He was for half a century the king of public opinion. His wonderful versatility enabled him to treat successfully almost all branches of literature; as a tragic poet he takes rank next to Corneille and Racine; his tragedies, Merope, Zaire, Mahomet, Alzire, etc, combine pathos with dramatic interest and liveliness of style; his Discours sur Vhomme and other philosophical poems are to be classed with the first of their kind; while his miscellaneous effusions, as numerous as they are sprightly, raise him in this sphere above any other French poet. The perspicuity of his mind appears in his Dictionnaire philosophique and other philosophical works; and his wit in his novels, which, notwithstanding their licentiousness, are models of their kind. His various books on history, Charles XII, Le siecle de Louis XIV., L'Essai sur les moeurs des nations, are still read with profit and pleasure; while his bulky correspondence is scarcely excelled by that of Mme, de Sevigne. If Voltaire may be said to have been the master of minds, J. J. Rousseau was the master of souls. His passionate eloquence conquered the coldest and even the most prejudiced; eloquence indeed is the mainspring of all his works.

As a writer of impassioned prose he has no superior, scarcely an equal, among the most perfect of his rivals. His first essay, Discours contre les sciences et les arts, which he wrote when 38 years of age, was a declaration of war against civilization; the second, Origine de l'inegalite parmi les hommes, was an attack upon the existing social order. In his Emile he drew a visionary plan of education, and in his Contrat social proclaimed the principles of popular sovereignty and universal suffrage. His Nouvelle Heloise is a novel in which love and paradox are blended together, while his Confessions excite a mixed feeling of sympathy and disgust. Buffon occupied a less agitated sphere, devoting his labors to the description of nature; and his great Histoire naturelle is a literary masterpiece, though its scientific reputation has passed away. Diderot, a passionate and incorrect writer, and D'Alembert, a great geometer, founded the Encylopedie, a vast review of human knowledge, often threatening to social order, always hostile to religion.

Helvetius in his treatise De l'esprit, D' Holbach in his Systeme de la nature, Lamettrie in his Homme-machine, and Raynal in his Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, far exceeded the doctrines of the encyclopaedists; while other writers, such as Vau-venargues, Fontenelle, whose style is yet admired for its clearness and elegance, Condil-lac, a most perspicuous analytic philosopher, Mably, a bold publicist, and Condorcet, who wrote afterward an Esquisse des progres de l'esprit humain, mostly kept on the side of moderation. The various branches of literature connected with philosophy were the most productive; but the others were far from being neglected, as appears from the following names, which we take almost at random: Cre-billon and Ducis, both tragic poets, appealing, the former to terror, the latter to sympathy; Marivaux, whose novels and comedies were very famous in their day, and some of whose plays still keep the stage; Gilbert, a satirist of uncommon power; Le Sage, the author of Gil Blas, the most celebrated novel of the age. and of Turcaret, perhaps the best comedy next to those of Moliere; Beaumarchais, the author of the Barbier de Seville; Bernardin do St. Pierre, the author of Paul et Virginie; La Harpe, whose Cours de litterature was once popular; Duclos, Mlle. Delaunay, and Saint-Simon, whose Memoires gained a deserved celebrity; Barthelemy, who wrote the Voyage du jeunc Anacharsis en Grece; Rulhiere, a historical essayist; Prevost, who produced the novel of Manon Lescaut; Mar-montel, the author of Belisaire; Gresset, the author of Vert-Vert; and J. B. Rousseau and Lebrun, the lyric poets.

The age was not poetical; poetry had degenerated into verse making, and the verse makers, in imitation of Thomson's "Seasons,1' indulged in all sorts of descriptive pieces. Delille, the most skilful of them, gained a reputation by various didactic poems, and by translating, not without a certain degree of accuracy, the "Georgics" of Virgil. Florian wrote fables which rank next to those of La Fontaine, and his novels are yet popular. Toward the end of the century imitation was the order of the day, and the only poet who was gifted with originality, Andre Chenier, died on the scaffold before his best effusions were published.-Neither the revolution nor the empire was favorable to literature. Some tragedies after the classical pattern, among which those of Joseph Chenier may be mentioned, a few light comedies, besides novels and short poems, were not sufficient to relieve the general dulness. Mine, de Stael and Chateaubriand were the forerunners of a revival; but the improvement was perhaps owing less to the Corinne and V Allemagne of the former, Le genie du Christianisme and Les martyrs of the latter, than to the influence upon the public taste of the masterpieces of English and German literature, which found more and more admirers in France. The romantic school now inaugurated a new era.

Through the exertions of many young and original writers new life was infused into nearly every branch of literature, poetry, history, philosophy, and the drama. An animated controversy was maintained in pamphlets and periodicals, between the supporters of reform and the adherents of the classical school; but the contest reached its utmost fury when Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Frederic Soulie, and others produced on the stage dramas framed according to their own ideas of the Shakespearian style. The performances of these dramas were indeed regular battles between the opposing literary parties; and it was only at the end of several years that the younger body of combatants came out victorious. Among the plays thus received with both enthusiasm and censure, Henri III. et sa cour, Antony, Teresa, and Angele, by Dumas, Hernani, Buy Blas, Marion Delorme, Lucrece Borgia, and Le roi s'amuse, by Hugo, are still remembered; while numberless pieces, successful at the time, have since fallen into complete oblivion. In fact, the only gain resulting from this protracted dispute was the abrogation of the obsolete rules which had so long regulated the French stage.