A critic of whom I desire to speak with all respect--the Rector of Lincoln--has said that "mere style cannot confer immortality upon any book apart from its contents." The context from which this remark is taken deals with the Provinciales and _Pensées_ of Pascal, concerning which Mr. Pattison thinks that the former are but an ephemeral pamphlet, the latter are for all time. So startling a judgment makes the reader a little inclined to dogmatize hyperbolically in his turn, and to say that there is nothing perennial but style. This, indeed, would be merely running from one extreme to another; nevertheless, there is more truth in it than in the other exaggeration, for the attitude of men's minds changes singularly, from one time to another, with regard to any "contents;" it changes very little with regard to the expression of those contents. This is, perhaps, nowhere seen more clearly than in the case of very voluminous authors whose works are preserved in unequal remembrance. When such cases are examined, it will generally be found that the reason for the preference which posterity has expressed has been almost entirely due to literary merit. Between the merit of the contents of Defoe's different novels there is not very much to choose; yet no one who speaks with competence will question that the literary art of _Robinson Crusoe_ is, on the whole, far superior to that of _Moll Flanders_ and _Colonel Jack_. So, in the not wholly dissimilar case of our present author, the contents of _Estévanille Gonzales_ and _The Bachelor of Salamanca_ are not much less interesting, if they are less interesting at all, than those of _Le Diable Boiteux_ and _Gil Blas_, while _Guzman d'Alfarache_ has perhaps a positive advantage over much of the latter. But Lesage was never so well inspired from the literary point of view as in the two works which have been justly deemed his masterpieces, and in this lies the justice of the selection.