Moréas is one of the inventors of the word ‘Symbolism.’ For some few years he was the high-priest of this secret doctrine, and administered the duties of his service with requisite seriousness. One day he suddenly abjured his self-founded faith, and declared that ‘Symbolism’ had always been meant only as a joke, to lead fools by the nose withal; and that the true salvation of poetry was in Romanism (_romanisme_). Under this new word he affirms a return to the language, versification and mode of feeling of the French poets at the close of the Middle Ages, and of the Renaissance period; but it were well to adopt his declarations with caution, since in two or three years he may be proclaiming his ‘romanisme’ as much a tap-room joke as his ‘symbolism.’ The appearance of the _Pélerin passionné_ in 1891 was celebrated by the Symbolists as an event which was to be the beginning of a new era in poetry. They arranged a banquet in honour of Moréas, and in the after-dinner speeches he was worshipped as the deliverer from the shackles of ancient forms and notions, and as the saviour who was bringing in the kingdom of God of true poetry. And the same poets who sat at the table with Moréas, and delivered to him rapturous addresses or joined in the applause, a few weeks after this event overwhelmed him with contumely and contempt. ‘Moréas a Symbolist!’ cried Charles Vignier.[139] ‘Is he one through his ideas? He laughs at them himself! His thoughts! They don’t weigh much, these thoughts of Jean Moréas!’ ‘Moréas?’ asks Adrien Remacle,[140] ‘we have all been laughing at him. It is that which has made him famous.’ René Ghil calls his _Pélerin passionné_ ‘doggerel written by a pedant,’ and Gustav Kahn[141] passes sentence on him thus: ‘Moréas has no talent.... He has never done anything worth mentioning. He has his own particular jargon.’ These expressions disclose to us the complete hollowness and falseness of the Symbolistic movement, which outside France is obstinately proclaimed as a serious matter by imbeciles and speculators, although its French inventors make themselves hoarse in trying to convince the world that they merely wanted to banter the Philistine with a tap-room jest and advertise themselves. After the verdict of his brethren in the Symbolist Parnassus, I may really spare myself the trouble of dwelling longer on Moréas; I will, however, cite a few examples from his _Pélerin passionné_, in order that the reader may form an idea of the softness of brain which displays itself in these verses. The poem Agnes[142] begins thus: