old classical to the modern romantic school. The
fertility of ideas, vehemence of expression and luxury of natural
description, which he shares with the romanticists, are controlled by a
discipline learnt in the school of their predecessors. His palette,
always brilliant, is never gaudy; he is not merely a painter but an
artist. He is also a master of epigrammatic and incisive sayings.
Perhaps, however, the most truly characteristic feature of his genius is
the peculiar magical touch which Matthew Arnold indicated as a note of
Celtic extraction, which reveals some occult quality in a familiar
object, or tinges it, one knows not how, with "the light that never was
on sea or land." This incommunicable gift supplies an element of
sincerity to Chateaubriand's writings which goes far to redeem the
artificial effect of his calculated sophistry and set declamation. It is
also fortunate for his fame that so large a part of his writings should
directly or indirectly refer to himself, for on this theme he always
writes well. Egotism was his master-passion, and beyond his intrepidity
and the loftiness of his intellectual carriage his character presents
little to admire. He is a signal instance of the compatibility of
genuine poetic emotion, of sympathy with the grander aspects both of man
and nature, and of munificence in pecuniary matters, with absorption in
self and general sterility of heart.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The _OEuvres completes_ of Chateaubriand were printed
in 28 vols., 1826-1831; in 20 vols., 1829-1831; and in many later
editions, notably in 1858-1861, in 20 volumes, with an introductory
study by Sainte-Beuve. The principal authority for Chateaubriand's
biography is the _Memoires d'outre-tombe_ (1849-1850), of which there
is an English translation, _The Memoirs of ... Chateaubriand_ (6
vols., 1902), by A. Teixeira de Mattos, based on the admirable edition
(4 vols., 1899-1901) of Edmond Bire. This work should be supplemented
by the _Souvenirs et correspondances tires des papiers de Mme
Recamier_ (2 vols., 1859, ed. Mme Ch. Lenormant). See also Comte de
Marcellus, _Chateaubriand et son temps_ (1859); the same editor's
_Souvenirs diplomatiques; correspondance intime de Chateaubriand_
(1858); C.A. Sainte-Beuve, _Chateaubriand et son groupe litteraire
sous l'empire_ (2 vols., 1861, new and revised ed., 3 vols., 1872);
other articles by Sainte-Beuve, who was in this case a somewhat
prejudiced crit