_18th-century Criticism and Periodical Literature._--We have said that literary criticism assumes in this century a sufficient importance to be treated under a separate heading. Contributions were made to it of many different kinds and from many different points of view. Periodical literature, the chief stimulus to its production, began more and more to come into favour. Even in the 17th century the _Journal des savants_, the Jesuit _Journal de Trevoux_, and other publications had set the example of different kinds of it. Just before the Revolution the _Gazette de France_ was in the hands of J. B. A. Suard (1734-1817), a man who was nothing if not a literary critic. Perhaps, however, the most remarkable contribution of the century to criticism of the periodical kind was the _Feuilles de Grimm_, a circular sent for many years to the German courts by Frederic Melchior Grimm (1723-1807), the comrade of Diderot and Rousseau, and containing a _compte rendu_ of the ways and works of Paris, literary and artistic as well as social. These _Leaves_ not only include much excellent literary criticism by Diderot, but also gave occasion to the incomparable _salons_ or accounts of the exhibition of pictures from the same hand, essays which founded the art of picture criticism, and which have hardly been surpassed since. The prize competitions of the Academy were also a considerable stimulus to literary criticism, though the prevailing taste in such compositions rather inclined to elegant themes than to careful studies of analyses. The most characteristic critic of the mid-century was the abbe Charles Batteux (1713-1780) who illustrated a tendency of the time by beginning with a treatise on _Les Beaux Arts reduits a un meme principe_ (1746); reduced it and others into _Principes de la litterature_ (1764) and added in 1771 _Les Quatres Poetiques_ (Aristotle, Horace, Vida and Boileau). Batteux is a very ingenious critic and his attempt to conciliate "taste" and "the rules," though inadequate, is interesting. Works on the arts in general or on special divisions of them were not wanting, as, for instance, that of Dubos before alluded to, the _Essai sur la peinture_ of Diderot and others. Critically annotated editions of the great French writers also came into fashion, and were no longer written by mere pedants. Of these Voltaire's edition of Corneille was the most remarkable, and his annotations, united separately under the title of _Commentaire sur Corneille_, form not the least important portion of his works. Even older writers, looked down upon though they were by the general taste of the day, received a share of this critical interest. In the earlier portion of the century Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy (1674-1755) and Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728) devoted their attention to Rabelais, Regnier, Villon, Marot and others. Etienne Barbazan (1696-1770) and P. J. B. Le Grand d'Aussy (1737-1800) gathered and brought into notice the long scattered and unknown rather