s imagination. But
it is extraordinarily stimulating, full of energy and life, and almost
unequalled in the power with which the writer restores and revives the
past.

[Sidenote: Quinet.]

A bosom friend of Michelet, and his compeer in the attack on the
Jesuits, was Edgar Quinet, who was born near Bourg in 1803, and died in
1875. He was brought up for the most part at his country home in a
retired situation, where he early showed not only great devotion to
literature, but a curious tendency towards philosophic mysticism. He
travelled in Germany when young, and his translation of Herder's
_Philosophie der Geschichte_ introduced him to Cousin, and gave him some
profit and much reputation. He was sent to Greece on a government
mission, and after a time received a professorship, first at Lyons, and
then at Paris, though his republicanism did not recommend him. He was an
active supporter of the Revolution of February, and a consistent
opponent of the Empire, during which he remained in exile. Quinet's
works, both in poetry and prose, are numerous. The chief are a great
prose poem, or dramatic allegory, called _Ahasuerus_, 1834, a work on
the early French epics (insufficiently informed, but appreciative and
enthusiastic), _Le Genie des Religions_, 1843 (a series of discourses
full of the widest and vaguest generalisation, but stimulating and
generous), _Les Revolutions d'Italie_, _Merlin l'Enchanteur_, 1861
(another curious book something after the fashion of _Ahasuerus_), a
nondescript miscellany on history and science entitled _La Creation_,
1869, and _La Revolution_, 1865. His poems (in verse) are _Promethee_,
_Napoleon_, _Les Esclaves_, of which the first and last are dramatic in
form. His style and thought were strongly tinged with mysticism, and
with a singular undogmatic pietism, as well as with strong but
speculative republicanism in politics. He is thus not a historian to
consult for facts (though his knowledge both of history and literature
was accurate and wide), but an inspiriting generaliser on the philosophy
of history. Both in Michelet and in Quinet there is an affectation of
the seer, as well as an undue fluency of language, and an absence of
precision in form and place, which detract from their otherwise high
literary value. The collected works of the first exceed fifty volumes,
those of the second fill nearly thirty; and much of this vast total is
ephemeral in interest and unchastened in form. Although nei