Rameau is the squalid and tattered Satan of the eighteenth century.

He is a Mephistopheles out at elbows, a Lucifer in low water; yet always diabolic, with the bright flash of the pit in his eye.

Disgust is transformed into horror and affright by the trenchant confidence of his spirit, the daring thoroughness and consistency of his dialectic, the lurid sarcasm, the vile penetration.

He discusses a horrible action, or execrable crime, as a virtuoso examines a statue or a painting.

He has that rarest fortitude of the vicious, not to shrink from calling his character and conduct by their names.