_Cleon ou le Parfait Confidant_ (Paris, 1665), and _Hattige ou Les Amours au Roy de Tamaran_ (Cologne, 1676), the first anonymous, the second written by a certain G. de Brimond, and dedicated to an Englishman of whom we are not specially proud--Harry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans--are two very little books, of intrinsic importance and interest not disproportioned to their size. They have, however, a little of both for the student, in reference to the extension of the novel _kind_. For _Cleon_ is rather like a "fictionising" of an inferior play of Moliere's time; and _Hattige_, with its privateering Chevalier de Malte for a hero and its Turkish heroine who coolly remarks "L'infidelite a des charmes," might have been better if the author had known how to make it so. Both these books have, as has been said, the merit of shortness. Puget de la Serre's _La Clytie de la Cour_ (2 vols., Paris, 1635) cannot plead even this; for it fills two fat volumes of some 1500 pages. I have sometimes been accused, both in France and in England, of unfairness to Boileau, but I should certainly never quarrel with him for including La Serre (not, however, in respect of this book, I think) among his herd of dunces. Like most of the novels of its time, though it has not much actual _bergerie_ about it, it suggests the _Astree_, but the contrast is glaring. Even among the group, I have seldom read, or attempted to read, anything duller. _Le Melante du Sieur Vidal_ (Paris, 1624), though also somewhat wordy (it has 1000 pages), is much more Astreean, and therefore, perhaps, better. Things do happen in it: among other incidents a lover is introduced into a garden in a barrow of clothes, though he has not Sir John Falstaff's fate. There are fresh laws of love, and discussions of them; a new debate on the old Blonde _v._ Brunette theme, which might be worse, etc. etc. The same year brought forth _Les Chastes Amours d'Armonde_ by a certain Damiron, which, as its title may show, belongs rather to the pre-Astreean group (_v. sup._ Vol. I. p. 157 _note_), and contains a great deal of verse and (by licence of its title) a good deal of kissing; but is flatly told, despite not a little _Phebus_. It is a sort of combat of Spiritual and Fleshly Love; and Armonde ends as a kind of irregular anchorite, having previously "spent several days in deliberating the cut of his vestments."