the
_Encyclopedie_ by JEAN-FRANCOIS MARMONTEL. As early as 1719 a
remarkable study in aesthetics had appeared--the _Reflexions
Critiques sur la Poesie et la Peinture_, by the Abbe Dubos. Art is
conceived as a satisfaction of the craving for vivid sensations and
emotions apart from the painful consequences which commonly attend
these in actual life. That portion of Dubos' work which treats of
"physical causes in the progress of art and literature," anticipates
the views of Montesquieu on the influence of climate, and studies
the action of environment on the products of the imagination. In 1746
Charles Batteux, in his treatise _Les Beaux-Arts reduits a un meme
Principe_, defined the end of art as the imitation of nature--not
indeed of reality, but of nature in its actual or possible beauty;
of nature not as it is, but as it may be. The articles of Marmontel,
revised and collected in the six volumes of his _Elements de
Litterature_ (1787), were full of instruction for his own time,
delicate and just in observation, as they often were, if not
penetrating or profound. In his earlier _Poetique Francaise_--"a
petard," said Mairan, "laid at the doors of the Academy to blow them
up if they should not open"--he had shown himself strangely
disrespectful towards the fame of Racine, Boileau, and the poet
Rousseau.

The friend of Marmontel, Antoine-Leonard Thomas (1732-85),
honourably distinguished by the dignity of his character and conduct,
a composer of _Eloges_ on great men, somewhat marred by strain and
oratorical emphasis, put his best work into an _Essai sur les Eloges_.
At a time when Bossuet was esteemed below his great deserts,
Thomas--almost alone--recognised his supremacy in eloquence. As the
century advanced, and philosophy developed its attack on religion
and governments, the classical tradition in literature not only
remained unshaken, but seemed to gain in authority. The first
lieutenant of Voltaire, his literary "son," LAHARPE (1739-1803)
represents the critical temper of the time. In 1786 he began his
courses of lectures at the Lycee, before a brilliant audience composed
of both sexes. For the first time in France, instruction in literature,
not trivial and not erudite, but suited to persons of general culture,
was made an intellectual pleasure. For the first time the history
of literature was treated, in its sequence from Homer to modern times,
as a totality. Laharpe's judgments of his contemporaries were often