But here it must suffice to observe that formalism had succeeded by the operation of natural influences to the vigor and inventiveness of the national genius in the main departments of literature and fine art.
If we study the development of other European races, we shall find that each of them in turn, at its due season, passed through similar phases.
The mediaeval period ends in the efflorescence of a new delightful energy, which gives a Rabelais, a Shakspere, a Cervantes to the world.
The Renaissance riots itself away in Marinism, Gongorism, Euphuism, and the affectations of the Hotel Rambouillet.

This age is succeeded by a colder, more critical, more formal age of obedience to fixed canons, during which scholarly efforts are made to purify style and impose laws on taste.

The ensuing period of sense is also marked by profounder inquiries into nature and more exact analysis of mental operations.

The correct school of poets, culminating in Dryden and Pope, holds sway in England; while Newton, Locke, and Bentley extend the sphere of science.
In France the age of Rabelais and Montaigne yields place to the age of Racine and Descartes.

Germany was so distracted by religious wars, Spain was so down-trodden by the Inquisition, that they do not offer equally luminous examples.[8] It may be added that in all these nations the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries are marked by a similar revolt against formality and common sense, to which we give the name of the Romantic movement.
[Footnote 8: With regard to Germany, see Mr.T.S.Perry's acute and philosophical study, entitled _From Opitz to Lessing_ (Boston).] Quitting this sphere of speculation, we may next point out that the European system had undergone an incalculable process of transformation.
Powerful nationalities were in existence, who, having received their education from Italy, were now beginning to think and express thought with marked originality.