But there it is,--the thing's a Fact. I find no other reason But that some scribbling itch attacked Him in and out of season, To write what no one else should read, With this for second meaning, To "cleanse his bosom" (and indeed It sometimes wanted cleaning); To speak, as 'twere, his private mind, Unhindered by repression, To make his motley life a kind, Of Midas' ears confession; And thus outgrew this work _per se_,-- This queer, kaleidoscopic, Delightful, blabbing, vivid, free Hotch-pot of daily topic. So artless in its vanity, So fleeting, so eternal, So packed with "poor Humanity"-- We know as Pepys' his journal.[51] Note: [51] Written for the Pepys' Dinner at Magdalene College, Cambridge, February 23rd, 1905. A FRENCH CRITIC ON BATH Among other pleasant premonitions of the present _entente cordiale_ between France and England is the increased attention which, for some time past, our friends of Outre Manche have been devoting to our literature. That this is wholly of recent growth, is not, of course, to be inferred. It must be nearly five-and-forty years since M. Hippolyte Taine issued his logical and orderly _Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise_; while other isolated efforts of insight and importance--such as the _Laurence Sterne_ of M. Paul Stapfer, and the excellent _Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre au XVIII^e Siecle_ of the late M. Alexandre Beljame of the Sorbonne--are already of distant date. But during the last two decades the appearance of similar productions has been more recurrent and more marked. From one eminent writer alone--M. J.-J. Jusserand--we have received an entire series of studies of exceptional charm, variety, and accomplishment. M. Felix Rabbe has given us a sympathetic analysis of Shelley; M. Auguste Angellier,--himself a poet of individuality and distinction,--what has been rightly described as a "splendid work" on Burns;[52] while M. Emile Legouis, in a minute examination of "The Prelude," has contrasted and compared the orthodox Wordsworth of maturity with the juvenile semi-atheist of Coleridge. Travelling farther afield, M. W. Thomas has devoted an exhaustive volume to Young of the _Night Thoughts_; M. Leon Morel, another to Thomson; and, incidentally, a flood of fresh light has been thrown upon the birth and growth of the English Novel by the admirable _Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme Litteraire_ of the late Joseph Texte--an investigation unquestionably of the ripest scholarship, and the most extended research. And now once more there are signs that French lucidity and French precision are about to enter upon other conquests; and we have M. Barbeau's study of a famous old English watering-place[53]--appropriately dedicated, as is another of the books already mentioned, to M. Beljame.[54] Notes: