Before Diderot’s time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly, as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone.  Fenelon represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin exhibited its most useful and honest side.  From a due sense of decency, I refrain from mentioning the names of Freron and Des Fontaines.  But nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility, and penetration; it had not yet found its soul.  Diderot was the first to find it.  Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good qualities, “I am more affected,” he remarked, “by the charms of virtue than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked and fly forward to meet the good.  If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it, while the rest I nearly forget.  What do I become when everything is beautiful!” This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm—­this sort of universal admiration—­undoubtedly had its danger.  It is said of him that he was singularly happy “in never having encountered a wicked man nor a bad book.”  For, even if the book were bad, he would unconsciously impute to the author some of his own ideas.  Like the alchemist, he found gold in the melting-pot, from the fact he had placed it there himself.  However, it is to him that all honour is due for having introduced among us the fertile criticism of beauties, which he substituted for that of defects.  Chateaubriand himself, in that portion of the Genius of Christianity in which he eloquently discourses on literary criticism, only follows the path opened by Diderot....

“A pleasure that I enjoy alone affects me but slightly, and is of short duration.  It is for my friends as well as myself that I read, that I reflect, that I write, that I meditate, that I listen, that I look, that I feel.  In their absence I am still devoted to them; I am continually thinking of their happiness.  If I am struck with a beautiful line, they must know it.  If I meet with a fine passage, I promise myself to impart it to them.  If I have before my eyes some enchanting spectacle, I unconsciously plan a description of it for their benefit.  I have consecrated to them the use of all my senses and faculties; and it is perhaps for this reason that everything becomes somewhat enriched in my imagination and exaggerated in my discourse.  Nevertheless, the ungrateful creatures sometimes reproach me.”

LA BRUYERE
[Sidenote:  Sainte-Beuve]

That philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver, if it is the opportunity of obliging you.

SABBATH BELLS
[Sidenote:  Anon.]