Though immeasurably inferior both to Voltaire and Rousseau in gifts of literary expression, he was as far their superior in breadth and reality of artistic principle.

He was the originator of a natural, realistic, and sympathetic school of literary criticism.

He aspired to impose new forms upon the drama.

Both in imaginative creation and in criticism, his work was a constant appeal from the artificial conventions of the classic schools to the actualities of common life.

The same spirit united with the tendency of his philosophy to place him among the very few men who have been great and genuine observers of human nature and human existence.