CHAPTER IV.

DIDEROT AND THE FRENCH TRANSITION.

The position of Diderot 89 Difficult to authenticate 90 But hardly to be exaggerated. His Impressionism 91 The Richardson éloge 92 The _Reflections on Terence_ 93 The Review of the _Lettres d’Amabed_ 94 The Examination of Seneca 94 The quality and eminence of his critical position 95 Rousseau revisited 97 Madame de Staël 100 Her critical position 100 And work 100 The _Lettres sur Rousseau_ 101 The _Essai sur les Fictions_ 102 The _De La Littérature_ 102 The _De l’Allemagne_ 105 Her critical achievement: imputed 107 And actual 108 Chateaubriand: his difficulties 109 His Criticism 110 Indirect 111 And Direct 111 The _Génie du Christianisme_ 112 Its saturation with literary criticism 113 Survey and examples 114 Single points of excellence 116

And general importance 117 Joubert: his reputation 118 His literary αὐτάρκεια 118 The Law of Poetry 119 More on that subject 119 On Style 120 Miscellaneous Criticisms 121 His individual judgments more dubious 122 The reason for this 123 Additional illustrations 123 General remarks 125 The other “Empire Critics” 126 Fontanes 127 Geoffroy 128 Dussault 129 Hoffman, Garat, &c. 129 Ginguené 130 M. J. Chénier 131 Lemercier 131 Feletz 132 Cousin 133 Villemain 133 His claims 133 Deductions to be made from them 134 Beyle 135 _Racine et Shakespeare_ 136 His attitude here 138 And elsewhere 138 Nodier 139