nce the birth of another master."[191]

[191] _Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly_, i. 63, 179, etc.

It was thus clear to the two veterans of the Encyclopaedia that the
change for which they had worked was at hand. The press literally teemed
with pamphlets, treatises, poems, histories, all shouting from the
house-tops open destruction to beliefs which fifty years before were
actively protected against so much as a whisper in the closet. Every
form of literary art was seized and turned into an instrument in the
remorseless attack on _L'Infame_. The conservative or religious
opposition showed a weakness that is hardly paralleled in the long
history of the mighty controversy. Ability, adroitness, vigour, and
character were for once all on one side. Palissot was perhaps, after
all, the best of the writers on the conservative side.[192] With all his
faults, he had the literary sense. Some of what he said was true, and
some of the third-rate people whom he assailed deserved the assault. His
criticism on Diderot's drama, _The Natural Son_, was not a whit more
severe than that bad play demanded.[193] Not seldom in the course of
this work we have wished with Palissot that the excellent Diderot were
less addicted to prophetic and apocalyptical turns of speech, that there
were less of chaos round his points of burning and shining light, and
that he had less title to the hostile name of the Lycophron of
philosophy.[194] But the comedy of _The Philosophers_ was a scandalous
misrepresentation, introducing Diderot personally on the stage, and
putting into his mouth a mixture of folly and knavery that was as
foreign to Diderot as to any one else in the world. In 1782 the satirist
again attacked his enemy, now grown old and weary. In _Le Satyrique_,
Valere, a spiteful and hypocritical poetaster, is intended partially at
least for Diderot. A colporteur, not ill-named as M. Pamphlet, comes to
urge payment of his bill.

[192] See above, vol. i. p. 362.

[193] _Petites Lettres sur de Grands Philosophes_, ii.

[194] _Oeuv. de Palissot_, i. 445. iv. 244.

Daignez avoir egard a mes vives instances.
Je suis humilie d'y mettre tant de feu:
Mais les temps sont si durs! le comptoir rend si peu!
Imprimeur, Colporteur, Relieur, et Libraire,
Avec tous ces metiers, je suis dans la misere:
Mais j'ai toujours grand soin, malgre ma pauvrete,
De ne peser mon gain qu'au poids de l'equite.
Vous en allez