[Sidenote: _Of Fénelon and Gravina._] We may seem to have got into an _impasse_: nor will such excellent persons as Fénelon, and to go to yet another country, Gravina,[7] help us out of it. Fénelon indeed had, as we saw, some striking resipiscences, some individual pronouncements which, if they were as unaccompanied by others as they are disconnected from them, would be very promising indeed. But this very company that they do _not_ keep disestates them unluckily: and you cannot doubt, as you read _Télémaque_, that if the world had had to depend upon its author for leadership in the migration from the critical House of Bondage, it would never have got over the Red Sea, if it had even started on the journey. Gravina, to that general perspicacity and equity which distinguishes all these doubtful cases, added an unusually early and thorough appreciation of _Greek_, and the advantage, peculiar to an Italian, of having an actual classical period of modern literature extending over four entire centuries: of all which he made good use. But it is at least very difficult to discover, either in his original work or in the general trend of his critical utterances, any dissatisfaction with the prevailing direction of criticism in his time, or any determination to take a wider outlook. [Sidenote: _Of Dryden and Fontenelle._] Indeed, putting aside Dryden (whose method led straight to the Promised Land, and whose utterances show that he occasionally saw it afar off) as one who came too early to feel any very conscious desire of setting out on the pilgrimage of discovery, Fontenelle is perhaps the very earliest critic of distinction who shows a decided restlessness. And he, as we have sufficiently set forth, has too much of the critical Puck about him to be a safe guide for the wayfaring man. In fact, “Lord! what fools these mortals be!” is an exclamation which is always hovering on the door of his lips, and sometimes all but escapes it. [Sidenote: _The more excellent way._]