ook, like the former, has a certain
repulsiveness of subject in parts; but the vigour of the drawing and the
extraordinary skill in description are as remarkable as ever.
_L'Education Sentimentale_, which followed, was Flaubert's least popular
work, being too long, and having an insufficiently defined plot and
interest. Then appeared the completed _Tentation de St. Antoine_, a book
deserving to rank at the head of its class--that of the fantastic
romance. Afterwards came _Trois Contes_, exhibiting in miniature all the
author's characteristics; and lastly, after his sudden death, in 1881,
the unfinished _Bouvard et Pecuchet_. The faults of Flaubert are, in the
first place, indiscriminate meddling with subjects best left alone,
which he shares with most French novelists; in the second, a certain
complaisance in dealing with things simply horrible, which is more
peculiar to him; in the third, an occasional prodigality of erudite
detail which clogs and impedes the action. His merits are an almost
incomparable power of description, a mastery of those types of character
which he attempts, an imagination of extraordinary power, and a singular
satirical criticism of life, which does not exclude the possession of a
vein of romantic and almost poetical sentiment and suggestion. He is a
writer repulsive to many, unintelligible to more, and never likely to
be generally popular, but sure to retain his place in the admiration of
those who judge literature as literature.

[Sidenote: The Naturalists. Emile Zola.]

The name of Flaubert has been much invoked, and his reputation has been
not a little compromised, by a small but noisy school of novelists and
critics who call themselves naturalists, and affect to preach and
practice a new crusade for the purpose of revolutionising poetry,
fiction, and the drama. These persons, whose leader is M. Emile Zola, a
busy and popular novelist, an unsuccessful dramatist, and a critic of
great industry, include the brothers Goncourt (one of whom is now dead)
and a number of younger writers who deserve no notice, except M. Guy de
Maupassant, whose prose, if too often ill employed, is as vigorous as
his verse, and who in his excellent _Pierre et Jean_ broke his
naturalist chains. The naturalists affect to derive from Stendhal,
through Balzac and Flaubert. That is to say, they adopt the analytic
method, and devote themselves chiefly to the study of character. But
they go farther than these great artist