French literary history consists in the
self-conscious, elaborate, persistent efforts put forth from time to
time by individuals, and by organizations, both public and private, in
France, to improve the language, and to elevate the literature, of the
nation. We know of nothing altogether comparable to this anywhere else
in the literature of the world.

A fifth striking thing about French literature is, that it has to a
degree, as we believe beyond parallel, exercised a real and vital
influence on the character and the fortune of the nation. The social,
the political, the moral, the religious, history of France is from age
to age a faithful reflex of the changing phases of its literature. Of
course, a reciprocal influence has been constantly reflected back and
forth from the nation upon its literature, as well as from its
literature upon the nation. But where else in the world has it ever been
so extraordinarily, we may say so appallingly, true as in France, that
the nation was such because such was its literature?

French literature, it will at once be seen, is a study possessing,
beyond the literary, a social, a political, and even a religious,
interest.

Readers desiring to push their conversance with the literary history of
France farther than the present volume will enable them to do, will
consult with profit either the Primer, or the Short History, of French
Literature, by Mr. George Saintsbury. Mr. Saintsbury is a well-informed
writer, who, if the truth must be told, diffuses himself too widely to
do his best possible work. He has, however, made French literature a
specialty, and he is in general a trustworthy authority on the subject.

Another writer on the subject is Mr. H. Van Laun. Him, although a
predecessor of his own in the field, Mr. Saintsbury severely ignores, by
claiming that he is himself the first to write in English a history of
French literature based on original and independent reading of the
authors. We are bound to say that Mr. Van Laun's work is of very poor
quality. It offers, indeed, to the reader one advantage not afforded by
either of Mr. Saintsbury's works, the advantage, namely, of illustrative
extracts from the authors treated,--extracts, however, not unfrequently
marred by wretched translation. The cyclopaedias are, some of them, both
in articles on particular authors and in their sketches of French
literary history as a whole, good sources of general information on the
subject. Rea