himself a good deal in literary criticism and as a journalist
of all work on the staffs of the _Journal des Debats_ and the _Revue des
Deux-Mondes_. His first really remarkable work, published in 1850, is
_Averroes et l'Averroisme_, a book injured by the author's want of
sympathy with the thought of the middle ages, but full of research and
of reflection. This gained him a post in the Paris Library. He then
produced several works, dealing more or less with the Hebrew Scriptures.
In 1860 he had a government mission to Phoenicia and Palestine, which
enabled him to examine the Holy Land very attentively. On his return he
was appointed to the chair of Hebrew at the College de France, but the
outcry against his unorthodoxy was so great that he was suspended. He
began about this time to publish his famous series of _Origines du
Christianisme_ with, for a first volume, a _Vie de Jesus_, imbued with a
curious kind of eclectic and romantic rationalism. This has been
followed by numerous volumes dealing with the early ages of
Christianity. In 1870 he made himself conspicuous by a letter to Strauss
on the subject of the Franco-German War. After the catastrophe he
confined himself for a time to literary and philosophical studies.
Recently, however, besides working at his _Origines_, which are now
completed, he has produced some half-political, half-fanciful studies of
great literary excellence, such as _Caliban_, a satire on democracy, and
_La Fontaine de Jouvence_, a brilliant mediaeval fantasy-piece, covering
a violent attack on Germany. M. Renan is, in point of style, perhaps the
most considerable prose writer of France now living who is a prose
writer only. His prejudices are strong, and his strictly argumentative
and logical faculty rather weak. In temperament he is what may be called
a sentimental rationalist. But his literary knowledge is extraordinarily
wide and very accurate, while his literary sympathies, though somewhat
irregular in their operation, are warm. These peculiarities reflect
themselves in his style, which is a direct descendant of that of
Rousseau through M. Renan's own countryman, Chateaubriand. As a
describer of scenery he is unmatched among his contemporaries. He has an
extraordinary power of vivid and interesting narration inclining
somewhat to the over-picturesque. No one is able more cleverly to seize
on the most striking and telling features of a landscape, a book, a
character, and, by adroit dwelling o