of too straight and
definite rules for each department of literature, and the following with
too great exactness of the more brilliant examples in each kind. The one
practice leads to what is called, in Sterne's well-known phrase,
'looking at the stop-watch;' the other, to an endeavour to be like
somebody. It was not till the eighteenth century that these evils were
fully patent; and then, though they were somewhat mitigated in
departments other than the Belles Lettres by the eager spirit of enquiry
and adventure which characterised the time, they are evident enough. The
mischief showed itself in various ways. Besides the two which have been
already indicated, there was a third and subtler form, which has
produced some curious and interesting work, but which is obviously an
indication of decadence. Those who did not resign themselves to the mere
recasting of old material in the old moulds, or to simple following of
the great models, were apt to echo, aloud or silently, La Bruyere's
opening sentence, 'tout est dit,' and to draw from this discouraging
fact the same conclusion that he did--that the only way to innovate was
to vary in cunning fashion the manners of saying. In itself there might
be no great harm in the conclusion, especially if it had led to a revolt
against the narrow limits imposed by current criticism. But it did not,
it only led to an attempt to innovate within those limits, which could
only be done by a kind of new 'preciousness'--an affectation in short.
This affectation showed itself first (though La Bruyere himself is not
quite free from it, enemy of Fontenelle as he was) in Fontenelle, who
was a descendant of the old _precieuse_ school itself, and reached a
climax in the author from whose name it thenceforward took its name of
_Marivaudage_.

Thus the literary produce of the seventeenth century was better than its
tendency. The latter has been sufficiently described; a very few words
will suffice for the former. In the special characteristics of the
genius of French, which may be said to be clearness, polish of form and
expression, and a certain quality which perhaps cannot be so well
expressed by any other word as by alertness, the best work of the
seventeenth century has no rivals. Except in Corneille and Bossuet, it
is not often grand, it is still seldomer passionate, or suggestively
harmonious, or quaintly humorous, or even picturesquely narrative. But
the charm of precision, of elegance, of ex