STUDY OF ROMANCE MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 441 



the phrase "esprit philosophique " and its reflections on the 

 although in taking this epithet the eighteenth century intended to 

 identify itself with Voltaire, and we confirm the epithet by reason 

 of Vico and Kant. And in seeking the intimate cause of things, 

 thanks to the scientific method bequeathed to it by its predecessor, 

 the eighteenth century had gained its training. Then it had brought 

 all nations into closer contact, and had carried even into the realm 

 of literature the need of universal knowledge and representation. 1 

 This contact, even though only mechanical, prepared exchange and 

 reciprocal action. And the general tendency was here of more con- 

 sequence than one of its specific determinations: the falling of the 

 barriers that kept England unknown to the Continent. The know- 

 ledge of Shakespeare was of capital importance; and not much less 

 important in the present, lasting besides in its results, was the bring- 

 ing to light of the pretended poems of Ossian. Palates gained new 

 strength from this unaccustomed food, the efficaciousness of which 

 was all the more helpful because it did not lend itself to true and 

 proper imitations. Hence a return to more normal conditions en- 

 sued. 2 All this and more the eighteenth century offered; but unfor- 

 tunately in a state of aspiration, of preparation, of semi-conscious- 

 ness. And causes existed without the ensuing effect. Therefore the 

 same judgment can come from Andre's and La Harpe : Andre's, the 

 author of the audacious work which purports to be "A critical 

 history of the vicissitudes that literature has suffered amongst all 

 nations " (literature means to him, besides art in every form, all 

 that knowledge can grasp), "a philosophic image of the progress it 

 has made from its origin to the present times in all its branches in 

 general, and in each branch in particular" ; and La Harpe, the man 

 w r ho knows nothing and sees nothing beyond the Greeks, the Lat- 

 ins, the French of the century of Louis XIV and the period which 

 immediately followed. Hearken to this judgment: " Neither Shake- 

 speare, nor Jonson, nor Vega, nor Castro, nor Calderon, nor all the 

 English and the Spanish poets together, suffice to counterbalance 

 the dramatic merit of the great Corneille." These are the words of 



1 More even than by the bulky works of Quadrio and Andre's, which recur to the 

 mind of every one, that want is efficaciously demonstrated by other works of small 

 size; as, for instance, the Discorso snpra Ic ricende dclfa Lcltcratura (ill-used by 

 Baretti) of Carlo Denina. It was published at Turin in 1701; and transformed 

 itself into the " Five Books'' (Vicende drlla Lettcratura : Libri cinque), dedicated 

 to Frederick the Great of Prussia twenty-three years afterwards. 



2 Normal conditions, whatever the cause, appear in Logrand d'Aussy. "Kh! 

 pourquoi pas?" he exclaims (p. iv, note), after referring to Fletiry, who a hundred 

 years earlier, in the Trait/': du Choix et dc la Mcthodcdes Etudes, ch. ix, had acknow- 

 ledged that among the ancient poets there were '' des gens d'esprit, et qui pour IP 

 temps avoient dc la politesse": "Les Arts, les Sciences, la Legislation, tout ce qui 

 est le fruit de 1'expcVience et du temps etait encore informe, il est vrai, mais ce que 

 donne la nature, 1'esprit, la sensibility 1'imagination, sont de tons les siecles et de 

 tons les pays, et ne tiennent que par le plus ou moins de gout aux connaissances 

 aquises." 



