These same letters, moreover, contain numerous critical passages; while a whole division of his _Works_[310] is critical. [Sidenote: _His Letters._] The interest, however, of the most literary part of the _Letters_, those to Chapelain, as a whole, is not so much on Balzac’s side as on Chapelain’s; and the subjects of them will, at any rate in part, be best treated when we come to discuss that (in the latter part of his own lifetime and since) much-enduring writer. To Bois-Robert Balzac confides (III. 7) that he only cares for verses as he does for melons—both must be in absolute perfection if they are to please him; also that the philosopher’s stone will be found as soon as the sort of eloquence that _he_ values. The thousand pages of the _Letters_ are sprinkled with finery of this sort; but better matter is not very common. The somewhat hollow elegance which the French allow to be the chief merit of Balzac does not lend itself well to real criticism: nor, to do him justice, does he much attempt this, even to men of letters like Conrart, Heinsius, Descartes, or to Chapelain himself. Sometimes he drops into verbal criticism, as in VI. 57, where he consents to call Mlle. de Gournay herself _traductrice_ and _rhétoricienne_, but not _poétesse_ or _philosophesse_. The letter to Scudéry in reference to his attacks on _The Cid_ is very sensible and in good taste; but (as Balzac indeed generally is) much more ethical and “gentlemanly” than æsthetic (XII. 20). Even when he writes directly to Corneille (XVI. 9) about _Cinna_ he cannot get much beyond elegant generalities as to this Rome being the Rome _de Tite Live_. So that it is not surprising, when we come to the Chapelain Letters themselves (of which, besides a few stray ones earlier, there are six entire Books, XVII.-XXII.) that although most of them touch literature, and many contain critical remarks or judgments,[311] there is little of much interest. Only now and then do we come across such a refreshment as: “Why, sir, what prodigy do you tell me of? Is it possible that any one with a drop of common-sense in him can prefer the Spanish poets to the Italians? and take the visions of a certain Lope de Vega for reasonable compositions?” (XX. 127). His remarks on Ronsard and Malherbe, “the Martyr and the Tyrant” (XXII. 20), are fair, and with room one might extend the anthology. But on the whole, though Balzac was a very handsome letter-writer, and could, and did, give all the Frank Churchills of Europe lessons in that art, he was not very much of a critic. ----- Footnote 310: Pp. 509-689 of the second of two stately folios (Paris, 1665). The _Letters_ are in the first. Footnote 311: Balzac himself rather mincingly deprecates this word. “Je ne donne” he says to Chapelain (XX. 25) “jamais de jugement; mais je dis quelquefois mon avis.” -----