ay, the curious assertion that, although there are
few errors in Locke and too few truths in Shaftesbury, yet Locke is only
an acute and comprehensive intelligence, while Shaftesbury is a genius
of the first order.

Under the word _Laborious_, we have only a dozen lines of angry reproach
against the despotism that makes men idle by making property uncertain.
Under such words as _Frivolous_, _Gallantry_, _Perfection_,
_Importance_, _Politeness_, _Melancholy_, _Glorieux_, the reader is
amused and edified by miniature essays on manners and character, seldom
ending without some pithy sentence and pointed moral. Sometimes (e.g.
_Grandeur_) we have a charming piece after the manner of La Bruyere.
Under the verb _Naitre_, which is placed in the department of grammar,
we find a passage so far removed from grammar as the following:--

"The terms of life and death have nothing absolute; they only designate
the successive states of one and the same being; for him who has been
strongly nourished in this philosophy, the urn that contains the ashes
of a father, a mother, a husband, a mistress, is truly a touching
object. There still remains in it life and warmth; these ashes may
perhaps even yet feel our tears and give them response; who knows if the
movement that our tears stir, as they water those ashes, is wholly
without sensibility?"

This little burst of grotesque sentimentalism is one of the pieces that
justify the description of Diderot as the most German of all the
French.[174] Equally characteristic and more sensible is the writer's
outbreak against Formalists. "The formalist knows exactly the proper
interval between receiving and returning a visit; he expects you on the
exact day at the exact time; if you fail, he thinks himself neglected
and takes offence. A single man of this stamp is enough to chill and
embarrass a whole company. There is nothing so repugnant to simple and
upright souls as formalities; as such people have within themselves the
consciousness of the good-will they bear to everybody, they neither
plague themselves to be constantly displaying a sentiment that is
habitual, nor to be constantly on the watch for it in others." This is
analogous to his contempt for the pedants who object to the use of a
hybrid word: "If it happens that a composite of a Greek word and a Latin
word renders the idea as well, and is easier to pronounce or pleasanter
to the ear than a compound of two Greek words and two Latin words