ll as his works, and his works as a whole as
well as the particular sample before the judge. Sainte-Beuve was almost
the first in France to set the example of the _causerie critique_, the
essay which sets before the reader the life, circumstances, aims,
society, and literary atmosphere of the author, as well as his literary
achievements. This accounts for the extreme interest shown by the public
in what had very commonly been regarded as one of the idlest and least
profitable kinds of literature. At the same time the method has two
dangers to which it is specially exposed. One is the danger of limiting
the consideration to external facts merely, and giving a gossiping
biography rather than a criticism. The other, and the more subtle
danger, is the construction of a new cut-and-dried theory instead of the
old one, by regarding every man as simply a product of his age and
circumstances, and ticketing him off accordingly without considering his
works themselves to see whether they bear out the theory by facts. In
either case, the great question which Victor Hugo has stated, 'L'ouvrage
est-il bon ou est-il mauvais?' remains unanswered in any satisfactory
measure. Sainte-Beuve himself did not often fall into either error. His
taste was remarkably catholic and remarkably fine. The only fault which
can justly be found with him is the fault which naturally besets such a
critic, the tendency to look too complacently on persons of moderate
talent, whose merits he himself is perhaps the first to recognise fully,
and to be proportionately unjust to the greater names whose merits, on
good systems and bad alike, are universally acknowledged, in whose case
it is difficult to say anything new, and who are therefore somewhat
ungrateful subjects for the ingenious and delicate analysis which more
mixed talents repay. But study of the work of such a man as Sainte-Beuve
is an almost absolute safeguard against the intolerance of former days
in matter of literature, and this is its great merit.

[Sidenote: Dumas the Elder.]

Around Victor Hugo were grouped not a few writers who were only inferior
to himself. But, before mentioning the members of what is called the
_cenacle_, or innermost Romantic circle, a third name of almost equal
temporary importance to those of Hugo and Sainte-Beuve must be
named--that of Alexandre Dumas. This writer, one of the most prolific,
and in some respects one of the most remarkable of dramatists and
novelists, w