_Gil Blas_, _Le Diable Boiteux_ DUMAS (the elder) 1803-1870 _Three Musketeers_, etc. This style was taken up in particular by Defoe, Fielding, and Smollett. Of late there has been a recrudescence of Dumas in minor English fiction. (_d_) Character novel MME. DE LA FAYETTE 1633-1693 _Zaide_, _Princesse de Clèves_ MARIVAUX 1688-1763 _Marianne_ BALZAC 1799-1850 Novels of the _Comédie Humaine_ Followed by Richardson (_Clarissa Harlowe_, etc.), who began the vogue which has continued till the present. Essays, moralizings, philosophy MONTAIGNE 1533-1592 _Essais_ The first model of the “Essay” proper. Well known to Elizabethans (Bacon, Shakespeare, etc.). Translated by Florio. PASCAL 1623-1662 _Provincial Letters_, _Pensées_ DESCARTES 1596-1650 _Discours de la Méthode_ LA ROCHEFOUCAULD 1613-1680 _Maxims_ LA BRUYÈRE 1639-1696 _Characters_ MONTESQUIEU 1689-1755 _Esprit des Lois_ VOLTAIRE 1694-1778 _Candide_, _Essai sur les Mœurs_, etc. ROUSSEAU 1712-1778 _Contrat Social_, _Confessions_, etc. CHATEAUBRIAND 1768-1848 _Génie du Christianisme_ COMTE 1798-1857 _Philosophie Positive._ All this literature was widely read and assimilated in England, but precise effects can hardly be specified. Rousseau, however, is the first to evoke the “Nature worship,” or the study of natural influence upon the feelings, which becomes so prominent in the English poetry of the early nineteenth century. The same influence from Chateaubriand is seen in Byron. Letter-writing MME. DE SÉVIGNÉ 1627-1696 The model for English letter-writers of the eighteenth century, Horace Walpole being the great exemplar for our own country. The mock-correspondence of the _Spectator_ already shows the vogue. Literary Criticism BOILEAU 1636-1711 (_See_ “Poetry”). STE. BEUVE 1804-1869 _Portraits Littéraires_, _Causeries du Lundi_, etc. Exponent of criticism based on wide knowledge of literature. Matthew Arnold was his avowed disciple. V ITALIAN LITERATURE AND ENGLISH To Italy there always attaches a singular fascination. Its natural beauties, its historic associations, its ancient ruins, its mediaeval buildings, its collections of art—these things scattered thickly and in endless variety from one end of the peninsula to the other, from Sicily to Milan, from Genoa to Venice, make Italy the country of countries for the traveller of culture and sensibility, of enthusiasm for things splendid and beautiful.