Studies in Prosody 80 John Mason: his _Power of Numbers_ in Prose and Poetry 81 Mitford: his _Harmony of Language_ 83 Importance of prosodic inquiry 86 Sterne and the stop-watch 86 CHAPTER IV. DIDEROT AND THE FRENCH TRANSITION. The position of Diderot 89 Difficult to authenticate 90 But hardly to be exaggerated. His Impressionism 91 The Richardson éloge 92 The _Reflections on Terence_ 93 The Review of the _Lettres d’Amabed_ 94 The Examination of Seneca 94 The quality and eminence of his critical position 95 Rousseau revisited 97 Madame de Staël 100 Her critical position 100 And work 100 The _Lettres sur Rousseau_ 101 The _Essai sur les Fictions_ 102 The _De La Littérature_ 102 The _De l’Allemagne_ 105 Her critical achievement: imputed 107 And actual 108 Chateaubriand: his difficulties 109 His Criticism 110 Indirect 111 And Direct 111 The _Génie du Christianisme_ 112 Its saturation with literary criticism 113 Survey and examples 114 Single points of excellence 116