naturally,
but that he really knows his Homer. What did he nor know? His rapidity
in reading must have been as remarkable as his pace with the pen. As M.
Blaze de Bury says: "Instinct, experience, memory were all his; he sees
at a glance, he compares in a flash, he understands without conscious
effort, he forgets nothing that he has read." The past and present are
photographed imperishably on his brain, he knows the manners of all ages
and all countries, the names of all the arms that men have used, all the
garments they have worn, all the dishes they have tasted, all the terms
of all professions, from swordsmanship to coach-building. Other authors
have to wait, and hunt for facts; nothing stops Dumas: he knows and
remembers everything. Hence his rapidity, his facility, his positive
delight in labour: hence it came that he might be heard, like Dickens,
laughing while he worked.

* * * * *

This is rather a eulogy than a criticism of Dumas. His faults are on the
surface, visible to all men. He was not only rapid, he was hasty, he was
inconsistent; his need of money as well as his love of work made him put
his hand to dozens of perishable things. A beginner, entering the forest
of Dumas' books, may fail to see the trees for the wood. He may be
counselled to select first the cycle of d'Artagnan--the "Musketeers,"
"Twenty Years After," and the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." Mr. Stevenson's
delightful essay on the last may have sent many readers to it; I confess
to preferring the youth of the "Musketeers" to their old age. Then there
is the cycle of the Valois, whereof the "Dame de Monsereau" is the
best--perhaps the best thing Dumas ever wrote. The "Tulipe Noire" is a
novel girls may read, as Thackeray said, with confidence. The "Chevalier
d'Harmenthal" is nearly (not quite) as good as "Quentin Durward." "Monte
Cristo" has the best beginning--and loses itself in the sands. The
novels on the Revolution are not among the most alluring: the famed
device "L. P. D." (_lilia pedibus destrue_) has the bad luck to suggest
"London Parcels Delivery." That is an accident, but the Revolution is in
itself too terrible and pitiful, and too near us (on both sides!) for
fiction.

On Dumas' faults it has been no pleasure to dwell. In a recent work I
find the Jesuit Le Moyne quoted, saying about Charles V.: "What need that
future ages should be made acquainted so religious an Emperor was not
always chaste!" The same reticenc