France has, during civilized times, been politically and socially, as well as geographically, so near to us; Englishmen and Englishwomen have been generally so well acquainted with the French language and French books, that it is beyond possibility to determine exactly what effect French models have had and are having upon us, just as on the other hand it is beyond possibility to analyse exactly the effect which English models have had and are having upon France. But, without aiming at this impossible exactitude, we may at least make ourselves aware of such periods and manners of French influence as yield themselves readily to the student’s survey. It will be found that, though the influence of French literature has been felt in every generation, there are two great periods in particular during which the creations and the critical principles of Frenchmen have dominated those of our own authors. The one is the period between the Conquest and the rise of Chaucer; the second is the period which began in the seventeenth century with writers of the age of Waller and Dryden, and continued till towards the end of the eighteenth century, that is to say, till the time of Cowper and Burns. Approximate dates are, perhaps, necessary here, and the following may roughly serve. From about the year 1100 till about the year 1370, and from about the year 1660 till 1780, England took its cue in many departments of literary work from the matter, the form, and the critical principles of contemporary France. Doubtless at all times there have been borrowings to and fro, but these are the periods when the borrowings have been most one-sided and most palpable. The interval from the maturity of Chaucer till the earlier part of the seventeenth century was more especially the era of Italian influence, introducing and supporting that mightier influence from pagan Greece and pagan Rome which began in what is justly styled the Renaissance. Again, since the latter part of the eighteenth century, the time heralded by Cowper and crowned by Burns, the English have emancipated themselves from direct literary imitation of the French, although, as is briefly stated at the end of this chapter, there have been no few currents of French influence upon various classes of our writers, and, from them, upon the reading public. Let it then be repeated that two periods especially concern us—the period of the Norman and Plantagenet kings preceding and reaching up to Chaucer, and that period which embraces the literature of the reigns of Charles II, James II, William III, Anne, and the first two Georges; or, to put the latter period more plainly and more suitably in a literary connection, the age of Dryden, of the “Social School,” of the comedy of Wycherley and Congreve, of the essays of Addison and the _Spectator_, of the verse of Pope, of the prose of David Hume and Samuel Johnson.