teenth, century could have said with George Eliot: "Rousseau's genius has sent that electric thrill through my intellectual and moral frame which has awakened me to new perceptions [and]

quickened my faculties." It would be impossible to write any portion of the history of European, as distinct from national, literature during the last one hundred and fifty years without pronouncing his name, for the reason that in him the genius of Latin Europe became one with that of Teutonic Europe.

But if his philosophical work is mainly an expression of the Latin genius, it was mainly the Teutonic genius, or, as Mme. de Staël said, the literatures of the North, that benefited by the revolution he accomplished. Rousseau's triumph marks the advent of these literatures; his influence was henceforth inseparable from theirs. And this union dates from the eighteenth century, and from pre-revolutionary times.

I do not propose to write here the history of the intercourse of France with England and Germany between 1760 and 1789. I shall simply attempt to show how the success of Jean-Jacques Rousseau brought success to certain foreign writers whose careers preceded, or were contemporary with, his own, whose genius was very closely related to his, and whose influence became blended with that which he exerted.

1 George Eliot's Life, vol. i., p. 168.

Chapter II

ENGLISH INFLUENCE AND THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL

I. Sterne and the sentimental novel-Sterne, like Rousseau, brought the sentimental confession into fashion-His visit to Paris-His amours-The culte-du-moi.

II. The eighteenth century failed to understand his humour, but appreciated the way in which, like Rousseau, he affected to talk of himself, and to be deeply touched by his own condition-Nature and extent of the influence exerted by his work in France.

I

SOME months after the appearance of La Nouvelle Héloïse, and simultaneously with the publication of Diderot's famous Éloge de Richardson, there appeared in Paris one of the most remarkable characters of the age. Laurence Sterne was a man of weak health, effusive disposition, profound sensibility and singular genius. A contemporary says that "by the frank simplicity, the readiness and the touching character of his own sensibility, he inspired sensitive hearts with fresh emotions." 1 Suard once asked him to explain his own personality. Sterne replied that he could distinguish three causes which had made him like nobody else: the daily reading of the Bible, the study of Locke's sacred philosophy, "without which the world will never attain to a true universal religion or a true science of ethics, and man will never obtain real command over nature"; lastly, and above all, the possession of "one of those organizations, in which the sacred constitutive principle of the soul is predominant, that immortal flame by which life is at once nourished and devoured." 2 Endowed with the originality of an Englishman, Sterne, like Rousseau, was also sensitive, passionate, and, at times, lyrical.

i Garat, Mémoires sur Suard, vol. ii., p. 135.

2 Ibid., p. 149.

When he arrived in Paris, Tristram Shandy—the first volume of which had recently appeared-was already famous there; so that Sterne wrote to Garrick: "My head is turned with what I see, and the unexpected honour I have met with here. Tristram was almost as much known here as in London."1

The Seven Years' War being then at its height, it was necessary to find a guarantor for one's good behaviour; accordingly d'Holbach became his patron and admitted him to his salon. There he met with all the anglomaniacs of Paris, and astonished them, now by his exuberant gaiety, now by his philosophical gravity. But what gave most pleasure was his ostentatious contempt for the "eternal sameness" of the French mind and disposition. Being asked whether he had not found in France some character which he could introduce in his novel: No, he replied, Frenchmen are like coins which, "by jingling and rubbing one against another, . . . are become so much alike you scarcely can tell one from another." 2 This sally in the manner of Jean-Jacques was immensely successful. "What sort of a fellow is this?" cried Choiseul in astonishment.-On another occasion he halted before Henri IV.'s statue on the Pont-Neuf; a crowd gathered around him; turning round, he called out : "What are you all looking at me for? Follow my example, all of you!"-and they all knelt with him before the statue. "The Englishman,” says the narrator, "forgot that it was the statue of a king of France. A slave would never have paid such homage to Henri IV.” 3

Just as Rousseau, who had his Thérèse, fell in love with Mme. d'Houdetot, so "the good and agreeable Tristram," as a contemporary calls him, though possessed of a devoted helpmeet, loved Eliza Draper, the wife of another man, and neither the one nor the other, nor both together, could keep him from falling in love with every woman he met. "By loving them all," says Garat, gravely, "in such a transient manner, the minister of the Gospel maintained his religious belief in all its purity."

To Eliza, "wife of Daniel Draper, Esq., chief of the English 1 Traill, Sterne, p. 67.

2 Garat, vol. ii., p. 147. Sentimental Journey, ch, li.

3 Garat, p. 148.

factory at Surat," he addressed the most passionate letters, "with the easy carelessness of a heart which opens itself any how, every hoy..."1 She, writing to him, said: "Think of me waking, and let me, like an illusion, glide through your fancy while you sleep." In reply he tells her about himself, his low spirits, the age of his body, and the youth of his soul, and proposes to marry her if both should be bereaved of their partners. Eliza, at twenty-five, was consumptive, and made preparations for a journey to India, whence there was little hope that she would ever return. "Best of all God's works," writes Sterne, "farewell! Love me, I beseech thee; and remember me for ever!" The romantic story deeply affected its readers. When Eliza died at the age of thirty-three, Raynal wrote a panegyric on her in the Histoire philosophique des deux Indes. "Land of Anjinga," he cried, addressing her country, "in thyself thou art nothing! But thou hast given birth to Eliza. A day will come when the emporiums which Europeans have founded upon Asiatic shores will no longer exist. The grass will cover them, or the Indian, avenged at last, will build upon their ruins. . . . But if my writings are destined to endure, the name of Anjinga will dwell within the memories of men. Those who read me, those whom the winds shall carry to these shores, will say There was the birthplace of Eliza Draper,' and if among them a Briton should be found, the offspring,' he will hasten to add,' of English parents."

Thus Sterne, like Jean-Jacques, permitted the public to feed, its curiosity upon his private life. Like him, he gloried in his own failings. Like Mme. de Warens and Mme. d'Houdetot, Eliza Draper the beloved of Laurence Sterne, who, after all, forgot her became the theme of novelist and poet. "Deign, noble Eliza," writes the excellent Ballanche,2" to accept my homage pattern of true friendship, Heaven brought thee forth in a calm and peaceful hour: God presented thee to weak mortals as a convincing proof of his unspeakable goodness, of which thou wert a faithful image upon earth. . . . Accept my homage, woman without a peer. . . . Let all whose souls are alive to 1 Letters from Yorick to Eliza.

2 Du Sentiment, p. 219.

feeling gather around this monument, erected in friendly rivalry by Sterne and Raynal."1

Sterne was received in Paris with open arms. He became a frequent visitor at the houses of d'Holbach, Suard, Choiseul, the Comte de Bissy-an ardent anglomaniac, who supplied the material for an amusing chapter in the Sentimental Journey-and Crébillon fils, with whom he formed the project of carrying on an extraordinary controversy, in which each was to accuse the other of immorality, in order to catch the ear of the gallery 2a scheme, however, which was never carried out. Diderot he also met, who was delighted by his eccentricities, and commissioned him to procure him English books. A lady submitted to him Le fils naturel-whether with or without the author's consent we do not certainly know-and under the impression that it was "English in character," suggested that he should induce Garrick to play the piece. Sterne, however, considered that the speeches in it were too long, and "savoured too much of preaching"; what was more, it had "too much sentiment" to suit him.3

The last and not the least amusing act of this comedy was a sermon preached by Sterne at the English embassy before the most prominent free-thinkers in Paris, Diderot, d'Holbach, David Hume, and others. He chose as his text that passage from the Book of Kings, in which Isaiah reproaches Hezekiah for his vanity in showing his treasures to the Babylonish ambassadors: "All the things that are in mine house have they seen there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them." The text lent itself to allusions, the significance of which did not escape the audience, and in the evening, at the dinner which followed, Hume rallied Sterne upon his sermon. "David was disposed to make a little merry with the parson, and in return the parson was equally disposed to make a little merry with the infidel. We laughed at one another, and the company 1 Lettres d'Yorick à Elisa, followed by Raynal's Éloge. 2 Traill, p. 71.

3 Traill, p. 70.

The Magazin encyclopédique (1799, vol. vi., p. 121) mentions the title of a vaudeville which was founded on Sterne's visit to Paris-viz., Sterne à Paris ou le Voyageur sentimental, by Révoil and Forbin.