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DIDEROT 



DIDOT 



worked in almost every department of literature. 

 He was a novelist and a dramatist, a satirist, a 

 philosopher, a critic of pictures and books ; while 

 as a letter- writer he was surpassed by none of his 

 contemporaries. His published works are far from 

 embodying the results of his labours as an author. 

 He was ever ready to contribute without reward, 

 often without acknowledgment, to the writings of 

 others ; he has been well termed the munificent 

 prodigal of letters. His efforts in fiction include a 

 story in the manner of Crebillon, described by 

 Carlyle as ' the beastliest of all past, present, or 

 future dull novels ; ' La Religieuse, a powerful 

 story written with the object of exposing the evils 

 of conventual life ; and Jacques le Fataliste, a 

 collection of short tales of which some are good and 

 others indifferent, while one of them is a little 

 masterpiece. Le Neveu de Rameau, an imaginary 

 conversation between the author and a parasite of 

 the great, is probably the strongest as it is the 

 most curious of all Diderot's works. In the course 

 of this dialogue, which was translated by Goethe, 

 the follies and corruptions of society are laid bare 

 with sardonic humour and piercing insight. 

 Diderot's plays were somewhat unsuccessful 

 examples of what was then known as tragedie 

 bourgeoise, or of what we should now term melo- 

 drama. His happiest dramatic efforts were two 

 short pieces which were never acted, La Piece ct la 

 Prologue and Est-il Eon? Est-il Mechant? The 

 letters which he addressed to Mademoiselle Voland, 

 and which were first published some fifty years 

 after his death, form the most interesting section 

 of his voluminous correspondence. They give an 

 entertaining and wonderfully vivid picture of the 

 life that was led in the Baron d'Holbach's country- 

 house at Grandval, the headquarters of the most 

 advanced members of the philosophe party. As a 

 critic Diderot stood far in advance of his con- 

 temporaries, and anticipated the Romanticists in 

 advocating a return to nature and in seeking to 

 free the drama from the trammels which had been 

 imposed on it by the classical school. His criticisms 

 bear the marks of over-hasty production, but their 

 originality, shrewdness, and abounding vivacity 

 more than atone for the lack of literary finish. 

 His Salons, remarks on pictures exhibited at 

 different times in Paris, are the earliest example of 

 aesthetic criticism in modern literature. His philo- 

 sophical works include Pensees Philosophiques, La 

 Promenade du Sceptique, Lettres sur les Sourds et 

 Muets, Lettre sur les Aveugles, La Reve d'Alembert, 

 Essai sur la Vie de Seneque, L' Interpretation de la 

 Nature, and a long criticism on Helvetius's trea- 

 tise De I'Homme. Diderot has been frequently 

 described as an atheist ; whether justly or not is a 

 matter very hard to decide. He was at one time 

 deeply influenced by the naturalistic religion of 

 Shaftesbury, and that writer's influence upon his 

 mind was never wholly effaced. In certain passages 

 he appears to write as a pantheist. But he never 

 set forth his philosophy in consistent and systematic 

 form. 



Diderot is so unequal a writer that his works 

 must be read in the mass before a just estimate can 

 be formed of his extraordinary gifts. His keenest 

 sayings, his most pregnant thoughts, are frequently 

 imbedded in dullness. An indefatigable worker, he 

 yet never took his work seriously enough. He lacked 

 the faculty of concentration and the artist's master- 

 ing sense of form. His prose is not sustained at a 

 high level of excellence ; he sins grievously against 

 good taste ; his thoughts are not seldom crude and 

 shallow; his mannerisms notably his abuse of 

 apostrophe his 'sensibility' and his philosophe, 

 cant are not a little trying to the reader. But 

 with all their defects his writings are wonderfully 

 aJive fertile in original ideas racy with a stimu- 



lating flavour which is all their own ; abounding in 

 careless felicities of phrase and in sayings which 

 flash a new light into human nature ; rich with the 

 sap of a humour which resembles the humour 

 of no other Frenchman, and which Carlyle has 

 likened to the humour of Cervantes. Inferior to 

 Voltaire and Rousseau as a literary craftsman, he 

 was a deeper thinker than either; his knowledge 

 of men was profound, and his learning was truly 

 encyclopaedic. Ardent and generous, though lack- 

 ing in self-restraint, he was one of the best of 

 friends and the most charming of companions. In 

 the opinion of his contemporaries his powers as a 

 conversationalist eclipsed his gifts as a writer. 

 He appears to have possessed an unrivalled faculty 

 of improvisation ; to judge from the testimony of 

 shrewd critics who listened to him, his talk was as 

 pointed and pregnant in its substance as captivat- 

 ing in its eloquence. ' He who knows Diderot only 

 in his writings,' said Marmontel, ' does not know 

 him at all. ' 



The most complete edition of his works is that by 

 Asse'zat and Tourneur (20 vols. 1875-77 ). See the study 

 by Rosenkranz ( Leip. 1866 ) ; John Morley's Diderot and 

 the Encyclopedists ( 2 vols. 1878 ) ; E. Scherer's study 

 (1880); Sainte-Beuve's Portraits LitUraires, Carlyle's 

 Miscellanies ; and French monographs by Reinach ( 1894), 

 Collignon (1895), Ducros (1895), and Tourneux (1899). 



Dido, or ELISSA, the legendary founder of 

 Carthage, was the daughter of the Tyrian king 

 Belus or Agenor, and the sister of his successor, 

 Pygmalion. Pygmalion murdered her husband and 

 uncle, Acerbas or Sichseus, a priest of Hercules. 

 With the treasures of Sichseus, which Pygmalion 

 had sought for in vain, and accompanied by 

 many Tyrians, Dido escaped to sea. She landed 

 in Africa, not far from the Phoenician colony of 

 Utica, and built a citadel called Byrsa ( Gr. Bursa, 

 ' the hide of a bull ' ), on a piece of ground which 

 she had bought from the Numidian king Hiarbas. 

 The meaning of the word Byrsa gave rise to the 

 legend that Dido purchased as much land as could 

 be encompassed with a bullock's hide. Once the 

 agreement was concluded, she cut the hide into 

 small thongs, and thus inclosed a large piece of 

 ground, on which she built the city of Carthage* 

 To avoid being compelled to marry Hiarbas, she 

 stabbed herself on a funeral pile, which she had 

 caused to be erected, and after her death was 

 honoured as a deity by her subjects. Virgil 

 ascribes the death of Dido to her unrequited pas- 

 sion for tineas ; but many of the ancient writers 

 conceived that the poet had committed an ana- 

 chronism in making her contemporary with the 

 Trojan prince. In the common chronology, more 

 than three hundred years separated the fall of Troy 

 ( 1 1 84 B. c. ) from the founding of Carthage ( 853 ). 



IMdot, the name of a celebrated family of 

 French printers and publishers. FRANCOIS DIDOT 

 (1689-1757) was the first of the family that 

 attained eminence. His principal professional 

 achievement was the publication of the Voyages 

 of his friend the Abbe Prevost, a work in 20 

 volumes, perfect as regards the text, and enriched 

 with a great number of engravings. Two of his 

 sons, FRANCOIS AMBROISE (1730-1804) and PIERRE 

 FRANCOIS (1732-1795), also acquired distinction as 

 printers, the former publishing editions of the 

 Delphin classics, while the latter improved the 

 typefounding and paper-making arts. HENRI 

 (1765-1852), eldest son of Pierre Francois, made 

 himself famous as an engraver and letter-founder, 

 producing very beautiful 'microscopic' types. 

 PIERRE, eldest son of Francois Ambroise (1760- 

 1853), still further increased the fame of the family. 

 His Louvre editions of Virgil, Horace, Racine, and 

 La Fontaine are magnificent ; and he it was who 

 published Boileau's works and Voltaire's Henriade. 



