... ils doivent se produire, chez tout homme défini d'une certaine façon; et ceux qui les éprouvent aiment à se les expliquer à eux-mêmes .. pour l'instruction des autres. Cette analyse psychologique, la littérature française y a excellé dans tous les temps. On pourrait citer tel morceau de Chrétien de Troyes qui ne le cède pas en vérité, en ingéniosité, parfois en subtilité, aux plus célèbres monologues de nos tragédies, aux pages les plus fouillées de nos romans contemporains.' (Ib.) Following which comes a note on the Romance of the Rose,' 'l'épopée psychologique,' as it were the ghost or shadow of all the sentiment in the school of Chrétien de Troyes, disembodied states of mind' moving about as persons in a story. The discussion of French medieval style, after this, is equally sure of its ground, and in the same way impartial; setting down all the common faults, platitude, triviality, but not concealing the delight with which the critic turns to the ancient writers, nor ignoring the true beauty of their work. 'Mais leur langue n'est pas seulement claire: elle a souvent une justesse, une légèreté, une aisance naturelle qui font penser aux meilleurs morceaux de notre littérature des deux derniers siècles. Ils voient bien et savent dire avec netteté ce qu'ils ont vu; leur parole les amuse et nous amuse avec eux. Beaucoup d'entre eux sont d'aimables causeurs, un peu babillards, qui se laissent d'autant plus volontiers aller à leur verve qu'ils voient que leurs auditeurs y prennent plaisir; d'autres sont d'excellents raisonneurs, qui cherchent sérieusement à convaincre ou à intéresser leur public, et qui y réussissent par la simplicité et la précision de leur exposition; d'autres encore ont su imprimer à leurs discours de la grandeur, de la sensibilité ou de la finesse.' (Ib.) Gaston Paris himself, in his writing, had that instinctive clearness which he finds constant in French literature; that same regard for his hearers which, in the earliest authors of his nation, as he points out, distinguished the even, plain discourse of the chansons de geste from the more high-flown heroic poetry of other nations. At the same time his literary judgment, moving so freely among generalisations, was always based on particulars, a different thing from the peremptory opinions of less patient critics. Popular literary history, working at some distance from its subject, may pronounce that one chanson de geste is just like any other chanson de geste. Gaston Paris, with complete appreciation of all the habitual ways, the repetitions, the want of care, the ready use of common forms and stop-gaps ('décourageantes chevilles'), in Old French epic, knew well also that under superficial uniformity there were differences of genius and temper clearly marked; and that to confound Balzac and Stendhal, or Corneille and Racine, on account of their common qualities would be hardly a stronger proof of critical incompetence than (for example) a refusal to distinguish the merits of Roland' and 'Raoul de Cambrai.' He treated Old French poetry with the same conscience and the same discernment as the greatest critics have given to the greatest masters. He did not exaggerate the value of his authors; but the fact that they did not belong to the seventeenth or the nineteenth century was for him no reason to treat them under different rules or with less precision. Perhaps the essays in which he showed his learning and his critical power to best advantage are those on the Arthurian romances, in Romania,' and the 'Histoire littéraire' (tome xxx). He had to discover their sources and trace their development-a business sometimes pursued without much regard for qualities of literature. Gaston Paris, studying the transmission of popular tales from obscure Celtic origins to the schools of French poetry in the twelfth century, did not keep to what is called folklore, though this was a large part of his work. It was not enough for him to trace the progress of a fable through different stages, or merely to verify the fact that similar plots, incidents, characters or names were found in different versions, in different languages. Along with this he watched the literary motives of the poets, the influences of fashion or of individual temper that made them change and remould the folklore substance. An example of his procedure may be found in the description of Guinglain,' a poem of Renaud de Beaujeu, in which the simple fairy-tale of 'Li beaux Desconus' is incongruously decorated to indulge the rhetorical and sentimental taste of an ambitious literary man. Problems much more complex are solved in the essay on 'Le Chevalier de la Charrette,' i.e. the Lancelot' of Chrétien de Troyes (Romania,' x, p. 459 seqq.). Peculiar insight and judgment were required to distinguish the shadows in this illusory realm; the result, which proves the dependence of Lancelot on the doctrine of the troubadours, and establishes the relation between the narrative poetry of France and the lyric of Provence, is gained by a masterly use of every available instrument. Historical study of the facts (e.g. of the part taken by Marie de Champagne in bringing Provençal ideas to the north) is completed and enlightened by critical intuition and sympathy. Another talent is displayed in the short history of medieval French literature. This is a book for the schools, compact and positive, with little room either for eloquence or for historical detail. Yet, along with its serried names and dates, it presents, at the smallest cost of words, a critical estimate of every matter it touches. On a larger scale the Villon,' one of the author's latest works, is perhaps the finest example of his powers. In the description of Villon's poetry, and more especially, perhaps, in the account of his poetical education, there is the fruit of a whole lifetime of research and reflection. Villon and his age are shown in their relation to the poetry of the preceding centuries; the decline of the earlier literature, the strange obliteration of the older poetry, the rise and decay of new schools in the fourteenth century, the vacancy and vanity of the fifteenth, are all brought out, in the author's inimitably simple manner, as a setting for the new genius of Villon. Often and well as Villon has been praised, this mode of approaching his work was needed; and no one else could have used it to the same effect, with so sure a control of all the history. Many of the friends of Gaston Paris have written lately about his personal influence. Such regret as they feel was felt and expressed by Gaston Paris himself in the memorial notices that he wrote on James Darmesteter and Renan, passages of meditation, full of dignity, not effusive, which perhaps convey as much as a stranger need seek to know about his more intimate thoughts. It may not be out of place to mention here the generous phrase in his 'Villon,' returning thanks for the liberal gift of his friend Marcel Schwob, who, surrendering the interests of his own book, made over the results of his independent researches to be used in the biography. And further, there is one aspect of the private life of Gaston Paris which it is well to remember-the grace and rectitude of his dealing with scholars outside of France. He believed strongly in his own country, and hardly less strongly in the community of learning over all the world. Two papers of his, composed during the Franco-Prussian war, illustrate the two loyalties, which he was able to reconcile without diluting either of them. One is the lecture on 'Roland,' in December 1870, repeating the old prayer 'Ne placet Deu ne ses saintismes angles The other is one of his more technical pieces (on a Latin poem about Frederick Barbarossa), written during the siege of Paris. It mentions calmly his regret that he is prevented from consulting German scholars: They are separated from us by their armies and our ramparts, or engaged perhaps in the preparations for an attack upon our city.' Gaston Paris knew to the full the claims of patriotism and of learning, and tampered with neither when they were accidentally opposed. In England he had many personal friends, besides many more who were indebted to him through his writings-attracted almost unconsciously by the character as well as the matter of his work. There was no display, no emphasis in his style. But everything he wrote gave the impression of efficiency and sincerity, or rather of an intellectual magnanimity in which all the other excellences are included. W. P. KER. * The war interrupted the work of a young German scholar in Paris, Julius Brakelmann, who had to leave half printed the 'Corpus' of Old French lyric poetry which he was editing. He was killed, fighting against the French, at Mars la Tour, in July 1870; the fragment of his book was published in 1891 as he had left it, with a note simply stating the facts, more impressive than any rhetoric. Art. VI. THE SLEEPING SICKNESS. 1. Preliminary Notes on Sleeping Sickness. By R. U Moffat, Principal Medical Officer, Uganda Protectorate. Submitted by Commissioner Sadler to the Marquess of Lansdowne, 1902. (Foreign Office Papers: East Africa.) 2. Reports of the Sleeping-sickness Commission of the Royal Society. Nos I to IV. London: Harrison, 1903. 3. A Monograph of the Tsetse Flies. By E. E. Austen. Published by order of the Trustees of the British Museum. 1903. 4. Generations- und Wirthswechsel bei Trypanosoma und Spirochate. Von Fritz Schaudinn. Arbeiten aus der Kaiserl. Gesundheitsamte zu Berlin; vol. xx, part 3. 1904. AMONG the strange and mysterious diseases to which mankind is subject in regions less familiar to the civilised world than Western Europe, none is stranger or more appalling in its quiet, inexorable deadliness than the Sleeping Sickness of the West African coast. Apparently it has existed among the natives of that region from time immemorial; but the first printed record we have of it is due to Winterbottom, who, writing in 1803 of Sierra Leone, said, The Africans are very subject to a species of lethargy which they are much afraid of, as it proves fatal in every instance.' One of the latest notices of the disease, before it became the subject of active investigation within the last two years, is that of Miss Kingsley, who saw a few cases near the Congo estuary; but, though she was impressed by the mysterious fatality of the disease, she did not describe it as very prevalent or as a general source of danger to life. The opening up of the Congo basin and increased familiarity with the inner lands of the West African coast have shown that this disease is widely scattered-though rarely so abundant as to be a serious scourge-through the whole of tropical West Africa. Writers in the early part of the last century described the disease as occurring in the West Indies and in Brazil. Its presence was almost certainly due, in those days of the slave trade, to the importation of negroes already infected with the disease; and a Vol. 200.-No. 399, I |