Nor is there the least doubt that he did resort on
a large scale to something like the practice of those portrait painters
who employ their pupils to paint in the draperies, backgrounds, and
accessories of their work. But that Dumas was the moving spirit still,
and the actual author of what is best and most peculiar in the works
that go by his name, is sufficiently proved by the fact that none of his
assistants, whose names are in many cases known, and who in not a few
instances subsequently attained eminence on their own account, have
equalled or even resembled his peculiar style. Dumas' dramatic work is
of but little value as literature properly so called. His forte is the
already mentioned playwright's instinct, as it may be termed, which made
him almost invariably choose and conduct his action in a manner so
interesting and absorbing to the audience that they had no time to think
of the merits of the style, the propriety of the morals, the congruity
of the sentiments. His plays, in short, are intended to be acted, not to
be read. Of his novels many are disfigured by long passages of the
inferior work to be expected from mere hack assistants, by unskilful
insertions of passages from his authorities, and sometimes by
plagiarisms so audacious and flagrant, that the reader takes them as
little less than an insult. His best work, however, such as the whole of
the long series ranging from _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ through _Vingt
Ans apres_ to _Le Vicomte de Bragelonne_, a second long series of which
_La Reine Margot_ is a member, and parts of others, has peculiar and
almost unique merits. The style is not more remarkable as such than that
of the dramas; there is not always, or often, a well-defined plot, and
the characters are drawn only in the broadest outline. But the cunning
admixture of incident and dialogue by which Dumas carries on the
interest of his gigantic narrations without wearying the reader is a
secret of his own, and has never been thoroughly mastered by any one
else.

[Sidenote: Honore de Balzac.]

While Dumas thus gave himself up to the novel of incident, two other
writers of equally remarkable genius, and of greater merely literary
power, also devoted themselves to prose fiction, and by this means
exercised a wide influence on their generation. Honore de Balzac was
born at Tours, on the 20th of May, 1799. He was fairly well educated,
but his father's circumstances compelled him to place his son in a
la