from epics in various languages which, in his opinion, however justly admired, would not be tolerated in French poetry. Homer's deities, intoxicating themselves with nectar, and laughing immoderately at Vulcan's awkwardness, would, he tells us, no more be admissible in a modern French epic than Virgil's harpies carrying off the dinner. He notes Milton's expression "darkness visible" as a liberty which may be excused, "but French exactitude admits nothing that needs excuse." Besides this exactitude, he claims for French writers clearness and elegance: to them, he says, "the force of the English appears gigantic and monstrous on the one hand, and the sweetness of the Italians effeminate on the other." These and other passages of his essays greatly help foreigners to appreciate the "Henriade," which, like all his writings, possesses in the highest degree the characteristics that he thus attributes to the national poetry. We must expect here no vague sublimity of effect, no pregnant or allusive epithets, none of the homely reality which would be imparted by such familiar touches as would be deemed vulgar in a serious French poem—and to which he so gravely objects in Homer and Shakespeare—and none of the involuntary strokes which paint the manners of an age. Excellent sense, conveyed in the most perfect form of expression, a vigour and confidence which prevent him from ever falling ignominiously beneath the height to which his argument may conduct him, and the completeness with which he has overcome the exceptional difficulties of French verse, form the chief elements of his success.
Fired with the audacity of a young man who is conscious of splendid powers and wants to make them felt,
