. The whole of the Lerma part is excellent
and not in the least improbably impossible; there is infinitely more
"human natur'" in it, as Marryat's waterman would have said, than in the
_rechauffe_ of the situation with Olivares.

[Sidenote: Lesage's quality--not requiring many words, but
indisputable.]

The effect indeed which is produced, in re-reading, by _Le Diable
Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_, but especially by the latter, is of that
especial kind which is a sort of "_a posteriori_ intuition," if such a
phrase may be permitted, of "classical" quality.[322] This sensation,
which appears, unfortunately, to be unknown to a great many people, is
sometimes set down by the more critical or, let us say, the more
censorious of them, to a sort of childish prepossession--akin to that
which makes a not ill-conditioned child fail to discover any
uncomeliness in his mother's or a favourite nurse's face. There is no
retort to such a proposition as this so proper as the argument not _ad
hominem_, but _ab_ or _ex homine_. The present writer did not read the
_Devil_ till he had reached quite critical years; and though he read
_Gil Blas_ much earlier, he was not (for what reason he cannot say)
particularly fond of it until the same period was reached. And yet its
attractions cannot possibly be said to be of any recondite or artificial
kind, and its defects are likely to be more, not less, recognised as the
critical faculty acquires strength and practice. Nevertheless, recent
reperusal has made him more conscious than ever of the existence of this
quality of a classic in both, but especially in the larger and more
famous book. And this is a mere pailful added to an ocean of previous
and more important testimony. _Gil Blas_ has certainly "classed" itself
in the most various instances, of essentially critical, not specially
critical but generally acute and appreciative, and more or less
unsophisticated and ordinary judgments, as a thing that is past all
question, equally enjoyable for its incidents, its character-sketches,
and its phrasing--though the first are (for time and country) in no
sense out of the way, the second scarcely go beyond the individualised
type, and the third is neither gorgeous nor "alambicated," as the French
say, nor in any way peculiar, except for its saturation with a sharp,
shrewd, salt wit which may be described as the spirit of the popular
proverb, somehow bodied and clothed with more purely literary form. It
is