ance, while in English all without exception of our
greatest masterpieces have been purely romantic. Or to put the matter in
yet other words, the sense of the vague is, among authors of the highest
rank, rarely present to a Greek, always present to an Englishman, and
alternately present and absent, but oftener absent, to a Frenchman.

The qualities which this general differentia has developed in French may
now be enumerated.

The first is a great and remarkable _sobriety_. It is true that there is
nothing more extravagant than an extravagant Frenchman, but that is the
natural result of reaction. As a rule, the contributions of matter which
France received so abundantly from other nations are always toned and
sobered by her in their literary formation. The main materials of her
wonderful mediaeval literature of fiction were furnished by Wales, by
Germany, and by the East; all of them, to judge by the later but more or
less independent handlings which we have from indigenous sources, must
have teemed with the supernatural. In the Chansons de Gestes, in the
Arthurian romances, and even in the earlier Romans d'Aventures, the
supernatural, though recognised as became a devout age and country, is
yet to a certain extent rationalised. It rarely obtrudes itself, and it
still more rarely presents itself with exaggerated attributes. A
continual spirit of criticism exhibits itself throughout French
literature; it always, as represented by its most numerous and on the
whole most famous representatives, tends to order, to measure, to
symmetry.

The next characteristic is abundant and almost superabundant _wit_. The
terms wit and humour have been argued over even more than classical and
romantic, and it is equally impossible to enter into the controversy
here. Suffice it to say that, according to the most satisfactory
definition of humour (thinking in jest while feeling in earnest), wit
might be defined to be thinking in jest without interrogating the
consciousness as to whether the feeling is earnest or not. At a very
early period, as soon indeed as the French spirit had thoroughly emerged
from its German-Latin-Celtic swaddling clothes, this faculty of half
reckless thinking in jest made its appearance. In classical literature
wit is notoriously absent with rare exceptions (Aristophanes and Lucian
being almost the only ones of importance); in scarcely any other modern
literature does it make its appearance early. But it shows in F