It is impossible to put down a book like the history of the French Academy by Pellisson and D'Olivet without being led to reflect upon the absence in our own country of any institution like the French Academy, upon the probable causes of this absence, and upon its results. Improvement of the language was the declared grand aim for the operations of that academy. Its statutes of foundation say expressly that "the Academy's principal function shall be to work with all the care and all the diligence possible at giving sure rules to our language, and rendering it pure, eloquent and capable of treating the arts and sciences." It is said that Richelieu had it in his mind that French should succeed Latin in its general ascendancy, as Latin had succeeded Greek. If it were so, even this wish has to some extent been fulfilled. This was not all Richelieu had in his mind, however. The new academy was meant to be a literary tribunal, a high court of letters, and this is what it has really been. Such an effort, to set up a recognised authority, imposing on us a high standard in matters of intellect and taste, has many enemies in human nature. We all of us like to go our own way, and not to be forced out of the atmosphere of commonplace habitual to most of us. We like to be suffered to lie comfortably on the old straw of our habits, especially of our intellectual habits, even though this straw may not be very fine and clean. But if this effort to limit the freedom of our lower nature finds enemies in human nature, it also finds auxiliaries in it. Man alone of living creatures, says Cicero, goes feeling after the discovery of an order, a law of good taste; other creatures submissively fulfil the law of their nature. Now in France, says M. Sainte-Beuve, "the first consideration for us is not whether we are amused and pleased by a work of art or of mind, or is it whether we are touched by it. What we seek above all to learn is whether we were right in being amused with it, and in applauding it, and in being moved by it." A Frenchman has, to a considerable degree, what one may call a conscience in intellectual matters. Seeing this, we are on the road to see why the French have their Academy and we have nothing of the kind.