al human interest of his appeal. He wants
no commentaries, no introductions, no keys, no dismal Transactions of
Dumas Societies and the like. Every one that thirsteth may come to his
fountain and drink, without mysteries of initiation, or formalities of
licence, or concomitant nuisances of superintendence and regulation. In
the _Camp of Refuge_ of Charles Macfarlane (who has recently, in an odd
way, been recalled to passing knowledge)--a full and gallant private in
the corps of which Dumas himself was then colonel _vice_ Sir Walter
deceased--there is a sentence which applies admirably to Dumas himself.
After a success over the other half of our ancestors, and during a
supper on the conquered provant, one of the Anglo-Saxon-half observes,
"Let us leave off talking, and be jolly." Nothing could please me better
than that some reader should be instigated to leave off my book at this
point, and take up _Les Trois Mousquetaires_ or _Les Quarante-Cinq_, or
if he prefers it, _Olympe de Cleves_--"and be jolly".[327]

FOOTNOTES:

[311] The postponement of him, to this last chapter of the first
division of the book, was determined on chiefly because his _novels_
were not begun at all till years after the other greater novelists,
already dealt with, had made their reputation, while the greatest of
them--the "Mousquetaire" and "Henri Trois" cycles--did not appear till
the very last _lustrum_ of the half-century. But another--it may seem to
some a childish--consideration had some weight with me. I wished to
range father and son on either side of the dividing summary; for though
the elder wrote long after 1850 and the younger some time before it, in
hardly any pair is the opposition of the earlier and later times more
clearly exposed; and the identity of name emphasises the difference of
nature.

[312] In using this phrase I remembered the very neat "score" made off
the great Alexander himself by a French judge, in some case at Rouen
where Dumas was a witness. Asked as usual his occupation, he replied
somewhat grandiloquently: "Monsieur, si je n'etais pas dans la ville de
Corneille, je dirais 'Auteur dramatique.'" "Mais, Monsieur," replied the
official with the sweetest indulgence, "il y a des degres." (This story
is told, like most such, with variants; and sometimes, as in the
particular case was sure to happen, not of Alexander the father, but of
Alexander the son. But I tell it, as I read or heard it, long years
ago.)

[313]