rch's
sonnets; and after such a long lapse of time we still discover something
that comes from us even in the Wagnerian drama, for instance in
'Parsifal' or in 'Tristan and Isolde.' A long time later, in a Europe
belonging entirely to classicism, from the beginning of the seventeenth
to the end of the eighteenth century, during one hundred and fifty years
or even longer, French literature possessed a real sovereignty in Italy,
in Spain, in England, and in Germany. Do not the names of Algarotti,
Bettinelli, Beccaria, Filengieri, almost belong to France? What shall I
say of the famous Gottschedt? Shall I recall the fact that in his
victorious struggle against Voltaire, Lessing had to call in Diderot's
assistance? And who ignores that if Rivarol wrote his 'Discourse upon
the Universality of the French Language,' it can be charged neither to
his vanity nor to our national vanity, since he was himself half
Italian, and the subject had been proposed by the Academy of Berlin?

All sorts of reasons have been given for this universality of French
literature: some were statistical, if I may say so, some geographical,
political, linguistic. But the true one, the good one, is different: it
must be found in the supremely sociable character of the literature
itself. If at that time our great writers were understood and
appreciated by everybody, it is because they were addressing everybody,
or better, because they were speaking to all concerning the interests of
all. They were attracted neither by exceptions nor by peculiarities:
they cared to treat only of man in general, or as is also said, of the
universal man, restrained by the ties of human society; and their very
success shows that below all that distinguishes, say, an Italian from a
German, this universal man whose reality has so often been discussed,
persists and lives, and though constantly changing never loses his own
likeness....

In comparison with the literature of France, thus defined and
characterized by its sociable spirit, the literature of England is an
individualistic literature. Let us put aside, as should be done, the
generation of Congreve and Wycherley, perhaps also the generation of
Pope and Addison,--to which, however, we ought not to forget that Swift
also belonged;--it seems that an Englishman never writes except in order
to give to himself the external sensation of his own personality.
Thence his _humor_, which may be defined as the expression of the
plea