BOOKS & CHARACTERS FRENCH & ENGLISH _By_ LYTTON STRACHEY LONDON First published May 1922 TO JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES _The following papers are reprinted by kind permission of the Editors of the Independent Review, the New Quarterly, the Athenaeum, and the Edinburgh Review._ _The 'Dialogue' is now printed for the first time, from a manuscript, apparently in the handwriting of Voltaire and belonging to his English period_. CONTENTS RACINE 3 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 27 SHAKESPEARE'S FINAL PERIOD 41 THE LIVES OF THE POETS 59 MADAME DU DEFFAND 67 VOLTAIRE AND ENGLAND 93 A DIALOGUE 115 VOLTAIRE'S TRAGEDIES 121 VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT 137 THE ROUSSEAU AFFAIR 165 THE POETRY OF BLAKE 179 THE LAST ELIZABETHAN 193 HENRI BEYLE 219 LADY HESTER STANHOPE 241 MR. CREEVEY 253 INDEX 261 RACINE When Ingres painted his vast 'Apotheosis of Homer,' he represented, grouped round the central throne, all the great poets of the ancient and modern worlds, with a single exception--Shakespeare. After some persuasion, he relented so far as to introduce into his picture a _part_ of that offensive personage; and English visitors at the Louvre can now see, to their disgust or their amusement, the truncated image of rather less than half of the author of _King Lear_ just appearing at the extreme edge of the enormous canvas. French taste, let us hope, has changed since the days of Ingres; Shakespeare would doubtless now be advanced--though perhaps chiefly from a sense of duty--to the very steps of the central throne. But if an English painter were to choose a similar subject, how would he treat the master who stands acknowledged as the most characteristic representative of the literature of France? Would Racine find a place in the picture at all? Or, if he did, would more of him be visible than the last curl of his full-bottomed wig, whisking away into the outer darkness?