bt. But I am Crites, not Poietes.

[340] Pedantius may urge, "But 'James III.' is made to affect the
fortunes of Esmond and Beatrix very powerfully." True; but he himself is
by no means a _very_ "prominent historical character," and the exact
circumstances of the agony of Queen Anne, and the _coup d'etat_ of
Shrewsbury and Argyle, have still enough of the unexplained in or about
them to permit somewhat free dealing.

[341] If any one says "_Leicester's Commonwealth?_" I say "_The Faerie
Queene?_"

[342] I intend nothing offensive in thus mentioning his attitude. In my
_History of Criticism_ I have aimed at justice both to his short stage
of going with, or at least not definitely against, the Romantic vein,
and his much longer one of reaction. He was always vigorous in argument
and dignified in manner; but his nature, when he found it, was
essentially neo-classic.

[343] In the _Times Literary Supplement_ for Thursday, Nov. 1, 1917.

[344] "It is vain to ask, as is the modern custom, whether the leap from
the word 'copy' to the word 'recreate' (_v. sup._ Vol. I. p. 471) does
not cover a difference in kind.... One feels that Prof. S. is rather
sympathetic to that which traditional French criticism regards as
essential ... close psychological analysis of motive," etc. And so he
even questions whether what I have given, much as he likes and praises
it, _is_ "A History of The French Novel." But did I ever undertake to
give this _from the French point of view_, or to write a _History of
French Novel-Criticism_? Or need I do so?

[345] It might, however, be a not uninteresting matter of debate whether
Panurge's conduct to the Lady of Paris was _really_ so very much worse
than part of Hamlet's to Ophelia.

[346] By one of those odd coincidences which diversify and relieve
literary work, I read, for the first time in my life, and a few hours
_after_ writing the above words, these in Dumas _fils'_ _Therese_: "Il
procede par synthese." They do not there apply to authorship, but to the
motives and conduct of one of the writer's questionable quasi-heroes.
But the whole context, and the usual methods of Dumas _fils_ himself,
are saturated with synthesis _by rule_. (Of course the other process is,
as also according to the strict meaning of the word, "synthetic," but
_not_ "by rule.")

[347] I own I see a little less of it and a little more of the other in
him; whence a certain lukewarmness with which I have sometimes been
re