od of his critical maturity, the period of the "Causeries du
Lundi," followed by the "Nouveaux Lundis." Many men write
voluminously, but most of these only write _about_ a subject, not
_into_ it. Only the few who can write into their subject add something
to literature. One of these few is M. Sainte-Beuve. In his mind there
is vitality to animate his large acquirement, to make his many
chapters buoyant and stimulant. All through his writings is the
sparkle of original life.

But let us now cheer the reader who is impatient of much praise, and
at the same time perform the negative part of our task.

Well, then, to be bold, as befits a critic of the critic, we beard the
lion in his very den. We challenge a definition he gives of the
critic. In the seventh volume of the "Causeries," article
"Grimm," he says: "When Nature has endowed some one with this vivacity
of feeling, with this susceptibility to impression, and that the
creative imagination be wanting, this some one is a born critic, that
is to say, a lover and judge of the creations of others." Why did M.
Sainte-Beuve make Goethe sovereign in criticism? Why did he think
Milton peculiarly qualified to interpret Homer? From the deep
principle of like unto like; only spirit can know spirit. What were
the worth of a comment of John Locke on "Paradise Lost," except to
reveal the mental composition of John Locke? The critic should be what
Locke was, a thinker, but to be a judge of the highest form of
literature, poetry, he must moreover carry within him, inborn, some
share of that whereby poetry is fledged, "creative imagination." He
may "want the accomplishment of verse," or the constructive faculty,
but more than the common allowance of sensibility to the beautiful he
must have. But do not the presence of "vivacity of feeling with
susceptibility to impression" imply the imaginative temperament? If
not, then we confidently assure M. Sainte-Beuve that had his
definition fitted himself, his "Causeries du Lundi" would never have
been rescued from the quick oblivion of the _feuilleton._

Now and then there are betrayals of that predominant French weakness,
which the French will persist in cherishing as a virtue,--the love of
glory. M. Sainte-Beuve thinks Buffon's passion for glory saved him in
his latter years from ennui, from "that languor of the soul which
follows the age of the passions." Where are to be found men more the
victims of disgust with life than that eminent p