BOOKS.

A SHORT HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE.* A BOOK of this kind, dealing with a large and varied subject within narrow limits, and intended chiefly to subserve educa- tional purposes, is not easy to review. The compression of matter and the brevity of treatment perplex the critic, while the educational aim fetters his freedom. It may be doubted whether short histories, manuals, and the like, really are of much service to the mere student ; and it seems, on the whole, better to consider the present work from a general, than from an educa- tional point of view.

Mr. Saintsbury takes exception to Taine's theory that a given stage of the literature of a people is the product of the race, the surroundings, and the moment. The theory, however, is by no means destitute of truth, though itdoes not express the whole truth. In Western Europe, where literary effort has had fuller and freer play than elsewhere, the history of mediesval liter- atufe strikingly illustrates the law of corresponding evolution of society and letters. Mr. Saintsbury himself seems in some measure conscious of this. "Early French literature," he says, " is to a great extent anonymous," and "even where it is not," he adds, "the authors were usually more influenced by certain preva- lent forms or styles, than by anything else." In the first book, ac- cordingly, he gives an account of these forms, while in the treat- ment of the rest of the subject he proceeds by categories of authors, rather than by styles. The result is, to some extent, disappointing. The first book is really a history of mediroval literature, and it would be difficult to write a better one, upon the scale adopted; the second book, treating of the period of the Renaissance, comes next in interest and value; but as we approach the fifteenth century, the canvas becomes more and more crowded, until in the later chapters half-a-dozen authors are disposed of in a single page, and, to use Mr. Saintsbury's own expression, there is some danger lest the wood should be lost sight of for the trees. One cannot help thinking it would have been better if the earlier method had been in the main adhered to throughout, the charac- teristic work of post medimval epochs more fully presented and discussed, and the lesser names simply mentioned, with such indications as would have enabled the student of a special period or a special school to pursue the division of the subject be had at heart. The chansons de gorges, or heroic tales, half-legendary, half-historical, occupy in French literature the place which the Homeric poems occupy in the literature of Greece. The language of the "Chanson de Roland," identical, perhaps, with the song of Taillefer at Senlac, is already distinctly French, the lingua rustiea of the province has disappeared, in giving birth, after a long gestation, to a new and more vigorous tongue, in which the beginnings of the logical spirit and terse directness of modern French are already discernible. The rhyme is imperfect, in that it is an assonance of vowels rather than of syllables, but the metre is as regular almost as that of Virgil, the caesura in particular being carefully observed. The contrast with the alliterative and rough-hewn verse of the Teutonic bards is instructive. An almost complete literary form seems suddenly to have started into existence. The conquerors of Gaul, unlike the Gothic invaders of Southern Europe on the one hand, and the Saxon settlers in Britain on the other, neither lost their barbarian vigour, nor destroyed the civilisation they came into contact with. They yielded to that civilisation• much as the Tatar conquerors of China have yielded to that of the Middle Kingdom, but with this immense and fruitful difference, —that they gave a quickening impulse to a decaying society that made the Carlovingian Erripire a possibility, and with its political supremacy finally associated the literary headship of the Western world.

• A Sl&ort History of French Literature. By George Saintsbury. Ostord Clarendon Press.

We are sorely tempted to linger over the first part of Mr. Saintsbury's book. There is a charm about early French literature as unique as it is exquisite. Never have men sung

of the beauties of nature, of the deeds of men, of the pains and pleasures of existence, more tunefully than these old, nameless singers of France, who had no thought of fame in their hearts. The Fabliaux are full of a sly, kindly humour, that keeps the reader continually on the smile, well pleased with the world and himself, as one naturally is in the midst of a wholly agreeable environment. It is the esprit gaulois without the gros rire of Rabelais, and almost without the coarseness that disfigures his pages. The age of unfaith had not yet begun—mere occasional irreverence must not be confounded with sedpticism—with a de-

lightful innocence, men neither invented nor disbelieved. The same legend or tale is told over and over again, each time in a different way, and with a different grace, but always with the same unflagging sprightliness and ease. What were the sources of these exquisite tales, it is hard to say. "Happy thoughts," perhaps, passing from mouth to mouth, added to, embellished, metamorphosed, old Gaulish legendsr

still sticking to the soil ; stories in the air, wafted from the distant East. The Gesta Romanorum, though a later compilation, probably by an English hand, was a collection

of such stories as furnished the trouvbre with materials. Many of the quaintly moralised tales contained, in this curious farrago, of which, as Oesterley justly remarks, the importance in the

history of European literature cannot be over-estimated, show a striking analogy, some, mutatie mutandis, are identical with the Avadtmas. The romances and pastourelles of the twelfth century are best described by the epithet "winning." These

exquisite lyrics, that "bubble over," to use Mr. Saintsbnry's words, "with a natural gaiety," that represent so well "the lighter characteristics of the middle-ages, the childish freedom from care, the half-unconscious delight in the beauty of flowers and the song of birds, the innocent, animal enjoyment of fine weather and the open country," are among the most

musical ever wrought, despite an occasional halt that is, after all, but as the pretty .stammer of childhood. They differ both in form and subject from Provencal poetry, and are of purely French origin, and Mr. Saintsbury does well to insist upon the small influence which Provençal literature has had upon the far nobler literature of the langue d'oil, where, to alter slightly

a well-known verse,—

" Teutonic strength and Latin sweetness join."

The Ballades of Villon, the "blackguard poet," mark the transition from medhevalism to the new learning. In the hands of this strange genius, the exquisite forms of the early lyrics were remodelled in arabesque word-traceries of extraordinary complexity. But the sweetness remained, and the music was even more perfect, with a wailing note in it, deepened by ow',

sional touches of unsurpassed horror, that gave for the first time expression to that world-grief from which no modern work. of a high order is free. Mr. Saintsbury, who quotes from no other post-medireval writer, cannot forbear citing the famous epitaph of the gibbeted corpses La pluie nous a debnes et laves,

Et le soleil desseob3s et noireis ; Pies, oorbeaulx none out as yeux eaves, Et arraches la barbe et les soureils."

The French Renaissance is treated with singular ability and fullness of knowledge. The comparative independence of the movement in France is well shown, and the work of the Plgiado in making the French language what it is for the first timo. sufficiently acknowledged. The legend of Montaigne's English ancestry is reproduced, but the tradition is not referred to by Louandre, and Montaigne himself simply says, referring to the English, " C'est une nation h laquelle ceux de mon quartier ont en aultrefois une si priv6e accointance, rest& encore en ma maison aulcunes traces de notro ancien cousin- age." The study of Montaigne is quite neglected in France at the present day; Rabelais, on the contrary, is eagerly read, and a meaning sought to be extracted from his wonderful romance. • France is in a bitter mood, with which the easy- going optimism of such a trimmer as Montaigne ill accords. Of the great dramatists of the seventeenth century, Mr. Saints- bury gives an elaborate and careful study, and in a most in- structive comparison between the French or classical and the English or natural schools, sums up in effect the difference

between the modern literatures of France and England. The decadence of' letters that began ere the century closed eontinued throughout the eighteenth century, which, nevertheless, saw the perfection of form attained in the -measured and graceful prose of Voltaire, and ceased only with the outbreak of the literary revolt that accompanied the political revolution of 1830. In his long literary pre-eminence and extra- ordinary fertility Victor Hugo resembles Voltaire, but in nothing else. His stormy periods and passionate declamation, the very depth of hie pathos and fury and indignation would have made the Seigneur of Forney shrug his shoulders with mingled wonder and contempt. It may be suspected. that the admira- tion the French profess for Victor Hugo is felt for him rather as a politician, after a sort, than as a man of letters. His literary genius is in truth more cosmopolitan than French, like that of Lesage, who, as Mr. Saintsbury observes, has never been a -favourite with his countrymen. Nor is Balzac, who may divide with Hugo the literary honours of the nineteenth century, a true Frenchman. La Penn de Oltagrhu might almost have been written by Hoffmann, while in Eugenie Grandet and Le Piro Goriot we meet with a searching analysis of human nature, of which the French intel- lect, illuminating widely rather than penetrating deeply, is not normally capable. To Zola; Mr. Saiutsbury is scarcely just. The power of this writer, who, wielding not without skill the scalpel of Balzac, carves into still more repulsive matter, is undoubted ; and L'Assommoir is hardly more unpleasantly realistic than the history of Va,utrin, or some of the episodes in the life of the Baron de Nucingen. The author of Une Page d' Amour, too, has shown that he can be decent, as well as strong ; and even Nana, which has a certain sincerity about it, is, on the whole, less likely to do harm than such a book as M. de Cantor&

The literature of France, as Mr. Saintsbury well observes, of all European literatures possesses the most uniformly fertile, brilliant, and unbroken history. It reflects, indeed, with great fidelity the character and genius of the French people, and some acquaintance with it is a necessary part of the mental furniture of a man of culture. So exhaustive is the present survey, the first attempted in English, that every name of note in French literature is mentioned, with at least a line or two of description and comment. Mr. Saintsbury's critical faculty and literary skill are too well known to need praise here ; suffice it to say both are conspicuous throughout the book, which is eminently readable from beginning to end. It will, perhaps, prove more pleasurable and profitable to such as possess already a consider- able knowledge of French literature, than to mere students. A volume of illustrative extracts is to follow, and it might be well to include in it a brief account of the old French langnage—its orthography, pronunciation, and grammar—which might be easily done in less than a dozen pages, together with a glossary of such old French words at least as were obsolete in Montaigne's day.