history of Germany. The proposition of Austria, modified in a more peaceful sense by Bavaria, was carried by nine votes to six. Luxemburg, Ducal Saxony, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, and the Hanse Towns voted against the proposal; Baden remained neutral. The representative of Prussia then declared that the tie of the Confederation was dissolved, and war began. The last volume of Sybel's History contains a narrative of the war in Italy, Central Germany, and Bohemia, and an account of the foundation of the North German League. The limits of our space do not permit us to treat of those subjects at present, although it would be tempting to trace the astuteness by which Bismarck evaded the claims of Napoleon to receive compensation for the aggrandisement of Prussia. Much that we have written will be new to our readers. The book is undoubtedly an apology for Prussia, and there may be a great deal to be said on the other side. It would be well if other governments concerned would, by allowing access to authentic documents, make it possible to modify or correct the statements of our historian. In the meantime we cannot be too grateful for this clear presentation of the conduct of a great statesman in a crisis of the highest importance, not only to Germany but to the world. ART. ART. III.-Euvres Complètes d'Ernest Renan. Paris, 1890. RECENT writer has observed that the two greatest in tellectual forces in France, at this moment, are M. Renan and M. Taine. Probably that is so; certainly, of these two eminent writers, M. Renan is just now incomparably the more influential. In the event, it may, very likely, be otherwise. The work, so thoroughly accomplished by M. Taine, of demolishing the revolutionary legend, and of exhibiting the veritable 'sources of contemporary France,' may well prove of more enduring value than all M. Renan's manifold and multiform writings put together. But the present generation of Frenchmen will not read M. Taine. He has become their enemy, because he tells them the truth. M. Renan, on the other hand, is a prophet abundantly honoured in his own country and wherever the language and literature of his country are known. His sound has gone out into all lands. It would be difficult to mention any living man of letters whose influence in the civilized world is more diffused, more penetrating, and more effective. We shall endeavour, in the present article, to investigate the causes and character of that influence, and to form some judgment concerning it as a factor in the intellectual and spiritual history of the nineteenth century. Now, by common consent, one of the chief causes of M. Renan's influence is to be found in his incomparable style. It is just twenty-seven years ago that he found himself famous. His 'Vie de Jésus' took the world by storm. The effect which it produced on the public mind may be judged of from the fact that, in France alone, fifteen hundred books or pamphlets about it were published within twelve months from its appearance; most of them, we needly hardly add, attacking it with extreme severity. But whether men applauded or anathematized the ' Vie de Jésus,' none could deny the high gifts of which it made full proof. It may, or it may not have been, what is called 'an epoch-making book.' It certainly made the literary fortune of its author. Not even the most superficial of 'general readers' could be insensible to its delightful phrases, so finely chiselled, to its flowing and harmonious periods-recalling the cadences of music to the artistic perfection of its word painting, to the exquisite grace of its delicate dilettantism, to the seductive sweetness of its sceptical piety. Savants might gibe at it as a mere literary perfumery, fit only to titillate the nostrils of the multitude. But they have had to reckon with it. Not even the most orthodox of subsequent commentators on the evangelical history have written as they would have written before before it was published; while those of doubtful orthodoxy, or of no orthodoxy at all, have found in it a rich mine of ideas, a full fountain of inspiration. But although the most popular of M. Renan's works-some three hundred thousand copies of it have been sold in France alone-we feel sure that neither its author, nor any competent critic, would account it the best. The Essay on Averroes,' the 'General History of the Semitic Languages,' the 'Studies in Religious History,' the work on the Book of Job, the Ethical Essays'— all published before the 'Vie de Jésus -are not of less account than it from the point of view of scholarship, and certainly are not inferior in literary workmanship. The same may be said of the remaining volumes of his Sources of Christianity,' of his Philosophical Dialogues,' of his very striking dissertations entitled Contemporary Questions,' of his 'Philosophical Dramas,' of his History of the People of Israel.' The mere mention of these works and they are by no means a complete list-is enough to indicate another of the causes of M. Renan's influence. One of the most opulent natures that have adorned modern literature, he takes captive his readers by the breadth of his erudition and the abundance of his ideas, no less than by the magic of his style. A philologist-he is that first and foremost a historian, a theologian, a philosopher, a publicist, he appeals to thoughtful men of every variety of intellectual character. And he seldom appeals in vain. It is hard for even the most inveterate prejudice to refuse to hear the voice of the charmer; the more especially as to his illecebræ suaviloquentiæ'-to use St. Augustine's phrase he adds the fascination of subtle and stimulating paradox. Mordant irony lurking beneath the most ingenuous candour, voluptuous sensism extracted from the purest idealism, universal pyrrhonism expressed in the language of religion-such is the piquant ragout which M. Renan serves up, in the lordly dish of his superb French, to the jaded palate of the nineteenth century. It is not difficult to understand how the century has relished it. But it is very difficult to bring so unique an artist within the ordinary formulas of criticism; or adequately to estimate his multiform achievements within the twenty or thirty pages of a Review article. M. Sainte-Beuve felt the difficulty a quarter of a century ago. Pour parler convenablement de M. Renan,' he writes, 'si complexe et si fuyant quand on le presse et quand on veut l'embrasser tout entier, ce serait moins un article de critique qu'il conviendrait de faire sur lui qu'un petit dialogue à la manière de Platon.' Similarly, M. Renan himself finds that, in the present state of the human intellect, the dialogue alone is Vol, 171.-No. 342. suitable 2 B suitable for the exposition of his philosophic ideas. Truths of this order,' he writes, in the Preface to Le Prêtre de Némi,' 'should be neither denied nor affirmed directly. They are not the subject of demonstration. All we can do is to present them in different aspects and to exhibit their strength or their weakness, their necessity, their equivalence.' Unquestionably, this form of composition suits M. Renan admirably, and he has used it with supreme skill to exhibit himself according to his own humorous description, as 'a tissue of contradictions, one half of him engaged in demolishing the other half, like the fabulous beast of Ctesias who ate his paws without knowing it.' 'The clear perception of a truth,' he tells us, 'does not in the least hinder one from discerning the opposing truth, the next minute, with just the same clearness.' The contradictions with which his writings are replete are no accident. They are a habit ; nay more, they are a law of his nature. Indeed, he finds in them an evidence of veracity: Malheur à qui ne se contredit pas une fois par jour.' No doubt all this may be, to some extent, conceded. Certain it is that the mere juxtaposition of divergent elements of thought often gives us more help towards grasping the verity underlying them, than that which would be afforded by a premature and arbitrary synthesis. But the dialogue has peculiar dangers and temptations of its own for a mobile and subtle intellect. Even Plato himself did not altogether escape them. They are dangers and temptations to which a Frenchman is especially exposed. For as Amiel says, truly enough, the Frenchman's centre of gravity is always outside himself; he is always thinking of others; always playing to the gallery.' M. Renan, throughout his brilliant volume of Dialogues Philosophiques,' reminds us of one of Moore's nymphs. 'Lesbia has a wit refined; But when its points are gleaming round us, To dazzle merely, or to wound us?' Yes; There is a marvellous coquetry in his intellect; at one moment dallying with materialism, at the next fondly embracing the ideal; now, passionate in professions of mysticism; then, cold and disdainful in negation or indifference. the dialogue is admirably suited to M. Renan's genius. And no doubt it would serve excellently well for an entertaining and instructive exhibition of him as an artist. But for the sober estimate of him as a teacher, which we are about to essay, 'the critical article,' in spite of the difficulties pointed out by M. Sainte-Beuve, M. Sainte-Beuve, has its advantages. It serves better than the dialogue to present definite conclusions. In order to understand the influence exercised by M. Renan's writings upon the public mind, we shall do well to inquire first into the intellectual constituents of his character. And here we shall derive signal help from his intensely interesting volume, Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse,' -a work, which, as he tells us, he wrote in order to transmit to others the theory of the universe which he carries in himself.' The book is full of charms of every kind; admirable bits of description, as the pictures of old Brittany; masterpieces of rhetoric, as the famous prayer on the Acropolis; finished pages of irony, as the account of M. de Talleyrand's conversion. But, to our mind, its greatest charm lies in its veracity. In this species of composition it is very difficult to avoid the artistic insincerity of which, perhaps, the most conspicuous example is afforded by Rousseau's Confessions.' Throughout M. Renan's Souvenirs,' there breathes that antique candour which so mightily fascinates us in a very different book-Cardinal Newman's 'Apologia.' We may remark, in passing, upon the curious and instructive parallel which these two works offer, both of them of the highest value as documents for the spiritual history of the nineteenth century. We may observe, too, that all the other writings of both masters may, in a true sense, be regarded as commentaries upon, or explanations of, their autobiographies. There is not a page of Cardinal Newman which is not a real revelation of its author. The same may be said of the works of M. Renan, who, very early in life, felt, that to write without expressing something of one's own personal thought was the vainest exercise of the intellect.' Of course M. Renan does not mean us to suppose that everything in his 'Souvenirs' is to be taken absolutely. Like the author of 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and the Hebrew prophet whose example Bunyan imitated, he has used similitudes. All that I have written is true,' he testifies, 'but not of that kind of truth which is required for a Biographie Universelle. Many things have been introduced to provoke a smile (afin qu'on sourie); and, if only custom would have allowed, I should have written here and there, in the margin, “cum grano salis." Nay, as he tells us elsewhere, he indulges sometimes in 'little literary evasions (petits fauxfuyants littéraires) required by the view of a higher truth, or by the exigences of a well-balanced phrase.' If, after these admonitions, the reader chooses to misapprehend our author, why he must thank his own dulness for his mistakes. Wẹ 2 B 2 may |