oved conditions.]

This partly pathetic, partly, alas! ridiculous, but on the whole (with a
little charity) quite commiserable endeavour, attained some success,
though probably with not a little extraneous help, in _De l'Allemagne_,
and the posthumous _Considerations_ on the Revolution; but these books
do not concern us, and illustrate only part of the writer's character,
temperament, and talent, if not genius. _Corinne_ gives us the rest, and
nearly, if not quite, the whole. The author had no doubt tried to do
this in _Delphine_, but had then had neither art nor equipment for the
task, and she had failed utterly. She was now well, if not perfectly,
equipped, and had learnt not a little of the art to use her
acquisitions. _Delphine_ had been dull, absurd, preposterous; _Corinne_,
if it has dull patches, saves them from being intolerable. If its
sentiment is extravagant, it is never exactly preposterous or exactly
absurd; for the truth and reality of passion which are absent from the
other book are actually present here, though sometimes in unintentional
masquerade.

In fact, _Corinne_, though the sisterhood of the two books is obvious
enough, has almost, though not quite, all the faults of _Delphine_
removed and some merits added, of which in the earlier novel there is
not the slightest trace. The history of my own acquaintance with it is,
I hope, not quite irrelevant. I read it--a very rare thing for me with a
French novel (in fact I can hardly recollect another instance, except, a
quaint contrast, Paul de Kock's _Andre le Savoyard_)--first in English,
and at a very early period of life, and I then thought it nearly as
great "rot" as I have always thought its predecessor. But though I had,
I hope, sense enough to see its faults, I had neither age nor experience
nor literature enough to appreciate its merits. I read it a good deal
later in French, and, being then better qualified, _did_ perceive these
merits, though it still did not greatly "arride" me. Later still--in
fact, only some twenty years ago--I was asked to re-edit and "introduce"
the English translation. It is a popular mistake to think that an
editor, like an advocate, is entitled, if not actually bound, to make
the best case for his client, quite apart from his actual opinions; but
in this instance my opinion of the book mounted considerably. And it has
certainly not declined since, though this _History_ has necessitated a
fourth study of the original, and