[163] Ib. ch. xxi.

[164] Critical Miscellanies, Second Series, p. 202.

[165] Travels in France, p. 600.

[166] Travels in France, i. 63.

[167] Rosenkranz, i. 219.

[168] Avert. to vol. iii

[169] Diderot, Œuv., iv. 24.

[170] Diderot's Leben, i. 157.

[171] Œuv., xx. 132.

[172] The writer was one Romilly, who had been elected a minister of one of the French Protestant churches in London. See Memoirs of Sir Samuel Romilly, vol. i.

[173] I have no space to quote an interesting page in this article on the characteristics and the varying destinies of genius. "We must rank in this class Pindar, Æschylus, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mahomet, Shakespeare, Roger Bacon, and Paracelsus." xvii. 265-267.

[174] The same idea is found still more ardently expressed in one of his letters to Mdlle. de Voland (Oct. 15, 1759, xviii. 408), where he defends the eagerness of those who have loved one another during life, to be placed side by side after death.

[175] xiv. 32.

[176] S.v. Sarrasins, xvii. 82. See also xviii. 429, for Diderot's admiration of Sadi.

[177] S. v. Pyrrhonienne.

[178] E.g. in the article on Plaisir, xvi. p. 298.

[179] To Damilaville, 1766, xix. 477.

[180] xx. 34.

[181] xvi. 280.

[182] See also article Indépendance.

[183] iv. 93.

[184] The reader will find abundant information and criticism upon the Wolffian Philosophy in Professor Edward Caird's Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant, recently published at Glasgow.

[185] xvi. 491, 492.

[186] There are casual criticisms on Spinosa in the articles on Identity and Liberty.

[187] xv. 501.

[188] xix. 435, 436.

[189] See below, vol. ii.

[190] S.v. Luxe, xvi. 23.

[191] As an illustration how much these ideas were in the air, the reader may refer to a passage in Sédaine's popular comedy, The Philosopher without knowing it (1765), Act II. sc. 4. Vanderk, among other things, says of the merchant: "Ce n'est pas un temple, ce n'est pas une seule nation qu'il sert; il les sert toutes, et en est servi: c'est l'homme de l'univers. Quelques particuliers audacieux font armer les rois, la guerre s'allume, tout s'embrase, l'Europe est divisée: mais ce négociant anglais, hollandais, russe ou chinois, n'en est pas moins l'ami de mon coeur: nous sommes sur la superficie de la terre autant de fils de soie qui lient ensemble les nations, et les ramènent à la paix par la nécessité du commerce; voila, mon fils, ce que c'est qu'un honnête négociant."

[192] The younger sister of Diderot's Sophie.

[193] xviii. 454.

[194] See below, the chapter on Rameau's Nephew.

[195] Nov. 10, 1770; xix. 22.

[196] See, for instance, xix. 81, 91, 129, 133, 145, etc.—passages which Mr. Carlyle and Rosenkranz have either overlooked, or else, without any good reason, disbelieved.

[197] xviii. 293.

[198] xix. 46.

[199] xix. 84. See also 326.

[200] xix. 137, 341, etc.

[201] xviii. 535.

[202] xviii. 507, etc.

[203] xviii. 526, 531.

[204] Nov. 2, 1759; xviii. 431.

[205] xix. 82.

[206] xix. 139.

[207] xix. 107.

[208] xix. 181.

[209] xix. 81.

[210] xix. 149.

[211] xix. 90.

[212] xix. 163, 164.

[213] Sept. 20, 1765; xix. 179-187.

[214] xviii. 476, 478.

[215] xviii. 479. Comte writes more seriously somewhat in the same sense: "For thirty centuries the priestly castes of China, and still more of India, have been watching our Western transition; to them it must appear mere agitation, as puerile as it is tempestuous, with nothing to harmonise its different phases but their common inroad upon unity." Positive Polity, iv. 11 (English Translation)

[216] xix. 233.

[217] Voltaire's Satire on the Economists.

[218] Oct. 8, 1768; xix. 832.

[219] xviii. 509.

[220] xviii. 513.

[221] xviii. 511-513.

[222] xix. 244.

[223] xviii. 459.

[224] xix. 259.

[225] Lettres de Mdlle. de Lespinasse, viii. p. 20. (Ed. Asse, 1876.)

[226] Aug. 1, 1769; xix. 365.

[227] (1765-69) xix. 381-412. Also p. 318.

[228] June 1756; xix. 433-436.

[229] Aug. 1762; xix. 112.

[230] In Rousseau, vol. i. ch. vii. (Globe 8vo, ed.)

[231] Dec. 1757; xix. 446.

[232] xix. 449.

[233] Dec. 20, 1765; xix. 210.

[234] See Rousseau, vol. i. ch. vii. (Globe 8vo. ed.)

[235] Oct. 9, 1759; xviii. 397.

[236] Nov. 6, 1760; xix. 17.

[237] Sept. 17, 1761; xix. 47.

[238] Sept. 17, 1769; xix. 320.

[239] Lettres sur le Commerce de la Librairie, xviii. 47.

[240] See Rousseau, vol. ii. ch. i. (Globe 8vo. ed.)

[241] Diderot's Lettre sur le Commerce de la Librairie (1767). Œuv., xviii.

[242] Those who are interested in the history of authorship may care to know the end of the matter. Copyright is no modern practice, and the perpetual right of authors, or persons to whom they had ceded it, was recognised in France through the whole of the seventeenth century and three-quarters of the eighteenth. The perpetuity of the right had produced literary properties of considerable value; for example, Boudot's Dictionary was sold by his executors for 24,000 livres; Prévot's Manual Lexicon and two Dictionaries for 115,000 livres. But in 1777—ten years after Diderot's plea—the Council decreed that copyright was a privilege and an exercise of the royal grace. The motives for this reduction of an author's right from a transferable property to a terminable privilege seem to have been, first, the general mania of the time for drawing up the threads of national life into the hands of the administration, and second, the hope of making money by a tariff of permissions. The Constituent Assembly dealt with the subject with no intelligence nor care, but the Convention passed a law recognising in the author an exclusive right for his life, and giving a property for ten years after his death to heirs or cessionaires. The whole history is elaborately set forth in the collection of documents entitled La Propriété littéraire au 18ième siècle. (Hachette, 1859.)

[243] Oct. 11, 1759; xviii. 401.

[244] xix. 319, 320.

[245] Miscellaneous Works, p. 73.

[246] Walpole to Selwyn. 1765. Jesse's Selwyn, ii. 9. See also Walpole to Mann, iv. 283.

[247] D'Epinay, ii. 4, 138, 153, etc.

[248] See Comte's Positive Polity, vol. iii.

[249] "That virtue of originality that men so strain after is not newness, as they vainly think (there is nothing new), it is only genuineness."—Ruskin.

[250] Lessing: 1729-81. Diderot: 1713-84. As De Quincey puts it, Lessing may be said to have begun his career precisely in the middle of the last century.

[251] Hamburg. Dramaturgie, § 85. Werke, vi. 381. (Ed. 1873.)

[252] Diderot's Leben, i. 274, 277.

[253] Corr. Lit., ii. 103.

[254] See Grimm's account of the performance, Corr. Lit., vii. 313.

[255] Act IV. sc. 3.

[256] Act V. sc. 3.

[257] De la Poésie Dramatique, ch. xxi.

[258] vii. 107.

[259] Nov. 28, 1760; xix. 457.

[260] Lettre sur les Sourds et les Muets, i. 359.

[261] Correspond. du Roi Stanislas-Auguste et de Mdme. Geoffrin, p. 466.

[262] Aug. 1769; xix. 314-323.

[263] Quoted in Mr. Sime's excellent Life of Lessing (Trübner and Co., 1877), p. 230.

[264] De la Poésie Dramatique, § 2, vii. 313.

[265] Lockhart's Life of Scott, iv. 177 (ed. 1837).

[266] Père de Famille, Act II. sc. 2, p. 211.

[267]xix. 474.

[268] Paradoxe sur le Comédien, p. 383.

[269] Journals, ii. 331. Also vi. 248; vii. 9.

[270] Réflexions sur Térence, v. 228-238. In another place (De la Poésie Dram., 370) he says: "Nous avons des comédies. Les Anglais n'ont que des satires, à la vérité pleines de force et de gaieté, mais sans mœurs et sans goût. Les Italiens en sont réduits au drame burlesque."

[271] vii. 95.

[272] Lettre sur les Sourds et les Muets, i. 355.

[273] Paradoxe, viii. 384. The criticism on the detestable rendering of Hamlet by Ducis (viii. 471) makes one doubt whether Diderot knew much about Shakespeare.

[274] Letter to Mdlle. Jodin, xix. 387.

[275] Johnson one day said to John Kemble: "Are you, sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed into the very character you represent?" Kemble answered that he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself. Boswell, ch. 77.

[276] Lessing makes this a starting-point of his criticism of the art of acting, though he uses it less absolutely than Diderot would do. Hamburg. Dramaturgie, § 3, vol. vi. 19.

[277] In Lichtenberg's Briefe aus England (1776) there is a criticism of the most admirably intelligent kind on Garrick. Lord Lytton gave an account of it to English readers in the Fortnightly Review (February 1871). The following passage confirms what Diderot says above:

"You have doubtless heard much of his extraordinary power of change of face. Here is one example of it. When he played the part of Sir John Brute, I was close to the stage, and could observe him narrowly. He entered with the corners of his mouth so turned down, as to give to his whole countenance the expression of habitual sottishness and debauchery. And this artificial form of the mouth he retained, unaltered, from the beginning to the end of the play, with the exception only that, as the play went on, the lips gaped and hung more and more in proportion to the gradually increasing drunkenness of the character represented. This made-up face was not produced by stage-paint, but solely by muscular contraction; and it must be so identified by Garrick with his idea of Sir John Brute as to be spontaneously assumed by him whenever he plays that part; otherwise, his retention of such a mask, without even once dropping it either from fatigue or surprise, even in the most boisterous action of his part, would be quite inexplicable."

[278] viii. 382.

[279] viii. 373, 376, etc.

[280] As Hamlet to his players: "Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."

[281] To Jodin, xix, 382. "Point de hoquets, point de cris, de la dignité vraie, un jeu ferme, sensé, raisonné, juste, mâle; la plus grande sobriété de gestes. C'est de la contenance, c'est du maintien, qu'il faut déclamer les trois quarts du temps."—P. 390.

[282] P. 395.

[283] Bijoux Indiscrets, ch. xxxviii.

[284] vii. 121. Lessing makes a powerful addition to this. Hamburg. Dram. vi. 261.

[285] Poésie Dramatique, §§ 20, 21.

[286] Sienne Entretien, vii. 138.

[287] Poés. Dram.., § 2. The Poetics of the Genre Sérieux are to be found, vii. 137, 138.

[288] i. 316.

[289] Hints for an Essay on the Drama, p. 155.

[290] Hist. du Romantisme, p. 93.

[291] Der Gegensatz des Classischen und des Romantischen, etc. By Conrad Hermann, p. 66.

[292] Schopenhauer, Ethik, 199

[293] Œuv., iv. 29.

[294] Werke, xxv. 291.

[295] The original of the text, published in the Assézat edition of Diderot's works, was a manuscript found, with other waifs and strays of the eighteenth century, in a chest that had belonged to Messrs. Würtel and Treutz, the publishers at Strasburg. Its authenticity is corroborated by the fact that in the places where Goethe has marked an omission, we find stories or expressions from which we understand only too well why Goethe forbore to reproduce them.

[296] v. 339.

[297] Lucian, Περι Παρασίτον, and Περι των επι μίσφω συνόντων.

[298] Grimm, ix. 349.

[299] Anmerkungen, Rameau's Neffe; Werke, xxv. 268.