yle; none of that laughter which makes such a delineation of
the manners of the time as we find in Colle's play of _Truth in Wine_,
_naif_, true to nature, and almost exhilarating. In _Rameau_ we are
afflicted by the odour of deadly taint.

As the dialogue is not in every hand--nor could any one wish that it
should be--I have thought it worth while to print an English rendering
of a considerable part of it in an appendix. Mr. Carlyle told us long
ago that it must be translated into English, and although such a piece
of work is less simple than it may seem, it appears right to give the
reader an opportunity of judging for himself of the flavour of the most
characteristic of all Diderot's performances. Only let no reader turn to
it who has any invincible repugnance to that curious turn for
_wildbret_, which Goethe has described as the secret of some arts.

Dixeris haec inter varicosos centuriones,
Continuo crassum ridet Pulfenius ingens
Et centum Graecos curto centusse licebit.

As I have already said, it must be judged as something more than a
literary diversion. "You do not suspect, Sir Philosopher," says Rameau,
"that at this moment I represent the most important part of the town and
the court." As the painter of the picture says, Rameau confessed the
vices that he had, and that most of the people about us have; but he was
no hypocrite. He was neither more nor less abominable than they; he was
only more frank and systematic and profound in his depravity. This is
the social significance of the dialogue. This is what, apart from other
considerations, makes _Rameau's Nephew_ so much more valuable a guide to
the moral sentiment of the time than merely licentious compositions like
those of Louvet or La Olos. Its instructiveness is immense to those who
examine the conditions that prepared the Revolution. Rameau is not the
[Greek: akolastos] of Aristotle, nor the creature of [Greek: aponoia]
described by Theophrastus--the castaway by individual idiosyncrasy, the
reprobate by accident. The men whom he represented, the courtiers, the
financiers, the merchants, the shopkeepers, were immoral by formula and
depraved on principle. Vice was a doctrine to them, and wretchlessness
of unclean living was reduced to a system of philosophy. Any one, I
venture to repeat, who realises the extent to which this had corroded
the ruling powers in France, will perceive that the furious flood of
social energy which the Jacobins pour