Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/311

 We come down to 1880, and find Mr W. H. Pollock asserting in the "Nineteenth Century" that "Dumas has perhaps been more persistently underrated, in England at least, than any modern writer of his calibre;" and five years later Blaze de Bury, in his study of our subject, refers to public opinion in France, when he writes:—"Dumas is popular; he is not known. His method of life and his occasional worthless books greatly damaged his literary position. He is usually looked upon simply as an 'amuser,' and yet, like others, and more than many others, he had his moments of lofty thought and philosophy." "Even to be 'amusing," as Parigot drily remarks, "is not, when one looks round the world of literature, so commonplace and contemptible a merit, after all."

Nevertheless, in one province of literary opinion there has been a striking change during the past twenty or thirty years. The English literary critics and essayists of the romantic school, as we shall see, have more and more loudly proclaimed their admiration of Dumas. Still the public at large remains ignorant and unconverted. Its attitude towards the romance-writer is thirty years behind the times, and dates from the days when "Chambers's Encyclopædia" treated our author in this summary fashion:

"It may be said that the appearance in literature