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ment which must have amounted to many times that sum, and the Niger Company, which had done over thirteen years' arduous work, was bought out for an equally insignificant sum.

No, Rhodesia must remain under the Company until, by her internal prosperity, she is enabled to pay interest on the money invested in her, and then her own people can take over the burden of administration. Meanwhile that burden ought to be lightened. Northern Rhodesia should be taken over by the Imperial Government and merged in British Central Africa. The administration of Southern Rhodesia, which is expensive and not too efficient, should be simplified. It is worth consideration at a time when money is so imperatively needed in the country itself, whether expenses could not be cut down at London Wall. Notoriously a great deal of the money subscribed for Rhodesia has never gone into the country at all, but this is part of the policy which has brought Rhodesian affairs to such an impasse. There has been economy where there should have been expenditure, and lavish expenditure which brought no adequate advantage to Rhodesia.

Finally, in urging the "population at any price" policy may I say that it was the policy of the founder. I believe that, before he died, he realised that in counting on the mines to attract and provide for a population he had miscalculated. Had he lived to see that he had taken the wrong way to promote it I feel convinced that, with the thoroughness which characterised him in his best days, he would have made a clean sweep of errors and gone whole-heartedly on a new tack. If there is any alternative "tack" than the one I have endeavoured to outline in this article it has yet to be revealed to the world. There has been a great deal of talk about the desirability of filling up Southern Rhodesia with British settlers, and the subject is one of political as well as economic importance. But to translate this talk into practical action something more definite is needed in the way of a land settlement policy than has yet been enunciated. Pious aspirations are not sufficient. If the Chartered Company cares to examine some of the methods employed to attract white settlers by other countries it will find a great number of small but practical measures, and some large essential ones, which should be at once boldly adopted.

ARCHIBALD R. COLQUHOUN. (First Administrator of the Chartered Company.)

FERDINAND BRUNETIERE.

THE celebrated French critic, who died some two years ago, was only fifty-seven years of age, but it had been obvious for two years previously that his health was seriously impaired. This was more especially perceptible in certain affections of the vocal organs which presaged Brunetière's entire breakdown.

How was it that the voice played such an important part in the activities of a man who for long (and essentially, it may be said) had devoted himself to literary criticism? Work of that nature is accomplished with the pen, and Brunetière certainly made good use of his. But, while a born writer, he was also, both by temperament and taste, a professor; and as a professor his main distinction was his grand flow of oratory. He spoke magnificently, like a master and like a virtuoso. No barrister, no parliamentary debater, no artist of the Comédie Française, has ever more fully possessed the talent of indicating the fine shades of a phrase, of making each syllable of a word vibrate-of all that we mean in French by "la diction." The professor's voice was not of extraordinary power; but it was perfectly sonorous, harmonious, full, and flexible. The longest and most complicated sentences flowed with an ease and a regularity which seemed to make the idea and substance of the lecture visible and perceptible, producing the effect of a musical light. What a contrast between this eloquence and the orator's personal appearance! Of medium height, Brunetière was insignificant in person very thin, narrow-chested; his face pale and wearing an expression of anxious sadness. But the eyes, always reinforced by glasses, revealed an internal flame. The man was absolutely consumed by the need of thinking, speaking, and acting. All his critical work exhibits these three characteristics united in a single combative and imperious outburst, and his manner was the same in speaking and lecturing; although he never for a moment lost his self-control, never by any chance inadvertently uttered a word that was not the one he intended to use.

Brunetière's powers as an orator were not fully recognised until the second portion of his career. Till then the students of the École Normale were almost alone in knowing that the literary critic of the Revue des Deux Mondes possessed the gift of rhetoric in the highest degree. The revelation of the fact to the public came about suddenly, in a series of lectures on the drama given at the Odéon about 1891, and was soon widely acknowledged. When, in 1893, Brunetière began and carried

through his lectures upon Bossuet before audiences of from three to four thousand people in the great amphitheatre at the Sorbonne, he had a real triumph-an immense success which was many times repeated, not only in Paris, but in other towns of France. Indeed, during the last ten years of his life Brunetière continued to be the most fashionable of lecturers; people never tired of hearing him, and his vogue was the greater because he engaged heart and soul in the political, or rather the religious, struggle.

He hoped to write and lecture-that is, to fight-for many years to come, but the persuasive and powerful voice suddenly broke down. It was a symptom of exhaustion, an omen of the end that was drawing near. No one doubted this; and the writer and orator, who had never given himself any rest, recognised sadly but bravely that one last effort remained for him-the effort of resignation.

Brunetière's literary beginnings had been achieved under the weight of heavy cares. Before he could even think of writing he had to earn the means that should enable him to pursue his studies. An unexpected rebuff acted upon him as an odd kind of stimulant. While giving lessons in various subjects, mathematical as well as philosophical, the future critic prepared for the entrance examination to the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Having no taste for either Latin verses or Greek themes, he neglected both those subjects, and failed to pass the examination. Far from being disheartened, he swore to himself that he would win a place as professor in the school which he could not enter as a student. He kept his oath, and less than fifteen years later enjoyed the full and glorious revenge he had promised himself.

But before this he had had to open up a path and conquer for himself a position in the literary world. We know with what authority he wielded the powers of criticism from the elevation of that tribune which is entitled the Revue des Deux Mondes. Before attaining the editorship of that important organ he wrote for it regularly during fifteen years. It was the celebrated novelist, Paul Bourget, Brunetière's intimate friend and old schoolfellow, who introduced him into this connection. M. Bourget has himself related how, about 1875, he put Brunetière into communication with the editor and founder of the review, the rugged and tenacious François Buloz, the subject of so many anecdotes, who had long been seeking a critic to suit his tastes. He had commissioned M. Paul Bourget to write for him upon. contemporary French poetry, and M. Bourget, not being in agreement with Buloz as to the manner of dealing with the subject, suddenly bethought himself that Brunetière was the very man for the job. He went off to his friend, pressed him to

"How

undertake it, and succeeded, not without difficulty. often," wrote M. Bourget, the day after the death of Brunetière, "how often have I not reminded him since of his lack of enthusiasm before that open door!" It was the door to the future and to glory.

Thus did Brunetière find the opportunity of commencing and organising the work which it was his dream to accomplish by means of literary criticism. This work was to be in the completest and severest sense of the word "instruction"; not merely a great collection of notes and observations upon books and authors, upon the groups and the methods of different epochs; but a logical and scientific exposition of the movement of philosophic, social, and religious ideas—a movement revealed by the various and successive aspects of French literature. It has often been said that Brunetière wanted to treat literature as one treats natural history, and this is very true: he frequently expressed himself in that sense in the most categorical mannerwith an insistence, indeed, which in an ardent and authoritative writer betrays the master-passion of his mind and soul. For instance, the severest reproach he addressed to one of his predecessors, Sainte-Beuve, was that he had had no body of doctrine; that he had not known how to rise above mere curiosities of monography"; that he had hovered for ever between theoretic contradictions and the versatility of humour. In order to establish the desired doctrine it was necessary to collect, and above all to classify, a multitude of facts, dates, and notes. Brunetière was essentially the man for "classification."

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In the first place, his erudition was immense, incomparable. It had been acquired by dint of unsparing toil; indeed, during the greater part of his life he studied at night almost as much as by day. He soon mastered completely, in detail as well as in general, the whole range of French literature. The history of great works and the distinctive qualities of each; the history of numerous secondary, intermediate, or fugitive works; the circumstances which had been favourable or injurious to the success of such and such a work, whether still a classic or long forgotten; the intellectual and moral criticism of a host of writers: all these things Brunetière had incessantly analysed and synthesised. He had set them forth in order in his books; and besides this he held them graven in his memory, which was prodigious. Many of his pages reflect with absolute exactness the conception he had made for himself of criticism and literary classification; the passage, for example, where he justifies himself for having rescued from oblivion certain authors of the second or third rank :

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Molière, however great he may be, is not Molière by himself and in himself alone, so to speak; he is not Molière, he is not truly himself, he is not completely himself, apart from Scarron, Desmarets, Corneille, Mairet, and all the others before him who would have tried to write Le Misanthrope or Le Malade Imaginaire if they could! His worth cannot be felt, his genius cannot be appreciated, except in comparison with those who attempted work similar to his-Poisson, Hauteroche, Montfleury, Boursault, and many others. And finally full justice cannot be done him unless he is compared with his successors: that is to say, unless we know with what difficulty Dancourt, Dufresny, Regnart, Lesage, and Destouches have managed to exhibit any small portions of originality they possess, apart from their inheritance of tradition from him. This is what I call the genealogical point of view in the history of literature and of art; and it may be seen from the very definition here given how small is the small number of historians who have adopted it. Its connection with the doctrine of evolution is also to be noted.-Études Critiques, Vol. VI., pp. 16-17.

The word "evolution occurs in no merely incidental or fortuitous manner. Far from it. It explains, it translates, it sets in relief Brunetière's main preoccupation, which was to set clearly forth the whole historical and logical development of French literature, from the Middle Ages to our own day. A development of this sort is represented by a series of periods or phases, and each of these periods or phases is summed up in one literary form, obtaining for a varying length of time, and attaining various degrees of eminence. The forms which Brunetière principally examined, choosing them as types, are tragedy, lyric poetry, and the novel. He shows us French tragedy drawing its inspiration from the Greeks, then from the Romans, then from the Spaniards, reaching its zenith with Corneille and Racine, and declining after submitting to the invasions of scenery, music, and opera. He derives the lyricism of Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset from what in the seventeenth century inspired the eloquence of the pulpit. He points out how the novel borrowed from comedy, from tragedy, from science and natural history, before immersing itself in naturalism. This theory of the evolution of literary forms deeply impressed the world of letters, which as usual divided into two sharply opposed positions-enthusiasm and mockery. At a later date Brunetière seemed to experience doubts as to certain parts of his system, but without renouncing evolution in general. The sixth volume of the Études Critiques, published in 1899, begins with a long chapter dealing exclusively with Darwinian evolution, Darwin being quoted again and again. Brunetière firmly maintains the morality of the evolutionary hypothesis. We learn, once more from M. Paul Bourget, that one of the first essays signed by the famous critic was concerned with Darwin. During the second period of his life he was inspired above all by Auguste

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