dence, appeared to have its merits. It had made kings know that they 'had a lith in their necks'; it could reduce priests into bondage to the State; and a man of letters would not be sent to the Bastille or thrashed with impunity by a great man's valet. The coarseness and eccentricity were but accidental defects of a strong vitality. Such qualities, incorporated in John Bull, attracted Voltaire and his fellows in their contest with the established order in France, and naturally suggested some interest in a literature which showed the same qualities. Voltaire, however, stopped at a certain point: he remained substantially faithful to the old literary ideal of his race; he renounced the Shakespeare whom he had once patronised, and the literary revolution was left to Rousseau.
This marks Rousseau's special function. He not only admired the English character, but introduced English canons of art. He joined the barbarians, whose incursion was still dreaded by Voltaire. The Nouvelle Héloïse was admittedly an imitation of Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe. Rousseau imitated even its defects. The awkwardness, for example, of telling a story by letters leads to comic results in both. The heroes and heroines of both have to sit down at the most exciting
