The "Monthly Reviewer," in noticing this article, has continued the speculation by giving two interesting anecdotes. "The observation concerning 'heavy hours,' and the want of elasticity in the intellectual faculties of men of letters, when the mind is fatigued and the attention blunted by incessant labour, reminds us of what is related by persons who were acquainted with the late sagacious magistrate Sir John Fielding; who, when fatigued with attending to complicated cases, and perplexed with discordant depositions, used to retire to a little closet in a remote and tranquil part of the house, to rest his mental powers and sharpen perception. He told a great physician, now living, who complained of the distance of places, as caused by the great extension of London, that 'he (the physician) would not have been able to visit many patients to any purpose, if they had resided nearer to each other; as he could have had no time either to think or to rest his mind.'"

Our excellent logician was little accustomed to a mixed society: his life was passed in study. He had such an infantine simplicity in his nature, that he would speak on anatomical subjects before the ladies with as much freedom as before surgeons. When they inclined their eyes to the ground, and while some even blushed, he would then inquire if what he spoke was indecent; and, when told so, he smiled, and stopped. His habits of life were, however, extremely pure; he probably left himself little leisure "to fall into temptation."

Bayle knew nothing of geometry; and, as Le Clerc informs us, acknowledged that he could never comprehend the demonstration of the first problem in Euclid. Le Clerc, however, was a rival to Bayle; with greater industry and more accurate learning, but with very inferior powers of reasoning and philosophy. Both of these great scholars, like our Locke, were destitute of fine taste and poetical discernment.

When Fagon, an eminent physician, was consulted on the illness of our student, he only prescribed a particular regimen, without the use of medicine. He closed his consultation by a compliment remarkable for its felicity. "I ardently wish one could spare this great man all this constraint, and that it were possible to find a remedy as singular as the merit of him for whom it is asked."

Voltaire has said that Bayle confessed he would not have made his Dictionary exceed a folio volume, had he written only for himself, and not for the booksellers. This Dictionary, with all its human faults, is a stupendous work, which must last with literature itself. I take an enlarged view of BAYLE and his DICTIONARY, in a subsequent article.



CERVANTES.

M. Du Boulay accompanied the French ambassador to Spain, when Cervantes was yet living. He told Segrais that the ambassador one day complimented Cervantes on the great reputation he had acquired by his Don Quixote; and that Cervantes whispered in his ear, "Had it not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book much more entertaining."

Cervantes, at the battle of Lepanto, was wounded, and enslaved. He has given his own history in Don Quixote, as indeed every great writer of fictitious narratives has usually done. Cervantes was known at the court of Spain, but he did not receive those favours which might have been expected; he was neglected. His first volume is the finest; and his design was to have finished there: but he could not resist the importunities of his friends, who engaged him to make a second, which has not the same force, although it has many splendid passages.

We have lost many good things of Cervantes, and other writers, through the tribunal of religion and dulness. One Aonius Palearius was sensible of this; and said, "that the Inquisition was a poniard aimed at the throat of literature." The image is striking, and the observation just; but this victim of genius was soon led to the stake!



MAGLIABECHI.

Anthony Magliabechi, who died at the age of eighty, was celebrated for his great knowledge of books. He has been called the Helluo, or the Glutton of Literature, as Peter Comestor received his nickname from his amazing voracity for food he could never digest; which appeared when having fallen sick of so much false learning, he threw it all up in his "Sea of Histories," which proved to be the history of all things, and a bad history of everything. Magliabechi's character is singular; for though his life was wholly passed in libraries, being librarian to the Duke of Tuscany, he never wrote himself. There is a medal which represents him sitting, with a book in one hand, and a great number of books scattered on the ground. The candid inscription signifies, that "it is not sufficient to become learned to have read much, if we read without reflection." This is the only remains we have of his own composition that can be of service to posterity. A simple truth, which may, however, be inscribed in the study of every man of letters.

His habits of life were uniform. Ever among his books, he troubled himself with no other concern whatever; and the only interest he appeared to take for any living thing was his spiders. While sitting among his literary piles, he affected great sympathy for these weavers of webs, and perhaps in contempt of those whose curiosity appeared impertinent, he frequently cried out, "to take care not to hurt his spiders!" Although he lost no time in writing himself, he gave considerable assistance to authors who consulted him. He was himself an universal index to all authors; the late literary antiquary, Isaac Reed, resembled him.[108] He had one book, among many others, dedicated to him, and this dedication consisted of a collection of titles of works which he had had at different times dedicated to him, with all the eulogiums addressed to him in prose and verse. When he died, he left his vast collection for the public use; they now compose the public library of Florence.

Heyman, a celebrated Dutch professor, visited this erudite librarian, who was considered as the ornament of Florence. He found him amongst his books, of which the number was prodigious. Two or three rooms in the first story were crowded with them, not only along their sides, but piled in heaps on the floor; so that it was difficult to sit, and more so to walk. A narrow space was contrived, indeed, so that by walking sideways you might extricate yourself from one room to another. This was not all; the passage below stairs was full of books, and the staircase from the top to the bottom was lined with them. When you reached the second story, you saw with astonishment three rooms, similar to those below, equally so crowded, that two good beds in these chambers were also crammed with books.

This apparent confusion did not, however, hinder Magliabechi from immediately finding the books he wanted. He knew them all so well, that even to the least of them it was sufficient to see its outside, to say what it was; he knew his flock, as shepherds are said, by their faces; and indeed he read them day and night, and never lost sight of any.[109] He ate on his books, he slept on his books, and quitted them as rarely as possible. During his whole life he only went twice from Florence; once to see Fiesoli, which is not above two leagues distant, and once ten miles further by order of the Grand Duke. Nothing could be more simple than his mode of life; a few eggs, a little bread, and some water, were his ordinary food. A drawer of his desk being open, Mr. Heyman saw there several eggs, and some money which Magliabechi had placed there for his daily use. But as this drawer was generally open, it frequently happened that the servants of his friends, or strangers who came to see him, pilfered some of these things; the money or the eggs.

His dress was as cynical as his repasts. A black doublet, which descended to his knees; large and long breeches; an old patched black cloak; an amorphous hat, very much worn, and the edges ragged; a large neckcloth of coarse cloth, begrimed with snuff; a dirty shirt, which he always wore as long as it lasted, and which the broken elbows of his doublet did not conceal; and, to finish this inventory, a pair of ruffles which did not belong to the shirt. Such was the brilliant dress of our learned Florentine; and in such did he appear in the public streets, as well as in his own house. Let me not forget another circumstance; to warm his hands, he generally had a stove with fire fastened to his arms, so that his clothes were generally singed and burnt, and his hands scorched. He had nothing otherwise remarkable about him. To literary men he was extremely affable, and a cynic only to the eye; anecdotes almost incredible are related of his memory. It is somewhat uncommon that as he was so fond of literary food, he did not occasionally dress some dishes of his own invention, or at least some sandwiches to his own relish. He indeed should have written CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. He was a living Cyclopaedia, though a dark lantern.[110]

Of such reading men, Hobbes entertained a very contemptible, if not a rash opinion. His own reading was inconsiderable; and he used to say, that if he had spent as much time in reading as other men of learning, he should have been as ignorant as they. He put little value on a large library, for he considered all books to be merely extracts and copies, for that most authors were like sheep, never deviating from the beaten path. History he treated lightly, and thought there were more lies than truths in it. But let us recollect after all this, that Hobbes was a mere metaphysician, idolising his own vain and empty hypotheses. It is true enough that weak heads carrying in them too much reading may be staggered. Le Clerc observes of two learned men, De Marcilly and Barthius, that they would have composed more useful works had they read less numerous authors, and digested the better writers.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 108: He was remarkable for his memory of all that he read, not only the matter but the form, the contents of each page and the peculiar spelling of every word. It is said he was once tested by the pretended destruction of a manuscript, which he reproduced without a variation of word or line.]

[Footnote 109: He used to lie in a sort of lounging-chair in the midst of his study, surrounded by heaps of dusty volumes, never allowed to be removed, and forming a colony for the spiders whose society he so highly valued.]



ABRIDGERS.

Abridgers are a kind of literary men to whom the indolence of modern readers, and indeed the multiplicity of authors, give ample employment.

It would be difficult, observed the learned Benedictines, the authors of the Literary History of France, to relate all the unhappy consequences which ignorance introduced, and the causes which produced that ignorance. But we must not forget to place in this number the mode of reducing, by way of abridgment, what the ancients had written in bulky volumes. Examples of this practice may be observed in preceding centuries, but in the fifth century it began to be in general use. As the number of students and readers diminished, authors neglected literature, and were disgusted with composition; for to write is seldom done, but when the writer entertains the hope of finding readers. Instead of original authors, there suddenly arose numbers of Abridgers. These men, amidst the prevailing disgust for literature, imagined they should gratify the public by introducing a mode of reading works in a few hours, which otherwise could not be done in many months; and, observing that the bulky volumes of the ancients lay buried in dust, without any one condescending to examine them, necessity inspired them with an invention that might bring those works and themselves into public notice, by the care they took of renovating them. This they imagined to effect by forming abridgments of these ponderous tomes.

All these Abridgers, however, did not follow the same mode. Some contented themselves with making a mere abridgment of their authors, by employing their own expressions, or by inconsiderable alterations. Others formed abridgments in drawing them from various authors, but from whose works they only took what appeared to them most worthy of observation, and embellished them in their own style. Others again, having before them several authors who wrote on the same subject, took passages from each, united them, and thus combined a new work; they executed their design by digesting in commonplaces, and under various titles, the most valuable parts they could collect, from the best authors they read. To these last ingenious scholars we owe the rescue of many valuable fragments of antiquity. They fortunately preserved the best maxims, characters, descriptions, and curious matters which they had found interesting in their studies.

Some learned men have censured these Abridgers as the cause of our having lost so many excellent entire works of the ancients; for posterity becoming less studious was satisfied with these extracts, and neglected to preserve the originals, whose voluminous size was less attractive. Others, on the contrary, say that these Abridgers have not been so prejudicial to literature; and that had it not been for their care, which snatched many a perishable fragment from that shipwreck of letters which the barbarians occasioned, we should perhaps have had no works of the ancients remaining. Many voluminous works have been greatly improved by their Abridgers. The vast history of Trogus Pompeius was soon forgotten and finally perished, after the excellent epitome of it by Justin, who winnowed the abundant chaff from the grain.

Bayle gives very excellent advice to an Abridger, Xiphilin, in his "Abridgment of Dion," takes no notice of a circumstance very material for entering into the character of Domitian:—the recalling the empress Domitia after having turned her away for her intrigues with a player. By omitting this fact in the abridgment, and which is discovered through Suetonius, Xiphilin has evinced, he says, a deficient judgment; for Domitian's ill qualities are much better exposed, when it is known that he was mean-spirited enough to restore to the dignity of Empress the prostitute of a player.

Abridgers, Compilers, and Translators, are now slightly regarded; yet to form their works with skill requires an exertion of judgment, and frequently of taste, of which their contemners appear to have no due conception. Such literary labours it is thought the learned will not be found to want; and the unlearned cannot discern the value. But to such Abridgers as Monsieur Le Grand, in his "Tales of the Minstrels," and Mr. Ellis, in his "English Metrical Romances," we owe much; and such writers must bring to their task a congeniality of genius, and even more taste than their original possessed. I must compare such to fine etchers after great masters:—very few give the feeling touches in the right place.

It is an uncommon circumstance to quote the Scriptures on subjects of modern literature! but on the present topic the elegant writer of the books of the Maccabees has delivered, in a kind of preface to that history, very pleasing and useful instructions to an Abridger. I shall transcribe the passages, being concise, from Book ii. Chap. ii. v. 23, that the reader may have them at hand:—

"All these things, I say, being declared by Jason of Cyrene, in five books, we will assay to abridge in one volume. We will be careful that they that will read may have delight, and that they that are desirous to commit to memory might have ease, and that all into whose hands it comes might have profit." How concise and Horatian! He then describes his literary labours with no insensibility:—"To us that have taken upon us this painful labour of abridging, it was not easy, but a matter of sweat and watching."—And the writer employs an elegant illustration: "Even as it is no ease unto him that prepareth a banquet, and seeketh the benefit of others; yet for the pleasuring of many, we will undertake gladly this great pain; leaving to the author the exact handling of every particular, and labouring to follow the rules of an abridgment." He now embellishes his critical account with a sublime metaphor to distinguish the original from the copier:—"For as the master builder of a new house must care for the whole building; but he that undertaketh to set it out, and paint it, must seek out fit things for the adorning thereof; even so I think it is with us. To stand upon every point, and go over things at large, and to be curious in particulars, belonging to the first author of the story; but to use brevity, and avoid much labouring of the work, is to be granted to him that will make an Abridgment."

Quintilian has not a passage more elegantly composed, nor more judiciously conceived.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: His comparatively useless life was quietly satirized by the Rev. Mr. Spence, in "a parallel after the manner of Plutarch," between Magliabechi and Hill, a self-taught tailor of Buckinghamshire. It is published in Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces, 2 vols., 12mo, 1774.]



PROFESSORS OF PLAGIARISM AND OBSCURITY.

Among the most singular characters in literature may be ranked those who do not blush to profess publicly its most dishonourable practices. The first vender of printed sermons imitating manuscript, was, I think, Dr. Trusler. He to whom the following anecdotes relate had superior ingenuity. Like the famous orator, Henley, he formed a school of his own. The present lecturer openly taught not to imitate the best authors, but to steal from them!

Richesource, a miserable declaimer, called himself "Moderator of the Academy of Philosophical Orators." He taught how a person destitute of literary talents might become eminent for literature; and published the principles of his art under the title of "The Mask of Orators; or the manner of disguising all kinds of composition; briefs, sermons, panegyrics, funeral orations, dedications, speeches, letters, passages," &c. I will give a notion of the work:—

The author very truly observes, that all who apply themselves to polite literature do not always find from their own funds a sufficient supply to insure success. For such he labours; and teaches to gather, in the gardens of others, those fruits of which their own sterile grounds are destitute; but so artfully to gather, that the public shall not perceive their depredations. He dignifies this fine art by the title of PLAGIANISM, and thus explains it:—

"The Plagianism of orators is the art, or an ingenious and easy mode, which some adroitly employ, to change, or disguise, all sorts of speeches of their own composition, or that of other authors, for their pleasure or their utility; in such a manner that it becomes impossible, even for the author himself to recognise his own work, his own genius, and his own style, so skilfully shall the whole be disguised."

Our professor proceeds to reveal the manner of managing the whole economy of the piece which is to be copied or disguised; and which consists in giving a new order to the parts, changing the phrases, the words, &c. An orator, for instance, having said that a plenipotentiary should possess three qualities,—probity, capacity, and courage; the plagiarist, on the contrary, may employ, courage, capacity, and probity. This is only for a general rule, for it is too simple to practise frequently. To render the part perfect we must make it more complex, by changing the whole of the expressions. The plagiarist in place of courage, will put force, constancy, or vigour. For probity he may say religion, virtue, or sincerity. Instead of capacity, he may substitute erudition, ability, or science. Or he may disguise the whole by saying, that the plenipotentiary should be firm, virtuous, and able.

The rest of this uncommon work is composed of passages extracted from celebrated writers, which are turned into the new manner of the plagiarist; their beauties, however, are never improved by their dress. Several celebrated writers when young, particularly the famous Flechier, who addressed verses to him, frequented the lectures of this professor!

Richesource became so zealous in this course of literature, that he published a volume, entitled, "The Art of Writing and Speaking; or, a Method of composing all sorts of Letters, and holding a polite Conversation." He concludes his preface by advertising his readers, that authors who may be in want of essays, sermons, letters of all kinds, written pleadings and verses, may be accommodated on application to him.

Our professor was extremely fond of copious title-pages, which I suppose to be very attractive to certain readers; for it is a custom which the Richesources of the day fail not to employ. Are there persons who value books by the length of their titles, as formerly the ability of a physician was judged by the dimensions of his wig?

To this article may be added an account of another singular school, where the professor taught obscurity in literary composition!

I do not believe that those who are unintelligible are very intelligent. Quintilian has justly observed, that the obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity. However, as there is hardly a defect which does not find partisans, the same author informs us of a rhetorician, who was so great an admirer of obscurity, that he always exhorted his scholars to preserve it; and made them correct, as blemishes, those passages of their works which appeared to him too intelligible. Quintilian adds, that the greatest panegyric they could give to a composition in that school was to declare, "I understand nothing of this piece." Lycophron possessed this taste, and he protested that he would hang himself if he found a person who should understand his poem, called the "Prophecy of Cassandra." He succeeded so well, that this piece has been the stumbling-block of all the grammarians, scholiasts, and commentators; and remains inexplicable to the present day. Such works Charpentier admirably compares to those subterraneous places, where the air is so thick and suffocating, that it extinguishes all torches. A most sophistical dilemma, on the subject of obscurity, was made by Thomas Anglus, or White, an English Catholic priest, the friend of Sir Kenelm Digby. This learned man frequently wandered in the mazes of metaphysical subtilties; and became perfectly unintelligible to his readers. When accused of this obscurity, he replied, "Either the learned understand me, or they do not. If they understand me, and find me in an error, it is easy for them to refute me; if they do not understand me, it is very unreasonable for them to exclaim against my doctrines."

This is saying all that the wit of man can suggest in favour of obscurity! Many, however, will agree with an observation made by Gravina on the over-refinement of modern composition, that "we do not think we have attained genius, till others must possess as much themselves to understand us." Fontenelle, in France, followed by Marivaux, Thomas, and others, first introduced that subtilised manner of writing, which tastes more natural and simple reject; one source of such bitter complaints of obscurity.



LITERARY DUTCH.

Pere Bohours seriously asks if a German can be a BEL ESPRIT? This concise query was answered by Kramer, in a ponderous volume which bears for title, Vindiciae nominis Germanici. This mode of refutation does not prove that the question was then so ridiculous as it was considered. The Germans of the present day, although greatly superior to their ancestors, there are who opine are still distant from the acme of TASTE, which characterises the finished compositions of the French and the English authors. Nations display genius before they form taste.

It was the mode with English and French writers to dishonour the Germans with the epithets of heavy, dull, and phlegmatic compilers, without taste, spirit, or genius; genuine descendants of the ancient Boeotians,

Crassoque sub aeere nati.

Many imaginative and many philosophical performances have lately shown that this censure has now become unjust; and much more forcibly answers the sarcastic question of Bohours than the thick quarto of Kramer.

Churchill finely says of genius that it is independent of situation,

And may hereafter even in HOLLAND rise.

Vondel, whom, as Marchand observes, the Dutch regard as their AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, had a strange defective taste; the poet himself knew none of these originals, but he wrote on patriotic subjects, the sure way to obtain popularity; many of his tragedies are also drawn from the Scriptures; all badly chosen and unhappily executed. In his Deliverance of the Children of Israel, one of his principal characters is the Divinity! In his Jerusalem Destroyed we are disgusted with a tedious oration by the angel Gabriel, who proves theologically, and his proofs extend through nine closely printed pages in quarto, that this destruction has been predicted by the prophets; and, in the Lucifer of the same author, the subject is grossly scandalised by this haughty spirit becoming stupidly in love with Eve, and it is for her he causes the rebellion of the evil angels, and the fall of our first parents. Poor Vondel kept a hosier's shop, which he left to the care of his wife, while he indulged his poetical genius. His stocking-shop failed, and his poems produced him more chagrin than glory; for in Holland, even a patriotic poet, if a bankrupt, would, no doubt, be accounted by his fellow-citizens as a madman. Vondel had no other master but his genius, which, with his uncongenial situation, occasioned all his errors.

Another Dutch poet is even less tolerable. Having written a long rhapsody concerning Pyramus and Thisbe, he concludes it by a ridiculous parallel between the death of these unfortunate victims of love, and the passion of Jesus Christ. He says:—

Om t'concluderem van onsen begrypt, Dees Historie moraliserende, Is in den verstande wel accorderende, By der Passie van Christus gebenedyt.

And upon this, after having turned Pyramus into the Son of God, and Thisbe into the Christian soul, he proceeds with a number of comparisons; the latter always more impertinent than the former.

I believe it is well known that the actors on the Dutch theatre are generally tradesmen, who quit their aprons at the hour of public representation. This was the fact when I was in Holland more than forty years ago. Their comedies are offensive by the grossness of their buffooneries. One of their comic incidents was a miller appearing in distress for want of wind to turn his mill; he had recourse to the novel scheme of placing his back against it, and by certain imitative sounds behind the scenes the mill is soon set a-going. It is hard to rival such a depravity of taste.

I saw two of their most celebrated tragedies. The one was Gysbert Van Amstel, by Vondel; that is Gysbrecht of Amsterdam, a warrior, who in the civil wars preserved this city by his heroism. It is a patriotic historical play, and never fails to crowd the theatre towards Christmas, when it is usually performed successively. One of the acts concludes with the scene of a convent; the sound of warlike instruments is heard; the abbey is stormed; the nuns and fathers are slaughtered; with the aid of "blunderbuss and thunder," every Dutchman appears sensible of the pathos of the poet. But it does not here conclude. After this terrible slaughter, the conquerors and the vanquished remain for ten minutes on the stage, silent and motionless, in the attitudes in which the groups happened to fall! and this pantomimic pathos commands loud bursts of applause.[111]

The other was the Ahasuerus of Schubart, or the Fall of Haman. In the triumphal entry the Batavian Mordecai was mounted on a genuine Flanders mare, that, fortunately, quietly received her applause with a lumpish majesty resembling her rider. I have seen an English ass once introduced on our stage which did not act with this decorum. Our late actors have frequently been beasts;—a Dutch taste![112]

Some few specimens of the best Dutch poetry which we have had, yield no evidence in favour of the national poetical taste. The Dutch poet Katz has a poem on the "Games of Children," where all the games are moralised; I suspect the taste of the poet as well as his subject is puerile. When a nation has produced no works above mediocrity, with them a certain mediocrity is excellence, and their masterpieces, with a people who have made a greater progress in refinement, can never be accepted as the works of a master.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 111: The Dutch are not, however, to be entirely blamed for repulsive scenes on the stage. Shakspeare's Titus Andronicus, and many of the dramas of our Elizabethan writers, exhibit cruelties very repulsive to modern ideas. The French stage has occasionally exhibited in modern times scenes that have been afterwards condemned by the censors; and in Italy the "people's theatre" occasionally panders to popular tastes by execution scenes, where the criminal is merely taken off the stage; the blow struck on a wooden block, to give reality to the action; and the executioner re-enters flourishing a bloody axe.]

[Footnote 112: Ned Shuter was the comedian who first introduced a donkey on the stage. Seated on the beast he delivered a prologue written on the occasion of his benefit. Sometimes the donkey wore a great tie-wig. Animals educated to play certain parts are a later invention. Horses, dogs, and elephants have been thus trained in the present century, and plays written expressly to show their proficiency.]



THE PRODUCTIONS OF THE MIND NOT SEIZABLE BY CREDITORS.

When Crebillon, the French tragic poet, published his Catiline, it was attended with an honour to literature, which though it is probably forgotten, for it was only registered, I think, as the news of the day, it becomes one zealous in the cause of literature to preserve. I give the circumstance, the petition, and the decree.

At the time Catiline was given to the public, the creditors of the poet had the cruelty to attach the produce of this piece, as well at the bookseller's, who had printed the tragedy, as at the theatre where it was performed. The poet, irritated at these proceedings, addressed a petition to the king, in which he showed "that it was a thing yet unknown, that it should be allowed to class amongst seizable effects the productions of the human mind; that if such a practice was permitted, those who had consecrated their vigils to the studies of literature, and who had made the greatest efforts to render themselves, by this means, useful to their country, would see themselves placed in the cruel predicament of not venturing to publish works, often precious and interesting to the state; that the greater part of those who devote themselves to literature require for the first wants of life those aids which they have a right to expect from their labours; and that it never has been suffered in France to seize the fees of lawyers, and other persons of liberal professions."

In answer to this petition, a decree immediately issued from the King's council, commanding a replevy of the arrests and seizures of which the petitioner complained. This honourable decree was dated 21st of May, 1749, and bore the following title:—"Decree of the Council of his Majesty, in favour of M. Crebillon, author of the tragedy of Catiline, which declares that the productions of the mind are not amongst seizable effects."

Louis XV. exhibits the noble example of bestowing a mark of consideration to the remains of a man of letters. This King not only testified his esteem of Crebillon by having his works printed at the Louvre, but also by consecrating to his glory a tomb of marble.



CRITICS.

Writers who have been unsuccessful in original composition have their other productions immediately decried, whatever merit they might once have been allowed to possess. Yet this is very unjust; an author who has given a wrong direction to his literary powers may perceive, at length, where he can more securely point them. Experience is as excellent a mistress in the school of literature as in the school of human life. Blackmore's epics are insufferable; yet neither Addison nor Johnson erred when they considered his philosophical poem as a valuable composition. An indifferent poet may exert the art of criticism in a very high degree; and if he cannot himself produce an original work, he may yet be of great service in regulating the happier genius of another. This observation I shall illustrate by the characters of two French critics; the one is the Abbe d'Aubignac, and the other Chapelain.

Boileau opens his Art of Poetry by a precept which though it be common is always important; this critical poet declares, that "It is in vain a daring author thinks of attaining to the height of Parnassus if he does not feel the secret influence of heaven, and if his natal star has not formed him to be a poet." This observation he founded on the character of our Abbe; who had excellently written on the economy of dramatic composition. His Pratique du Theatre gained him an extensive reputation. When he produced a tragedy, the world expected a finished piece; it was acted, and reprobated. The author, however, did not acutely feel its bad reception; he everywhere boasted that he, of all the dramatists, had most scrupulously observed the rules of Aristotle. The Prince de Guemene, famous for his repartees, sarcastically observed, "I do not quarrel with the Abbe d'Aubignac for having so closely followed the precepts of Aristotle; but I cannot pardon the precepts of Aristotle, that occasioned the Abbe d'Aubignac to write so wretched a tragedy."

The Pratique du Theatre is not, however, to be despised, because the Tragedy of its author is despicable.

Chapelain's unfortunate epic has rendered him notorious. He had gained, and not undeservedly, great reputation for his critical powers. After a retention of above thirty years, his Pucelle appeared. He immediately became the butt of every unfledged wit, and his former works were eternally condemned; insomuch that when Camusat published, after the death of our author, a little volume of extracts from his manuscript letters, it is curious to observe the awkward situation in which he finds himself. In his preface he seems afraid that the very name of Chapelain will be sufficient to repel the reader.

Camusat observes of Chapelain, that "he found flatterers, who assured him his Pucelle ranked above the AEneid; and this Chapelain but feebly denied. However this may be, it would be difficult to make the bad taste which reigns throughout this poem agree with that sound and exact criticism with which he decided on the works of others. So true is it, that genius is very superior to a justness of mind which is sufficient to judge and to advise others." Chapelain was ordered to draw up a critical list of the chief living authors and men of letters in France, for the king. It is extremely impartial, and performed with an analytical skill of their literary characters which could not have been surpassed by an Aristotle or a Boileau.

The talent of judging may exist separately from the power of execution. An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur; and it is for this reason that young authors are not to contemn the precepts of such critics as even the Abbe d'Aubignac and Chapelain. It is to Walsh, a miserable versifier, that Pope stands indebted for the hint of our poetry then being deficient in correctness and polish; and it is from this fortunate hint that Pope derived his poetical excellence. Dionysius Halicarnassensis has composed a lifeless history; yet, as Gibbon observes, how admirably has he judged the masters, and defined the rules, of historical composition! Gravina, with great taste and spirit, has written on poetry and poets, but he composed tragedies which give him no title to be ranked among them.



ANECDOTES OF CENSURED AUTHORS.

It is an ingenious observation made by a journalist of Trevoux, on perusing a criticism not ill written, which pretended to detect several faults in the compositions of Bruyere, that in ancient Rome the great men who triumphed amidst the applauses of those who celebrated their virtues, were at the same time compelled to listen to those who reproached them with their vices. This custom is not less necessary to the republic of letters than it was formerly to the republic of Rome. Without this it is probable that authors would be intoxicated with success, and would then relax in their accustomed vigour; and the multitude who took them for models would, for want of judgment, imitate their defects.

Sterne and Churchill were continually abusing the Reviewers, because they honestly told the one that obscenity was not wit, and obscurity was not sense; and the other that dissonance in poetry did not excel harmony, and that his rhymes were frequently prose lines of ten syllables cut into verse. They applauded their happier efforts. Notwithstanding all this, it is certain that so little discernment exists among common writers and common readers, that the obscenity and flippancy of Sterne, and the bald verse and prosaic poetry of Churchill, were precisely the portion which they selected for imitation. The blemishes of great men are not the less blemishes, but they are, unfortunately, the easiest parts for imitation.

Yet criticism may be too rigorous, and genius too sensible to its direst attacks. Sir John Marsham, having published the first part of his "Chronology," suffered so much chagrin at the endless controversies which it raised—and some of his critics went so far as to affirm it was designed to be detrimental to revelation—that he burned the second part, which was ready for the press. Pope was observed to writhe with anguish in his chair on hearing mentioned the letter of Cibber, with other temporary attacks; and it is said of Montesquieu, that he was so much affected by the criticisms, true and false, which he daily experienced, that they contributed to hasten his death. Ritson's extreme irritability closed in lunacy, while ignorant Reviewers, in the shapes of assassins, were haunting his death-bed. In the preface to his "Metrical Romances," he describes himself as "brought to an end in ill health and low spirits—certain to be insulted by a base and prostitute gang of lurking assassins who stab in the dark, and whose poisoned daggers he has already experienced." Scott, of Amwell, never recovered from a ludicrous criticism, which I discovered had been written by a physician who never pretended to poetical taste.

Pelisson has recorded a literary anecdote, which forcibly shows the danger of caustic criticism. A young man from a remote province came to Paris with a play, which he considered as a masterpiece. M. L'Etoile was more than just in his merciless criticism. He showed the youthful bard a thousand glaring defects in his chef-d'oeuvre. The humbled country author burnt his tragedy, returned home, took to his chamber, and died of vexation and grief. Of all unfortunate men, one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism. Athenaeus, in his tenth book, has given us a lively portrait of this melancholy being. Anaxandrides appeared one day on horseback in the public assembly at Athens, to recite a dithyrambic poem, of which he read a portion. He was a man of fine stature, and wore a purple robe edged with golden fringe. But his complexion was saturnine and melancholy, which was the cause that he never spared his own writings. Whenever he was vanquished by a rival, he immediately gave his compositions to the druggists to be cut into pieces to wrap their articles in, without ever caring to revise his writings. It is owing to this that he destroyed a number of pleasing compositions; age increased his sourness, and every day he became more and more dissatisfied with the awards of his auditors. Hence his "Tereus," because it failed to obtain the prize, has not reached us, which, with other of his productions, deserved preservation, though they had missed the crown awarded by the public.

Batteux having been chosen by the French government for the compilation of elementary hooks for the Military School, is said to have felt their unfavourable reception so acutely, that he became a prey to excessive grief. The lamentable death of Dr. Hawkesworth was occasioned by a similar circumstance. Government had consigned to his care the compilation of the voyages that pass under his name: how he succeeded is well known. He felt the public reception so sensibly, that he preferred the oblivion of death to the mortifying recollections of life.[113]

On this interesting subject Fontenelle, in his "Eloge sur Newton," has made the following observation:—"Newton was more desirous of remaining unknown than of having the calm of life disturbed by those literary storms which genius and science attract about those who rise to eminence." In one of his letters we learn that his "Treatise on Optics" being ready for the press, several premature objections which appeared made him abandon its publication. "I should reproach myself," he said, "for my imprudence, if I were to lose a thing so real as my ease to run after a shadow." But this shadow he did not miss: it did not cost him the ease he so much loved, and it had for him as much reality as ease itself. I refer to Bayle, in his curious article, "Hipponax," note F. To these instances we may add the fate of the Abbe Cassagne, a man of learning, and not destitute of talents. He was intended for one of the preachers at court; but he had hardly made himself known in the pulpit, when he was struck by the lightning of Boileau's muse. He felt so acutely the caustic verses, that they rendered him almost incapable of literary exertion; in the prime of life he became melancholy, and shortly afterwards died insane. A modern painter, it is known, never recovered from the biting ridicule of a popular, but malignant wit. Cummyns, a celebrated quaker, confessed he died of an anonymous letter in a public paper, which, said he, "fastened on my heart, and threw me into this slow fever." Racine, who died of his extreme sensibility to a royal rebuke, confessed that the pain which one severe criticism inflicted outweighed all the applause he could receive. The feathered arrow of an epigram has sometimes been wet with the heart's blood of its victim. Fortune has been lost, reputation destroyed, and every charity of life extinguished, by the inhumanity of inconsiderate wit.

Literary history, even of our own days, records the fate of several who may be said to have died of Criticism.[114] But there is more sense and infinite humour in the mode which Phaedrus adopted to answer the cavillers of his age. When he first published his Fables, the taste for conciseness and simplicity were so much on the decline, that they were both objected to him as faults. He used his critics as they deserved. To those who objected against the conciseness of his style, he tells a long tedious story (Lib. iii. Fab. 10, ver. 59), and treats those who condemned the simplicity of his style with a run of bombast verses, that have a great many noisy elevated words in them, without any sense at the bottom—this in Lib. iv. Fab. 6.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 113: The doctor was paid 6000l. to prepare the narrative of the Voyages of Captain Cook from the rough notes. He indulged in much pruriency of description, and occasional remarks savouring of infidelity. They were loudly and generally condemned, and he died soon afterwards.]

[Footnote 114: Keats is the most melancholy instance. The effect of the severe criticism in the Quarterly Review upon his writings, is said by Shelley to have "appeared like madness, and he was with difficulty prevented from suicide." He never recovered its baneful effect; and when he died in Rome, desired his epitaph might be, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." The tombstone in the Protestant cemetery is nameless, and simply records that "A young English poet" lies there.]



VIRGINITY.

The writings of the Fathers once formed the studies of the learned. These labours abound with that subtilty of argument which will repay the industry of the inquisitive, and the antiquary may turn them over for pictures of the manners of the age. A favourite subject with Saint Ambrose was that of Virginity, on which he has several works; and perhaps he wished to revive the order of the vestals of ancient Rome, which afterwards produced the institution of Nuns. From his "Treatise on Virgins," written in the fourth century, we learn the lively impressions his exhortations had made on the minds and hearts of girls, not less in the most distant provinces, than in the neighbourhood of Milan, where he resided. The Virgins of Bologna, amounting only, it appears, to the number of twenty, performed all kinds of needlework, not merely to gain their livelihood, but also to be enabled to perform acts of liberality, and exerted their industry to allure other girls to join the holy profession of VIRGINITY. He exhorts daughters, in spite of their parents, and even their lovers, to consecrate themselves. "I do not blame marriage," he says, "I only show the advantages of VIRGINITY."

He composed this book in so florid a style, that he considered it required some apology. A Religious of the Benedictines published a translation in 1689.

So sensible was St. Ambrose of the rarity of the profession he would establish, that he thus combats his adversaries: "They complain that human nature will be exhausted; but I ask, who has ever sought to marry without finding women enough from amongst whom he might choose? What murder, or what war, has ever been occasioned for a virgin? It is one of the consequences of marriage to kill the adulterer, and to war with the ravisher."

He wrote another treatise On the perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God. He attacks Bonosius on this subject, and defends her virginity, which was indeed greatly suspected by Bonosius, who, however, incurred by this bold suspicion the anathema of Heresy. A third treatise was entitled Exhortation to Virginity; a fourth, On the Fate of a Virgin, is more curious. He relates the misfortunes of one Susannah, who was by no means a companion for her namesake; for having made a vow of virginity, and taken the veil, she afterwards endeavoured to conceal her shame, but the precaution only tended to render her more culpable. Her behaviour, indeed, had long afforded ample food for the sarcasms of the Jews and Pagans. Saint Ambrose compelled her to perform public penance, and after having declaimed on her double crime, gave her hopes of pardon, if, like "Soeur Jeanne," this early nun would sincerely repent: to complete her chastisement, he ordered her every day to recite the fiftieth psalm.



A GLANCE INTO THE FRENCH ACADEMY.

In the republic of letters the establishment of an academy has been a favourite project; yet perhaps it is little more than an Utopian scheme. The united efforts of men of letters in Academies have produced little. It would seem that no man likes to bestow his great labours on a small community, for whose members he himself does not feel, probably, the most flattering partiality. The French Academy made a splendid appearance in Europe; yet when this society published their Dictionary, that of Furetiere's became a formidable rival; and Johnson did as much as the forty themselves. Voltaire confesses that the great characters of the literary republic were formed without the aid of academies.—"For what then," he asks, "are they necessary?—To preserve and nourish the fire which great geniuses have kindled." By observing the Junto at their meetings we may form some opinion of the indolent manner in which they trifled away their time. We are fortunately enabled to do this, by a letter in which Patru describes, in a very amusing manner, the visit which Christina of Sweden took a sudden fancy to pay to the Academy.

The Queen of Sweden suddenly resolved to visit the French Academy, and gave so short a notice of her design, that it was impossible to inform the majority of the members of her intention. About four o'clock fifteen or sixteen academicians were assembled. M. Gombaut, who had never forgiven her majesty, because she did not relish his verses, thought proper to show his resentment by quitting the assembly.

She was received in a spacious hall. In the middle was a table covered with rich blue velvet, ornamented with a broad border of gold and silver. At its head was placed an armchair of black velvet embroidered with gold, and round the table were placed chairs with tapestry backs. The chancellor had forgotten to hang in the hall the portrait of the queen, which she had presented to the Academy, and which was considered as a great omission. About five, a footman belonging to the queen inquired if the company were assembled. Soon after, a servant of the king informed the chancellor that the queen was at the end of the street; and immediately her carriage drew up in the court-yard. The chancellor, followed by the rest of the members, went to receive her as she stepped out of her chariot; but the crowd was so great, that few of them could reach her majesty. Accompanied by the chancellor, she passed through the first hall, followed by one of her ladies, the captain of her guards, and one or two of her suite.

When she entered the Academy she approached the fire, and spoke in a low voice to the chancellor. She then asked why M. Menage was not there? and when she was told that he did not belong to the Academy, she asked why he did not? She was answered, that, however he might merit the honour, he had rendered himself unworthy of it by several disputes he had had with its members. She then inquired aside of the chancellor whether the academicians were to sit or stand before her? On this the chancellor consulted with a member, who observed that in the time of Ronsard, there was held an assembly of men of letters before Charles IX. several times, and that they were always seated. The queen conversed with M. Bourdelot; and suddenly turning to Madame de Bregis, told her that she believed she must not be present at the assembly; but it was agreed that this lady deserved the honour. As the queen was talking with a member she abruptly quitted him, as was her custom, and in her quick way sat down in the arm-chair; and at the same time the members seated themselves. The queen observing that they did not, out of respect to her, approach the table, desired them to come near; and they accordingly approached it.

During these ceremonious preparations several officers of state had entered the hall, and stood behind the academicians. The chancellor sat at the queen's left hand by the fire-side; and at the right was placed M. de la Chambre, the director; then Boisrobert, Patru, Pelisson, Cotin, the Abbe Tallemant, and others. M. de Mezeray sat at the bottom of the table facing the queen, with an inkstand, paper, and the portfolio of the company lying before him: he occupied the place of the secretary. When they were all seated the director rose, and the academicians followed him, all but the chancellor, who remained in his seat. The director made his complimentary address in a low voice, his body was quite bent, and no person but the queen and the chancellor could hear him. She received his address with great satisfaction.

All compliments concluded, they returned to their seats. The director then told the queen that he had composed a treatise on Pain, to add to his character of the Passions, and if it was agreeable to her majesty, he would read the first chapter.—"Very willingly," she answered. Having read it, he said to her majesty, that he would read no more lest he should fatigue her. "Not at all," she replied, "for I suppose what follows is like what I have heard."

M. de Mezeray observed that M. Cotin had some verses, which her majesty would doubtless find beautiful, and if it was agreeable they should be read. M. Cotin read them: they were versions of two passages from Lucretius: the one in which he attacks a Providence, and the other, where he gives the origin of the world according to the Epicurean system: to these he added twenty lines of his own, in which he maintained the existence of a Providence. This done, an abbe rose, and, without being desired or ordered, read two sonnets, which by courtesy were allowed to be tolerable. It is remarkable that both the poets read their verses standing, while the rest read their compositions seated.

After these readings, the director informed the queen that the ordinary exercise of the company was to labour on the dictionary; and that if her majesty should not find it disagreeable, they would read a cahier. "Very willingly," she answered. M. de Mezeray then read what related to the word Jeu; Game. Amongst other proverbial expressions was this: Game of Princes, which only pleases the player, to express a malicious violence committed by one in power. At this the queen laughed heartily; and they continued reading all that was fairly written. This lasted about an hour, when the queen observing that nothing more remained, arose, made a bow to the company, and returned in the manner she entered.

Furetiere, who was himself an academician, has described the miserable manner in which time was consumed at their assemblies. I confess he was a satirist, and had quarrelled with the Academy; there must have been, notwithstanding, sufficient resemblance for the following picture, however it may be overcharged. He has been blamed for thus exposing the Eleusinian mysteries of literature to the uninitiated.

"He who is most clamorous, is he whom they suppose has most reason. They all have the art of making long orations upon a trifle. The second repeats like an echo what the first said; but generally three or four speak together. When there is a bench of five or six members, one reads, another decides, two converse, one sleeps, and another amuses himself with reading some dictionary which happens to lie before him. When a second member is to deliver his opinion, they are obliged to read again the article, which at the first perusal he had been too much engaged to hear. This is a happy manner of finishing their work. They can hardly get over two lines without long digressions; without some one telling a pleasant story, or the news of the day; or talking of affairs of state, and reforming the government."

That the French Academy were generally frivolously employed appears also from an epistle to Balzac, by Boisrobert, the amusing companion of Cardinal Richelieu. "Every one separately," says he, "promises great things; when they meet they do nothing. They have been six years employed on the letter F; and I should be happy if I were certain of living till they got through G."

The following anecdote concerns the forty arm-chairs of the academicians.[115] Those cardinals who were academicians for a long time had not attended the meetings of the Academy, because they thought that arm-chairs were indispensable to their dignity, and the Academy had then only common chairs. These cardinals were desirous of being present at the election of M. Monnoie, that they might give him a distinguished mark of their esteem. "The king," says D'Alembert, "to satisfy at once the delicacy of their friendship, and that of their cardinalship, and to preserve at the same time that academical equality, of which this enlightened monarch (Louis XIV.) well knew the advantage, sent to the Academy forty arm-chairs for the forty academicians, the same chairs which we now occupy; and the motive to which we owe them is sufficient to render the memory of Louis XIV. precious to the republic of letters, to whom it owes so many more important obligations!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 115: A very clever satire has been concocted in an imaginary history of "a forty-first chair" of the Academy which has been occupied by the great men of literature who have not been recognised members of the official body, and whose "existence there has been unaccountably forgotten" in the annals of its members.]



POETICAL AND GRAMMATICAL DEATHS.

It will appear by the following anecdotes, that some men may be said to have died poetically and even grammatically.

There must be some attraction existing in poetry which is not merely fictitious, for often have its genuine votaries felt all its powers on the most trying occasions. They have displayed the energy of their mind by composing or repeating verses, even with death on their lips.

The Emperor Adrian, dying, made that celebrated address to his soul, which is so happily translated by Pope. Lucan, when he had his veins opened by order of Nero, expired reciting a passage from his Pharsalia, in which he had described the wound of a dying soldier. Petronius did the same thing on the same occasion.

Patris, a poet of Caen, perceiving himself expiring, composed some verses which are justly admired. In this little poem he relates a dream, in which he appeared to be placed next to a beggar, when, having addressed him in the haughty strain he would probably have employed on this side of the grave, he receives the following reprimand:—

Ici tous sont egaux; je ne te dois plus rien; Je suis sur mon fumier comme toi sur le tien.

Here all are equal! now thy lot is mine! I on my dunghill, as thou art on thine.

Des Barreaux, it is said, wrote on his death-bed that well-known sonnet which is translated in the "Spectator."

Margaret of Austria, when she was nearly perishing in a storm at sea, composed her epitaph in verse. Had she perished, what would have become of the epitaph? And if she escaped, of what use was it? She should rather have said her prayers. The verses however have all the naivete of the times. They are—

Cy gist Margot, la gente demoiselle, Qu'eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle.

Beneath this tomb is high-born Margaret laid, Who had two husbands, and yet died a maid.

She was betrothed to Charles VIII. of France, who forsook her; and being next intended for the Spanish infant, in her voyage to Spain, she wrote these lines in a storm.

Mademoiselle de Serment was surnamed the philosopher. She was celebrated for her knowledge and taste in polite literature. She died of a cancer in her breast, and suffered her misfortune with exemplary patience. She expired in finishing these verses, which she addressed to Death:—

Nectare clausa suo, Dignum tantorum pretium tulit illa laborum.

It was after Cervantes had received extreme unction that he wrote the dedication of his Persiles.

Roscommon, at the moment he expired, with an energy of voice that expressed the most fervent devotion, uttered two lines of his own version of "Dies Irae!" Waller, in his last moments, repeated some lines from Virgil; and Chaucer seems to have taken his farewell of all human vanities by a moral ode, entitled, "A balade made by Geffrey Chaucyer upon his dethe-bedde lying in his grete anguysse."[116]

Cornelius de Witt fell an innocent victim to popular prejudice. His death is thus noticed by Hume:—"This man, who had bravely served his country in war, and who had been invested with the highest dignities, was delivered into the hands of the executioner, and torn in pieces by the most inhuman torments. Amidst the severe agonies which he endured he frequently repeated an ode of Horace, which contained sentiments suited to his deplorable condition." It was the third ode of the third book which this illustrious philosopher and statesman then repeated.

Metastasio, after receiving the sacrament, a very short time before his last moments, broke out with all the enthusiasm of poetry and religion in these stanzas:—

T' offro il tuo proprio Figlio, Che gia d'amore in pegno, Racchiuso in picciol segno Si volle a noi donar.

A lui rivolgi il ciglio. Guardo chi t' offro, e poi Lasci, Signor, se vuoi, Lascia di perdonar.

"I offer to thee, O Lord, thine own Son, who already has given the pledge of love, enclosed in this thin emblem. Turn on him thine eyes: ah! behold whom I offer to thee, and then desist, O Lord! if thou canst desist from mercy."

"The muse that has attended my course," says the dying Gleim in a letter to Klopstock, "still hovers round my steps to the very verge of the grave." A collection of lyrical poems, entitled "Last Hours," composed by old Gleim on his death-bed, was intended to be published. The death of Klopstock was one of the most poetical: in this poet's "Messiah," he had made the death of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, a picture of the death of the Just; and on his own death-bed he was heard repeating, with an expiring voice, his own verses on Mary; he was exhorting himself to die by the accents of his own harp, the sublimities of his own muse! The same song of Mary was read at the public funeral of Klopstock.

Chatelar, a French gentleman, beheaded in Scotland for having loved the queen, and even for having attempted her honour, Brantome says, would not have any other viaticum than a poem of Ronsard. When he ascended the scaffold he took the hymns of this poet, and for his consolation read that on death, which our old critic says is well adapted to conquer its fear.

When the Marquis of Montrose was condemned by his judges to have his limbs nailed to the gates of four cities, the brave soldier said that "he was sorry he had not limbs sufficient to be nailed to all the gates of the cities in Europe, as monuments of his loyalty." As he proceeded to his execution, he put this thought into verse.

Philip Strozzi, imprisoned by Cosmo the First, Great Duke of Tuscany, was apprehensive of the danger to which he might expose his friends who had joined in his conspiracy against the duke, from the confessions which the rack might extort from him. Having attempted every exertion for the liberty of his country, he considered it as no crime therefore to die. He resolved on suicide. With the point of the sword, with which he killed himself, he cut out on the mantel-piece of the chimney this verse of Virgil:—

Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor. Rise some avenger from our blood!

I can never repeat without a strong emotion the following stanzas, begun by Andre Chenier, in the dreadful period of the French revolution. He was waiting for his turn to be dragged to the guillotine, when he commenced this poem:—

Comme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier zephyre Anime la fin d'un beau jour; Au pied de l'echafaud j'essaie encore ma lyre, Peut-etre est ce bientot mon tour;

Peut-etre avant que l'heure en cercle promenee Ait pose sur l'email brillant, Dans les soixante pas ou sa route est bornee Son pied sonore et vigilant,

Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupiere—

Here, at this pathetic line, was Andre Chenier summoned to the guillotine! Never was a more beautiful effusion of grief interrupted by a more affecting incident!

Several men of science have died in a scientific manner. Haller, the poet, philosopher, and physician, beheld his end approach with the utmost composure. He kept feeling his pulse to the last moment, and when he found that life was almost gone, he turned to his brother physician, observing, "My friend, the artery ceases to beat," and almost instantly expired. The same remarkable circumstance had occurred to the great Harvey: he kept making observations on the state of his pulse, when life was drawing to its close, "as if," says Dr. Wilson, in the oration spoken a few days after the event, "that he who had taught us the beginning of life might himself, at his departing from it, become acquainted with those of death."

De Lagny, who was intended by his friends for the study of the law, having fallen on an Euclid, found it so congenial to his dispositions, that he devoted himself to mathematics. In his last moments, when he retained no further recollection of the friends who surrounded his bed, one of them, perhaps to make a philosophical experiment, thought proper to ask him the square of twelve: our dying mathematician instantly, and perhaps without knowing that he answered, replied, "One hundred and forty-four."

The following anecdotes are of a different complexion, and may excite a smile.

Pere Bohours was a French grammarian, who had been justly accused of paying too scrupulous an attention to the minutiae of letters. He was more solicitous of his words than his thoughts. It is said, that when he was dying, he called out to his friends (a correct grammarian to the last), "Je VAS ou je VAIS mourir; l'un ou l'autre se dit!"

When Malherbe was dying, he reprimanded his nurse for making use of a solecism in her language; and when his confessor represented to him the felicities of a future state in low and trite expressions, the dying critic interrupted him:—"Hold your tongue," he said; "your wretched style only makes me out of conceit with them!"

The favourite studies and amusements of the learned La Mothe le Vayer consisted in accounts of the most distant countries. He gave a striking proof of the influence of this master-passion, when death hung upon his lips. Bernier, the celebrated traveller, entering and drawing the curtains of his bed to take his eternal farewell, the dying man turning to him, with a faint voice inquired, "Well, my friend, what news from the Great Mogul?"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 116: Barham, the author of the Ingoldsby Legends, wrote a similar death-bed lay in imitation of the older poets. It is termed "As I laye a-thinkynge." Bewick, the wood-engraver, was last employed upon, and left unfinished at his death, a cut, the subject of which was "The old Horse waiting for Death."]



SCARRON.

Scarron, as a burlesque poet, but no other comparison exists, had his merit, but is now little read; for the uniformity of the burlesque style is as intolerable as the uniformity of the serious. From various sources we may collect some uncommon anecdotes, although he was a mere author.

His father, a counsellor, having married a second wife, the lively Scarron became the object of her hatred.

He studied, and travelled, and took the clerical tonsure; but discovered dispositions more suitable to the pleasures of his age than to the gravity of his profession. He formed an acquaintance with the wits of the times; and in the carnival of 1638 committed a youthful extravagance, for which his remaining days formed a continual punishment. He disguised himself as a savage; the singularity of a naked man attracted crowds. After having been hunted by the mob, he was forced to escape from his pursuers; and concealed himself in a marsh. A freezing cold seized him, and threw him, at the age of twenty-seven years, into a kind of palsy; a cruel disorder which tormented him all his life. "It was thus," he says, "that pleasure deprived me suddenly of legs which had danced with elegance, and of hands, which could manage the pencil and the lute."

Goujet, without stating this anecdote, describes his disorder as an acrid humour, distilling itself on his nerves, and baffling the skill of his physicians; the sciatica, rheumatism, in a word, a complication of maladies attacked him, sometimes successively, sometimes together, and made of our poor Abbe a sad spectacle. He thus describes himself in one of his letters; and who could be in better humour?

"I have lived to thirty: if I reach forty, I shall only add many miseries to those which I have endured these last eight or nine years. My person was well made, though short; my disorder has shortened it still more by a foot. My head is a little broad for my shape; my face is full enough for my body to appear very meagre; I have hair enough to render a wig unnecessary; I have got many white hairs, in spite of the proverb. My teeth, formerly square pearls, are now of the colour of wood, and will soon be of slate. My legs and thighs first formed an obtuse angle, afterwards an equilateral angle, and at length, an acute one. My thighs and body form another; and my head, always dropping on my breast, makes me not ill represent a Z. I have got my arms shortened as well as my legs, and my fingers as well as my arms. In a word, I am an abridgment of human miseries."

He had the free use of nothing but his tongue and his hands; and he wrote on a portfolio placed on his knees.

Balzac said of Scarron, that he had gone further in insensibility than the Stoics, who were satisfied in appearing insensible to pain; but Scarron was gay, and amused all the world with his sufferings.

He pourtrays himself thus humorously in his address to the queen:—

Je ne regard plus qu'en bas, Je suis torticolis, j'ai la tete penchante; Ma mine devient si plaisante Que quand on en riroit, je ne m'en plaindrois pas.

"I can only see under me; I am wry-necked; my head hangs down; my appearance is so droll, that if people laugh, I shall not complain."

He says elsewhere,

Parmi les torticolis Je passe pour un des plus jolis.

"Among your wry-necked people I pass for one of the handsomest."

After having suffered this distortion of shape, and these acute pains for four years, he quitted his usual residence, the quarter du Marais, for the baths of the Fauxbourg Saint Germain. He took leave of his friends, by addressing some verses to them, entitled, Adieu aux Marais; in which he describes several celebrated persons. When he was brought into the street in a chair, the pleasure of seeing himself there once more overcame the pains which the motion occasioned, and he has celebrated the transport by an ode, which has for title, "The Way from le Marais to the Fauxbourg Saint Germain."

The baths he tried had no effect on his miserable disorder. But a new affliction was added to the catalogue of his griefs.

His father, who had hitherto contributed to his necessities, having joined a party against Cardinal Richelieu, was exiled. This affair was rendered still more unfortunate by his mother-in-law with her children at Paris, in the absence of her husband, appropriating the property of the family to her own use.

Hitherto Scarron had had no connexion with Cardinal Richelieu. The conduct of his father had even rendered his name disagreeable to the minister, who was by no means prone to forgiveness. Scarron, however, when he thought his passion moderated, ventured to present a petition, which is considered by the critics as one of his happiest productions. Richelieu permitted it to be read to him, and acknowledged that it afforded him much pleasure, and that it was pleasantly dated. This pleasant date is thus given by Scarron:—

Fait a Paris dernier jour d'Octobre, Par moi, Scarron, qui malgre moi suis sobre, L'an que l'on prit le fameux Perpignan, Et, sans canon, la ville de Sedan.

At Paris done, the last day of October, By me, Scarron, who wanting wine am sober, The year they took fam'd Perpignan, And, without cannon-ball, Sedan.

This was flattering the minister adroitly in two points very agreeable to him. The poet augured well of the dispositions of the cardinal, and lost no time to return to the charge, by addressing an ode to him, to which he gave the title of THANKS, as if he had already received the favours which he hoped he should receive! Thus Ronsard dedicated to Catherine of Medicis, who was prodigal of promises, his hymn to PROMISE. But all was lost for Scarron by the death of the Cardinal.

When Scarron's father died, he brought his mother-in-law into court; and, to complete his misfortunes, lost his suit. The cases which he drew up for the occasion were so extremely burlesque, that the world could not easily conceive how a man could amuse himself so pleasantly on a subject on which his existence depended.

The successor of Richelieu, the Cardinal Mazarin, was insensible to his applications. He did nothing for him, although the poet dedicated to him his Typhon, a burlesque poem, in which the author describes the wars of the giants with the gods. Our bard was so irritated at this neglect, that he suppressed a sonnet he had written in his favour, and aimed at him several satirical bullets. Scarron, however, consoled himself for this kind of disgrace with those select friends who were not inconstant in their visits to him. The Bishop of Mans also, solicited by a friend, gave him a living in his diocese. When Scarron had taken possession of it, he began his Roman Comique, ill translated into English by Comical Romance. He made friends by his dedications. Such resources were indeed necessary, for he not only lived well, but had made his house an asylum for his two sisters, who there found refuge from an unfeeling step-mother.

It was about this time that the beautiful and accomplished Mademoiselle d'Aubigne, afterwards so well known by the name of Madame de Maintenon, she who was to be one day the mistress, if not the queen of France, formed with Scarron the most romantic connexion. She united herself in marriage with one whom she well knew could only be a lover. It was indeed amidst that literary society she formed her taste and embellished with her presence his little residence, where assembled the most polished courtiers and some of the finest geniuses of Paris of that famous party, called La Fronde, formed against Mazarin. Such was the influence this marriage had over Scarron, that after this period his writings became more correct and more agreeable than those which he had previously composed. Scarron, on his side, gave a proof of his attachment to Madame de Maintenon; for by marrying her he lost his living of Mans. But though without wealth, he was accustomed to say that "his wife and he would not live uncomfortable by the produce of his estate and the Marquisate of Quinet." Thus he called the revenue which his compositions produced, and Quinet was his bookseller.

Scarron addressed one of his dedications to his dog, to ridicule those writers who dedicate their works indiscriminately, though no author has been more liberal of dedications than himself; but, as he confessed, he made dedication a kind of business. When he was low in cash he always dedicated to some lord, whom he praised as warmly as his dog, but whom probably he did not esteem as much.

When Scarron was visited, previous to general conversation his friends were taxed with a perusal of what he had written since he saw them last. Segrais and a friend calling on him, "Take a chair," said our author, "and let me try on you my 'Roman Comique.'" He took his manuscript, read several pages, and when he observed that they laughed, he said, "Good, this goes well; my book can't fail of success, since it obliges such able persons as yourselves to laugh;" and then remained silent to receive their compliments. He used to call this trying on his romance, as a tailor tries his coat. He was agreeable and diverting in all things, even in his complaints and passions. Whatever he conceived he immediately too freely expressed; but his amiable lady corrected him of this in three months after marriage.

He petitioned the queen, in his droll manner, to be permitted the honour of being her Sick-Man by right of office. These verses form a part of his address to her majesty:

Scarron, par la grace de Dieu, Malade indigne de la reine, Homme n'ayant ni feu, ni lieu, Mais bien du mal et de la peine; Hopital allant et venant, Des jambes d'autrui cheminant, Des sieunes n'ayant plus l'usage, Souffrant beaucoup, dormant bien pen, Et pourtant faisant par courage Bonne mine et fort mauvais jeu.

"Scarron, by the grace of God, the unworthy Sick-Man of the Queen; a man without a house, though a moving hospital of disorders; walking only with other people's legs, with great sufferings, but little sleep; and yet, in spite of all, very courageously showing a hearty countenance, though indeed he plays a losing game."

She smiled, granted the title, and, what was better, added a small pension, which losing, by lampooning the minister Mazarin, Fouquet generously granted him a more considerable one.

The termination of the miseries of this facetious genius was now approaching. To one of his friends, who was taking leave of him for some time, Scarron said, "I shall soon die; the only regret I have in dying is not to be enabled to leave some property to my wife, who is possessed of infinite merit, and whom I have every reason imaginable to admire and to praise."

One day he was seized with so violent a fit of the hiccough, that his friends now considered his prediction would soon be verified. When it was over, "If ever I recover," cried Scarron, "I will write a bitter satire against the hiccough." The satire, however, was never written, for he died soon after. A little before his death, when he observed his relations and domestics weeping and groaning, he was not much affected, but humorously told them, "My children, you will never weep for me so much as I have made you laugh." A few moments before he died, he said, that "he never thought that it was so easy a matter to laugh at the approach of death."

The burlesque compositions of Scarron are now neglected by the French. This species of writing was much in vogue till attacked by the critical Boileau, who annihilated such puny writers as D'Assoucy and Dulot, with their stupid admirers. It is said he spared Scarron because his merit, though it appeared but at intervals, was uncommon. Yet so much were burlesque verses the fashion after Scarron's works, that the booksellers would not publish poems, but with the word "Burlesque" in the title-page. In 1649 appeared a poem, which shocked the pious, entitled, "The Passion of our Lord, in burlesque Verses."

Swift, in his dotage, appears to have been gratified by such puerilities as Scarron frequently wrote. An ode which Swift calls "A Lilliputian Ode," consisting of verses of three syllables, probably originated in a long epistle in verses of three syllables, which Scarron addressed to Sarrazin. It is pleasant, and the following lines will serve as a specimen:—

Epitre a M. Sarrazin.

Sarrazin Mon voisin, Cher ami, Qu'a demi, Je ne voi, Dont ma foi J'ai depit Un petit. N'es-tu pas Barrabas, Busiris, Phalaris, Ganelon, Le Felon?

He describes himself—

Un pauvret, Tres maigret; Au col tors, Dont le corps Tout tortu, Tout bossu, Suranne, Decharne, Est reduit, Jour et nuit, A souffrir Sans guerir Des tourmens Vehemens.

He complains of Sarrazin's not visiting him, threatens to reduce him into powder if he comes not quickly; and concludes,

Mais pourtant, Repentant Si tu viens Et tu tiens Settlement Un moment Avec nous, Mon courroux Finira, ET CAETERA.

The Roman Comique of our author abounds with pleasantry, with wit and character. His "Virgile Travestie" it is impossible to read long: this we likewise feel in "Cotton's Virgil travestied," which has notwithstanding considerable merit. Buffoonery after a certain time exhausts our patience. It is the chaste actor only who can keep the attention awake for a length of time. It is said that Scarron intended to write a tragedy; this perhaps would not have been the least facetious of his burlesques.



PETER CORNEILLE.

Exact Racine and Corneille's noble fire Show'd us that France had something to admire.

POPE.

The great Corneille having finished his studies, devoted himself to the bar; but this was not the stage on which his abilities were to be displayed. He followed the occupation of a lawyer for some time, without taste and without success. A trifling circumstance discovered to the world and to himself a different genius. A young man who was in love with a girl of the same town, having solicited him to be his companion in one of those secret visits which he paid to the lady, it happened that the stranger pleased infinitely more than his introducer. The pleasure arising from this adventure excited in Corneille a talent which had hitherto been unknown to him, and he attempted, as if it were by inspiration, dramatic poetry. On this little subject he wrote his comedy of Melite, in 1625. At that moment the French drama was at a low ebb: the most favourable ideas were formed of our juvenile poet, and comedy, it was expected, would now reach its perfection. After the tumult of approbation had ceased, the critics thought that Melite was too simple and barren of incident. Roused by this criticism, our poet wrote his Clitandre, and in that piece has scattered incidents and adventures with such a licentious profusion, that the critics say he wrote it rather to expose the public taste than to accommodate himself to it. In this piece the persons combat on the theatre; there are murders and assassinations; heroines fight; officers appear in search of murderers, and women are disguised as men. There is matter sufficient for a romance of ten volumes; "And yet," says a French critic, "nothing can be more cold and tiresome." He afterwards indulged his natural genius in various other performances; but began to display more forcibly his tragic powers in Medea. A comedy which he afterwards wrote was a very indifferent composition. He regained his full lustre in the famous Cid, a tragedy, of which he preserved in his closet translations in all the European languages, except the Sclavonian and the Turkish. He pursued his poetical career with uncommon splendour in the Horaces, Cinna, and at length in Polyeucte; which productions, the French critics say, can never be surpassed.

At length the tragedy of "Pertharite" appeared, and proved unsuccessful. This so much disgusted our veteran bard, that, like Ben Jonson, he could not conceal his chagrin in the preface. There the poet tells us that he renounces the theatre for ever! and indeed this eternity lasted for several years!

Disgusted by the fate of his unfortunate tragedy, he directed his poetical pursuits to a different species of composition. He now finished his translation in verse, of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," by Thomas a Kempis. This work, perhaps from the singularity of its dramatic author becoming a religious writer, was attended with astonishing success. Yet Fontenelle did not find in this translation the prevailing charm of the original, which consists in that simplicity and naivete which are lost in the pomp of versification so natural to Corneille. "This book," he continues, "the finest that ever proceeded from the hand of man (since the gospel does not come from man) would not go so direct to the heart, and would not seize on it with such force, if it had not a natural and tender air, to which even that negligence which prevails in the style greatly contributes." Voltaire appears to confirm the opinion of our critic, in respect to the translation: "It is reported that Corneille's translation of the Imitation of Jesus Christ has been printed thirty-two times; it is as difficult to believe this as it is to read the book once!"

Corneille seems not to have been ignorant of the truth of this criticism. In his dedication to the Pope, he says, "The translation which I have chosen, by the simplicity of its style, precludes all the rich ornaments of poetry, and far from increasing my reputation, must be considered rather as a sacrifice made to the glory of the Sovereign Author of all, which I may have acquired by my poetical productions." This is an excellent elucidation of the truth of that precept of Johnson which respects religious poetry; but of which the author of "Calvary" seemed not to have been sensible. The merit of religious compositions appears, like this "Imitation of Jesus Christ," to consist in a simplicity inimical to the higher poetical embellishments; these are too human!

When Racine, the son, published a long poem on "Grace," taken in its holy sense, a most unhappy subject at least for poetry; it was said that he had written on Grace without grace.

During the space of six years Corneille rigorously kept his promise of not writing for the theatre. At length, overpowered by the persuasions of his friends, and probably by his own inclinations, he once more directed his studies to the drama. He recommenced in 1659, and finished in 1675. During this time he wrote ten new pieces, and published a variety of little religious poems, which, although they do not attract the attention of posterity, were then read with delight, and probably preferred to the finest tragedies by the good catholics of the day.

In 1675 he terminated his career. In the last year of his life his mind became so enfeebled as to be incapable of thinking, and he died in extreme poverty. It is true that his uncommon genius had been amply rewarded; but amongst his talents that of preserving the favours of fortune he had not acquired.

Fontenelle, his nephew, presents a minute and interesting description of this great man. Vigneul Marville says, that when he saw Corneille he had the appearance of a country tradesman, and he could not conceive how a man of so rustic an appearance could put into the mouths of his Romans such heroic sentiments. Corneille was sufficiently large and full in his person; his air simple and vulgar; always negligent; and very little solicitous of pleasing by his exterior. His face had something agreeable, his nose large, his mouth not unhandsome, his eyes full of fire, his physiognomy lively, with strong features, well adapted to be transmitted to posterity on a medal or bust. His pronunciation was not very distinct: and he read his verses with force, but without grace.

He was acquainted with polite literature, with history, and politics; but he generally knew them best as they related to the stage. For other knowledge he had neither leisure, curiosity, nor much esteem. He spoke little, even on subjects which he perfectly understood. He did not embellish what he said, and to discover the great Corneille it became necessary to read him.

He was of a melancholy disposition, had something blunt in his manner, and sometimes he appeared rude; but in fact he was no disagreeable companion, and made a good father and husband. He was tender, and his soul was very susceptible of friendship. His constitution was very favourable to love, but never to debauchery, and rarely to violent attachment. His soul was fierce and independent: it could never be managed, for it would never bend. This, indeed, rendered him very capable of portraying Roman virtue, but incapable of improving his fortune. Nothing equalled his incapacity for business but his aversion: the slightest troubles of this kind occasioned him alarm and terror. He was never satiated with praise, although he was continually receiving it; but if he was sensible to fame, he was far removed from vanity.

What Fontenelle observes of Corneille's love of fame is strongly proved by our great poet himself, in an epistle to a friend, in which we find the following remarkable description of himself; an instance that what the world calls vanity, at least interests in a great genius.

Nous nous aimons un peu, c'est notre foible a tous; Le prix que nous valons que le scait mieux que nous? Et puis la mode en est, et la cour l'autorise, Nous parlons de nous-memes avec toute franchise, La fausse humilite ne met plus en credit. Je scais ce que je vaux, et crois ce qu'on m'en dit, Pour me faire admirer je ne fais point de ligue; J'ai peu de voix pour moi, mais je les ai sans brigue; Et mon ambition, pour faire plus de bruit Ne les va point queter de reduit en reduit. Mon travail sans appui monte sur le theatre, Chacun en liberte l'y blame ou idolatre; La, sans que mes amis prechent leurs sentimens, J'arrache quelquefois leurs applaudissemens; La, content da succes que le merite donne, Par d'illustres avis je n'eblouis personne; Je satisfais ensemble et peuple et courtisans; Et mes vers en tous lieux sent mes seuls partisans; Par leur seule beaute ma plume est estimee; Je ne dois qu'a moi seul toute ma renommee; Et pense toutefois n'avoir point de rival, A qui je fasse tort, en le traitant d'egal.

I give his sentiments in English verse.

Self-love prevails too much in every state; Who, like ourselves, our secret worth can rate? Since 'tis a fashion authorised at court, Frankly our merits we ourselves report. A proud humility will not deceive; I know my worth; what others say, believe. To be admired I form no petty league; Few are my friends, but gain'd without intrigue. My bold ambition, destitute of grace, Scorns still to beg their votes from place to place. On the fair stage my scenic toils I raise, While each is free to censure or to praise; And there, unaided by inferior arts, I snatch the applause that rushes from their hearts. Content by Merit still to win the crown, With no illustrious names I cheat the town. The galleries thunder, and the pit commends; My verses, everywhere, my only friends! 'Tis from their charms alone my praise I claim; 'Tis to myself alone, I owe my fame; And know no rival whom I fear to meet, Or injure, when I grant an equal seat.

Voltaire censures Corneille for making his heroes say continually they are great men. But in drawing the character of a hero he draws his own. All his heroes are only so many Corneilles in different situations.

Thomas Corneille attempted the same career as his brother; perhaps his name was unfortunate, for it naturally excited a comparison which could not be favourable to him. Gacon, the Dennis of his day, wrote the following smart impromptu under his portrait:—

Voyant le portrait de Corneille, Gardez-vous de crier merveille; Et dans vos transports n'allez pas Prendre ici Pierre pour Thomas.



POETS.

In all ages there has existed an anti-poetical party. This faction consists of those frigid intellects incapable of that glowing expansion so necessary to feel the charms of an art, which only addresses itself to the imagination; or of writers who, having proved unsuccessful in their court to the muses, revenge themselves by reviling them; and also of those religious minds who consider the ardent effusions of poetry as dangerous to the morals and peace of society.

Plato, amongst the ancients, is the model of those moderns who profess themselves to be ANTI-POETICAL.

This writer, in his ideal republic, characterises a man who occupies himself with composing verses as a very dangerous member of society, from the inflammatory tendency of his writings. It is by arguing from its abuse, that he decries this enchanting talent. At the same time it is to be recollected, that no head was more finely organised for the visions of the muse than Plato's: he was a true poet, and had addicted himself in his prime of life to the cultivation of the art, but perceiving that he could not surpass his inimitable original, Homer, he employed this insidious manner of depreciating his works. In the Phaedon he describes the feelings of a genuine Poet. To become such, he says, it will never be sufficient to be guided by the rules of art, unless we also feel the ecstasies of that furor, almost divine, which in this kind of composition is the most palpable and least ambiguous character of a true inspiration. Cold minds, ever tranquil and ever in possession of themselves, are incapable of producing exalted poetry; their verses must always be feeble, diffusive, and leave no impression; the verses of those who are endowed with a strong and lively imagination, and who, like Homer's personification of Discord, have their heads incessantly in the skies, and their feet on the earth, will agitate you, burn in your heart, and drag you along with them; breaking like an impetuous torrent, and swelling your breast with that enthusiasm with which they are themselves possessed.

Such is the character of a poet in a poetical age!—The tuneful race have many corporate bodies of mechanics; Pontypool manufacturers, inlayers, burnishers, gilders, and filers!

Men of taste are sometimes disgusted in turning over the works of the anti-poetical, by meeting with gross railleries and false judgments concerning poetry and poets. Locke has expressed a marked contempt of poets; but we see what ideas he formed of poetry by his warm panegyric of one of Blackmore's epics! and besides he was himself a most unhappy poet! Selden, a scholar of profound erudition, has given us his opinion concerning poets. "It is ridiculous for a lord to print verses; he may make them to please himself. If a man in a private chamber twirls his band-strings, or plays with a rush to please himself, it is well enough; but if he should go into Fleet-street, and sit upon a stall and twirl a band-string, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street would laugh at him."—As if "the sublime and the beautiful" can endure a comparison with the twirling of a band-string or playing with a rush!—A poet, related to an illustrious family, and who did not write unpoetically, entertained a far different notion concerning poets. So persuaded was he that to be a true poet required an elevated mind, that it was a maxim with him that no writer could be an excellent poet who was not descended from a noble family. This opinion is as absurd as that of Selden:—but when one party will not grant enough, the other always assumes too much. The great Pascal, whose extraordinary genius was discovered in the sciences, knew little of the nature of poetical beauty. He said "Poetry has no settled object." This was the decision of a geometrician, not of a poet. "Why should he speak of what he did not understand?" asked the lively Voltaire. Poetry is not an object which comes under the cognizance of philosophy or wit.

Longuerue had profound erudition; but he decided on poetry in the same manner as those learned men. Nothing so strongly characterises such literary men as the following observations in the Longueruana, p. 170.

"There are two books on Homer, which I prefer to Homer himself. The first is Antiquitates Homericae of Feithius, where he has extracted everything relative to the usages and customs of the Greeks; the other is, Homeri Gnomologia per Duportum, printed at Cambridge. In these two books is found everything valuable in Homer, without being obliged to get through his Contes a dormir debout!" Thus men of science decide on men of taste! There are who study Homer and Virgil as the blind travel through a fine country, merely to get to the end of their journey. It was observed at the death of Longuerue that in his immense library not a volume of poetry was to be found. He had formerly read poetry, for indeed he had read everything. Racine tells us, that when young he paid him a visit; the conversation turned on poets; our erudit reviewed them all with the most ineffable contempt of the poetical talent, from which he said we learn nothing. He seemed a little charitable towards Ariosto.—"As for that madman," said he, "he has amused me sometimes." Dacier, a poetical pedant after all, was asked who was the greater poet, Homer or Virgil? he honestly answered, "Homer by a thousand years!"