sets up for a philosopher,
quotes Addison and Pope, and seems to say : " Now am I a
thinker^'' This thinking creature, "dressed in green," whose coat
shows not a single crease, whose hair is innocent of powder, and
whose head is always covered — is the anglomaniac. " Well ! "
said one of them to the abbe Le Blanc, " what do you think
of me ? Don't I look thoroughly English ? " 2

Touches like these, absurd as they are, afford evidence of a
social transformation which struck the attention of all who were
contemporary with it. The fashion was a democratic one, and
was adopted by the common people. It reflected a ruder and
more primitive form of society, or rather a society which was
ambitious of being so. Louis XV. strove against the infatuation,
but Louis XVI., who, at Necker's instigation, had made a study
of England, encouraged it.^ From 1774 onwards, everything^
was in the English style — costumes, horse-races, and clubs.*
The-evening~ffieal is taken in the English fashion, about four or
five o'clock ; and as for intellectual refinement, who would any
longer expect it of the French ? A club a Vanglaise is a place of
perdition, where, as Fox is surprised to find, you eat the vilest
dishes, drink ponche made with bad rum, and read the news-
papers : " I am very glad," Fox concludes after an evening of
this kind, " to see that as regards imitation we cannot be more
ridiculous than our dear neighbours."^ This fresh social

1 Rigoley de Juvigny, De la decadence des lettres et des mceurs, Paris, 1 787, izmo,
p. 476.

^ Preiervatif contre Vanglomanie^ Minorca and Paris, 1757. Le Blanc, Lettres ^
vol. i., p. 63.

3 Tabaraud, vol. ii., p. 451.

* Ladies wore head-dresses said to be the outcome " of the union between
France and England " (Mercier, Tableau de Paris). In many shops English signs /'
were displayed and English goods sold. Grimm {Correspondance litteraire, May /
1786) says that horses, carriages, furniture, jewellery, and woven materials were
sent over from England. Vauxhalls were built at Paris in imitation of London,
and there were a Coliseum, a Ranelagh, and an Astley's circus, the latter of '
which drew all Paris to see it. For horse racing there was quite a mania (see j
Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. iii., p. 151), etc,

5 Quoted by Rathery.

262 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

influence modifies the French disposition. *' Elegance consisted
in having none. Society had been spoilt by dinners attended by
men only, by those who supposed themselves to be men of
intelligence, or by military men who were destitute of it.
Platitudes about liberty and abuses made them fancy themselves
Englishmen ; how many times have I not said to them — the speaker
is the Prince de Ligne : — * Let them alone, these enormously long
newspapers which you cannot read. What have you to do with
Pitt and Fox, who ridicule anglomaniacs every day ? You don't
even know the name of the lord-lieutenant of your own pro-
vince'^ . . ." Social life is disappearing, and with it a part of
the heritage the French have received from their ancestors. A
drawing-room is now an ante-chamber, where everyone remains
standing, including even the women : " You praise the hostess's
wit, but what good does it do you ? A lay figure placed in a
chair would do the honours of an evening like this quite as well.
There she is bound to remain until three o'clock in the morning,
and she will go to bed without having had a glimpse of half the
people she has received. . . . And that is what is called an
assemhlic a V anglais e.^^ ^

In a society of this type, the highest virtue is to be a cosmo-
politan in an intellectual sense. The word " cosmopolitanisni "
is of earlier origin, but it was at this period that it came into

1 Prince de Ligne, Memoires, vol. iv., p. 154, We read in the same author that
" Horses and traps for the morning drive are ruining the young fellows in Paris.
The French will take more harm from the English habits they adopt than from all
the English fleet. . . . All these clubs will be the end of them. Farewell to good
manners, to gallantry, to the desire to please. Now we talk of Parliament and
of the House of Commons. We read the Courrier del- Europe, and talk horses. We
bet ; play at creps ; we drink wretched pale wine instead of the champagne which
used to make our ancestors merry and inspire them with song. Barbarians I
You should give the tone; never receive it" (CEuvres, ed. 1796, vol. xii.,

p. 173^-
^ Mme. de Genlis, Memoires, vol. v., p. loi, and vol. vii., p. lo.

DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 263

general use.^ "The true sage is a cosmopolitan," says a writer
of comedy. 2 ** Happy the man," exclaims Sebastien Mercier,
** whose literary taste is cosmopolitan!"^ A traveller declares
that " the highest title in Paris, after that of woman, is that of
foreigner."* And Franklin also remarks that a foreigner is
treated with the same respect in France as a lady is in England.^

Thanks largely to^this infatuation for everything exotic.
Frenchmen, begaa -to- have -ar more aeeurate acquaintance with
at least one foreign language, and the knowledge of that
language increased in a very remarkable manner.

English had long repelled the student by the harshness of
what La Harpe — who never knew the language — called its
** inconceivable" pronunciation. None "but a northern ear,"
thought Le Blanc, "could endure sounds so harsh that they
seem to conflict with the principles of human articulation."^
" I cannot imagine," wrote Freron naively to Desfontaines,
" how so subtle and so keenly intellectual a nation can employ
such a language for the composition of works of genius. Can
I conceive of Gulliver, Pamela, or Joseph Andreivs as having
been written in so harsh a language as this ? " And he uttered
the hope that soon the English would make up their minds to
write their books in French, which was " smooth, expressive,
flowing and harmonious."^ Louis XV., moreover, was opposed
to the teaching of English, and when Paris-Duverney, the super-
intendent of the military school, suggested the institution of
classes in that language, for the benefit of naval recruits, he
replied peevishly : " The English have destroyed the intelligence

1 In the sixteenth century the word appears chiefly in the form cosmopolitain.
In 1605, a Swiss writer published at Berne la Comedie du cosmopolite (Virgile Rossel,
Histoire de la litterature fratifaise en Suisse, vol. i., p. 464). The form cosmopolite is
mentioned in the Trevoux Dictionary in 1721, and was recognized by the Academy
in 1762. In 1750, a writer of the name of Monbron published Le Cosmopolite ou le
Citoyen du monde, and in 1762 Chevrier produced Le Cosmopolite ou les Contradictions.

2 Palissot, les Philosophes, iii. 4.

' Sebastien Mercier, preface to Jeanne d^Arc.

* John Moore, Lettres d^un voyageur anglais, Paris, 1788, vol. i.

5 Correspondance, translated by Ed. Laboulaye.

^ Lettres, vol. i., p. 75^ et seq.

^ Observations sur les ectits modernes, vol. xxxiii. (1743), p. 286.

264 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

of my kingdom ; let us not expose the rising generation to the
danger of similar perversion." ^

Voltaire had been the first to resist this prejudice. On his
return^ from EngTand7 he had— -eoftveFted_JXhieriot, Mme. de
Chatelet, and the abbe de Sade.^ To a young man who asked
his advice with regard to journalism as a profession, he boldly
replied, in 1737 : "A good journalist ought at least to have a
knowledge of English and Italian ^ for these languages contain
many works of genius, and genius is scarcely ever translated. ^J.
consider these the two European languages most necessary to a

A few years later his efforts at dissemination had borne fruit.
About the middle of the century it was the fashion for women,
even in the provinces, to learn English. **Not an Armande or a
Belise" could be found who did not devote herself to the study
of it.* The means thereto were multiplied : Boyer's grammar
and dictionary gave rise to numerous imitations.^ In 1 755 the
Journal Stranger gave a long account of Johnson's dictionary,
with a translation of the preface.^ But, so early as 1739, Pre-
vost declares that the study of English has become an essential
part of " fine literature." ^ An English traveller was struck by
the change that had taken place : " Thirty years ago a French-
man with a knowledge of two or three foreign languages would
have been looked upon as a marvel ; to-day there are many
people who read the speeches delivered in Parliament in the
original." ^

In the reign of Louis XVI., a Societe philoso^hiqiie was founded
in Paris with the object of promoting thestudyof foreign
languages, and of assisting foreigners inTie acquisition of

1 Tabaraud, vol. ii., p. 447.

2 Letter to the abbe de Sade, 13th November 1733.
2 Cometh a un journaliste : CEuvres, vol. xxii., p. 26 1.

* Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. ii., p. 465. See also La Harpe, Coun de litterature, vol.
iii., p. 224.

^ E.g. the grammars of J. Wallis, Mauger et Festeau, Peyton, Siret, Rogissard,
Lavery, Gautier, Berry, O'Reilly, Flint, Dumay, &c. ; and the dictionaries of
Boyer, Brady, Chambaud et Robinet, &c.

^ June 1755 and December 1756. ^ Pour et Centre^ vol. xviii.

* Premier et tecond voyage de Milord . . , a Parity vol. iii., p. 153.

DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 265

French.^ Grimm states that the language of Shakespeare 2 is
the only one which forms an essential part of the scheme of a
fashionable education. Mercier observes that the reading of
English papers has become as common in Paris as fifty years ago
it was' rare.^ Every week Les Papier s anglais^ a journal devoted to
the study of English, published in both languages the most inter-
esting articles from English journals, and Freron remarks on the
success of the idea, which enabled students at one and the same
time to learn the language and to make themselves familiar with
the events of the day.* Buckle has drawn up a long list of all
the well-known Frenchmen who, during_the eighteenth century,
took the trouble-lxrleaTirEnglisirTirin^ all, or nearly all,
tiie noted writers of the period,^ and enables us to estimate the
depth and extent of English influence better than many general
considerations would do. This knowledge, it is true, was not
uniformly accurate or thorough, but it was most widely spread,
and indeed almost general — a- fact which speaks volumes. A
considerable number of English words, which were introduced
into the French language at that time, bear witness to the
fashion ; new customs bring new words : men go to the club,
drink ponche and play ivhisk y now-a-days, says Voltaire, "your
major-domo serves up rostbifs of mutton . . . our poor French
tongue must simply make the best of a bad case." ^ In truth the
anglomaniacs put it to some pretty severe tests : dame becomes
/adi'^ ; lot becomes bil^ -, while monsieur is replaced by j-/r, even
when every rule forbids its use. " Sir, voulez-vous du the ? "
may pass muster, but *' a Sir donnez un verre d'eau " ^ is neither

1 Babeau, Paris in 1789, p. 339. '^ Correspondance litteraire, May I786.

3 Tableau de Paris ^ vol. xi., p. 1 28.

^ There was also a goodly number of Musees a Vanglaise in several towns : the
Musee de Paris, the Societe olympique, etc.

* Buckle, vol. iii., p. 81.

^ Letter to Linguet, published in the Journal encyclopedique, September 1769

^ Provost, Memoires d'un homme de qualite, vol. ii., p. 254: ** C'est une charmante
ladi."

8 Francois de Neufchateau, Pamela, iv. 12 :

Dans vos bills dfes longtemps mon supplice est ^crit.
The word is found even in the Trevoux Dictionary (1704).
^ Ibid., ii. 11.

266 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

English nor French. Un plaisant serieux becomes un homme
d'humour^ and it is good form to have the spleen rather than
the vapeursP'

In the latter half of the century the " demon translator" raged
furiously. Every publisher had his translating stafF.^ Desfon-
taines, Mme. du Boccage, Dupre de Saint-Maur, Du Resnel,
Saint-Hyacinthe, and Van EfFen had led the way. His version of
Paradise Lost had even obtained for Dupre de Saint-Maur a chair
in the Academy. Their successors were legion, from Leclerc de
Septchenes to Frenais, the translator of Sterne ; from the abbe
Yart, the author of a voluminous Idee de la poesie anglaise, to the
" inevitable M. Eidous," who, if Grimm is to be believed,
translated a volume every month. Women took part in the
work, and produced their ** traductionette," in order to gain the
reputation of being authors * ; Mme. de Bouiflers translated
English songs, the wife of the president de Meynieres turned
her attention to the historians, and the duchess d'Aiguillon
attacked Ossian. Prominent writers such as Prevost, Diderot,
\ d'Holbach, and Suard devoted themselves to translation. Others,
I more modest or less capable, attribute all their success to their
^ • knowledge of English ; among them the first adapter of
Shakespeare, La Place, who flattered himself that he knew two
languages because he had been educated in the college of the
\English Jesuits as Saint-Omer, whereas in reality he did not
^now one. His knowledge of English, however, was " the
cause of any little success he had had." La Place produced a
translation of Otway's Venice Preserved, a Theatre anglais in eight
volumes, a version of Tom Jones, and translations of everything
that came in his way ; thanks to all these versions and to Mme.
de Pompadour, he became editor of the Mercure.^ Another, the

1 Suard, Melanges de litterature, vol. iv., p. 366. Muralt is responsible for the
first definition of humour. See also Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. i., p. 79. Attempts
v^rere also made to distinguish humour, or, as Garat spells it, hyumour (^Memoires sur
Suard vol. ii., p. 92) from ivhim (see Journal encyclopedique, ist June 1786)..

2 On the spleen or vafeurs anglaUes, see Prevost's Cleveland \ Le Blanc, vol. i.,
p. 169 ; Bezenval, Memoires, vol. iv., etc.

3 Journal encyclopedique, February 1761. * Mercier, Tableau, vol. xi., p. 1 30.
^ La Harpe : remarks on La Place, in the Cours de litterature.

DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 267

celebrated Letourneur, described by Voltaire as " secretaire de
la librairie, mais non secretaire du bon gout," extended this
branch of commerce still further, founded together with
Fontaine-Malherbe, the Comte de Catuelan, the chevalier de
Rutlidge, and others, a regular translating firm, rendered
Shakespeare, Richardson, Young, and Ossian into French, and,
in addition to this mass of work, was able at his death to leave
behind him certain fragments of translation in manuscript which
were piously published by his friends, together with his
biography.^

A fact of greater importance is that, in order to satisfy this
increasing taste for foreign productions, journals were started —
not, as heretofore, at the Hague, or in London — which allotted
the greater part of their space to English affairs, or were even
exclusively devoted to them.

Most of the literary journals of the period declare that the
cosmopolitan spirit gives rise to " a social intercourse thoroughly
worthy of the enlightened nations of which the European
federation consists." - Those even who had once been hostile
to the movement ultimately fell in with the fashion : Freron,
who had at first shown no disposition to welcome foreign
literature, now became very curious about it : assigned much of
the space in his Annee litteraire to German and English books,
became intimate with Letourneur, and corresponded with
Garrick. Pierre Rousseau's Journal encyclopedique is a mine of
information for the student of the relations between France and
Europe during the eighteenth century, and as much might
be said of the Esprit des journaux — an immense series containing
a most curious selection of the best articles from every periodicaJ,'
in the world, and the delight of Sainte-Beuve. Those who have
never turned over the pages of the two hundred and eighty-
eight volumes of the Journal encyclopedique ^ or the four hundred
and ninety-five volumes of the Esprit des journaux^ have nq

1 Le Jard'in anglais, or Varieties both original and translated : a posthumous^
work with a notice of the author, Paris, 1788, 2 vols. izmo.

- Correspondance litteraire, August 1772.

3 V Esprit des jottrnaux franfais ct etrangers appeared from July 1 772 to April 181 8.
Ti^.e Journal encyclopedique appeared from I756 to 1773.

268 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

idea of the curiosity which foreign productions aroused in
France.

But, in addition to these magazines of a general character,
special reviews were established : following the example of the
Bibliotheque germanique and the Bibliotheque italique^ there was a
Traducteur, which gave a summary of the English periodicals,
a Bibliotheque des romans anglais^ a Censeur iiniversel anglais, or
** General, critical, and impartial review of all English produc-
tions " ^ — a list of efforts which would have greatly astonished
Ariste, one of the characters of Father Bouhours, who considered
" that people of refined intelligence are somewhat rarer in cold
countries."

The most famous of these cosmopolitan magazines, and the one
most worthy of remembrance, was the Journal Stranger, which
was issued from 1754 ^^ ^7^2, and edited successively by
Grimm, Prevost, Freron, Arnaud, and Suard.

Established in April 1754, ^^ Journal was by turns mainly
scientific in character under Prevost, political under Freron, and
literary under Arnaud and Suard. Its title, and the sections into
which it was divided, were frequently altered.'^ After Freron
left it, in October 1 756, the scope of the magazine was enlarged ;
regular correspondents were secured in the East, and in Rome,
Leghorn, Florence, Gottingen, Leipzig, Dresden, Stockholm and
London, and foreign contributions became both more accurate and
more abundant. But the spirit of the magazine remained un-
changed; from the outset its object had been to combine "the genius
of each nation with those of all the others," to bring "writers
of every nationality" into relation with one another, "to decide

1 See Hatin, Histoire de la pr esse, vol. iii., p. I14.

2 The descriptions of the Journal et ranger given in bibliographies have, as a rule,
been inaccurate. Its successive titles were Journal etranger, ouvrage periodique ; a
Paris, au bureau du Journal etranger, . . . then Journal etranger, ou notice exacte et
detaillee des outrages de toutes les nations etrangeres, en fait d^arts, de sciences, de litterature,
etc., by M. Freron . . . (Paris, Michel Lambert). In 1760 it bore on the title-
page the name of the abbe Arnaud, and appeared under the patronage of the
Dauphin. The entire collection extends from April 1754 to August 1762
(42 vols. i2mo); though no issue was made for December 1754, nor during
the whole of 1759. Prevost's editorship lasted from January to August 1755 ;
Freron's from August 1755 until October 1756.

DIFFUSION OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 269

those idle differences of opinion upon questions of taste which set
the peoples of Europe at variance with one another," and to teach
France " no longer to lay exclusive claim to the gift of thought,
the mere pretension to which would almost afford evidence of its
absence, no longer to venture upon the unseemly jests which are
enough to make one people detested by all the rest, nor any
longer to evince that offensive contempt for estimable nations
which is nothing but a relic of the brutal prejudice due to former
ignorance." ^ In short, the Journal etranger proposed to resume,
and at the same time to develop, the idea which had guided the
refugee critics in the work of editing their magazines. Side
by side with a letter on the condition of literature in Poland.
it inserts an account of the <Ggrman fable-writers. Here it
speaks of Portngupse writers, and there~'of th^ E2S?r^? A.rab^,^-
Winckelmann, Kleist, Klopstock, and Lessing are mentioned in
the same" breath with Goldonr;;^5nd2M5ta'^r3:sio: Rut.£jQglandj
above all, furnished the material_Joi^whol^ nnmhpfr'~?nf fh^
m^[gazine77"**We are aware," wrote the authors, *' how necessary
to our journal English literature has become. The lively and
almost exclusive interest which is everywhere taken in the
productions of the British intellect makes it imperative that we
should conform in this respect to the general wish." ^ From the
earliest volumes the journal derived its materials largely from
Hume, Johnson, Foote, Glover, Milton, and even from Chaucer,
Spenser, and Ben Jonson, either in the shape of translated
excerpts from their works, or of biographical articles. Under
Suard's influence the journal was still further devoted to the
study of Enghsh writers.

Suard, a man of subtle and acute intelligence — of whom it has
been said that he was, " as it were, the full length portrait of a
Frenchman " ^ — had made England peculiarly his own province.
He had a thorough knowledge of the language, translated
Robertson, and possibly Mrs Montague's Essay on Shakespeare,
visited London thrice, once in the company of Necker, and saw

1 April 1754. Compare Arnaud's Discoun preliminaire sur le caractere des prin-
c'lpales langues de rEurope, which occurs in the year 1760.

2 September 1757. * Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. i., p. 133.

I, I

2 70 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

Garrick play King Lear. He became remarkable, his biographer
tells us, for his ** absolute and unshaken confidence in the know-
ledge of Great Britain he had thus acquired." The moment
England was in question he " seemed, as it were, to take the
chairman's seat," ^ and his drawing-room was the rendezvous for
^ aj^l the anglomaniacs in Paris.

C/ In 1764 the Journal etranger was succeeded by the Gazette
Xr^ litteraire^ under the same management and conducted in a
^ ^ similar spirit. The Gazette forms a natural continuation of the

^" ] Journal. Like its predecessor it was " intended especially to
/ afford information concerning foreign literature, the knowledge
of which has more to do with the progress of reason and good
taste than may be supposed." ^ It would rely for its information
upon the diplomatic staff, and would enjoy the support of the
minister for foreign affairs.*

Voltaire became a contributor, and wrote for it accounts of
several English books, more especially of Sidney's Discourses upon
Government, and Lady Mary Montagu's letters. But these dis-
tinguished contributions appeared irregularly ; the directors, too,
were negligent, being too much occupied with the Gazette de
France, which they edited as well. When, in August 1 765, the/
Gazette litteraire ceased to appear, they had at least proved to/
every European nation that, as the abbe Arnaud expressed it;,
*' no one was at liberty to assume a tyranny over others."

" In the absurd dispute concerning the ancients and the
moderns, the partisans of antiquity justly required that before
forming an estimate of Homer we should transport ourselves to
the period of which the manners and characters are described v
by the poet. We owe a like justice to everything luhich conies to its^k
from abroad. We must place ourselves at their point of vieiv if ive are^jj^
to judge of the ivay in ivhich foreigners live^"*^ Thus it came about'

1 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. i., p. 78.

2 Gazette litteraire de V Europe^ printed in Paris at the printing office of the
Gazette de France^ Louvre Gallery (March 1764, August 1765), 6 vols. 8vo.

3 Vol. i., p. 7.

* This official protection caused the Journal des savants much concern ; it
considered that its rights v^rere infringed upon, and, through Choiseul, raised an
ineffective protest.

'' Journal etranger, January 1 760.

HIS SHARE IN THE WORK 271

that periodical literature, always, a faithful -mirror -x>f— public
opinion, provided^nourishmeiitJbiLthe confused aspiratkuia-Q£ all
who hoped to see^ France and the Teu tonic Jiations drawn more
cTosely together.

^ III

The common bond between all the vague aspirations which
the study of English works aroused in France was provided by
Rousseau. He gave them vigour, life, and substance. Thanks
to him — and to his writings — Frenchmen read and appreciated
Sterne, Ossian, Young, Hervey, and Shakespeare himself, all of
whom had uttered in another language sentiments similar to those
expressed by Rousseau, and all of whom were, like him, sensitive,
melancholy, and lyrical. The admirers of these writers — most
of whom preceded him — are the very people who admired Jean-
Jacques. Between the two currents which, in France on the
one hand, in England and in Germany on the other, were guiding
literature towards a renewal of the sources of inspiration, a
junction was about to take place. France, a Latin-speaking
country, was for the first time to be conscious that her feeling,
her imagination and her thought were those of the German-]
speaking nations, and those who seek for the ancestors and
forerunners of Rousseau must look for them not in a classic
antiquity, but beyond the borders of France.

Henceforth criticism could not fail to distinguish, with Mme.
de Stael, a^ northern genius — represented by the_^nglishi_bx_r
Rousseau, and by the Germans_who drew, theij^-in&piratioii from
him-^and a Southern' genius, develpped_iiy:-the_J.tatin nations
without forelgn^Hmixture. The distinction, it is true, cannot
be strictly "maintained"' and is perhaps not even a natural one.
But here we are writing the history of an idea which has borne
fruit in the world, rather than examining the accuracy of a
theory.

The cosmopolitan idea in literature has its origin ^in Jean-

272 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

Jacques Rousseau — because Rousseau altered the very founda-
~nonsT5f CfiticTsnfi"

Before "hrs time no one, in France at any rate, had doubted y
that there were certain rules which must regulate thecomppsi-,/
tion of a^book, whether it be an epic or a satire, a drama ^IL a
^.. sermon. Though the nature of these"TuTes~was-disputed, their
existence was never called in question, and there was a pretty
general agreement with regard to certain essential principles
bequeathed by ancient^ criticism. It was believed, in short,
that there was an art of correct thought and evea^of correct
feeling and imagination. Jean-Jacques felt and imagined in^
defiance of eveqr rule. He boldly declared that he was not
made like any man he had seen, nor, he ** ventured to believe,
like any man in existence." There was nothing in merely saying
so ; but he gave a practical exemplification of the fact, and
claimed for the individual the right to like and to admire
without consulting any other guide than himself. ^

This was a. momentous revolution, but it was a revolution in
H France alone. It is in vam, Rousseau declared, to pretend to

remould every mind ** according to a single pattern." To
change a mind you must change a character, which is itself
dependent on "a temperament." For temperament — or sensi-
bility— is the substratum of the man. "It is thus not a
question of altering the character and subduing the disposition,
but, on the contrary, of pushing it to its utmost limits." Yet as
/ much had been said by his English predecessors, and Young,
the author of Night Thoughts — in his Conjectures on Original Com-
position, which, published in the form of a letter to Richardson,
enjoyed some reputation in the eighteenth century — had, long
before, expressed himself as follows : " By a spirit of imitation
we counteract Nature, and thwart her design. She brings us
into the world all originals : no two faces, no two minds, are
just alike; but all bear Nature's evident mark of separation on
them. Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies .'*
. . , Nature stands absolved, and the inferiority of our com-
posiiion must be charged on ourselves." The remedy he
suggested was that proposed by Jean-Jacques : let us commune

HIS SHARE IN THE WORK

275

with ourselves, and seek to develop that which is our very own
property — our temperament. " Know thyself. Of ourselves,
it may be said, as Martial says of a bad neighbour,

. . . Nil tarn prope, proculque nobis. ^^

Rousseau never said more than this ; perhaps, even, he did
not deduce the inevitable consequence of his principle quite
so rigorously as Young, who contrasted all the endeavour of
antiquity with the boundless horizon of the future. " Who
hath fathomed the mind of man ? Its bounds are as unknown
as those of the creation." **Men as great, perhaps greater
than the great ones of antiquity (presumptuous as it may
sound) may, possibly, arise." ^

The part played by Rousseau in the evolution of criticism was
that of substituting the notion of a relative aesthetic, variable
both from one period, and from one country, to another, for
that of an absolute aesthetic — which has found perfect expres-
sion in a few works of genius. Esthetic discernment, he
expressly declares, is nothing more than the faculty of judging
what pleases or displeases the greatest number." ^ See how man
varies according as he dwells in the North or in the South, and
according as he is born in the first century or in the fifteenth.
See him in the earliest stages of his development, try to picture
his rude yet simple life, the slow awakening of his intelligence
to a more complete form of existence, his struggle with a soil'i
" surrendered to its natural fertility, and covered with immense
forests never yet mutilated by the axe." ^ What affinity has this
uncultivated creature_with the modernjociety man, whom books
would foist upon us as the type of humanity ? — And so we find
St Preux making the tour of the world, and endeavouring to
acquire the illusion of remoteness in time by transporting himself
to remote distances in space ; traversing ** the stormy seas of the
antarctic zone," the Ocean, where man is the enemy of man, and
" those vast, sorrow-stricken lands which seem to have no other
destiny than to people the earth with droves of slaves." * What

1 Conjectures on Original Composition, London, I759> P- 4*'

2 Emile, i. iv. 3 Discours sur Pinegalite, part i. •* Nouvelle Helot se, iv. 3.

274 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

analogy is there between the Hottentot, the Indian of the Congo,
or the cannibal of the Antilles,^ and the heroes of our tragedies
and novels. Again, to return to our own doors, can we help
thinking of the countless souls never mentioned in our books and
scarcely better known to our writers than the souls of African
negroes or the inhabitants of China ? Thus no one could be
more conscious than Rousseau of the almost infinite diversity of
human nature — a consciousness entirely unknown to classical
criticism ; and he deduces therefrom the consequence that, if
the types are almost infinite in number, almost the whole of
humanity still remains to be portrayed. ''One would suppose,"
says Rousseau's faithful expositor, Mme. de Stael, "that logic is
the foundation of the arts," and that the " unstable nature "
spoken of by Montaigne is banished from our books. This
unstable nature we must restore to the position suited to it, and
must convince ourselves that taste does not consist in confining it
within the narrow limits of French and Western logic.

This, however, had been vaguely perceived by many writers
— Young, for instance — before Rousseau. The superiority of
Jean-Jacques lies in the fact that he proved it by his own
example, and found the most signal justification of his ideas
within himself. It is this that made him the guide and master
of Europe. France, but Germany, England, Italy, and Spain
no less — all those, of whatever nationality, who had already
found their own consciousness voiced by English writers —
felt themselves still more completely reflected in Rousseau. No
writer has made so many countries his own at the same time ;
none has appealed to so many hearts or so many minds ; none
has thrown down more barriers or removed more boundaries.
In him, European, as distinct from national, literature takes its
rise.

By German writers he was hailed as a deliverer. Schiller
nourished his mind upon Julie, and composed The Robbers and
Fiesco under the inspiration of its author. The youthful Goethe
was fascinated by him, and every day, at Strasbourg, made
extracts from his works. Herder addressed him in passionate

1 See the curious notes to the Discours sur Vinegalite,

HIS SHARE IN THE WORK 275

terms : " It is myself that I would seek, that at last I may find
and never again lose myself; come, Rousseau, be you my
guide !"^ Lessing entertained for Jean- Jacques a "secret
respect." Kant-hung his portrait in his study. JLeuz-demanded
that a statue should be erected in his honour, opposite to that of
Shakespeare. Many writers of the period regarded him as an
apostle, or, as Herder said to his betrothed, as " a saint and
a prophet. I am almost tempted to address him in prayer." At
his decease, Schiller extolled him as a martyr : " In these
enlightened times the sage must die. Socrates was martyred by
the sophists of old ; and Rousseau, who endeavoured to render
Christians more manly, must suffer and fall beneath their
hands." 2

In England, the home of his literary predecessors, his suc-
cess was scarcely less. There, to tell the truth, his art did->
not perhaps seem quite so new as in Germany ; since many of/
the sentiments he expressed were already familiar to English^
literature. Richardson, Fielding and_Sterne had created the/'^'
seatimental novel of mjddle-class-life befoJie_Rous.seau. Even in
his lyrical quality there was nothing absolutely fresh. " Thirty
years earlier than Rousseau, Thomson had given expression to
the same sentiments, and almost in the same style." ^ An entire
school of poetry had sung the praises of melancholy before he
did, from Young's Night Thoughts, which appeared in 1 742, down
to the first fragments of Ossian, which were published in 1 760.
But these same sentiments were expressed by Rousseau in a
more truly poetical manner. This is why he became one of the
masters of the English romantic school ; of Cowper, by whom he
was addressed in beautiful lines ; of Shelley, who is never tired
of appealing to Rousseau as his teacher ; and of Byron, who
read him in youth and remained faithful to him in maturer years.*
Many an English poet of the eighteenth, and even of the nine-

^ C. Joret, Herder, p. 323.

2 See Marc Monnier : Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les strangers, in Rousseau juge par
les Genevois cfaujour^hui. With regard to Rousseau's popularity in Germany
consult also Erich Schmidt : Richardson, Rousseau und Goethe.

'^ Taine, Litterature anglais e, vol. iv., p. 224.

■* See O. Schmidt, Rousseau und Byron, Greifswald, 1889, 8vo.

276 ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN LITERATURE

teenth, century could have said with George Eliot : " Rousseau's
genius has sent that electric thrill through my intellectual and
moral frame which has awakened me to new perceptions [and]
. . . quickened my faculties." ^ It would be impossible to write
any portion of the history of European, as distinct from national,
literature during the last one hundred and fifty years without
pronouncing his name, for the reason that in him the genius of
Latin Europe became one with that of Teutonic Europe.

But if his philosophical work is mainly an expression of the
'\ Latin genius, it "was mainly the Teutonic genius, or, as Mme. de
i^tael said, the literatures of the North, that benefited by the
revolution he accomplished. Rousseau's triumph marks the
aHvent of these literatures ; his influence was henceforth insepar-
able from theirs. And this union dates from the eighteenth
century, and from pre-revolutionary times.

I do not propose to write here the history of the intercourse
of France with England and Germany between 1760 and 1789.
I shall simply attempt to show how the success of Jean- Jacques
Rousseau brought success to certain foreign writers whose
careers preceded, or were contemporary with, his own, whose
genius was very closely related to his, and whose influence
became blended with that which he exerted.

1 George Eliot's Life, vol. i., p. l68.

Chapter II

ENGLISH INFLUENCE AND THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL

I. Sterne and the sentimental novel — Sterne, like Rousseau, brought the
sentimental confession into fashion — His visit to Paris — His amours — The
culte-du-moi.
II. *rhe eighteenth century failed to understand his humour, but appreciated the
way in w^hich, 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.

Some months after the appearance of La Nouvelle Heloise, and simul-
taneously with the publication of Diderot's famous J^loge de Richard-
son, there appeared in Paris one of the most remarkable characters
of the age. L^Lurericg_Steme was a man of weak health, effusive
disposition, profound sensibility and singular genius. A con-
temporary says that ^* byjthejiaiik^- simplir.ity, the .readiness and
the touching character of his own sensibility, he inspired sensitive
hearts with fresh embtioris." ^ Suard once asked him to explain
his own personality. Sterne replied that he could distinguish
three causes which had made him like nobody else : the daily
reading of the Bible, the study of Locke's sacred philosophy,
** without which the world will never attain to a true universal
religion or a true science of ethics, and man will never obtain
real command over nature " ; lastly, and above all, the possession
of "one of those organizations, in which the sacred constitutive
principle of the soul is predominant, that immortal flame by
which life is at once nourished and devoured." ^ Endowed with / j
the originality of an Englishman, Sterne, like Rousseau, was also/ I
sensitive, passionate, and, at times, lyrical. i

^ Garat, MemoWes siir Suard, vol. ii., p. 135. ^ Ibid., p. 149.

277

278 STERNE

When he arrived in 'PRYis^Jristram Shandy — the first volume
of which had recently appeared — was~already famous there ; so
that Sterne wrote to Garrick : " My head is turned with what I
see, and the unexpected honour I have met with here. Tristram
was almost as much known here as in London."^

The Seven Years' War being then at its height, it was neces-
sary to find a guarantor for one's good behaviour ; accordingly
d'Holbach became his patron and admitted him to his salon.
There he met with all the anglomaniacs of Paris, and astonished
them, now by his exuberant gaiety, now by his philosophical ,
gravity. But what gave most pleasure was his ostentatious 'h
contempt for the " eternal sameness " of the French mind and; /
disposition. Being asked whether he had not found in Francej/
some character which he could introduce in his novel : No, he
replied. Frenchmen are like coins which, ** by jingling and
rubbing one against another, . . . are become so much alike
you scarcely can tell one from another." ^ This sally in the
manner of Jean-Jacques was immensely successful. " What
sort of a fellow is this ? " cried Choiseul in .astonishment. — On
another occasion he halted before Henri IV.'s statue on the
Pont-Neuf ; a crowd gathered around him ; turning round,
he called out : ** What are you all looking at me for? Follow
my example, all of you ! " — and they all knelt with him before
the statue. "The Englishman," says the narrator, ** forgot that
it was the statue of a king of France. A slave would never
have paid such homage to Henri IV." ^

Just as Rousseau, who had his Therese, fell in love with
Mme. d'Houdetot, so ** the good and agreeable Tristram," as a
contemporary calls him, though possessed of a devoted helpmeet,
loved Eliza Draper, the wife of another man, and neither the one
nor the other, nor both together, could keep him from falling in
love with every woman he met. " By loving them all," says
Garat, gravely, ** in such a transient manner, the minister of the
Gospel maintained his religious belief in all its purity."

To Eliza, " wife of Daniel Draper, Esq., chief of the English

J Traill, Sterne, p. 67.

2 Garat, vol. ii., p. 147. Sentimental Journey, ch. li. 3 Garat, p. 148.

THE SENTIMENTAL CONFESSION 279

factory at Surat," he addressed the most pas senate Jetters,
" with the easy carelessness of a heart whidl opens itself any
how, every how . . ." ^ She, writing to him, said : " Think of
m^ waking, and let me, like an illusion, glide through your fancy
while you sleep." In reply he tells her about himself, his low
spirits, the age of his body, and the youth of his soul, and pro-
poses to marry her if both should be bereaved of their partners.
Eliza, at twenty-five, was consumptive, and made preparations
for a journey to India, whence there was little hope that she
would ever return. " Best of all God's works," writes Sterne,
*' farewell! Love me, I beseech thee; and remember me
for ever ! " The romantic story deeply affected its readers.
"When Eliza died at the age of thirty-three, Raynal wrote a
panegyric on her in the Histoire philosophiqiie des deux Indes,
*' Land of Anjinga," he cried, addressing her country, *'in
thyself thou art nothing ! But thou hast given birth to EHza.
A day will come when the emporiums which Europeans have
founded upon Asiatic shores will no longer exist. The grass
will cover them, or the Indian, avenged at last, will build upon
their ruins. . . . But if my writings are destined to endure, the
name of Anjinga will dwell within the memories of men. Those
who read me, those whom the winds shall carry to these shores,
will say : * There was the birthplace of Eliza Draper,' and if
among them a Briton should be found, * the offspring,' he will
hasten to add, * of Enghsh parents.' "

Thus Sterne, like Jean- Jacques, j»erm]tted the public to feed
it^_acififlS5^jipon^his -pri'v^'te h Like him, he gloried in his

own failings. Like Mme. de Warens and Mme. d'Houdetot,
Eliza Draper — the beloved of Laurence Sterne, who, after all,
forgot her — became the theme of noveUst and poet. "Deign,
noble Eliza," writes the excellent Ballanche,^ ** to accept my
homage ; pattern of true friendship, Heaven brought thee forth
in a calm and peaceful hour : God presented thee to weak mortals
as a convincing proof of his unspeakable goodness, of which thou
wert a faithful image upon earth. . . . Accept my homage,
woman without a peer. . . . Let all whose souls are alive to

* Letters from Torick to Eliza. * Du Sentiment, p. 2 1 9.

28o STERNE

feeling gather around this monument, erected in friendly rivalry
by Sterne and Raynal." ^

Sterne was received in Paris with open arms. He became a
frequent visitor at the , houses of d'Holbach, Suard, Choiseul,
the Comte de Bissy — an ardent anglomaniac, who supplied the
material for an amusing chapter in the Sentimental Journey — and
Crebillon fils, with whom he formed the project of carrying on
an extraordinary controversy, in which each was to accuse the
other of immorality, in order to catch the ear of the gallery ^ —
a scheme, however, which was never carried out. Diderot he
also met, who was delighted by his eccentricities, and com-
missioned him to procure him English books. A lady submitted
to him Le Jils naturel — whether with or without the author's
consent we do not certainly know — and under the impression
that it was '* English in character," suggested that he should
induce Garrick to play the piece. Sterne, however, considered
that the speeches in it were too long, and " savoured too much
of preaching" ; what was more, it had " too much sentiment"
to suit him.^

The last and not the least amusing act of this comedy * was
a sermon preached by Sterne at the English embassy before the
most prominent free-thinkers in Paris, Diderot, d'Holbach, David
Hume, and others. He chose as his text that passage from the
Book of Kings, in which Isaiah reproaches Hezekiah for his
vanity in showing his treasures to the Babylonish ambassadors :
*' All the things that are in mine house have they seen : there
is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them."
The text lent itself to allusions, the significance of which did
not escape the audience, and in the evening, at the dinner which
followed, Hume rallied Sterne upon his sermon. "David was
disposed to make a little merry with the parson, and in return
the parson was equally disposed to make a little merry with
the infidel. We laughed at one another, and the company

1 Lettres (TTorick a Elisa, followed by Raynal's Eloge.

2 Traill, p. 71. 3 Traill, p. 70.

* The Magazin encyclopedique (1799, vol. vi., p. 121) mentions the title of a
vaudeville which was founded on Sterne's visit to Paris — viz., Sterne a Paris ou le
Voyageur sentimental, by Revoil and Forbin.

EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 281

laughed at us both." ^ A strange party, forsooth, and a strange
man !

Though at the present day we_do_jaQt-Jtake- Sterne^ very
seriously, his contemporaries, not only appreciated him as a
humorist, but delighted ^especially ia the 4eptli and originality
of his genius, in his- "gioomy and mournful, appearance," and^
in what his translator called " an aroma of sentiment, ^and a
suppleness of Jhought, impossible to define."- By his country-
men he was praised for his joyous spirit, while in France he ''""^
was looked upon as a kind of prophet of the new religion just
brought into fashion by Rousseau, the religion of the j-^ ^

Sterne's works very quickly became known in France, where
they met with a success not inferior to, though very different
from, that which they attained in London.

It was in May 1760 that the_Journa/ encyc/opedigue first made
mention of ** that^ famous book, Tristram Shandy^'' In England
this singular work of fiction gave rise to kgen_controversy. Those
whose well-balanced minds were full of respect for tradition
spoke of it only with pity. Goldsmith and Johnson did not
disguise their contempt ; Richardson pronounced it execrable ;
it made Walpole " smile two or three times at the beginning,
but in recompense" made him yawn for two hours; '* the
humour," he says, **is for ever attempted and missed."^ But
the public in general, by Walpole's own showing, went wild
over the new novel : a portrait of the author, who but yester-
day had been leading an obscure existence in the retirement of
his parish, was painted by Reynolds, and a frontispiece for his
works was designed by Hogarth. Gray asserts that it was
impossible to dine with the author without making the engage-
ment a fortnight beforehand.* But the succes5^of__the book was
due_to_curiosity more than to anything else, andreaders were

1 Traill, p. 86. ^ Frenais's translation of the Sentimental Journey^ p. 223.

3 April 1760. •* Letters, 22nd June 1760.

282 STERNE

amused by Tristram's eccentric humour rather than convinced
of the depth of his genius.

Abroad, however, it was by no means the same. Sterne's
reputation increased when it crossed the water. The Germans
hailed him as a philosopher. Lessing was taken with him, and
when Sterne died, wrote to Nicolai that he would gladly have
sacrificed several years of his own life if by so doing he
could have prolonged the existence of the sentimental traveller.
Goethe writes: *' Whoever reads him, immediately feels that
there is something free and beautiful in his own soul." ^ The_
philosophy of Sterne is the most brilliant invention of eighteenth
century Rng]omank»__ ~

^ In F x,anceth!^ jQgzette litter aire published extracts from Shandy,
and three translators contended for the honour of producing a
complete French version of the work.^ The Sentimental Journey
was translated in the year following its publication ; the Sermons,
which the author was enabled to publish by the subscriptions
of d'Holbach, Diderot, Crebillon fils, and Voltaire, were also
issued in French, as well as the famous Letters to Eliza, which
were regarded as a precious autobiographical document.^

His chief work, that wonderful, amazing, wearisome book,
Tristram Shandy, with its extraordinary medley of every language
and every art — French, Greek, Latin, medicine. Theology, ind the"
art of fortification; with its parentheses of two volumes, its dedica-

1 See Hettner, vol. i., p. 508, and, for the numerous German imitations of
Sterne, vol. v., p. 410.

2 Frenais's translation of Tristram S/iandi/ (Pa.r\s, 1776, 2 vols. l2mo) contains
only the first part of the novel. Two translations of the remainder were pub-
lished concurrently in 1785, by de Bonnay and G. de la Baume. (See Journal
encyclopedique^ 15th March 1 786.) Finally, the two translations of Frenais and de
Bonnay were reprinted together (1785, 4 vols. iimo).

3 Voyage sentimental^ by Mr Sterne, under the name of Yorick, translated from
the English by M. Frenais, Amsterdam and Paris, 1769, 2 vols, izmo (often
reprinted). Sermons choisis de Sterne, translated by M. L. D. B. [de la Baume],
London and Paris, 1786, i2mo. Lettres de Sterne a ses amis (translated by the
same), London and Paris, 1788, 8vo ; another translation (by Durand de Saint-
Georges), the Hague, 1789, i2mo. Lettres d^Torick a Elisa (translated by Frenais),
Paris, 1776, i2mo. A volume entitled Beautes de Sterne, Paris, 2 parts, 8vo,
was also published, and several editions of the CEuvres completes (1787, 1797,
1803, etc.).

EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 283

tions in the midst of chapters, its insertion of a chapter xviii. after
chapter xxviii., and its serpent-like twisting and turning of words ;
" this great curiosity shop," as Taine calls it, excited amazement
rather than genuine admiration. How indeed should it have
been appreciated ? " Mr Sterne's pleasantries," says his trans-
lator, " have not always struck me as particularly happy. I have
left them where I found them, and have put others in their place."
Let us see what this heavy hand makes of the humorist's delicate
fabric. Speaking of a village midwife, Sterne says that her
fame was world-wide : and by the " world," he says, we are to
understand a circle " about four English miles in diameter."
The irony is subtle, or at all events delicate. Frenais remarks ; ^
** But let us not deceive ourselves ; he does not allude to the
whole of the world. She was not known, for instance, to the
Hottentots, nor to the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope, who, it
is said, bring forth their children in the same manner as Mme.
Gigogne ; the world, for her, was but a small circle," &c.
Sterne's eccentricities become absurdities. The public looks for
subtle and lively satire ; and getting nothing but " a riddle to^
which there is no answer," ^ it seeks in vain for " some deep/
meaning in drollery which contains none."

Yet, even in the mutilated versions of his translators, Sterne
delighted Voltaire. According to him " the second English
Rabelais " had drawn ** several pictures superior to those of
Rembrandt and to the sketches of Callot." ^ Elsewhere, how-
ever, he makes certain reservations ; in an article on Tristram
Shandy \tl the Journal de politique et de litter aturey'^ he pronounces it
*' from beginning to end a piece of buffoonery after the style of
Scarron." The book is empty — empty as the bottle which a
certain charlatan had promised to enter. ** There was philosophy
in Sterne's head,'*' nevertheless, queer fellow as he was. In

1 Vol. i., p. 22. ^

"^Gazette litteraire, 2oth March 1 765. The first two volumes "excited the
curiosity of their readers, who took them for a subtle and lively satire in which
the sage hid his face behind the jester's mask. The sage has published four other
volumes which the public has read with eagerness, but, to its amazement, has
entirely failed to understand.''

'^ Dictionnaire philosophique '. article on Conscience. * 25th April 1777.

284 STERNE

him, as in Shakespeare, there were flashes of a superior
reason.

In truth, the eighteenth century failed to understand Sterjie's
mimitable humgur^, "What inTpTegsed it \va« the spasmodic, dis-
connected progress of his thought, the tangles in the thread of
his ideas, the abrupt flights taken by his imagination, all so
opposed to French classical habits of systematic and coherent
exposition. Diderot endeavoured to adopt some of his methods :
** How did they meet ? By chance, like every one else. Whence
did they come ? From the next place. Whither were they
going ? Which of us can tell whither he is going ? What did
they say ? The master said nothing, and Jacques said his captain
had told him that everything that happens to us here below is
written above." This passage, at the opening of Jacques le
fataliste, is worthy of Sterne : it is even taken from Sterne, liter-
ally .^ Diderot borrowed freely from Tristram Shandy : the young
woman who receives Jacques when he is wounded is the one
who has already given shelter to Toby ; ^ and a certain broad
anecdote is derived from the same source.^ These instances of
borrowing are palpable, and they are not happy. Diderot de-
lighted in this roving, disconnected mode of progress — and he,
too, wrote his Jacques le fataliste at odd times, in the postchaise
which carried him to Holland and to Russia^ The superficial
character of the work he succeeded in reproducing, but the fine
edge of Sterne's humour escaped him. The Englishman's true
heirs in this respect came after the Revolution, in the persons of
Xavier de Maistre and Charles Nodier.^

The eighteenth century appreciated Sterne primarily as the
disciple of Richardson, the minute and punctilious painter of
everyday life, " a life wherein there can be no sublimity either in

1 See de Wailly's translation, ch. cclxiii.

2 Diderot, (Euvres, vol. vi., p. 14. ^ Ibid., p. 284.

^ Ibid., p. 8. M. Ducros, in his Diderot, has given a most acute study of that
author's imitations of Sterne.

^ See especially Un voyage autour de ma chambre, chaps, xix. and xxviii., and
Nodier's Histoire du roi de Boheme et de ses sept chateaux. An imitation of Sterne may
also be found in V. Hugo's Bug-Jargal, in which Captain d'Auverney and Sergeant
Thadee are reminiscences of Captain Toby and Corporal Trim.

EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 285

events or things or thoughts, a life which has always lacked
observers, as though it were unworthy anyone's interest because
it is that which each one of us leads." ^

Following Richardson's example, Sterne observes insignificant
facts and faint fluctuations of thought : he writes the novel of
gesture. " I paused," says Henrietta Byron, " I hesitated. . . .
Then I stopt, and held down my head." — ** Speak out, my dear,"
said Lady L. " Thus called upon ; thus encouraged — and I
lifted my head as boldly as I could (but it was not, I believe,
very boldly). . . . " ^ Such is Richardson's method of present-
ing his characters, whether in action or in repose. He sees them
completely, and at each successive moment. Sterne does the
same, and thereby earns the compliments of his French readers,
who at the same time mildly banter him for carrying the process
too far. Of one of the characters in Fauhlas we are told that
" by a mechanical movement, his left arm was raised in the air,
where it became fixed " . . . ; and the writer adds : " Why, fair
lady, am I not Tristram Shandy ? I might then tell you to what
height it was raised, in what direction and in what position." ^
This hits the mark ; Sterne's work is so distinctly the novel
of gesture that his^ charact^Lrs ,fiyen resemble automata or wax-
work figures.

In the second place he displays the^most exquisite art in paint-
ing tiny gems of pictures in the smallest of frames. Sometimes
he drops intoTiTvialiry ; but-en the Qther.han4y when he is at his
best, he brings to light forgotten yet delightful recesses in the
lives of the humble, both animals and men. His province, as a
phrase of singular felicity has described it,;di_thatof mental
pnff)mn1r>gy> He seizes the most delicate impressions in their
flight and deftly pins them down. "Sterne's merit," wrote
Mme. Suard, his • passionate admirer, "lies, it seems to me, in
his having attached an interest to details which in themselves
have none whatever j in his having caught a thousand faint
impressions, a thousand evanescent feelings, which pass through

1 Garat, Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 143. '•^ Ballantyne, vi., p. 35.

3 Edition of 1807, vol. iii., p. 8.

^ See fimile Montegut's fine study of Sterne.

286 STERNE

the heart or the imagination of a sensitive man.. He enters the
human heart, as it were, by portraying hijLpwn §mip|iQns, . . .
he aJds to the-j^tores of our enjoyment." ^

~ But he would add nothing to them were he not gifted with
sensibility. The slightest agitation, the faintest tremor of the
-"souTffT' enough to excite his emotion. A hair upon a hand, a
spot upon a cloth, the crease in a coat, will provide the matter for
a paragraph, and even for a chapter. Moods, whims, fits of
unaccountable dejection, passion in its rudimentary stages, the
germs of great crises, these constitute the province of Sterne.
This is the secret of the unrivalled popularity attained in the
eighteenth century by that charming little volume, so witty, so
unconstrained, with all its tearfulness and affectation, the Senti-
mental Journey in France and Italy.

** Sentimental ? " wrote John Wesley in his journal,^ " what is
that ^ It is not English : he might as well say. Continental.^^ With
the appearance of Clarissa Harlowe, however, in 1749, the word,
as well as the thing it denotes, had come into fashion. " The
word sentimental," wrote Lady Bradshaigh, " is much in vogue
amongst the polite." ^ Be this as it may, Sterne's little book won
the hearts of all readers who had taken alarm at the eccentricities
of Shandy and of Shandeism. It even pleased Horace Walpole.*
It was shorter, more lucid. It spoke to the French, and spoke
to them of France. True, it did not treat them altogether
kindly. La Fleur, one of the characters, has " a small cast of
the coxcomb," is simple, of good address, and ignorant as a
Frenchman, though the best fellow in the world. But then
every one knows that Englishmen, like medals which have been
kept apart, and have passed " but few people's hands, preserve
the first sharpnesses which the fine hand of Nature has given
them." ^ Then, how could one resist an author who, after being
hurried from one salon or from one party to another all over
Paris, loudly proclaims that such rewards are but " the gain of a
slave," and, sickened by the " most vile prostitution " of himself

1 M. Suard's Melanges, vol. iii., pp. 111-122. ^ jjth February 1772.

3 L. Stephen, Hours in a Library, vol. i., p. 58.

4 Letter dated 12th March 1768. ^ Sentimental Journey, chap. li.

EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 287

*' to half a dozen people" of high position, calls for his post-
chaise and makes his escape from the good friends that flattery
has given him. Th^gM^pIl one neeHjjn to acquire the reputation
of a philos^jghei:^, . ' '

The Se7itimental Journey y *'one of the most inimitable produc-
tions existing in any language," ^ charmed all France by the
^ensibiliiy—Sterne had breathed into it, and .provoked a whole
school of imitators.

Sterne was the kind of man to set a fly at liberty with a
sermon and a tear : *' * Go,' said he, lifting up the sash . . . ' go,
poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee ? This world
surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.' " ^

His admirers were touched by the noble-mindedness of a
butcher who renounced his occupation rather than kill a sheep
he had grown fond of.^ Mile, de Lespinasse, in a couple of
chapters, after the manner of Sterne, told the story of Mme.
Geoflrin's milkwoman, who, on the loss of her cow, received one
or even two others from her kind-hearted patroness : she de-
scribed how Sterne himself, on hearing of this kind act, clasped
Mme. GeofFrin in his arms, and embraced her with ecstasy : " My
soul," he said, "■ had a moment of rapture. ... It will make me
the more worthy of my Eliza : she will mingle her tears with
mine when I tell her the story of Mme. GeofFrin's milkwoman ! " *

For Sterne's contemporaries that sensibilitj which made the
hearts of his readers swell within them was merely the outward
sigh of a~profbimd-yet-geTriat~philosophy. "If you do not feel
thiTautRor; ydu'will often find him over-solicitous about trifles,
frivolous, extravagant, and childish ; but fathom the secret
of his genius and you will perceive one of the great teachers

1 Correspondance litter aire, December 1 786, ^ Tristram Shandy, chap. xii.

3 Le 'voyageur sentimental ou tine promenade a Tverdun, by Vernes, Lausanne,
1786, izmo. There were also a Nowueau voyage sentimental [by Gorgy], a Voyage
dans pluiieurs provinces occidentales de la France [by Brune], a Voyage sentimental dans les
Pyrenees, &c. The Nouveau -voyage de Sterne en France, translated by D, L. . . .
(Lausanne, 1785, iimo), is taken from Tristram Shandy.

■* The anecdote told by Mile, de Lespinasse has been reprinted in the CEwores
posthumes de d'Alembert, 1 799, vol. ii., pp. 22-43. On this subject, see Garat,
Memoir es stir Suard, vol ii., p. 150.

288 STERNE

of mankind." He shows you, on every hand, "fresh sources of
interest, sensation, and enjoyment." ^^Shmidmm is the philosophy

of the man who is ** clever and emotional, and loves his fellow

menT"^ iSterne "^declares llial whence travels he 3oesl§a-ii-with

"his whole soul," and this, at that precise period of French history

'^which extends from lyda tu 17O9, u^ST'the bestroflf^^flmmenda-
tions. — Yet he is lively, and even broad. — As Voltaire said, he
resembles " those little satyrs in ancient times which were

_ meant to hold precious essences." Now, the precious essence in
Sterne is simply his capacity for emotion where no one had been
affected before, and of shedding a flood of tears when a few modest
drops had previously sufficed. He provides, it was said, " a feast
for tender hearts." ^ In reality he is changeable and impression-
able as a woman, his intelligence is at the mercy of the slightest
whisper, he surrenders his heart to the first breath of desire, and
throws wide the portals of his soul before the idle and the
inquisitive. He does not blush to shed tears when tears are
becoming, nor even when they are not : therein lies the whole
secret of Sterne. He wrote confessions before Rousseau,
and with no more false shame than he. He is more '* personal,"
and if the neologism be allowed, more frankly an ** impressionist "
than any other writer of his age.

Upon us, who read him to-day, he no longer produces, to the
same extent, the efFect_of_novelj;y. But we can understand that
his method must have seemed new in his time. Sterne writes
without a plan, without arrangement, one might almost say
without an object : he lets hissoul wanderjaAere it lists. His
whole work is, in~Teality, nothing more than a long account
of journeyings — always sentimental — through the world. Does

■^he discover in the courtyard of an inn an old ^^ desoUigeant^'* —
forthwith Sterne grows sentimental over the fate of the forgotten
vehicle, falling to pieces where it stands. — An old Franciscan
monk presents him with a horn snuff-box. He preserves it that
it may " help his mind on to something better " ; and one day, on

1 Journal encyclopedique, ISt August 1786.

2 Garat. Michelet, too, found the Sentimental Journey a book '"after my own
heart" {^Mon Journal, p. I2Z).

EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 289

his way through Calais, he visits father Laurent's grave, and
seating himself beside it takes out the horn snuiF-box and bursts
into a flood of tears. Elsewhere, in Tristram Shandy, we have
the story of Marie de Moulines, by Garat considered superior
to Clementina's madness or the funeral of Clarissa, and again, in
the Journey, the incident of the starling. Sterne, alone in Paris,
is without a passport, and in danger of the Bastille ; a starling,
hanging in a cage, begins to sing ; forthwith the miseries of con-
finement present themselves to his mind : he sees a captive in his
dungeon, pale and wasted by fever, a rude calendar of notched
sticks by his side ; he sees him take a rusty nail and scratch the
little stick in his hand ; his chains rattle with the movement ; he
gives a deep sigh. . . . Here, as on so many other occasions,
Sterne's heart overflows, not without satisfaction to himself.
** Dear Sensibility. ! " he exclaims elsewhere, ** source inexhausted j/j
of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows ! " ^ /'/ - — -

Sterne's readers, like himself, felt some self-gratitude for ; 1/
their own emotion. Like him they easily persuaded themselves [J
that the gift of tears is a proof of the excellence and loftiness of |
our nature, and exclaimed when their tears were over: *' I am
positive I have a soul ! " ^ With him, said one of them, ** we
become more susceptible of every possible emotion of the heart,
and of enjoying the multitude of good things strewn by nature
in every path of life, yet lost to all, because their hearts are dried
up by poverty or wealth, by meanness or by pride." ^

Accordingly Sterne commits himself to the turbulent current
of his impressions. His manner of confession is not only in-
genuous, but cynical. And he too, moreover, flatters the
sociable tendencies of his age. One evening he reaches, at
nightfall, a farm in Anjou. Everyone is seated at table : the bill
of fare consists of a wheaten loaf, a bottle of wine, and lentil soup
— a " feast of love and friendship." Invited by his hosts the
traveller takes a seat ; with the old man's knife he cuts himself
a large slice of bread, and reads in every eye an expression
of gratitude for the liberty he takes— a subject ready to hand for

1 Sentimental Journey, The Bourbonnois.

2 Ibid., Maria: Moulines. * Garat, ibid.

290 STERNE

a Greuze. Supper over, there follows a dance on the sward to
the sound of the vielle'^ youths and maidens dance together
in decorous freedom ; in the midst of the second dance the
traveller notices that all eyes are raised heavenward, and " I
fancied," he says, " I could distinguish an elevation of spirit
different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple
jollity." He questions the father of the family, who explains
that it is in this manner they express their gratitude to God,
believing "that a cheerful and contented mind is the best sort of
thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant can pay." This
combination of the religious spirit with the spirit of enjoyment,
of moral improvement with the pleasures of a ball, this uplifting
of conscience amid the intoxication of a dance, seemed delightful
to the readers of Jean-Jacques. Sterne was hailed as a philo-
sopher, and it was even complacently asserted that he stood
** above all philosophers and above all preachers in his power of
solving the most mysterious problems." Suard went further, —
he compared Laurence Sterne to the Bible.

Such was the revolution effected4)y-tbe4aEuence of Rousseau
t in the manner of judging the productions of literary art. Let us
^ suppose that the work of Sterne, disconnected, paradoxical, and
almost maudlin in its pathos, had made its appearance in France
thirty or forty years earlier, and had come under the observation
of Montesquieu or Fontenelle. I imagine it would have caused
a certain amount of astonishment, and would have incurred some
I / contempt. It was not the pracdce, in J73n, to present a succes-
f( \ sion of desultory impressions to th"e^uBIic'as a work of art. A //j
\j traveller's note book, which was neither novel, pamphlet, moral V\
treatise, nor satire, but each and all of these at the same time, |/
and was also meant to be a noble monument of literature, couldw
never have been offered to the world.

Still less would an author have been forgiven for speaking 1
of hiinsel£_.with such-unblushing sentimentality. The man of J
' feeling, " the_sport arid plaything of temperature and season, \
whose happiness is at tEe mercy of the winds," has got on in
the worig"srrice that day. His souT, sometimes joyful, sometimes
disconsolate, has been allowed to roam hither and thither, at the

EXTENT OF HIS INFLUENCE 291

mercy of northern gales or western breezes ; to them he has
shouted his sorrows and his victories ; he has found a strange
delight in fusing himself with the elements, in incorporating
himself with the universe, in feeling that, puny creature as he
is, his life forms a part of the mighty symphony or tempest of
the heavens.

Of this melancholy and poetic race Rousseau was the first
representaUxie^-IIW'as Sterne the second ? To-day we can hardly
conn^t the two names without hesitation, for we no longer
have the same belief in Sterne as readers who were contemporary
with him. Yet such readers — and the fact is significant — were
conscious of a gift in him similar to that of Rousseau. '* Man,
under Sterne's treatment," to quote Garat once more, ** is not so
much held captive, as tossed hither and thither.^'' His characters,
" in some vague borderland between sleeping and waking, tread
the brink of every form of error and of crime, like the som-
nambulist upon the verge of roof or precipice." In a word,
Sterne, like Rousseau, reveals " the somnambulist" in man — the
creature of instinct, given over to the fluctuations of sensation '^
and of feeling.

And he reveals himself also, quite artlessly it would seem,
in his true colours — passionate, sensitive, and not particularly
reasonable, " He makes us smile," said Ballanche — one of his
warmest admirers — " but it is the smile of the soul ; he makes
us weep, but the tears we shed are gentle as drops of dew." It
gave the impression of perfect sincerity, and this_was_the_secret
of his success. His readers were grateful to him for speaking of
himself, and of himself alone. The time had come when, im-
pelled by the genius of Rousseau, literature was becoming ever

more and more narrowed down to " the^confssiion-ef-a-seul," 1/
and when all that was needed to obtain the public ear was to tell
the story of oneself, — provided only one happened to be Yorick,
"jester to his Majesty the King of England."

Chapter III

ENGLISH INFLUENCE AND THE LYRICISM OF ROUSSEAU

I. The Love of nature — Rousseau's English predecessors — Thomson : his talent
— Gessner — Their popularity in France.

II. Melancholy — English melancholy proverbial in France — Popularity of Gray
— Young and the Night Thoughts : the man and his work ; his popularity,

III. Mournful feelings inspired by the past — Macpherson and Ossian — Origins
of Celtic poetry — The fame of Ossian European — How^ he fared in France.

f IV. In w^hat way the success of these works was assured by Rousseau.

Not only however did Rousseau excite in readers of his day the,
taste for sentimental confession ; he opened their _ejes_at^_the,
*^ Tame time to physical nature, and inspired them with the taste,
for 'melancholy. (Sensibility,! ^he feeling for nature^ and the
sadness of the poenare simply three forms of the same disposition
oFsoul, ^ndT constitute the whole oT^ou§seau's lyricism.

How far, in this further respect, was he in harmony with
foreign writers, both among his predecessors and his con-
temporaries ?

" The picturesque "^wrote Stendhal — " like our good coaches
and our steam-boats, comes to us from England,"^ and he adds,
'■'■ a fine landscape is no less essential to an Englishman's religion
than to his aristocratic station." Frenchmen of the eighteenth
century had already remarked _jthis characteristic, and, in the
frenzy of their_anglomania, had endeavoured to appropriate-
it themselves. Fashion, following the example set by the
English, had driven them to live in the country, — " certainly
one of the best customs," wrote ArtHur" Youiig, " they have

^ Memoires (Tun touriste, vol. i., p. 87.
392

ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 293

taken from England." ^ And it was in imitation of the English
that they planted those strange parks in which crooked paths,
flights of winding steps and mazes took the place of the broad
avenues of Versailles ; in which antique statues were replaced
by grottoes, tombs and hermitages ; in which you beheld a castle
in flagrant discord with a Hindoo temple, or a Russian cottage
with a Swiss chalet, and in which Petrarch's urn stood side by
side with the tomb of Captain Cook. They merely mimicked
nature, under the impression that they were imitating her. The
English garden was a school of virtue : " When you are think-
ing," wrote a famous amateur,^ ** how to make a ravine shady,
or trying to control the course of a stream, you have too much
to do to become a dangerous citizen, a scheming general or a
plotting courtier. One whose head is full of his stand of
flowers, or his clump of judas-trees," cannot be a bad man.
Preoccupied in so virtuous a manner, one cannot commit a guilty
act. " One would scarcely arrive in time to take advantage of the
frailty of a friend's wife, and afterwards would hastily make one's
escape to the country, there to expiate the sweetest of crimes."

Such was the character of descriptive literature from 1760 to
the Revolution, Rousseau's beautiful pages apart, it is inferior
and-iflsipid, nor did the influence of Rousseau bear fruit until
iive-and-twenty years after the publication of La Nouvelle Heloise?
TheJaK£.Q£_naLure is not a feeling -ta.be acquire^dJa a day. It
demands a whole education of eye and heart. And it may be
that certain races, prepared by certain climates or certain condi-
tions of social life, can more easily sustain that abrupt disturbance
of the moral equilibrium which must precede the love of physical
nature. It was neither central nor northern France — the France
which produced most of the French classical writers, the gentle
France of Touraine or Anjou, the nursery of the Pleiade —
that gave birth to Rousseau, Chateaubriand, and Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre : one of them came from the Alps, the others from
the sea.

1 Travels^ vol. i., p. 72.

'^ The prince de Ligne, quoted by de Lescure : Rivarol, p. 310.

^ Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: Etudes de la nature, 1784 ; Paid et Virginie, 1 788.

294 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

But the English had loved and described the material universe
long before Rousseau. The feeling for nature is common to all
their great poets : Shakespeare is full of it, a fact which had been
noticed even by Letourneur ; ^ Milton abounds in admirable
descriptive passages which would have greatly astonished his
French contemporaries ; and in the leas^ productivej^ears of the
century, Thomson, Gray, Collins, and Chatterton, not to come_
dowTTfo'Burns and the lake poets, are great painters of nature.
What French writer in 1 739 would Tiave^said, with Gray, dur-
ing the ascent to the Grande-Chartreuse •. "Not a precipice, not
a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry.
There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief."

It was in 1 730 that Thomson — the only one of these poets to
obtain any celebrity in France — had published his admirable poem
The Seasons,'^ so shamefully misrepresented by Saint-Lambert and
by Roucher. It is true that in this work man as a social being
still occupies too large a place. Thomson cannot describe winter
without giving a sentimental picture of the horrors of cold, nor
spring without introducing a hymn to Love. Too frequently
also there are suggestions of the Georgics, and apostrophes to
those "who live in luxury and ease," or to the "generous
Englishmen" who "venerate the plough." Nevertheless,
-Thomson has the painter's eye. His winter and his spring are
no mere adaptations from Vergil. He has a true and deep
-understanding of the English landscape. With delicate subtlety
he renders the impressions produced by spring or autumn, the
charm of the indefinite periods when season gives way to season,
the approach of rain, the forebodings of storm, the scudding
of heavy clouds across skies grey and overcast. Even in the
awkward French version something of the charm of these pictures
lingers yet.

Rising slow,
Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the Moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air.
The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray ;

^ See the introduction to his version of Shakespeare.

2 See Leon Morel's able book : James Thomson, sa vie et ses auvres (Paris, 1 895).

ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 295

Or frequent seen to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.
Snatch'd in short eddies, plays the wither'd leaf;
And on the flood the dancing feather floats, ^

It is in these grey-toned pictures tliat Thomson excels. But
in others he revels in precision of detail : there is one of a farm,
for instance, redolent of the dunghill, damp grass, and new milk ;
another of a flower-garden with its " velvet-leaved " auriculas,
variegated pinks, and " hyacinths, of purest virgin white, low
bent, and blushing inward " ; ^ the whole perceived with the
artist's glance and described in the language of a poet. Occa-
sionally, too, Thomson can command richness of colouring and
splendour of imagery.^

The downward Sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds gay-shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
The illumined mountain, through the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist.
Far smoking o'er the interminable plain.
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, bright and green, the landscape laughs around.

What French author wrote in this style, in 1 730 ?

The author of the Seasons had visited France as a young man,
without, however, attracting any notice. But since then Voltaire
had made the public acquainted with his name, if not with his
talent.* The Seasons, if Villemain is to be credited, came as a
revelation in 1759:^ a certain Mme. Bontemps had taken upon
herself to introduce the work to the French public in a transla-
tion which she described as " scrupulously simple," adding, at
the same time, an earnest apology for the *' extravagant and
almost hideous " images employed by its author. Villemain
affirms that the climate of the North, the Scotch mountains,

1 IVinter, 1. 122. 2 Spring. 3 Spring, 1. 1 87.

"* Voltaire represents his own play Socrate (1759) as a posthumous work of
Thomson's. In 1763 Saurin produced Blanche et Guiscar, a tragedy imitated from
Thomson, who had himself, it was said, taken his subject from Gil Bias (see
the Journal encyckpedique, March 1 764). See an English letter of Voltaire's on
Thomson, published by Ballantyne, Voltaire's Visit to England^ (pp. 99-101).

' Lesson xxvi.

296 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

and the exultation inspired by storm and tempest, fascinated
men's minds and prepared them for the admiration of Ossian a
few years later. To me it seems that just at first the work
surprised French readers still more than it captivated them.
The Mercure finds fault with its disgusting images : the descrip-
tion of fields putrid with decaying locusts is unendurable.

Grimm, while recognizing its wealth of imagery, found the
poem monotonous.^ Freron complains that the reader seems to
be breathing an atmosphere of coal-dust. ^ Even in translation
the work remained too faithful to fact and gave the impression of
triviality.

Its success was due to its philosophy and its love of humanity.
Thomson was considered a worthy pupil of Addison, Pope, and
Steele, and his poem was ranked with Paradise Lost and the
Essay on ManJ^ The truth is that in Thomson there was not
only the faithful painter of nature as she appears in England, but
also the philosopher in whom the emotions aroused by the
thought of eternal life or conjugal happiness found vent in
beautiful verse. It was the latter more especially who was
imitated by Leonard, Bernis, Gentil-Bernard, Gilbert, Dorat,
and Delille*; the "gentle bard" whose melancholy genius was
celebrated in an admirable poem by Collins was beyond their
comprehension.^ Saint-Lambert ventured to praise him because
he had ** embellished "nature, and had seen the peasant "in
his picturesque aspect"; he congratulated him on having done
for the labourers what Racine and M. de Voltaire had done
for their heroes — on having " elevated our species." The
true descriptive poet, he said, will mention only the nobler
birds : he will not speak of the jay or magpie. Nevertheless
Thomson had given a minute description of the hen and " her
chirping family," the crested duck, the turkey-cock, the thrush,
the linnets that warble " o'er the flowering furze," and the jay

1 Correspondance litteraire, June 1 760. ^ Annee litter aire, 1 760, vol. i., p. 142.

^ Journal encyclopedique, March 1760.

* Imitations of the Seasons were innumerable. With regard to translations the
most important, next to that by Mme. Bontemps, which was several times
reprinted, are those by Deleuze, Poulin, de Beaumont (1801, 1802, 1806), &c.

^ Ode on the death of Mr. Thomson.

ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 297

himself with his "harsh, discordant pipe." ^ But this did not
prevent Saint-Lambert from saying : " That which Homer, Tasso
and our dramatic poets have done for the moral world should
be done for the material world also : it should be magnified,
beautified, and made interesting." ^ The country is for him
merely the temple of Love ; thither he escorts " Doris, his
sweet and gentle friend " ; he brings nature within the reach of
" those enlightened judges of manners and of pleasures " who
dwell in towns. He is vapid, false and arid.

Voltaire's admiration for these would-be disciples of Thomson
was not indeed shared by the whole of the eighteenth century.^
" It is the very essence of sterility," said Mme. du Deff^and of
Saint-Lambert's work, " and without his reeds, and birds, and
elms with their branches, he would have very little to say."*
*' Saint-Lambert," wrote Bufibn, with more severity, " is nothing
but a cold frog, Delille a cockchafer, and Roucher a bird of
night. Not one of them has succeeded, I will not say in
depicting nature, but even in placing clearly before us a single
characteristic of its most striking beauties."^ Thomson had his
worshippers, who read him for his own sake. When Mme.
Roland was taken to prison, in 1 793, she took with her Tacitus,
Plutarch, Shaftesbury, and Thomson, to console her in captivity,
and of the last of them she said : ** He is dear to me for more
reasons than one." ^ But neither Mme. Roland nor any of her
contemporaries did full justice to his descriptive gifts. What
they sought in Thomson, as in Gessner, whose incredible
popularity dates from the same period,^ was descriptions in
which man, and man of the eighteenth century, still occupied an
important place. Andre Chenier, who borrowed freely from

1 Spring. 2 Preface to the Seasons (1769).

3 Cf. the letter to Dupont, 7th June 1769 : " If the decision rested with me, I
should have no difficulty in giving the preference to M. de Saint-Lambert. He
seems to me not only more charming, but more serviceable. The Englishman
describes the seasons, and the Frenchman tells us ivhat should be done in each.**

* " Les roseaux, les oiseaux, les ormeaux, et leurs rameaux."

5 To Mme. Necker, i6th July 1782. « Letter to Buzot, 22nd June 1793.

7 Der Tod Abels was translated by Huber in 1759 ; the Idyllen in 1762. On
Gessner in France see Th. Siipfle's book, Geschichte des deutschen Cultureinjlusses auf
Frankreich, Gotha, 1 886-1 890, vol. i.

298 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

** the Good Swiss, Gessner" and from Thomson, adopted froii
both the art of blending professions of philanthropy with quiet
pictures of nature in her milder manifestations. The following
lines are a fairly close rendering of a passage in Thomson's
Autumn.

Ah I prends un coeur humain, laboureur trop avide,
Lorsque d'un pas tremblant I'indigence timide
De tes larges moissons vient, le regard confus,
Recueillir apres toi les restes superflus.
Souviens-toi que Cybele est la mere commune.
Laisse la probite que trahit la fortune,
Comme I'oiseau du ciel, se nourrir a tes pieds
De quelques grains epars sur la terre oublies.i

This soniewhat mawkish kind of work no longer affects the
reader as it didi^ But we must not tail to retriise that these little
pictures, with their modest colouring and their disguised yet not
ungraceful sentiment, enchanted our forefathers. From 1760
until the Revolution, and even afterwards, ^ Thomson and
Gessner were regarded as great poets, and the English and

1 Bucoliques, LX., ed. Becq de Fouquieres. Cf. Thomson's Autumn.

Be not too narrow, husbandmen I but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The lib'ral handful. Think, O grateful think !
How good the God of Harvest is to you,
"Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields ;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole.

See also Becq de Fouquieres {Lettres critiques sur Andre Chenier, p. l%z et seq.') upon
Chenier's indebtedness to Gessner, from whom the following exquisite lines are
taken : —

Ma muse fuit les champs abreuves de carnage,

Et ses pieds innocents ne se poseront pas

Ou la cendre des morts gemirait sous ses pas.

Elle palit d'entendre et le cri des batailles

Et les assauts tonnants qui frappent les murailles ;

Et le sang qui jaillit sous les pointes d'airain

Souillerait la blancheur de sa robe de lin.

^ Legouve, La Mart cTAbel (1792). Translations of Thomson were published
even during the time of the Revolution (^Episodes des saisons de Thomson, Paris,
an vii., 8vo., &c.).

ENGLISH POETS AND NATURE 299

Germans were believed to have created *' descriptive poetry."^
Diderot admired Gessner and imitated him -, "^ Mile, de Lespinasse
detected ** the charm of Gessner, combined with the vigour
of Jean- Jacques," in the man she loved. Chenedolle, who read
the Idyl/es as a youth, said that he had rarely fallen under *^ a
spell like Gessner's."^ Grimm calls him '*a divine poet." In
the judgment of the Almanack des Muses "he has the pure and
lofty soul of a Fenelon ; in his artless descriptions of simple
scenes he surpasses Theocritus ; as we read him we seem to
behold nature herself, and when we see him we believe in
virtue.* Such, also, was the verdict passed by Jean-Jacques
himself. He, too, was doubtless an admirer of the Seasons, and
discovered therein his own manner of feeling and thinking. At
any rate it is certain that his Levite d'Ephrdim was written in
Gessner's artless, rustic fashion, and that he wrote to Huber,
who had sent him the Idylles'. "I feel that your friend Gessner
is a man after my own heart. . . . To you, in particular, I
am extremely grateful for your courage in throwing aside
the senseless and affected jargon which falsifies imagery and
renders sentiments unconvincing. Those who attempt to em-
bellish and adorn nature have neither souls nor taste, and have
never come to know her beauties." ^

Neither for Rousseau nor for his contemporaries was there
any "senseless and affected jargon" in Gessner or in Thomson.
They considered that these poets portrayed nature " with the
nicety of a lover enumerating the charms of his mistress."^
They relished these, artificial pastorals, these highly-sweetened
idylls, and the languid grace of these descriptions. It should be
noted that the famous Lettres a M. de Malesheries^—wiAch contain
Rousseau's finest descriptive passages — were not published before
1779, that the Confessions appeared in 1 782, and that the Reveries
d^un promeneur solitaire are also posthumous. Between 1 760 and"^
1780 Thomson and Gessner shared with Rousseau the glory

1 Saint-Lambert, Preface to Let Saisons, p. 9.

2 In Les Peres malheureux. (See CEuvres, vol. xiii., p. 19.)
' Sainte-Beuve, Chateaubriand et son groupe, vol. ii., p. 149.

* Almanack des Muses, 1786. ^ Letter to Huber, 14th December 1761.

^ Dorat, Recueil de contes et de poemes, the Hague, 1770, p. I18.

300 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

of having drawn _th_e_attentiQaoL..tlieLJEr.ejich public_._tQ nature.
Of these two, one — the Zurich printer — cannot for a moment
be compared with Jean-Jacques ; the other — the author of the
Seasons — was a true poet, and gave expression, long before
Rousseau, to many sentiments which the latter introduced into
the great current of French literature. The pious Thomson
satig of golden broom and purple heather before he did, just as
he anticipated him also in raising his thoughts to the incompre-
hensible Being in whom all things are contained^

The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasant Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.^

Thomson anticipated Rousseau, but was not his teacher. It
would scarcely be paradoxical to say that Rousseau discharged
the "de bt he had "Tnc ur re d~to wards English literature when he
made it possible for Frenchmen to appreciate Thomson, Young,
and Ossian. ^ ~~

Just asJS^usseau inspired his contemporaries with a feeling
for phiyaical nature, so also lie wa^_lli£^reat poet of melancholy.
He it waswKo^T)ecame the interpreter of those burning hearts
that, in the words of Chateaubriand, " have felt themselves

^"Strangers in the midst of mankind " ; he, who " with a full heart
dwelt in an empty world," he, who knew what it was to be
miserable in the midst of happiness, and had lost every illusion

' before he had exhausted anything. By the right which genius
gives, he is father to Rene, Oberman, and Adolphe.
f But in the history of European literature he had his own
jpredecessors in the English, and here dates speak more eloquently

■ than any argument can do. Not to mention Shakespeare or the

1 Hymn which concludes the Seasons,

THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 301

author of // Penserosoy from whom every poet of melancholy in |
modern times has drawn his inspiration,^ Thomson's Seasons
appeared in 1 730, Young's Night Thoughts from 1 742 to 1744,
Collins's Odes in I747> ^^^^ Gray's Elegy in a country churchyard in
1 75 1, while the earliest fragments of Ossian are earlier by a year
than the Nouvelle Heldise, and by several years than the Reveries.
Long before Rousseau had written anything the poetry of melan-
choly in England was very rich, and was prolific of powerful and /
characteristic works if not of masterpieces. —^

.English melancholy had long been proverbial inJFrance, and

Frenchauthors were not Slow W turn iriitor ridicule. In
Favart's V Anglais a Bordeaux there Is a certain Milord Brumton,
who is proud, gentle, brave, sensitive and melancholy, — a distant
cousin of Hamlet. Brumton envies the wanton French gaiety
which he can never acquire ; at sight of a timepiece he exclaims :
** While for me this swinging disc numbers the steps of approach-
ing death, the Frenchman, at the mercy of every breath of desire,
regards the dial but as the record of a round of pleasures ! " As
for him, Locke, Newton and Haendel's severe music are his study.
In vain an attractive marquise who secretly loves him says prettily :
"Cease to seek for reasonings in which your melancholy may find
its daily food. You think ; we enjoy. Trust me and cast your
philosophy aside : it gives men the spleen and hardens their
hearts. Our gaiety, which you call foolishness, colours our
minds with smiling hues. . . ." Brumton remains melancholy,
and, in reality, the marquise does not object to it. As the century
advances^melancholy becomes an^^ver^ more certain maxk-of the
English gemu?; Anothe7~comic poet and man of good sense
T)ecomes indignant at it, and favours these islanders with some
plain speaking : *' Your melancholy vapours make your very
tastes more gloomy, and the same dark gloss covers both your
books and your arts. Seeking everywhere the funereal aspect of
things you would like to find cemeteries even in your gardens." ^
But the "cemetery" which gave such offence to Fran9ois de

1 See William Lyon Phelps : The beginnings of the English romantic movement^
Boston, 1893, especially chap. v. : The literature of melancholy.

2 Pamela, by F. de Neufchateau, ii. 12.

302 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

Neufchateau was just what fascinated sensitive souls. Mme. de
Genlis declares that in England lovers are accustomed in the
evening to meet by moonlight among the tombs, and considers
that no love but that which is "honourable, deep and pure"
can express itself in such a spot.^ Ducis praised the "sombre,
melancholy " genius of the English before the whole Academy,
and Sebastien Mercier makes immense efforts, he says, to give
men some idea of "these sad and melancholy souls" ^^ Know,
O Frenchmen, whose "false gaiety" is so highly extolled, that
" frivolous minds can neither reason nor enjoy ! "

Prevost, in his Cleveland, had already imitated the English in
some pages of a strange and penetrating melancholy, which give,
as it were, a foretaste of Chateaubriand. Already, too, Gresset,
in his Sidneiy which appeared in 1745, had rendered the depression
of Hamlet into verse of some beauty :

" To the pleasures I once adored I am now indifferent ; I know
them no longer, and in those self-same joys I now find nothing
but vanity and sorrow. Life, with its scenes of changeless
monotony, cannot awaken my soul from its torpor. . . . The
world I have exhausted, it affects me not. . . . Destitute of feeling,
dead to every pleasure, my soul is no longer capable of delight."

Accordingly the poet Gray, who had read much of Gresset,
called him a great master, and his tragedy a fine work.^ But
it is necessary to point out that Gresset — himself the offspring
of an English family which had settled in France a century
earlier — simply imitates, and imitates closely, the soliloquy of
Hamlet,* so that the Frenchman who, in this respect, anticipated
Rousseau, had recourse, like Prevost, to foreign sources.

1 Memoires, vol. iii., p. 357.

2 See Discours de reception a V Academie francaise ^ by Ducis, and Mercier's Essai
sur Part dramatique, p. 207.

3 See Grai/s Works, ed. Gosse, vol. i., p. 123, and vol. ii., p. 182, 183, &c.

4 See in particular the long speech which occurs in act ii., scene i, and also
the one in act ii., scene 2 : "In the noisy pageant, amidst which I have dwelt so
long, there is nothing which I have not seen and seen again, nothing that I have
not tasted and known ; I have had my day upon this frivolous stage : if each
one of us quitted it when his part was ended, everything would be as it should
be, and the public would no longer see so many everlasting people of whom it
is weary."

THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 303

It is beyond doubt that Young,, Ossian, and Gray, whose
works were all introduced into France between 1760 and 1770,
shortly after the appearance of i^/^/V^, owed their success in that
country mainly to Rousseau. He had tapped the spring, and the
French public fell with avidity upon these English poets whose
genius was so nearly related to his.

Gray^as-not so well known as the others. The only one of
his poems to be read in France was the Elegy written in a country
churchyard, which was translated by the Gazette Utter aire in 1 765,
and was freely copied by French poets, from Lemierre to Marie-
Joseph Chenier, and from Fontanes or Delille to Chateaubriand.
The Elegy is quite the most popular of Gray's works, but it by
no means represents the profound and unique originality of the
author of The Bard and the Descent of Odin, than whom few poets
have been more sincere. Nevertheless this work, so modern
in the sentiments it expresses yet at the same time so subtly
classical in taste, attained something like celebrity in France.
Gray's^studious_and highly cultivatedjalent provided, as it were,
a connecting J]nlL_between_new _ ajpiia^ ~the72ias.ai£al

methods^to which_^enchmen_were_ accustomed j...he was spoken
oFas^a *' sublime philosopher, and a child of harmony."^ A few
who were curious as to foreign literature sought information
about him : Bonstetten went to see him at Cambridge ; Fontanes,
on a visit to London in 1786, made the acquaintance of Mason,
Gray's biographer, and learnt from him a few details concerning
one who was among his favourite poets. Voltaire, even, had
attempted to enter into correspondence with him, but Gray had
declined : his devout and gentle soul could scarcely conceal its
aversion to the author of so many irreligious works, and to a
friend who was starting for France he said : " I have one thing
to beg of you. . . . Do not go to see Voltaire ; no one knows
the mischief that man will do." ^

Melancholy, Gray_nnr(i> said^ was his mQStfailhfulcQmpanJQn : .
it rose with himTretired to rest with him, was with him when
he went abroad and when he returned. The Elegy written in a

1 Journal encyclopedique, 1st November 1788.

2 Gray^t IVorks, ed. Milford, vol. v., p. 32.

304 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

country churchyard is his most perfect expression of this deep
inward feeling :

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea.
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight.

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

By virtue of the sincerity of his religious feelings, of the
delicious vagueness of his impressions, and of his serene and
lofty inspiration. Gray is beyond dispute the predecessor of
Chateaubriand and Lamartine, and of Rousseau before them.
** With him,^' says his translator, the author of Rene^ " begins
that school of the melancholy poets, which in our day has been
\ transformed into a school of poets of despair." ^ A valuable
^ testimony, considering the authority with which it comes.

Collins, Chatterton, and Cowper were known to Frenchmen

in the eighteenth century only through rare allusions to them in

the newspapers.^ The author of Night Thoughts, on the other

/-' hand, was famous not only in France, but throughout Europe,

'^" much more so, even, than in his own country.

Edward Young, the '^..sepwlehrai- Young," as he was called,
was really a survivor from the seventeenth century, having been
born before Pope, in 1684. From whatever standpoint we con-
sider him there is something singular about the man. He was
nearly sixty years old when he revealed himself, not as a great
poet, but as an eloquent interpreter of the melancholy of his age.
He had in successiorTBeen a candidate for parliamentary honours,
taken holy orders, aspired to a bishopric, enriched himself by

^ Essai sur la litterature anglaise,

2 On Chatterton, see Journal encyclopedique, ist March 1790.

THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 305

marriage with a lady of fortune, and had been throughout insati-
able. He excited the pity of Europe in his behalf, but appears
to have lied in the history of his misfortunes. He stated that he
had lost his wife, his step-daughter, and the betrothed husband
of the latter, within a few months. A serious matter, and one
which should cover the French nation with confusion, is that this
girl, who seems to have died at Montpellier, whither she had
been taken by her father for the sake of her health, was refused
burial by the unfeeling inhabitants of the country, on the ground
that she was a Protestant :

For oh 1 the cursed ungodliness of zeal !

While sinful flesh relented, spirit nursed

In blind infallibility's embrace,

The sainted spirit petrified the breast ;

Denied the charity of dust, to spread

O'er dust I a charity their days enjoy.

What could I do ? what succour ? what resource ?

With pious sacrilege, a grave I stole ;

With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd ;

Short in my duty ; coward in my grief I

More like her murderer, than friend, I crept.

With soft-suspended step, and muffled deep

In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.

I whisper'd what should echo through their realms ;

Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies. ^

The gruesome story of the father burying his daughter in
secret went the round of Europe ; and a lugubrious engraving
representing Young interring Narcissa by the light of a lantern
was introduced as a frontispiece to the second volume of
Letourneur's translation of the Night Thoughts. Such intolerance
on the part of the French seemed monstrous. Young, the
victim of fate, appeared also to be the victim of fanaticism, and
for many a long year English visitors made pilgrimages to the
melancholy grotto where this drama had been enacted. Un-
fortunately for the poet's sincerity, the story is of his own
invention. The death of Young's step-daughter did actually
occur in France, but at Lyon, as a learned inhabitant of that
town has shown, and not at Montpellier : she was buried at the

1 Night iii.
U

3o6 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

latter place, not in a nameless grave, but in the enclosure
formerly reserved for Protestants, and not by stealth, but with
all befitting ceremony. At most it appears that the cost of inter-
ment was excessive, and it was this trifling grievance that was
dramatically treated by Young.^

Thus a strong suspicion of insincerity lingers about the nine
books and the ten thousand lines of The Complaint or Night
Thoughts, which legend asserts to have been written by the light
of a candle burning in a skull. To our ears there is a false ring
about his misfortunes as depicted in his poetry, however real
they may have been. But the actual Young, the satirist and
intriguer, was unknown in France. Whereas in his own country
he enjoyed but a moderate celebrity and had fallen somewhat into
disrepute, Young was looked upon by Frenchmen as an eloquent
victim with strong claims to compassion, and his book as " the
noblest elegy ever written upon the miseries of human exist-
ence.2 At heart insatiably ambitious, the man enjoyed in France
the reputation at once of a priest and a philosopher, fond of
retirement and obscurity, who lived in quiet wedlock with a
virtuous woman, and whom nothing but the sense that he had a
duty to perform had driven forth into the world. The story
went that he had served as almoner during the war in Flanders,
and that even at that period his ** dark and brilliant imagination "
constantly subjected him to fits of absent mindedness : having
on one occasion wandered away from the English camp with a
copy of ^schylus in his hand he came upon the French troops,
who, taking him for a spy, brought him before their general ;
but he, on learning the prisoner's name had him safely escorted
back to his friends, thus doing sincere homage to his genius.^
Stricken in the hour of his happiness Young " went down alive
into the tomb of his friends, buried himself with them and drew
a curtain between the world and himself." His genius, like a
sepulchral lamp, burnt for ten years in honour of the dead ; then

^ See Breghot du Lut, Nowveaux melanges bibliographiques et litteraires, Lyon, 1829,
8vo, p. 363 ; where there will also be found a note by Dr Ozanam on the same
historical point.

2 Les Nuits, a translation by Letourneur, vol. i., p. 7.

3 Journal encyclopedique, 15th September 1 772.

THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 307

he himself died, forgotten. No bell tolled for him ; the very-
poor whom he had befriended neglected to follow his body to
the grave, ** and the frame to which a virtuous soul and a glori-
ous genius had lent such lustre did not even receive the com-
monest funeral honours." His soul was "by nature majestic";
his character serious and noble. Men compared him to Pascal.
But this need cause the sensitive no apprehension : though
solemn, Young was no misanthrope j " death and the grave were
not always on his lips " ; he was fond of pleasure, and even
started a bowling-alley in his parish. His wa^a gentlejnelan-
choly, though profound.

Such was the eighteenth century legend with regard to
Young.^ His book, like its author, has a legend of its own.

In 1760 there appeared anonymously a little collection entitled
Pensees anglaises sur divers sujets de religion et de morale.^ It was a
selection of thoughts taken from The Complaint, which had been
published sixteen years before, and was intended by the compiler
to be a sort of manual of holy dying. Some of these reflexions
are commonplace to the last degree ; others appear profound,
because they are obscure ; while some owe their singularity to
the form in which they are expressed, such as : " Night is a
curtain drawn by Providence between man and his vanity " ; or,
*' The firmament, like the^ vestment of the high priest under
the law, is strewn with precious stones, which utter oracles."^
Some, too, are of an apocalyptic type :

Silence how dead ! and darkness how profound I . . .
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause ;
An awful pause ! prophetic of her end.*

This seemed original, though fantastic and disconnected.
Some praised the freshness and singularity of the ideas ; ^ others
were in ecstasies over the gloomy yet powerful character of the
English imagination.^ The appetite of the passionate admirers

1 See Letourneur's Nuits, Introduction. ^ Amsterdam, 1760, iimo.

^ These fragments are not literal quotations from Young, but appear to be imita-
tions of certain passages from that author.

■* Night i. 5 Journal encT/clopediqtte, October 1 760.

6 Freron, Annee litteraire, 1 762, vol. vii., p. 47.

3o8 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

of England was whetted ; they asked for a more complete trans-
lation. In 1762, the Journal Stranger, always on the watch for
foreign works, gave a version of the first Night.

The translator was the Comte de Bissy, lieutenant-general of
Languedoc and member of the French Academy, the same whom
we have already met with as the patron of Sterne. Though
according to Colle his knowledge of French was very poor and
his spelling still worse, Bissy was a determined anglomaniac and
had translated — some said by means of a substitute — Bolingbroke's
letters on patriotism. His translation of Young was accompanied
by a curious address which shows clearly what it was that the
eighteenth century admired in the author of Night Thoughts :

Works of this character — filled with grand and gloomy, yet exquisitely pleas-
ing ideas ; works which leave an impression of melancholy behind them, and
plunge the reader in the depths of meditation — are unknown to French literature.
With our authors, the soul is, so to speak, all on the outside ; more devoted to
pleasure, less solitary, than English authors, they dwell too much with other
men, and since, as a rule, they only meet them in the fashionable world, where
none but cheerful thoughts are recognised as pleasing, they suit their works to
what their observation leads them to suppose the taste of the greatest number of
readers. But why do we not follow these readers to the privacy of their study ?
Then we should see that the works which please and captivate the most are the
sad ones.

Returning to Young, Bissy added : " I will venture to say
that in point of depth this poet is what Homer and Pindar are in
point of grandeur. I should find it difficult to explain the effect
produced upon me by my first perusal of this work. I might
experience much the same impression in the heart of the desert
on a dark and stormy night, when the surrounding blackness is
pierced at intervals by flashes of lightning." ^

Bissy had touched a sensitive cord : his Nuit proved a great
success. For twenty years translators vied with one another
in producing, either in prose or in metre, a version of one or
more of the Nights.^ And when the Night Thoughts were

1 Journal etr anger ^ February 1762.

2 The first Night was translated by Sabatier de Castres, and by Colardeau
(1770) ; the second, which was translated in the Gazette litteraire (\o\. ii., p. loi),
was rendered into metre by Colardeau (1770); the same writer also produced
versions of the fourth, twelfth, and seventeenth (1771), and a further translation,
by Doigni du Ponceau, was published in the same year ; the fifteenth was trans-
lated again, by L. de Limoges (1787). There were also Verites philosophiques

THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 309

exhausted they betook themselves to the satires, the tragedies, and
the minor works, until the whole of Young had been dealt with.^

Of these versions, the most famous, and the only approxi-
mately complete one, was that by Letourneur,^ which created a
sensation. It was prefaced by a curious dissertation intended to
introduce ** a great poet, who is certain to share the immortality
of Swift, Shaftesbury, Pope, Addison, and Richardson." We
have "sTeh what Letourneur said of Young as a man; as a
writer he praises him no less. *' Born to be original," incapable
of slavish adherence to a model, he was distinct from all others.
Letourneur is lavish of big words : the French have laid them-
selves open to the charge ^* of cowardice in the field of genius " :
they restrict their talent *' by keeping it in bondage to fixed
rules of art." Will no one rouse the soul with the ** shock " it
needs ? Will no one give it an impulse in the direction of new
beauties ? Writers must do what Young has done ; they must
be themselves. Each should ** express his ideas and sensations
as they are received " — a doctrine which is pure Diderot, and
also pure Sterne. Now of this poetic method Young affords the
best example, by giving expression to " that vague and confused
feeling called e;!nuiy the true remedy for which lies in rousing
the emotions of the soul."

With all his admiration for Young's work Letourneur did not
feel bound to give a faithful rendering of it : he suppresses, or
relegates to his notes, everything which seems to him to savour
of the preacher : ** these passages," he says pleasantly, " belong
exclusively to theology." Young is no longer a Christian,
though still a philosopher.

tirees des Nuits d^Toung (by MousHer de Moissy), Paris, 1770, 8vo ; Le triomphe
du Chretien, one of the Nights, translated by Dom Devienne, Paris, 1781, 8vo, &c.
Various scattered fragments of Young will be found in the magazines of the day.
(See, especially. Journal encydopedique, 15th October 1784, 15th July 1786). The
Abbe Baudrand published : Esprit, Maximes et Pensees d^Toung, Paris, 1786, i2mo.

1 (Ewvres diverses by Young, translated from the English by Letourneur, Paris,
1770, 2 vols. 8vo. Satires d^Toung ... a free translation by Bertin, London and
Paris, 1787, 8vo.

'^ Les Nuits d'Toung, translated from the English by Letourneur, Paris, 1769, 2
vols. 8vo, (copyright, 2nd May 1769). Frequently reprinted, four editions
being issued between 1769 and 1775.

3IO ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

' He is still, also, quite sufficiently " sepulchral." The majestic
harmony of blank verse, which renders certain pages of Young,
justly quoted in anthologies, so admirable as self-complete
passages, has of necessity disappeared, as well as the truly
oratorical pomp of phrase, and the breadth of effect Young
obtained from his ample use of poetical platitude. His rhetoric
appears in all its poverty. His persistent denunciations ring
false. In truth. Young in translation is too barren of ideas. We
know moreover that wit is simply the art of " combating truth
with sophisms," and having read Jean-Jacques are aware that
nothing is more uncommon than that *' precious wisdom which
examines thoroughly and goes to the root of its subject." The
theme of the author of Night Thoughts is the .old— apportion
between the social and the natural man. Every other element in
the book — its expressioiT of fellowstnp with nature, its appeal to
the human conscience, its ^incere~conviction of man's miserable
condition, has since been expressed by many others whose voices
are more persuasive than his.

Yet it may be that, if we carry our minds back to 1 742 and
T 744 — the years in which Young's collection of poems appeared
— and especially if we reflect on the condition of French lyrical
poetry just at that time, we shall feel, even to-day, the partly
vanished charm of such lines as these :

O majestic Night !
Nature's great ancestor ! Day's elder-born !
And fated to survive the transient sun !
By mortals and immortals seen with awe !
A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,
An azure zone thy waist ; clouds, in heaven's loom.
Wrought through varieties of shape and shade,
In ample folds of drapery divine.
Thy flowing mantle form, and, heaven throughout,
Voluminously pour thy pompous train.
Thy gloomy grandeurs (Nature's most august.
Inspiring aspect 1) claim a grateful verse ....
Heaven's King ! whose face unveil'd consummates bliss ;
Redundant bliss ! which fills that mighty void.
The whole creation leaves in human hearts !
Thou, who didst touch the lip of Jesse's son.
Rapt in sweet contemplation of these fires,
And set his harp in concert with the spheres ! . . . .

THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 311

Loose me from earth's enclosure, from the sun's

Contracted circle set my heart at large,

Eliminate my spirit, give it range

Through provinces of thought yet unexplored ;

Teach me, by this stupendous scaffolding, •

Creation's golden steps, to climb to Thee.^

Can we not recognise, in these lines, something of the true
poet that at times was revealed in Edward Young ? Are our
wearied perceptions entirely proof against the spell which so
fascinated our fathers ?

The influence of this spell was almost universal. Twice trans-
lated Jntq German, the book created quite a revolution in Klop-
stock's circle. In spite of Lessing's protestations, Kremer, in the
Northern spectator ^ declared that the author was a greater poet
than Milton and full " of the spirit of God and of the prophets.'*
Klopstock, the leading spirit, wrote a poem on Young's death.^
Young brought deatlL^aad moonlight into_jashion in literature :
by moonlight Werther roams about the forest in order to soothe
his soul, and by moonlight he bids farewell to Charlotte. For
many a long year Young reigned supreme as the poet of night.^ —

In France he encountered sceptics, Voltaire among the fore-
most. Voltaire had made his acquaintance when staying with
Bubb Doddington at Eastbury, in the days before Young took
holy orders. He had found him witty, sarcastic, and worldly.
Young had even made him the object of a somewhat caustic
epigram.^ At a later period the poet dedicated to the philosopher
certain lines as a reminder that

Life's little drama done, the curtain falls ! —
Dost thou not hear it? I can hear.
Though nothing strikes the listening ear ;

Time groans his last ! Eternal loudly calls ! ^

1 Ninth Night. ^ Imitated in the Journal encydoped'ique^ ist December 1785.

3 See Erich Schmidt, Richardson, Rousseau, und Goethe, p. 190.

4 They were arguing together about the characters Death and Sin in Paradise
Lost. Young addressed Voltaire in the lines :

You are so w^itty, profligate, and thin,

At once we think thee Milton, Death, and Sin.

5 Letourneur translated the piece and published it together with the Nuits,
vol. ii., pp. 318-321.

312 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

I do not know if Voltaire was offended by this sermon, but to
Letourneur, who had sent him his translation of Night Thoughts,
he replied : '' Sir, you have conferred a high honour on my old
acquaintance Young ; the taste of the translator appears to be
better than the author's. You have done all that could be done
in the way of bringing order into this collection of confused
and bombastic platitudes." And after contrasting the poem on
Religion with the Night Thoughts, he concluded by saying, *'I
think that every foreigner will prefer your prose to the poetry
of one who is half poet and half priest, like this Englishman." ^

A certain Abbe Remy went further. Writing in the character
of a " black musqueteer," he published Les Jours, pour servir de
correctif et de supplement aux Nuits \^ in which he pleaded the cause
of laughter, and protested that " the man who introduced so
simple, so innocuous, and so universally accessible a form of
enjoyment as the use of tobacco would deserve an altar (autel) in
every heart, had he not already sufficiently brilliant ones in the
homestead (hotel) of every farm."

If a book is parodied it is being read. In fact, the Night
Thoughts, in spite of Voltaire, were all the rage. **It is an
unanswerable proof," said Mme. Riccoboni, " of the change that
is taking place in the French mind."^ Everyone who desired to
see a reformation in French poetry caught the infection. One
writer describes the poem as the masterpiece **of a melancholy
imagination and a sensitive soul," * another — Baculard d'Arnaud
— regards it as a perfect example "of the sombre type" of
literature: "my soul," writes this lover of tears, "has buried
itself among the tombs. ... I have penetrated and explored a
new nature to its very heart ! Ah ! what wealth have I not
discovered therein ! " ^ Mercier, who of course gave his opinion,
thinks that the book translated by Letourneur will give the
French language " an entirely fresh appearance."^ Another, one
of the same clan, compares Young to ^schylus in respect of

1 7th June 1769.

^ London and Paris, 1770, izmo. (See Journal ency clop edique, 15th June 1770.)

3 Garrick, Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 566.

■* Journal encyclopedique, 15th August and ist September 1 769.

* Preface to the Comte de Comminges . * Ess at sur I' art dramatique, p. 299.

THE POETS OF MELANCHOLY 313

** his colossal imagination, and the frenzy of his oriental style." ^
Grimm is more calm, and considers that the work is magnificently
sombre ; but is it nothing to get oneself read by a people " whose
disposition it is to see everything in rosy hues ? "

Encouraged by his success Letourneur translated Hervey's
Meditations among the Tombs, another work of the same stamp, and
the Journal encyclopedique bears witness to " the strange revolution
which French literature has been undergoing for some years
past." 2

But Young had more famous admirers still.

Grimm had ventured to express some doubt. He was of
opinion that Young's poetry, with its " fitful and uncertain
gleams," could not succeed in France. **It is. all too full of
tolling bells, tombs, mournful chants and cries, and phantoms ;
— the-skaple and artless— expTessiorToF true sorrow would_ be a
4iundred timca -mere-Tc:flfecttye;^Zr~Grimm was right enough.
But DiduTot'^was' on the watch, and rated him soundly. ** Do
. you ever retract what you have said, Mr Shopkeeper at the sign
of the Evergreen Holly f If so, here is an excellent opportunity
for you." It may be well to inform you that Letourneur's trans-
lation is *' most harmonious, and characterized by the greatest
richness of expression," that the first edition has been exhausted
in four months, ** and that nothing but exceptional merit could
induce a frivolous and light-hearted nation to read jeremiads "
such as this. . . . **Ah! Mr Grimm! Mr Grimm! Your con-
science has assumed a very heavy burden ! " * How could Grimm
help bowing to the decree of " Cato Diderot ? "

And so he submitted, and the entire French public with him.
,The Night Thoughts continued to cause aj^a general femient»"
They were accuseToT'spreading suicidal mania.^ It is beyond

1 Essai sur la tragedie, by a philosopher, 1 773, 8vo.

'^ 15th November 1770. It was in 1770 that Letourneur's translation appeared
(Paris, 8vo). Concerning Hervey see also Meditations sur les tombeaux, translated
[by Mme. d'Arcouville], Paris, 1771, izmo ; Les Tombeaux [by Bridel], Lausanne,
1779, 8vo ; Abrege des auvres d^Hervey, Ball, 1796, l6mo ; and the imitations in
verse by Baour-Lormian. See also, on Hervey, Leslie Stephen's History of English
Thought^ vol. ii., p. 438.

3 May 1770. ■* Correspondance litteraire, June 1770

^ See the Gazette universelle de litterature, I J J J, p. 236.

314 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

doubt that Young's work, unequal as it was, yet heady, eloquent
yet false, declamatory and at the same time poetic, exerted a
great influence over many minds. Robespierre kept it under his
pillow during the days of the Revolution. Camille Desmoulins
read it through once more, together with Hervey's Meditations,
on the eve of his death ; " you wish to die twice over, then,"
said Westermann, jocosely.^ Above all, Chateaubriand, Byron,
Z^and all the leading romantic writers, both English and French,
were readers of Young, and this is why it may be said, with
Villemain, that his power is not yet exhausted. Like Rousseau,
and earlier than he. Young had perceived the charm of " en-
chanting sadness"; like him had known "the mighty void
which the universe leaves in the heart of man " ; and like him,
in the words of Chateaubriand, had created the " descriptive
elegiac" style, of which "the after effect is a sort of lamenta-
tion, as it were, within the soul." ^ If melancholy is one of the
sources of modern poetry, few have a better claim than Young
to the honour of having anticipated the poets of the present day.

Ill

It was at the very time when France became subject to the
spell wielded by Young that she acquired an enthusiasm also
for Ossian, and this again, if we examine it closely, is but
another natural result of the revolution effected by Rousseau.

Young's melancholy seemed a natural characteristic of the
poet and the sage. But his lamentations were only for the
present, for man's corruption, his sufferings and his approaching
death. He never allows his imagination to wander among
vanished centuries or ancient civilizations. He is insensible to
tli£_de£th and the poetry which^ sorrow acquires from regret
for the past. NeveftHeless, it was practically inevitable that
the poetry of melancholy should become the poetry of the past.
The past, because it has vanished, has a melancholy of its own,

1 Lamartine, Histoire des Girondins, vol. viii., p. 5 1.
■2 Essai sur la litterature anglaise.

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 315

and of this, Rousseau, who had known " the sweet yet bitter
recollection which stimulates our anguish with the vain senti-
ment of departed happiness," was well aware. But, just as the
individual, in the decline of life, turns back with delight to his
earliest years, so too, the race, when it has known the in-
toxicating consciousness of its own energy, when it has enjoyed
to the full its own virility and proved it vigorous and keen,
feels itself smitten with fond yearning for centuries that are
past, a longing which seizes it like a mighty desire to become
once more a child. It dreams of finding again the freshness of
its first impressions ; again it crosses the seas of remembrance,
and, by the diffused light of imagination, recognises in a
mysterious distance the vague and wavering lineaments of
humanity as once it was and now can be no longer. The
very fierceness of primitive man seems then like a sign of
vigorous adolescence : distance attenuates and, if one may say
so, shades away his savage and monstrous aspects ; his haughty
stature, his native fidelity, daring and nobility are all that strike
the eye. So may the marble faun shine through the mist like
the statue of Apollo.

The eighteenth century, like many another age, surrendered I
itself to this spell. With Rousseau, with Ossian, with Chateau- j
briand in his youth, it fell in love with the past. The twilight ^
ages of the human race supplied a tnarvellously appropriate
setting for the need of reverie which was beginning to torment
the men of that day. What books for the pillow like Homer
and the Bible, wherein man is tempted to bury himself in his
hours of weanness, not because of their eloquence or sacredness
alone, but also because of their antiquity ? But Homer, who
moreover was little known, was regarded with suspicion by the
innovators as the fountain-head of classical literature ; while the
Bible, of which it has been justly remarked that **it has never
been a French book,"^ was looked upon with twofold more
suspicion than Homer.

Thus the new literature, the ideal of which was taking vague
shape in certainminds, was" iir-need-of ancestors whidrnjhould

1 J. — J. Weiss, A propos de theatre, p. l68.

3i6 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

be peculiarly its own. It became necessary to discover, in the
past history of humanity, a race whence the descent of a whole
line of poets could legitimately be traced, and worthy of being
placed in opposition to an antiquity properly so called, that is
to say, to Greece and Rome. Lastly, it was needful, as Garat
expressed it, " to supply the somewhat effete poetry of the
south with images, scenes, and manners wherein poetic talent
might renew its youth as in a freshly created world." ^

This modern Homer, so eagerly sought, was discovered by

a very clever man. Macpherson's Caledonia, and Ossian, its

poet, were accepted with enthusiasm by the whole of Europe.^

For years already there had been shaping itself among the

/ English a movement which drew the attention of many dis-

\ tinguished minds towards a past, not perhaps more remote

i than classical antiquity, but at any rate more mysterious and

- more pregnant with the unknown. Some, like Walpole, Warton,

and Hurd, sought to bring mediaeval poetry and architecture

once more into fashion.^ Others devoted themselves to the

collection of old songs — Enghsh, Irish, or Welsh. Percy's

famous book, which appeared in 1765, is simply the most

celebrated collection among a long series which began in the

early years of the century.* Others again, with more ambition,

restored in its entirety the dead civilization of the Celts and of

the Northern races in general, contrasting it triumphantly with

the worn-out civilizations of Greece and Rome. In some fine

stanzas, written in 1 749, Collins sang the praises of ancient

Scotland, and of her highlands,

where, beneath the showery west,
The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid ;
Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,
No slaves revere them and no wars invade ;

^ Memoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 153.

2. See The Life and Letters of James Macphersott, London, 1894, 8vo, by Bailey
Saunders.

2 Thomas Warton, Observations on the Faery Queen (1754). Richard Hurd,
Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762).

■* A very accurate account of this movement will be found in Mr Phelps's book :
The beginnings of the English romantic movement, ch. vii. (^Revival of the past"), Percy's
collection was known in France. (See Suard, Melanges de litter ature.')

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 317

Yet frequent now, at midnight solemn hour,
The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold,

And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power.
In pageant robes, and wreathed with sheeny gold.

And on their twilight tombs aerial councils hold.^

This, however, was merely the presentiment of a poet. It^
was a historical work — one of importance in the evolution of
the literature of the age — that provided restless imaginations j
with the material they required. This was Mallet's Introduction I
h rhistoire de Danemark, published in 1 755, ^^<^ followed after a /
short interval by Monuments de la mythologie et de la poesie des Celtes
et particul'ierement des anciens ScandinavesJ^

Paul-Henri Mallet was a Genevan. At the age of twenty-two
he had become professor of literature at Copenhagen,^ where he
had been seized with a strong passion for the then unknown
literatures of the North, and had taken upon himself the task of
revealing them to Europe. With the help of Danish or Swedish
versions he read and translated the Edda, and it was a German
version of his translation which inspired Klopstock and his school
with their taste for hardic poetrj.^ Mallet was thus the occasion
of a European movement which had only been awaiting a vivify-
ing impulse. His book was translated by Percy, and attained
great celebrity in England. Gray read it with avidity,^ and
Percy produced some runic poems in the style of the Scandinavian
sages. Through Mallet a whole generation of poets and critics^^
was made acquainted with northern Europe, and from him Mme.
de Stael herself derived a large number of her ideas.^ A new
antiquity had come to life. An entire civilization made its
appearance ; one very different from those of Greece and Rome,
untouched as yet by the imitator, and offering a fine field to the
eager imagination. Such ungracious spirits as found fault with
Mallet's undertaking, or blamed him for resuscitating " childish

1 An Ode on the popular superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland. ^ ^7$^-

3 See Sismondi, De la vie et des ecrits de P.-H. Mallet, 1 807, and Sayous,
Le xviii' siccle a Vetranger, vol. ii., p. 46 et seq.
* Joret, Herder, p. 20.

5 See Gray's Works, ed. Gosse, vol. ii., p. 352.
' See De la litterature : Preface to the 2nd edition.

3i8 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

fables," ^ were very few in number. It is not too much to say of
his book that it was the starting-point of the entire Ossianic
literature.

In 1760 Macpherson brought out his Fragments of ancient poetry,
collected in the Highlands, and translated from the Gaelic or Erse
Languages. In 1 762 — or perhaps at the close of 1 76 1 — he
produced Fingal, and in 1 763 Temora. Such was the birth of
Ossian.

From these dates it will be seen that Ossian came into exist-
ence at the very moment when Rousseau was giving a new
direction to French literature — in the same year, or nearly so, as
the Nouvelle Heldise. Besides, Macpherson owes as little to
Rousseau as Rousseau owes to Macpherson : there is a remark-
able coincidence between them, but neither was influenced by the
other. Macpherson, moreover, was by no means a reformer in
literature : his individual taste was extremely diffident, and he
good-humouredly derides the old English poets — for instance,
Spenser, with his giants and his fairies. He has a very poor
opinion of those who imitate them, and of their ** romantic com-
positions," so " disgustful to true taste." ^ It is as an antiquary
that he publishes Ossian, not as a poet : he does it to gratify
contemporary taste for literary curiosities. He would have
been amazed to learn that critics of the succeeding generation
regarded him as one of the best authenticated ancestors of
romanticism.

^- Nevertheless Ossian very soon effected a revolution. He was
almost immediately recognised as the leading spirit of the new
literature — " the modern Homer " of Mme. de Stael. In England
every genuine adherent of the classical school regarded him with
distrust and uneasiness. " It tires me to death," wrote "Walpole,
" to read how many ways a warrior is like the moon, or the sun,
or a rock, or a lion, or the ocean." ^ Johnson, an Englishman
and a member of the classical school, detects in Macpherson, the
Scotchman, an impostor and a dangerous innovator. He indulges
in amenities of this sort : "I received your foolish and impudent

1 Preface to the edition of 1773. ^ Note to Cathloda.

3 8th December 1761.

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 319

letter ... I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what
I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian."^ Macpherson,
however, but yesterday a schoolmaster and salaried tutor, could
already count as his warm admirers all who believed in his
Caledonia. Even those who were doubtful as to the authenticity
of the fragments discovered in them a singular beauty which
excited their admiration. The subtle intelligence of Gray found
them "full of noble wild imagination," ^ and "infinite beauty."
What does it signify whether they are by Ossian ? " I am
resolved to believe them genuine, spite of the Devil and the
Kirk." Beyond doubt " this man is the very Daemon of poetry,"
and if there be really no fraud in the case, imagination must have
*' dwelt many hundred years ago in all her pomp on the cold and
barren mountains of Scotland."

Macpherson was soon enabled to make the proud assertion
that Ossian had achieved a European success.

Ossian was translated into Italian by Cesarotti •, there were
two versions of him in Spanish, several in German, one in
Swedish, one in Danish, and two in Dutch, of which one was
by Bilderdyk. In Germany, especially, he created a furor.
The true ^originator of Northern poetry was found at last;
"Thou, too, Ossian, '^ried Klopstock, " wert swallowed up
in oblivion ; but thou hast been restored to thy position ; behold
thee now before us, the equal and the challenger of Homer
the Greek." " What need," wrote Voss to Brlickner, " of
natural beauty ? Ossian of Scotland is a greater poet than
Homer of Ionia." Lerse, in a sonorous discourse at Strasburg,
acknowledged three guides of the "sacred art of poetry":
Shakespeare, Homer, and Ossian — two Northern poets to a
single classic. Herder wrote a comparison between the Homeric
and the Ossianic epics, spoke of Ossian as " the man I have
sought," and contemplated a journey to Scotland in order to
collect the songs of the bards. Biirger imitated him, and
Christian Heyne constituted himself his champion at the Uni-

1 Boswell, Life of Johnson^ ed. Croker, 1847, p. 430.

2 Letters of 29th June 1760, July 1760, 17th February 1763.

320 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

versity of G(5ttingen. Lastly, Goethe, need we remind the
reader, drew inspiration froni^ him jn^M^er ther and elsewhere.
When his spirits are high Werther's taste is~^for Homer, but
in sorrow he feeds upon Ossian, and when "it is autumn within
and about him," he cries : " Ossian has completely banished
Homer from my heart ! " It is a fragment of Ossian — the
lamentation of Armin over the death of his daughter — that
throws the distracted Charlotte into the disorder which almost
proves her undoing :

Why dost thou awake me, O gale ?

I'm covered with dew-drops, it says,
But the time of my fading is near,

The blast which my foliage decays.

To-morrow the traveller shall come,

Who once saw me comely and bold ;
His eyes shall the meadow search round,

But me they shall never behold ! ^

In his Memoirs Goethe has given an admirable explanation
of the Caledonian bard's popularity. It was Macpherson who
developed among young people in Germany the taste for " the
gloomy reflections which lead him who yields to them astray
in the infinite." It was he who, with Young and Gray, excited
and "stimulated these fatal workings within them." "That all
this melancholy might have a theatre adapted to it Ossian had
carried us away to distant Thule, where, as we traversed the
vast and gloomy heath, amid the moss-grown stones of tombs,
we beheld the surrounding herbage swayed by a mighty blast,
and above our heads a sky leaden with cloud. Then the moon
changed this Caledonian night into day ; dead heroes, and women,
beautiful yet pale, hovered around us ; we dreamed at last that
we saw, in her own awful form, the very spirit of Loda."^

Nothing affords a better proof of the growing interest taken
i by the French in foreign matters than the rapidity with which
} Ossian became known among them. It is worthy of remark

1 From Gotzberg's translation of Werther, letter xci. On Ossian in Germany,
see Erich Schmidt, loc. cit., p. 225 et seq.

2 Memoirs^ part iii.

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 321

that, contrary to received opinion, he was famous in France
almost before he had become so in the countries of the North.^
Macpherson's first volume was issued early in 1760, and in
September of that year the Journal etranger published two frag-
ments of '* ancient poetry, translated into English from the
Erse, the language of the Scotch highlanders," these fragments
being Connal and Crimora and Ryno and Alpin. The translator
commented upon ** the singular way in which the action advances,
the rapid movement from one idea to another without any transi-
tion, the accumulation of images, the frequent repetitions, and,
in addition, all the defects of what we call the oriental style.'^
From these examples he concluded that the imagination of the
northern nations was no less poetic than that of the Asiatics.
*1A race which speaks a barren language, and has made no
progress^ in the arts, is obliged to make frequent use of figures
ahdnmeTapHors". 7 . . Grandeuf~and^"rofusion"of imagery, daring

Uietliuds 'gfexpression, andacertaiq irr^gnlarity in the spqn^"f^

of ideas, must ofjiecessity characterise jfs pnetry."

"^'Ihis wnter, the first Frenchman to translate and to criticize
Ossian, was Turgot.^

The experiment proving successful, the same journal inserted
two other fragments, with a brief notice on Macpherson's
selection. This time it was remarked that Erse poetry was
more akin to Homer than to Pope or Dryden, whence it was
concluded that poetry " knows neither nation nor language.'^
It may even be that *' heroic poetry, as it was conceived by the
ancients, belongs rather to races which are still in a state of
barbarism than to more educated and more civilized nations."
Uncivilized men whose soul, so to speak, is entirely **on the
outside," whose passions are held in check neither by education
nor by law, whose intelligence speaks no language but that
of the imagination, because it is incapable of accommodating
itself to abstractions — such men as these are poets by nature.

1 On the success of Ossian in France see Mr Bailey Saunders's book above-
mentioned (chap, i.), and two articles by Arvede Barine ( Jo«r«a/ ^w Bebatsy 13th
and 27th November 1894).

2 See (Euvres, vol. ix., p. 141 et seq.

]

322 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

** By the art of introspection the soul is in a manner detached
from external objects ; the practice of reflection and of thought
blunts the sensibility and the imagination, and restrains the
activity of the passions ; the intelligence becomes more austere
and less tolerant of that vague and indefinite latitude in respect of
ideas nvhich poetry demands^'' ^ This, more clearly expressed, was
the iheiiry-of^Didgrot and Rousseau. Man_is. poetical only in
the primitive stage, and consequently the primitive -maST^iIe^s
XpoeTI

We know for a certainty that these fragments achieved a
brilliant and European success. **It is as beautiful as Homer,"
wrote Grimm.2 Accordingly the Journal published successive
translations by Suard of Fingal, Lathmon, Oithona, Dar-Thula,
and Conlath and Cuthona, all of them ** poems from the Erse."^
A new translator, the duchess d'Aiguillon, produced a version
of Carthon^ This gave rise to a great controversy upon the
authenticity of all these poems, the conclusion of the dispute,
which filled the columns of the Journal des savants,^ being ** that
the honour of having created these sublime and touching poems
was quite as great as that of having been so fortunate as to
discover them."

For ten years the Ossianic dispute occupied the attention of
critics, but neither in France nor in England did anyone manage
to convict the fortunate Macpherson of imposture. How should
French journalists have succeeded ^ where the cleverest members
of the most learned societies in Scotland had failed ? For fifty
years and more, bardic, Erse, Runic or Gaelic poetry, as it was
variously called, maintained its popularity in France.

In 1764 the Gazette Utter aire contrasted this new type of

1 Journal etranger, iTinUZvyli'jSi. ^ Correspondance litteraire, A.^v\\ I'jSl.

3 December 1761, January, February, April, and July 1762.

■* Carthon, a poem translated from the English by Mme. , London, 1762,

l2mo. On this subject the Memoires secrets (20th February 1763) may be con-
sulted. Querard asserts that the duchess — who was the mother of the opponent
of La Chalotais — had a collaborator named Marin.

5 February and November 1762; May, June, September, December 1764.
Gazette litteraire (ist September 1 765) ; Cesarotti's reflections upon Ossian.

^ See Mr Archibald Clerk's edition of Ossian's poems (London, 1870, 2 vols.
8vo).

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 323

poetry with that of the Greeks, just as Herder himself or
Goethe might have done, and while recognising in it ** that
quality of enthusiasm which the Greeks called poetic frenzy"
it pointed out the differences due to climate, race and religion.
** The poems of the North abound in awful and impressive
images, but rarely contain such as are pleasing or cheerful. . . /
All their imagery is representative of mournful skies, the wildest
scenes of nature, and savage manners." In them, nevertheless,
is to be found that essentiaLgift which constitutes the poet, the
power of " realising the phantoms of one's own imagination":
may it not be that "what we calT the days of barbarism were
in very many respects favourable -to poetic genius?" Now
Ossian, though less ancient, appears a hundred times more un-
civilised than Homer : his inspiration is simpler, more artless,
more faithful to nature. It is like a gushing spring. Better j
still, "it is genuine, heartfelt poetry, for throughout we can/
detect a heart stirred by noble feelings and tender passions." ^ )
Opinion was thus occupied by the question of the Erse'
poems, and was leaning towards the cult of the new divinity,
when Letourneur, an indefatigable purveyor of foreign literature,
brought out his translation of the " Gaelic poems of Ossian,
the son of Fingal," with the addition of a few " bardic " poems
by John Smith, ^ and achieved therewith a prodigious success.
Letourneur's translation, however, was far from deserving the
praises which La Harpe generously bestowed upon it j the
harmony of the prose-poetry, so admired by Gray, and, to
Macpherson's honour, not indeed invented but brought into
fashion by him, is difficult to recognize in the somewhat inferior
prose of Letourneur; as a parallel case we may imagine Atala^
translated into the style of Johnson. Letourneur's Ossian re-''
mains, nevertheless, a book of much importance in the historyv
of French literature. /

1 Gazette IHteraire, 1 764, vol. i., p. 238 ; I St July and ist August 1765.

2 Ossian, f Is de Fingal, poesies galliques, translated by Letourneur from the English
of Macpherson, Paris, 1777, 2 vols. 8vo. Frequently reprinted, the principal
editions being those of 1799 and 18 10, the former containing additional matter,
the latter a preface by Ginguend. A translation of Temora, by a vvrriter named
Saint-Simon, had appeared at Amsterdam in 1774.

324 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

** I no longer believe," Chateaubriand once wrote, "in the
authenticity of Ossian's works. . . . Yet still I listen to the
sound of his harp, as one might listen to a voice, monotonous
indeed, yet sweet and plaintive." ^ This voice we hear, even
to-day, and find, when we take the trouble to look for it, just
what Chateaubriand found in the false Ossian, " a lofty and
noble spring of poetry," as an excellent judge expressed it,
** through which, whatever others may have said, there breathes
a blast as mighty as the storm-wind." ^ On the other hand,
we no longer believe either in Fingal or in Oscar. The "Cale-
donian" civilization, which had for eighteenth century readers
the charm of something new and striking, seems to us an
artificial compound of heterogeneous elements. Macpherson's
clans and bards and druids no longer wield their ancient spell :
we have admitted — a little too readily perhaps — that Macpherson
was nothing more than a dexterous impostor. But those who
, seek to explain the vogue of the Ossianic poems must not
\ forget that contemporaries held a very different opinion. They
[ believed, with the faith that imagination gives, in the Caledonians,
sturdy men with white skins, fair hair, and blue eyes. They
believed in the druids, who fulfilled the functions of priests and
legislators, and in the bards, who were not only poets but also
ambassadors. They believed in that singular race which had
neither industries nor agriculture, knew no metals but gold and
iron, launched their rash barks upon the ocean, and chose the
loftiest sites for their dwellings that they might be near to
Heaven. They believed in that vague and poetic religion, ac-
cording to which the clouds were inhabited by souls who
commanded the winds and storms, spoke to the living at solemn
seasons, and challenged them to combat. They believed that
the gods, in the darkness of night, waged mysterious warfare
with men — and they loved the sombre poetry of their idea.

The wan, cold moon rose in the east. Sleep descended on the youths I
Their blue helmets glitter to the beam ; the fading fire decays. But sleep did

^ Preface to the translation of Poemes traduHs du gallique.

2 Angellier, Burns, vol. i., p. 59. Mr. Clerk admits the authenticity of the
poems of Ossian.

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 325

not rest on the king : he rose in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the
hill, to behold the flame of Sarno's tower.

The flame was dim and distant : the moon hid her red face in the east. A
blast came from the mountain, on its wings was the spirit of Loda. He came
to his place in his terrors, and shook his dusky spear. His eyes appear like
flames in his dark face; his voice is like distant thunder.

Fingal defies the spirit.

Dost thou force me from my place, replied the hollow voice ! The people
bend before me. I turn the battle from the field of the brave. I look on the
nations and they vanish : my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on
the winds : the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is calm, above
the clouds. . . .

The hero does not quail before him.

He lifted high his shadowy spear ! He bent forward his dreadful height.
Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleam-
ing'path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless
into air, like a column of smoke, which the staff of the boy disturbs, as it rises
from the half-extinguished furnace. The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into
himself, he rose on the wind.i

Scenes like this, though they bear too close a resemblance to
those of Homer or the Bible, are not without their grandeur.
BuL-tha3z^do not affect us as-^^ysi^kctedr th€ -eontemperaries^-of
Macpherson. We^jfind thejiLje^s_ori£^^ the two poets j

one epic,~7He~otherJjric^jhat go to the making of old Ossian,
we~~pT^er the latter, who really ismiginaL But eighteenth
century criticfenTwas largely occupied with the former, the poetj
whom it was possible to compare with Homer.

Some years before the publication of Letourneur's translation,
Voltaire had already introduced in one of his plays an amusing
conversation between a Florentine, an Oxford professor, and
a Scotchman, who had met at Lord Chesterfield's house.^
The Scotchman stands up for Ossian. ** How beautiful," he
exclaims, ** were the days of old; Fingal's poem has passed
from mouth to mouth down to us of to-day for nearly two
thousand years, without ever having been altered : such is the
power of genuine beauties over the minds of men ! " And he

^ Carric-thura. The Poems of Ossian, London, 1 8 12, p. 17I.
^ Dictionnaire philosophique : Anciens et modernes, 1 7 70.

326 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

recites a translation or rather a paraphrase of the opening lines of

Fingal.^ " Ah ! " says the Oxford professor ; ** there you have

the true Homeric style ; but what pleases me still more is that I

can detect in it the sublime eloquence of the Hebrews." And

the man proceeds to quote a few passages from the Psalms,

carefully selected by Voltaire, as the reader will perceive, so as

to give an idea of the "oriental style." The Scotchman grows

pale with rage. But the Florentine, with a smile, engages to

hold forth in this so-called "oriental style" for any length of

time ; with a little dexterity any one can " reel off bombastic

lines of irregular metre," " pile one combat on another," and

"describe idle flights of fancy." In fact he improvises on the

spot a nonsensical fragment on the first subject suggested to

, \ him. The satire was cheap, but not altogether unjust. Ossian

\\ is monotonous; he does cultivate "the oriental style"; and will

V\ anyone venture to maintain that he never "described empty

I Mreams ? "

But Voltaire fails to perceive, or pretends not to see, that the
true cause ot his^ success lay elsewHere^ To^oT'irfew super-
ficial minds the Caledonian epic undoubtedly seemed to be the
successful rival of the Homeric : " Farewell the tales of ancient
days, the gods of Greece and Troy ! Hail to the heroes of the
clouds, in their aerial palaces ! " ^ But Ossian's epic quaUties by
no means exhausted his merit. What made English and French
readers so fond of him was thejyric, still more than the epic,
poet in him — more indeed than anything else : the poeTwBo gave
form, ox-^t_aII. events a new setting, to the love of nature, to
melancholy,_to " passion's vague unrest," the sweet pain which
they had experienced iii thepages^oERQUSseau. It was the poet
who, by the" mouth ofHiEe blind bard, addressed the following
pathetic apostrophe to the sun :

0 thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers ! Whence are
thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful
beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks

1 CuchuUin was seated by the wall of Tura, " by the tree of the rustling sound."
Voltaire gives a parody of these lines,

2 Creuze de Lesser.

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 327

in the western wave ; but thou thyself movest alone. . . . But to Ossian thou
lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair
flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou
art perhaps like me, for a season ; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep
in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O sun, in the
strength of thy youth ! age is dark and unlovely ; it is like the glimmering light
of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the
hills. . . .1

It is in fragments such as this, full of deeply impressive yet
hidden poetry, that the real Ossian is to be found, the poet of
whom Chateaubriand could write that he had ''added to the
melody of the Muses a note until his time unheard." ^ It was
this poet whom the readers of Letourneur appreciated and
understood. *' Why can I not dwell among the snow-clad
mountains which hem the happy sons of Scotland round ; while
my dreams, as I watch the seas which bathe Norwegian coasts,
are lulled by the sound of the wind beneath a lowering sky,
and the dweller among those rugged rocks recites, it may be
within my hearing, the mournful hymns which Ossian erstwhile
sang upon the self-same shores." Such was the impression
produced by the French Macpherson upon one of his earliest
readers, Fontanes, then quite a young man, who, addressing
the translator of Ossian with ill-restrained emotion, adds : ** O
Le Tourneur ! whose bold prose ventured almost to imitate
the inimitable melody of daring verse, more than once
have you revealed treasures unknown to the poets of our
day." 3

These lines are of no great merit j but the feeling they
expressed was sincere, and Fontanes composed his Chant du
Barde after the manner of Ossian, in order, as he wrote to
Joubert from London, to try his hand at reproducing ** that
sweet, slow music which seems to come from the distant shore
of the sea, and to linger echoing among the tombs."

Thua, even JiL_the_^ig]it£eiitk. century, Frenchmen discerned
the originality of one who was to be among the teachers of
ChafeauTjriand and Lamartine. They divined his subtle poetry,

1 Carthon. Poems, p. 1 90. ^ Preface to Poemes traduits du gallique.

3 CEuvres, 1839, vol. i., p. 398.

328 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

if they did not succeed in making it fully their own. They
delighted to read him, like Mme. de Genlis, seated on a green
bank " shaded by a pair of poplars," " a wild yet melancholy
scene before them," and an ^Eolian harp within hearing.^ Like
Fontanes they attempted to reproduce the music of his strange
flights of melody. With La Harpe they praised that " sort of
melancholy imaginativeness," which calls up before the reader
*' a remote and dismal region where the mountain-mists, the
monotonous sound of the sea, and the soughing of the wind
among the crags, inspire the mind with a contemplative sadness
which becomes habitual." ^ Before the Revolution, thanks to
Ossian, " the poetry of the North " counted its adherents in
France : *' sorrowful as their ever cloud- wreathed skies, turgid
as the sea that whitens their shores, dense and dismal as the
curtain ,of mist wrapped thickly round them in their gloomy
isle,"f^he northern poets seemed destined to renew the ex-
hausted literature of France. They were not imitated as yet, or .
if they were, they were imitated badly.* But a time was at
hand when a Chateaubriand was to make all that was best in
their genius his own, and when, an exile in Macpherson's own
land, he was to prepare himself for the composition of Rene
by translating the poems of Ossian.^

Ossia|i!«--£arQ£ksted from l-^^^L_iiQwn to the imperial epoch.
1 Arnault borrowed the^subject of a trage3y trom him ; '^ Labaume'
' and David de Saint-George produced a continuation of Letour-

1 Memoires, vol. iii., p. 353. ^ Qours de litterature, vol. iii., pp. 214-217.

3 Andre Chenier, Elegie XXI.

^ See Athos et Dermide, the matter for w^hich is derived from a note by Mac-
pherson. (^Journal encyclopedique, 1st June 1 786); Essai d^une traduction d^ Ossian en
'versfranfais, by Lombard (Berlin, 1789, 8vo), etc.

^ "When, in 1793, the Revolution drove me to England, I was a devoted ad-
herent of the Scottish bard : lance in rest I would have maintained his existence
in the face of the whole world, and against that of old Homer himself. I read
with avidity a host of poems unknown in France. . . . In the fervour of my zeal
and admiration, ill, too, and extremely busy as I was, I translated certain Ossianic
pieces by John Smith." (Preface to Translations from the Gaelic.') These pieces are
Dargo, and Duthona and Gaul, and are included in Chateaubriand's works ; they are
imitations rather than translations.

• Oscar, fits d' Ossian, 1796.

THE POETRY OF THE PAST 329

neur.^ The story goes that under the Directory those who
lived in the Bois de Boulogne were one day alarmed to see a
great blaze amongst the trees, and that when they came close to
it they perceived some men, attired in Scandinavian fashion,
endeavouring to set fire to a pine and singing to the accompani-
ment of a guitar with an air of inspiration : they were admirers
of Ossian who intended to sleep in the open air and to set the
trees alight in order to keep themselves warm, like the heroes of
Caledonia.^ Under the Consulate Ossian enjoyed a far greater
vogue, even, than before ; the first consul had made him " his
own poet," thereby enlisting the sympathies of Mme. de Stael ;
he read him on board the vessel which brought him back from
Egypt, as at a later period he read him on his voyage to St
Helena.^ " How beautiful it is," he said to Arnault. It has
been said that he imposed the Ossianic stamp upon the art of his
time. It would be more just to say that having been brought
up in the literary traditions of the eighteenth century, he shared
the veneration of his contemporaries for the Caledonian bard.
It was under the Consulate, and at his suggestion, that Baour
Lormian composed his Poesies galliques, that Girodet painted his
picture of Fingal and Ossian welcoming the shades of the French
warriors, and that Lesueur wrote his opera Les Bardes, which
Napoleon proclaimed a ** brilliant, heroic and truly Ossianic "
piece.*

When, after the Revolution, Mme. de Stael and Chateaubriand
attempted to lay down the rules''^f^i now thcoiyof poelij;, botif —

1 Poemes d'Ossian et de quelques autres bardes, intended as a sequel to Letourneur's
Ossian, and translated from the English by Hill (pseudon.), Paris, 1795, 3 vols.
i8mo.

^ G. Renard, De ^influence de /'anttguiie classique sur la ittterature fran^aise pendant les
dernier es annces du x-viii' siecle et les premieres annees du xix^< Lausanne, 18 75, 8vo.

3 See the Journal de la traversee d^ Angleterre a Sainte-Helene, by an English officer,
published in the Journal des Debats.

* The Poesies galliques belong to 1801. Girodet's picture was exhibited at the
Salon of 1802. Lesueur's opera was played in 1804. See also Catheluina, or the
Rival Friends, a poem written in imitation of Ossian (by General Despinay),
Paris, 1 80 1, 8vo ; Traductions et imitations de quelques poesies d^ Ossian, an old Celtic
poet, by Charles Arbaud Jouques, Paris, 1801, 8vo ; Traduction libre, en -vers, des
chaAts de Selma, from Ossian, etc., by J. Taillasson, Paris, 1801, 8vo, etc.

330 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

acceded Ossian as ajjrecious legacy fromi!ie~centnr3rwhtdrhad

just come to a close. Through them he became appreciated by
the youthful band of writers that was destined shortly afterwards
to form the romantic *' Pleiad": "Ah, plaintive harp, once,
as the faithful comrade of Ossian, wont to sing of love and
heroes ! No longer shalt thou hang in mournful silence on
these walls." ^

These lines are by Alphonse de Lamartine, and were written
in 1808. All his life Lamartine remained faithful to the object
of his youthful admiration, and even in the Confidences he placed
Ossian on a level with Dante and above Homer.

The harp of Morven is the emblem of my soul.

Many indeed were the imaginations whose dreams were haunted
by Ossian, between 1800 and 1830 ! Edgar Quinet, as a youth,
in the depths of his native province, was amazed at an infatua-
tion he did not share, and remarked with curiosity the unrivalled
popularity of Fingal, Malvina, and Carril.^ Distributions of
prizes, Villemain says, resounded with the names of the
Caledonian heroes, Oscar and Temora, and it is possible that
Bernadotte owed the throne of Sweden to the Ossianic fore-
name borne by his son.^ Nodier, like everyone else, became
fascinated with Macpherson's prose, and George Sand consoled
herself for the sorrows of her married life by reading Fingal^
** Four moss-covered stones" — Chateaubriand had written in
his Genie du Christianisme — " stand amid the Caledonian heather
to mark the tomb of the warriors of Fingal ; Oscar and Mal-
vina have departed, but nothing has changed in their lonely
land. Still the Scottish Highlander loves to recite the songs
of his ancestors : still he is brave, generous, and obliging ;
but the hand of the bard himself, if the image be allowed,
no longer strikes the harp ; what we hear is the tremulous
vibration of the strings produced by the touch of a spirit,

^ Letter to Mme. de Virieu, 1808. ^ Histoire de mes idees, p. 1 32.

^ See Brunetiere, L^ evolution de la poesie lyrique, vol. i., p. 82.

4 Nodier, Essais d^un jeune barde (1804). G. Sand, Histoire de ma vie, vol. iv.,
chap. i.

ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN POETRY 331

when, at night, in a deserted hall, it forebodes the death of
a hero."i

Many and many are the readers who, from the close of the
eighteenth century down to the appearance of the romantic
generation, have heard this murmur from the strings of Ossian*s
harp.

Yet such readers heard it and, above all, appreciated it, mainly
l^eeause Rousseau had-jwri^en. Just as there was an occasional
coincidence between Thomson's or Gessner's manner of feeling
and portraying nature, and Rousseau's, so it was mainly because
Jean-Jacques had led the way that Young, Ossian, and even
Werther — which made its somewhat unsuccessful appearance in
France about the same time ^ — found it so easy to obtain a hold
over the minds of Frenchmen. They may indeed be, in the \
history of European literature, his precursors ; that, in fact,
is what they are. But in the history of French literature,
they are merely his successors. He owes nothing to them,
nor they to him.

What, however, admits of no doubt, is that their melancholy i
is but a form of his melancholy, their lyricism a variety, or a/
development of his lyricism. **But behold, alas, the incon-l
ceivable swiftness of that fate which is never at rest. It is
constantly pursuing, time flies hastily, the opportunity is
irretrievable, and your beauty, even your beauty, is circum-
scribed by very narrow limits of existence : it must some time
or other decay and wither away like a flower that fades before
it was gathered. . . . O fond, mistaken fair ! you are laying

^ Genie du Chr'tstianisme^ pt. iv., ii. 5.

2 On this subject, see Th. Supfle {Goethes literarischer Einfluss auf Frankreich, in
the Goethe- J ahrbiich^ 1 887, p. 208), and F. Gross, Werther in Frankreich, Leipzig,
1888. Besides translations by SeckendorfT and Aubry, there was a play by
La Riviere, Werther ou le Delire de V Amour (la Haye, 1778). On the subject of
Goethe's novel, the Correspondance litteraire (March 1778) says : " All that we have
found in it is ordinary events set forth without art, unpolished manners, a
bourgeois tone, and a heroine apparently utterly uneducated and absolutely
provincial."

332 ROUSSEAU'S LYRICISM

plans for a futurity at which you may never arrive, and
neglecting the present moments which can never be retrieved.
You are so anxious, and intent on that uncertain hereafter, that
you forget that in the meantime our hearts melt away like snow
before the sun." ^ If the writer of these lines followed Ossian
and Young in order of time, he preceded them in order of
genius, and for this reason may be regarded as the creator of
modern lyric poetry.

Nevertheless — and the fact is one which Frenchmen are too
apt to forget — the sentiments he expresses were also expressed
in foreign works, and through them were introduced into France
as soon as, or even earlier than, through the pages of Rousseau.
To the new artwhich he created, English Ikfirature-fumlshed
ancestors, Germanydisclples. WBaTmore inevitable than that
those who were weary of classical tradition and impatient to
escape from the leading strings by which they felt they had been
confined for ages, should turn with ao-ever more and more lively
curiosity to England, irr their eyes the intellectual birthplace of
Rousseau, and to Germany which welcomed him — and English
writers as well — with such youthful enthusiasm ? " Every
method of imitating the ancients," it was said, " has been ex-
hausted. Let us therefore fathom these deep mines (of English
literature) ; let us separate the gold from the dross which con-
ceals it ; let us polish it and turn it to a useful purpose." ^ But
thus to imitate foreign models was to reject the heritage, hitherto
enjoyed exclusively by the French nation, bequeathed by Greece
and Rome. It was to break with all the traditions of French
classical literature. Rousseau himself, who owes so many ideas
to the ancients, is not indebted to them for a single one of his
artistic methods ; rather is his art the very negation of theirs.
Thus, with the growth of foreign influence, whether English or
German, in France, the influence of Rousseau proportionately
increased, while that of antiquity, and even of the national
classics, was further and further undermined. *'0 Germany,"
wrote a French critic in 1768, " the days of our greatness have

^ Nowvelle Helo'ise, i. 26.

2 Yart, Idee de la poeste anglaise, vol. i., preface.

ROUSSEAU AND NORTHERN POETRY 333

departed, and thine are only in their dawn. Within thy breast
dwells every quality that can raise one race above the others, and
our conceited frivolity is compelled to do homage to thy mighty
offspring ! " ^

In the Germany of the eighteenth century we have the incar-'
nation of what Mme. de Stael was to call the Ossianic literatures,
of the "genius of the North," of everything that was novel,
poetic and disturbing in Rousseau, in so far as he seems to
personify the influence of the Germanic nations. " I can see,'
says Chateaubriand, ** that in my early youth Ossian, Werther,
the Reveries (Tun promeneur solitaire^ and the Etudes de la nature
must have become wedded with my own ideas." ^ He makes no
distinction between them ; on the contrary he treats the genius
of Rousseau, the genius of Ossian, and the genius of Goethe as
one. So too Mme. de Stael, when writing off-hand, speaks of
** Rousseau and the English," or of** Rousseau and the Teutonic
ideal"; the idea in her mind is always the same, whether she,
speaks of the Teutonic spirit as opposed to the Latin, or of the]
genius of the North as opposed to that of the South.

There is no doubt whatever that jhis substitution of jhe
cosmopolitan and exotic spirit for the old-fashioned humanism
which satisEed^our fathers was a revolution of very great im-
portance^ To tell the truth, it only came to fulfilment during
the present century, with Mme. de Stael and the romantic
school. But we have seen that it was in preparation before '89.
The^ve-and-twenty years which preceded _the_R^yoImion_pay£(l
^ the way for the invasion of Europe by the literatures of the
North. Caii we wonder~lhat Herder, bhnded by prejudice,
thought himself justified in writing : ** French literature has had
its day '' ? ^

The only thing that had had its day, and that after three
centuries of glory, was one particular form of the French spirit,
one of the fairest it ever assumed, but in which, whatever may
be said to the contrary, it neither exhausted itself nor revealed
the whole of its limitations.

1 Dorat, Idee de la poesie allemande, 1768, p. I 33.

2 Essai sur la litterature anglaise. ' ^ Lebensbilder.

Chapter IV

THE REVOLUTION AND THE SECOND MIGRATION OF THE FRENCH
SPIRIT. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND MADAME DE STAEL

III.

How it was that in the eighteenth century cosmopolitanism was nothing
more than an ill-defined aspiration — Reaction of the classical spirit, due to
Voltaire and his school ; inadequacy and inferiority of classical criticism —
Revival of antiquity at the approach of the Revolution.

The Revolution brings back the worship of antiquity — Intellectual rupture
with the Teutonic nations — Decrease of the literary influence of Rousseau
— But the springs which the Revolution had exhausted were rendered afresh
accessible to the French mind by the emigration.

Publication oi Be la Litterature {\%oo) — It was the expression at once of the
cosmopolitan spirit and of the influence of Rousseau — Its origin mainly
traceable to English influence — It was the last production of eighteenth
century criticism — The author's judgment upon the classical spirit — Her
substitute for it — Cosmopolitanism becomes a literary theory — Triumph of
the influence of Rousseau and of the northern literatures.

'" *' There exist, it seems to me, two entirely distinct literatures,
/' that which springs from the South and that which springs from
^ the North, one which finds its primal source in Homer, another
which had its origin in Ossian. The Greeks, the Latins, the
Italians, the Spaniards, and the French of the age of Louis XIV.,
belong to that branch of literature which I shall call the literature
of the South. The work of the English and the Germans, and
a few writings by Danes and Swedes, must be ranked as be-
longing to the literature of the North." ^ In these lines Mme.
de Stael expressed with remarkable clearness the very principle
of cosmopolitanism in literature as she herself conceived it. A
few years later she gave her idea still greater precision in the
following words : " On every occasion during our own times
when the French habit of strict conformity to rule has been
supplemented by a little fresh life and spirit from abroad, the

1 De la litter attire, i. II.
334

THE CLASSICAL REACTION 335

French have been enthusiastic in their applause : Jean- Jacques
Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Chateaubriand, etc., are
all, in one or other of their works, though they may not he aware
of it themselves y members of the Germanic school."^

Thus the course of French literature has been successively
directed, according to the period'''we*"cDTreider, either towards
antiquity or towards Germanic Europe, towards humanism or
towards cosmopolitanism, and the most important agent in the
transformation has been Rousseau. The eighteenth century
had an obscure perception of Mme. de Stael's theory, but did
not formulate it in a clear and definite manner. Previously to
the pubHcation, in 1800, of De la Litterature, cosmopolitanism had
been rather an undefined aspiration than a theory properly so
called. It took some time for Rousseau's influence, personified
in Mme. de Stael, to develop its extreme results. It was long
before the opposition between cosmopolitanism and humanism
became as distinct as was to be desired.

The reason is, in the first place, that if the twenty years
which preceded the Revolution witnessed an incipient renova-
tion and broadening of taste, they witnessed also the dawn of
a genuine classical reaction. With the spread of anglomania,
the admirers of the great French writers felt the need for a
sturdier defence of a cause which was ever more and more
threatened. *' When we had once tasted of the springs of
English literature," says a critic, " a revolution quickly took
place in our own : the Frenchman, who readily becomes an
ardent partisan, no longer welcomed or valued anything that
had not something of an English flavour about it. . . . Our
genius deteriorated from its unnatural fusion with a genius
foreign to its character." ^ It was against this perversion of
the national genius that the classical party, headed by Voltaire,

1 De PAllemagne, ii. I. ^ Dorat, Idee de la poesie allemande (1768), p. 43.

336 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

rose in revolt. The cause was good ; what a pity it was that it
should have been so badly defended !

Herein, in truth, lay the danger of the cosmopolitan spirit.
Briefly, the question at issue was, whether or not the French
mind would remain faithful to the ideal of universality and
humanity which for two or three hundred years had been the
strength of French literature, and had been inherited by it from
the literatures of antiquity. The ideal of the classical writers of
France had been to portray man by means of all the most general
and least accidental qualities of his nature — not indeed in ah-
stractOy for that would have been to deprive him of all reality
— but in so far, at anyrate, as he resembles that " ideal of
humanity " which everyone bears within himself. " I acknow-
ledge," said Voltaire in reference to Shakespeare, '* that we
ought not to condemn an artist who has understood the taste of
his countrymen ; but we may pity him for having pleased no
other nation." From this principle Voltaire never departed, and
therefore always obstinately refused to admit that the object of
literary criticism is to make us admire what is most national in
the genius of each people. In his youth he felt a curiosity with
regard to the geniuses of the different nations, but simply
because they struck him as singular. He could understand that
one could write a comparative history of customs and laws ; but
he never fully recognised, though he sometimes advocated, the
comparative and disinterested criticism of literatures ; and therein
he remained truly French and truly classical. " We have long
taken upon ourselves to utter generalities for the edification of
the universe. We are manufacturers of good rough furniture
for general purposes and of the fashionable article as well."
This neat phrase of Doudan's ^ is one which Voltaire might have
acknowledged. He claimed the manufacture of ** furniture for
general purposes " as an honour to the French intellect.

He considered, also, with the pure classicists of his time, that
everything had been said, and that form alone was renewed.
" There is no more poetry to write," said Fontanes, speaking of
Racine. All the books are written, thought the classical school.

1 Lettres, vol. ii., p. 346.

THE CLASSICAL REACTION 337

'*The imitation of the beauty of nature," wrote d'Alembert,
" seems confined to certain limits which are reached in a genera-
tion or two at most ; nothing is left for the succeeding generation to do
but to imitate,''^ ^ If this is the case, and if poetry is the art of
enhancing an old theme with a fresh variation, those who come
last are at a great disadvantage, and for us who have to follow
the masters it is a high honour to succeed through beauty of
form alone. Innovators, on the contrary, admit that in literature
there are, as Sebastien Mercier said, ** austral lands," where
everything still remains to be discovered. They hold that the
last has not yet been said concerning man. They believe that
literary progress is limited only by the confines of the human
intellect itself, and that these have not yet been determined.
They extol Dante for his " stupidly extravagant flights of
imagination," 2 Milton for descriptions which ** sicken every one
whose taste is at all delicate," ^ or Ossian, again, because he ex-
presses bombastic platitudes in pompous verse. Voltaire, faith-
ful^to_thfi_Jti:adition of the grand siecle, was honestTy^TnraBIe'TQ
comprehend. "What is it to"ffie,^^Tie wrote to an Englishman,
who had vaunted Shakespeare to him, ** that a tragic author has
genius, if none of his pieces can be played in all the countries of
the world ? Cimabue had genius as an artist, yet his pictures are
of no value ; Lully had great talent for music, but his airs are
never sung beyond the borders of France." * . . . And this is his
final verdict, not only upon Shakespeare, but also upon Young,
Ossian, Milton, Dante, Swift and Rabelais. The mark of genius
is universality, and do we not find the Transylvanian, the
Hungarian and the Courlander, uniting, as Voltaire observes,
with the Spaniard, the Frenchman and the German, in admira-
tion of Vergil and Horace ? These, the great masters, belong
to every age. Dante belongs merely to the thirteenth century

;jX

^ Discours preliminaire,

2 Voltaire to BettinelH, March 1761 : "I think very highly of your courage
in daring to say that Dante was a madman and his work monstrous. . . . Dante
may find his way into the libraries of the curious, but he will never be read."

3 See Candide, ch. xxv.

* Letter published by G. Bengesco, Lettres et billets inedits de Voltaire (1887),
p. IZ.

338 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

and Milton to the seventeenth ; the one is but an Englishman,
the other only an Italian. i^^^x.^J'^

Nor was Volta.ire'the only writer to lay himself open to the
charge of narrowness. He is simply the mouthpiece of a tradi-
tion to which many intelligent people remained faithful. The
"literature of the North" irritated them, because it was neither
human nor artistic, qualities which are practically identical. For
the art of writing is not what Sterne and Young would have it
to be — the art of giving expression to " one's sensations and
impressions," or of recording, as inspiration may dictate, the
variations of a " temperament " ; it consists in speaking to the
understanding in a language that every educated man can under-
stand : " what is accurately conceived is clearly expressed."

Now, the conceptions of Young and Sterne are inaccurate, and
their expression of them is obscure ; indeed, these writers can
scarcely be said to think ; they are content to feel, and to abandon
themselves to the flow of trivial impressions. Rousseau, speak-
ing of himself, said : '' He is largely dependent on his senses."^
So, in reality, are all these innovators, and they glory in being
thus dependent. But if the art of writing consists in arranging
correct ideas in a harmonious whole, how then can they be
writers"? SKaTcespeare, who knows nothing of orderly arrange-
ment, is no writer, and Letourneur gives us nothing but an
" abominable jargon." Hence the transcendent superiority of
the great French poets. " In Shakespeare, genius and sublimity
gleam forth like flashes of lightning during a long night, but
Racine is always Racine." "Whence comes this thought ? From
Voltaire ? No ; from Diderot.^ Genius begins where art
begins, and cannot get on without it. Such was the opinion
of all who had been brought up on tradition, and in whose eyes
the reverence for foreign models was responsible for *' that anti-
national taste, the ravages of which were only too obvious " ; ^
and some even of those who spoke of reforming everything
could not succeed in shaking oiFthe prejudices they had imbibed

^ Rousseau Juge de Jean- Jacques, second dialogue. ^ Article entitled Genie.

3 DiscQurs sur les progres des lettres en France, by Rigoley de Juvigny (Paris, 1773,
8vo, p. 190).

THE CLASSICAL REACTION 339

in the course of their education. Sufficiently clear-sighted to
perceive that classical art^is not the whole of art, they found it
difficult to believe that in breaking:.away From it they were not
lapsing into barbarism. This explains how Condorcet could
write to Voltaire, in reference to Necker, that he had no hopes
of a man who " took Shakespeare's tragedies for masterpieces,"^
and how it was that Marie-Joseph Chenier, one of the best
critics of his time, asserted that the degree to which Shakespeare
** carried passion and indecency was enough to put humanity to
the blush." 2 We are amazed to find opinions like these enter-
tained by anyone besides Voltaire. We can understand them,
however, if we reflect that revolutions in taste are, with most
men, changes in their manner of feeling rather than intheir
manner of judging. For many men in the eighteenth century
the intellectual revolution had already taken place, while the
revolution in feeling was yet to come.

Some, like Voltaire, remained absolutely faithful to the objects
of their youthful admiration, refusing to associate with them
other and fresh objects which could not be brought under their
conception of beauty. Classical beauty, the object of their
devotion, was compounded of art and ot humanity. Tsfow it
is quite true that the cosmopolitans took credit to themselves
for extending the boundaries of the intellect, and for widening
the province of art. In reality, however, they restricted them
by substituting for the antique ideal, which up to that time had
been generally accepted by all nations, the imitation of what is
most exclusively national, that is to say least communicable,
in each one. " Though I am no great admirer of the human
mind," wrote Vauvenargues in reference to Shakespeare, " I
nevertheless cannot dishonour it so far as to place a genius so
defective and so defiant of common sense in the first rank." ^ If
each people and each race have their special modes of sensibility
to which other nations are strangers, it can no more be possible
to transfer incommunicable beauties from one country to another

1 Sainte-Beuve, Causeries, vol. iii., p. 342.

2 Fragments appended to his Tableau de la litterature.

3 CEuvres, ed. Gilbert, p. 486.

>.^i

340 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

without defying common sense than to make palm-trees grow in
Norway or to rear reindeer under the equator. This was
forcibly expressed by Rivarol in his famous treatise^ on the
universality of the French language, where, after granting that
English works **will be the eternal glory of the human mind,"
he added that those works had nevertheless " not become the
common possession of all the world." They have never left
the hands of certain people ; " precaution and tentative effort are
needful if one is not to be repelled by the husk of the fruit
and its foreign flavour." In short, the EngHshman makes a
book " out of one or two sensations " ; he is dull, taciturn,
gloomy and solitary ; he writes for himself alone, and it follows
therefrom that English literature '* suffers from the isolation of
the people and of the writer." The Frenchman, on the other
hand, " looks for the humorous side of things " ; he is all
elegance, wit, and subtlety, and has conquered the universe
by means of a sociable disposition. Are the French wantonly to
sacrifice a position of influence so laboriously attained in order
to take lessons of a nation whose originality has gone so far as
to obscure its own conception of humanity ?

The classical revolution witnessed by the close of the century
was thus^ founded on two ideas and supported by two principles :
respect forart and the tradition of humanism. And at bottom
These two ideas are reducible to one, — the imperious necessity
that the writer should win the ear of all men and not that of
is countrymen only — should be read in all ages, and not by
his contemporaries alone. So that for the first time in the
history of French criticism the defenders of the national genius
found, orvsupposed, themselves engaged in the defence of the
genius common to humanity. For the question as to the pre-
eminence of the ancients or the moderns had been discussed
even in the seventeenth century. But the dispute had never
gone beyond the frontiers in any country. For Italy of the
Renaissance, the only rival to Greek or Latin antiquity was
Italy, for France of the following century it was France ; and
the most resolute upholders of the idea of progress persistently

1 1784.

THE CLASSICAL REACTION 341

refused to take up any other position. Neither Perrault nor
LaJMotte contrasted_the sterility of the Trench intellect with
the literary fertility of England or even of Italy. The con-
troversy was between Vergil and Racan, Horace and Boileau,
Euripides and Racine. It was a courteous debate in which the
adversaries were agreed as to first principles, and only disputed
as to the degree of success with which this or that writer had
applied them. But even the most zealous of the ** ancients"
no more revolted against an alleged aberration of the national
genius than the most resolute of the "moderns" appealed to
exotic influence. Now, on the contrary, it was a question,
in the mind of Voltaire, of rescuing not only the national
tradition, but also the still more sacred tradition of humanity,
Irom the sacrilegious liands of barbarians. " Imagine, gentle-
rtien^'TTe said to the Academy, "Louis XIV. in his gallery at
Versailles, surrounded by his brilliant court : a Gilles in battered
garments forces his way through the crowd of heroes, great
men and beauties of whom it consists, and suggests that they
shall forsake Corneille, Racine, and Moliere for a mountebank
who makes a few happy saUies and pulls wry faces. How do
you suppose such a proposal would be received ? " ^

The wry-faced mountebank was Shakespeare, but it might
as well have been Richardson, Young, Sterne, Ossian, and
everyone who owned no authority but " his own temperament,"
and pretended to substitute individual caprice for that worship
of beauty which had been established in France by communion
with antiquity, and had made the Latin genius the very type
of human genius in general. For Voltaire, therefore, cosmo- ^^^^
politanism is individualism, which is as much as to say it is /
bart)arism. " He is what nature has made him," wrote Jean-
Jacques of himself.2 Now nature, unassisted by the art which
restrains and the reason which guides it, can do nothing.
Abandoned to itself it is mere disorder and caprice; it can
only make occasional "happy sallies"; it produces nothing
but monstrosities, such as Handet or Tristram Shandy,

1 First letter to the Academy on Shakespeare.

2 Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques (second dialogue).

342 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

r But when he assumes the post of defender of the national
>y [genius Voltaire does not see as clearly as we do that cosmo-

^ 1 politanism may after all be nothing but a new form of humanism.

I For him it is no bond between nations, but rather merely
. /an element of discord and of mischief. He seems to have no
\ suspicion that when Rousseau, whom he detests, a.^2?^^s to
I what is most individual in man, he may be simply giving ex-
/ pressioiTTb senriments common to_The whole of a new genera-
I tion that is more disposed to find its own feelings reflected in
I hTih and in foreign writers than in the classical poets of France.
V Voltaire does not argue, he has recourse to abuse: "The
abomination of desolation is in the temple of the Lord " ; the
French are the prey of " savages " and " monsters," and,
when Letourneur translates Shakespeare, are going to be
"devoured by Hottentots."^ Observe that by making Shake-
speare the object of his attack he obtains an advantage : of
all the writers introduced to the French public during the
eighteenth century Shakespeare was the least understood because
he was the most English and the most ^ngrn^^ Accordingly
he makes fclhakespeare the point of his attack upon all the
anglomaniacs. He is anxious for a combat in the lists, a
tournament. " Either Shakespeare or Racine must be left
dead upon the ground ! " We must cry, " Long live Saint-
Denis Voltaire and death to George Shakespeare ! " ^ A strange
method, truly, of stating the problem !

Unfortunately for Voltaire he proves but a poor advocate
of a cause which deserved to be well defended. He fights
" like an old hussar against an army of freebooters," blindly,
and with any weapon that comes to hand. Was it not he who,
before the assembled Academy, appealed, on behalf of Racine,
" to our princesses, to the daughters of so many heroes who
know how heroes should speak " ; ^ and, imploring the due
de Richelieu's protection against Shakespeare, summoned up
the spirit of the great cardinal "who did not like the English?"*
Methods like these savour of burlesque. Public opinion daily

1 Letter of 24th July 1776. 2 D'Alembert to Voltaire, 20th April 1776.

3 First letter. 4 nth September 1776.

THE CLASSICAL REACTION 343

became more clearly conscious of the weakness of such criticism ;
it felt the inanity, the pompousness, and the utter want of exact
information and accurate knowledge such criticism betrayed ;
it-4kad-air!iTrpression that in attackmg ShUcespeare Voltaire was
attacking a rival of his own fame as a tragedian ; ^ and even
those who were the most disturbed at the prevalence of anglo-
mania regretted that it should be met with such weapons as
those he employed.

The classical reaction, whether it fell foul of Shakespeare or
of Ossian or of Rousseau, was thus more violent than really
effective. Voltaire speaks of English authors without having
studied them closely. La Harpe, his most eminent disciple, who
supposed himself destined to administer a rebuff to the '* stage-
playing barbarian," criticizes Othello without knowing a word of
English,^ but, as Grimm says, '* wit makes up for everything."
It was La Harpe, again, who declared that certain "madmen"
wanted *' to bring Bedlam and Tyburn upon the French stage,
and to erect the huts of savages round the colonnade of the
Louvre."^ "Whatever Shakespeare has copied out of Plutarch,"
wrote Marie- Joseph Chenier, " is well enough, but I cannot
admire what he has added himself."* How indeed was it
possible to argue with prejudice so inveterate, or with ignorance
so gross, as this ? The influence of Voltaire, who was now old
and embittered, was in this case disastrous. Like every other
champion of the same cause he needed a little more information
upon the subject of which he treated. Vir est, said Johnson,
acerrimi ingenii et paucarum litterarum. As foreign literatures
became more widely known, and as Rousseau inspired the
French mind with a more perfect sense of the diversity of epochs

1 At the meeting of the Academy of 25th August 1776, when d'Alembert had
finished reading the famous letter against Shakespeare, he went up to Mrs.
Montague and asked her whether she was annoyed by its contents. " Not in
the least," she replied, " I am not one of M. de Voltaire's friends." " The union
between England and France is an accomplished fact," wrote Grimm (^Corre-
spondance litteraire, July 1776). . . . '< Such is our memory of old hatreds."

2 Mme. de Genlis, Memoires, vol. iii., p. 193.
'^ De Shakespeare (jCEuvres nouvelles, 1788, vol. i).

4 Letter to Andre Ch^nier, 17th February 1788.

344 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

and of races, the inadequacy of classical criticism became more
irritating and almost more scandalous.

Nevertheless, during the years which preceded the Revolution,
the ground was admirably prepared for a renaissance of the
classical: literature of France. Antiquity was restored to unex-
-p^ted favour. The discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii
gave fresh life to the science of archaeology. Historical as well
as aesthetic criticism of carved monuments was founded by
Winckelmann, in his Histoire de Part chez les anciens?- Brunck
published his Analecta in 1776, and Villoison his notes on
Homer in 1788. Journeys in the East and in Greece were
made by such travellers as Wood, Choiseul-Gouffier and Guys.^
The abbe Barthelemy produced a condensed yet spirited state-
ment of the results of classical scholarship in his delightful
Voyage d^Anacharsis, published in 1788. In 1780 David initiated
the school of painting to which we owe the Serment des Horaces
and the Enlevement des Sabines. A few enthusiasts talked of
** denationalizing themselves and of becoming Greeks and
Romans in soul."^

But the whole movement, which was of real importance,
remained without influence upon the criticism of works of
literature. Its effect was neither to extend the controversy nor
to define the point at issue. Its consequences were mainly
political, nor did it result in any renovation of the French genius,
as this was understood by Voltaire. " Our public education,"
said Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, going back to his school-days,
** alters the national character . . . : men are made Christians by
means of the catechism, pagans by the poetry of Vergil, Greeks
and Romans by the study of Demosthenes and Cicero, but
Frenchmen never."* In truth the very study of antiquity, as
Winckelmann or Barthelemy understood it, was as yet nothing

1 Twice translated into French before 1789 ; first of all at Amsterdam in 1766,
and afterwards at Leipzig in 1781.

2 Guys, Voyage litteraire de la Grece (1776). Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage pittoresque
en Grece (1782).

3 The phrase is quoted by Chamfort. On the movement as a whole see the
interesting study by M. G. Renard, quoted above.

* (Euvres posthumes , p. 447.

THE CLASSICAL REACTION 345

more than a means of getting away from one's own country and
one's own environment. Left to its own strength and to the
impetus it had acquired, the classical influence produced Delille's
GeorgiqueSy or the Eloge de Marc Aurele of Thomas ; no very
brilliant result. Refreshed by archaeology and by the breath
of individual inspiration, it was the source of Chenier's most
beautiful lines.

Chenier alone, during the last twenty years of the century, is
a true disciple of the ancients : " A devout worshipper of the
great ones of old, I would bury myself in the sacred relics they
have left." He alone triumphantly contrasts the faultless beauty
with the disturbing charm of Ossian or of Shakespeare : ** Seek
the tempting banquets provided by this bright train of Greeks ;
but avoid the sodden intoxication of the treacherous and stormy
waters of Parnassus with which the harsh singers of the misty
North assuage their thirst." ^ He alone, having read and, during
his residence in London,^ translated portions of Milton, Thomson,
and Shakespeare,^ and having spoken of Richardson in the
manner we have mentioned, boldly proclaims the superiority
of ancient art: "Too proud to be slaves, English poets have
even cast off the fetters of common sense."

But antiquity, as Chenier conceived it, was no longer the an-
tiquity which France of the seventeenth century had loved and
understood, and one feels some concern as to what Voltaire
would have said of it. On the other hand Chenier was entirely
without influence during the eighteenth century, since no one

Ed. Becq de Fouquieres, Poesies diverses, xi.

2 Chenier seems to have been depressed by his residence in London as though
it were an exile. He found England, as Alfieri told him, " more bitter than
absinthe " (Becq de Fonquieres, Doc. nowv., p. 21). Writing from London in 1787,
he said : " Bereft of parents, friends and countrymen, forgotten on the face of the
earth and far from all my relatives, cast up by the waves upon this inhospitable
island, I find the sweet name of France frequently on my lips. Alone, by the
ashes of my fire, I lament my fate, I count the moments, I long for death." On the
other hand his brother writes to him (7th February 1788): <' You are enjoying
yourself in London ; I thought you would. . . ."

3 In addition to the imitations of Thomson quoted above, Chenier translated
a fragment from Shakespeare. His admiration for the piece provoked his
brother's condemnation.

346 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

read his poetry. It neither stimulated criticism nor furnished it
with a text.

More effectually than was possible through the agency of any
books, the controversy was cut short by the Revolution.

^11

The primaryieffect QLthe__Revolution was toresjore the wor-
shi£~oFantiquity to a degree not-£ar_5hort of superstition.

The innovators had at first looked to it for the regeneration of
art. In a curious letter to the authors of the Journal encyclopedique^
Daunou anticipated Mme. de Stael in giving expression to the
^ idea that " the monotony of a despotic form of government "
/ confines poetic genius to a narrow circle of ideas, adding that
( "the Revolution now about to regenerate the French empire may
\ infuse genius with new vigour, render talent more fruitful,
/ ennoble the subjects of art, extend its methods, multiply its
Vforms and revive not poetry only but also eloquence and history."
This hope was disappointed, at all events at the outset ; far from
renewing poetic art, the Revolution led it back to classical or
pseudo-classical sources, to an art the very antithesisof that of
Rousseau, whose political theories it rated so highly while it
failedTto recognize his^hterary genius.
— The^ devolution marked at first a step backwards in the pro-
gress of cosmopolitanism,^ecause it occasioned a rupture, lasting
from 1789 to 1 8 14, with the rest of Europe, and with the
Germanic section of it in particular. Within the course of a few
months France found herself as isolated — to employ the metaphor
used by a historian — as an island" in mid-ocean. How was it
possible, during these troublous years, to maintain literary rela-
tions with England or with Germany ? Great Britain was
spoken of as a "guilty island, haughty Carthage." 2 In 1792,
when the Institute had received a scientific memorandum from a

^ 15th March 1790. On the classical reaction in France see M. L. Bertrand's
book : La Jin du classicisme et le retour a V antique (Paris, 1897, l6mo).
2 In an opera entitled La Reprise de Toulon.

EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 347

German, Roland, who was minister of the home department at
the time, added the following brief, but expressive, marginal
note : "We cannot look to Germany for any light on such sub-
jects as this." ^ Under the Empire matters were still worse.
We know what Mme. de Stael's praises of Germany brought
upon her, and Napoleon made no secret of his contempt for
'* German -nonsense, the admirers 6T'wHicrh~are" 1:00:8 taiuly-^rs=~
paraging French literature, French newspapers and the French
drama, for the sake of magnifying the absurd and dangerous
productions of Germany and the North at the expense of our
own." 2

Sundered, therefore, by political circumstances, the threads]
which had been stretched from the continent to the North |
and vice versa remained broken for twenty years and more.'
Several prominent revolutionists remained, it is true, faithful to
the objects of their youthful admiration : Robespierre read
Gessner and Young ; Camille Desmoulins Hervey and the
author of Night Thoughts-^ Mme. Roland Thomson, and CoUot
d'Herbois Shakespeare, whose Merry Wives of Windsor he had
formerly imitated.^ There were translations and adaptations of
various German writers: Lessing, Goethe, Wieland, Klopstock*
and the writer whom the Moniteur called ** Monsieur Scheller,"
" a strong advocate of the republic against the monarchy, a true
Girondist," of whose plays several met with considerable success
upon the French stage.^ We may go so far as to say that a

1 J. Simon, Une academie sous le Directoire, p. 21 3.

2 Esmenard's report, in Welschinger : La Censure sous le premier Empire, p. 249.
^ L^amant loup-garou ou JVI. Rodomont (1777).

* Lessing's Dramaturgie was translated in 1795, Laocoon in 1802 ; Nathan der Weise
provided M.-J. Chenier with the inspiration for a drama. Werther was imitated
several times {StelUno cu le nouveau IVerther, 1 79 1, etc.). Stella, translated by Du
Buisson, was played at Louvois in 1791 ; Wilhelm Meister was translated by
Sevelinges in 1802, under the title oi Alfred.

5 i2th February 1792. The Robbers was adapted by La Marteliere [Schwind-
enhammer, the Alsatian] in 1793 and by Creuze in 1795 ; in 1799 A. de Lezay
translated Don Carlos, and in the same year La Marteliere published his Theatre de
Schiller (Paris, year viii.); in 1802 Mercier brought out his Jeanne d'Arc, an
imitation of Schiller. See Dr Richter's work, Schiller und seine Riiuber in der
franzosischen Revolution, Griinberg, 1865, 8vo, and Th. Siipfle's book already
quoted.

348 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

certain limited public took a lively interest in German literature,
and William de Humboldt wrote from Paris in 1800 that
" people here have German names on their lips more than
ever." ^

But it must be added that the public in general remained
indifferent to these foreign productions, and that those even who
claimed to be connoisseurs spoke of writers from beyond the
Rhine upon hearsay only. ** Frenchmen think they are very
well informed concerning our literature," writes the same
witness ; *' they suppose themselves thoroughly familiar with it
and very fond of it. . . . But you only need to hear them talk a
little to know what to think of their knowledge of it and their
fondness for it. . . . The French are still too different from us
to be capable of understanding us in respect to those points upon
which we too are beginning to be a little original." The influence
of the intellect of Germany upon that of France acquired sub-
stance with the publication of De rAllemagne in 1812. With
regard to English literature, the novelists, Richardson, Sterne,
Miss Burney and even Anne Radcliffe still found an audience,
and even playwrights who adapted their works for the stage,^
nor were the reputations of Young and Ossian on the wane.^
Shakespeare himself supplied the French stage with the subject
of a drama almost every year.* Are we to conclude therefrom
that these writers were more highly appreciated and better under-
stood ? A glance at Fran9ois de Neufchateau's Pamela, or at the
Jean sans Terre of Ducis, will suffice to convince us that the
contrary was the case.

Ill .short, the iiterature-of-the -R:eveltttiefty4ike4t8-€riticisnr7^was
^pseudo-classical, thatjs to^ay^ijiferlor. The men of the period,
who had antTquity always upon their lips, knew in truth but little

1 Lady Blennerhasset, Mme. de Stael, vol. ii., p. 560.

2 Pamela, by F. de Neufchateau (1793). Clarisse Harloive, by Nepomucene
Lemercier (1792).

^ Young's Nuits, translated into French verse by Letourneur, Paris, 1792,
4 vols. i2mo.

* Jean sans terre, by Ducis (1791); Othello, by the same (1792); Epichar'u et
Neron, by Legouve (after Richard III.) (1793); Timon di'Athenes, by Sebastien
Mercier (1794) ; Jmogenes, by Dejaure (after Cymbeline) (1796), etc.

EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 349

about it. How could they find the leisure and the means to
acquire a knowledge of the ancienT Tanguages ? Was it not
Lakanal who complained before the Convention that lads spent all
their time " in jabbering Greek and Latin " ? Was it not the re-
volutionary government that gave science and modern languages
the preference over the classics in its syllabus of instruction, 1 and
proposed to substitute schools of arts and handicrafts for the
Sorbonne and the colleges ? The educational work of the Con-
vention was, it is true, of much importance, but who would
venture to maintain that it did anything to promote the know-
ledge of ancient literature ? Whatever admiration the democrats
of the period may have felt for Socrates, Scaevola, Brutus or Cato
of Utica, there are reasons for doubting whether they had read
much of Plutarch or Tacitus. ** My friends," said Camille
Desmoulins, " since you read Cicero, I will answer for you ;
you will be free " ; but how many of the Revolutionists were
readers of Cicero .'*

Nevertheless, considered from a merely superficial point of
view, the literature of the^revolutionary epoch does draw_it5
inspiration from the antique. Just as the art of David, Letronne
and" LemercieT"deTives its subjects from antiquity, so the poetry
of Delille and Lebrun-Pindare is cast in traditional moulds. "It
did not require much effort," says Charles Nodier, " to pass from
our schoolroom studies to the pleadings in the forum and the
Servile Wars. We were already convinced admirers of the
institutions of Lycurgus and of those who played the tyranni-
cide at the Panathenaic festival."^ The ContraLSmal not only,
begot constitutions-^-^ it inspired tr^^.edies.^lKLodes.

But greatly as the influence of Rousseau's political theories
increased, it might almost be said that to the same extent the
influence of his genius as novelist and poetwaned. Of his subtle
and tender comprehension of the lieart, of his deep and sincere
feeling for nature, of his " enchanting sadness," of all the quali-
ties, in fine, which make him a poet of the highest order, little
enough is to be found in the second-rate works the indiscriminate

1 See Condorcet's report to the Legislative Assembly.

2 Jeanroy-Felix, La litterature/rartfaise sous la Revolution, p. 349.

350 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

aggregate of which constitutes the literature of the revolutionary

period — practically nothing, indeed, save an insipid and faithless

copy, not unlike the grimace of a mimic. Mme. de Stael, at the

close of the century, complained that the public had forgotten

** the writer who more than any one else had infused language

with warmth, vigour and life," and ought to be '' the friend,

the beguiler, the leader of all ! " ^ He was no longer read, and,

though some affected to quote him, was no longer under-

r stood. Ten or twelve unfruitful years were to pass, and

j Chateaubriand would simply need to resume the poetic tradi-

A tions of Rousseau, and to find anew, in the author of the

\Contrat_^Social, the poet whom the public had forgotten to

seek in him.

And just as the purely literary influence of Rousseau decreased
almost, in fact, to the vanishing point, so a comprehension of the
foreign works whickJRxJusseau.Jiad rendered popular became
more and more rare. The superstitious veneration for a little
understood antiquity shut off every approach to that English
literature which, but a few years earlier, had raised so many
hopes. Mythology rose again from its own ashes, and ancient
Olympus dethroned the gods of the North. " Long life
to Homer and to his Elysium, to his Olympus and his
heroes, and to his muse, on whom the god of Claros smiles !
Apollo keep us all, my friends, from Fingals and from
Oscars, and from the lofty sorrows of a bard who sings
amid an atmosphere of fog ! " 2 fhe majority of the public
agreed with Lebrun-Pindare, and allowed themselves to fall
once more beneath the bondage of a tradition which the
genius of Jean-Jacques had nevertheless impaired. Very
few were those who said with the still youthful Beranger :
"Neither the Latins nor even the Greeks should be taken
as models. They are torches, which one must learn how to

1 De la litterature, 2nd preface.

2 The poem continues, " His rivers have lost their urns ; his lakes are the prison
of the dead, and their silent naiads stand like spectres on their gloomy shores. In
his heaven, as in his verses, Hebe and her ambrosia are alike unknown ; his vague
and dismal poetry is daughter to the rocks and to the seas." (Lebrun : Ode sur
Homere et Ossian, in book vii. of the Odes.')

EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 351

use.*' ^ Under the Revolution antiquity was rather mimickedj|
than imitated sympathetically, and this is why such imitation/I
remained unfruitful. t

When order was restored, and criticism attempted to explain
the course which literature had followed, it was quite natural
that men like GeoiFroy, Dussault, and Fievee should join the
broken links in the chain of tradition. In 1 800 or thereabouts
there was, as Sainte-Beuve says, a sort of " solemn restoration "
of classical criticism ; in the Dehats, under Dussault and GeofFroy ;
in the Mercure, under Fontanes, Bonald, Gueneau de Mussy ; and
at the Lycee, in La Harpe's lectures on literature. It was just
at this time that proposals were made to re-establish the old
French Academy, that Delille, the ** French Vergil," was recalled
from London, and that the classical spirit awoke once more to a
measure of its old vigour and brilliancy. The time had come for
putting some check upon such as would again attempt to lay
hands upon the sacred ark: ** It is almost certain," wrote Fon-
tanes, " that those',who are incapable of passionate admiration for
masterpieces which have been the wonder of every age ; who
would abate the enthusiasm they inspire, and would compare
with them to their disadvantage some of the barbarous productions
which are generally condemned by men of taste, have not received from
nature that sensibility of the organs, and that accuracy of judg-
ment, without which it is impossible to speak well concerning the ,
fine arts." 2 It seemed that in the face of Europe in arms France!
felt, as it were, the need of meditation, and of returning yet once*'
more to the great masters who had obtained for her a time-
honoured supremacy in the intellectual sphere.

Thus, to lookno further than the borders of France, the'
Revolution marks a temporary cess^tion_o£ the development of
cosmopolitanism in Fra'nce7 But neither Bonaparte nor any of
his coadjutors had theTeast suspicion that to those who, instead
of studying its consequences at home, followed its results beyond
the French frontier, the Revolution was shortly to appear in an
entirely different light.

The effect of thejeinigrat]on_Jn^^

1 Ma biographie. ^ (Euvres, vol. ii. p. 183.

352 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

thousands of the most enlightened members of the community
was in reality very similar to that produced by the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes. In spite of political hostilities, it had pro-
moted the formation of new bonds between France and Europe.
For many minds it had been a painful but often fruitful introduc-
tion to a knowledge of the interests of other nations.

In the solitude of exile, during the long years of expatriation,
the emigres, such as Chateaubriaiid, Narbonne, Gerando and even
Fontanes, could not but learn and retain something of the man-
ners, the art and the^terajure of neighbouring countries. A
history of the literature of the emigres has been written by a
foreign critic.^ There is room also for a history of the influence
which the emigration exerted upon French literature, for, diffused
and fragmentary as this influence was, it was also extremely fruit-
ful. Many indeed were those of whom it might be said, as it
was said of Mme. de Stael by Lamartine, that " they made
English and German thought their refuge," ^ and yielded to the
attractions "of the only nations whose life was at that time
sustained by moral ideas, by poetry and by philosophy." ''

They sought shelter chiefly in Germany, England and the
Low Countries. They certainly had no hterary prepossessions
when they arrived, and they abused their exile as Fontanes
abused Hamburg, when he requested to be transported to
Corfu, rather than remain in Germany. But necessity compelled
them to learn the language of the country, and to observe the
manners of its inhabitants, so that a very natural curiosity,
begotten of enforced leisure, soon brougEt them into contact
with foreigners who were able to open new horizons before
them. Narbonne, de Gerando and Camille Jordan settled
at Tubingen, and issued translations or studies, the first
of them of Schiller's Wallenstein, the second of the German
philosophers, and the third of Klopstock. Mounier became the
manager of a boarding-school at Weimar and formed an intimacy

^ M. G. Brandes, Die Emigranten-L'tteratur. See Joseph Texte, Les origines de
V influence allemande dans la litterature fran^aise du xix^ siecle (Revue d'histoire litteraire de
la France^ January 1898).

* Des Destinees de la poesie.

EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION 353

with Wieland, while at Hamburg Rivarol, Senac de Meilhan,
Chenedolle, Esmenard and Delille witnessed the performance of
German and English plays in the theatres of the town where
Lessing had written his Dramaturgie. Intimate relations^were
formed between the /w/§^r/j^ and -severaL of the great German
writers : de_ Serre, the marquis de la Tresne and Chenedolle
conceived a warm admiration for Klopstock, sought his acquaint-
ance, and learnt through him to appreciate the poetry of the
North. Of northern literature, at that time little known in
France, and still counting its most famous representatives among
the living, they formed a lofty opinion. *' It is when I read men /
like Goethe, Schiller, Klopstock and Byron," wrote Chenedolle,//
*' that I feel how small and insignificant I am. I declare with allil
the sincerity of which I am capable, and with the deepest con-
viction, that I have not a tenth .part of the thinking power, talent
and poetic genius of Goethe." ^ Many others too there were, wha
confessed that light as was the esteem in which she was held^

German}L_was the_stDreliou&e of unknown and precious treasures,

In Enjgland were to _be_jbund not__qnly^ Montlosier,_T^y-
Tollendal and Cazales, but akoJRiv_arpl,_deJaucour^, Delille,.
Fontanes and Chateaubriand.^ Some of them, it is true, like
Saint-Evremond at an earlier date, persisted in maintaining their
French habit^of life, and in holding aloof from the English.
"I don't like a country," said the incorrigible Rivarol, ** where
there are more apothecaries than bakers, and where sour apples
are the only ripe fruit to be got." ^ But others resigned them-
selves to their exile and even profited by it. Chateaubriand, who
spent eight years away from France, delighted to remind himself
of all that he owed to his prolonged intercourse with foreigners * :
in his long convefsatioffs~'with Fontanes, on the banks of the
Thames at Chelsea, they used to talk of Milton — whom he
translated — of Shakespeare and of Ossian. He prides himself
upon having, in the course of his exile, learnt '*as much of

^ In Sainte-Beuve, Chateaubriand et son groupe : the article on Chenedolle. On
the emigres in Germany see Lady Blennerhasset, Mme. de Stael et son temps, and
Rivarol et la societefran(^aise, by de Lescure.

2 See de Lescure, ibid., book iii., and Memoires d^Outre-Tombe, ed. Bir^, vol. ii.

^ De Lescure, p. 414. ^ Essai sur la litterature anglaise : preface.

354 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

English as any man can learn of a foreign language," and it was
during these fruitful years that he translated the ^ssianic _poems^
which he acknowledges had inspired him with a strange liking,
and were more than once in his mind when he wrote Rene and
the Martyrs. Then, too, it was that he collected the materials
for his Essai sur la litterature anglaise. Then it was, above all,
that he tictqijii=€d~that--var4e4-«n:d~'syTnpathetic comprehension of
the genius of each of the different peoples of Europe, which
ranks him, with Mme. de Stael, as the greatest critic of the early
years of this century.

Examples might be multiplied to show that the result of the
Revolution, as of all great historical movements, such as the
crusades or the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was_the
mixture of races and the crossing of intellectual .strains. But
for the Revolution there could never have been a career like
that of Chamisso, who, the offspring of natives of Champagne,
became, in consequence of the emigration, page to the Queen of
Prussia, then, after his return to France, a master in a French
lycecy next, during a second residence in Prussia, the occupant of
a post at the botanical gardens in Berlin, and finally, after his
death, one of those classics of German literature whom the
French schoolboy has to construe at college. Nor, but for the
Revolution, which led to his banishment, would Charles de
Villers, a French officer, have settled at Gottingen and Lubeck,
become acquainted with Goethe, Jacobi, Klopstock and Schell-
ing, or have made German his second mother-tongue and Ger-
many his intellectual fatherland.^ Sufficient notice has perhapsv
scarcely been taken of the fact that the Revolution marks the
appearance of such cosmopolitans in literature as Benjamin
Constant, Bonstetten, Sismondi and Mme. de Stael, all of them
imbued no less with the Germanic than with the Latin spirit, \
and all, through the agency of Rousseau, heirs to the literary
criticism of those who were refugees in the early part of the
eighteenth century.

^ See the curious essay by Charles de Villers : Idees sur la destination des hommes de
lettres sortis de France et qui sejournent en Allemagne. (In le Spectateur du Nord, 1 798,
vol. vii.)

MADAME DE STAEL 355

If any doubt were felt as to whether this was really one of
the results of the revolutionary period, one would but need to
turn the leaves of one of the Reviews which were established
under the Directory with the co-operation either of the refugees
or of foreigners, such as the Biblioth'eque britannique, the Journal de
litter ature etr anger e, the Decade philosophique y the JUagasin encyclo-
pedique, or better still the Spectateur du Nord or the Archives
litteraires de PEurope. Of the two last-mentioned journals the
former, which was started at Hamburg by an emigre de
Baudus, and counted as its contributors Chenedolle, the abbe
Louis, Delille, Rivarol, and Charles de Villers, was designed to
propagate German literature and philosophy ^ in France, and was
for that reason suppressed in 1 798 ; the other, with a staff con-
sisting of Schweighauser, de Villers, Morellet, Vanderbourg,
and Quatremere de Quincy, published in its first issue an article
by de Gerando on "literary and philosophical intercourse be-
tween the nations of Europe," ^ in which the author endeavoured
to prove that, rightly interpreted, patriotism authorizes and even
justifies literary intercourse between one people and another, and
that those who manage to borrow in season thereby prove them-
selves rich.

It is therefore permissible to say of the French spirit that.
it migrated during the revolutionary period; that unconsciously,
and, above ^1, unmtjfltjOftally, it bt^CUliie broader and less im«
pexziSus" to externaTinfluences through contacT^llli the nj:gfof
Europe, and that through t"his mtercourse between races and
individuals it acquired a thirst for new forms of knowledge.

Ill

There is a book, not so much the first of the nineteenth as the
last of the eighteenth century, which not only summarizes these

1 The Spectateur du Nord, a journal of politics, literature, and morals, Hamburg,
January lygy-December 1802, 2 vols. 8vo. (See Supfle, vol. ii., p. 93, and
Hatin, Histoire de la presse, vol. vii., p. 576.)

2 Archives litteraires de V Europe, a literary, historical and philosophical miscel-
lany, by an association of literary men. Tubingen and Paris, 1 794-1 808, 51
numbers, 8vo.

356 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

acquisitions, but at the same thneniarks_arevival, in criticism, of the
inRneprp pf "Roiisspfiii and of the norrh£rnJ,i^r^^u££s. Published
in l^ipOj~the booJk^ntid£ilJ3^-J^X«V//r/3/z/r^ consideree dans ses rapports
avec les institutions sociales closes one epoch in the history of criticism
and opens another. It is the first properly thought out, though as
yet imperfect, expression of cosmopolitanism in all the dignity of
a theory. It is an unquestionable indication that the movement
which has been the object of this study had come to a head.

No one was more plainly indicated than Mnie. de Stael for the
delicate task of determining the two great classes of mind which,
according to her, were henceforth to divide European literature
between them. The most faithful of all Rousseau's disciples, she
may without hesitation be said to have completed and crowned
the work of which he laid the foundation. In truth Mme. de
\ jStael's criticism is nothing more than a statement of Rousseau's
heories with regard to poetry and beauty, selected from his
works by the most brilliant of commentators.

She, like him, was of Genevan origin, a Protestant, born on the
confines of two races and where two distinct types of genius met.
With her, as with him, this was a source of pride, and at times
also of sadness. " Heavens ! " she wrote one day to a foreign
friend, Frederika Briin, "if only there were but a few sparks from
your hearth in this country of mine, this land of my mother
tongue, what would I not make of myself ! I know I have
faculties which are capable of more than I have accomplished ;
but to he horn French luith a foreign character, with French tastes
and habits, and the thoughts and feelings of the North, is a
contrast which ruins one's life." ^ Everyone who came near her
was struck with this contrast : ** To me," wrote Humboldt to
Goethe, ** as to you, it has always seemed that the French
atmosphere into which she was thrown during her education was
too narrow for her. ... It is a strange phenomenon, the fact
that we sometimes find in a nation intelligences animated by a
foreign spirit." ^ To this fruitful antithesis Rousseau owed at
once his greatness and his misfortune. Like him Mme. de Stael

1 15th July 1806 (Lady Blennerhasset, vol. iii., p. 223).

2 ig^-h October 1800 {jUd., vol. iii,, p. 11).

MADAME DE STAEL 357

may be described, in a happily expressed formula, as '* a European^
mind in a French soul." ^

— Th'^extenrto' which she was indebted to Rousseau, and the
manner in which she had dedicated to him one of her earliest and
most interesting works, are sufficiently well known. It was not
with her, as with many of her compatriots, admiration only, or a
mere passing infatuation, that attached her to Jean- Jacques. It
was that in him-_slie found again her own innermost aspirations,
•Whether religious. politicd^oFTiterafy^ ui lalheflFKat in him she
came to a consciousness ofherself.^ ftr his school she had been
trained j she had grown up in the habit of respect for his name ;
and to his influence she remained faithful throughout her life,
even in error.

jy'^er5;^^af4y-too-&he had fek herself drawirtowards-the-eeuntries
of the North. In Mn^e. Necker's salon she had been brought into
"close and frequent contact with the most d^termjned_aji^oniaiiiacs^
of the age, such as Grimm, Raynal, Diderot and Suard. Her
father, like a true Genevan, had directed her early attention to
the English constitution as a pattern for all nations. Her mother
had been careful to make her learn English, and she took to
Milton, Thomson, Ossian and Young as naturally as though they j
had been old favourites, as well as to Richardson, her reading of j
whom had marked an epoch in her early life, and whose manner l
she had endeavoured to imitate in one of her first attempts.^

Like everyone else during the eighteenth century, she felt,
even in 1800, but little curiosity with regard to Germany, and
the fact is worthy of remark. She had not yet met Charles de
Villers, who introduced her to German literature, nor Wilhelm
Schlegel, her principal teacher next to Rousseau. It is difficult
to-day to imagine Mme. de Stael unacquainted with and indifferent
to German concerns. She was so, nevertheless, when she wrote
her book De la Litterature. The whole of the chapter it devotes
to Germany is irresolute and vague. She praises, though not very
accurately, Wieland, Schiller, Gessner, and " the one book above
all others which the Germans possess," namely Werther. In
reality she merely retailed the opinions of Chenedolle, who was

1 E. Faguet, PoUtiques et moraltstes. 2 Pauline, a novel.

358 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

on his way back from Hamburg, and happening to be thrown into
her society just at the time when she was writing her book —
during the winter of 1 798 — endeavoured to inspire her with a
little of his own enthusiasm. But she did not know German, and
replied to Goethe, who had senther his H^ tlhamsmetstJr (sic), that
she was no judge of the value of his gift : " As it was in German,"
she writes to Meister, '* I could do no more than admire the bind-
ing."^ In 1797, the same Meister wrote from Zurich asking her
to come and see Wieland. She answered with vivacity : ** Go to
Zurich for the sake of a German author ? You will never find
me doing that. ... I think I know everything that is said in
German, and even everything that will be said in that tongue
for the next fifty years." It was not until afterwards that she
learnt the language and studied the people at close quarters.
In 1800, Humboldt reproached her because the phrase of father
Bouhours : "Can intellectual refinement exist in a German?"
was too often on her lips, and because in speaking of his country
she displayed a want both of " philosophy and erudition."^

With England, on the contrary, she was familiar. Her
acquaintahce with it dated almost from her birth, for she had
grown up in a circle which was enamoured of all things English.
She had spent several months there in 1 793, and had become
intimate with Miss Burney, one of the most prominent writers
of the period.^ She had read all that an intelligent man of the
eighteenth century would be likely to know of English writers,
and on more than one point she shared that century's prejudices.
In a disquisition, somewhat wanting in knowledge and discern-
ment, upon " the bards of the fourth century," she simply follows
Mallet ; she considers that Spenser is ** the most tedious stuff in
the world " ; she believes, on the authority of Voltaire, who never

^ Lady Blennerhasset, vol. ii., pp. 564-565.

2 30th May 1800, in a letter to Goethe on the subject of De la Lltterature.

3 Mme. de Stael's second residence in England took place in 1813 and 18 14.
On that occasion she became acquainted with Byron, Rogers, Sheridan, Coleridge,
Godwin, Kemble, and others. It was during this visit that she conceived the idea
of doing for England what she had done for Germany, but only the political
portion of the contemplated book was written, and this was inserted in the
Considerations sur la Revolution franfaise .

MADAME DE STAEL 359

departed from his erroneous opinion, that " blank verse presents
very few difficulties " ; above all, like everyone else in the
eighteenth century, she innocently supposes Ossian, who was
a Celt, to be a Saxon and the father of Germanic poetry.

Failings like these, however, may be set down to the age in
which she lived. The philosophers, on the other hand. Bacon,
>jjobbes, Locke, Hume, and even Ferguson, whose utilitarianism
*' has given, if I may use the expression, so much substance to
the literature of the English," received adequate treatment at
her hands. She read the political writers, including Bolingbroke
and Junius, the moralists, like Addison, and, among dramatists,
Shakespeare, Congreve and Sheridan. Like all her contemporaries
she did not greatly care for the humorists, and remembered nothing
of them except the philosophy of Swift, whom she admired, it
seems, partly upon hearsay. But Shakespeare, Ossian, Milton
and the novelists, the very writers that were most closely
akin to Rousseau, were the objects of her especial admiration.
They were the typical specimens she had in mind when she
contrasted the English with the French spirit, the North with,
the South, a literature founded upon the social instincts with one
based upon reverenceTor the individuarasTmoral being. '

But while ~ste"dfe~w~aftention^ be

admitted that as yet she failed to shake off certain of the pre-
judices of eighteenth century criticism.

In the first place she belongs tojier centurj^^by her inability
to comprehend.anti(iujtj^the^_spjnt^ which escaped hen Her
acquaintance with it was in truth no better than that of Voltaire
or d'Alembert. She admired its great characters upon trust,
but her reading of ancient writers was very limited.

For her the unpardonable fault of the ancients is that their
literature is essentially masculine. It is masculine because it
knows nothing of the power of love : " Racine, Voltaire, Pope,"
Rousseau, Goethe, etc., have portrayed love with a kind of
dehcacy, reverence, melancholy and devotion " which the ancients
never knew. Their literature is neither tender, pensive, sorrow-
ful nor despairing ; it is uninfluenced by intercourse with women.
It is^mascttline because it is,jcalin and undisturbed ; because in

560 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

the work of the Greeks there is neither the horror of death, the
anguish of despair, nor the despondency caused by the irre-
parable. But the only great poetry is the poetry of sadness.
Theirs is masculine because it refuses to recognize the existence
of pain : the Greeks bear up under misfortune and stand erect
beneath whatever blows may fall to their lot. With them it is a
part of their primitive conception of decency not to admit their
suffering. They look with distrust upon the representation of
" secret passions "5 they are not lyrical in the least.

It is they who have restricfed literature to the^-study of man as
a social being, and have observed society "just as one describes
the growth of plants." Thereby they^Tave cut themselves off
from the principal province of art, which is the representation,
inspired by lofty moral sentiment, of our most intimate affec-
tions. The Greek race was "non-moral" : " they neither
blamed nor approved : they simply transmitted moral truths in
the same way as physical facts." They are said to be profound ;
but who could compare Thucydides with David Hume ? What
they warned, if they were to inspire emotion, was the mighty
ppwer of sensibility : " The human race had not yet reached the
age of melancholy." Helic^~Tt iFollo w^ ThaTTKe Greeks7being
neither sensitive nor sad, " left few regrets behind them."

We see, therefore, the narrowness of Mme de Stael's ideal.
She^ judges Euripides," ilhiicydidel-and ^iomer ^?^ -the-ideals of
Richardson and Rousseau. Small wonder that she failed to
understand themX.

In common with her age and with her master, Rousseau, she
preferred the Romans.. They were better known, and ** the
sublime Montesquieu " had made it fashionable to admire them.
She loved their republican dignity. She praises them because
they had " more of true sensibility than the Greeks had, because
they attributed more importance to woman, because they gave
expression, however discreetly, to a certain "vague tenderness
not unmixed with philosophy," which had found utterance in the
works of Tibullus, Propertius and Vergil. She considers them
inore_truly^£oetical and aka jnoxe-philosophical.

Taken as a whole, however, the literature of antiquity has one

MADAME DE STAEL 361

incurable defect ; it portrays man, not as an individual, but as a
social being. It is political, satirical, epic, but never lyrical^
N'ow, Mme. de Stael's models are ^^~Jancredej La JSouvelleHSldise,
Werther, and the English poets." To put it in more general
terms, she js for the North as against the South : she prefers
Thomson, she says, to Petrarch, and is more affected by Gray
than by Anacreon. The reason why " almost all the French
poets of the age," from Rousseau, its typical example, down-
wards, have imitated the English, is that they are lyrical and
::jg_as^iQaate.

But let us understand what we mean. Poetry is_not simply
the art of speaking of oneself with emotion. The emotion must
also be moral :_" it is_ only: llie_jnosj:__subtle moral teaching jhat
can_ produce the -ia^ting beaujies_ of l[ter^^^ and, by conse-

quence, ** literary criticism is very often a treatise upon ethics."
This is Rousseau pure and simple ; but here is something more
characteristic of him still. Poetry, eloquence, reverie ** should
act upon the organs " ; virtue must be an involuntary impulse, an 0'^ '

intellectual " movement passing over into the blood/' the virtiie- ^ /'^^C^i

passion~~dear~to Rousseau..^ Lastly — and this is the third and *^ (^^/tXi
most important condition — the literature of a nation should be ^

sober; for ^* human nature is serious." The Northerner, in con- Ar i<^*-'V''^
trast to the Greek, the Roman and the Frenchman, likes only &JiX>^^^^
** those writings which appeal to the reason or move the feelings,"
by preference the latter. At all costs we must avoid what Dante
called " the inferno of insensibility."

If, therefore, we consider modern literature " in its relations to
virtue, glory, liberty and happiness," we shall " detect two differ-
ent ways of judging, which to-day form, as it were, two distinct
schools " — those who stand by the Southern literatures, and those
who stand by the literature of the North. This is the central
and, at the same time, the most definite idea in the book. Mme.
de Stael had no intention of writing a treatise on the poet's art ;
on that point she is content to accept current opinion, and refers
us back to Voltaire, Marmontel and La Harpe, whom she has
read and does not as yet repudiate. But to inspire literature with
the idea of progress, nay, even, by setting up fresh models as

362 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

rivals to those of antiquity, to give definite shape to the confused

aspirations which had been agitating men's minds for a century,

\was indeed a fruitful achievement. It was a resumption of the

^ong-standing quarrel between the ancients and the moderns upon

mroader grounds than heretofore, and with Rousseau's example,

and others from various modern literatures, in the shape of

evidence. The Journal des DebatSy criticizing Mme. de Staei's

work, maintained **that men have always been the same, that

nothing in their nature is capable of change, and that rules for

present guidance are only to be found in the lessons of the past."^

A very precise statement of the opposite thesis to that maintained

in De la Litter ature.

The weak point in Mme. de StaeFs book is her attempt to
explain the historical origins of the movement she is defending.
She reminds the reader how the invasion of the barbarians, which
was one of the most fertile events in the history of the world,
resulted in the crossing of races and the fusion of intellects ;
how Christianity came to be *' the connecting link between the
peoples of the North and those of the South " ; how from the
whole era of the middle ages the modern Christian world
emerged as from a sort of crucible ; how the North remained
more faithful to woman, to melancholy, to *' a truly sympathetic
moral philosophy," and the South to the artistic sentiment, to the
love of sensuous pleasure, and to the worship of form.^

In this part of her work, full of ideas as it is, there is a
good deal of confusion. In what manner, by the operation of
what laws, and under the influence of what circumstances, did
this separation of Europe into two intellectual groups become
accentuated ? How are we to account for the supposed fact,
above all how are we to prove, that antiquity had lost its

1 See II and 14 messidor, year viii.

2 It may be remarked, in this connexion, that Mme. de Stael is extremely ill-
informed as regards the literature of the South. She knows nothing of Spain and
very little of Italy. She believes that "there is nothing remarkable in Italy
beyond what comes from France." The fine lectures of her friend Sismondi upon
Litteratures du Midi de I' Europe vfQTQ not delivered until 1804; and she did not
herself cross the Alps before 1806. See M. Dejob's book : Mme. de Stael et
ritalie {i%<)o).

MADAME DE STAEL 363

power over the Teutonic nations ? If there is so much difference
between France and certain other nations, how is it that she has
exercised so deep and lasting an influence upon them? This
Mme. de Stael does not explain, or at any rate does not explain
correctly. In virtue of her general opinions upon history she
remains a child of the eighteenth century, and of the epoch of the
Encyclopedie. She borrows freely, even in the form of expression,
from d'Alembert.i Like him, she holds that the history of the
human mind during the interval between Pliny and Bacon,
between Epictetus and Montaigne, ^ " between Plutarch and
Machiavelli " presents no features of interest , thereby frankly
contradicting herself. Like him, she fearlessly asserts that
*' from the time of Vergil down to the institution of the Catholic
mysteries, the human mind, in the sphere of art, has been simply
receding towards the most preposterous barbarism." ^ Lastly,
she actually affirms, by a still more strange contradiction,
that since imitation is the essence of the fine arts, " all that
the moderns do, or ever can do, is to repeat the work of the
ancients " ^ — a proposition which entirely destroys her thesis.

We see, therefore, how deeply De la Litterature was rooted in the
^century which had Just reachedlirsi^ciose; ^vl^ently the author
was writing at the point where two epochs met. She dreams of
a new art, but like Rousseau himself cannot make up her mind
to break with the art of the classical era. Having proclaimed
that taste is merely obsery^op c^^ ^^\\^r(^ — whirV> is characteristic
of Jean- Jacques — she comes round to the statement that good I
taste is absolute — which is the opinion of d'Alembert. She holds, /
^wich Voltaire, that Shakespeare is too English, and that this /
greatly detracts from his glory * ; and again, with Ducis, that
one must be on one's guard against the incoherencies of the
English and German writers of tragedy. In short, she seeks a "
compromise, and declares that ** talent consists in importing into

1 See especially book I., chaps, viii. and ix.; compare d'Alembert, Dhcours
preliminaire, ed. Picavet, p. 8l, et seq.

2 Gibbon somewhere points out, as one of the most striking evidences of the
decrease of the influence of antiquity during the eighteenth century, the easy way
in which d'Alembert treats Justus Lipsius and Casaubon as mere pedants.

'I., viii. 4 I xii.

364 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

our literature all that is beautiful, sublime and touching in the
melancholy aspect of nature portrayed by the writers of the
North, without, at the same time, ceasing to respect the true
laws of taste."

But these contradictions and hesitations notwithstanding, the
book in other passages gives clear expression to what the
eighteenth century had but dimly perceived. Had Mme. de
Stael entertained any doubts upon the point, the tone of official
criticism would have been enough to convince her that she had
attained her object, seeing that she was reproached with taking
no account of " the experience of the ages," and with ** wander-
ing off into idle theories." ^

" The experience of the ages," she was told, proves that the
French mind keeps to its natural path only when it follows the
footsteps of the Latins and the Greeks. Her answer was : It
is true that all modern literature is founded upon the ancients :
the English and Germans themselves owe them much. But

J it is none the less clear that, taken as a whole, northern, that

■ is to say Germanic and Protestant, literature — and to this
literature Rousseau belongs — has new and original beauties of
its own, which have nothing in common with those of classical

, works, whether Greek, Latin, or French.

I In the first place, the philosophical spirit, by which, if pressed
a little, she is found to mean the capacity for the life of medita-
tion, coupled with a sense of the solemnity of existence. In
this sense the Frenchman is rarely a philosopher ; he sees " the
umorous side of things," and sees it readily. Ossian, on the
contrary, is a philosopher. — He scarcely ever reasons ? — What
of that ? He " disturbs the imagination " in a manner which
predisposes it to the most serious meditations. — But in this
sense Homer is a philosopher too? — Yes, but he is not melan-
choly, or is so merely by way of exception. It is only the
"northern imagination" that can find a pleasure on the sea-
shore, in the sound of the winds, upon the desolate heath ; it
alone can pierce the clouds which skirt the horizon and seem
to typify " the dim passage from life to eternity." All that

^ Journal des Debuts, ibid.

MADAME DE STAEL 365

Rousseau, Young and Ossian had known of the poet's sadness
she feels keenly and expresses with power. Three years later,
and Atala and then Rene were to justify her vague previsions.
Mme. de Stael, the interpreter of those aspirations of her age
which had been kindled and quickened by the Revolution, in
this respect anticipated Chateaubriand.

If Ossian and Shakespeare are melancholy, they owe it also

to their climate, whirh pnrniira,gP5; mf^djtgljf^!!,^'"^^^ J"^^" ^CtJ-^'tyj.

to their passionate temperament — for like Rousseau Mme. de
Stael thinks the passions are fiercer in the North than in the
South — and to their sensibility to the beauties of nature, which
implies a restless souL ~~To their' other characteristics must be
added a certain spiritual elevation, an aloofness from life, due to
the rugged nature of their country ; the passion for heroism,
enthusiasm tempered by deliberation, unreserved exaltation in
the presence of the sublime ; lastly, the strong emotional
capacities of the northern writer, reverence for woman, and
that indefinable romantic thrill in virtue of which Goethe, and
even Thomson or Pope, must always appeal directly to the heart
of man as Petrarch can never do. But herein what does Mme.
de Stael add to the aspirations of the eighteenth century ? All
she does is to state them in definite form.

On one point only did she go beyond them, as Rousseau had
done. She— ^clared that the superiority of the **Ossianic"
literatures had its source in Protestantism. -

Rousseau, as we have seen, had gloried in being a Protestant,
and in the most eloquent manner had proved or attempted to
prove that no Christianity is consistent with the spirit of Christ
but that which recognizes— the mnral_j::misciousness as the only
jcourt of appeal. Religious individualisni.was the mainstay of his
philosopTiicaLteacHmg, and the nutriment of his eloquence. He
congratulated himself even at the close of his life on having
continued faithful to the "prejudices" of his childhood, and on
having "remained a Christian "^ in the midst of a Catholic en-
vironment. Thus by merely generaHzing an idea of Rousseau's
Mme. de Stael came to represent Protestantism as the chief cause

1 Reveries cfun promeneur solitaire, iii.

366 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

of the greatness of northern writers. The thesis had already-
been propounded by the refugees, and Charles de Villers,
Bonstetten, Sismondi and Benjamin Constant successively devoted
their attention to its demonstration.^ For them, as for their
friend Mme. de Stael, the Reformation was '* of all the epochs of
history the one which most effectually promoted the perfectibility
of the human species."

The idea was not in all respects a new one, even in literary
criticism. Montesquieu had already observed that the North is
Protestant because " in the northern nations there is and always
will be a spirit of independence which the peoples of the South
do not possess," and he was not afraid to add " that religion
gives an infinite advantage " to the former.^ But he established
no connexion between religion and art. He simply commended
Protestantism because it had made the nations more prosperous ;
of its moral influence he said nothing, and even considered that
Catholics are " the more invincibly attached to their religion."
Generally speaking, no intimate connexion was shown during
the eighteenth century to exist between the literature and the
beliefs of the English. With regard to the latter. Frenchmen
were content to accept Voltaire's pleasantries concerning the
Quakers. They did not perceive how the Reformation had
infused the English mind with a calm and dignified gravity, with
intense and imperious conviction, though at the same time with
narrowness and false pride. Similarly, the Protestantism which
was so prominent an element in Rousseau's character earned him
no gratitude in the salons of Paris ; in the eyes of his French
admirers it was merely one peculiarity the more ; indeed there
were not a few who thought it a blemish. To an Englishman
who once called upon him, Diderot explained that the only fault
of the British nation was that they had " mixed up theology with
their philosophy," adding *' ilfaut sabrer la theologie — we must put

1 Charles de Villers : Essai sur V esprit et P influence de la reformation de Luther (1803).
This book was crowned by the Institute, passed through four editions in one
year, and was thrice translated into German, twice into English, and once into

Italian Cf. Bonstetten, Vhomme du Midi et Vhomme du Nord ; Sismondi, Histoire des

litteratures du midi de V Europe -^ Benjamin Constant, De la religion.

2 Esprit des Lois, xxiv. 5, and xxv. 2 ; Lettres persanes, cxviii.

MADAME DE STAEL 367

theology to the sword." ^ Protestantism was simply so much
more theology to be put to the sword.

_Tiiejefugee critics alone had attempted to sjiow how English
literature had originated in the Reformation. But they had con-
vinced no one except themselves. So that when Mme. de Stael
adopted the same thesis she introduced into literary criticism a
new element of the highest importance. Hitherto it had been
customary to compare nations with one another in respect of their
laws, their manners, and their theories of philosophy and art.
The difference between their religions had not indeed escaped
notice, but no one had detected in it the most important source
of the other differences, and one which might possibly give
rise to them all. If it is not exactly true that the religion is the
race, at anyrate no definition of a race is conceivable without a
definition of its religion.

As it happens, Mme. de Stael is guilty of exaggeration. She
chooses to invest even the poems of Ossian with a tinge of Pro-
testantism and to say that the poetry of the North does not imply
nearly so much superstition as Greek mythology, — a very doubt-
ful proposition. Is it likely that " in the maxims and fables of
the Edda " there is, as she maintains, something more philosophi-
cal than in the myths of the southern religions, and that the
religious ideas of the North are almost all " consistent with the
loftiest reason ? " It is odd, too, to find her, under the influence
of her distrust of Catholicism, reducing the miraculous to what
she vaguely calls the " philosopher's predilection for the marvel-
lous," and committing herself to the statement that Dante " lacks
intelligence."

On the other hand, it is scarcely too much to say that it was
that part of her criticism which dealt with religion that revealed
to Mme. de Stael, and through her to her fellow-countrymen,
the majority of the great writers of the North, Shakespeare for
example.

The eighteenth century could not tell what to make of the
witches in Macbeth^ of the dialogue between the gravediggers in
Hamlet J and of the soliloquies of the Danish prince : this ** predi-

1 Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly, quoted by J. Morley, Diderot, vol. ii. p. 247.

368 THE REVOLUTION AND MADAME DE STAEL

lection for the marvellous " in a tragic dramatist seemed odd and
at times scarcely sane. In reality the age failed to appreciate the
resulting effect of grandeur. It regarded the introduction of^thg
marvellous as a mere piece of stage-craft, like that employed by
"Voltaire when he brings the shade of Ninus upon the stage.
Shakespeare's philosophy went unsuspected, as did the reason
why he was the great painter of death and pity. This Mme. de
Stael explained for the first time, and explained it remarkably
well. She understood not Shakespeare's mind only, but also his
soul. She knows how it is that he makes us feel *' the awful
shudder of horror which comes over a man when in the full
vigour of life he learns that death is at hand ; how it is that he
can excite our pity for an insignificant and sometimes contemptible
creature ; " why, in short, he has put his own pity, his own
terror, his own conception of life and death into his plays, instead
of the tragic dramatist's conventional platitudes concerning man.
He felt that the wretched tragi-comedies of our interests and
passions required a background of mystery and grandeur. He is
aware that at certain moments it is the fate of human reason —
which the classical literature of France represents as so self-con-
fident— to founder when it attempts to fathom this mystery.
And he understands that " man owes his greatest achievements
to his painful sense of the incompleteness of his destiny."

Nowhere had the French drama given expression to this bitter
and painful feeling ; where, in the plays of Racine and Corneille,
are we to look for their philosophy ? What did they think of
those great problems which bring such anguish to lofty souls ?
There is nothing to tell us. There was then in France, there
still is, a sort of divorce between religion and secular literature.
A niodestyj_ji£S£r.ving of ail respect, restrnined the,_.poet, the
novelisx^and the drarnatisjt^rom putting^ theix-OwiL-innerrnDSt
selves into_theiiLJ«Qrk. Thereby French literature lost, as, by
'the admission of M. Jules Lemaitre, it loses even to-day, " some-
thing of moral depth." With^jhis- characteristic of -" deptk^
Rousseau had aspired to invest it. He had been the first to
break this silence and to venture upon giving prominence to the
religious question in a work of fiction. He had been the first

MADAME DE STAEL 369

Frenchman to follow the English in mingling the sacred with
the profane and in boldly employing a distinctly secular work as
the vehicle of earnest convictions. Thus in following Rousseau
over the same ground Mme. de Stael merely consolidated and
justified in the sphere of criticism a revolution which had already
been accomplished in that of imaginative literature.

But by so doing she did but place one gulf the more between
the " French and Catholic " spirit, and the " Teutonic and
Protestant " spirit. She introduced an entirely fresh element,
afterwards, as every one knows, turned to account by Taine,
into the definitions of Southerner and Northerner respectively.
She gave a more rigorous statement of the problem of race,
upon which cosmopolitanism depends. She madeEer readers
keenly sensible of a fact which the Protestant books of Ibsen
and George Eliot have since given us occasion to repeat, that to
a large extent " the differences betweea literatures are bound up
with the profound differences between^ peoples."

2 A

Conclusion

THE COSMOPOLITAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE DURING THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY

To give precision to an idea is to render it fruitful.

De la Litterature, the book we have been discussing, gave form
-^ to the aspirations of the eighteenth century ; it was the logical
\ outcome of the work undertaken and continued, from the close
of the seventeenth century onwards, by the refugees, by Pre-
vost, by Voltaire and by Diderot ; from the books of Rousseau
and the English it extracted, not perhaps such a theory of
poetry as might have been written by Rousseau, but at any
rate that of which his books contained the germ. Through
Mme. de Stael, and because she identified the influence of
Jean- Jacques with the influence of the northern literatures,
the *' genius of the North" became, in a manner, conscious
of itself. It became a power in literary criticism, and
from the standpoint of classical tradition a danger. More
or less explicitly it assumed an attitude of opposition to the
ancient tradition of France. It definitely took its place in the

concert of European powers, never again to surrender it. But

a few years, and Lamartine, on submitting his earliest poems,
entitled Meditations, to Didot the publisher, received the char-
acteristic reply : *' Give up novelties like these, ivhich ivould
denationalise the French genius J'^ ^ Again a few years and the
romantic school, in the name of *' the literature of the North",
made war upon the "French genius"; one of its members, in the
heat of battle, going so far as to exclaim : *' The English and the
Germans for ever ! Give me nature in all its fierceness and

1 See Raphael.
370

CONCLUSION 371

brutality ! " ^ And Stendhal was found to say with a sort of
fierce joy : " Spite of all the pedants, Germany and England
will win the day against France ; Shakespeare, Schiller and
Lord Byron will prevail over Racine and Boileau."^

To-day there is no longer any doubt that Stendhal was
wrong, that neither Lord Byron nor Schiller have caused or will
cause Racine to be forgotten, and that romanticism was in no
sense a defeat of the French by the German intellect. There is
even something puerile in the very idea. If it were true, France
would have given up reading French books from 1823 down to
the present time, and like Germany during the early years of the
eighteenth century would have handed itself over, bound hand
and foot, to foreign influences. What period of French literary
history has been more fruitful than that which extends from 1 8 20
to 1848 ? What writers have been more truly and entirely national
than Hugo, Vigny and Michelet ? What literature has exerted-
greater influence, or shone with more lustre in Europe during the
past fifty years, than the French ? — On these points facts speak
so plainly that they require no commentary. " The true strength
of a country " — wrote Mme. de Stael, indiscreetly enough — *' lies
in the character natural to it, and the imitation of foreign nations,
in any respect whatever, implies a lack of patriotism." I am not
so sure of this ; I really do not think that Corneille was wanting
in patriotism because he borrowed le Cid from Spanish sources,
or Moliere because he took VEtourdi from the Italians, or Racine
because he went to the Greek authors — who also, after all, are
** foreigners" — for the subjects of his tragedies. Imitation is not ^
abdication, and it would be the easiest of tasks to show that
Lamartine is none the less Lamartine because he imitated Byron,
and Musset none the less Musset because his comedies are inspired
by Shakespeare. At no period in its history — not even, nay,
least of all, in the middle ages — has the literature of France
been shut up within itself. **The literature that confines itself
within its own frontiers," writes M. Gaston Paris, " especially
at a period so stirring and so fruitful as our own, thereby

1 L. Thiess^, Mercure du x'txe siecle, 1 826 (quoted by Dorison, Alfred de Vigny).

2 Racine et Shakespeare^ p. 246.

572 CONCLUSION

. . /

condemns itself to a stunted and withered existence." French

^^ romanticism avoided this narrow-minded course. By calling to

^^ mind what it owes to neighbouring literatures we do not diminish

S its originality. No one, in fact, disputes that the great writers

( who followed Rousseau and Mme. de Stael are *' French" writers

in the full sense of the word. If they were not, it would not

be worth while to investigate the origins of the revolution they

have accomplished, nor would it take us long to learn all that

there is to know about the spirit by which they were

animated.

i But it is because they are strongly individual, full of life, and,
/when all is said and done, highly original, that it is, to say the
(least, imprudent to claim for them a function they did not fulfil,
^ that of inauguration. Just as of old the literatures of antiquity,
working like a leaven within the French mind, occasioned the rise
of the classical literature of France, so the ** literatures of the
North," during the last century and the present one, have caused
the germination of the great harvest of romanticism. To employ
the apt phrase of Arvede Barine, they imparted to the French
a powerful intellectual shock, the vibrations of which have
since "lost themselves in that vortex of forces whose resultant is
the French genius." And this in two ways ; firstly and princi-
pally through Rousseau, who not only supplemented that genius
by a turn of mind, an imagination, and a sensibility which were
already of a northern cast, but also, as Mme. de Stael expressed
it, infused it with "foreign vigour"; and, in the second place,
through the English works which, during the present century,
have been followed by those of the Germans and the Russians,
and have exerted a profound influence, not altogether distinct
from that of Rousseau himself, upon the whole of the romantic
generation. If romanticism was in reality " a rebellion against
the spirit of a race which had become latinized to the core " —
the phrase is M. Brunetiere's, — it was truly Rousseau who
raised the standard of revolt. Benjamin Constant, said Sainte-
Beuve, is " of the lineage of Rousseau, with a tinge of
Germanic blood in his veins." Most of the French romantic
school are of the same extraction as Benjamin Constant.

CONCLUSION 373

Mme. de Stael said precisely the same, and we must congratulate
her thereon.

But even had we to leave this problem of the foreign sources
of romanticism unsolved, we should none the less be justified in
closely following the fortunes of the ** cosmopolitan " idea during
our own century. A question that blocks our way is not to be
set aside as unimportant or obscure by a mere stroke of the pen.
The mere fact that this question has occupied the minds of several
generations of men, including certain writers of genius, gives it
a right of citizenship in the history of ideas. Attempts were
formerly made to convict Macpherson of skilful imposture. But
the poems of Ossian, whether authentic or not, remain a monu- ^^
ment in the literary history of Europe, and nothing can alter the
fact that Chateaubriand ranked Ossian higher than Homer. —
Similarly, it is impossible for the most sceptical of critics, the
most incredulous with regard to *'the French spirit" and ** the
Germanic genius," to change the fact that this entity — "northern
literature" — has exercised a most powerful influence over the men —
of our own epoch. Doubtless it will be open to him to dispute
the strength of the historical scaffolding with which Mme. de
Stael supported her theory ; he will be free to scoff at her misty
and mythical Ossian, and to deny the Caledonia of the poets ;
he may spare himself the trouble of following the author o^ De la
Litter ature and her critic, Fontanes, in their inquiry " whether
the progress of the arts is from the North to the South, or from
the South to the North." If, lastly, he calls in the assistance of
ethnography, he may adduce proofs against Taine that his theory
of the European races is false, that there is neither a purely
** Latin" nor a purely " Germanic" group of peoples, and that
the English nation contains many other elements than that which
consists of a cross between Norman and Saxon.^ We may even
admit, should he insist upon the point, that none of the European t^
races has a genius peculiar to itself. Will the historian be, on this
account, any the less bound to recount the vicissitudes of the
" cosmopolitan spirit in literature " during the nineteenth century ?

1 Cf. AngelHer, Robert Burns^ Introduction, and the first volume of M. J.
Tusserand's fine work, Hutoire litteraire du peuple anglais.

374 CONCLUSION

\ There can be no doubt as to the reply. The triumph of
*^ Rousseau's influence marked also the triumph of cosmopolitanism.
Romanticism endeavoured to counteract the classical influence by
the example of non-Latin Europe. In De VAllemagne Mme. de
Stael resumed the thesis of De la Litterature, enlarging its appli-
cation, and supporting it by fresh arguments. In France, after
Ossian and Shakespeare, we had Byron and Walter Scott ; after
Goethe and Schiller, the whole series of German romanticists,
succeeded by the romanticists of the North — and we admired
them all, possibly without much discrimination or discretion,
but with a sincerity that admits of no reasonable doubt. ** The
true romantic poetry^'* wrote Stendhal, **/>, / repeat, the poetry of
Shakespeare, Schiller, and Lord Byron. The mortal combat is
•^ between Racine's methods of tragedy and Shakespeare's. The
opposed armies are the French men of letters, led by M. Dussault,
on the one hand, and the Edinburgh Review on the other." ^
The cosmopolitan spirit has become so closely interwoven with
the fabric of the literary history of this period, that by attempt-

, ing to separate it therefrom we should run the risk of rending

\ the fabric itself.

It will be observed that it is nothing to the point to dispute,
as is so often done, the fact of a certain form of influence being
exercised by this or that foreign writer upon this or that French
author. What does Lamartine, it may be asked, owe to Goethe ?
or Musset to Schiller ? And was not Victor Hugo ignorant of
the simplest elements of the German language ? Undoubtedly.
But will anyone deny that the appetite for foreign, and especially
'^ for northern, works was one of the essential factors of the
romantic revolution? And who can help seeing that "the
genius of the North" gained all the ground which the ** genius
of antiquity " had lost ? Romanticism is the same thing as
cosmopolitanism, not because, as has been innocently remarked,
French writers have plagiarized from English or German poets,
but because, through the instrumentality of Rousseau, they too

"ii had learnt to infuse themselves with some of that " foreign
vigour" with which he had grafted the old national stock.

1 Racine et Shakespeare (1823), p. 253.

CONCLUSION 375

Nisard, speaking of the Renaissance, says somewhere or other :
**The French spirit, holding fast to the spirit of antiquity, is
Dante led by Vergil, his gentle teacher, through the mysterious
circles of the Divine Comedy^'' In two or three centuries' time,
perhaps earlier, Jean- Jacques Rousseau will seem, as it were, to
be the Dante of modern times, the writer who has opened before
us the portals, not of the ancient world, but of that northern and
Germanic section of Europe which has wielded so powerful a spell
over the French genius during the present century.

It will be objected that the cosmopolitan spirit in literature did
not rest content with being, as Sainte-Beuve expressed it, a
" Germanic spirit," and nothing more ; and that the curiosity of
the romantic, as of the following, generation was extended to
Spain, to Italy, to the East, and even to antiquity. And, indeed,
the cosmopolitan spirit has endeavoured, during the present cen-
tury, to justify its definition: it has aimed at embracing "the
literature of the world." But I venture to assert that, in France,
the influence of the North has always been at the bottom
of the movement, just as it was its point of departure in Rousseau.
The characteristic which the French mind has appreciated above
all others in southern literatures is precisely that which reminded
it of the literatures of the North, and it may be, as Doudan very
shrewdly remarks, that what we love in the East and in the
South is the attributes with which Northern imaginations have
invested them. " We want blue spectacles in order to look at
this sun. After all, we shall always understand Shakespeare
better than Calderon." More exactly, we shall appreciate in
Calderon what we love in Shakespeare, and in Alfieri and
Leopardi — as in Ibsen and Tolstoi — what they owe to Rousseau.
And this because we are before all things of the literary posterity
of Jean-Jacques, and because in him nineteenth century literature
takes its rise.

Thus, at the close of the present century, the cosmopolitan
spirit in regard to literature has become a feature of every
thoughtful mind.

(

376 CONCLUSION

Is this a cause for lamentation ? In particular, have we, as
Frenchmen, any reason to tremble for the integrity of our
country, regarded as an intellectual entity? Are we to look
upon ^' exoticism" as nothing more than a solvent of the national
genius ?

Sismondi had already asserted that for a vigorous nation *' there
was no such thing as foreign literature." J. J. Weiss almost
wished that there was no such thing for France when, referring
in eloquent language to her classical authors, he said : " In them
we have still a happy reserve, a storehouse — long the property of
the nation, and always at our command — of positive wisdom, of
practical good sense, of cogent moral philosophy, of applied
political science, of heroic ideas and heroic sentiments. // is there
that France is to he founds ^ Many writers of superior intelligence
have likewise feared **lest, in becoming European, our national
genius should at length become less French." Many, like J. J.
Weiss, have asked: " Where is France ? "

That their fears are not altogether imaginary it would be
childish to deny. Certainly France claims as- her own alike
Malherbe and Hugo, Voltaire and Chateaubriand,* Moliere and
Renan. But Hugo, Chateaubriand, and Renan, however French,
^are nevertheless not French in the same way as the others. They
represent a different and, so to speak, a more European side of
the national genius.

Above all, they broke with " tradition." With regard to
Mme. de Stael it was remarked by Fontanes that she ** treated
the age of Louis XIV. almost as lightly as Greece " — which, as
we have seen above, is saying a good deal — and he also ex-
pressed the fear that her fondness for Rousseau had made her
" care very httle for Racine." ** Why ! " said Stendhal, in a
significant passage, " we should be rejecting the most fascinating
pleasures simply and solely in order to imitate Frenchmen I " More
recently an advanced critic boldly declared : " It is upon the
national tradition that we are making war."

/And therein lies the danger which exoticism in literature may
voccasion in a distant future. But every European literature is

1 A propos de theatre^ p. 1 68.

CONCLUSION 377

obscurely threatened by the same clanger. Perhaps, in Europe
of the twenty-fifth century, the idea of the literary fatherland
will have grown as weak as that of the political fatherland.
From one end of this little European continent to the other,
what a number of books are published, Italian, Dutch, Portu-
guese, and Russian, which have the same tendencies and wear
the same livery ! How is it possible to withstand the incredible \
facility of exchange, the frequency of intercourse, the multiplicity
of translations, — and, what may yet come, the coalescence of
tongues ? *' In our days," writes M. de Voglie, *' above all pre-
ferences founded on party or nationality, a European spirit is
being formed." Suppose this movement were to grow much
more rapid : what would happen then ? Did Rivarol merely
dream when he longed to see mankind " form itself into one
republic, from one end of the earth to the other, under the sway
of a single language ? " Would it be so absurd if, from the com-
parison, the juxtaposition, and, let us admit it, the confusion of
so many works from every country in Europe, there should
result a sort of composite idea consisting of elements artificially
compounded so as to form a literature no longer either English,
or German, or French, but simply European — until the time
should come when it would be universal ? Should such a day
ever arrive, across the frontiers — if any remain — there will be
stretched a network of invisible bonds which will unite nation
to nation and, as of old during the middle ages, will form a
collective European soul.

Nor is this dream — or, shall we say, this danger, which
threatens alike the literatures of the Old World and the New —
a merely visionary one. But at anyrate the peril is not im-
minent ; there are formidable obstacles in its way. Held
together by community of race, of language, and of historical
tradition, men will for long years to come remain citizens of
a country or of a province in the first place, and be citizens
of the universe only in the second. Long enough yet will last
the sway of that imperious necessity which binds man to the soil
and makes him a citizen of his native burgh. For long years yet
each people will hand down, as a sacred legacy, the literary

378 CONCLUSION

works which in past ages have sprung from the efforts of
its national genius. It may indeed be that cosmopolitanism,
when it is truly the worship of " the literature ofthe worldjj.
abjures its own principle in exhaustTTTg"The consequences of it,
and that it is then nothing more than a resuscitated form of
** humanism," the name of which thus becomes synonymous with
its own. But at the present moment the triumph of such an idea
is impossible of realization. The struggle between the races
is waged more fiercely than ever, and it is incumbent on the
literature of France, as on all other literatures — more so, indeed,
than on any other — to uphold the time-honoured position of
influence it occupies in the world. As one of its own teachers
has said^ : "The literature that would give proof of its youth-
fulness and vital energy, that would secure for itself fresh life
and influence in the future, will spread the knowledge, and
acquire a comprehension, of every great, new or beautiful work
that is created beyond its own borders ; will turn it to account,
not as a pattern merely, but by assimilating it and converting it
to a form appropriate to its own nature ; will amplify, without
destroying, its own individuality, and thus, while remaining

I always the same, will be perpetually changing, always European

y yet never renouncing its nationality."

I have endeavoured to show that one man above all others has
acted as a connecting link between France and Northern Europe ;
that, while, by reason of his foreign extraction, he was especially
qualified to make the French acquainted with foreign literature,
and was moreover greatly helped by the fact of his having been
educated in a French-speaking country, circumstances also lent
him powerful assistance in the accomplishment of this task ; that
his intellect, the most complex and the most richly endowed of
any in that age, really called into being a sort of European
literature, the future of which is henceforth assured ; and that,
if after all he did not succeed in transferring the literary
hegemony of Europe from France to the Northern nations, he at '">
least enabled one nation to understand the original genius of the 7
others, and thereby deserved the gratitude of all.

1 G. Paris, Lemons et lectures sur la poesie du moyen age (1895), preface.

CONCLUSION 379

** It would seem," says M. Renan, ** that if it is to produce the
best that is in it the Gallic race requires to be from time to
time impregnated by the Germanic: the finest manifestations of
human nature have sprung from this mutual intercourse, which
is, to my mind, the source of modern civilization, the cause
of its superiority, and the best guarantee for its persistence
in the future."^

If this be the case, then no one, assuredly, has deserved better
of the Gallic race than Jean- Jacques Rousseau.

^ Essais de critique et de morale^ p. 59.

Jn^cj

Abauzit, Firmin, 91.

Adelson et Salvini, d'Arnaud, 224.

Addison, Joseph, 10, 26, 33, 34, 47,
55, 62, 67, 68, 83, 86, 97, III, 115,
118-124, 141, 166, 197, 248, 261,

^96, 309^ 359-
-ffischylus, 8, 306, 312.
Aiguillon, Duchesse d', 266, 322.
Alembert, Jean d', 80, 223, 337, 359,

363-
Alexander's Feast, Dryden, 55.
Alfieri, Vittorio, 375.
All for Love, Dryden, 45.
Almanack des Muses, 299.
Almoran et Hamet, Prevost, 46.
Amadis de Gaule, 232.

Amant confident de lui-meme, V , Prevost, 5 6 .
Amelia, Fielding, 145.
Amiel, Henri Frederic, 92.
Anacreon, 361.
Analecta, Brunck, 344.
Angellier, Auguste, xv.
Anglais a Bordeaux, V , Favart, 78, 301.
Animal dans la lune, La Fontaine, 9.
Anne Bell, d'Arnaud, 224.
Annee Utteraire, Freron, 267.
Anseaume, N., 140.
Anti-Pamela, 21 1.
Apologie du caractere des Anglais et les

Franfais, Desfontaines, 43.
Arabian Nights^ Entertainment, 1 26.
Arbuthnot, John, 28.
Archives litter aires de P Europe, 355.
Arcadia, Sidney, 8.
Arden of Fevers ham, 1 38.
Argenis, Barclay, 8.

Argenson, Marc d', 21, 99, 120, 214-5.
Argental, Charles Augustin d', 221.
Ariosto, Lodovico, 74.
Aristotle, 113, 128.
Arnaud, Baculard d', 114, 123, 224,

270, 312.
Arnaud, Francois d', 217, 268.
Arnault, Vincent A., 328-9.
Art of Sinking, Swift, 56.
'* Artus," King, 6.

Assoucy, Charles [Coypeau] d', 5.
Atala, Chateaubriand, 323, 365
Atterbury, Francis, Bishop, 57.
Aubigne, Agrippa d', 24.
Aubigny, d', 10.
Aucour, Godard d', 212.
Austen, Jane, 145.
Aventures de Beauchene, 126.

Babillard, Le, 119.

Bacon, Francis, Lord, 6, 7, 8, 14, 16,

i8, 29, 61, 82-86, 97, 113, 359, 363.
Bagatelle, La, I20.
Baillet, Adrien, 8.
Bajazet, Racine, 8.

Ballanche, Pierre Simon, 233, 279, 291.
Baltimore, Lord, 184.
Balzac, Honore de, 193.
Balzac, Jean de, 9.
Baour-Lormian, Louis, 329.
Barclay, John, 8.
Bard, The, Gray, 303.
Bardes, Les, Lesueur, 329.
Barine, Arvede, viii, 372.
Bartas, Guillaume du, 5.
Barthelemy, Abbe, 344.
Bastide, Jean F. de, 215.
Baudouin, Jean, 8.
Baudus, Jean Louis Amable de, 355.
Bayle, Pierre, 17, 25, 58, 59, 60, 80, 103.
Beaumarchais, Pierre de, 214.
Beaumont, filie de, 258.
Beaumont, Mme. de, 140, 238.
Beauval, Basnage de, 26, 29, 37.
Beckford, William, 64.
Beggar's Opera, The, Gay, 62.
Bentley, Richard, 28, 55.
Beranger, Jean P., 350.
Bergerac, Cyrano de, 8.
Berkeley, George, 55, 61, 195.
Bernadotte [Charles XIV. of Sweden],

330.
Bernard, Gentil, 296.
Bernard, Jacques, 27, 30.
Bernis, Francois de, 296.
Berquin, Arnaud, 224.

381

382

INDEX

Beverley y Saurin, 103.

Bibliotheque anglais e, 17, 29, 30, 33, 43,

118.
Bibliotheque britannique, 355-
Bibliotheque britannique (de Geneve), 91.
Bibliotheque britannique (de la Hague), 30.
Bibliotheque des romans anglais, 268,
Bibliotheque fran^aise, 27.
Bibliotheque germanique, 268.
Bibliotheque italique, 268.
Bibliotheque raisonnee des savants de V Rurope,

Bibliotheque universelle, 26.

Bilderdyk, William, 319.

Bissy, Comte de, 217, 280, 308.

Blount, Charles, 60.

Boccage, Mme. du, 159, 258, 266.

Bodin, Jean, 5.

Bodmer, John J., 119.

Boiardo, Matteo M., 74.

Boileau, Nicolas, 6, 10, 12, 17, 26, 27,

40, 80, 143, 341, 371.
Boisrobert, Francois, 9.
Boissy, Louis de, 98, 123, 212.
Bolingbroke, Henry St J., 22, 57, 60,

64, 65, 308, 359.
Bomare, Valmont de, 258.
Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise de,

351-

Bonstetten, Charles Victor de, 303,

354, 366.
Bontemps, Mme., 295.
Bossuet, Jacques, 3, 12, 80, 81, 251.
Boswell, James, 64, 207.
Boufflers, Mme. de, 104, 258, 266.
Bouhours, Pere, 11, 26, 268, 358.
Bourdaloue, Louis, 80, 81, 121.
Boursault, Edme, 81.
Boyer, Abel, 7, 16, 33, 264.
Boyle, Robert, 25, 26, 65.
Bradshaigh, Lady, 187, 286.
Brantome, Pierre [de Bourdeilles],

Seigneur de, 5.
Breitinger, Johann J., 119.
Briickner, Johann, 319.
Briin, Frederika, 356.
Brunck, Richard, 344.
Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 58, 112, 372.
Brutus Marcus, 349.
Brutus, Voltaire, 54, 63, 65.
Bucanan, George, 14.
Buckingham, Duke of, 10.
Buckle, Henry T., x, 265.
BufFon, George, 80, 128, 157, 224, 258,

297.
Bunyan, John, 195.

Biirger, Gottfried August, 319.

Burnet, Gilbert, 8.

Burney, Fanny, 145, 348, 358.

Burns, Robert, xvi, 294.

Butler, Samuel, 34, 70.

Byron, Lord, 275, 314, 353, 371, 374.

Casar, Clarke, 102.

Calderon, Don Pedro, 375.

Callot, Jacques, 283.

Calvin, John, 90.

Camden, William, 52.

Camusat, Denis, 27, 120.

Cardan, Jerome, 98.

Carlisle, Lord, loi,

Carlyle, Thomas, 201.

Caroline, Queen, 61, 133.

Carthon, Ossian, 322.

Cassandre, La Calprenede, 155.

Catherine II., 119.

Cat i Una, Ben Jon son, 10.

Cato, Addison, 33, 34, 118.

Cato of Utica, 349.

Catuelan, Comte de, 267.

Cazales, Jacques Antoine Marie de,

353-
Censeur, Le, 120.
Censeur univers el anglais, 268.
Cesarotti, Melchior, 319.
Chambers, Ephraim, 113.
Chamisso, Adelbert von, 354.
Chant du barde, Fontanes, 327.
Chapelain, Jean, 82.
Chapelle, Armand de la, 17, 25, 30.
Chappuzeau, Samuel, 5.
Chardin, Jean, 156, 173.
Charles II., 15, 50, 108.
Charles XII., Voltaire, 63.
Chateaubriand, Francois Rene de, 254,

293, 300, 302-4, 314-5, 324, 327-330,

333, 335, 350, 35^-3' 3^5, 373,

376.
Chatelet, Mme. du, 264.
Chatterton, Thomas, 294, 304.
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 55, 269.
Chaulieu, Guillaume, 58.
Chef d'auvre d'un inconnu, Saint-Hya-

cinthe, 18, 28. ^;ea *J

Chenedolle, Charles Julien [Lioult]

de,_299, 353,^355, 357-
Chenier, Andre, 96, 150, 227, 253, 297,

345.
Chenier, Marie-Joseph, 303, 339, 343.
Chesterfield, Lord, 31, 210, 325.
Chillingworth, William, 17.
Choiseul, Due de, 278, 280.

INDEX

383

Choiseul - Gouffier, Marie Gabriel

Florent Auguste de, 344.
Christian Hero, or Fatal Curiosity, Lillo,

134-

Chubb, Thomas, 16, 61.

Gibber, Colley, 62.

Cicero, 344, 349.

Cid, Le, Corneille, 210, 371.

Cimabue, Giovanni, 337.

Clarissa Harloive, Richardson, xii, ill,
HS. 147-1505 i55» 159-187, 190-205,
208, 212-8, 220-3, 225-238, 240,
242-3, 245, 249, 252-3, 286.

Clarke, Samuel, 17, 19, 61.

Clary, ou le retour a la vertu recompensee,
d'Arnaud, 224.

Clelie, de Scudery (1654), 165.

Clement, de Geneve, 136, 139, 140,
141, 213.

Clementine de Porretta, Wieland, 149.

Cleopatra, Dry den, 55.

Cleopatre, La Calprenede (1647), 155.

Cleveland, Histoire de Monsieur, Prevost,
21, 50, 51, 103, 127, 146, 150, 154,
161, 164, 170, 217, 242, 252, 302.

Coleridge, Samuel T., 195.

CoUe, Charles, 140, 308.

Collier, Jeremy, 26.

Collins, Anthony, 17, 32, 58, 59, 60.

Collins, William, 294, 296, 301, 304,
316.

Colombiere, Le Sage de la, 24, 91.

Colomies, Paul, 16.

Complaint, 71^^, Young, see Night Thoughts.

Comminges, Comte de, 14.

Condillac, fitienne de, 80.

Condorcet, Marie Jean, 57, 339.

Conduit, Mrs, 61.

Confessions, Rousseau, 230-1, 236, 299.

Confidences, Lamartine, 330.

Conflans, Comte de, 258.

Congreve, William, 41, 48, 62, 64, 72,

359-
Conjectures on Original Composition, Young,

272.
Conlath and Cuthona, Ossian, 322.
Connal and Crimora, Ossian, 321.
Conscious Lovers, Steele, 55.
Conspiracy 0/ Fiesco, Schiller, 274.
Constant, Benjamin, 92, 354, 366,

372-3-
Contes moraux, Marmontel, 225.
Conti, Prince de, 52.
Contrat social, Rousseau, 349, 350.
Controleuse spirituelle, 1 1 9 .
Corinne, de Stael, 235.

Corneille, Pierre, 7, 16, 48, 129, 210,

341, 368, 371.^
Correspondauce Utteraire, 74, 2145 224.
Coste, Pierre, 16, 18.
Coulon, 4.

Cowper, William, 187, 275, 304.
Cr^billon ^/j, 151, 158, 209, 225, 236,

239, 241, 280, 282.
Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot de, 81, 113,

210.
Critical Revieiv, The, 232.
Cromwell, Oliver, 3, 50, 77.
Crouzas, John P. de, 116.

Dacier, Mme., 236.

Dante, Alighieri, xvi, 330, 337, 361,

367. 375-
Darthula, Ossian, 322.
Daude, Pierre, 16.
Daunou, Pierre, 346.
Davenant, Sir William, 34.
David, Jacques L., 344, 349.
Decade philosophique, Le, 355*
Decouverte du Nowveau Monde, Rousseau,

128.
I DefFand, Mme. du, 147, 210, 221, 223,

238, 297.
Defoe, Daniel, 62, 115, 124, 126-128,

141, 142, 144.
Dekker, Thomas, 138.
De V Allemagne, de Stael, 348, 374.
Deleyre, Alexandre, 103, 114.
Delille, Jacques, 116, 296-7, 303, 345,

349» 35i» 353» 355-
Delisle, Guillaume, 258
Delolme, Jean Louis, 91.
Delphine, de Stael, 235.
Demosthenes, 344.
Denis, Mme., 64.
Dennis, John, 26, 55.
Deroutedes Pamela, La, Godard d'Aucour^

212.

Descartes, Rene, 3, 18, 83, 84.
Descent of Odin, Gray, 303.
Deschamps, 118.
Desfontaines, Pien-e, 33, 34, 35, 43^

44, 52, 64, 103, III, 146, 153, 157,

209-10, 263, 266.
Desforges, Pierre, Jean Baptiste [Chou-

dard], 147.
Desmaiseaux, Peter, 15, 17, 18, 30,

61.
Desmarais, Regnier, 7.
Desmarets, Samuel, 12.
Desmoulins, Camille, 314, 347, 349.
Destouches, Philippe, 34, 81, 132.

384

INDEX

Beux Amis de Bourbonne, Diderot, 225.

Deyverdun, Georges, 31.

Dialogues sur I' eloquence de la chair e, 80.

Dictionary^ Chambers, 113.

Dictionary of Medicine, James, 1 1 3.

Dictionnaire critique, Bayle, 59.

Diderot, Denis, xi, 80, 97, 103, iii-
115, 124, 128-132, 134, 141, 158,
159, 161, 164, 178, 185, 187, 197,
200, 216-223, ^^5j ^3°5 ^3^-35 266,
277, 280, 282, 284, 299, 309, 313,
32^» 338, 357j 366, 370.

Didot, Frangois, 370.

Discours de Tinegalite, Rousseau, 112, 23 1.

Discourse concerning the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ, Ditton, 17.

Dis curse der Mahler n, 1 1 9, 1 48.

Discourse of Freethinking, Collins, 32.

Discourses upon Go'vernment, Sidney, 270.

Discours sur la njraie vertu, Voltaire, 117.

Discours sur les sciences et les arts, Rous-
seau, 112, 129.

Discovery of a Neiv World, Wilkins, 8.

Ditton, Humphrey, 17.

Dimna Commedia, Dante, 375»

Dodington, Bubb, 60, 62, 311.

Don Quixote, Cervantes, 210.

Don Sebastian, Dryden, 47.

Dorat, Claude Joseph, 140, 296.

Dorset, Earl of, 67, 70.

Doudan, Xavier, 89, 205, 225, 336,

375-
Doujat, Jean, 7.

Doyen de Killerine, Le, Prevost, 1 5 4.
Dramaturgie, Lessing, 353.
Draper, Eliza, 278-9, 287.
Drummer, The, Addison, 34.
Dryden, John, 34, 37, 45, 47, 55, 62,

321.
Dubois, Cardinal, 34.
Dubos, Abbe, 34.
Ducis, Jean, 302, 348, 363.
Duclos, Charles, 80, 229, 258-9.
Dufresny, Charles, 81.
Dumas^/j, Alexandre, 136, 247.
Durand, David, 16.
Dussault, Jean Joseph, 351, 374.

Eckermann, Johann Peter, 143.

Ecossaise, V, Voltaire, 221.

Edda, The, 317, 367.

Edinburgh Revieiv, The, 374.

Effiat, Marquis d', 6.

Egarements du caur et de Vesprit, Cre-

billon^/j, 209.
Eidous, Marc-Antoine, 17, 113, 266.

Elements de la philosophie de Neivton,

Voltaire, 60.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Gray,

,30i» 303-4-
Elevations sur les Mysteres, 8 1.
Eliot, George, 189, 276, 369.
Elmerick, Lillo, 134.
Eloge de Marc Aurele, Thomas, 345.
Eloge de Richardson, Diderot, l6l, 216-

,222, 225, 230, 232, 277.
Emile, Rousseau, 124, 260.
Encyclopedic, Diderot and others, 113,
223j 363-^

Engagement temeraire, L\ 128.

Entretiens sur le Fils Naturel, Diderot, 112.

Epictetus, 122, 363.

Epitre a Uranie, Voltaire, 58.

Eprewves du sentiment, d'Arnaud, 224.

Esmenard, Joseph, 353.

Esprit des Journaux, 267.

Esprit des Lois, Montesquieu, 103.

Essai sur la litterature anglaise, Chateau-
briand, 354^

Essai sur la poesie epique, Voltaire, 62, 63.

Essai sur les guerres civiles de France,
Voltaire, 63.

Essay on Criticism, Pope, 33.

Essay on Man, Pope, 68, I15, I16, I17,
296.

Essay on Merit and Virtue, Shaftesbury,
113.

Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shake-
speare, Montagu, 269.

Essay on the Human Understanding, Locke,
18, 102.

Essays, Bacon, 8.

Estienne, Henri, 5.

Etourdi, L\ Moliere, 371.

Etudes de la nature, 333.

Eugenie, Beaumarchais, 214.

Euripides, 220, 341, 360.

Europe savante, 27.

Fable of the Bees , Mandeville, 32, 113.

Faguet, £mile, viii, 77.

Falkener, 57, 61, 64, 65.

Fantasque, Le, 1 20.

Farinelli, 54.

Farquhar, George, 48.

Fatal Curiosity, Lillo, 134.

Faublas, Louvet de Coudray (1787-9),

285.
Faust, Marlowe, 136.
Favart, Charles, 78, 301.
Fenelon, Francois, 7, 12, 50, 80, 97,

216, 299.

INDEX

385

Ferguson, Adam, 359.

Festeau, 7.

Fielding, Henry, 35, 56, loi, 114, 134,

142, 143-150, 156, 157, 160, 186,

195, 210, 228, 275.
Fielding, Sarah, 199.
Fiesco, Schiller, 274.
Fievee, Joseph, 351.
Fils naturel^ Le, Diderot, 21 9, 280.
Fingal, Macpherson, 318, 322, 330.
Fontaine-Malherbe, Jean de, 267.
Fontanes, Louis, 116, 259, 303, 327,

3^8, 336, 351-3, 373, 376.
Fontenelle, Bernard de, 10, 29, 58, 80,

290.
Foote, Samuel, 269.
Force of Religion, The, Young, 312.
Ford, John, 138.
Fox, Charles James, 64, 261-2.
Fragments d^anciennes poesies, Macpherson,

Franqais a Londres, Le, Boissy, 99.

Francion, Sorel, 7.

Francis, St, 251.

Franklin, Benjamin, 64, 257, 259,

263.
Freeholder, The, 33.
Frenais, 266, 283.
Fr^ron, filie C, 74, 80, 87, 127, 147,

232, 236, 263, 267-8, 296.
Frimaqons, Les, De Geneve, 139
Furetiere, Antoine, 147.

Gamester, The, Moore, 115, 132, 141.
Garat, Dominique, 234, 278, 289, 291,

316.
Garrick, David, 1x4, 257, 267, 270,

278, 280.
Garth, Sir Samuel, 62.
Gassendi, Pierre, 6.
Gay, John, 62, 64.
Gazette de France, 270.
Gazette litteraire, 221, 270, 282, 303,

322.
Gellert, Christian, 148, 220.
Genie du Christianisme , Chateaubriand,

330-
Genlis, Mme. de, 64, 226, 302, 328.
Gentleman, The, 16.
Geoffrin, Mme., 287.
GeofFroy, Julien, 114, 227, 351.
George Barnivell, see London Merchant.
Georgics, Vergil, 294.
Georgiques, Delille, 345.
Gerando, Joseph de, 352, 355.

Gessner, Salomon, xiv, 297-9, 331,

347» 357-
Gibbon, Edward, 31, 78, 215, 258-9.
Gilbert, Nicolas-Joseph-Laurent, 296.
Gil Bias, Lesage, 81, 150-152, 210,

245.
Girodet, Anne L., 329.
Gleichen, Baron de, 170.
Glover, Richard, 56, 269.
Godwin, Francis, 8.
Goethe, J. W. von, 113, 143, 150, 201,

208, 282, 320, 323, 333, 347, 353-4,

356, 358-9. 365. 374.
Goldoni, Carlo, 148, 269.
Goldsmith, Oliver, 143, 281.
Gottsched, Johann, 76, 119, 138
Goujet, Claude-Pierre, 27, 73.
Gournay, 258.
Gower, John, 55.
Gozzi, Carlo, 119.
Graffigny, Mme. de, 63, 238.
Grand Cyrus, Le, Scudery, 165, 236.
Grandison, see Sir Charles Grandison.
Grandison II., Musaus, 149.
Grand Mystery, or the Art oj Meditating

over an House of Office, The, Swift,

35-
Granet, Francois, 27.
Gravelot, Hubert, 107.
Gray, Thomas, 94, 158, 232, 257, 259,

281, 294, 301-4, 317, 319-320, 323,

361.
Green, John Richard, 45.
Greene, Robert, 8, 193.
Gresset, Jean-Baptiste, 80, 302.
Gretser, Jakob, 11.
Greuze, Jean B., 289.
Grimm, Frederic M. , 17, 32, 80, 107,

112, 160, 232, 258-9, 265-6, 268, 296,

299_. 313. 322> 343» 357-
Guardian, The, 33.
Guibert, Comte de, 223.
Gulliver'' s Travels, Swift, 29, 33, 35, 68,

263.
Guys, Pierre, 344.

Hales, Stephen, 17.

Hamlet, Shakespeare, 47, 55, 69, 341,

367-
Handel, George F., 260, 301.
Hatin, E., 25.
Hawkesworth, J., 46.
Helvetius, Claude, 80, 87, 258-9.
Hennequin, £mile, ix.
Henriade, La, Voltaire, 60, 61.
Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 60.

2 B

386

INDEX

Herbois, Collot d', 347.

Herder, J. Gottfried von, 113, 2 J 4.- Si

319. 3^3> 333-
Hervey, James, 200, 271, 313-4, 347.
Hervey, Lord, 64, 69.
Heureux orphelins, Les, Crebillon^/j, 225.
Heyne, Christian, 319.
Heywood, Thomas, 138.
Histoire critique de la Republique des Idtres^

27-
Histoire de Cleveland, see Cleveland.
Histoire de Vart che% les anciens, Winckel-

mann, 344.
Histoire de Mile, de la Chaux, Diderot,

Histoire des voyages, Prevost, 45, 1 26.

Histoire litter aire de l^ Europe, 27.

Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, Ray-

nal, 259, 279.
History of Greece, Stanyan, 1 1 3.
History of the House of Stuart, Hume, 45.
History of the Life of Cicero, Middleton,

45-
History of the Loiv Countries, Van Loon,

45-
Hobbes, Thomas, 6, 8, 23, 26, 97, 359.
Hogarth, William, 68, 260, 281.
Hoguette, de la, 7.
Holbach, Paul Henri d', 80, 257, 259,

266, 278, 280, 282.
Homer, 13, 150, 220, 270, 297, 308,

3i5» 3i9-3i3> 325* 33o> 334» 344»

360, 364, 373.
Hoop, Father, 114.
Horace, 5, 67, 337, 341,
Houdetot, Mme. d', 244, 278-9.
Huber, Michel, 299.
Hudibras, Butler, 9, 34, 70, 107.
Hugo, Victor, 169, 371, 374, 376.
Humboldt, Guillaumede, 348, 356, 358.
Hume, David, 31, 45, 114, 257, 269,

280, 359-360.
Humphry Clinker, Smollett, 145.
Hurd, Richard, 316.

Ibsen, Henrik, xvi, 247, 369, 375.

Idee de la poesie anglaise, Yart, 266.

Idyllen, Gessner, 299.

Iliad, Homer, 146.

II Penseroso, Milton, 30I.

Indiscret, L\ Voltaire, 58.

Ingenu, L\ Voltaire, 225.

Inquiry concerning Virtue, Shaftesbury,

113.
Inquisiteur, V, 120.
Instinct divin, Muralt, 242.

Introduction a P histoire de Danemark, Mal-
let, 317.
Iphis et Anaxarete, Rousseau, 1 28.
Ivernois, Fran9ois d', 91.

Jacobi, Johann G., 354.

Jacopo Ortis, xii.

Jacques lefataliste, Diderot, 284.

James, Robert, 113.

Jaucourt, Louis de, 353.

Jean sans Terre, Ducis, 348.

Jeffrey, Francis, 195.

Jenneval, Mercier, 138.

Johnson, Samuel, 68, 194, 207, 257,

264, 269, 281, 318, 323, 343.
Jonathan Wild, Fielding, 144.
Joncourt, Elie de, 31.
Jonson, Ben, 5, 10, 41, 269.
Jordan, Camille, 30, 45, 352.
Jordan, Charles, 67.
Jore, Claude-Francois, 65.
Joseph Andreivs, Fielding, 35, 1 44, 210,

263.

Joubert, Laurent, 151, 327.

Journal, d'Argenson, 99.

Journal britannique, 3 1 .

Journal de litter ature etr anger e, 355*

Journal de police, 20 9.

Journal de politique et de litter ature, 283.

Journal des Debats, 35 1, 362.

Journal des savants, 8, 1 7, 33, 43, 82,

118, 322.
Journal encyclopedique, P. Rousseau, 267,

i8l, 313, 346.
Journal etranger, II9, 161, 216-7, 224>

232, 264, 268-270, 308, 321-2.
Journal litter aire, 20, 29, 33.
Jours, pour servir de correct if et supplement

aux Nuits, Remy, 312.
Jugements des savants, Baillet, 8.
Julie, see Nouvelle Helo'ise.
Junius, 359.
Jusserand, J. J., 8.
Jussieu, Antoine, 258.
Justel, Henry, 15.

Kant, Immanuel, 275.

Keats, John, 177.

Kent, William, 108.

King Lear, Shakespeare, 270.

Kings, Book of the, 280.

Kleist, Edward von, 269.

Klopstock, Frederic, 119, 148, 269,

311, 317, 319, 347, 352-4.
Knox, John, 90.
Kremer, 31 x.

INDEX

387

Labaume, 328.

La Bruyere, Jean de, 11, 119, 121, 122,

123.
La Calprenede, Gautier de, 155.
La Chaussee, 123, 132, 133, 211-2.
Laclos, Pierre Ambroise Francois

[Choderlos] de, 226.
La Condamine, Charles de, 258.
La Croze, Mathurin de, 16.
Lade, Robert, 45.
La Fare, Marquis de, 58.
Lafayette, Marquis de, 258.
La Fontaine, Jean de, 7, 9, 26, 8z.
La Fosse, Antoine de, 9.
Lagrange-Chancel, Joseph de, 81.
La Harpe, Jean de, 96, 147, 157, 160,

215, 233, 263, 323, 328, 343, 351,

361.
Lakanal, Joseph, 349.
Lalande, Joseph de, 258.
Lally-ToUendal, Thomas, 353.
Lamartine, Alphonse de, 251, 254, 304,

327» 352, Zio, 374-
Lambert, Mme. de, 236.
La Motte, Antoine de, 12, 131, 341.
Langlois, Charles V., 3.
La Noue, Francois de, 5.
La Place, Pierre, 131, 132, 146, 228,266.
La Rochefoucauld, Francois de, 121,

218.
Larrey, Isaac de, 20.
Lathmon, Ossian, 322.
Lauzun, Duchesse de, 233.
Lauzun, N. de, 258.
Lavater, John, 226.
Lehen der Schivedischen Grafin von G . . .,

Gellert, 148.
Le Blanc, Abbd, 40, 87, 99, 258, 261,

263.
Lebrun, Ecouchard, 349, 350.
Le Clerc, Jean, 16, 18, 19, 25, 26, 83.
Leibnitz, Gottfried W., 16, 17.
Lemaitre, Jules, vii, 368.
Lemercier, 349.
Lemercier, N6pomucene, 214.
Lemierre, Antoine Marin, 303.
Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Nicolas, 35.
Lenz, Reinhold, 275.
Leo X., 12.

Leonard, Nicolas-Germain, 224, 296,
Leonidas, Glover, 56.
Leopardi, Giacomo, 375.
Le Pays, Ren^, 6.
Lesage, Alain Ren^, 46, 48, 80, 125,

146, 150, 152, 153, 155, 160, 17s,

193, 201, 205, 214, 223.

Let Papier s anglais, 265.

Lespinasse, Mile, de, 223, 287, 299.

Lessing, Ephraim, 113, 114, 138, 149,

269, 275, 282, 311, 347, 353.
Lesueur, Jean, 329.
Leti, Gregorio, 20.
Letourneur, Pierre, 162, 267, 294, 305,

309^ 312-3' 3^3' 3^7-8, 338, 34*.
Letronne, Jean Antoine, 349.
Letter concerning Enthusiasm, Shaftesbury,

32.

Letter from Italy, Addison, 1 18.

Letters of Helo'ise and Abelard, 236.

Letters to Eliza Draper, Sterne, 282.

Lettre de Barnevelt dans sa prison, Dorat,
140.

Lettres, Mme. de Sevigne, 80.

Lettres a M. de Malesherbes, Rousseau,
299.

Lettres anglaises, or philosophiques, Vol-
taire, 37, 43, 48, 56, 57, 65-73, 87,
98, 99, 102.

Lettres de Juliette Catesby, Riccoboni, 225,
238.

Lettres de la marquise de , . . au comte de
R . . ., Crebillon//j, 236.

Lettres de Milady Linsay, 224.

Lettres du marquis de Roselle, de Beau-
mont, 238,

Lettres peruviennes, De Graffigny, 238.

Lettres persanes, Montesquieu, 81, 122,
170.

Lettres portugaises , 236.

Lettres sur les Anglais et les Franfais,
Muralt, 37, 38, 44, 98, 103.

Lettre sur les spectacles, Rousseau, 103,
124, 129, 141, 228.

Levite d^ Ephraim, Rousseau, 299.

Liaisons dangereuses, Les, Laclos, 1 84, 226.

Life of Cicero, Middleton, 45.

Ligne, Prince de, 107, 262.

Lillo, George, 114, 133-141.

Litterature consideree dans ses rapports avec
les institutions sociales, De la, De Stael,

x"i> 335» 356-7> 362-3^ 37o> 373-4-
Locke, John, 16, 18, 19, 21, 26, 29,

37, 59, 60, 61, 65, 77, 84, 85-86, 97,

109, III, 248, 277, 301, 359.
Lockman, John, 66.
London Merchant, The, Lillo, 114, 132-

141.
Louis, Abb^, 355.
Louis XIV., 1, 12, 13, 80, 258, 334,

376.
Louis XV., 261, 263.
Louis XVI., 261, 264.

388

INDEX

Luc, Andre de, 91.

Lucrece, Rousseau, 129. i

LuUy, Jean Baptiste, 337.

Lyly, John, 193.

Lyttelton, Lord, 64.

Mabillon, Jean, 80.
Mably, Gabriel, 80, 128.
Macbeth, Shakespeare, 367.
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 363.
Mackenzie, Henry, 145.
Macpherson, James, 95, 316, 318-325,

327-8, 330-1 »J73-
Magasin encyclopedique, 355.
Magny, Claude-Francois, 93, 243.
Maistre, Joseph de, 216.
Maistre, Xavier de, 284.
Malebranche, Nicolas, 80.
Malesherbes, Chretien, 229, 242.
Malherbe, Francois, 3, 376.
Mallet, Paul-Henri, 317, 358.
Mandeville, Bernard de, 32, 113.
Man in the Moon, The, Godwin, 8.
Manlius, La Fosse, 9.
Manon Lescaut, Prevost, 49, 135, 1 5 4,

161, 170, 201, 252.
Mariana, Jean P., 74.
Marechal, 9."
Mariamne, Voltaire, 58.
Marina ox Elmerick, Lillo, 134.
Marivaux, Pierre de, 78, 80, 97, 103,

119, 120, 121, 125, 126, 150, 155-

160, 166, 176, 193, 201, 205, 213,

245.
Markan, Abbe, 35.
Marlowe, Christopher, 136.
Marmontel, Jean Frangois, 80, 153,

157, 213, 215, 223, 225, 361.
Martinus Scriblerus Peri Bathos, Swift, '56.
Martyrs, Chateaubriand, 354.
Mary Tudor, 90.
Masham, Lady, 18.
Massillon, Jean-Baptiste, 81.
Mason, William, 303.
Maty, Matthew, 25, 30, 31.
Mauger, Claude, 8.
Maupertuis, Pierre, 83.
Maury, Cardinal, 121.
Mauve, de, 31.
Mazarin, Cardinal, 5.
Medical Dictionary, James, 1 1 3.
Medicis, Marie de, 5.
Meditations, Bossuet, 25 1.
Meditations among the Tombs, Hervey,

1} 3-4-

Meditations poetiques, Lamartine, 370.

Meilhan, Senac de, 353.

Memoires, Mme. de Motteville, 80.

Memoires, Retz, 80.

Memoires de Clarence Welldonne, 224.

Memoires de Miledi B . . ., Riccoboni,

225.
Memoires de Trevoux, 74, 119.
Memoires du chevalier de Gramont, 8 1 .
Memoires d\n homme de qualite, Prevost,

46, 47' 154-

Memoires et observations faites par un voya-

geur en Angleterre, Misson, 24.
Memoires litteraires de la Grande Bretagne,

3o> 31-

Memcires pour servir a Vhistoire de la

vertu, Prevost, 225.
Memoires sur Suard, Garat, 2, 60, 80,

82, 85, 99, 108, 131, 234, 255, 269,

270, 277-8, 285, 287, 289, 316.
Memoirs, Goethe, 320.
Memoirs of literature, 29, 30.
Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph, Mrs

Sheridan, 225, 233.
Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare, 140.
Mercier, Sebastien, 114, 138, 140,222,

263, 265, 302, 312, 337.
Mercure, Le, 266, 296, 35 1.
Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare,

55' 347.

Mestrezat, Jean, 19.

Metastasio, Pietro, 269.

Meurier, Gabriel, 7.

Meynieres, Mme. de, 266.

Michelet, Jules, 15, 21, 58, 371.

Middleton, Conyers, 45.

Miege, Guy, 7.

Millot, Claude, 115.

Milton, John, 13, 14, 26, 37, 47, 55,
64, 65, 70, 94, 97, in, 250, 269,
294, 301, 311, 337-8, 345, 353, 357,

359-
Mirabeau, Marquis de, 228, 258.
Misanthrope, Le, Moliere, 141.
Misanthrope, T'^^^ (magazine), 120.
Miser, The, Fielding, 56.
Misson, Francois Maximilien, 16, 24.
Missy, Cesar de, 16, 20.
Mceurs du Jour, tffc, les, 224.
Moivre, Abraham de, 16, 33.
Moliere, Jean Baptiste, 13, 41, 54, 69,

81, 128, 245, 341, 371, 376.
Monchrestien, Antoine de, 5.
Moniteur, le, 347*
Monnier, Marc, xii, 208, 275.
Monod, Gaspar Joel, 162.
Montague, Elizabeth, 269.

INDEX

389

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 270.
Montaigne, Michel de, 8, 29, 218, 274,

363-
Montesquieu, Charles de, 21, 46,50, 59,

74, 97, 99, 100, loi, 122, 131, 144,

256, 258, 290, 360, 366.
Montlosier, Francois Dominique de,

353-
Monuments de la mythologie et de la poesie

des Celtes, ^c., Mallet, 317.
Moore, Edward, 103, 114.
More, Sir Thomas, 8, 22.
Morellet, Andre, 258-9, 355.
Morley, John, 60, 113.
Morus, Alexander, 14.
Morville, M. de, 62.
Motteux, Pierre Antoine, 15.
Motteville, Mme. de, 3, 62, 80.
Mounier, Jean Joseph, 352.
Muralt, Beat de, xi, 36-44, 48, 56, 59,

73, 76, 92, 98, 103-109, 242, 258.
Musaeus, Johann, Karl August, 145,

149.
Musset, Alfred de, 254, 371, 374.
Mussy, Gu^neau de, 351.

JVa/i//i^, Voltaire, 212, 221-2.
Napoleon Buonaparte I., 329, 347, 351.
Narbonne, Louis de, 352.
Narcisse, ou Vamant de lui-meme, Rousseau,

128, 129.
Naude, Gabriel, 5.
Necker, Jacques, 259, 261, 269, 339,

357- ^

Neufchateau, Francois de, 301, 348.

Newton, Sir Isaac, 16-19, 24, 29, 53,
6i, 67, 77, 82-86, 91, 97, 301.

Nicolai, Christopher F., 282.

Nicole, Pierre, 121, 218.

Night Thoughts, Young, 62, 272, 275,
301, 304-310, 312, 347.

Ninon de I'Enclos, 58.

Nisard, Desir^, viii, ix, xvi, xvii, 375.

Nodier, Charles, 254, 284, 330, 349.

NoUet, Jean, 53, 258.

Northern Spectator, 311.

N6tre, Le, 108.

Nouvelle bibllotheque anglatse, 31.

Nouvelle bibliotheque ou Histoire litteraire des
pr'incipaux ecrtts qui se publient, 27.

Nouvelle Clementine, Leonard, 224,

Nowvelle Helo'tse, Rousseau, x-xii, 95,
104, 106, 112, 124, 129, 141, 172,
196, 208, 2i§, 227-236, 238-240,
242-4, 247-253, 255, 274, 277, 293,
301, 303, 318, 361. J

Nowvelles de la Republique des lettres, 25,

26.
Nuit, Bissy, 308.

Observations, Desfontaines, 210.

Odes, Collins, 301.

CEdipe, Voltaire, 60, 81.

Oithona, Ossian, 322.

Optics, Newton, 83.

Orleans, Due d', 210.

Orneval, d', 125.

Osservatore, 1 1 9.

Ossian, xii, xiv, 200, 259, 266-7, -^y?
275, 296, 300, 303, 314-6, 318-334,
337» 341, 343. 345» 34^, 353. 357.
359. 364-5. 367. 373-4-

Ossian, Letoumeur, 323.

OMi^//o, Shakespeare, 55, 132, 343.

Otway, Thomas, 9, 47, 260, 266.

Oursel, Louis, 7.

Pamela, Richardson, iii, 144, 148, 155,
156, 158-161, 166, 167, 175, 176,
188-192, 195-6, 198, 200, 208-214,
217, 220-2, 226, 228, 237-240, 245,
263.

Pamela, de Neufchateau, 348.

Pamela en France, Boissy, 211.

Pan, Mallet du, 91.

Panckoucke, Andr^, 230.

Paracelsus, Philippus, 98.

Paradise Lost, Milton, 55, 266, 296.

Paris, Gaston, 371.

Paris-Duverney, 263.

Parnell, Thomas, 62.

Pascal, Blaise, 84, 307.

Pasquier, fitienne, 6.

Patin, Guy, 5.

Pavilion, fitienne, 5.

Paysan Parvenu, Le, Marivaux, 1 50, 1 59,

Paysan Perverti, Le, Restif, 226.

Peilisson, Paul, 20.

Pennant, Thomas, 64.

Pensees anglaises sur divers sujets de religion
et de morale, 307.

Pensees philosophiques, Diderot, 1 1 3.

Percy, Thomas, 316-7.

Pere de famille, Le, Diderot, 112, 2 1 9.

Peregrine Pickle, Smollett, 1 45.

Pericles, 12.

Perrault, Charles, 12, 13, 341.

Perron, Cardinal de, 11.

Persifeur, Le, 112, 1 24.

Peterborough, Lord, 62.

Petit catechisme politique des Anglais, &C.,

77-

390

INDEX

Petit Grandison, Berquin, 224.

Petrarch, 292, 361, 365.

Petronius, 122.

Phedre, Racine, 10.

Philosophique anglais, Le, see Cleveland.

Philosophical essay concerning the Human Un-
derstanding, Locke, 18.

Pictet, Charles, 91.

Pictet, Marie- Auguste, 91.

Pindar, 308.

Pitt, Andrew, 61.

Pitt, William, 64, 262.

Pliny, 128, 363.

Plutarch, 297, 343, 349, 363.

Poeme sur Lisbonne, Voltaire, 242.

Poesies galUques, Baour-Lormian, 329.

Poinsinet, Antoine-Alexandre -Henri,
147.

Polexandre, 236.

Politique tiree de P Ecriture Sainte, 80.

Polysynodie, Saint-Pierre, 20.

Pompadour, Mme. de, 266.

Pope, Alexander, 28, 33, 37, 56, 61, 64,
67> 7*» 73» 83, 95, 97, XII, 115-118,
133, 166, 260-1, 296, 309, 321, 359,

365-

Portland, Lord, 20.

Postboy, The, 16.

Pour et Contre, Le, Prevost, 37, 51, 52,
56, 123, 139.

Prevost d'Exiles, Antoine, xi, 2, 21,
34. 35» 37. 44-56, 65, 67, 73, 76, 80,
87. 95, 97» 103, I", 1*3, i*7j 13*,
i39» 150, 151, 153-155, 161-164, 172,
178, 193, 201, 205, 212, 214, 217-8,
223, 225, 227, 239, 242, 252, 256,
264, 266, 268, 302.

Priestley, Joseph, 257.

Princess e de Cleves, 20 6, 246, 250.

Principia, Newton, 83.

Prior, Matthew, 67, 68.

Prisonniers de guerre, Rousseau, 128.

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,
8.

Profession defoi du Vicaire Savoyard, Rous-
seau, 118, 241-2,

Propertius, 360.

Proposal for correcting, improving, and
ascertaining the English Tongue, Swift,

33-
Pulci, Luigi, 74.
jP}(gwa//o«, Rousseau, 129.

Quincy, Quatremere de, 355.
Quinet, Edgar, 330.

Rabelais, Franqois, xiii, 29, 283, 337.

Racan, Honorat de, 341.

Racine, Jean, 7, 8, 13, 16, 27, 96, 129,

296, 336, 338, 341-1, 359, 368, 371.

374, 376.
Radcliffe, Anne, 348.
Radoteur, 1 20.
Ramsay, Andrew, 7, 21.
Rapin, Rene, 82.
Rathery, E. J. B., 7, 15, 19.
Raynal, Guillaume, 80, 258, 279, 280,

.357;
Reflexions sur la poesie et la peinture, Dubos,

34.
Regnard, Jean F. de, 8i, 153.
Relation d*un voyage en Angleterre, Sor-

biere, 23, 24.
Religieuse, la, Diderot, 217, 225.
Remarques sur P Angleterre faites par un

voyageur, Colombiere, 24.
Rembrandt, Paul, 283.
Remy, Abbe, 312.
Renan, Ernest, 376, 379.
Rene, Chateaubriand, xii, 354, 365.
Resnel, Abbe du, 73, 115, 266.
Restif de la Bretonne, Nicolas Edm^,

226.
Retz, Cardinal, 19, 80.
Reveries d'un prcmeneur solitaire, Rousseau,

231, 236, 299, 301, 333.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 281.
Ricaut, Paul, 8.

Riccoboni, Mme., 225, 238, 257, 312.
Richardson, Samuel, xi, xiv, 45, 84,

95, 109, III, 114, 133, 142, i44-i5i>

155-241, 243, 245-7, H9» 167, 275,

281, 284-5, 309* 341, 345, 348, 357.

360.
Richelieu, Due de, 6, 184, 342.
Rivarol, Antoine de, 340, 353, 355,|377.
Robbers, The, Schiller, xiv, 274.
Robert Burns, Angellier, xv.
Robertson, William, 269.
Robespierre, Francois Maximilian, 314,

347-

Robinson Crusoe, De Foe, 1 8, 32, 33, 68,

HI, 115, 124-128, 165.
Robinson (German, Italian, Silesian),

125.
Roche, Michel de la, 29, 30.
Rochelle, Nee de la, 214.
Rochester, Earl of, 37, 64, 70.
Roderick Random, Smollett, 1 45.
Rohan-Chabot, M. de, 57, 58.
Roland [de la Platiere], Jean Marie,

258, 347.

INDEX

391

Roland, Mme. , 297, 347.

Ronsard, Pierre, xiii, 5.

Roscommon, Earl of, 70.

Ross, David, 133, 134.

Roucher, Jean Antoine, 294, 297.

Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste, 73.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, ix-xiv, xix, 2,

40, 41, 44, 80, 88, 89-95, 97, 98,
101-118, 123, 124, 127-133, 136, 141,
148, 150, 151, 154, 155, 161, 163,
164, 172, 180, 187, 200, 207, 208,
212, 217-8, 221-4, 227-258, 271-9,
281, 288, 290-4, 299-304, 310, 314-
315, 318, 322, 326, 331-3, 335, 338,
342-3, 346, 349, 350, 356-7, 359-366,
368-370, 372, 374, 379.

Rousseau, Pierre, 267.
Rowe, Nicholas, 138.
Rutlidge, Chevalier de, 267.
Rymo and Alpin, Ossian, 32 1.

Sabliere, Mme. de la, 24.
Sade, Abbe de, 264.
Sade, Marquis de, 226.
Saint-Amant, Marc Antoine de, 3, 5.
Sainte-Beuve, Charles, 37, 153, 158,

254, 267, 351, 372, 375.
Saint-Evremond, Charles de, 10, 17, 23,

41, 103, 201, 353.
Saint-George, David de, 328.
Saint-Hyacinthe, Th^miseul de, 17, i8,

28, 61, 125, 126, 266.
Saint-Lambert, Charles de, 123, 294,

296-7.
Saint-Marc, Le Fevre de, 51.
Saint-Maur, Dupre de, 266.
Saint-Pierre, Abbe de, 20.
Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 50, 127,

228, 253, 293, 335, 344.
Saint-Simon, Claude, 7, 115.
Salle, Mile., 54.
Sallengre, Albert Henri de, 29.
Salmonet, 19.

Samson, Joseph Isidore, 21.
Sand, George, 193, 254, 330.
Sante, le P. de la, 43.
Sara Samfson, Lessing, II4, 138.
Saumaise, Claude de, 3.
Saurin, Jacques, 103.
Saussure, Horace de, 91.
Sauzet, Jean-Pierre-Paul de, 27.
Savage, Richard, 67.
Sayous, Pierre-Andre, 15, 18, 20, 24,

25.
Scaevola, Mucius, 349.
Scarron, Paul, 147, 210, 283.

Scenes anglaises, Destouches, 34.
Schelandre, Jean de, 5, 9.
Schelling, Friedrich von, 354.
Scheurleer, 21.
Schiller, Johann von, 274-5, 347, 352-3,

357» 370, 374-

Schlegel, Wilhelm, 139, 357.

Schleinitz, 115.

Schweighauser, Jean, 355.

Scott, Sir Walter, 184, 195, 374.

Seasons, The, Thomson, 68, 294-5, 298-
30X.

Sedaine, Michel Jean, 133.

Sejanus, Jon son, 10.

Seneca, 5, 34.

Sentimental Journey, Sterne, 280, 282,
286-9.

Septchenes, Leclerc de, 266.

Sere, de, 115.

Sermons, Bourdaloue, 80.

Sermons, Sterne, 282.

Serre, Puget de la, 5, 353.

Sevigne, Mme. de, 7, 81.

Sgravesande, Guillaume Jacob, 29.

Shadwell, Thomas, 41.

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 32, 60, 64, 68,
97, 113, 118, 297, 309.

Shakespeare, William, xiii, 8, 9, 32,
4ij 47» 55> 62, 64, 68, 69, 72, 84,
94, 118, 131, 132, 138, 140, 193,
207-8, 222, 250, 254, 257, 260, 265,
267, 271, 275, 284, 294, 300, 319,
336-9» 34i-3> 345. 347-8, 353, 359»
363, 365, 367-8, 371, 374-5-

Shelburne, Earl of, 257.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 251, 275.

Sheridan, Richard B., 359.

Sherlock, Martin, 63, 64, 78.

Sidnei, Gresset, 302.

Sidnei et Silli, d'Arnaud, 224.

Sidney, Algernon, 270.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 8.

Siede de Louis XV., Voltaire, 1 5 3.

Silhouette, fitienne de, 115, 116.

Sir Charles Grandison, Richardson, 1 45,
148-150, 161-4, 168, 170, 175, 202-4,
208, 214, 217, 228, 233.

Sismondi, Jean Charles, 354, 366, 376.

Sloane, Sir Hans, 63.

Smith, John, 323.

Smollett, Tobias, 145, 146, 150, 257.

Socrates, 123, 275, 349.

Sophocles, 8, 13, 114, 220.

Sorbiere, Samuel, 22-24.

Sorel, Charles, 7, 9.

Southerne, Thomas, 138.

392

INDEX

Spectateur du Nord, 355.

Spectateur fr annals , I zo .

Spectateur hollandais, 1 1 9.

Spectator, The, 28, 29, 33, 68, 102,

I18-123, 128, 236.
Spener, Philipp Takob, 93.
Spenser, Edmund, 13, 41, 47, 269, 318,

358.
Stael, Mme. de, vii-x, xii-xv, 2, 91,

94, 96, 143, 150, 246, 253, 256, 271,

274, 276, 317-8, 329, 333-5, 346-7,

35o» 352> 354» 356-7. 360-374, 376.
Stair, Lord, 57.
Stanyan, Abraham, 113.
Steele, Richard, 17, 33, 55, 118, 123,

127, 197, 296.
Stendhal [pseud, of Henri Beyle], xiii,

146, 250, 292, 371, 374, 376.
Stephen, Leslie, 192.
Sterne, Laurence, xiv, 145, 222, 266,

271, ^75. ^77-291, 308-9, 338, 341,

348,
Stewart, Dugald, 114, 257.
Stinstra, Pastor, 148.
Suard, Jean Baptiste Antoine, 114,

131, 161, 258-9, 266, 268-9, ^77»

280, 357.
Suard, Mme., 285, 322.
Supplement au voyage de Bougainville,

Diderot, 113.
Swift, Jonathan, 28, 29, 33, 35, 56,62,

67. 69, 70, 72, 86, 94, 97, 309,
337-

Tabaraud, Mathieu Mathurin, 119.

Tacitus, 67, 193, 297, 349.

Taine, Hippolyte, xiv, xvi, 23, 142,

283, 369, 373-
Tale of a Tub, Swift, 29, 33, 69, 97.
Tambour nocturne, Destouches, 34.
Tancrede, 361.
Tartuffe, Moliere, 69, 215.
Tasso, Torquato, 297.
Tatler, The, 1 7, 33.
Taylor, Jeremy, 70.
Temora, Macpherson, 318.
Tempest, The, Shakespeare, 34, 55.
Temple, Sir William, 3, 26.
Tesse, Mme. de, 227.
Theatre anglais. La Place, 131, 266.
Theocritus, 299.
Thieriot, 63, 65, 264.
Thomas, Antoine Leonard, 345.
Thomson, James, xii, xiv, 47, 62, 67,

68, 94, 95, 275, 294-301, 331, 345,
347, 357, 361, 365-

Thoyras, Rapin de, 16, 20.

Thucydides, 360.

Tibullus, 360.

Tillotson, John, 61, 65, 70.

Tindal, Matthew, 20, 55, 58, 59,

60, 61.
Toland, John, 59, 60, 97.
Tolstoi", Lyof, 207, 247, 375.
Tom Jones, Fielding, 145-147, 159, 165,

217, 228, 266.
Toussaint, Francois Vincent, 113, 114.
Traducteur, Le, 268.
Trait e de la concupiscence, 8 1 .
Traite de la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-

meme, 80.
Traite de metaphysique, Voltaire, 60.
Travels in Italy, Addison, 1 1 8.
Travels of Robert Lade, 45.
Tresne, Marquis de la, 353.
Tristram Shandy, Sterne, 1 45, 278, 28 1-

286, 289, 341.
Tronchin, Theodore, 91.
Turcaret, 81.
Turgot, Anne, 321.
Turretin, Alphonse, 91.

Ulfeld, Comte d', 22.
Urfe, d', Honore, 9.
Utopia, More, 8, 22.

Vanderbourg, Martin Marie Charles,

355-
Van Effen, Justus, 29, 32, 33, 37, 125,

126, 266.
Vanini, Lucilio, 98.
Van Loon, 45.
Vauban, Sebastien, 80, 202.
Vauvenargues, Luc [de Clapiers] de,

80, 339.
Vayer, La Mothe le, 7.
V enice preserved, Otway, 47, 68, 266.
Vergil, 5, 13, 28, 249, 294, 337, 341,

344, 360, 363, 375-
Viaud, Theophile de, 5.
Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith, 145, 165.
Fie de Marianne, Prevost, 150, 156-160,

166.
Vie d^une comtesse suedoise, Gellert, 1 48.
Vigny, Alfred de, xvii, 196, 202, 371.
Villemain, Abel F., 193, 207, 254,

^95, 314, 33°-
Villers, Charles de, 354-5, 357, 366.
Villoison, Jean B., 344.
Vogue, Melchior de, x, 377.
Voiture, Vincent, 5.
VoUand, Sophie, 216.

INDEX

393

Voltaire, Arouet de, xi, xviii, 2, 6,
16, 18, 19, 22-24, 34> 35> 44j 48,
56-76, 78, 80, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 95,
97, 99, 100, 115, 117, 118, 120, 132,
141, 143, 147, 153, 165, 173, 212-4,
220-3, 225, 242, 248, 253, 256-8,
264-6, 270, 282-3, 288, 295-7, 303>
311-2, 325-6, 335-9, 341-5, 358-9,
361, 363, 366, 368, 370, 376.

Voss, Johann, 319.

Vossius, Isaac, 82.

Voyage d' Anacharsis , Barth^lemy, 344.

Walckenaer, Jan, 259.

Waldegrave, Lord, 139.

JVallenstein, Schiller, 352.

Waller, Edmund, 10, 37, 70.

Wallis, John, 23.

Walpole, Horace, loi, 170, 223, 281,

286, 316, 318.
Warburton, William, 70, 116.
Warens, Mme. de, 93, 243, 279.
Warton, Thomas, 316.
Waverley, Scott, 1 45.
Weiss, J. -J., 376.

JVerther, Goethe, xii, xiv, 208, 235,

3^o» 33i» 333» 357» 361.
Wesley, John, 286.
Westermann, Francois Joseph, 314.
Wharton, Duke of, 182.
Wieland, Christopher, 145, 149, 347,

353> 357-8
Wtlhelm Meister, Goethe, 358.
Wilkes, John, 64, 114, 257.
Wilkins, John, 8.
William III,, 20, 21.
Winckelmann, Johann J., 269, 344.
Wood, Robert, 344.
Woolston, Thomas, 61.
Wycherley, William, 71, 72.

Yart, Abbe, 266, 332.

Yorkshire Tragedy^ A^ 1 38.

Young, Arthur, 257, 292.

Young, Edward, xii, xiv, 62, 217, 267,
27i-3» ^75' 3oo> 303-4, 306-314, 3*0i
331-2, 338, 341, 347-8, 357, 365.

Zaire, Voltaire, 54, 65, 99.
Zelter, 113,

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POLLOCK, SIR FREDERICK, BART.

SPINOZA, HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY, by

Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., Barrister-at-Law ; late Fellow
of Trinity College, Cambridge; Hon. LL.D. of the
Universities of Edinburgh, Dublin and Harvard; Cor-
responding Member of the Institute of France ; Corpus
Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford.
Demy 8vo. Second edition, revised throughout.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION. BODY AND MIND.

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA. THE NATURE OF MAN.

SPINOZA'S CORRESPONDENCE. THE BURDEN OF MAN.

IDEAS AND SOURCES OF THE DELIVERANCE OF
SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY : MAN.

PART I. JUDAISM AND NEO- THE CITIZEN AND THE

PLATONISM. STATE.

PART II. DESCARTES. SPINOZA AND THEOLOGY.

THE DOCTRINE OF METHOD. SPINOZA AND MODERN
THE NATURE OF THINGS. THOUGHT.

APPENDIX.

WHITE, W. HALE,

SPINOZA: TRACTATUS DE INTELLECTUS
EMENDATIONE, translated from the Latin by
W. Hale White. Translation revised by Amelia
Hutchison Stirling, M.A.(Edin.). i2mo, cloth, 2s. 6d.

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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER, by Leslie Stephen.
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VOL. I. VOL. n.

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JOHN BYROM. MATTHEW ARNOLD.

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THE TATLER.

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" The original numbers of The Tatler were re-issued in two forms in
1710-11 ; one edition, in octavo, being published by subscription, while
the other, in duodecimo, was for the general public. The present
edition has been printed from a copy of the latter issue, which, as
recorded on the title-page, was * revised and corrected by the Author ' ;
but I have had by my side, for constant reference, a complete set
of the folio sheets, containing the * Lucubrations of Isaac BickerstaflF*
in the form in which they were first presented to the world. Scrupulous
accuracy in the text has been aimed at, but the eccentricities of spelling
— which were the printer's, not the author's — have not been preserved,
and the punctuation has occasionally been corrected.

"The first and the most valuable of the annotated editions of The
Tatler was published by John Nichols and others in 1786, with notes
by Bishop Percy, Dr John Calder, and Dr Pearce ; and though these
notes are often irrelevant and out of date, they contain an immense
amount of information, and have been freely made use of by subsequent
editors. I have endeavoured to preserve what is of value in the older
editions, and to supplement it, as concisely as possible, by such further
information as appeared desirable. The eighteenth century diaries and
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papers and periodicals."

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HUTCHINSON, T. ^

LYRICAL BALLADS BY WILLIAM WORDS-
WORTH AND S. T. COLERIDGE, 1798.

Edited with certain poems of 1798 and an Introduction
and Notes by Thomas Hutchinson, of Trinity College,
Dublin, Editor of the Clarendon Press " Wordsworth,"
etc. Fcap. 8vo, art vellum, gilt top. 3s. 6d. net.

This edition reproduces the text, spelling, punctuation, etc., of 1798, and gives in an
Appendix Wordsworth's Peier Bell (original text, now reprinted for the first time), and
Coleridge's Lewti, The Three Graves, and The Wanderings of Cain. It also contains
reproductions in photogravure of the portraits of Wordsworth (by Hancock, 1798) and
of Coleridge (by Peter Vandyke, 1795), now in the National Portrait Gallery. .

The publishers have in preparation further carefully annotated editions of books in
English literature, to be produced in the same style as their edition of the "Lyrical
Ballads " — not too small for the shelf, and not too large to be carried about — further
announcements concerning which will be made in due course. It is not intended to
include in this series, as a rule, the oft-reprinted "classics," of which there are already
sufficiently desirable issues.

Athensdum (4 col. review). — " Mr Hutchinson's centenary edition of the Lyrical
Ballads is not a mere reprint, for it is enriched with a preface and notes which make it
a new book. The preface contains much that is suggestive in explaining the history
and elucidating the meaning of this famous little volume. Mr Hutchinson's notes are
especially deserving of praise."

St James's Gazette.—" 'Lyrical Ballads' was published September i, 1798. By a
happy |hooght this centenary is in anticipation very fitly celebrated — without fuss or
futilities— by the publication of an admirable reprint of ' Lyrical Ballads,' with an
adequate ' apparatus criticus ' by Mr T. Hutchinson, the well-known Wordsworthian
scholar, whose name makes recommendation superfluous. This is a book that no
library should be without — not the 'gentleman's library' of Charles Lamb's, sarcasm,
but any library where literature is respected."

Notes and Queries. — " The book is indeed a precious boon. Mr Hutchinson is in
his line one of the foremost of scholars, and his introduction is a commendable piece of
work. No less excellent are his notes, which are both readable and helpful. One can-
not do otherwise than rejoice in the possession of the original text , now faithfully
reproduced. A volume which is sure of a place in the library of every lover of
poetry." • J*^

Globe. — " It is delightful to have them in the charming form given to them ih the
present volume, for which Mr Hutchinson has written not only a very informing intro-
duction, but also some very luminous and useful notes. The book is on . which every
lover and student of poetry must needs add to his collection." -' *"

l\i.X\.'l..G^.

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

PQ Texte, Joseph

2057 Jean-J'acques Rousseau .

E5T413

cop. 2

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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"

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