GASTON BOISSIER. 851 



Cesars." Varied interests, searching analysis, profound generaliza- 

 tions characterize these writings; they show the universal outlook, a 

 spirit of placid Horatian urbanity, a sprightly wit. Their author 

 was justly selected as successor to Patin and Sainte-Beuve. 



Two of these essays, not so much before the public to-day as Bois- 

 sier's larger works, give more definite expression than these do to 

 those ultimate principles which guided him as author and as critic. 

 The essay on the progress of archaeologj^ and that on the theory of 

 epic are really documents of literary criticism; they present different 

 aspects of the same problem and hold an important relation to ideas 

 current at that time and at this. The first gives small comfort to 

 those who regard a proper contempt for science as a part of the 

 humanist's outfit. Boissier is intensely interested not only in the 

 great scientific advances of the last century, but in the minutiae of 

 philology, which he regards as material for the enrichment of apprecia- 

 tion. He did not indulge in easy vituperation of whatever goes on 

 au-dela du Rhin; it is not as a jest that he tells of Ritschl's course on 

 Latin grammar which finished part of the alphabet — it is to com- 

 mend the intellectual curiosity of the two hundred students who 

 attended such a course. In brief, he criticises French scholarship 

 for its lack of minute analysis ; he prophesies for it a great career, in 

 case French clarity assimilate German science — a prophecy which 

 his inspiration has helped largely to fulfil. For him, Latin eloquence 

 and Classical philology are, it would seem, synonymous terms. 



Of further honors bestowed on Boissier, it is necessary to mention 

 only his election to the Academic des Inscriptions in 1886, and his 

 appointment as perpetual secretary of the Academic Franyaise in 

 1895; the American Academy of x\rts and Sciences added his name to 

 its roll of Honorary Members in 1904. As to his writings, one could 

 almost predict, from what he had done, the volumes on Mme. de 

 Sevigne (1888), and Saint-Simon (1892). Archaeology appears 

 again — and more than archaeology — in his "Promenades" through 

 Rome and Pompeii and the country of Horace and Virgil, and in his 

 "L'Afrique romaine" (1895). His interest in both Roman religion 

 and the origins of Christianity finds expression in the splendid volumes 

 on "La Fin du paganisme" (1891), which have inspired admirable 

 works by French scholars in the same field. Finally, he published a 

 volume on Tacitus (1903), and on "La Conjuration de Catilina" 

 (1905), works of unusual importance both for the student of antiquity 

 and for the modern historian. It is interesting that, in his last book, 

 lie should return to the subject with which he began his course on 

 J'floqucnce latine. 



