Unfortunately, in the course of the argument, the most enormous errors of fact, the most startling assertions, which cannot take the benefit of _de gustibus_, simply pullulate. The book nearly drops from one’s hands when one reads “Eschyle ne présente aucun résultat moral”: and the reference to the _Prometheus_ by which this statement is supported, suggests very forcibly that the writer knew nothing else, and did not understand this. More allowance must be made, no doubt, for the point of view, when we read further that “les héros (of Greek tragedy) n’avaient pas cette grandeur soutenue que leur a donnée Racine”; but what a point of view it is![179] We are in full topsyturvydom with the statement[180] that “la philosophie des Grecs me paraît fort au-dessous de celle de leurs imitateurs les Romains,” and we do not get out of the country as long as the contrast of Greek and Roman continues. But here, it may be said, we are in the region of opinion. The plea cannot be urged for the astounding statements which diversify the defence of our own barbarous poetry. In believing _Ossian_ genuine, as in admiration for it, she, of course, had respectable companions: but the person who could say[181] “les poètes Anglais qui _ont succédés aux bardes écossais_ ont ajouté à leurs tableaux,” &c., could have possessed neither the faintest knowledge of literary, or even political, history, nor the least extensive acquaintance with actual examples. The note,[182] “le docteur Blair n’aurait pu juger en Angleterre Shakespere avec l’impartialité d’un étranger,” betrays the most obvious and complete ignorance of what _le docteur Blair_ had actually said. The description in the text[183] of Falstaff as a _charge_, a “caricature populaire,” a “plaisanterie grossière,” speaks the lady’s critical competence with a voice of doom. But the most utterly damning page is that[184] which denies inventive imagination to English poetry; airily dismisses Waller and Cowley as unsuccessful imitators of the Italians; adds _je pourrais y joindre Downe_ (sic), _Chaucer_, &c.; and a moment later despatches at a blow, as showing this want of inventive imagination, _The Rape of the Lock_ (full of faults of taste), _The Faërie Queene_ (the most tiresome thing in the world), _Hudibras_ (witty, but dwelling too long on its jokes). Admit (it is a good deal to admit) that there may be faults of taste in the _Rape_; admit that more than one Englishman has been unfortunate enough to find Spenser tedious; admit that there is even some justice in the charge against _Hudibras_. How (except by the easy method of having never read them) can you leash these three books together? and, most of all, by what prank of her own elves does “that Elfish Queen” find herself between Trulla and Belinda? I have myself not the slightest doubt that though Madame de Staël may have glanced at the _Rape_, and disliked the sylph machinery, she had never so much as opened “Downe” or