The French Mind : Studies in Honour of Gustave Rudler.
Edited by Will Moore, Rhoda Sutherland and Enid Starkie. (Oxford University Press. 30s.) THIS collection of essays by his colleagues and pupils celebrates the eightieth birthday of the former Marshal Foch Professor at Oxford. It is very much more miscel- laneous in character than its title suggests. It contains, for example, a very straight- forward introduction to Rousseau's Con- fession by J. M. Thompson, which—rightly, no doubt—rates the book far above its author's didactic novels. On the other hand there are contributions directed at an audience of period specialists ; of these W. G. Moore's examination of the meaning of the word experience as used by Montaigne is a good example. Though well-argued and suggestive to a casual reader of the Essais, it does little more than develop a single point. A survey of the " Retreat from Voltairianism " by R. Fargher has a certain contemporary relevance, since the rationalists of 1810-15 seem to have retreated with the same roundabout precipitancy as the dialectical materialists of only yesterday. The book, as a whole, is designed for the college library, where several of its essays will no doubt be much read by students.
J. M. C.
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