TENDENCIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE. 215 



ness of an analytic mind to bear on tlie exploitation of the tender 

 passion; and a conscientious thougli desultory effort is made to study 

 subtle phases of character in the light of surrounding circumstances. 

 Despite the artificial precieuse qualities of his style, and the unfin- 

 ished condition of his novels, Marivaux enjoyed an extraordinary 

 popularity in his day. The same problem repeats itself on a larger 

 scale when we transfer our attention to Richardson, whose works, 

 translated and popularized by Prevost, were read with the greatest 

 avidity in France. Were not these such influences as Professor 

 Dowden's profound knowledge of English literature would have 

 qualified him to illustrate with more precision than has yet been 

 brought to bear upon them; and was it not in point of fact almost 

 imperative for him to deal seriously with such an important theme 

 in the international literary history of nations? 



The pages which Professor Dowden devotes to Voltaire, although 

 brilliant, are not sufficiently suggestive of the extraordinary influence 

 which that most celebrated of writers exercised. It was in no un- 

 critical spirit that Mr. Morley wrote : " The existence, character, and 

 career of this extraordinary person constituted in themselves a new 

 and prodigious era. The peculiarities of his individual genius 

 changed the mind and spiritual conformation of France, and in a less 

 degree of the whole of the West, with as far-spreading and invincible 

 an effect as if the work had been wholly done, as it was actually aided, 

 by the sweep of deep-lying collective forces. A new type of belief, 

 and of its shadow, disbelief, was stamped by the impression of his 

 character and work into the intelligence and feeling of his own and 

 modern times." Nor will Villemain be accused of rapt enthusiasm 

 when he writes, " C'est le plus puissant renovateur des esprits depuis 

 Luther, et I'homme qui a mis le plus en commun les idees de 1' Europe 

 par sa gloire, sa longue vie, son merveilleux esprit et son universelle 

 clarte." The strangest fact to contemplate with regard to this un- 

 rivaled popularity, this astonishing range of influence, is that it truly 

 constitutes an apotheosis of superficiality. And this in no disparag- 

 ing spirit of Carlylese disdain for clear ideas around wdiich hang no 

 mists of oracular obscurity, but rather by way of tribute to a heart that 

 beat responsively to human suffering, to a mind keenly sensible of 

 human wrongs. Voltaire rejected the subtleties of metaphysical 

 thought, was indeed incapable of attaining to the heights of specula- 

 tive contemplation ; he was only preternaturally sensitive to the moral 

 defects of this imperfect world, and determined to bend all his efforts 

 to the alleviation of injustice and of crime. As a further concession 

 to his superficiality as a thinker we may frankly admit his incapacity 

 to originate new ideas. His m-ind indeed was extraordinarily recep- 

 tive, his intellectual curiosity unlimited, and hostile critics have 



