few at all times, and with the cultivation of the analytic habit they tend to become less original and attractive. It is possible that the essay may die of exhaustion of interest, or may survive only in the modified form of accidental journalism. The essay, although invented by a great French writer, was very late in making itself at home in France. The so-called _Essais_ of Leibnitz, Nicole, Yves Marie Andre and so many others were really treatises. Voltaire's famous _Essai sur les moeurs des nations_ is an elaborate historical disquisition in nearly two hundred chapters. Later, the voluminous essays of Joseph de Maistre and of Lamennais were not essays at all in the literary sense. On the other hand, the admirable _Causeries du lundi_ of Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) are literary essays in the fulness of the term, and have been the forerunners of a great army of brilliant essay-writing in France. Among those who have specially distinguished themselves as French essayists may be mentioned Theophile Gautier, Paul de Saint-Victor, Anatole France, Jules Lemaitre, Ferdinand Brunetiere and Emile Faguet. All these are literary critics, and it is in the form of the analysis of manifestations of intellectual energy that the essay has been most successfully illustrated in France. All the countries of Europe, since the middle of the 19th century, have adopted this form of writing; such monographs or reviews, however, are not perfectly identical with the essay as it was conceived by Addison and Lamb. This last, it may be supposed, is a definitely English thing, and this view is confirmed by the fact that in several European languages the word "essayist" has been adopted without modification. In the above remarks it has been taken for granted that the essay is always in prose. Pope, however, conceived an essay in heroic verse. Of this his _Essay on Criticism_ (1711) and his _Essay on Man_ (1732-1734) are not good examples, for they are really treatises. The so-called _Moral Essays_ (1720-1735), on the contrary, might have been contributed, if in prose, either to the _Spectator_ or the _Guardian_. The idea of pure essays, in verse, however, did not take any root in English literature. (E. G.)