ined we have seen Mr. Brownell bringing the history of French society to a focus in modern democracy and the history of French art to a focus in modern realism. Turning now to his more strictly literary studies, we find him bringing them sharply to bear upon the age in which he has lived. Though an index to his works might serve as a directory to "the best that has been thought and said in the world," he has collected the light from all the luminaries of his intellectual heavens and centered it upon the authors included in his two companion volumes, Victorian Prose Masters and American Prose Masters; and these authors were all of the nineteenth century. They are not, of course, all the men and women of the age who have touched us deeply; but they afford, on the whole, an adequate representation of the literary forces in England and America which have made us what we are. They are sufficient, at any rate, to enable us to indicate clearly the principal features of Mr. Brownell's ideal man of letters. Alike from his reasoned commendations and his reasoned condemnations, one perceives that his ideal man of letters is distinguished by the following traits: truth of substance, intelligent and frequent use of his reason, breadth of culture, the spiritual refinement of his democracy, a high and imaginative seriousness, a sense for form, and a style urbane and adequate to its purposes.
When Mr. Brownell finds a majority of these features present in a single author, as in Thack-
