At first Romanticism was, in its essence, merely a spirited defence of localisation in literature. The Romanticists admired and glorified the Middle Ages, which the culture of the eighteenth century had anathematised, and the poets of the sixteenth century--Ronsard, Du Bellay, &c.--who had been supplanted by the classic authors of the age of Louis XIV. They attacked pseudo-classicism, the tiresome and monotonous Frenchifying and modernising of all ages and nationalities. They took as their watchword "local colouring." By local colouring they meant all the characteristics of foreign nations, of far-off days, of unfamiliar climes, to which as yet justice had not been done in French literature. They felt that their predecessors had been led astray by the premise that every human being was simply a human being, and, moreover, more or less of a Frenchman. In reality, there was not such a thing as universal humanity; there were separate races, peoples, tribes, and clans. Still less was the Frenchman the typical human being. It was imperative, if they were to understand and represent human life, that they should free themselves from themselves. This idea gave the impulse to the art and criticism of nineteenth-century France. Authors now made it their endeavour to train their readers to see things from this new point of view. They no longer wrote to please the public--and it is this fact which gives value to the books of the period. Therefore a critic who, like myself, is engaged in tracing the main currents of literature, must dwell upon many a seldom read and still more rarely bought Romantic work, and do little more than mention such a talented dramatist as Scribe, who for a whole generation dominated the stage in every country in Europe.