g,
that precision in the stroke, that truth in colouring, which distinguish
portrait from caricature. Especially are they wanting in the art of
discerning and seizing those _naif_, simple, and yet singular movements
of character, which always please and astonish, and render the imitation
at once true and piquant."[270] Criticism has really nothing to add to
these few lines, and if Diderot in his last years read _The School for
Scandal_, or _The Rivals_, he would have found no reason to alter his
judgment.

One English play had the honour of being translated by Diderot; this
was _The Gamester_, not _The Gamester_ of Shirley nor of Garrick, but
of Edward Moore (1753). It is a good example of the bourgeois tragedy
or domestic drama, which Diderot was so eager to see introduced on to
the French stage. The infatuation of Beverley, the tears and virtue of
Mrs. Beverley, the prudence of Charlotte and the sage devotion of her
lover, the sympathetic remorse of Bates, and even the desperation of
Stukely, made up a picture of domestic misery and moral sentiment with
which Diderot was sure to fall in love. Lillo's _George Barnwell_, with
its direct and urgent moral, was a still greater favourite, and Diderot
compared the scene between Maria and Barnwell in prison to the despair
of the _Philocletes_ of Sophocles, as the hero is heard shrieking at
the mouth of his cavern;[271] just as a more modern critic has thought
Lillo's other play, _The Fatal Curiosity_, worthy of comparison with
the _Oedipus Tyrannus_.

Diderot's feeling for Shakespeare seems to have been what we might have
anticipated from the whole cast of his temperament. One of the scenes
which delighted him most was that moment of awe, when Lady Macbeth
silently advances down the stage with her eyes closed, and imitates the
action of washing her hands, as wondering that "the old man should have
so much blood in him." "I know nothing," he exclaims, "so pathetic in
discourse as that woman's silence and the movement of her hands. What an
image of remorse!"[272]

It was not to be expected that Diderot should indulge in those
undiscriminating superlatives about Shakespeare which are common in
Shakespeare's country. But he knew enough about him to feel that he was
dealing with a giant. "I will not compare Shakespeare," he said, "to the
Belvedere Apollo, nor to the Gladiator, nor to Antinous"--he had
compared Terence to the Medicean Venus--"but to the Saint Christopher of
Not