All this being laid down, the only thing remaining to settle chronology is to see through what star the colure of the equinoxes passes, and where it intersects at this time the ecliptic in the spring; and to discover whether some ancient writer does not tell us in what point the ecliptic was intersected in his time, by the same colure of the equinoxes.
Clemens Alexandrinus informs us, that Chiron, who went with the Argonauts, observed the constellations at the time of that famous expedition, and fixed the vernal equinox to the middle of the Ram; the autumnal equinox to the middle of Libra; our summer solstice to the middle of Cancer, and our winter solstice to the middle of Capricorn.
A long time after the expedition of the Argonauts, and a year before the Peloponnesian war, Methon observed that the point of the summer solstice passed through the eighth degree of Cancer.
Now every sign of the zodiac contains thirty degrees. In Chiron’s time, the solstice was arrived at the middle of the sign, that is to say to the fifteenth degree. A year before the Peloponnesian war it was at the eighth, and therefore it had retarded seven degrees. A degree is equivalent to seventy-two years; consequently, from the beginning of the Peloponnesian war to the expedition of the Argonauts, there is no more than an interval of seven times seventy-two years, which make five hundred and four years, and not seven hundred years as the Greeks computed. Thus in comparing the position of the heavens at this time with their position in that age, we find that the expedition of the Argonauts ought to be placed about nine hundred years before Christ, and not about fourteen hundred; and consequently that the world is not so old by five hundred years as it was generally supposed to be. By this calculation all the eras are drawn nearer, and the several events are found to have happened later than is computed. I do not know whether this ingenious system will be favourably received; and whether these notions will prevail so far with the learned, as to prompt them to reform the chronology of the world. Perhaps these gentlemen would think it too great a condescension to allow one and the same man the glory of having improved natural philosophy, geometry, and history. This would be a kind of universal monarchy, with which the principle of self-love that is in man will scarce suffer him to indulge his fellow-creature; and, indeed, at the same time that some very great philosophers attacked Sir Isaac Newton’s attractive principle, others fell upon his chronological system. Time that should discover to which of these the victory is due, may perhaps only leave the dispute still more undetermined.
The English as well as the Spaniards were possessed of theatres at a time when the French had no more than moving, itinerant stages. Shakspeare, who was considered as the Corneille of the first-mentioned nation, was pretty nearly contemporary with Lopez de Vega, and he created, as it were, the English theatre. Shakspeare boasted a strong fruitful genius. He was natural and sublime, but had not so much as a single spark of good taste, or knew one rule of the drama. I will now hazard a random, but, at the same time, true reflection, which is, that the great merit of this dramatic poet has been the ruin of the English stage. There are such beautiful, such noble, such dreadful scenes in this writer’s monstrous farces, to which the name of tragedy is given, that they have always been exhibited with great success. Time, which alone gives reputation to writers, at last makes their very faults venerable. Most of the whimsical gigantic images of this poet, have, through length of time (it being a hundred and fifty years since they were first drawn) acquired a right of passing for sublime. Most of the modern dramatic writers have copied him; but the touches and descriptions which are applauded in Shakspeare, are hissed at in these writers; and you will easily believe that the veneration in which this author is held, increases in proportion to the contempt which is shown to the moderns. Dramatic writers don’t consider that they should not imitate him; and the ill-success of Shakspeare’s imitators produces no other effect, than to make him be considered as inimitable. You remember that in the tragedy ofOthello, Moor of Venice, a most tender piece, a man strangles his wife on the stage, and that the poor woman, whilst she is strangling, cries aloud that she dies very unjustly. You know that inHamlet, Prince of Denmark, two grave-diggers make a grave, and are all the time drinking, singing ballads, and making humorous reflections (natural indeed enough to persons of their profession) on the several skulls they throw up with their spades; but a circumstance which will surprise you is, that this ridiculous incident has been imitated. In the reign of King Charles II., which was that of politeness, and the Golden Age of the liberal arts; Otway, in hisVenice Preserved, introduces Antonio the senator, and Naki, his courtesan, in the midst of the horrors of the Marquis of Bedemar’s conspiracy. Antonio, the superannuated senator plays, in his mistress’s presence, all the apish tricks of a lewd, impotent debauchee, who is quite frantic and out of his senses. He mimics a bull and a dog, and bites his mistress’s legs, who kicks and whips him. However, the players have struck these buffooneries (which indeed were calculated merely for the dregs of the people) out of Otway’s tragedy; but they have still left in Shakspeare’sJulius Cæsarthe jokes of the Roman shoemakers and cobblers, who are introduced in the same scene with Brutus and Cassius. You will undoubtedly complain, that those who have hitherto discoursed with you on the English stage, and especially on the celebrated Shakspeare, have taken notice only of his errors; and that no one has translated any of those strong, those forcible passages which atone for all his faults. But to this I will answer, that nothing is easier than to exhibit in prose all the silly impertinences which a poet may have thrown out; but that it is a very difficult task to translate his fine verses. All your junior academical sophs, who set up for censors of the eminent writers, compile whole volumes; but methinks two pages which display some of the beauties of great geniuses, are of infinitely more value than all the idle rhapsodies of those commentators; and I will join in opinion with all persons of good taste in declaring, that greater advantage may be reaped from a dozen verses of Homer of Virgil, than from all the critiques put together which have been made on those two great poets.
I have ventured to translate some passages of the most celebrated English poets, and shall now give you one from Shakspeare. Pardon the blemishes of the translation for the sake of the original; and remember always that when you see a version, you see merely a faint print of a beautiful picture. I have made choice of part of the celebrated soliloquy inHamlet, which you may remember is as follows:—
“To be, or not to be? that is the question!Whether ’t is nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing, end them? To die! to sleep!No more! and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to! ’Tis a consummationDevoutly to be wished. To die! to sleep!To sleep; perchance to dream! O, there’s the rub;For in that sleep of death, what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause. There’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life:For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor’s wrong, the poor man’s contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin. Who would fardels bearTo groan and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country, from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we have,Than fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought:And enterprises of great weight and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action—”
“To be, or not to be? that is the question!Whether ’t is nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing, end them? To die! to sleep!No more! and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to! ’Tis a consummationDevoutly to be wished. To die! to sleep!To sleep; perchance to dream! O, there’s the rub;For in that sleep of death, what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause. There’s the respectThat makes calamity of so long life:For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor’s wrong, the poor man’s contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin. Who would fardels bearTo groan and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscovered country, from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we have,Than fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought:And enterprises of great weight and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action—”
My version of it runs thus:—
“Demeure, il faut choisir et passer à l’instantDe la vie, à la mort, ou de l’être au neant.Dieux cruels, s’il en est, éclairez mon courage.Faut-il vieillir courbé sous la main qui m’outrage,Supporter, ou finir mon malheur et mon sort?Qui suis je? Qui m’arrête! et qu’est-ce que la mort?C’est la fin de nos maux, c’est mon unique asileAprès de longs transports, c’est un sommeil tranquile.On s’endort, et tout meurt, mais un affreux reveilDoit succeder peut être aux douceurs du sommeil!On nous menace, on dit que cette courte vie,De tourmens éternels est aussi-tôt suivie.O mort! moment fatal! affreuse eternité!Tout coeur à ton seul nom se glace épouvanté.Eh! qui pourroit sans toi supporter cette vie,De nos prêtres menteurs benir l’hypocrisie:D’une indigne maitresse encenser les erreurs,Ramper sous un ministre, adorer ses hauteurs;Et montrer les langueurs de son ame abattüe,A des amis ingrats qui detournent la vüe?La mort seroit trop douce en ces extrémitez,Mais le scrupule parle, et nous crie, arrêtez;Il defend à nos mains cet heureux homicideEt d’un heros guerrier, fait un Chrétien timide,” &c.
“Demeure, il faut choisir et passer à l’instantDe la vie, à la mort, ou de l’être au neant.Dieux cruels, s’il en est, éclairez mon courage.Faut-il vieillir courbé sous la main qui m’outrage,Supporter, ou finir mon malheur et mon sort?Qui suis je? Qui m’arrête! et qu’est-ce que la mort?C’est la fin de nos maux, c’est mon unique asileAprès de longs transports, c’est un sommeil tranquile.On s’endort, et tout meurt, mais un affreux reveilDoit succeder peut être aux douceurs du sommeil!On nous menace, on dit que cette courte vie,De tourmens éternels est aussi-tôt suivie.O mort! moment fatal! affreuse eternité!Tout coeur à ton seul nom se glace épouvanté.Eh! qui pourroit sans toi supporter cette vie,De nos prêtres menteurs benir l’hypocrisie:D’une indigne maitresse encenser les erreurs,Ramper sous un ministre, adorer ses hauteurs;Et montrer les langueurs de son ame abattüe,A des amis ingrats qui detournent la vüe?La mort seroit trop douce en ces extrémitez,Mais le scrupule parle, et nous crie, arrêtez;Il defend à nos mains cet heureux homicideEt d’un heros guerrier, fait un Chrétien timide,” &c.
Do not imagine that I have translated Shakspeare in a servile manner. Woe to the writer who gives a literal version; who by rendering every word of his original, by that very means enervates the sense, and extinguishes all the fire of it. It is on such an occasion one may justly affirm, that the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens.
Here follows another passage copied from a celebrated tragic writer among the English. It is Dryden, a poet in the reign of Charles II.—a writer whose genius was too exuberant, and not accompanied with judgment enough. Had he written only a tenth part of the works he left behind him, his character would have been conspicuous in every part; but his great fault is his having endeavoured to be universal.
The passage in question is as follows:—
“When I consider life, ’t is all a cheat,Yet fooled by hope, men favour the deceit;Trust on and think, to-morrow will repay;To-morrow’s falser than the former day;Lies more; and whilst it says we shall be blestWith some new joy, cuts off what we possessed;Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain,And from the dregs of life think to receiveWhat the first sprightly running could not give.I’m tired with waiting for this chymic gold,Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.”
“When I consider life, ’t is all a cheat,Yet fooled by hope, men favour the deceit;Trust on and think, to-morrow will repay;To-morrow’s falser than the former day;Lies more; and whilst it says we shall be blestWith some new joy, cuts off what we possessed;Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain,And from the dregs of life think to receiveWhat the first sprightly running could not give.I’m tired with waiting for this chymic gold,Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.”
I shall now give you my translation:—
“De desseins en regrets et d’erreurs en desirsLes mortals insensés promenent leur folie.Dans des malheurs presents, dans l’espoir des plaisirsNous ne vivons jamais, nous attendons la vie.Demain, demain, dit-on, va combler tous nos voeux.Demain vient, et nous laisse encore plus malheureux.Quelle est l’erreur, helas! du soin qui nous dévore,Nul de nous ne voudroit recommencer son cours.De nos premiers momens nous maudissons l’aurore,Et de la nuit qui vient nous attendons encore,Ce qu’ont en vain promis les plus beaux de nos jours,” &c.
“De desseins en regrets et d’erreurs en desirsLes mortals insensés promenent leur folie.Dans des malheurs presents, dans l’espoir des plaisirsNous ne vivons jamais, nous attendons la vie.Demain, demain, dit-on, va combler tous nos voeux.Demain vient, et nous laisse encore plus malheureux.Quelle est l’erreur, helas! du soin qui nous dévore,Nul de nous ne voudroit recommencer son cours.De nos premiers momens nous maudissons l’aurore,Et de la nuit qui vient nous attendons encore,Ce qu’ont en vain promis les plus beaux de nos jours,” &c.
It is in these detached passages that the English have hitherto excelled. Their dramatic pieces, most of which are barbarous and without decorum, order, or verisimilitude, dart such resplendent flashes through this gleam, as amaze and astonish. The style is too much inflated, too unnatural, too closely copied from the Hebrew writers, who abound so much with the Asiatic fustian. But then it must be also confessed that the stilts of the figurative style, on which the English tongue is lifted up, raises the genius at the same time very far aloft, though with an irregular pace. The first English writer who composed a regular tragedy, and infused a spirit of elegance through every part of it, was the illustrious Mr. Addison. His “Cato” is a masterpiece, both with regard to the diction and to the beauty and harmony of the numbers. The character of Cato is, in my opinion, vastly superior to that of Cornelia in the “Pompey” of Corneille, for Cato is great without anything like fustian, and Cornelia, who besides is not a necessary character, tends sometimes to bombast. Mr. Addison’s Cato appears to me the greatest character that was ever brought upon any stage, but then the rest of them do not correspond to the dignity of it, and this dramatic piece, so excellently well writ, is disfigured by a dull love plot, which spreads a certain languor over the whole, that quite murders it.
The custom of introducing love at random and at any rate in the drama passed from Paris to London about 1660, with our ribbons and our perruques. The ladies who adorn the theatrical circle there, in like manner as in this city, will suffer love only to be the theme of every conversation. The judicious Mr. Addison had the effeminate complaisance to soften the severity of his dramatic character, so as to adapt it to the manners of the age, and, from an endeavour to please, quite ruined a masterpiece in its kind. Since his time the drama is become more regular, the audience more difficult to be pleased, and writers more correct and less bold. I have seen some new pieces that were written with great regularity, but which, at the same time, were very flat and insipid. One would think that the English had been hitherto formed to produce irregular beauties only. The shining monsters of Shakspeare give infinite more delight than the judicious images of the moderns. Hitherto the poetical genius of the English resembles a tufted tree planted by the hand of Nature, that throws out a thousand branches at random, and spreads unequally, but with great vigour. It dies if you attempt to force its nature, and to lop and dress it in the same manner as the trees of the Garden of Marli.
I am surprised that the judicious and ingenious Mr. de Muralt, who has published some letters on the English and French nations, should have confined himself; in treating of comedy, merely to censure Shadwell the comic writer. This author was had in pretty great contempt in Mr. de Muralt’s time, and was not the poet of the polite part of the nation. His dramatic pieces, which pleased some time in acting, were despised by all persons of taste, and might be compared to many plays which I have seen in France, that drew crowds to the playhouse, at the same time that they were intolerable to read; and of which it might be said, that the whole city of Paris exploded them, and yet all flocked to see them represented on the stage. Methinks Mr. de Muralt should have mentioned an excellent comic writer (living when he was in England), I mean Mr. Wycherley, who was a long time known publicly to be happy in the good graces of the most celebrated mistress of King Charles II. This gentleman, who passed his life among persons of the highest distinction, was perfectly well acquainted with their lives and their follies, and painted them with the strongest pencil, and in the truest colours. He has drawn a misanthrope or man-hater, in imitation of that of Molière. All Wycherley’s strokes are stronger and bolder than those of our misanthrope, but then they are less delicate, and the rules of decorum are not so well observed in this play. The English writer has corrected the only defect that is in Molière’s comedy, the thinness of the plot, which also is so disposed that the characters in it do not enough raise our concern. The English comedy affects us, and the contrivance of the plot is very ingenious, but at the same time it is too bold for the French manners. The fable is this:—A captain of a man-of-war, who is very brave, open-hearted, and inflamed with a spirit of contempt for all mankind, has a prudent, sincere friend, whom he yet is suspicious of; and a mistress that loves him with the utmost excess of passion. The captain so far from returning her love, will not even condescend to look upon her, but confides entirely in a false friend, who is the most worthless wretch living. At the same time he has given his heart to a creature, who is the greatest coquette and the most perfidious of her sex, and he is so credulous as to be confident she is a Penelope, and his false friend a Cato. He embarks on board his ship in order to go and fight the Dutch, having left all his money, his jewels, and everything he had in the world to this virtuous creature, whom at the same time he recommends to the care of his supposed faithful friend. Nevertheless the real man of honour, whom he suspects so unaccountably, goes on board the ship with him, and the mistress, on whom he would not bestow so much as one glance, disguises herself in the habit of a page, and is with him the whole voyage, without his once knowing that she is of a sex different from that she attempts to pass for, which, by the way, is not over natural.
The captain having blown up his own ship in an engagement, returns to England abandoned and undone, accompanied by his page and his friend, without knowing the friendship of the one or the tender passion of the other. Immediately he goes to the jewel among women, who he expected had preserved her fidelity to him and the treasure he had left in her hands. He meets with her indeed, but married to the honest knave in whom he had reposed so much confidence, and finds she had acted as treacherously with regard to the casket he had entrusted her with. The captain can scarce think it possible that a woman of virtue and honour can act so vile a part; but to convince him still more of the reality of it, this very worthy lady falls in love with the little page, and will force him to her embraces. But as it is requisite justice should be done, and that in a dramatic piece virtue ought to be rewarded and vice punished, it is at last found that the captain takes his page’s place, and lies with his faithless mistress, cuckolds his treacherous friend, thrusts his sword through his body, recovers his casket, and marries his page. You will observe that this play is also larded with a petulant, litigious old woman (a relation of the captain), who is the most comical character that was ever brought upon the stage.
Wycherley has also copied from Molière another play, of as singular and bold a cast, which is a kind ofEcole des Femmes, or,School for Married Women.
The principal character in this comedy is one Homer, a sly fortune hunter, and the terror of all the City husbands. This fellow, in order to play a surer game, causes a report to be spread, that in his last illness, the surgeons had found it necessary to have him made a eunuch. Upon his appearing in this noble character, all the husbands in town flock to him with their wives, and now poor Homer is only puzzled about his choice. However, he gives the preference particularly to a little female peasant, a very harmless, innocent creature, who enjoys a fine flush of health, and cuckolds her husband with a simplicity that has infinitely more merit than the witty malice of the most experienced ladies. This play cannot indeed be called the school of good morals, but it is certainly the school of wit and true humour.
Sir John Vanbrugh has written several comedies, which are more humorous than those of Mr. Wycherley, but not so ingenious. Sir John was a man of pleasure, and likewise a poet and an architect. The general opinion is, that he is as sprightly in his writings as he is heavy in his buildings. It is he who raised the famous Castle of Blenheim, a ponderous and lasting monument of our unfortunate Battle of Hochstet. Were the apartments but as spacious as the walls are thick, this castle would be commodious enough. Some wag, in an epitaph he made on Sir John Vanbrugh, has these lines:—
“Earth lie light on him, for heLaid many a heavy load on thee.”
“Earth lie light on him, for heLaid many a heavy load on thee.”
Sir John having taken a tour into France before the glorious war that broke out in 1701, was thrown into the Bastille, and detained there for some time, without being ever able to discover the motive which had prompted our ministry to indulge him with this mark of their distinction. He wrote a comedy during his confinement; and a circumstance which appears to me very extraordinary is, that we don’t meet with so much as a single satirical stroke against the country in which he had been so injuriously treated.
The late Mr. Congreve raised the glory of comedy to a greater height than any English writer before or since his time. He wrote only a few plays, but they are all excellent in their kind. The laws of the drama are strictly observed in them; they abound with characters all which are shadowed with the utmost delicacy, and we don’t meet with so much as one low or coarse jest. The language is everywhere that of men of honour, but their actions are those of knaves—a proof that he was perfectly well acquainted with human nature, and frequented what we call polite company. He was infirm and come to the verge of life when I knew him. Mr. Congreve had one defect, which was his entertaining too mean an idea of his first profession (that of a writer), though it was to this he owed his fame and fortune. He spoke of his works as of trifles that were beneath him; and hinted to me, in our first conversation, that I should visit him upon no other footing than that of a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity. I answered, that had he been so unfortunate as to be a mere gentleman, I should never have come to see him; and I was very much disgusted at so unseasonable a piece of vanity.
Mr. Congreve’s comedies are the most witty and regular, those of Sir John Vanbrugh most gay and humorous, and those of Mr. Wycherley have the greatest force and spirit. It may be proper to observe that these fine geniuses never spoke disadvantageously of Molière; and that none but the contemptible writers among the English have endeavoured to lessen the character of that great comic poet. Such Italian musicians as despise Lully are themselves persons of no character or ability; but a Buononcini esteems that great artist, and does justice to his merit.
The English have some other good comic writers living, such as Sir Richard Steele and Mr. Cibber, who is an excellent player, and also Poet Laureate—a title which, how ridiculous soever it may be thought, is yet worth a thousand crowns a year (besides some considerable privileges) to the person who enjoys it. Our illustrious Corneille had not so much.
To conclude. Don’t desire me to descend to particulars with regard to these English comedies, which I am so fond of applauding; nor to give you a single smart saying or humorous stroke from Wycherley or Congreve. We don’t laugh in rending a translation. If you have a mind to understand the English comedy, the only way to do this will be for you to go to England, to spend three years in London, to make yourself master of the English tongue, and to frequent the playhouse every night. I receive but little pleasure from the perusal of Aristophanes and Plautus, and for this reason, because I am neither a Greek nor a Roman. The delicacy of the humour, the allusion, theà propos—all these are lost to a foreigner.
But it is different with respect to tragedy, this treating only of exalted passions and heroical follies, which the antiquated errors of fable or history have made sacred. Œdipus, Electra, and such-like characters, may with as much propriety be treated of by the Spaniards, the English, or us, as by the Greeks. But true comedy is the speaking picture of the follies and ridiculous foibles of a nation; so that he only is able to judge of the painting who is perfectly acquainted with the people it represents.
There once was a time in France when the polite arts were cultivated by persons of the highest rank in the state. The courtiers particularly were conversant in them, although indolence, a taste for trifles, and a passion for intrigue, were the divinities of the country. The Court methinks at this time seems to have given into a taste quite opposite to that of polite literature, but perhaps the mode of thinking may be revived in a little time. The French are of so flexible a disposition, may be moulded into such a variety of shapes, that the monarch needs but command and he is immediately obeyed. The English generally think, and learning is had in greater honour among them than in our country—an advantage that results naturally from the form of their government. There are about eight hundred persons in England who have a right to speak in public, and to support the interest of the kingdom; and near five or six thousand may in their turns aspire to the same honour. The whole nation set themselves up as judges over these, and every man has the liberty of publishing his thoughts with regard to public affairs, which shows that all the people in general are indispensably obliged to cultivate their understandings. In England the governments of Greece and Rome are the subject of every conversation, so that every man is under a necessity of perusing such authors as treat of them, how disagreeable soever it may be to him; and this study leads naturally to that of polite literature. Mankind in general speak well in their respective professions. What is the reason why our magistrates, our lawyers, our physicians, and a great number of the clergy, are abler scholars, have a finer taste, and more wit, than persons of all other professions? The reason is, because their condition of life requires a cultivated and enlightened mind, in the same manner as a merchant is obliged to be acquainted with his traffic. Not long since an English nobleman, who was very young, came to see me at Paris on his return from Italy. He had written a poetical description of that country, which, for delicacy and politeness, may vie with anything we meet with in the Earl of Rochester, or in our Chaulieu, our Sarrasin, or Chapelle. The translation I have given of it is so inexpressive of the strength and delicate humour of the original, that I am obliged seriously to ask pardon of the author and of all who understand English. However, as this is the only method I have to make his lordship’s verses known, I shall here present you with them in our tongue:—
“Qu’ay je donc vû dans l’Italie?Orgueil, astuce, et pauvreté,Grands complimens, peu de bontéEt beaucoup de ceremonie.“L’extravagante comedieQue souvent l’InquisitionVent qu’on nomme religionMais qu’ici nous nommons folie.“La Nature en vain bienfaisanteVent enricher ses lieux charmans,Des prêtres la main desolanteEtouffe ses plus beaux présens.“Les monsignors, soy disant Grands,Seuls dans leurs palais magnifiquesY sont d’illustres faineants,Sans argent, et sans domestiques.“Pour les petits, sans liberté,Martyrs du joug qui les domine,Ils ont fait voeu de pauvreté,Priant Dieu par oisivetéEt toujours jeunant par famine.“Ces beaux lieux du Pape benisSemblent habitez par les diables;Et les habitans miserablesSont damnes dans le Paradis.”
“Qu’ay je donc vû dans l’Italie?Orgueil, astuce, et pauvreté,Grands complimens, peu de bontéEt beaucoup de ceremonie.
“L’extravagante comedieQue souvent l’InquisitionVent qu’on nomme religionMais qu’ici nous nommons folie.
“La Nature en vain bienfaisanteVent enricher ses lieux charmans,Des prêtres la main desolanteEtouffe ses plus beaux présens.
“Les monsignors, soy disant Grands,Seuls dans leurs palais magnifiquesY sont d’illustres faineants,Sans argent, et sans domestiques.
“Pour les petits, sans liberté,Martyrs du joug qui les domine,Ils ont fait voeu de pauvreté,Priant Dieu par oisivetéEt toujours jeunant par famine.
“Ces beaux lieux du Pape benisSemblent habitez par les diables;Et les habitans miserablesSont damnes dans le Paradis.”
The Earl of Rochester’s name is universally known. Mr. de St. Evremont has made very frequent mention of him, but then he has represented this famous nobleman in no other light than as the man of pleasure, as one who was the idol of the fair; but, with regard to myself, I would willingly describe in him the man of genius, the great poet. Among other pieces which display the shining imagination, his lordship only could boast he wrote some satires on the same subjects as those our celebrated Boileau made choice of. I do not know any better method of improving the taste than to compare the productions of such great geniuses as have exercised their talent on the same subject. Boileau declaims as follows against human reason in his “Satire on Man:”
“Cependant à le voir plein de vapeurs légeres,Soi-même se bercer de ses propres chimeres,Lui seul de la nature est la baze et l’appui,Et le dixieme ciel ne tourne que pour lui.De tous les animaux il est ici le maître;Qui pourroit le nier, poursuis tu? Moi peut-être.Ce maître prétendu qui leur donne des loix,Ce roi des animaux, combien a-t’il de rois?”“Yet, pleased with idle whimsies of his brain,And puffed with pride, this haughty thing would fainBe think himself the only stay and propThat holds the mighty frame of Nature up.The skies and stars his properties must seem,* * *Of all the creatures he’s the lord, he cries.* * *And who is there, say you, that dares denySo owned a truth? That may be, sir, do I.* * *This boasted monarch of the world who awesThe creatures here, and with his nod gives lawsThis self-named king, who thus pretends to beThe lord of all, how many lords has he?”OLDHAM,a little altered.
“Cependant à le voir plein de vapeurs légeres,Soi-même se bercer de ses propres chimeres,Lui seul de la nature est la baze et l’appui,Et le dixieme ciel ne tourne que pour lui.De tous les animaux il est ici le maître;Qui pourroit le nier, poursuis tu? Moi peut-être.Ce maître prétendu qui leur donne des loix,Ce roi des animaux, combien a-t’il de rois?”
“Yet, pleased with idle whimsies of his brain,And puffed with pride, this haughty thing would fainBe think himself the only stay and propThat holds the mighty frame of Nature up.The skies and stars his properties must seem,* * *Of all the creatures he’s the lord, he cries.* * *And who is there, say you, that dares denySo owned a truth? That may be, sir, do I.* * *This boasted monarch of the world who awesThe creatures here, and with his nod gives lawsThis self-named king, who thus pretends to beThe lord of all, how many lords has he?”
OLDHAM,a little altered.
The Lord Rochester expresses himself, in his “Satire against Man,” in pretty near the following manner. But I must first desire you always to remember that the versions I give you from the English poets are written with freedom and latitude, and that the restraint of our versification, and the delicacies of the French tongue, will not allow a translator to convey into it the licentious impetuosity and fire of the English numbers:—
“Cet esprit que je haïs, cet esprit plein d’erreur,Ce n’est pas ma raison, c’est la tienne, docteur.C’est la raison frivôle, inquiete, orgueilleuseDes sages animaux, rivale dédaigneuse,Qui croit entr’eux et l’Ange, occuper le milieu,Et pense être ici bas l’image de son Dieu.Vil atôme imparfait, qui croit, doute, disputeRampe, s’élève, tombe, et nie encore sa chûte,Qui nous dit je suis libre, en nous montrant ses fers,Et dont l’œil trouble et faux, croit percer l’univers.Allez, reverends fous, bienheureux fanatiques,Compilez bien l’amas de vos riens scholastiques,Pères de visions, et d’enigmes sacres,Auteurs du labirinthe, où vous vous égarez.Allez obscurement éclaircir vos mistères,Et courez dans l’école adorer vos chimères.Il est d’autres erreurs, il est de ces dévotsCondamné par eux mêmes à l’ennui du repos.Ce mystique encloîtré, fier de son indolenceTranquille, au sein de Dieu. Que peut il faire? Il pense.Non, tu ne penses point, misérable, tu dors:Inutile à la terre, et mis au rang des morts.Ton esprit énervé croupit dans la molesse.Reveille toi, sois homme, et sors de ton ivresse.L’homme est né pour agir, et tu pretens penser?” &c.
“Cet esprit que je haïs, cet esprit plein d’erreur,Ce n’est pas ma raison, c’est la tienne, docteur.C’est la raison frivôle, inquiete, orgueilleuseDes sages animaux, rivale dédaigneuse,Qui croit entr’eux et l’Ange, occuper le milieu,Et pense être ici bas l’image de son Dieu.Vil atôme imparfait, qui croit, doute, disputeRampe, s’élève, tombe, et nie encore sa chûte,Qui nous dit je suis libre, en nous montrant ses fers,Et dont l’œil trouble et faux, croit percer l’univers.Allez, reverends fous, bienheureux fanatiques,Compilez bien l’amas de vos riens scholastiques,Pères de visions, et d’enigmes sacres,Auteurs du labirinthe, où vous vous égarez.Allez obscurement éclaircir vos mistères,Et courez dans l’école adorer vos chimères.Il est d’autres erreurs, il est de ces dévotsCondamné par eux mêmes à l’ennui du repos.Ce mystique encloîtré, fier de son indolenceTranquille, au sein de Dieu. Que peut il faire? Il pense.Non, tu ne penses point, misérable, tu dors:Inutile à la terre, et mis au rang des morts.Ton esprit énervé croupit dans la molesse.Reveille toi, sois homme, et sors de ton ivresse.L’homme est né pour agir, et tu pretens penser?” &c.
The original runs thus:—
“Hold mighty man, I cry all this we know,And ’tis this very reason I despise,This supernatural gift that makes a miteThink he’s the image of the Infinite;Comparing his short life, void of all rest,To the eternal and the ever blest.This busy, puzzling stirrer up of doubt,That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out,Filling, with frantic crowds of thinking fools,Those reverend bedlams, colleges, and schools;Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierceThe limits of the boundless universe.So charming ointments make an old witch fly,And bear a crippled carcase through the sky.’Tis this exalted power, whose business liesIn nonsense and impossibilities.This made a whimsical philosopherBefore the spacious world his tub prefer;And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, whoRetire to think, ’cause they have naught to do.But thoughts are given for action’s government,Where action ceases, thought’s impertinent.”
“Hold mighty man, I cry all this we know,And ’tis this very reason I despise,This supernatural gift that makes a miteThink he’s the image of the Infinite;Comparing his short life, void of all rest,To the eternal and the ever blest.This busy, puzzling stirrer up of doubt,That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out,Filling, with frantic crowds of thinking fools,Those reverend bedlams, colleges, and schools;Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierceThe limits of the boundless universe.So charming ointments make an old witch fly,And bear a crippled carcase through the sky.’Tis this exalted power, whose business liesIn nonsense and impossibilities.This made a whimsical philosopherBefore the spacious world his tub prefer;And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, whoRetire to think, ’cause they have naught to do.But thoughts are given for action’s government,Where action ceases, thought’s impertinent.”
Whether these ideas are true or false, it is certain they are expressed with an energy and fire which form the poet. I shall be very far from attempting to examine philosophically into these verses, to lay down the pencil, and take up the rule and compass on this occasion; my only design in this letter being to display the genius of the English poets, and therefore I shall continue in the same view.
The celebrated Mr. Waller has been very much talked of in France, and Mr. De la Fontaine, St. Evremont, and Bayle have written his eulogium, but still his name only is known. He had much the same reputation in London as Voiture had in Paris, and in my opinion deserved it better. Voiture was born in an age that was just emerging from barbarity; an age that was still rude and ignorant, the people of which aimed at wit, though they had not the least pretensions to it, and sought for points and conceits instead of sentiments. Bristol stones are more easily found than diamonds. Voiture, born with an easy and frivolous, genius, was the first who shone in this aurora of French literature. Had he come into the world after those great geniuses who spread such a glory over the age of Louis XIV., he would either have been unknown, would have been despised, or would have corrected his style. Boileau applauded him, but it was in his first satires, at a time when the taste of that great poet was not yet formed. He was young, and in an age when persons form a judgment of men from their reputation, and not from their writings. Besides, Boileau was very partial both in his encomiums and his censures. He applauded Segrais, whose works nobody reads; he abused Quinault, whose poetical pieces every one has got by heart; and is wholly silent upon La Fontaine. Waller, though a better poet than Voiture, was not yet a finished poet. The graces breathe in such of Waller’s works as are writ in a tender strain; but then they are languid through negligence, and often disfigured with false thoughts. The English had not in his time attained the art of correct writing. But his serious compositions exhibit a strength and vigour which could not have been expected from the softness and effeminacy of his other pieces. He wrote an elegy on Oliver Cromwell, which, with all its faults, is nevertheless looked upon as a masterpiece. To understand this copy of verses you are to know that the day Oliver died was remarkable for a great storm. His poem begins in this manner:—
“Il n’est plus, s’en est fait, soumettons nous au sort,Le ciel a signalé ce jour par des tempêtes,Et la voix des tonnerres éclatant sur nos têtesVient d’annoncer sa mort.“Par ses derniers soupirs il ébranle cet île;Cet île que son bras fit trembler tant de fois,Quand dans le cours de ses exploits,Il brisoit la téte des Rois,Et soumettoit un peuple à son joug seul docile.“Mer tu t’en es troublé; O mer tes flots émusSemblent dire en grondant aux plus lointains rivagesQue l’effroi de la terre et ton maître n’est plus.“Tel au ciel autrefois s’envola Romulus,Tel il quitta la Terre, au milieu des orages,Tel d’un peuple guerrier il reçut les homages;Obéï dans sa vie, sa mort adoré,Son palais fut un Temple,” &c.
“Il n’est plus, s’en est fait, soumettons nous au sort,Le ciel a signalé ce jour par des tempêtes,Et la voix des tonnerres éclatant sur nos têtesVient d’annoncer sa mort.
“Par ses derniers soupirs il ébranle cet île;Cet île que son bras fit trembler tant de fois,Quand dans le cours de ses exploits,Il brisoit la téte des Rois,Et soumettoit un peuple à son joug seul docile.
“Mer tu t’en es troublé; O mer tes flots émusSemblent dire en grondant aux plus lointains rivagesQue l’effroi de la terre et ton maître n’est plus.
“Tel au ciel autrefois s’envola Romulus,Tel il quitta la Terre, au milieu des orages,Tel d’un peuple guerrier il reçut les homages;Obéï dans sa vie, sa mort adoré,Son palais fut un Temple,” &c.
* * * * *
“We must resign! heaven his great soul does claimIn storms as loud as his immortal fame;His dying groans, his last breath shakes our isle,And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile:About his palace their broad roots are tostInto the air; so Romulus was lost!New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,And from obeying fell to worshipping.On Œta’s top thus Hercules lay dead,With ruined oaks and pines about him spread.Nature herself took notice of his death,And, sighing, swelled the sea with such a breath,That to remotest shores the billows rolled,Th’ approaching fate of his great ruler told.”WALLER.
“We must resign! heaven his great soul does claimIn storms as loud as his immortal fame;His dying groans, his last breath shakes our isle,And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile:About his palace their broad roots are tostInto the air; so Romulus was lost!New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,And from obeying fell to worshipping.On Œta’s top thus Hercules lay dead,With ruined oaks and pines about him spread.Nature herself took notice of his death,And, sighing, swelled the sea with such a breath,That to remotest shores the billows rolled,Th’ approaching fate of his great ruler told.”
WALLER.
It was this elogium that gave occasion to the reply (taken notice of in Bayle’s Dictionary), which Waller made to King Charles II. This king, to whom Waller had a little before (as is usual with bards and monarchs) presented a copy of verses embroidered with praises, reproached the poet for not writing with so much energy and fire as when he had applauded the Usurper (meaning Oliver). “Sir,” replied Waller to the king, “we poets succeed better in fiction than in truth.” This answer was not so sincere as that which a Dutch ambassador made, who, when the same monarch complained that his masters paid less regard to him than they had done to Cromwell. “Ah, sir!” says the Ambassador, “Oliver was quite another man—” It is not my intent to give a commentary on Waller’s character, nor on that of any other person; for I consider men after their death in no other light than as they were writers, and wholly disregard everything else. I shall only observe that Waller, though born in a court, and to an estate of five or six thousand pounds sterling a year, was never so proud or so indolent as to lay aside the happy talent which Nature had indulged him. The Earls of Dorset and Roscommon, the two Dukes of Buckingham, the Lord Halifax, and so many other noblemen, did not think the reputation they obtained of very great poets and illustrious writers, any way derogatory to their quality. They are more glorious for their works than for their titles. These cultivated the polite arts with as much assiduity as though they had been their whole dependence.
They also have made learning appear venerable in the eyes of the vulgar, who have need to be led in all things by the great; and who, nevertheless, fashion their manners less after those of the nobility (in England I mean) than in any other country in the world.
I intended to treat of Mr. Prior, one of the most amiable English poets, whom you saw Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary at Paris in 1712. I also designed to have given you some idea of the Lord Roscommon’s and the Lord Dorset’s muse; but I find that to do this I should be obliged to write a large volume, and that, after much pains and trouble, you would have but an imperfect idea of all those works. Poetry is a kind of music in which a man should have some knowledge before he pretends to judge of it. When I give you a translation of some passages from those foreign poets, I only prick down, and that imperfectly, their music; but then I cannot express the taste of their harmony.
There is one English poem especially which I should despair of ever making you understand, the title whereof is “Hudibras.” The subject of it is the Civil War in the time of the grand rebellion, and the principles and practice of the Puritans are therein ridiculed. It is Don Quixote, it is our “Satire Menippée” blended together. I never found so much wit in one single book as in that, which at the same time is the most difficult to be translated. Who would believe that a work which paints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and follies of mankind, and where we meet with more sentiments than words, should baffle the endeavours of the ablest translator? But the reason of this is, almost every part of it alludes to particular incidents. The clergy are there made the principal object of ridicule, which is understood but by few among the laity. To explain this a commentary would be requisite, and humour when explained is no longer humour. Whoever sets up for a commentator of smart sayings and repartees is himself a blockhead. This is the reason why the works of the ingenious Dean Swift, who has been called the English Rabelais, will never be well understood in France. This gentleman has the honour (in common with Rabelais) of being a priest, and, like him, laughs at everything; but, in my humble opinion, the title of the English Rabelais which is given the dean is highly derogatory to his genius. The former has interspersed his unaccountably-fantastic and unintelligible book with the most gay strokes of humour; but which, at the same time, has a greater proportion of impertinence. He has been vastly lavish of erudition, of smut, and insipid raillery. An agreeable tale of two pages is purchased at the expense of whole volumes of nonsense. There are but few persons, and those of a grotesque taste, who pretend to understand and to esteem this work; for, as to the rest of the nation, they laugh at the pleasant and diverting touches which are found in Rabelais and despise his book. He is looked upon as the prince of buffoons. The readers are vexed to think that a man who was master of so much wit should have made so wretched a use of it; he is an intoxicated philosopher who never wrote but when he was in liquor.
Dean Swift is Rabelais in his senses, and frequenting the politest company. The former, indeed, is not so gay as the latter, but then he possesses all the delicacy, the justness, the choice, the good taste, in all which particulars our giggling rural Vicar Rabelais is wanting. The poetical numbers of Dean Swift are of a singular and almost inimitable taste; true humour, whether in prose or verse, seems to be his peculiar talent; but whoever is desirous of understanding him perfectly must visit the island in which he was born.
It will be much easier for you to form an idea of Mr. Pope’s works. He is, in my opinion, the most elegant, the most correct poet; and, at the same time, the most harmonious (a circumstance which redounds very much to the honour of this muse) that England ever gave birth to. He has mellowed the harsh sounds of the English trumpet to the soft accents of the flute. His compositions may be easily translated, because they are vastly clear and perspicuous; besides, most of his subjects are general, and relative to all nations.
His “Essay on Criticism” will soon be known in France by the translation which l’Abbé de Resnel has made of it.
Here is an extract from his poem entitled the “Rape of the Lock,” which I just now translated with the latitude I usually take on these occasions; for, once again, nothing can be more ridiculous than to translate a poet literally:—
“Umbriel, à l’instant, vieil gnome rechigné,Va d’une aîle pesante et d’un air renfrognéChercher en murmurant la caverne profonde,Où loin des doux raïons que répand l’œil du mondeLa Déesse aux Vapeurs a choisi son séjour,Les Tristes Aquilons y sifflent à l’entour,Et le souffle mal sain de leur aride haleineY porte aux environs la fievre et la migraine.Sur un riche sofa derrière un paraventLoin des flambeaux, du bruit, des parleurs et du vent,La quinteuse déesse incessamment repose,Le coeur gros de chagrin, sans en savoir la cause.N’aiant pensé jamais, l’esprit toujours troublé,L’œil chargé, le teint pâle, et l’hypocondre enflé.La médisante Envie, est assise auprès d’elle,Vieil spectre féminin, décrépite pucelle,Avec un air devot déchirant son prochain,Et chansonnant les Gens l’Evangile à la main.Sur un lit plein de fleurs negligemment panchéeUne jeune beauté non loin d’elle est couchée,C’est l’Affectation qui grassaïe en parlant,Écoute sans entendre, et lorgne en regardant.Qui rougit sans pudeur, et rit de tout sans joie,De cent maux différens prétend qu’elle est la proïe;Et pleine de santé sous le rouge et le fard,Se plaint avec molesse, et se pame avec art.”“Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy spriteAs ever sullied the fair face of light,Down to the central earth, his proper scene,Repairs to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome,And in a vapour reached the dismal dome.No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.Here, in a grotto, sheltered close from air,And screened in shades from day’s detested glare,She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head,Two handmaids wait the throne. Alike in place,But differing far in figure and in face,Here stood Ill-nature, like an ancient maid,Her wrinkled form in black and white arrayed;With store of prayers for mornings, nights, and noons,Her hand is filled; her bosom with lampoons.There Affectation, with a sickly mien,Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,Practised to lisp, and hang the head aside,Faints into airs, and languishes with pride;On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,Wrapt in a gown, for sickness and for show.”
“Umbriel, à l’instant, vieil gnome rechigné,Va d’une aîle pesante et d’un air renfrognéChercher en murmurant la caverne profonde,Où loin des doux raïons que répand l’œil du mondeLa Déesse aux Vapeurs a choisi son séjour,Les Tristes Aquilons y sifflent à l’entour,Et le souffle mal sain de leur aride haleineY porte aux environs la fievre et la migraine.Sur un riche sofa derrière un paraventLoin des flambeaux, du bruit, des parleurs et du vent,La quinteuse déesse incessamment repose,Le coeur gros de chagrin, sans en savoir la cause.N’aiant pensé jamais, l’esprit toujours troublé,L’œil chargé, le teint pâle, et l’hypocondre enflé.La médisante Envie, est assise auprès d’elle,Vieil spectre féminin, décrépite pucelle,Avec un air devot déchirant son prochain,Et chansonnant les Gens l’Evangile à la main.Sur un lit plein de fleurs negligemment panchéeUne jeune beauté non loin d’elle est couchée,C’est l’Affectation qui grassaïe en parlant,Écoute sans entendre, et lorgne en regardant.Qui rougit sans pudeur, et rit de tout sans joie,De cent maux différens prétend qu’elle est la proïe;Et pleine de santé sous le rouge et le fard,Se plaint avec molesse, et se pame avec art.”
“Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy spriteAs ever sullied the fair face of light,Down to the central earth, his proper scene,Repairs to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome,And in a vapour reached the dismal dome.No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.Here, in a grotto, sheltered close from air,And screened in shades from day’s detested glare,She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head,Two handmaids wait the throne. Alike in place,But differing far in figure and in face,Here stood Ill-nature, like an ancient maid,Her wrinkled form in black and white arrayed;With store of prayers for mornings, nights, and noons,Her hand is filled; her bosom with lampoons.There Affectation, with a sickly mien,Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,Practised to lisp, and hang the head aside,Faints into airs, and languishes with pride;On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,Wrapt in a gown, for sickness and for show.”
This extract, in the original (not in the faint translation I have given you of it), may be compared to the description ofla Molesse(softness or effeminacy), in Boileau’s “Lutrin.”
Methinks I now have given you specimens enough from the English poets. I have made some transient mention of their philosophers, but as for good historians among them, I don’t know of any; and, indeed, a Frenchman was forced to write their history. Possibly the English genius, which is either languid or impetuous, has not yet acquired that unaffected eloquence, that plain but majestic air which history requires. Possibly too, the spirit of party which exhibits objects in a dim and confused light may have sunk the credit of their historians. One half of the nation is always at variance with the other half. I have met with people who assured me that the Duke of Marlborough was a coward, and that Mr. Pope was a fool; just as some Jesuits in France declare Pascal to have been a man of little or no genius, and some Jansenists affirm Father Bourdaloüe to have been a mere babbler. The Jacobites consider Mary Queen of Scots as a pious heroine, but those of an opposite party look upon her as a prostitute, an adulteress, a murderer. Thus the English have memorials of the several reigns, but no such thing as a history. There is, indeed, now living, one Mr. Gordon (the public are obliged to him for a translation of Tacitus), who is very capable of writing the history of his own country, but Rapin de Thoyras got the start of him. To conclude, in my opinion the English have not such good historians as the French have no such thing as a real tragedy, have several delightful comedies, some wonderful passages in certain of their poems, and boast of philosophers that are worthy of instructing mankind. The English have reaped very great benefit from the writers of our nation, and therefore we ought (since they have not scrupled to be in our debt) to borrow from them. Both the English and we came after the Italians, who have been our instructors in all the arts, and whom we have surpassed in some. I cannot determine which of the three nations ought to be honoured with the palm; but happy the writer who could display their various merits.
Neither the English nor any other people have foundations established in favour of the polite arts like those in France. There are Universities in most countries, but it is in France only that we meet with so beneficial an encouragement for astronomy and all parts of the mathematics, for physic, for researches into antiquity, for painting, sculpture, and architecture. Louis XIV. has immortalised his name by these several foundations, and this immortality did not cost him two hundred thousand livres a year.
I must confess that one of the things I very much wonder at is, that as the Parliament of Great Britain have promised a reward of £20,000 sterling to any person who may discover the longitude, they should never have once thought to imitate Louis XIV. in his munificence with regard to the arts and sciences.
Merit, indeed, meets in England with rewards of another kind, which redound more to the honour of the nation. The English have so great a veneration for exalted talents, that a man of merit in their country is always sure of making his fortune. Mr. Addison in France would have been elected a member of one of the academies, and, by the credit of some women, might have obtained a yearly pension of twelve hundred livres, or else might have been imprisoned in the Bastile, upon pretence that certain strokes in his tragedy ofCatohad been discovered which glanced at the porter of some man in power. Mr. Addison was raised to the post of Secretary of State in England. Sir Isaac Newton was made Master of the Royal Mint. Mr. Congreve had a considerable employment. Mr. Prior was Plenipotentiary. Dr. Swift is Dean of St. Patrick in Dublin, and is more revered in Ireland than the Primate himself. The religion which Mr. Pope professes excludes him, indeed, from preferments of every kind, but then it did not prevent his gaining two hundred thousand livres by his excellent translation of Homer. I myself saw a long time in France the author ofRhadamistusready to perish for hunger. And the son of one of the greatest men our country ever gave birth to, and who was beginning to run the noble career which his father had set him, would have been reduced to the extremes of misery had he not been patronised by Monsieur Fagon.
But the circumstance which mostly encourages the arts in England is the great veneration which is paid them. The picture of the Prime Minister hangs over the chimney of his own closet, but I have seen that of Mr. Pope in twenty noblemen’s houses. Sir Isaac Newton was revered in his lifetime, and had a due respect paid to him after his death; the greatest men in the nation disputing who should have the honour of holding up his pall. Go into Westminster Abbey, and you will find that what raises the admiration of the spectator is not the mausoleums of the English kings, but the monuments which the gratitude of the nation has erected to perpetuate the memory of those illustrious men who contributed to its glory. We view their statues in that abbey in the same manner as those of Sophocles, Plato, and other immortal personages were viewed in Athens; and I am persuaded that the bare sight of those glorious monuments has fired more than one breast, and been the occasion of their becoming great men.
The English have even been reproached with paying too extravagant honours to mere merit, and censured for interring the celebrated actress Mrs. Oldfield in Westminster Abbey, with almost the same pomp as Sir Isaac Newton. Some pretend that the English had paid her these great funeral honours, purposely to make us more strongly sensible of the barbarity and injustice which they object to us, for having buried Mademoiselle Le Couvreur ignominiously in the fields.
But be assured from me, that the English were prompted by no other principle in burying Mrs. Oldfield in Westminster Abbey than their good sense. They are far from being so ridiculous as to brand with infamy an art which has immortalised a Euripides and a Sophocles; or to exclude from the body of their citizens a set of people whose business is to set off with the utmost grace of speech and action those pieces which the nation is proud of.
Under the reign of Charles I. and in the beginning of the civil wars raised by a number of rigid fanatics, who at last were the victims to it; a great many pieces were published against theatrical and other shows, which were attacked with the greater virulence because that monarch and his queen, daughter to Henry I. of France, were passionately fond of them.
One Mr. Prynne, a man of most furiously scrupulous principles, who would have thought himself damned had he worn a cassock instead of a short cloak, and have been glad to see one-half of mankind cut the other to pieces for the glory of God, and thePropaganda Fide; took it into his head to write a most wretched satire against some pretty good comedies, which were exhibited very innocently every night before their majesties. He quoted the authority of the Rabbis, and some passages from St. Bonaventure, to prove that the Œdipus of Sophocles was the work of the evil spirit; that Terence was excommunicatedipso facto; and added, that doubtless Brutus, who was a very severe Jansenist, assassinated Julius Cæsar for no other reason but because he, who was Pontifex Maximus, presumed to write a tragedy the subject of which was Œdipus. Lastly, he declared that all who frequented the theatre were excommunicated, as they thereby renounced their baptism. This was casting the highest insult on the king and all the royal family; and as the English loved their prince at that time, they could not bear to hear a writer talk of excommunicating him, though they themselves afterwards cut his head off. Prynne was summoned to appear before the Star Chamber; his wonderful book, from which Father Le Brun stole his, was sentenced to be burnt by the common hangman, and himself to lose his ears. His trial is now extant.
The Italians are far from attempting to cast a blemish on the opera, or to excommunicate Signor Senesino or Signora Cuzzoni. With regard to myself, I could presume to wish that the magistrates would suppress I know not what contemptible pieces written against the stage. For when the English and Italians hear that we brand with the greatest mark of infamy an art in which we excel; that we excommunicate persons who receive salaries from the king; that we condemn as impious a spectacle exhibited in convents and monasteries; that we dishonour sports in which Louis XIV. and Louis XV., performed as actors; that we give the title of the devil’s works to pieces which are received by magistrates of the most severe character, and represented before a virtuous queen; when, I say, foreigners are told of this insolent conduct, this contempt for the royal authority, and this Gothic rusticity which some presume to call Christian severity, what an idea must they entertain of our nation? And how will it be possible for them to conceive, either that our laws give a sanction to an art which is declared infamous, or that some persons dare to stamp with infamy an art which receives a sanction from the laws, is rewarded by kings, cultivated and encouraged by the greatest men, and admired by whole nations? And that Father Le Brun’s impertinent libel against the stage is seen in a bookseller’s shop, standing the very next to the immortal labours of Racine, of Corneille, of Molière, &c.
The English had an Academy of Sciences many years before us, but then it is not under such prudent regulations as ours, the only reason of which very possibly is, because it was founded before the Academy of Paris; for had it been founded after, it would very probably have adopted some of the sage laws of the former and improved upon others.
Two things, and those the most essential to man, are wanting in the Royal Society of London, I mean rewards and laws. A seat in the Academy at Paris is a small but secure fortune to a geometrician or a chemist; but this is so far from being the case at London, that the several members of the Royal Society are at a continual, though indeed small expense. Any man in England who declares himself a lover of the mathematics and natural philosophy, and expresses an inclination to be a member of the Royal Society, is immediately elected into it. But in France it is not enough that a man who aspires to the honour of being a member of the Academy, and of receiving the royal stipend, has a love for the sciences; he must at the same time be deeply skilled in them; and is obliged to dispute the seat with competitors who are so much the more formidable as they are fired by a principle of glory, by interest, by the difficulty itself; and by that inflexibility of mind which is generally found in those who devote themselves to that pertinacious study, the mathematics.
The Academy of Sciences is prudently confined to the study of Nature, and, indeed, this is a field spacious enough for fifty or threescore persons to range in. That of London mixes indiscriminately literature with physics; but methinks the founding an academy merely for the polite arts is more judicious, as it prevents confusion, and the joining, in some measure, of heterogeneals, such as a dissertation on the head-dresses of the Roman ladies with a hundred or more new curves.
As there is very little order and regularity in the Royal Society, and not the least encouragement; and that the Academy of Paris is on a quite different foot, it is no wonder that our transactions are drawn up in a more just and beautiful manner than those of the English. Soldiers who are under a regular discipline, and besides well paid, must necessarily at last perform more glorious achievements than others who are mere volunteers. It must indeed be confessed that the Royal Society boast their Newton, but then he did not owe his knowledge and discoveries to that body; so far from it, that the latter were intelligible to very few of his fellow members. A genius like that of Sir Isaac belonged to all the academies in the world, because all had a thousand things to learn of him.
The celebrated Dean Swift formed a design, in the latter end of the late Queen’s reign, to found an academy for the English tongue upon the model of that of the French. This project was promoted by the late Earl of Oxford, Lord High Treasurer, and much more by the Lord Bolingbroke, Secretary of State, who had the happy talent of speaking without premeditation in the Parliament House with as much purity as Dean Swift wrote in his closet, and who would have been the ornament and protector of that academy. Those only would have been chosen members of it whose works will last as long as the English tongue, such as Dean Swift, Mr. Prior, whom we saw here invested with a public character, and whose fame in England is equal to that of La Fontaine in France; Mr. Pope, the English Boileau, Mr. Congreve, who may be called their Molière, and several other eminent persons whose names I have forgot; all these would have raised the glory of that body to a great height even in its infancy. But Queen Anne being snatched suddenly from the world, the Whigs were resolved to ruin the protectors of the intended academy, a circumstance that was of the most fatal consequence to polite literature. The members of this academy would have had a very great advantage over those who first formed that of the French, for Swift, Prior, Congreve, Dryden, Pope, Addison, &c. had fixed the English tongue by their writings; whereas Chapelain, Colletet, Cassaigne, Faret, Perrin, Cotin, our first academicians, were a disgrace to their country; and so much ridicule is now attached to their very names, that if an author of some genius in this age had the misfortune to be called Chapelain or Cotin, he would be under a necessity of changing his name.
One circumstance, to which the English Academy should especially have attended, is to have prescribed to themselves occupations of a quite different kind from those with which our academicians amuse themselves. A wit of this country asked me for the memoirs of the French Academy. I answered, they have no memoirs, but have printed threescore or fourscore volumes in quarto of compliments. The gentleman perused one or two of them, but without being able to understand the style in which they were written, though he understood all our good authors perfectly. “All,” says he, “I see in these elegant discourses is, that the member elect having assured the audience that his predecessor was a great man, that Cardinal Richelieu was a very great man, that the Chancellor Seguier was a pretty great man, that Louis XIV. was a more than great man, the director answers in the very same strain, and adds, that the member elect may also be a sort of great man, and that himself, in quality of director, must also have some share in this greatness.”
The cause why all these academical discourses have unhappily done so little honour to this body is evident enough.Vitium est temporis potiùs quam hominis(the fault is owing to the age rather than to particular persons). It grew up insensibly into a custom for every academician to repeat these elogiums at his reception; it was laid down as a kind of law that the public should be indulged from time to time the sullen satisfaction of yawning over these productions. If the reason should afterwards be sought, why the greatest geniuses who have been incorporated into that body have sometimes made the worst speeches, I answer, that it is wholly owing to a strong propension, the gentlemen in question had to shine, and to display a thread-bare, worn-out subject in a new and uncommon light. The necessity of saying something, the perplexity of having nothing to say, and a desire of being witty, are three circumstances which alone are capable of making even the greatest writer ridiculous. These gentlemen, not being able to strike out any new thoughts, hunted after a new play of words, and delivered themselves without thinking at all: in like manner as people who should seem to chew with great eagerness, and make as though they were eating, at the same time that they were just starved.
It is a law in the French Academy, to publish all those discourses by which only they are known, but they should rather make a law never to print any of them.
But the Academy of theBelles Lettreshave a more prudent and more useful object, which is, to present the public with a collection of transactions that abound with curious researches and critiques. These transactions are already esteemed by foreigners; and it were only to be wished that some subjects in them had been more thoroughly examined, and that others had not been treated at all. As, for instance, we should have been very well satisfied, had they omitted I know not what dissertation on the prerogative of the right hand over the left; and some others, which, though not published under so ridiculous a title, are yet written on subjects that are almost as frivolous and silly.
The Academy of Sciences, in such of their researches as are of a more difficult kind and a more sensible use, embrace the knowledge of nature and the improvements of the arts. We may presume that such profound, such uninterrupted pursuits as these, such exact calculations, such refined discoveries, such extensive and exalted views, will, at last, produce something that may prove of advantage to the universe. Hitherto, as we have observed together, the most useful discoveries have been made in the most barbarous times. One would conclude that the business of the most enlightened ages and the most learned bodies, is, to argue and debate on things which were invented by ignorant people. We know exactly the angle which the sail of a ship is to make with the keel in order to its sailing better; and yet Columbus discovered America without having the least idea of the property of this angle: however, I am far from inferring from hence that we are to confine ourselves merely to a blind practice, but happy it were, would naturalists and geometricians unite, as much as possible, the practice with the theory.
Strange, but so it is, that those things which reflect the greatest honour on the human mind are frequently of the least benefit to it! A man who understands the four fundamental rules of arithmetic, aided by a little good sense, shall amass prodigious wealth in trade, shall become a Sir Peter Delmé, a Sir Richard Hopkins, a Sir Gilbert Heathcote, whilst a poor algebraist spends his whole life in searching for astonishing properties and relations in numbers, which at the same time are of no manner of use, and will not acquaint him with the nature of exchanges. This is very nearly the case with most of the arts: there is a certain point beyond which all researches serve to no other purpose than merely to delight an inquisitive mind. Those ingenious and useless truths may be compared to stars which, by being placed at too great a distance, cannot afford us the least light.
With regard to the French Academy, how great a service would they do to literature, to the language, and the nation, if, instead of publishing a set of compliments annually, they would give us new editions of the valuable works written in the age of Louis XIV., purged from the several errors of diction which are crept into them. There are many of these errors in Corneille and Molière, but those in La Fontaine are very numerous. Such as could not be corrected might at least be pointed out. By this means, as all the Europeans read those works, they would teach them our language in its utmost purity—which, by that means, would be fixed to a lasting standard; and valuable French books being then printed at the King’s expense, would prove one of the most glorious monuments the nation could boast. I have been told that Boileau formerly made this proposal, and that it has since been revived by a gentleman eminent for his genius, his fine sense, and just taste for criticism; but this thought has met with the fate of many other useful projects, of being applauded and neglected.