_Literature since 1830._--In dealing with the last period of the history of French literature and that which was introduced by the literary revolution of 1830 and has continued, in phases of only partial change, to the present day, a slight alteration of treatment is requisite. The subdivisions of literature have lately become so numerous, and the contributions to each have reached such an immense volume, that it is impossible to give more than cursory notice, or indeed allusion, to most of them. It so happens, however, that the purely literary characteristics of this period, though of the most striking and remarkable, are confined to a few branches of literature. The character of the 19th century in France has hitherto been at least as strongly marked as that of any previous period. In the middle ages men of letters followed each other in the cultivation of certain literary forms for long centuries. The _chanson de geste_, the Arthurian legend, the _roman d'aventure_, the _fabliau_, the allegorical poem, the rough dramatic _jeu_, mystery and farce, served successively as moulds into which the thought and writing impulse of generations of authors were successively cast, often with little attention to the suitability of form and subject. The end of the 15th century, and still more the 16th, owing to the vast extension of thought and knowledge then introduced, finally broke up the old forms, and introduced the practice of treating each subject in a manner more or less appropriate to it, and whether appropriate or not, freely selected by the author. At the same time a vast but somewhat indiscriminate addition was made to the actual vocabulary of the language. The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed a process of restriction once more to certain forms and strict imitation of predecessors, combined with attention to purely arbitrary rules, the cramping and impoverishing effect of this (in Fenelon's words) being counterbalanced partly by the efforts of individual genius, and still more by the constant and steady enlargement of the range of thought, the choice of subjects, and the familiarity with other literature, both of the ancient and modern world. The literary work of the 19th century and of the great Romantic movement which began in its second quarter was to repeat on a far larger scale the work of the 16th, to break up and discard such literary forms as had become useless or hopelessly stiff, to give strength, suppleness and variety to such as were retained, to invent new ones where necessary, to enrich the language by importations, inventions and revivals, and, above all, to bring into prominence the principle of individualism. Authors and even books, rather than groups and kinds, demand principal attention.