n 1854. He had a great influence both on men
and on books in France, and his literary work is extremely remarkable.
It bears the marks of his insufficient education and of his excitable
temperament. In the _Paroles d'un Croyant_ the style is altogether
apocalyptic in its mystic and broken declamation, full of colour,
energy, and vague impressiveness, but entirely wanting in order,
lucidity, and arrangement. The earlier works show something of this,
though necessarily not so much. Lamennais' literary, as distinguished
from his political and social, importance consists in the fact that he
was practically the first to introduce this style into French. He has
since had notable disciples, among whom Michelet and even Victor Hugo
may be ranked.

[Sidenote: Victor Cousin.]

The contrast of the return from Lamennais to Cousin is almost as great
as that of the change from Lamartine to Lamennais. The careers of the
poet and the philosopher have indeed something in common, for Cousin's
delicate, exquisite, and somewhat feminine prose style is a nearer
analogue to the poetry of Lamartine even than the latter's own prose,
and the sudden decline of Cousin's reputation in philosophy almost
matches that of Lamartine's reputation as a poet. Victor Cousin was born
in 1792, at Paris, and was one of the most brilliant pupils of the Lycee
Charlemagne. He passed thence to the Ecole Normale, and, in the year of
the Restoration, became Assistant Professor to Royer Collard at the
Sorbonne. He adopted vigorously the doctrines of that philosopher, which
practically amounted to a translation of the Scottish school of Reid and
Stewart, but he soon combined with them much that he borrowed from Kant
and his successors in Germany. This latter country he visited twice; on
the second occasion with the unpleasant result of an arrest. He soon
returned to France, however, and became distinguished as a supporter of
the liberal party. The years immediately before and after the July
Revolution were Cousin's most successful time. His lectures were
crowded, his eclecticism was novel and popular, and when after July
itself he became officially powerful, he distinguished himself by
patronising young men of genius. During the reign of Louis Philippe he
was one of the most influential of men of letters, though curiously
enough, he combined with his political liberalism a certain tendency to
reaction in matters of pure literature. After 1848 he retired from
public