were insensible to such thoughts; but that they left them aside as belonging to the domain of the Church. Bossuet could preach upon the emptiness of worldly glory; and Pascal could be profoundly, even morbidly, sensible of the impotence of human reason and the worthlessness of human happiness. In the French pulpit, if not in the English, it was admittedly becoming that hell should be mentioned to 'ears polite'; but the dramatist felt that in his surroundings the topic would be really inappropriate and savour of profanity. The remark is very suggestive, and, I think, may help to explain what it was that Rousseau really owed to Richardson. Rousseau clearly was a sentimentalist in his own right; not because he had been infected by Richardson. His philosophy, again, wherever he learnt it, was certainly not due to the worthy old printer. It had to express passions and emotions which were not allowed to find free utterance under the academic régime. So far, Richardson might give him a lead by his 'plebeian' indifference to accepted canons of art. They had, so to speak, a common enemy. Richardson's revolt was comparatively easy, because the dominion against which he protested had never been very solidly founded. The
