the quintessential in that
curious quality which Nodier possesses almost alone in French or with
Gerard de Nerval and Louis Bertrand only. English readers may "perceive
a good deal of [Charles] Lamb in it," with touches of Sterne and De
Quincey and Poe.

[Sidenote: _Trilby._]

It is much to be feared that more people in England nowadays associate
the name of "Trilby" with the late Mr. Du Maurier than with Nodier, and
that more still associate it with the notion of a hat than with either
of the men of genius who used it in literature.

So mighty Byron, dead and turned to clay,
Gave name to collars for full many a day;
And Ramillies, grave of Gallic boasts so big,
Found most perpetuation in a wig.[82]

The original story united divers attractions for its first readers in
1822, combining the older fashion of Ossian with the newer one of Scott,
infusing the supernatural, which was one great bait of the coming
Romanticism, and steeping the whole cake in the tears of the newer
rather than the older "Sensibility." "Trilby, le Lutin d'Argail"[83]
(Nodier himself explains that he alters the spelling here with pure
phonetic intent, so as to keep the pronunciation for French eyes _and_
ears[84]), is a spirit who haunts the cabin of the fisherman Dougal to
make a sort of sylph-like love to his wife Jeannie. He means and does no
harm, but he is naturally a nuisance to the husband, on whom he plays
tricks to keep him away from home, and at length rather frightens the
wife. They procure, from a neighbouring monastery, a famous exorcist
monk, who, though he cannot directly punish Trilby, lays on him sentence
of exclusion from the home of the pair, unless one of them invites him,
under penalty of imprisonment for a thousand years. How the story turns
to Jeannie's death and Trilby's duress can be easily imagined, and may
be read with pleasure. I confess that to me it seems pretty, but just a
little mawkish.[85] Perhaps I am a brute.

[Sidenote: _Le Songe d'Or._]

_Le Songe d'Or_, on the other hand, though in a way tragic, and capable
of being allegorised almost _ad infinitum_ in its sense of some of the
riddles of the painful earth, is not in the least sentimental, and is
told, till just upon the end, with a certain tender irony. The author
called it "Fable Levantine," and the venerable Lo[c]kman is introduced
in it. But I have read it several times without caring (perhaps this was
reprehensible) to ascertain whet