In the first place, we have to remember that it _was_ a work of genius— whatever its faults—that was brought under Diderot’s notice; in the second, that as at least a majority, if not a consensus, of competent critics has long ago decided, it was an example or collection of examples of genius applied in a new way—that without going to the pedantic extremes to which some have gone in their definition of the novel, it has been found impossible to discover before Richardson the necessary mixture of incident and character-interest, the unity (not necessarily a dramatic or even an epic unity) of plot, the mingled appeal to, and play upon, passions and manners. Then let us ask ourselves whether the systems of criticism and the critics, with which and with whom we are up to this point familiar, have as a rule proved themselves equal to cope with new geniuses and new kinds of composition— whether their tendency has not rather been distinctly to frown upon such things; at any rate, to give them the coldest and most distrustful welcome. Let us remember that Hurd, about the same time as Diderot,[164] and in the very act of defending the older and more poetical romance, was throwing cold water on prose fiction as a clumsy upstart. And finally, let us ask ourselves whether all Diderot’s exaggerations are not, after all, exaggerations of the truth—owing their weak points to an excitable nature and a prevalent fashion of expression, their strong ones to a genius, and a perception of truth itself, not unfairly comparable in their way to Richardson’s own in his. [Sidenote: _The_ Reflections on Terence.] Side by side in the Works with this effusion there are some _Reflections on Terence_[165] written within a year of the other. In the famous Roman dramatist there is neither novelty, nor intense sentiment, nor multiplicity of individual character, nor volume of story. He was the darling of those critics from whom Diderot differed most. His faults—at least his shortcomings—are obvious to infinitely less acute, restless, and rapid judgments than that of the great Encyclopædist. His excellences are of the kind which might seem least likely to appeal to Diderot. Yet Diderot is not merely just to him, not merely bountiful, but not in the least clumsy or haphazard in his bounty. He will not have the time-honoured (or _dis_honoured) putting off of the praise of Terence on Scipio and Lælius. Admitting his “lack of verve,” he gives him full credit for its compensation of even humanity, for his “statuesque” and quiet perfection. He adds remarks on translation which are excellent; and if he may have taken the idea of holding up Terence _and_ Molière together for admiration from La Bruyère,[166] he escapes La Bruyère’s mistake of suggesting the _mixture_ of the immiscible. [Sidenote: _The Review of the_ Lettres d’Amabed.]