'The air itself, in truth, appearsTo weep for this in flooded tears.The clouds such tender pity take,Their very clothing they forsake:And for the sorrow that they bear,Put off the ornaments they wear.'So much they mourn, so much they weep,Their grief and sorrow are so deep,They make the rivers overflow,And war against the meadows low:Then is the season's promise crossed;The bread made dear, the harvest lost,And honest poor who live thereby,Mourn hopes that only rose to die.'But when the end arrives at last,And fair times come, and bad are passed;When from the sky, displeased and pale,Fair weather robs its rain and hail,And when the clouds perceive once moreThe thunder gone, the tempest o'er—Then they rejoice, too, as they may,And to be comely, bright, and gay,Put on their glorious robes anew,Varied with every pleasant hue;They hang their fleeces out to dry,Carding and combing as they fly;Then take to spinning, and their threadAbroad through all the heavens spread,With needles white and long, as thoughTheir feathery gauntlets they would sew—Harness their steeds, and mount and flyO'er valleys deep and mountains high.'
'The air itself, in truth, appears
To weep for this in flooded tears.
The clouds such tender pity take,
Their very clothing they forsake:
And for the sorrow that they bear,
Put off the ornaments they wear.
'So much they mourn, so much they weep,
Their grief and sorrow are so deep,
They make the rivers overflow,
And war against the meadows low:
Then is the season's promise crossed;
The bread made dear, the harvest lost,
And honest poor who live thereby,
Mourn hopes that only rose to die.
'But when the end arrives at last,
And fair times come, and bad are passed;
When from the sky, displeased and pale,
Fair weather robs its rain and hail,
And when the clouds perceive once more
The thunder gone, the tempest o'er—
Then they rejoice, too, as they may,
And to be comely, bright, and gay,
Put on their glorious robes anew,
Varied with every pleasant hue;
They hang their fleeces out to dry,
Carding and combing as they fly;
Then take to spinning, and their thread
Abroad through all the heavens spread,
With needles white and long, as though
Their feathery gauntlets they would sew—
Harness their steeds, and mount and fly
O'er valleys deep and mountains high.'
It is needless, after what has been said, to pursue any further the story of the romance. There is not much lost by this omission, because the work has really little or nothing to do with the allegory, and might simply be called, 'The Opinions of Jean de Meung.' Our object is to show what actually were the opinions of a scholar of liberal views in the thirteenth century.
They may be divided into four classes, foremost of which, in his own mind, stands his hatred of monks. In religion he was not an infidel, or even a heretic; he was simply in opposition. He writes, not against sacerdotalism, but against the inversion of recognisedorder by the vagabond friars. Order, indeed, he would insist upon as strenuously as Hooker himself; but order he would subordinate to what he deems the most essential thing, personal holiness. To decry, deride, and hurl contempt on the monastic orders: to put into the strongest possible words the inarticulate popular hatred of these was, we believe, his leading thought when he began his book.
His second idea was to make an angry, almost furious protest against the extravagant respect paid to women, and an onslaught on their follies and vices. It is very curious, and shows how little he was trammelled by his allegory, that he fails altogether to see how entirely out of place is such an attack in the 'Romance of the Rose.'
He had two other principal ideas: one to communicate in the common tongue as much science as the world could boast; and the other, to circulate certain principles of vague socialism and hesitating republicanism which were then beginning to take the place of those religious speculations which occupied men's minds in the early part of the century.
Jean de Meung's was not the only book of the time which aimed at being an encyclopædia, but it was by far the best known and the most widelyrépandu. There were written towards the close of the thirteenth century certain collections calledtrésors, which were designed to contain everything that was to be learned,quicquid scibile, in mathematics, physics, astronomy, alchemy, music, speculative philosophy, and theology. They were generally in verse; one of the best of them being by a monk, called 'Mainfroi,' which professedly contained the Arabic learning, borrowed from the Moors in Spain. Probably Jean de Meung had access to this. Readers of old English literature will also remember that dreariest of dreary books, Gower's 'Confessio Amantis,' into which the hapless student plunges without hope, and emerges without profit, having found nothing but vapid imitation, monotonous repetition, and somnolent platitudes. The 'Confessio' is atrésor, and designed to contain all the science of the time. It is adapted, so far as the science goes, from atrésorcalled theSecretum Secretorum.
Let us, then, gather some of the opinions of our author, classifying them according to this fourfold division. It may be premised that the division was not thought of by the poet, from whom, indeed, sequence and method are not to be expected.
Liberal thought, in the time of Jean de Meung, did not attack the domain of doctrine, partly, perhaps, from an unwillingness to meet the probable consequences of a charge of heresy; indeed, when doctrine came in its way, it seems to have leaned in the direction of orthodoxy. Thus we find Jean de Meung siding with Guillaume de St. Amour in an attack on the 'Eternal Gospel,' that most extraordinary book, ascribed to Joachim, Abbot of Flora,[54]which was intended to have the same relation to Christianity which Christianity bears to Judaism, to be at once its fulfilment and its abolition, which was to inaugurate the third and last, the perfect age, that of the Holy Spirit. The mendicants, an ignorant, credulous body, quite incapable of appreciating cause or consequence of teaching, espoused the cause of the book; Guillaume de St. Amour arraigned them, not only of the ordinary vices attributed to them—vices entirely contrary to their vows—but as preachers of doctrines pernicious, false, and heretical. Probably Jean de Meung was actuated byesprit de corps, Guillaume de St. Amour being a champion of the University of Paris, as well as by hatred to the monks, and, in spite of his hard words, was not moved strongly by any specially inimical feeling towards the book. Following the instincts of his time, however, he flatly ascribes its authorship to the Devil, the alleged author of so many theological books. Partizanship in those days, as in ours, meant, to be effective, a good, sound, honest hatred, and much command of language. In his description of hell, Jean anticipates the realistic horrors of Dante.
'What guerdon,' he asks, 'can the wicked man look for, save the cord which will hang him to the dolorous gibbet of hell? There will he be rivetted with everlasting fetters before the prince of devils; there will he be boiled in cauldrons; roasted before and behind; set to revolve, like Ixion, on cutting wheels turned by the paws of devils; tormented with hunger and thirst, and mocked with fruit and water, like Tantalus, or set to roll stones for ever up hill, like Sysyphus.'
One thing seems here worthy of remark. The place of punishment for the wicked man, in the Middle Ages, was the torture-chamber of their own criminal courts, intensified by imagination. Their punishment was through the senses. Of mental agony they had no conception. Yet, strangely enough, their heavenwas never a heaven of the senses; and it shows how deeply they were penetrated with the feeling of Christ's holiness that while every temptation seemed set to make the mass believe in a paradise like that of Mahomet, the heaven of Christendomhas always offered, as its chief charm, the worship and praise of a present God. 'There, by the fountain of mercy,' says Jean de Meung, 'shall ye sit.'
'There shall ye taste that spring so fair;(Bright are its waters, pure and clear),And never more from death shall shrink,If only of that fount you drink.But ever still, untired, prolongThe days with worship, praise, and song.'[55]
'There shall ye taste that spring so fair;
(Bright are its waters, pure and clear),
And never more from death shall shrink,
If only of that fount you drink.
But ever still, untired, prolong
The days with worship, praise, and song.'[55]
The poet reserves, however, his chief strength and the main exposition of his views for his character of Faux Semblant—False seeming—the hypocrite. There is a dramatic art of the very highest kind in the way in which Faux Semblant draws and develops his own character, pronounces, as it were, the apology of hypocrisy. His painting of the vices of the mendicant orders cannot approach those of Walter de Mapes, of Erasmus, and of Buchanan, in savage ferocity; but it is more satirical and more subtly venomous than any of those, and has the additional bitterness that it is spoken as fromwithinthe body which he attacks. The others, standingoutsidethe monastic orders, point the finger of scorn at them. Jean de Meung makes one of themselves, an unblushing priest, with a candour which almost belongs to an approving conscience, with a chuckling self-complacency and an entire unconsciousness of the contrast between his life and his profession, which rises to the very first order of satirical writing, depict his own life, and take credit for villanies which he takes care to inform us are common to his order. He has been compared with Friar John; but the animalism and lusty vigour of this holy man lead him to a life of jovial sensuality through sheer ignorance; whereas Faux Semblant, his conscience seared with a hot iron, sins against the light. We may compare, too, the attacks made by Jean de Meung's contemporaries and immediate successors. They never even attempt satire.[56]It was an instrument whose use they could not comprehend. Their line is invective, as when Rutebeuf says, in his straightforward way—
'Papelart et Beguin,Ont le siècle honi.'
'Papelart et Beguin,
Ont le siècle honi.'
or, as Eustache Deschamps attacks the pluralists—
'Prestres et clers qui tenez vos monciaulxDe chapelles, vous autres curiaulx,Des povres clers ayez compassion:Repartez leur ces biens ecclesiaulx,Afin que Dieu vous soit propiciaulx:Vous les tenez à vo dampnacion.'
'Prestres et clers qui tenez vos monciaulx
De chapelles, vous autres curiaulx,
Des povres clers ayez compassion:
Repartez leur ces biens ecclesiaulx,
Afin que Dieu vous soit propiciaulx:
Vous les tenez à vo dampnacion.'
Faux Semblant, in his sermon, or address, a small part only of which we consider, begins by telling his hearers that he lives, by preference, in obscurity, and may, therefore, chiefly be found where this is most readily obtained, viz., under a religious habit. With the habit, however, he does not put on the reality of religion. He attaches himself to powerful patrons; he goes about preaching poverty, but living on the best of everything; nothing can be more contrary to his experience than that religion is to be found at all under the robe of a monk; nor does it follow that men and women lead bad lives because they wear a worldly garb; very many, indeed, of the saints have been married, were parents of children, and men and women of the world.
He tells how he changes his habit from time to time; how, out of the religious life, he 'takes the grain and leaves the straw;' how he hears confession and grants absolution, as well as any parish priest; but how, unlike the parish priest, he will hear the confessions only of the rich, who can afford to pay; 'let me have the fat sheep, and the pastors shall have the lean.' So with the poor; he will not help any.
'Let dying beggars cry for aid,Naked and cold on dunghill laid:There stands the hospital, with doorWide open to receive the poor.Thither let all who please repair,For help nor money can I spare:No use for me to save their life:What can he give who sucks his knife?'
'Let dying beggars cry for aid,
Naked and cold on dunghill laid:
There stands the hospital, with door
Wide open to receive the poor.
Thither let all who please repair,
For help nor money can I spare:
No use for me to save their life:
What can he give who sucks his knife?'
Now, with the rich it is different; and the mendicant, while he takes the alms of those whose sins he has heard, may glow with conscious virtue, reflecting that the rich are much more exposed to temptation, and therefore, as a rule, more grievously weighed down with a sense of guilt than the poor. When relief can be given, surely it should first be bestowed on those who need it most.Mendicancy, Faux Semblant acknowledges with an engaging candour, is only right when a man has not learned and cannot learn a trade. Monks, according to the teaching of Saint Augustine, ought to earn their bread by labour, and when we are commanded to give all to the poor, it is not meant that we should take it back by begging, but that we should work for our living. But the world, neglecting this among other wholesome rules, has set itself to rob, plunder, and despoil, every man trying to get whatever he can from his neighbour. As for himself, his business, and that of his brethren, is to rob the robber: to spoil the spoiler.
The mendicants keep up their own power by union; if a man does one of them an injury, they all conspire to effect his ruin: if one hates, all hate: if one is refused, all are refused, and revenge is taken: if any man is conspicuous for good deeds, they claim him as their own disciple, and in order to get the praise of people and inspire confidence, they ask, wherever they go, for letters which may testify to their virtue, and make people believe that all goodness abounds in them.
He says that he leaves others to retire into hermitages and caves, preferring to be called the Antichrist of robbers and hypocrites: he proclaims himself a cheat, a rogue, a liar, and a thief: he boasts that his father, Treachery, and himself rule in every realm, and that in the security of a religious disguise, where no one is likely to suspect him, he contrives various means to charm and deceive the world. Set forth in this bold fashion, the discourse of Faux Semblant loses all its dramatic force. It is fair, however, to state that this is chiefly found in detached passages, and that the sermon is entirely spoiled by the many digressions, notably that on the 'Eternal Gospel,' which are found in it. Chaucer's rendering of this portion appears to us to be far less happy than the rest of his work.
Another long and very curious dissertation, into which there is no space here to enter, is that on Predestination, where he arrives at the conclusion that the doctrine must be accepted as a dogma in Christian faith, but that it need not affect the Christian life—
'For every man, except a fool,May guide himself by virtue's rule.'
'For every man, except a fool,
May guide himself by virtue's rule.'
A conclusion which seems almost to anticipate the conclusion arrived at in the Article of the Church of England.
The sum of Jean de Meung's religious teaching is to be found in the sermon of Genius—
'And, Lords and Ladies, this be sure,That those who live good lives and pure;Nor from their work and duty shrink,Shall of this fountain freely drink.—To honour Nature never rest,By labour is she honoured best;If others goods are in your hands,Restore them all—so God commands.From murder let all men abstain;Spotless keep hands, and mouth keep clean.Be loyal and compassionate,So shall ye pass the heavenly gate.'
'And, Lords and Ladies, this be sure,
That those who live good lives and pure;
Nor from their work and duty shrink,
Shall of this fountain freely drink.—
To honour Nature never rest,
By labour is she honoured best;
If others goods are in your hands,
Restore them all—so God commands.
From murder let all men abstain;
Spotless keep hands, and mouth keep clean.
Be loyal and compassionate,
So shall ye pass the heavenly gate.'
The one thing insisted on by Jean de Meung is the absolute necessity of a pure life. A profound sense of the beauty of a pure life is, indeed, the key-note to all mediæval heresies and religious excitements.[57]The uncleanness of the clergy was the most terrible weapon wielded by the heresiarchs. Thus Peter de Brueys compelled monks to marry. Henry the Deacon taught that the Church could exist without priests. Tanchelin of Antwerp held that the validity of the sacraments depended on the holiness of him who administered them. Peter Waldo sent out his disciples two by two, to preach the subversive doctrine that every virtuous man was his own priest; while theCathariwent gladly to the stake in defence of their principle that absolute personal purity was the one thing acceptable to God. The more ignorant the age, the wider is religious speculation; but in the most ignorant ages, there rises up from time to time a figure with a spiritual insight far beyond that of more learned times. Protestantism in its noblest form has found nothing more sublime than this conception of a Church where every good man is a priest; and there is nothing in the history of religious thought more saddening than these efforts of the people, ever hopeless, ever renewed, to protest against dogma, creed, perfunctory and vicarious religion, and to proclaim a religion of personal holiness alone.
Let us turn to the second division. We find the book teeming with a misogyny, bitter enough to make us believe that theremust have been some personal cause for it. 'What is love?' he asks. 'It is amaladie de pensée—the dream of a sick fancy.... There is a far higher and nobler thing in the friendship of men.' And it is after narrating the stories of 'Penelope' and 'Lucretia,' that he puts into the mouth of Jealousy the famous couplet—
'Toutes estes, serez, ou fustes,De faict ou de voulenté, putes.'
'Toutes estes, serez, ou fustes,
De faict ou de voulenté, putes.'
Of course it may be urged that these are the words of jealousy, and not of the poet; but, unfortunately, there are so many indications of the author's entire approval of the sentiment, that the plea is hardly worth much. Take, for instance, the dramatic scene, when the wife worms out her husband's secret; or that of the old woman's lesson to Bel Accueil, where, as in the case of Faux Semblant, he puts woman's condemnation in her own mouth. She teaches him the art of love almost in Ovid's own words; she prefaces her lesson by a lament over the past days of youth and beauty; her regrets are not for a life of sin and deceit, but for the past bad days that can come no more. She is steeped in wickedness and intrigue; she can see no happiness, except in love and luxury.
'My days of gladness are no more;Your joyous time is all before;Hardly can I, through age and pain,With staff and crutch, my knees sustain.Almost a child, you hardly knowWhat thing you have to bear and do.Yet, well I wot, the torch that allBurns soon or late, on you will fall;And in that fount where Venus bringsHer maidens, will you drench love's wings.But ere you headlong enter, pause,Listen to one who knows Love's laws.Perilous are its waters clear;He risks his life who plunges hereWithout a guide. Who follows meSafe and successful shall he be.'
'My days of gladness are no more;
Your joyous time is all before;
Hardly can I, through age and pain,
With staff and crutch, my knees sustain.
Almost a child, you hardly know
What thing you have to bear and do.
Yet, well I wot, the torch that all
Burns soon or late, on you will fall;
And in that fount where Venus brings
Her maidens, will you drench love's wings.
But ere you headlong enter, pause,
Listen to one who knows Love's laws.
Perilous are its waters clear;
He risks his life who plunges here
Without a guide. Who follows me
Safe and successful shall he be.'
She tells of her vanished youth and all the pleasant follies of her young days; how she threw away her affections on a scoundrel, who only robbed and ill-treated her; how she wasted her money and neglected her chances; how she grew old, and her old friends ceased to knock at her door.
'But ah! my child, no one can knowSave him who feels the bitter woe,What grief and dolour me befellAt losing what I loved so well.The honeyed words, the soft caress,The sweet delight, the sweet embrace;The kisses sweet—so quickly sped,The joyous time so quickly fled.Fled! and I left alone to mourn.Fled! never, never to return.'
'But ah! my child, no one can know
Save him who feels the bitter woe,
What grief and dolour me befell
At losing what I loved so well.
The honeyed words, the soft caress,
The sweet delight, the sweet embrace;
The kisses sweet—so quickly sped,
The joyous time so quickly fled.
Fled! and I left alone to mourn.
Fled! never, never to return.'
The whole passage is full of the truest touches of nature, and is written with avervequite extraordinary. Villon has imitated it in his ballad of theBelle Heaulmière,—
'Avis m'est que j'oy regretterLa belle qui fust Heaulmière;Soy jeune fille souhaiterEt parler en ceste manière.Qu'est devenu ce front poly,Ces cheveulx blonds, sourcils voultiz,Grant entr'œil, le regard joly,Dont prenoye les plus subtils;Ce beau nez ni grand ni petit;Ces petites joinctes oreilles;Menton fourchu, cler vis, traictizEt ces belles lèvres vermeilles?'
'Avis m'est que j'oy regretter
La belle qui fust Heaulmière;
Soy jeune fille souhaiter
Et parler en ceste manière.
Qu'est devenu ce front poly,
Ces cheveulx blonds, sourcils voultiz,
Grant entr'Å“il, le regard joly,
Dont prenoye les plus subtils;
Ce beau nez ni grand ni petit;
Ces petites joinctes oreilles;
Menton fourchu, cler vis, traictiz
Et ces belles lèvres vermeilles?'
And Béranger sings in the same key,—
'Combien je regretteMon bras si dodu,Ma jambe bien faite,Et le temps perdu.'
'Combien je regrette
Mon bras si dodu,
Ma jambe bien faite,
Et le temps perdu.'
Jean de Meung's old woman is no more reformed than her successors. And she tells Bel Accueil all that Ovid had to impart.
It is quite possible that in putting an imitation of the 'Art of Love' into the old woman's mouth, Jean de Meung catered to the lowest tastes of the age, and courted a popularity from this part of his work which he might not have obtained from the rest. The same sort of defence—no defence at all, but another and a worse charge—has been set up in the cases of Rabelais and Swift. All such offenders we are told, deferred to popular opinion, and wrote what they inwardly disapproved. This surely is worse. To be yourself so far depraved as to take delight in things impure is bad; to deliberately lay yourself out to please others with things impure is surely infinitely more wicked. It ispossiblethat Jean de Meung, Rabelais, and Swift, did this; but we do not think it probable. In the case of the poet whom we are now considering, there seems every reason to believe that he had formed the lowest possible ideas of love and women; that from the depths of a corrupted morality, which permitted him the same pleasure in impurity which the common herd of the vulgar and illiterate shared, he had eager yearnings for that purity of life which alone as he felt and preached, could bring one to taste of the heavenly spring. That a man could at the same time grovel so low and look so high, that his gaze upwards was so clear and bright, while his eyes were so often turned earthward, is a singular phenomenon; but it is not a solitary one. Other great men have been as degraded as they were exalted. Perhaps when Christianaand her children saw that vision of the man with the muck-rake, while the angel, unregarded, held the crown of glory over his head, had they looked much longer, they might have seen him drop his rake and gaze upwards, with streaming eyes, upon the proffered glory. Jean de Meung was the man with the muck-rake who sometimes looked upwards.
The poet feels it necessary to apologize for his severity against the sex. 'If,' he says, 'you see anything here against womankind, blame not the poet.'
'All this was for instruction writ,Here are no words of idle wit.No jealousy inspired the song;No hatred bears the lines along.Bad are their hearts, if such there live,Who villainie to women give.Only, if aught your sense offend,Think that to know yourself is good,And that, with this intent, your friend,I write what else might seem too rude.'
'All this was for instruction writ,
Here are no words of idle wit.
No jealousy inspired the song;
No hatred bears the lines along.
Bad are their hearts, if such there live,
Who villainie to women give.
Only, if aught your sense offend,
Think that to know yourself is good,
And that, with this intent, your friend,
I write what else might seem too rude.'
He thinks it right, too, to make a sort of apology for the severity of his attack on monks.
'I strung my bow: I bent it well;And though no saint, the truth to tellI let my random arrows fly,In lowly town and cloister high.For what cared I where'er they lit?The folk that Christ called hypocrite,Who here and there are always found,Who keep their Lent the whole year round,But feed on live men's flesh the whileWith teeth of envy and of guile,These were my mark; no other aimWas mine except to blot their fame.'
'I strung my bow: I bent it well;
And though no saint, the truth to tell
I let my random arrows fly,
In lowly town and cloister high.
For what cared I where'er they lit?
The folk that Christ called hypocrite,
Who here and there are always found,
Who keep their Lent the whole year round,
But feed on live men's flesh the while
With teeth of envy and of guile,
These were my mark; no other aim
Was mine except to blot their fame.'
Let us pass to what is perhaps the most curious part of the book, and the richest for the student of mediæval ideas, that in which he gives us his views on the growth and principles of society. Here are advanced theories of an audacity and apparent originality which make one curious to know how far they penetrated into the lower strata of France; whether they were the speculations of a dreamer, or the tenets of a school; whether there was any connection—it is more than possible—between this kind of teaching and the frantic revolt of the peasantry; whether, in fact, Jean de Meung was a prophet with a following, or a visionary without disciples. Read, for instance, his account, somewhat abridged, of the Golden Age:—
'Once on a time, in those old years,When lived our grandsires and forbears,(Writers, by whom the tale we know,And ancient legends, tell us so),Love was loyal, and true, and good;The folk was simple; the fare was rude;They gathered the berries in forest and mead:For all their meat and all their bread;They wandered by valley and plain and mountain,By river and forest and woodland fountain,Plucking the chestnuts and sweet wild fruits,Looking for acorns and rustic roots.They rubbed together the ears of wheat;They gathered the clustering grape to eat;Rich fare they made when the forest beesFilled with honey the hollow trees:Water their drink; and the strong red wineWas not yet pressed from the autumn vine.'When sleep came with the shades of night,They spread no beds of down so light,But stretched in their cabins on piles of hay,Fresh gathered grass and leaves they lay.Or slept without—when the air was mild—And summer winds were hushed and stilled;When birds in the early morning greyAwoke to welcome, each in his way,The dawn that makes all hearts so gay.In that glad time when the royal pair,Flora—Queen of the flowers fair—And Zephyr, her mate, give timely birthTo flowers of spring, through all the earth.... 'such splendour giveThat you might think the world would striveWith Heaven itself for glory—so bright,So fair, so proud, with its flowers bedight.Then in the woods they lay at ease,Over their heads the branching trees—Lovers kissed, who lovers were,And kissed again, and had no fear—Then they chaunted rounds and lays,Joyously led their sports and plays:A simple folk; they had no prayer—No fond ambition—nor other careThen just to live a life of joy—And loyal love without annoy.No king or prince was with them yetTo plunder and wrong, to ravish and fret;There were no rich, there were no poor,For no man yet kept his own store:And well the saying old they knew—(Wise it is, and is proven true)Love and Lordship are two—not one:They cannot abide together, nor mate:Who wishes to join them is undone,And who would unite will separate.'
'Once on a time, in those old years,
When lived our grandsires and forbears,
(Writers, by whom the tale we know,
And ancient legends, tell us so),
Love was loyal, and true, and good;
The folk was simple; the fare was rude;
They gathered the berries in forest and mead:
For all their meat and all their bread;
They wandered by valley and plain and mountain,
By river and forest and woodland fountain,
Plucking the chestnuts and sweet wild fruits,
Looking for acorns and rustic roots.
They rubbed together the ears of wheat;
They gathered the clustering grape to eat;
Rich fare they made when the forest bees
Filled with honey the hollow trees:
Water their drink; and the strong red wine
Was not yet pressed from the autumn vine.
'When sleep came with the shades of night,
They spread no beds of down so light,
But stretched in their cabins on piles of hay,
Fresh gathered grass and leaves they lay.
Or slept without—when the air was mild—
And summer winds were hushed and stilled;
When birds in the early morning grey
Awoke to welcome, each in his way,
The dawn that makes all hearts so gay.
In that glad time when the royal pair,
Flora—Queen of the flowers fair—
And Zephyr, her mate, give timely birth
To flowers of spring, through all the earth.
... 'such splendour give
That you might think the world would strive
With Heaven itself for glory—so bright,
So fair, so proud, with its flowers bedight.
Then in the woods they lay at ease,
Over their heads the branching trees—
Lovers kissed, who lovers were,
And kissed again, and had no fear—
Then they chaunted rounds and lays,
Joyously led their sports and plays:
A simple folk; they had no prayer—
No fond ambition—nor other care
Then just to live a life of joy—
And loyal love without annoy.
No king or prince was with them yet
To plunder and wrong, to ravish and fret;
There were no rich, there were no poor,
For no man yet kept his own store:
And well the saying old they knew—
(Wise it is, and is proven true)
Love and Lordship are two—not one:
They cannot abide together, nor mate:
Who wishes to join them is undone,
And who would unite will separate.'
Or, as Dryden, who certainly never read the 'Romance of the Rose,' unless perhaps in Marot's edition, says:—
'Love either finds equality, or makes it.'
'Love either finds equality, or makes it.'
The end of the Golden Age—a thing not generally known—was accelerated by Jason's voyage, the hero bringing home with him treasures fromOutremer: people begin to get ideas of property: they amass wealth: they rob and fight for plunder: they go so far asto divide the land. 'La propriété,' says Proudhon, 'c'est le vol.'
'Even the ground they parcelled out,And placed the landmarks all about;And over these, whene'er they met,Fierce battle raged. What they could get,They seized and snatched; and everywhereThe strongest got the biggest share.So that at length, of plunder tired,Needs must a guardian should be hired.A sturdy peasant chose they then,The mightiest of the sons of men;Strongest in battle or in ring,And him they chose to be their king.'
'Even the ground they parcelled out,
And placed the landmarks all about;
And over these, whene'er they met,
Fierce battle raged. What they could get,
They seized and snatched; and everywhere
The strongest got the biggest share.
So that at length, of plunder tired,
Needs must a guardian should be hired.
A sturdy peasant chose they then,
The mightiest of the sons of men;
Strongest in battle or in ring,
And him they chose to be their king.'
Voltaire has exactly the same idea:
'Le premier roi fut un soldat heureux.'
'Le premier roi fut un soldat heureux.'
This is the origin of royalty. The growth of feudalism, of armies, taxation, and division into classes is carefully traced from these small beginnings.
But he deduces the great law of charity and love for our neighbours. Having this, we have everything; and wanting this, we get wars, tyranny, and all the miseries of the world.
What is the nature of true gentility? Lineage, he explains, has nothing to do with it. None are gentle, but those whose virtues make them so. Ancestors may leave their wealth behind them, but not the qualities that made them great. Clerks have an advantage over unlettered persons in knowing what is right. If they are coarse and rude, they sin against greater light, and incur heavier punishment.
'Let him, who gentleman would be,From sloth and idleness keep free;In arms and study be employed,And coarse rusticity avoid.Let him, with humble, courteous grace,Meet every class in every place;Honour all women, wife or maid,So that not too much trust be laidIn woman's faith. So may he steer,Of this great danger wholly clear.Know all that gentle blood may bringNo benefit, or anything,Except what each man's worth may give.Know, also, none of all that liveCan ask for honour, praise, or blameBy reason of another's name.'
'Let him, who gentleman would be,
From sloth and idleness keep free;
In arms and study be employed,
And coarse rusticity avoid.
Let him, with humble, courteous grace,
Meet every class in every place;
Honour all women, wife or maid,
So that not too much trust be laid
In woman's faith. So may he steer,
Of this great danger wholly clear.
Know all that gentle blood may bring
No benefit, or anything,
Except what each man's worth may give.
Know, also, none of all that live
Can ask for honour, praise, or blame
By reason of another's name.'
The idea, of course, is not new. It is found frequently enough in the Greek and Latin literature. It occurs, we believe, for the first time in the fragments of Epicharmus,—
ἀγαθὸς δ' á¼„Î½Î·Ï Îºá¼‚Î½ Αἰθίοψ καὶ δοῦλος, εá½Î³ÎµÎ½á½´Ï‚ ἔφυ.
and afterwards it is found in Euripides, Horace, Juvenal—'Stemmata quid faciunt?'—and, lastly, in Seneca. Doubtless, Jean de Meung took it from Seneca. Once started anew, the idea, of course, became popular, and poet after poet repeated it, until it became a mere commonplace. But so far as we have been able to discover, Jean de Meung gave it new life.
A few words only, for our limits press, on the natural science taught in the 'Romance of the Rose.' The poet, having got rid of this indignation and wrath that lay at his soul anent the mendicant friars, and the vices of women, wishes now, it seems, to sit down for a quiet and comfortable disquisition on universal knowledge, including alchemy, in which he is a firm believer; indeed, he wants to pass, in a certain ballad of his, for an adept. This part takes the form of a confession of Nature to her chaplain Genius (in which Power afterwards copies him). The confession is long and wearisome, but it is curious as being the earliest and fullest popular account of mediæval science.
He fancies Nature to be perpetually at work, fashioning creatures whom Death continually tries to destroy.
'Nature, who fashions all that holdsThe sky beneath its ample folds,Within her forge meanwhile was found,And at her work's eternal round,—Struck out new forms of every race,Lest life should fail, and types should cease;She made so many, that Death, who toiledWith heavy mace to kill, was foiled.They fly to save themselves, where'erTheir fate may lead, or feet may bear;Some to the Church and convent rule,Some to the dance, some to the school;Some to their merchandize are turned,Some to the arts which they have learned.Another, sworn by Holy Writ,Puts on the cloak of hypocrite;And, flying, would his thoughts conceal,Did not his life the truth reveal.So, shunning Death, do all men shapeTheir diverse ways, his blows to 'scape.'
'Nature, who fashions all that holds
The sky beneath its ample folds,
Within her forge meanwhile was found,
And at her work's eternal round,—
Struck out new forms of every race,
Lest life should fail, and types should cease;
She made so many, that Death, who toiled
With heavy mace to kill, was foiled.
They fly to save themselves, where'er
Their fate may lead, or feet may bear;
Some to the Church and convent rule,
Some to the dance, some to the school;
Some to their merchandize are turned,
Some to the arts which they have learned.
Another, sworn by Holy Writ,
Puts on the cloak of hypocrite;
And, flying, would his thoughts conceal,
Did not his life the truth reveal.
So, shunning Death, do all men shape
Their diverse ways, his blows to 'scape.'
The scientific discourse follows: observe thegood senseof many of his remarks:—
'God, having made the world out of nothing, having put all things into their proper places, measured spaces, and allotted courses, handed all over to Nature as hischambrière. Whatever man can do—and his power is very great—he cannot equal Nature, the inexhaustible and untiring. By alchemy he can interchange metals; can restore its pristine purity to everything; can turn quicksilver into gold by subtle medicines; but he cannot change or create species. This Nature alone is able to effect, changing the complexions of things, so that they assume new forms and become new substances; as when in thunderstorms, stones fall from the clouds, where no stones ever were.'The heavens turn every day, bearing with them the stars. They go round from east to west, rejoicing the world. A complete revolution is made every 26,000 years.'The moon is different from the planets in being obscure in some places and clear in others. The reason of this is, that the sun can penetrate through one part of it, as through glass; the dark part, on which is figured a serpent having a tree on his back, reflecting the rays.'In the centre is the sun, like a king. He it is who makes the stars so bright that they serve as lamps of the night; were we nearer to the sun we should be scorched; were we farther away we should be frozen.'The comets are not attached to the heavens, but fly about in the air. They do not last long, and it is a mistake to suppose that they portend disaster. For there is no man of worth or power sufficient for the heavens to take notice of him.Nor any prince of so great worth,That signs from heaven should give to earth,Notice of death for him alone:Nor is his body—life once gone—Worth one jot more than simple squire,Or clerk, or one who works for hire.'Foolish people imagine, too, that stars fall like flying dragons from the skies; and that eclipses are to be taken as portents. Now, no one would be astonished at these things who understood the causes of things.'Every student ought to acquire a knowledge of optics, which can be learned by the aid of geometry, from the books of Aristotle, Albacen, and Hucayen. Here can be learned the properties of mirrors; how they produce things which appear miracles; make small things seem great—a grain of sand like a mountain; and great things small—a mountain like a grain of sand; how glasses can be used to burn things; how straight lines can be made to look crooked, round things oblong, upright things reversed; the phantoms which do not exist appear to be moving about.'
'God, having made the world out of nothing, having put all things into their proper places, measured spaces, and allotted courses, handed all over to Nature as hischambrière. Whatever man can do—and his power is very great—he cannot equal Nature, the inexhaustible and untiring. By alchemy he can interchange metals; can restore its pristine purity to everything; can turn quicksilver into gold by subtle medicines; but he cannot change or create species. This Nature alone is able to effect, changing the complexions of things, so that they assume new forms and become new substances; as when in thunderstorms, stones fall from the clouds, where no stones ever were.'The heavens turn every day, bearing with them the stars. They go round from east to west, rejoicing the world. A complete revolution is made every 26,000 years.
'The moon is different from the planets in being obscure in some places and clear in others. The reason of this is, that the sun can penetrate through one part of it, as through glass; the dark part, on which is figured a serpent having a tree on his back, reflecting the rays.
'In the centre is the sun, like a king. He it is who makes the stars so bright that they serve as lamps of the night; were we nearer to the sun we should be scorched; were we farther away we should be frozen.
'The comets are not attached to the heavens, but fly about in the air. They do not last long, and it is a mistake to suppose that they portend disaster. For there is no man of worth or power sufficient for the heavens to take notice of him.
Nor any prince of so great worth,That signs from heaven should give to earth,Notice of death for him alone:Nor is his body—life once gone—Worth one jot more than simple squire,Or clerk, or one who works for hire.
Nor any prince of so great worth,
That signs from heaven should give to earth,
Notice of death for him alone:
Nor is his body—life once gone—
Worth one jot more than simple squire,
Or clerk, or one who works for hire.
'Foolish people imagine, too, that stars fall like flying dragons from the skies; and that eclipses are to be taken as portents. Now, no one would be astonished at these things who understood the causes of things.
'Every student ought to acquire a knowledge of optics, which can be learned by the aid of geometry, from the books of Aristotle, Albacen, and Hucayen. Here can be learned the properties of mirrors; how they produce things which appear miracles; make small things seem great—a grain of sand like a mountain; and great things small—a mountain like a grain of sand; how glasses can be used to burn things; how straight lines can be made to look crooked, round things oblong, upright things reversed; the phantoms which do not exist appear to be moving about.'
The book from beginning to end is as full of quotations as Burton. The author quotes from Aristotle, Justinian, Horace, Seneca, St. Augustine, Ovid, Cicero, Boethius, Lucan, Claudian, Suetonius, and he has, probably through Cicero, some knowledge of Plato, but all this in the wildest jumble, with no discrimination and no critical power whatever. His range of reading was not by any means contemptible, and though we know of no writer of his time who can compare with him in this respect, it is evident that since one man had command of so many books, other men must have enjoyed the same advantages. There is reason to believe from Jean de Meung alone that acquaintance with Latin literature was much more extended than is generally thought, and that the scholarship of the time was by no means wholly confined to scholastic disputation.
Such, roughly sketched, is the work of Jean de Meung, from which we have plucked some of the fruits that come readiest to our hand. If not altogether an original or a profound thinker, he has at least the merit of fearlessness. He taught the folk, in the most popular way possible, great and valuable lessons. He told them that religion is a thing apart from, and independent of, religious profession; that "la robe ne faict pas le moyne;" he says that most of the saints, men and women, were decent married people, that marriage is a laudable and holy custom, that the wealth of monks is a mockery of their profession and a perjury of their vows, that learned persons ought to set an example, and what is sheer ignorance and brutality in others is rank sin with them; he attacks superstition, showing that all phenomena have natural causes, and have nothing to do with earthly events and the fortunes of men, because men are equal in the sight of God; and he teaches in terms as clear as any used by Carlyle, that labor is noble, and in accordance with the conditions of our being—that man's welfare is the end and aim of all earthly provision.
All this is what used to be called the Dark Ages. After six hundred years, the same questions exercise us which exercised Jean de Meung. We are still disputing as to whether true nobility is inherited or not; we have not all made up our minds about the holiness of marriage; we still think the clergyman, because he wears a surplice, holier than other men; work has been quite recently and with much solemnity pronounced noble by a prophet who forgot, while he was about it, to call it also respectable; men yet live who look upon scientific men with horror, and quote with fine infelicity, a text of St. Paul's about 'science falsely so called;' while the lesson of personal holiness has to be preached again and again, and is generally forgotten in the war over vestments and creeds.
Jean de Meung wished, as it seems to us, to write a book for the people, to answer their questions, to warn them of dangers before them, to instruct their ignorance. On the sapless trunk of a dying and passionless allegory he grafts a living branch which shall bear fruit in the years to come. His poem breathes indeed. Its pulses beat with a warm human life. Its sympathies are with all mankind. The poet has a tear for the poor naked beggars dying on dung-heaps and in the Hôtel-Dieu, and a lash of scorpions for the Levite who goes by on the other side; he teaches the loveliness offriendship; he catches the wordless complaint of the poor, and gives it utterance: he speaks with a scorn which Voltaire only has equalled, and a revolutionary fearlessness surpassing that of D'Alembert or Diderot.
And much more than this. It seems to us that his book—absolutely the only cheerful book of the time—afforded hope that things were not permanent: evil times may change; times have not been always evil: there was once a Golden Age: the troubles of the present are due, not to the innate badness of Nature and the universal unfitness of things, but to certain definite and ascertainable causes. Now to discover the cause is to go some way towards curing the disease.
In that uneasy time, strange questions and doubts perplexed men's minds—questions of religion and politics, affecting the very foundations of society. They asked themselveswhythings were so; and looking about in the dim twilight of dawning knowledge they could find as yet no answer. There was no rest in the Church or in the State, and the mind of France—which was the mind of Europe—was gravitating to a social and religious democracy. An hour before the dawn, you may hear the birds of the forest twitter in their sleep: they dream of the day. Europe at the close of the thirteenth century was dreaming of the glorious Renaissance, the dawn of the second great day of civilization. Jean de Meung answered the questions of the times with a clearness and accuracy which satisfied if it did not entirely explain. Five generations passed away before the full burst of light, and he taught them all, with that geniality that is his greatest charm. His book lasted because, confused and without art as it is, it is full of life and cheerfulness and hope. Not one of the poets of his own time had his lightness of heart: despondency and dejection weigh down every one: they alternate between a monotonous song to a mistress or a complaint for France; and to Jean de Meung they are as the wood-pigeon to the nightingale. They all borrowed from him, or studied him. Charles of Orleans, Villon, Clement Marot, Rabelais, La Fontaine, Regnier, Molière, Béranger, all come down from him in direct line, his literary children and grandchildren. And in Jean de Meung, to make an end, is the first manifestation of the true spirit of French literature—theesprit Gaulois—the legacy, they tell us, of the ancient Gaul.
Art. V.—Letters and Letter Writing.
Gossip about Letters and Letter Writers.ByGeorge Seton, Advocate. Edinburgh. 1870.
We all of us know well, and to our cost, that we can make no improvement in the management of our affairs, no change for the better in the arrangements, economical and ethical, of our modes of life and action without some attendant trial, trouble, or loss coming ever like a shadow in its train. It is, therefore, not a cause for wonder that some spirit of evil has cast its shadow in the wake of the introduction of the penny post, and the still later changes in the direction of cheapness in the newspaper press. A feeling of regret arises in our minds that with their introduction the good old-fashioned long and newsy letter of bygone days has been almost crushed out of existence. Letter writing is becoming a lost art, and no correspondence is now carried on as in the olden time; for no one now lives 'a life of letter writing' as Walpole said he did. The reason of this is not far to seek, for the hurry and bustle of life has become too great to allow of anything but the passing thought being committed to paper, and each writer finds it to be useless to tell news to a correspondent who has already learned what has happened from the same source as himself. It is now frequently a shorter operation to call upon your friend and talk with him than to write him a long letter; but it is a happy thing for us of this day that this was not always the case, for the letters of the past which we possess form one of the most charming branches of our lighter literature.
The value of communication between persons in distant places was appreciated in very early times; and we find Job exclaiming, 'Now my days are swifter than a post.' In the days of Hezekiah 'the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah,' and Ahasuerus sent letters into every province of his empire by 'the posts that rode upon mules and camels,' and were 'hastened and pressed on by the king's commandment,' to inform his subjects that it was his imperial will that every man should bear rule in his own house. Various modes of communication other than writing have at different times been in use, such as numerically marked or notched pieces of wood, and the many-coloured cords, regularly knotted, which were calledquipusby the Peruvians. Herodotus tells us of a cruel practice resorted to, in order to convey secret intelligence with safety. The head of a trusty messenger wasshaved, and certain writings were impressed upon his skull. After his hair had grown sufficiently long for the purposes of concealment he was sent on his mission, and on arriving at his destination was again shaved, in order that the writing might be revealed. When the Spaniards visited America they found the postal communication in Mexico and Peru to be carried out on a most perfect system; and we learn that the couriers of the Aztecs wore a differently coloured dress, according as they brought good or bad tidings.
The establishment of a postal system in England is chiefly due to the sagacity of Richard III., who commanded the expedition against the Scots, in his brother Edward's reign. During this time, as it was necessary for the king and his government to know how the war was carried on, stages of about twenty miles each were established upon the North road. When Richard came to the throne he did not allow this system to fall into abeyance. Henry VIII. instituted the office of 'Master of the Postes,' and from his time to the present the Post Office has increased in importance year by year. Henry Bishop was appointed Postmaster-General at the Restoration, on his entering into a contract to pay to Government the annual sum of £21,500. In Queen Anne's reign the revenue of the Post Office had risen to £60,000; in 1761 it reached £142,000; in 1800 £745,000; in 1813 £1,414,224, and is now between four and five millions sterling.
Much of this great increase in the revenue is owing to the various improvements that have been introduced; and most of these have come from without, and have been opposed by the officials. John Palmer had great difficulty in obtaining the adoption of his scheme of mail coaches, and Sir Rowland Hill battled for many years for his penny postage. Thomas Waghorn, the hero of the Overland Route, was originally a pilot in the service of the Hon. East India Company, and came to England with a letter of introduction from the Governor-General to the chairman of the Company. The chairman cared nothing for his scheme, and told him to return to his duties in India, saying that the East India Company were quite satisfied with the postal communication as conductedviâthe Cape of Good Hope. Waghorn left the room, disgusted with his reception, and wrote the following laconic note in the hall:—
'To John Harvey Astell, Esq., M.P., Chairman of the Hon. East India Company.'Sir,—I this day resign my employment as a pilot in the Hon. East India Company's Bengal Marine Service, and have the honour to remain, your obedient servant,'Thomas Waghorn.'
'To John Harvey Astell, Esq., M.P., Chairman of the Hon. East India Company.
'Sir,—I this day resign my employment as a pilot in the Hon. East India Company's Bengal Marine Service, and have the honour to remain, your obedient servant,
'Thomas Waghorn.'
With the ink scarcely dry he rushed into the august presence, and delivering his letter, said, 'There, sir, is my resignation of my position in the Company's service, and I tell you, John Harvey Astell, Esq., member of Parliament, and chairman of the Hon. East India Company, that I will stuff the Overland Route down your throat before you are two years older.'[58]
It was very long before the present enlightened views of cheap postage took root in the official mind, and in a tract, entitled 'England's Wants,' reprinted in 'Somers's Tracts' (vol. ix. p. 219), letters are among the objects proposed for taxation. When the cost of postage was high the receiver expected to get his money's worth in a long letter, but various tricks were often resorted to in order to save this cost, and blank letters, with a cipher on the outside, were sometimes sent, and refused by the persons to whom they were directed, because they had learnt from the exterior all that they wanted to know. Another trick discovers an ingenious mode of getting letters free. A shrewd countryman, learning that there was a letter for him at the post office, called for it, but confessing that he could not read, requested the postmaster to open it, and let him know the contents. When he had obtained all the information he required, he politely thanked the official for his kindness, and drily observed, 'When I have some change I will come and take it.' The doctrine of the inviolability of letters is held by all persons of honour, and Cicero asks 'who at all influenced by good habits and feelings has ever allowed himself to resent an affront or injury by exposing to others any letters received from the offending person during their intercourse of friendship?' Nevertheless, all Governments have reserved to themselves the right of opening, in time of emergency, the letters that pass through their hands. The great Falkland would not countenance any such dishonourable doctrine, and Lord Clarendon says of him, 'One thing Lord Falkland could never bring himself to, while Secretary of State, and that was the liberty of opening letters upon suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous consequence, which he thought such a violation of the law of nature that no qualification of office could justify him in the trespass.' In late years Sir James Graham incurred much public odium, forallowing the letters of Mazzini to be opened as they passed through the English post.
The history of literature presents us with many specimens of beautiful letters, and of continued correspondence of a high order. The French, more especially, excel in this charming department of thebelles lettres, and can claim a De Sevigné and a Du Deffand; while we too can boast of the possession of Walpole, Gray, and Cowper among the men, and of Lady Russell and Lady Mary Montagu among the ladies. Good letters should be like good conversation, easy and unrestrained, for fine writing is as out of place in the one as fine talk is in the other. Pope did not understand this, and his early letters are showy and unnatural, full of rhetorical flourishes on trivialities. He was in the habit of keeping rough copies of his own letters, and sometimes repeated the same letter to different persons, as in the case of the two lovers killed by lightning, an account of which he sent to the two sisters Martha and Theresa Blount. His letters, therefore, are of little more interest than those of Katherine Phillips, the matchless Orinda, to her grave Poliarchus (Sir Charles Cottrel). Dr. Sprat, in his life of Cowley, makes some judicious remarks upon this subject, but draws the conclusion that familiar letters should not be published to the world.
'There was (he says), one kind of prose wherein Mr. Cowley was excellent; and that is his letters to his private friends. In those he always expressed the native tenderness and innocent gaiety of his mind. I think, sir, you and I have the greatest collection of this sort. But I know you agree with me that nothing of this sort should be published; and herein you have always consented to approve of the modest judgment of our countrymen above the practice of some of our neighbours, and chiefly of the French. I make no manner of question but the English at this time are infinitely improved in this way above the skill of former ages. Yet they have been always judiciously sparing in printing such composures, while some other witty nations have tried all their presses and readers with them. The truth is, the letters that pass between particular friends, if they are written as they ought to be, can scarce ever be fit to see the light. They should not consist of fulsome compliments, or tedious politics, or elaborate elegancies, or general fancies, but they should have a native clearness and shortness, a domestical plainness, and a peculiar kind of familiarity which can only affect the humour of those for whom they were intended. The very same passages which make writings of this nature delightful among friends will lose all manner of taste when they come to be read by those that are indifferent. In such letters the souls of men should appear undressed; and in that negligent habit they may be fit to be seen by one or two in a chamber, but not to go abroad in the street.'
The letters of Scott, Byron, Southey, and Burns—all thoroughly different in style—keep up the character of the moderns, and show that they understood the secret of the art.
Letter-writing has a special charm for shy, retiring men, because they are able to exhibit upon paper the feelings and emotions about which they could not speak. Some men seem able to think only when a pen is in their hands; though others, in the same situation, seem to lose all their ideas. Johnson said of the industrious Dr. Birch, 'Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation, but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him and benumbs all his faculties.' Dr. French Lawrence was an instance of the exact reverse, for Fox made him put on paper what he wanted to relate, saying, 'I love to read your writing, but I hate to hear you talk.'
Sir James Mackintosh was a great admirer of Madame de Sevigné, and we find in his works the following admirable remarks on the proper tone for polite conversation and familiar letters. We doubt whether it would be possible to find juster or finer thoughts on this subject, expressed in more elegant language:—
'When a woman of feeling, fancy, and accomplishment has learned to converse with ease and grace, from long intercourse with the most polished society, and when she writes as she speaks, she must write letters as they ought to be written, if she has acquired just as much habitual correctness as is reconcilable with the air of negligence. A moment of enthusiasm, a burst of feeling, a flash of eloquence may be allowed, but the intercourse of society, either in conversation or in letters, allows no more. Though interdicted from the long continued use of elevated language, they are not without a resource. There is a part of language which is disdained by the pedant or the declaimer, and which both if they knew its difficulty would dread; it is formed of the most familiar phrases and turns in daily use by the generality of men, and is full of energy and vivacity, bearing upon it the mark of those keen feelings and strong passions from which it springs. It is the employment of such phrases which produces what may be called colloquial eloquence. Conversation and letters may be thus raised to any degree of animation without departing from their character. Anything may be said, if it be spoken in the tone of society; the highest guests are welcome, if they come in the easy undress of the club; the strongest metaphor appears without violence, if it is familiarly expressed; and we the more easily catch the warmest feeling, if we perceive that it is intentionally lowered in expression out of condescensionto our calmer temper. It is thus that harangues and declamations, the last proof of bad taste and bad manners in conversation, are avoided, while the fancy and the heart find the means of pouring forth all their stores. To meet this despised part of language in a polished dress, and producing all the effects of wit and eloquence, is a constant source of agreeable surprise. This is increased when a few bolder and higher words are happily wrought into the texture of this familiar eloquence. To find what seems so unlike author-craft in a book, raises the pleasing astonishment to the highest degree. I once thought of illustrating my notions by numerous examples from "La Sevigné." I must some day or other do so, though I think it the resource of a bungler, who is not enough master of language to convey his conceptions into the minds of others. The style of Madame de Sevigné is evidently copied, not only by her worshipper, Walpole, but even by Gray, who, notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his matter, has the double stiffness of an imitator and of a college recluse. Letters must not be on a subject. Lady Mary Wortley's letters on her journey to Constantinople are an admirable book of travels, but they are not letters. A meeting to discuss a question of science is not conversation; nor are papers written to another, to inform or discuss, letters. Conversation is relaxation not business, and must never appear to be occupation, nor must letters. Judging from my own mind, I am satisfied of the falsehood of the common notion that these letters owe their principal interest to the anecdotes of the court of Louis XIV. A very small part of the letters consist of such anecdotes. Those who read them with this idea must complain of too much Grignan. I may now own that I was a little tired during the two first volumes. I was not quite charmed and bewitched till the middle of the collection, where there are fewer anecdotes of the great and famous. I felt that the fascination grew as I became a member of the Sevigné family; it arose from the history of the immortal mother and the adored daughter, and it increased as I knew them in more detail; just as my tears in the dying chamber of Clarissa depend on my having so often drank tea with her in those early volumes, which are so audaciously called dull by the profane vulgar. I do not pretend to say that they do not owe some secondary interest to the illustrious age in which they were written; but this depends merely on its tendency to heighten the dignity of the heroine, and to make us take a warmer concern in persons who were the friends of those celebrated men and women, who are familiar to us from our childhood.'
A French writer has said, 'les marins ecrivent mal;' but the gallant admiral, Lord Collingwood, whose correspondence was published in 1828, was a brilliant exception to this rash assertion. The following letter, addressed to the Honourable Miss Collingwood, is dated July 1809, and shows that its writer, in the midst of his manifold duties as a sailor, found time to direct the education of his children.
'I received your letter, my dearest child, and it made me very happy to find that you and dear Mary are well, and taking pains with your education. The greatest pleasure I have amidst my toils and troubles is in the expectation which I entertain of finding you improved in knowledge, and that the understanding which it has pleased God to give you both has been cultivated with care and assiduity. Your future happiness and respectability in the world depend on the diligence with which you apply to the attainment of knowledge at this period of your life, and I hope that no negligence of our own will be a bar to your progress. When I write to you, my beloved child, so much interested am I that you should be amiable and worthy the esteem of good and wise people, that I cannot forbear to second and enforce the instruction which you receive by admonition of my own, pointing out to you the great advantages that will result from a temperate conduct and sweetness of manner to all people, on all occasions. It does not follow that you are to coincide and agree in opinion with every ill-judging person; but after showing them your reason for dissenting from their opinion, your argument and opposition to it should not be tinctured by anything offensive. Never forget for one moment that you are a gentlewoman, and all your words and all your actions should mark you gentle. I never knew your mother—your dear, your good mother—say a harsh or hasty thing to any person in my life. Endeavour to imitate her. I am quick and hasty in my temper, my sensibility is touched sometimes with a trifle, and my expression of it sudden as gunpowder; but, my darling, it is a misfortune which, not having been sufficiently restrained in my youth, has caused me much pain. It has, indeed, given me more trouble to subdue this natural impetuosity than anything I ever undertook. I believe that you are both mild; but if you ever feel in your little breasts that you inherit a particle of your father's infirmity, restrain it, and quit the subject that has caused it until your serenity be recovered. So much for mind and manners; next for accomplishments. No sportsman ever hits a partridge without aiming at it, and skill is acquired by repeated attempts. It is the same thing in every art; unless you aim at perfection you will never attain it, but frequent attempts will make it easy. Never, therefore, do anything with indifference. Whether it be to mend a rent in your garment or finish the most delicate piece of art, endeavour to do it as perfectly as it is possible. When you write a letter give it to your greatest care, that it may be as perfect in all its parts as you can make it. Let the subject be sense, expressed in the most plain, intelligible, and elegant manner that you are capable of. If in a familiar epistle you should be playful and jocular, guard carefully that your wit be not sharp, so as to give pain to any person; and before you write a sentence examine it, even the words ofwhich it is composed, that there be nothing vulgar or inelegant in them. Remember, my dear, that your letter is the picture of your brains; and those whose brains are a compound of folly, nonsense, and impertinence are to blame to exhibit them to the contempt of the world, or the pity of their friends. To write a letter with negligence, without proper stops, with crooked lines and great flourishing dashes, is inelegant. It argues either great ignorance of what is proper, or great indifference towards the person to whom it is addressed, and is consequently disrespectful. It makes no amends to add an apology for having scrawled a sheet of paper, for bad pens, for you should mend them; or want of time, for nothing is more important to you, or to which your time can be more properly devoted. I think I can know the character of a lady pretty nearly by her handwriting. The dashers are all impudent, however they may conceal it from themselves or others; and the scribblers flatter themselves with the vain hope that, as their letter cannot be read, it may be mistaken for sense. I am very anxious to come to England; for I have lately been unwell. The greatest happiness which I expect there is to find that my dear girls have been assiduous in their learning. May God Almighty bless you, my beloved little Sarah, and sweet Mary too.'
Having seen from the foregoing extracts the principles that should govern the composition of familiar letters, we shall be better able to judge of the merits or demerits of the specimens that follow; and we will take this opportunity of saying that we have preferred to choose our examples from little known sources, rather than from such well-known volumes as the correspondences of Walpole, Gray, or Cowper. The celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Carter was much troubled by one of her most intimate and early friends always writing to her in terms of great respect. In order to show her correspondent the absurdity of her conduct, and to obtain an easier kind of intercommunication, she wrote the following letter:—