ho definitely vindicated for
the novel the possibility of creating a passionate masterpiece,
outstripping _La Princesse de Cleves_ as _Othello_ outstrips _A Woman
Killed with Kindness_. As for the enormous remainder of him, if it is
very frankly negligible by the mere reader, it is not quite so by the
student. He was very popular, and, careless bookmaker as he was in a
very critical time, his popularity scarcely failed him till his horrible
death.[342] It can scarcely be said that, except in the one great cited
instance, he heightened or intensified the French novel, but he enlarged
its scope, varied its interests, and combined new objectives with its
already existing schemes, even in his less good work. In _Manon Lescaut_
itself he gave a masterpiece, not only to the novel, not only to France,
but to all literature and all the world.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Crebillon _fils_.]

The unfortunate nobleman as to whom Dickens has left us in doubt whether
he was a peer in his own right or the younger son or a Marquis or Duke,
pronounced Shakespeare "a clayver man." It was perhaps, in the
particular instance, inadequate though true. I hardly know any one in
literature of whom it is truer and more adequate than it is of Claude
Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon the younger, commonly called Crebillon
_fils_.[343] His very name is an abomination to Mrs. Grundy, who
probably never read, or even attempted to read, one of his naughty
books. Gray's famous tribute[344] to him--also known to a large number
who are in much the same case with Mrs. Grundy--is distinctly
patronising. But he is a very clever man indeed, and the cleverness of
some of his books--especially those in dialogue--is positively amazing.

[Sidenote: The case against him.]

At the same time it is of the first importance to make the due provisos
and allowances, the want of which so frequently causes disappointment,
if not positive disgust, when readers have been induced by unbalanced
laudation to take up works of the literature of other days. There are,
undoubtedly, things--many and heavy things--to be said against
Crebillon. A may say, "I am not, I think, _Mr._ Grundy: but I cannot
stand your Crebillon. I do not like a world where all the men are
apparently atheists, and all the women are certainly the other thing
mentioned in Donne's famous line. It disgusts and sickens me: and I will
have none of it, however clever it may be." B, not qui