The French Poets and Novelists. 525 



ler to arrive at axioms and to banish doubts. Had Tycho 

 Brehe never written, Copernicus would have remained silent : had 

 not the industrious Newton investigated the errors of Descartes, the 

 world might still have been in comparative darkness relative to many 

 propositions now demonstrated. 



But, according to the " Quarterly," had a revolution taken place 

 in England some fifty or sixty years ago, it might have been attri- 

 buted to the works of Fielding and Smollett ; at least this is a parallel 

 to the reasoning of the said " Quarterly." But we beg to inform 

 our readers that no French novels contain such indecent pictures nor 

 such gross language as are to be met with in the writings of those 

 authors ; and, to go back two centuries and ,a half, in no French 

 dramas are there found scenes equal in licentiousness to those that 

 the reader meets with in " Pericles, Prince of Tyre," " Cymbeline," 

 "Troilus and Cressida," &c., of Shakspeare. 



After some rambling abuse, equally remarkable for its want of 

 talent and of truth, the writer in the " Quarterly" commences his 

 grand cannonade with a formidable attack on M. Charles Paul de 

 Kock. We are far from quoting the works of this author as speci- 

 mens of morality, but we mean to assert that the occasional scenes, 

 where a certain looseness prevails, are not so essentially prejudicial 

 to the cause of virtue and of temperance, nor painted in such glowing 

 colours, as the critic in the " Quarterly" would seem to infer. As for 

 any vulgarity of style, Paul de Kock's wit cannot be called vulgar 

 nor low : but we strongly suspect that the said critic is not very 

 familiar with the French language, and consequently is not aware of 

 the exact meaning of certain words which he fancies to have certain 

 parallels in his own tongue. We could give many instances of this 

 nature, but prefer leaving our readers to the results of their own re- 

 flections. In 4 ' Le Barbier de Paris" there are many admirable 

 touches of deep feeling; the whole is a true picture of human life in 

 these ages of chivalry and barbarism in which the scene is laid ; and 

 if Walter Scott consecrated the actions of the savage and licentious 

 ruffians of the olden time, who were called "gentle knights,'' P. de 

 Kock has not at least been guilty of exaggeration in his delineation 

 of the good and bad qualities of ancient characters, morals, and 

 manners. But as de Kock is one of the most important and most 

 celebrated of French novelists, we shall proceed to examine his prin- 

 cipal works in detail. 



The writings 'of Paul de Kock are numerous. Amongst his best 

 are " Le Barbier de Paris," " Srcur Anne," " Jean," " M. Dupont," 

 and " Le Cocu." The first of these here enumerated is a romance 

 somewhat in the Radcliffe style ; the adoption, by a barber, of a girl 

 whose father is unknown, a secret source of wealth which the barber 

 possesses, then a marquis, to whose vicious pleasures the barber is a 

 pander. That marquis falls in love with Blanche, the adopted girl, 

 an enlevement necessarily succeeds, and the denouement of the tale 

 elucidates the mysteries in the regular German fashion. Touquet, 

 the barber, has murdered the supposed father of Blanche, and 

 Blanche is the marquis's daughter. The last chapter is peculiarly 

 interesting. Blanche is immured in a chamber in the marquis's 



