attention, and to do fair justice, to this vast and curious wilderness of delights.[150] [Sidenote: The _Grand Cyrus_.] [Sidenote: Its preface to Madame de Longueville.] To turn from the Pastoral to the Heroic, the actual readers, English or other, of _Artamene ou le Grand Cyrus_[151] in late years, have probably been reckonable rather as single spies (a phrase in this connection of some rather special appropriateness) than in battalions. And it is to be feared that many or most, if not nearly all of them, have opened it with little expectation of pleasure. The traditional estimates are dead against it as a rule; it has constantly served as an example--produced by wiseacres for wiseacres--of the _un_wisdom of our ancestors; and, generous as were Sir Walter's estimates of all literature, and especially of his fellow-craftsmen's and craftswomen's work, the lively passage in _Old Mortality_ where Edith Bellenden's reference to the book excites the (in the circumstances justifiable) wrath of the Major--perhaps the only _locus_ of ordinary reading that touches _Artamene_ with anything but vagueness--is not entirely calculated to make readers read eagerly. But on turning honestly to the book itself, it is possible that considerable relief and even a little astonishment may result. Whether this satisfaction will arise at the very dedication by that vainglorious and yet redoubtable cavalier, Georges de Scudery, in which he characteristically takes to himself the credit due mainly, if not wholly, to his plain little sister Madeleine, will depend upon taste. It is addressed to Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, Duchess of Longueville, sister of Conde, and adored mistress of many noteworthy persons--the most noteworthy perhaps being the Prince de Marcillac, better known, as from his later title, as Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and a certain Aramis--not so good a man as three friends of his, but a very accomplished, valiant, and ingenious gentleman. The blue eyes of Madame de Longueville (M. de Scudery takes the liberty to mention specially their charm, if not their colour) were among the most victorious in that time of the "raining" and reigning influence of such things: and somehow one succumbs a little even now to her as the Queen of that bevy of fair, frail, and occasionally rather ferocious ladies of the Fronde feminine. (The femininity was perhaps most evident in Madame de Chevreuse, and the ferocity in Madame de Montbazon.) Did not Madame de Longueville--did not they all--figuratively speaking, draw that great philosopher Victor Cousin[152] up in a basket two centuries after her death, even as had been done, literally if mythically, to that greater philosopher, Aristotle, ages before? But the governor of Our Lady of the Guard[153] says to her many of these things which that very Aramis delighted to hear (though not perhaps from the lips of rivals) and described, rebuking the callousness of Porthos to them, as fine and worthy of being said by gentlemen.