208 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of dates and titles, is at best a compendium for convenient reference, 

 and consequently quite unreadable as a book. Professor Dowden, 

 on the other hand, has conquered the dry-as-dust problem with ad- 

 mirable skill, and the charm of his diction and the easy sequence of 

 his ideas lead the reader insensibly on to the close of a delightful 

 volume. Nor is the book lacking in instructive value of a highly 

 reliable kind, for, in addition to an intimate knowledge of French 

 criticism, Professor Dowden is evidently familiar at first hand with 

 all the more important works of which he treats, and not infrequently 

 proffers fertile suggestions upon debated questions. 



Having avowed, therefore, a genuine admiration of Professor 

 Dowden's book, will it be thought a graceless task if, with the pro- 

 verbial perversity of critics, I endeavor to point out here and there 

 questions of importance that may seem to have merited more attention 

 than the author was perhaps able to afford to them within his re- 

 stricted space? 



The mediaeval portion of Professor Dowden's book is valuable not 

 for its originality, but rather as the reflection of advanced modern 

 criticism in France. Therefore, in this brief review the mediaeval 

 period may be neglected, and turning to the second book, which 

 deals with the sixteenth century, the first writer of capital importance 

 whom we encounter is Clement Marot. The author has justly indi- 

 cated the decrepit conditions of poetry in Marot's youth in the de- 

 generate hands of the Rhetoriqueurs, and also the powerful attraction 

 which the allegorizing mania exercised on the poet's early work. His 

 later manner is justly emphasized, and his prowess in the lighter 

 familiar forms of verse; but it is only by inference that we appre- 

 hend the comparative neglect of his work until the later classical 

 reaction restored him to favor. Professor Dowden, indeed, through- 

 out his book has hardly conveyed a proper idea of the reactionary 

 shocks by which French literature has invariably advanced. Thus 

 .the Pleiade, in the enthusiasm of their rupture with middle-age 

 traditions, were blind to the Renaissance elements in Marot's work, 

 and seeking as they did to elevate poetry to nobler themes and a 

 nobler manner, his easy familiar grace was distasteful to them. 



Rabelais, of course, is another " colossus on a cherry stone," and 

 the purport of his message is epitomized in a few luminous sentences. 

 The elements of contrast in the man, and his full-blooded joy in 

 living, which was the sign-manual of the Renaissance upon him, are 

 indicated as follows: " Below his laughter lay wisdom; below his orgy 

 of grossness lay a noble ideality; below the extravagances of his im- 

 agination lay the equilibrium of a spirit sane and strong. The life 

 that was in him was so abounding and exultant that it broke all dikes 

 and dams; and laughter for him needed no justification, it was a 



