Many of the diaries described above were first published in the opening years of the 19th century, and it is unquestionable that the interest which they awakened in the public led to their imitation. Diaries ceased to be rare, but as a rule the specimens which have hitherto appeared have not presented much literary interest. Exception must be made in favour of the journals of two minor politicians, Charles Greville (1794-1865) and Thomas Creevey (1768-1838), whose indiscretions have added much to the gaiety of nations; the papers of the former appeared in 1874-1887, those of the latter in 1903. The diary of Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867), printed in 1869, contains excellent biographical material. Tom Moore's journal, published in 1856 by Lord John Russell, disappointed its readers. But it is probable, if we reason by the analogy of the past, that the most curious and original diaries of the 19th century are still unknown to us, and lie jealously guarded under lock and key by the descendants of those who compiled them.
It was natural that the form of the diary should appeal to a people so sensitive to social peculiarities and so keen in the observation of them as the French. A medieval document of immense value is the diary kept by an anonymous _curé_ during the reigns of Charles VI. and Charles VII. This _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_ was kept from 1409 to 1431, and was continued by another hand down to 1449. The marquis de Dangeau (1638-1720) kept a diary from 1684 till the year of his death; this although dull, and as Saint-Simon said "of an insipidity to make you sick," is an inexhaustible storehouse of facts about the reign of Louis XIV. Saint-Simon's own brilliant memoirs, written from 1691 to 1723, may be considered as a sort of diary. The lawyer, Edmond Barbier (1689-1771), wrote a journal of the anecdotes and little facts which came to his knowledge from 1718 to 1762. The studious care which he took to be correct, and his manifest candour, give a singular value to Barbier's record; his diary was not printed at all until 1847, nor, in its entirety, until 1857. The song-writer, Charles Collé (1709-1783), kept a _journal historique_ from 1758 to 1782; it is full of vivacity, but very scandalous and spiteful. It saw the light in 1805, and surprised those to whom Collé, in his lifetime, had seemed the most placid and good-natured of men. Petit de Bachaumont (1690-1770) had access to remarkable sources of information, and his _Mémoires secrets_ (a diary the publication of which began in 1762 and was continued after Bachaumont's death, until 1787, by other persons) contains a valuable mass of documents. The marquis d'Argenson (1694-1757) kept a diary, of which a comparatively full text was first published in 1859. In recent times the posthumous publication of the diaries of the Russian artist, Marie Bashkirtseff (1860-1884), produced a great sensation in 1887, and revealed a most remarkable temperament. The brothers Jules and Edmond de Goncourt kept a very minute diary of all that occurred around them in artistic and literary Paris; after the death of Jules, in 1870, this was continued by Edmond, who published the three first volumes in 1888. The publication of this work was continued, and it produced no little scandal. It is excessively ill-natured in parts, but of its vivid picturesqueness, and of its general accuracy as a transcript of conversation, there can be no two opinions. (E. G.)