t too much, developed "wings,"
and, above all, a full and rather voluptuous mouth. Such may have been
the first identified novel-heroine. It is a popular error to think that
sixty-four and beauty are incompatibles, but one certainly would have
liked to see her at sixteen, or better still and perhaps best of all, at
six and twenty.

[Sidenote: The book.]

The _Astree_ itself is not the easiest of subjects to deal with. It is
indeed not so huge as the _Grand Cyrus_, but it is much more difficult
to get at--a very rare flower except in the "grey old gardens" of
secular libraries. It and its author have indeed for a few years past
had the benefit (as a result partly of another doubtful thing, an
_x_-centenary) of one[140] of the rather-to-seek good specimens among
the endless number of modern literary monographs. But it has never been
reprinted--even extracts of it, with the exception of a few stock
passages, are not common or extensive; and though a not small library
has been written about it in successive waves of eulogy, reaction,
mostly ignorant contempt, rehabilitation, and mere bookmaking; though
there have been (as noted) recent anniversaries and celebrations, and so
forth; though it is one of the not numerous books which have given a
name-type--Celadon,--and a place--"les bords du Lignon,"--to their own,
if not to universal literature, it seems to be "as a book" very little
known. The faithful monographer above cited admits merit in Dunlop; but
Dunlop does not say very much about it. Herr Koerting (_v. sup._)
analyses it. Possibly there may be, also in German, a comparison,
tempting to those who like such things, between it and its twenty years'
predecessor, Sidney's _Arcadia_, the first French translation of which,
in 1625, just after Urfe's death, was actually dedicated to his widow.
But I suspect that few English writers about Sidney have known much of
the _Astree_, and I feel sure that still fewer French writers[141] on
this have known anything of Sidney save perhaps his name. Of course the
indebtedness of both books to Montemayor's _Diana_ is a commonplace.

[Sidenote: Its likeness to the _Arcadia_.]

[Sidenote: Its philosophy and its general temper.]

One of the numerous resemblances between the two, and one which,
considering their respective positions in the history of the French and
English novel, is most interesting, is the strong philosophical and
specially Platonic influence which the Renaissance ex