by delineations of the externals and surface of character, humorous
phraseology, and every-day ethics, that Fiction achieves its grandest
ends.

In the French literature, thus characterized, there is much false
morality, much depraved sentiment, and much hollow rant; but still it
carries within it the germ of an excellence, which, sooner or later, must
in the progress of national genius arrive at its full development.
Meanwhile, it is a consolation to know that nothing really immoral is
ever permanently popular, or ever, therefore, long deleterious; what is
dangerous in a work of genius cures itself in a few years. We can now
read "Werther," and instruct our hearts by its exposition of weakness and
passion, our taste by its exquisite and unrivalled simplicity of
construction and detail, without any fear that we shall shoot ourselves
in top-boots! We can feel ourselves elevated by the noble sentiments of
"The Robbers," and our penetration sharpened as to the wholesale
immorality of conventional cant and hypocrisy, without any danger of
turning banditti and becoming cutthroats from the love of virtue.
Providence, that has made the genius of the few in all times and
countries the guide and prophet of the many, and appointed Literature as
the sublime agent of Civilization, of Opinion, and of Law, has endowed
the elements it employs with a divine power of self-purification. The
stream settles of itself by rest and time; the impure particles fly off,
or are neutralized by the healthful. It is only fools that call the
works of a master-spirit immoral. There does not exist in the literature
of the world one _popular_ book that is immoral two centuries after it is
produced. For, in the heart of nations, the False does not live so long;
and the True is the Ethical to the end of time.

From the literary Maltravers turned to the political state of France his