A few more general remarks may perhaps be made on this critic, who contrasts so remarkably with all the rest of the critics of the Empire, and not least remarkably with his friend Chateaubriand and with Madame de Staël, beside whom alone of this numerous group he can be placed. It will be seen that while he is free from “Corinne’s” hasty generalisations and indigestible “philosophy of literature,” while he has a less extended knowledge of literatures (though probably a much more accurate one) than hers, he actually far transcends her in real philosophy of view, that he takes a sight of all poetry, all literature, and their qualities, which is aquiline alike in sweep and searchingness. Further, that though his knowledge is again more accurate than Chateaubriand’s, it is more circumscribed, and that he cannot relish some particular things which Chateaubriand could, yet that once more he excels his friend in clearness, ideality, comprehension, and depth. That finally (though the matter of this is to come), in comparison with all the other Empire critics, from Fontanes and Geoffroy downwards, a similar _distinguendum_ has to be observed. One Joubert—the Joubert of the general views and of the sections on style and poetry—is far over their heads, out of their sight and reach. The other Joubert—the Joubert of the particular judgments—is very much nearer them, though he is sometimes, not always, their superior. What is certain, however, is, that this particular kind of doubleness (we have seen others more common) is extraordinarily rare—that though faint touches of it may appear here and there, they are not more than faint. Joubert’s descriptions of poetry and his admiration of Delille are no parallel to Longinus’ definitions of the Sublime and his failure fully to admire the _Odyssey_. There is no conflict of the higher and the lower rule, but only an unexampled—yet when we come to think of it, perfectly natural—inability to get the higher rule into play. If one could have had not merely the gift of tongues, but the gift of conferring it, it would have been perhaps the most interesting experiment possible in the critical sphere to have made Joubert a thorough proficient in English, and _then_ to have seen whether he failed to see the beauties of Milton. Meanwhile he remains isolated. I do not think Mr Arnold’s comparison of him to Coleridge a very happy one, though there are no doubt certain resemblances—the Coleridgean depreciation of French poetry in relation to the Joubertian of English is the most striking of these, and might seem sufficient. I do not think Coleridge depreciated French poetry because he could not hear it: Mr Arnold himself practically admitted that _he_ did, and he is therefore himself a better parallel. And Coleridge had the excuse, which Mr Arnold had not, that French had, in literature accessible to him, hardly tried the whole compass of its lyre at all. But this is a digression, only