by the whole of France, was forgotten. And yet it was Ronsard rather than Malherbe who prepared the way for the masterpieces of the Classical school. Du Bellay's tract appeared in 1649. The first four books of Ronsard's odes were published in the following year, and mark the beginning of that Classical period in French poetry which lasted till the beginning of the nineteenth century.

It would be difficult to give a juster appreciation of Ronsard and of his followers, a better account of what they attempted and of what they achieved, than that which is to be found in Mr Tilley's book. Yet it may be that he underrates the work they did in breaking with old tradition and in preparing the way for Malherbe and the seventeenth century. It was rather the standard they set up than what they themselves produced, that made the influence of the Pleiad so great and, in some respects, so beneficial. They were more successful in discovering where their predecessors had gone wrong and in pointing the way to the desired goal than in the race which they themselves ran. They strove to elevate, to confer sublimity and dignity on the French language. They gave to French literature some of the refinement in which it had hitherto been wanting; they freed it from the taint of the tavern. They saw that it was by study of the Classics that the Italians had acquired their purity of style, but they were wanting in the critical insight needed to distinguish between classic and classic, or to see what were the qualities in each most to be imitated. To form our taste by copying what is good, we must already possess the taste to choose the good-a circle out of which we can escape only by accepting the authority of some teacher who will point out what we should imitate.

In the case of the writers in question, the difficulty was solved, at least in part, by the example and authority of the Italians. But some things, such as measure and restraint and rigorous self-criticism, they never learnt. Even the great and fertile truth which they enforcedthat the language of poetry is not the same as that of prose-was the source of defects, such as the too frequent use of periphrasis and a reluctance to employ common words, which a more intelligent study of the best classical models would have prevented. Hence also experiments

in syntax which sometimes resulted in an obscurity very alien to the genius of the French language. Yet it must be allowed that in the works of almost any Elizabethan poet passages may be found more difficult of interpretation than anything in Ronsard. No member of the Pleiad would have passed such a line as that which ends one of Sidney's noblest sonnets, 'Do they call virtue there ingratitude?' leaving the reader to infer from the context that the poet means just the opposite of what he says. As Wordsworth is at his best when his practice gives the lie to his theory, so the few poems in which these French poets have attained immortality are generally those in which the language, like the thought expressed, is quite simple and only differs from that of prose in the perfect harmony of the rhythm.

Ronsard and his followers, in their determination to imitate the classics, substituted literature for life as the source of their inspiration. He who prepared himself for his poetical career by seven long years of study cannot have been urged on to sing by any irresistible impulse; such long tuning of the lyre was incompatible with the impatience of inspiration. The poet who has painfully made himself will necessarily think more of his manner than of his matter. We feel, when reading these writers, that, with the exception of Du Bellay, they have nothing to tell us that they would not just as soon have left unsaid. They are generally at their best when translating or imitating an Italian or classical original. They were cut of sympathy with the thoughts and aims of their nation. They proclaimed their scorn of the profane vulgar, and, turning away from the conflict between the traditions of the past and the hopes of the future which raged around them, they sought the repose of a learned antiquity. Their aloofness, their bookishness, their reliance on the patronage of a court, which itself vacillated without faith and without convictions, are sufficient to account for their short lease of fame. Their popularity was not rooted in their country's soil; it was an exotic which put forth luxuriant growth while sheltered and watered by the gardener's care, and withered even more rapidly when this was withheld. Their one serious aim was to give classical form to the literature of their nation; and they have therefore been

regarded as the offspring and exponents of the Renaissance. Yet their principles were not those which inspired the revolt against the old order. With freedom of thought they had little sympathy.

Notwithstanding this, they did their part in preparing the way for the triumph of ideas which they would have been the first to repudiate. They were, as has been pointed out, the pioneers of the Classical school. They made possible that perfection which, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, won the ear of Europe for French literature, and enabled Voltaire and his contemporaries to disseminate throughout the civilised world doctrines derived in part from England, but even more from those true sons of the Renaissance, Rabelais and Montaigne. The tendency to substitute types for individuals, the general for the particular, which is the characteristic of the Classical school, is already marked in Ronsard and his followers; and that it persisted down to the end of the eighteenth century and the rise of Romanticism may in some measure be ascribed to their influence. The evil consequences which result from ignoring the effects of race, of education, of social and economic conditions, of all, in short, that distinguishes one man from another, are a commonplace. It is less often pointed out that it was just because the philosophes dealt with abstract men that their principles appeared capable of universal application.

This, then, was the twofold issue of the Renaissance in France. In the first place, a body of ideas critical and negative, destructive of dogmas whose utility was passing away, together with a few positive principles indicating the direction of future progress, such as the belief in the natural equality of men, in the right of each individual to be guided by his reason, to form and proclaim his own creed without hindrance or molestation. In the second place, a literature the most universal, the most impersonal, the most free from provincialisms, which the modern world has seen, and one which therefore supplied the most effective instrument for propagating those ideas and principles.

P. F. WILLERT.

Art. VIII. THE ART OF GAMBLING.

1. Monte Carlo: Facts and Fallacies. By Sir Hiram S. Maxim. London: Grant Richards, 1904.

2. Betting and Gambling: a National Evil. Edited by B. Seebohm Rowntree. London: Macmillan, 1905. 3. The Theory of Stock Exchange Speculation. By Arthur Crump. London: Longmans, 1874.

4. Chance and Luck. By R. A. Proctor. London: Longmans, 1887.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the small estate of Monaco, on the Riviera, brought in to its princely owner a revenue of a few thousand francs a year. The Corniche road, busy with diligence and carriage traffic, conveyed travellers through La Turbie, above the dull village of Monte Carlo, to Mentone and Italy on the one side, or to Nice and Cannes on the other. None knew that they were passing what was to become one of the most famous spots in the world. At that time Homburg, Baden-Baden, Ems, Wiesbaden were flourishing wateringplaces, with crowds of visitors in the season and every kind of social entertainment; they even provided opportunities for distraction at rouge-et-noir tables, where amusing games could be played by those who were bored by everything else. Then came, in 1866, the victory of Prussia over Austria, and, as one of its indirect consequences, the closure of the German gambling-rooms and the dispersal of the gamblers. Amongst those who were thus deprived of their visible means of subsistence was a certain M. Blanc, who, after searching about for some time, at last found a new home at Monaco. There he brought his old lamp, the roulette wheel, which, with his assiduous polishing, in the end entirely transformed the place. The fables of Monte Cristo have become facts at Monte Carlo. The income of the Prince has been increased a thousandfold. His small property has become a scene from fairyland, where a visitor may pick up gold and silver, and, when tired of that occupation, refresh himself with all that money can buy in art, music, sport, beauty, fashion, physical comfort, and intellectual recreation. It is, of course, the advantage reserved to the 'bank' at the Vol. 204.-No. 407.

2 H

gambling-tables that has done all this. Let us see what that advantage is.

The roulette is a wheel which lies on its face with its centre on a fixed pivot. The croupier causes the wheel to revolve rapidly about its centre, and then jerks a small ivory ball in the opposite direction around the rim. When the ball loses its momentum, it falls into one of thirtyseven stalls cut into the surface of the wheel. These stalls are marked in irregular order with the numbers from zero to 36 inclusive; and they are coloured alternately red and black, except zero, which has no colour. The even chances, so called because a successful bet upon one of them earns the value of the stake, are red against black, odd against even, first eighteen against second eighteen. Zero does not belong to any of these groups. When zero appears, the bank takes half the stakes, and thus gains, on the average, in 37, or 1.35 per cent. on the even chances. If the gambler bets on a number and wins, the bank pays him thirty-five times his stake instead of thirtysix times, and thus wins on the average one stake in thirty-seven, or 2.7 per cent. from the numbers. Trenteet-quarante,' a game of cards, is also played at Monte Carlo. There are only even chances. The advantage of the bank, called refait, can be insured against for 1 per

cent.

These small percentages of from 1 to 2.7 suffice to bring in an annual profit of about 1,250,000l. This, then, must be nearly the whole of the amount taken into the gambling-rooms in the course of the year for the purpose of being staked. If no money were staked twice, but fresh coins every time, and the winnings taken away, the public would have to produce a sum which has been estimated at 60,000,000l. to give the bank a profit of 1,250,000Z. But most of the gamblers do habitually stake their winnings until they are lost; and the bank wins a sum nearly equal to what the public provides for the purpose of gambling. The action of the public affects the proportional but not the actual loss. If fresh money were staked every time, the gamblers' loss would be only 11 in 60. Using the same coins over and over again, they lose 60 in 60. The actual loss is the same in either case; but the loss in proportion to the money carried into the rooms and staked there is very different.