te agreeing with
A, may take another tone, and observe, "He _is_ clever and he _is_
amusing: but he is terribly monotonous. I do not mind a visit to the
'oyster-bearing shores' now and then, but I do not want to live in
Lampsacus. After all, even in a pagan Pantheon, there are other
divinities besides a cleverly palliated Priapus and a comparatively
ladylike Cotytto. Seven volumes of however delicately veiled
'sculduddery' are nearly as bad as a whole evening's golf-talk in a St.
Andrews hotel, or a long men's dinner, where everybody but yourself is a
member of an Amateur Dramatic Society." The present writer is not far
from agreeing with B, while he has for A a respect which disguises no
shadow of a sneer. Crebillon does harp far too much on one string, and
that one of no pure tone: and even the individual handlings of the
subject are chargeable throughout his work with _longueurs_, in the
greater part of it with sheer tedium. It is very curious, and for us of
the greatest importance, to notice how this curse of long-windedness,
episodic and hardly episodic "inset," endless talk "about it and about
it," besets these pioneers of the modern novel. Whether it was a legacy
of the "Heroics" or not it is difficult to say. I think it was--to some
extent. But, as we have seen, it exists even in Lesage; it is found
conspicuously in Marivaux; it "advances insupportably" in Prevost,
except when some God intervenes to make him write (and to stop him
writing) _Manon_; and it rests heavily even on Crebillon, one of the
lightest, if not one of the purest, of literary talents. It is
impossible to deny that he suffers from monotony of general theme: and
equally impossible to deny that he suffers from spinning out of
particular pieces. There is perhaps not a single thing of his which
would not have been better if it had been shorter: and two of his
liveliest if also most risky pieces, _La Nuit et le Moment_ and _Le
Hasard au Coin du Feu_, might have been cut down to one half with
advantage, and to a quarter with greater advantage still.

There are, however, excuses for Crebillon: and though it may seem a rash
thing to say, and even one which gives the case away, there is, at least
in these two and parts of _Le Sopha_, hardly a page--even of the parts
which, if "cut," would improve the work as a whole--that does not in
itself prove the almost elfish cleverness now assigned to him.

[Sidenote: For the defendant--The veracity of his artif