writers, the French Academy, whose
influence all nations feel. Under their authority we see introduced into
literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and
directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of
expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same
high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the
_Revue des Deux Mondes_, and, in short, throughout literature. What is
there in any other language, for instance, to be compared with the
voluminous writings of Sainte-Beuve, ranging over all history and
literature, and carrying into all that incomparable style, so delicate,
so brilliant, so equable, so strong,--touching all themes, not with the
blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand of steel?

In the average type of French novels, one feels the superiority to the
English in quiet power, in the absence of the sensational and
exaggerated, and in keeping close to the level of real human life. They
rely for success upon perfection of style and the most subtile analysis
of human character; and therefore they are often painful,--just as
Thackeray is painful,--because they look at artificial society, and
paint what they see. Thus they dwell often on unhappy marriages, because
such things grow naturally from the false social system in France. On
the other hand, in France there is very little house-breaking, and
bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about
them; whereas, if you subtract these from the current English novels,
what is there left?

Germany furnishes at present no models of prose style; and all her past
models, except perhaps Goethe and Heine, seem to be already losing their
charm. Yet for knowledge we still go to Germany, and there is a certain
exuberant wealth that can even impart fascination to a bad style, as to
that of Jean Paul. Such an author may therefore be very useful to a
student who can withstand him, which poor Carlyle could not. There was a
time, it is said, when English and American literature seemed to be
expiring of conventionalism. Carlyle was the Jenner who inoculated and
saved us all by this virus from Germany, and then died of his own
disease. It now seems a privilege, perhaps, to be able to remember the
time when all literature was in the inflammatory stage of this
superinduced disorder; but does any one now read Carlyle's French
Revolution? Every year now shows that the whole trick