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the Revolutionary epoch, he undertook a work on early French literature, with the intention of competing for a prize offered by the Academy. But his plan soon deviated from that which had been assigned; and his researches, more limited in their scope, but far deeper and more minute, than had been demanded, gave birth to a volume, published in 1828, under the title of _Tableau historique et critique de la Poesie francaise et du Theatre francais au seizieme Siecle_. It was received with general favor. Some of the author's principles were strenuously disputed; but he was admitted to have made many discoveries in literary history, and to have introduced an entirely new method of criticism. Perhaps it would be more correct to say, that he had carried the torch of an enlightened judgment into a period which the brilliancy of succeeding epochs had thrown into obscurity. In 1829 M. Sainte-Beuve published a volume of poetry, _Poesies de Joseph Delorme_, followed, in 1830, by another, entitled _Consolations_, and some years later by a third, _Pensees d'Aout_. Although different degrees of merit have been assigned to these productions, their general character is the same. They exhibit, not the fire and inspiration of the true poetical temperament, but the experiments of a mind gifted with delicacy of sentiment and susceptible of varied impressions, in quest of appropriate forms and a deeper comprehension of the sources from which language derives its power as a vehicle of art. The influence of Wordsworth is observable in a studied familiarity of diction, as well as in the tendency to versify every thought or emotion suggested by daily observation. These peculiarities, coupled with the frequency of bold ellipses, provoked discussion, and seemed to promise a fresh expansion of poetical forms, in a somewhat different direction from that of the Romanticists. But it was not in this department that M. Sainte-Beuve was destined to become the founder of a school. His poetical talent, though unquestionable, had been bestowed, not as a special attribute, but as an auxiliary of other faculties granted in a larger measure. He has himself not only recognized its limits, but shown an inclination to underrate its value. "I have often thought," he remarks in one of his later papers, "that a critic who would attain to largeness of view would be better without any artistic faculty of his own. Goethe alone, by the universality of his poetical geni
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