At all events, he began, as a lad, with de Leuven. Through him, after poaching his way to Paris for a day or two, he made the acquaintance of Talma, the famous actor. Returning to Paris after that escapade, he instantly became known to all sorts of useful and interesting people. This gift of making acquaintances stood him in great stead: one often wonders how it is done. In a recent biography of a Scot of letters we find the hero arriving in town, not, it would seem, an eminently attractive hero, but he is at once familiar with George Lewes, George Eliot, Tennyson, Browning, and other _sommités._ How is it done? Dumas's father had known General Foy, General Foy knew the Duc d'Orléans (Louis Philippe), and got a little clerkship in his service for the young quadroon. A few days later he goes to a play, and to whom must he sit next but Charles Nodier, then celebrated, and Nodier must be reading the Elzevir _Pastissier Français_, of which I doubt if a dozen copies are known to exist. How Nodier made friends with Dumas, and hissed his own play, is a most familiar anecdote. It sounds like a dream, a dream that came through the ivory gate. Shifted from one clerkship to another, now snubbed, now befriended by officials, Dumas did certainly read a great deal of modern literature at this time, especially Schiller and Scott. Without Scott he might never have written his great novels, for the idea of historical novels, based on a real knowledge of history, and on a vivid realisation of historical persons as actual men and women, is Sir Walter's own. Scott's daring and Turneresque composition was also bequeathed to Dumas. Sir Walter had no scruples about bringing Amy Robsart to life some fifteen years or more after her death, or about making Shakespeare a successful dramatist fifteen years before he came upon the town. But plays, not novels, at this time occupied Dumas. Chance brought him acquainted with the history of Christine of Sweden, and with that of Henri III. of France. A little collaborative comedy was acted, a volume of _contes_ was published, but was not purchased. A son was born to Dumas in 1824, the celebrated Alexandre Dumas _fils,_ whose talent was so unlike that of his sire. The parent tried, with Soulié, to dramatise _Old Mortality_, to "Terrify" it, as Scott would have said. They did not finish their attempt, but Dumas now saw Shakespeare acted by Kemble, Liston, and an English company. He found out "what the theatre really was," and he proceeded to evolve many "parts to tear a cat in." More "in Ercles' vein" than in the vein of Shakespeare were the romantic plays which now arose in France: passions and violent scenes of intrigue were within the compass of Dumas: humour, too, he had, and great skill in effect and in _charpentage._ The style, the charm, the poetry, are absent, _carmina desunt._