February 23rd, 1905.




A FRENCH CRITIC ON BATH


Among other pleasant premonitions of the present _entente cordiale_
between France and England is the increased attention which, for some
time past, our friends of Outre Manche have been devoting to our
literature. That this is wholly of recent growth, is not, of course, to
be inferred. It must be nearly five-and-forty years since M. Hippolyte
Taine issued his logical and orderly _Histoire de la Litterature
Anglaise_; while other isolated efforts of insight and importance--such
as the _Laurence Sterne_ of M. Paul Stapfer, and the excellent _Le
Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au XVIII^e Siecle_ of the
late M. Alexandre Beljame of the Sorbonne--are already of distant date.
But during the last two decades the appearance of similar productions
has been more recurrent and more marked. From one eminent writer
alone--M. J.-J. Jusserand--we have received an entire series of studies
of exceptional charm, variety, and accomplishment. M. Felix Rabbe has
given us a sympathetic analysis of Shelley; M. Auguste
Angellier,--himself a poet of individuality and distinction,--what has
been rightly described as a "splendid work" on Burns;[52] while M. Emile
Legouis, in a minute examination of "The Prelude," has contrasted and
compared the orthodox Wordsworth of maturity with the juvenile
semi-atheist of Coleridge. Travelling farther afield, M. W. Thomas has
devoted an exhaustive volume to Young of the _Night Thoughts_; M. Leon
Morel, another to Thomson; and, incidentally, a flood of fresh light has