Chapter XII: Section II (2)

There is not, perhaps, a single ceremony of this day which was in use in the time of the apostles. The Holy Spirit has always conformed himself to the times. He inspired the first disciples in a mean apartment; He now communicates His inspirations in St. Peter's at Rome, which cost several millions--equally divine, however, in the wretched room, and in the superb edifice of Julius II., Leo X., Paul III., and Sixtus V.

AMAZONS.

Bold and vigorous women have been often seen to fight like men. History makes mention of such; for, without reckoning Semiramis, Tomyris, or Penthesilea--who, perhaps, existed only in fable--it is certain that there were many women in the armies of the first caliphs. In the tribe of the Homerites, especially, it was a sort of law, dictated by love and courage, that in battle wives should succor and avenge their husbands, and mothers their children.

When the famous chief Derar was fighting in Syria against the generals of the Emperor Heraclius, in the time of the caliph Abubeker, successor to Mahomet, Peter, who commanded at Damascus, took thither several women, whom he had captured, together with some booty, in one of his excursions; among the prisoners was the sister of Derar. Alvakedi's "Arabian History," translated by Ockley, says that she was a perfect beauty, and that Peter became enamored of her, paid great attention to her on the way, and indulged her and her fellow-prisoners with short marches. They encamped in an extensive plain, under tents, guarded by troops posted at a short distance. _Caulah_ (so this sister of Derar's was named) proposed to one of her companions, called _Oserra_, that they should endeavor to escape from captivity, and persuaded her rather to die than be a victim to the lewd desires of the Christians. The same Mahometan enthusiasm seized all the women; they armed themselves with the iron-pointed staves that supported their tents, and with a sort of dagger which they wore in their girdles; they then formed a circle, as the cows do when they present their horns to attacking wolves. Peter only laughed at first; he advanced toward the women, who gave him hard blows with the staves; after hesitating for some time, he at length resolved to use force; the sabres of his men were already drawn, when Derar arrived, put the Greeks to flight, and delivered his sister and the other captives.

Nothing can more strongly resemble those times called _heroic_, sung by Homer. Here are the same single combats at the head of armies, the combatants frequently holding a long conversation before they commence fighting; and this, no doubt, justifies Homer.

Thomas, governor of Syria, Heraclius's son-in-law, made a sally from Damascus, and attacked Sergiabil, having first prayed to Jesus Christ. "Unjust aggressor," said he to Sergiabil, "thou canst not resist Jesus, my God, who will fight for the champions of His religion." "Thou tellest an impious lie," answered Sergiabil; "Jesus is not greater before God than Adam. God raised Him from the dust; He gave life to Him as to another man, and, after leaving Him for some time on earth, took Him up into heaven." After some more verbal skirmishing the fight began. Thomas discharged an arrow, which wounded young Aban, the son of Saib, by the side of the valiant Sergiabil; Aban fell and expired; the news of his death reached his young wife, to whom he had been united but a few days before; she neither wept nor complained, but ran to the field of battle, with a quiver at her back, and a couple of arrows in her hand; with the first of these she killed the Christian standard-bearer, and the Arabs seized the trophy, crying, _Allah achar!_ With the other she shot Thomas in the eye, and he retired, bleeding, into the town.

Arabian history is full of similar examples, but they do not tell us that these warlike women burned their right breast, that they might draw the bow better, nor that they lived without men; on the contrary, they exposed themselves in battle for their husbands or their lovers; from which very circumstance we must conclude that, so far from reproaching Ariosto and Tasso for having introduced so many enamored warriors into their poems, we should praise them for having delineated real and interesting manners.

When the crusading mania was at its height there were some Christian women who shared the fatigues and dangers of their husbands. To such a pitch, indeed, was this enthusiasm carried that the Genoese women undertook a crusade of their own, and were on the point of setting out for Palestine to form petticoat battalions; they had made a vow so to do, but were absolved from it by a pope, who was a little wiser than themselves.

Margaret of Anjou, wife of the unfortunate Henry VI. of England, evinced, in a juster war, a valor truly heroic; she fought in ten battles to deliver her husband. History affords no authenticated example of greater or more persevering courage in a woman. She had been preceded by the celebrated Countess de Montfort, in Brittany. "This princess," says d'Argentré, "was virtuous beyond the nature of her sex, and valiant beyond all men; she mounted her horse, and managed him better than any esquire; she fought hand to hand, or charged a troop of armed men like the most valiant captain; she fought on sea and land with equal bravery," etc. She went, sword in hand, through her states, which were invaded by her competitor, Charles de Blois. She not only sustained two assaults, armed cap-à-pie, in the breach of Hennebon, but she made a sortie with five hundred men, attacked the enemy's camp, set fire to it, and reduced it to ashes.

The exploits of Joan of Arc, better known as the _Maid of Orleans_, are less astonishing than those of Margaret of Anjou and the Countess de Montfort. These two princesses having been brought up in the luxury of courts, and Joan of Arc in the rude exercises of country life, it was more singular, as well as more noble, to quit a _palace_ for the field than a _cottage_.

The heroine who defended Beauvais was, perhaps, superior to her who raised the siege of Orleans, for she fought quite as well, and neither boasted of being _a maid_, nor of being _inspired_. It was in 1472, when the Burgundian army was besieging Beauvais, that Jeanne Hachette, at the head of a number of women, sustained an assault for a considerable time, wrested the standard from one of the enemy who was about to plant it on the breach, threw the bearer into the trench, and gave time for the king's troops to arrive and relieve the town. Her descendants have been exempted from the _taille_ (poll tax)--a mean and shameful recompense! The women and girls of Beauvais are more flattered by their walking before the men in the procession on the anniversary day. Every public mark of honor is an encouragement of merit; but the exemption from the _taille_ is but a proof that the persons so exempted were subjected to this servitude by the misfortune of their birth.

There is hardly any nation which does not boast of having produced such heroines; the number of these, however, is not great; nature seems to have designed women for other purposes. Women have been known but rarely to exhibit themselves as soldiers. In short, every people have had their female warriors; but the kingdom of the Amazons, on the banks of the Thermodon, is, like most other ancient stories, nothing more than a poetic fiction.

AMBIGUITY--EQUIVOCATION.

For want of defining terms, and especially for want of a clear understanding, almost all laws, that should be as plain as arithmetic and geometry, are as obscure as logogriphs. The melancholy proof of this is that nearly all processes are founded on the sense of the laws, always differently understood by the pleaders, the advocates, and the judges.

The whole public law of Europe had its origin in equivocal expressions, beginning with the Salique law. _She shall not inherit Salique land._ But what is _Salique land_? And shall not a girl inherit money, or a necklace, left to her, which may be worth more than the land?

The citizens of Rome saluted Karl, son of the Austrasian Pepin le Bref, by the name of _imperator_. Did they understand thereby: _We confer on you all the prerogatives of Octavius, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius? We give you all the country which they possessed?_ However, they could not give it; for so far were they from being masters of it that they were scarcely masters of their own city. There never was a more equivocal expression; and such as it was then it still is.

Did Leo III., the bishop of Rome who is said to have saluted Charlemagne emperor, comprehend the meaning of the words which he pronounced? The Germans assert that he understood by them that Charles should be his master. The Datary has asserted that he meant he should be master over Charlemagne.

Have not things the most venerable, the most sacred, the most divine, been obscured by the ambiguities of language? Ask two Christians of what religion they are. Each will answer, _I am a Catholic_. You think they are both of the same communion; yet one is of the Greek, the other of the Latin church; and they are irreconcilable. If you seek to be further informed, you will find that by the word _Catholic_ each of them understands _universal_, in which case _universal_ signifies _a part_.

The soul of St. Francis is in _heaven_--is in _paradise_. One of these words signifies _the air_; the other means _a garden_. The word _spirit_ is used alike to express _extract_, _thought_, _distilled liquor_, _apparition_. Ambiguity has been so necessary a vice in all languages, formed by what is called _chance_ and by custom, that the author of all clearness and truth Himself condescended to speak after the manner of His people; whence is it that _Elohim_ signifies in some places _judges_, at other times _gods_, and at others _angels_. _"Tu es Petrus, et super hunc petrum ædificabo ecclesiam meam,"_ would be equivocal in a profane tongue, and on profane subject; but these words receive a divine sense from the mouth which utters them, and the subject to which they are applied.

"I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob; now God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." In the ordinary sense these words might signify: "I am the same God that was worshipped by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; as the earth, which bore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, likewise bears their descendants; the sun which shines to-day is the sun that shone on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the law of their children was their law." This does not, however, signify that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still living. But when the Messiah speaks, there is no longer any ambiguity; the sense is as clear as it is divine. It is evident that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not among the dead, but live in glory, since this oracle is pronounced by the Messiah; but it was necessary that He and no one else should utter it.

The discourses of the Jewish prophets might seem equivocal to men of gross intellects, who could not perceive their meaning; but they were not so to minds illumined by the light of faith.

All the oracles of antiquity were equivocal. It was foretold to Crœsus that a powerful empire was to fall; but was it to be his own? or that of Cyrus? It was also foretold to Pyrrhus that the Romans might conquer him, and that he might conquer the Romans. It was impossible that this oracle should lie.

When Septimius Severus, Pescennius Niger, and Clodius Albinus were contending for the empire, the oracle of Delphos, being consulted (notwithstanding the assertion of the Jesuit Baltus that oracles had ceased), answered that _the brown was very good, the white good for nothing, and the African tolerable_. It is plain that there are more ways than one of explaining such an oracle.

When Aurelian consulted the god of Palmyra (still in spite of Baltus), the god said that _the doves fear the falcon_. Whatever might happen, the god would not be embarrassed; the _falcon_ would be the _conqueror_, and _the doves_ the _conquered_.

Sovereigns, as well as gods, have sometimes made use of equivocation. Some tyrant, whose name I forget, having sworn to one of his captives that he would not kill him, ordered that he should have nothing to eat, saying that he had promised not to put him to death, but he had not promised to keep him alive.

AMERICA.

Since framers of systems are continually conjecturing on the manner in which America can have been peopled, we will be equally consistent in saying that He who caused flies to exist in those regions caused men to exist there also. However pleasant it may be to dispute, it cannot be denied that the Supreme Being, who lives in all nature, has created, about the forty-eighth degree, two-legged animals without feathers, the color of whose skin is a mixture of white and carnation, with long beards approaching to red; about the line, in Africa and its islands, negroes without beards; and in the same latitude, other negroes with beards, some of them having wool, and some hair, on their heads; and among them other animals quite white, having neither hair nor wool, but a kind of white silk. It does not very clearly appear what should have prevented God from placing on another continent animals of the same species, of a copper color, in the same latitude in which, in Africa and Asia, they are found black; or even from making them without beards in the very same latitude in which others possess them.

To what lengths are we carried by the rage for systems joined with the tyranny of prejudice! We see these animals; it is agreed that God has had the power to place them where they are; yet it is not agreed that he _has_ so placed them. The same persons who readily admit that the _beavers_ of Canada are of Canadian origin, assert that the _men_ must have come there in boats, and that Mexico must have been peopled by some of the descendants of _Magog_. As well might be said that if there be men in the moon they must have been taken thither by Astolpho on his hippogriff, when he went to fetch Roland's senses, which were corked up in a bottle. If America had been discovered in his time, and there had then been men in Europe _systematic_ enough to have advanced, with the Jesuit Lafitau, that the Caribbees descended from the inhabitants of Caria, and the Hurons from the Jews, he would have done well to have brought back the bottle containing the wits of these reasoners, which he would doubtless have found in the moon, along with those of Angelica's lover.

The first thing done when an inhabited island is discovered in the Indian Ocean, or in the South Seas, is to inquire whence came these people? But as for the trees and the tortoises, _they_ are, without any hesitation, pronounced to be indigenous; as if it was more difficult for Nature to make men than to make tortoises. One thing, however, which tends to countenance this system is that there is scarcely an island in the Eastern or in the Western Ocean which does not contain jugglers, quacks, knaves and fools. This, it is probable, gave rise to the opinion that these animals are of the same race with ourselves.

AMPLIFICATION.

It is pretended that _amplification_ is a fine figure of rhetoric; perhaps, however, it would be more reasonable to call it a _defect_. In saying all that we should say, we do not amplify; and if after saying this we amplify, we say too much. To place a good or bad action in every light is not to amplify; but to go farther than this is to exaggerate and become wearisome.

Prizes were formerly given in colleges for _amplification_. This was indeed teaching the art of being diffuse. It would, perhaps, have been better to have given the fewest words, and thus teach the art of speaking with greater force and energy. But while we avoid _amplification_, let us beware of _dryness_.

I have heard professors teach that certain passages in "Virgil" are amplifications, as, for instance, the following:

_Nox erat, et placidum carpebant fessa soporem_
_Corpora per terras, silvæque et saeva quierunt_
_Æquora; quum medio volvuntur sidera lapsu;_
_Quum tacet omnis ager, pecudes, pietaeque volucres;_
_Quaeque lacus late liquidos, quaeque aspera dumis_
_Rura tenant, somno positae sub node silenti_
_Lenibant curas, et corda oblita laborum:_
_At non infelix animi Phœnissa._

'Twas dead of night, when weary bodies close
Their eyes in balmy sleep and soft repose:
The winds no longer whisper through the woods,
Nor murmuring tides disturb the gentle floods;
The stars in silent order moved around,
And peace, with downy wings, was brooding on the ground.
The flocks and herds, and parti-colored fowl,
Which haunt the woods and swim the weedy pool.
Stretched on the quiet earth securely lay,
Forgetting the past labors of the day.
All else of Nature's common gift partake;
Unhappy Dido was alone awake.--DRYDEN.

If the long description of the reign of sleep throughout all nature did not form an admirable contrast with the cruel inquietude of Dido, these lines would be no other than a puerile amplification; it is the words _At non infelix animi Phœnissa_--"Unhappy Dido," etc., which give them their charm.

That beautiful ode of Sappho's which paints all the symptoms of love, and which has been happily translated into every cultivated language, would doubtless have been less touching had Sappho been speaking of any other than herself; it might then have been considered as an amplification.

The description of the tempest in the first book of the "Æneid" is not an amplification; it is a true picture of all that happens in a tempest; there is no idea repeated, and _repetition_ is the vice of all which is merely amplification.

The finest part on the stage in any language is that of _Phèdre_ (Phædra). Nearly all that she says would be tiresome amplification if any other was speaking of Phædra's passion.

_Athenes me montra mon superbe ennemie;_
_Je le vis, je rougis, je plaîs, à sa vue;_
_Un trouble s'éleva dans mon âme éperdue;_
_Mes yeux ne voyaient plus, je ne pouvais parler,_
_Je sentis tout mon corps et transir et brûler;_
_Je reconnus Venus et ses traits redoubtables,_
_D'un sang qu'elle poursuit tormens inévitables._

_Yes;--Athens showed me my proud enemy;_
_I saw him--blushed--turned pale;--_
_A sudden trouble came upon my soul,--_
_My eyes grew dim--my tongue refused its office,--_
_I burned--and shivered;--through my trembling frame_
_Venus in all her dreadful power I felt,_
_Shooting through every vein a separate pang._

It is quite clear that since Athens showed her her proud enemy Hippolytus, she _saw_ Hippolytus; if she blushed and turned pale, she was doubtless _troubled_. It would have been a pleonasm, a redundancy, if a stranger had been made to relate the loves of Phædra; but it is Phædra, enamored and ashamed of her passion--her heart is full--everything escapes her:

_Ut vidi, lit perii, ut me malus abstulit error._
_Je le vis, je rougis, je pâlis, à sa vue._

I saw him--blushed--turned pale.--

What can be a better imitation of Virgil?

_Mes yeux ne voyaient plus, je ne pouvais parler;_
_Je sentis tout mon corps et transir et brûler;_

My eyes grew dim--my tongue refused its office;
I burned--and shivered;

What can be a finer imitation of Sappho?

These lines, though imitated, flow as from their first source; each word moves and penetrates the feeling heart; this is not amplification; it is the perfection of nature and of art.

The following is, in my opinion, an instance of amplification, in a modern tragedy, which nevertheless has great beauties. Tydeus is at the court of Argos; he is in love with a sister of Electra; he laments the fall of his friend Orestes and of his father; he is divided betwixt his passion for Electra and his desire of vengeance; while in this state of care and perplexity he gives one of his followers a long description of a tempest, in which he had been shipwrecked some time before.

_Tu sais ce qu'en ces lieux nous venions entreprendre;_
_Tu sais que Palamède, avant que de s'y rendre,_
_Ne voulut point tenter son retour dans Argos,_
_Qu'il n'eût interroge l'oracle de Délos._
_A de si justes soins on souscrivit sans peine;_
_Nous partîmes, comblés des bienfaits de Thyrrène;_
_Tout nous favorisait; nous voyageâmes longtems_
_Au gré de nos désirs, bien plus qu'au gré des vents;_
_Mais, signalant bientôt toute son inconstance,_
_Le mer en un moment se mutine et s'élance;_
_L'air mugit, le jour fuit, une épaisse vapeur_
_Couvre d'un voile affreux les vagues en fureur;_
_La foudre, éclairante seule une nuit si profonde,_
_À sillons redoublés ouvre le ciel et l'onde,_
_Et comme un tourbillon, embrassant nos vaisseaux,_
_Semble en sources de feu bouillonner sur les eaux;_
_Les vagues quelquefois, nous portant sur leurs cimes,_
_Nous font router après sous de vastes abîmes,_
_Où les éclairs pressés, pénétrans avec nous,_
_Dans des gouffres de feu semblaient nous plonger tous;_
_Le pilote effrayé, que la flamme environne,_
_Aux rochers qu'il fuyait lui-même s'abandonne;_
_À travers les écueils notre vaisseau pousse,_
_Se brise, et nage enfin sur les eaux dispersées._

Thou knowest what purpose brought us to these shores;
Thou knowest that Palamed would not attempt
Again to set his foot within these walls
Until he'd questioned Delos' oracle.
To his just care we readily subscribed;
We sailed, and favoring gales at first appeared
To announce a prosperous voyage;
Long time we held our course, and held it rather
As our desires than as the winds impelled;
But the inconstant ocean heaved at last
Its treacherous bosom; howling blasts arose;
The heavens were darkened; vapors black and dense
Spread o'er the furious waves a frightful veil,
Pierced only by the thunderbolts, which clove
The waters and the firmament at once,
And whirling round our ship, in horrid sport
Chased one another o'er the boiling surge;
Now rose we on some watery mountain's summit.
Now with the lightning plunged into a gulf
That seemed to swallow all. Our pilot, struck
Powerless by terror, ceased to steer, and left us
Abandoned to those rocks we dreaded most;
Soon did our vessel dash upon their points,
And swim in scattered fragments on the billows.

In this description we see the poet wishing to surprise his readers with the relation of a shipwreck, rather than the man who seeks to avenge his father and his friend--to kill the tyrant of Argos, but who is at the same time divided between love and vengeance.

Several men of taste, and among others the author of "Telemachus," have considered the relation of the death of Hippolytus, in Racine, as an amplification; long recitals were the fashion at that time. The vanity of actors make them wish to be listened to, and it was then the custom to indulge them in this way. The archbishop of Cambray says that Theramenes should not, after Hippolytus' catastrophe, have strength to speak so long; that he gives too ample a description of the monster's _threatening horns_, his _saffron scales, etc._; that he should say in broken accents, _Hippolytus is dead--a monster has destroyed him--I beheld it._

I shall not enter on a defence of the _threatening horns_, etc.; yet this piece of criticism, which has been so often repeated, appears to me to be unjust. You would have Theramenes say nothing more than _Hippolytus is killed--I saw him die--all is over._ This is precisely what he does say; _Hippolyte n'est plus!_ (Hippolytus is no more!) His father exclaims aloud; and Theramenes, on recovering his senses, says;

_J'ai vu des mortels périr le plus amiable,_

I have seen the most amiable of mortals perish,

and adds this line, so necessary and so affecting yet so agonizing for Theseus:

_Et j'ose dire encore. Seigneur, le moins coupable._

And, Sire, I may truly add, the most innocent.

The gradations are fully observed; each shade is accurately distinguished. The wretched father asks what God--what sudden thunder-stroke has deprived him of his son. He has not courage to proceed; he is mute with grief; he awaits the dreadful recital, and the audience awaits it also. Theramenes _must_ answer; he is asked for particulars; he must give them.

Was it for him who had made Mentor and all the rest of his personages discourse at such length, sometimes even tediously; was it for him to shut the mouth of Theramenes? Who among the spectators would not listen to him? Who would not enjoy the melancholy pleasure of hearing the circumstance of Hippolytus' death? Who would have so much as three lines struck out? This is no vain description of a storm unconnected with the piece; no ill-written amplification; it is the purest diction, the most affecting language; in short, it is Racine. Amplification, declamation, and exaggeration were at all times the faults of the Greeks, excepting Demosthenes and Aristotle.

There have been absurd pieces of poetry on which time has set the stamp of almost universal approbation, because they were mixed with brilliant flashes which threw a glare over their imperfections, or because the poets who came afterward did nothing better. The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demi-god, while Rameau had only enemies. In fine, men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.

At the present day, most of our sermons, funeral orations, set discourses, and harangues in certain ceremonies, are tedious amplifications--strings of commonplace expressions repeated again and again a thousand times. These discourses are only supportable when rarely heard. Why speak when you have nothing new to say? It is high time to put a stop to this excessive waste of words, and therefore we conclude our article.

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

The great cause of the ancients _versus_ the moderns is not yet disposed of; it has been at issue ever since the silver age, which succeeded the golden one. Men have always pretended that the _good old times_ were much better than the present. Nestor, in the "Iliad," wishing to insinuate himself, like a wise mediator, into the good opinion of Achilles and Agamemnon, begins with saying: "I have lived with better men than you; never have I seen, nor shall I ever see again, such great personages as Dryas, Cæneus, Exadius, Polyphemus equal to the gods," etc. Posterity has made ample amends to Achilles for Nestor's bad compliment, so vainly admired by those who admire nothing but what is ancient. Who knows anything about _Dryas_? We have scarcely heard of _Exadius_ or of _Cæneus_; and as for _Polyphemus equal to the gods_, he has no very high reputation, unless, indeed, there was something divine in his having a great eye in the middle of his forehead, and eating the raw carcasses of mankind.

Lucretius does not hesitate to say that nature has degenerated:

_Ipsa dedit dulces fœtus et pabula lœta,_
_Quæ nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore;_
_Conterimusque boves, et vires agricolarum, etc._

Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote:

_Les hommes, en tout tems, ont pensé qu'autrefois,_
_De longs ruisseaux de lait serpentaient dans nos bois;_
_La lune était plus grande, et la nuit moins obscure;_
_L'hiver se couronnait de fleurs et de verdure;_
_Se contemplait à l'aise, admirait son néant,_
_Et, formé pour agir, se plaisait à rien faire, etc._

Men have, in every age, believed that once
Long streams of milk ran winding through the woods;
The moon was larger and the night less dark;
Winter was crowned with flowers and trod on verdure;
Man, the world's king, had nothing else to do
Than contemplate his utter worthlessness,
And, formed for action, took delight in sloth, etc.

Horace combats this prejudice with equal force and address in his fine epistle to Augustus. "Must our poems, then," says he, "be like our wines, of which the oldest are always preferred?" He afterward says:

_Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse_
_Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper;_
_Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et præmia posci._
* * * * *
_Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis,_
_Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit._

I feel my honest indignation rise,
When, with affected air, a coxcomb cries:
"The work, I own, has elegance and ease,
But sure no modern should presume to please";
Thus for his favorite ancients dares to claim,
Not pardon only, but rewards and fame.
* * * * *
Not to the illustrious dead his homage pays,
But envious robs the living of their praise.--FRANCIS.

On this subject the learned and ingenious Fontenelle expresses himself thus:

"The whole of the question of pre-eminence between the ancients and moderns, being once well understood, reduces itself to this: Were the trees which formerly grew in the country larger than those of the present day? If they were, Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes cannot be equalled in these latter ages; but if our trees are as large as those of former times, then can we equal Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes.

"But to clear up the paradox: If the ancients had stronger minds than ourselves, it must have been that the brains of those times were better disposed, were formed of firmer or more delicate fibres, or contained a larger portion of animal spirits. But how should the brains of those times have been better disposed? Had such been the case, the leaves would likewise have been larger and more beautiful; for if nature was then more youthful and vigorous, the trees, as well as the brains of men, would have borne testimony to that youth and vigor."

With our illustrious academician's leave, this is by no means the state of the question. It is not asked whether nature can at the present day produce as great geniuses, and as good works, as those of Greek and Latin antiquity, but whether we really have such. It is doubtless possible that there are oaks in the forest of Chantilly as large as those of Dodona; but supposing that the oaks of Dodona could talk, it is quite clear that they had a great advantage over ours, which, it is probable, will never talk.

La Motte, a man of wit and talent, who has merited applause in more than one kind of writing, has, in an ode full of happy lines, taken the part of the moderns. We give one of his stanzas:

_Et pourquoi veut-on que j'encense_
_Ces prétendus Dieux dont je sors?_
_En moi la même intelligence_
_Fait mouvoir les mêmes ressorts._
_Croit-on la nature bizarre,_
_Pour nous aujourd'hui plus avare_
_Que pour les Grecs et les Romains?_
_De nos aînés mere idolâtre,_
_N'est-elle plus que la marâtre_
_Dure et grossière des humains?_

And pray, why must I bend the knee
To these pretended Gods of ours?
The same intelligence in me
Gives vigor to the self-same powers.
Think ye that nature is capricious,
Or towards us more avaricious
Than to our Greek and Roman sires--
To them an idolizing mother,
While in their children she would smother
The sparks of intellectual fires?

He might be answered thus: _Esteem_ your ancestors, without _adoring_ them. You have intelligence and powers of invention, as Virgil and Horace had; but perhaps it is not absolutely the same intelligence. Perhaps their talents were superior to--yours; they exercised them, too, in a language richer and more harmonious than our modern tongues, which are a mixture of corrupted Latin, with the horrible jargon of the Celts.

Nature is not capricious; but it is possible that she had given the Athenians a soil and sky better adapted than Westphalia and the Limousin to the formation of geniuses of a certain order. It is also likely that, the government of Athens, seconding the favorable climate, put ideas into the head of Demosthenes which the air of Clamar and La Grenouillere combined with the government of Cardinal de Richelieu, did _not_ put into the heads of Omer Talon and Jerome Bignon.

Some one answered La Motte's lines by the following:

_Cher la Motte, imite et revère_
_Ces Dieux dont tu ne descends pas;_
_Si tu crois qu'Horace est ton père,_
_Il a fait des enfans ingrats._
_La nature n'est point bizarre;_
_Pour Danchet elle est fort avare,_
_Mais Racine en fut bien traité;_
_Tibulle était guide par elle,_
_Mais pour notre ami La Chapelle,_
_Hélas! qu'elle a peu de bonté!_

Revere and imitate, La Motte,
Those Gods from whom thou'rt _not_ descended;
If thou by Horace _wert_ begot,
His children's manners might be mended.
Nature is not at all capricious;
To Danchet she is avaricious,
But she was liberal to Racine;
She used Tibullus very well,
Though to our good friend La Chapelle,
Alas! she is extremely mean!

This dispute, then, resolves itself into a question of fact. Was antiquity more fertile in great monuments of genius of every kind, down to the time of Plutarch, than modern ages have been, from that of the house of Medicis to that of Louis XIV., inclusively?

The Chinese, more than two hundred years before our Christian era, built their great wall, which could not save them from invasion by the Tartars. The Egyptians had, four thousand years before, burdened the earth with their astonishing pyramids, the bases of which covered ninety thousand square feet. No one doubts that, if it were thought advisable to undertake such useless works at the present day, they might be accomplished by lavishing plenty of money. The great wall of China is a monument of fear; the pyramids of Egypt are monuments of vanity and superstition; both testify the great patience of the two people, but no superior genius. Neither the Chinese nor the Egyptians could have made a single statue like those formed by our living sculptors.

Sir William Temple, who made a point of degrading the moderns, asserts that they have nothing in architecture that can be compared to the temples of Greece and Rome; but, Englishman as he was, he should have admitted that St. Peter's at Rome is incomparably more beautiful than the capitol.

There is something curious in the assurance with which he asserts that there is nothing new in our astronomy, nor in our knowledge of the human body, _except_, says he, _it be the circulation of the blood._ The love of his opinion, founded on his extreme self-love, makes him forget the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, of Saturn's five moons and ring, of the sun's rotation on his axis, the calculation of the positions of three thousand stars, the development by Kepler and Newton of the law by which the heavenly bodies are governed, and the knowledge of a thousand other things of which the ancients did not even suspect the possibility. The discoveries in anatomy have been no less numerous. A new universe in miniature, discovered by the microscope, went as nothing with Sir William Temple; he closed his eyes to the wonders of his contemporaries, and opened them only to admire ancient ignorance.

He even goes so far as to regret that we have nothing left of the magic of the Indians, Chaldæans, and Egyptians. By this magic, he understands a profound knowledge of nature, which enabled them to work miracles--of which, however, he does not mention one, because the truth is that they never worked any. "What," says he, "has become of the charms of that music which so often enchanted men and beasts, fishes, birds, and serpents, and even changed their nature?" This enemy to his own times believed implicitly in the fable of "Orpheus," and, it should seem, had never heard of the fine music of Italy, nor even of that of France, which _do not_ charm serpents, it is true, but which _do_ charm the ears of the connoisseur.

It is still more strange that, having all his life cultivated the belles-lettres, he reasons no better on our good authors than on our philosophers. He considers Rabelais a great man, and speaks of _"les Amours des Gaules"_ ("The Loves of the Gauls"), as one of his best works. He was, nevertheless, a learned man, a courtier, a man of considerable wit, and an ambassador, who had made profound reflections on all that he had seen; he possessed great knowledge; one prejudice sufficed to render all this merit unavailing.

Boileau and Racine, when writing in favor of the ancients against Perrault, showed more address than Sir William Temple. They knew better than to touch on astronomy and physical science. Boikau seeks only to vindicate Homer against Perrault, at the same time gliding adroitly over the faults of the Greek poet, and the slumber with which Horace reproaches him. He strove to turn Perrault, the enemy of Homer, into ridicule. Wherever Perrault misunderstands a passage, or renders inaccurately a passage which he understands, Boileau, seizing this little advantage, falls upon him like a redoubtable enemy, and beats him as an ignoramus--a dull writer. But it is not at all improbable that Perrault, though often mistaken, was frequently right in his remarks on the contradictions, the repetitions, the uniformity of the combats, the long harangues in the midst of them, the indecent and inconsistent conduct of the gods in the poem--in short, on all the errors into which this great poet is asserted to have fallen. In a word, Boileau ridicules Perrault much more than he justifies Homer.

Racine used the same artifice, for he was at least as malignant as Boileau. Although he did not, like the latter, make his fortune by satire, he enjoyed the pleasure of confounding his enemies on the occasion of a small and very pardonable mistake into which they had fallen respecting Euripides, and, at the same time, of feeling much superior to Euripides himself. He rallies the same Perrault and his partisans upon their critique on the Alceste of Euripides, because these gentlemen had unfortunately been deceived by a faulty edition of Euripides, and had taken some replies of Admetus for those of Alceste; but Euripides does not the less appear in all countries to have done very wrong in making Admetus use such extraordinary language to his father, whom he violently reproaches for not having died for him:

"How!" replies the king, his father; "whom, pray, are you addressing so haughtily? Some Lydian or Phrygian slave? Know you not that I am free, and a Thessalian? (Fine language, truly, for a king and a father!) You insult me as if I were the meanest of men. Where is the law which says fathers must die for their children? Each for himself here below. I have fulfilled all my obligations toward you. In what, then, do I wrong you? Do I ask you to die for me? The light is dear to you; is it less so to me? You accuse me of cowardice! Coward that you yourself are! You were not ashamed to urge your wife to save you, by dying for you. After this, does it become you to treat as cowards those who refuse to do for you what you have not the courage to do yourself? Believe me, you ought rather to be silent. You love life; others love it no less. Be assured that if you continue to abuse me, you shall have reproaches, and not false ones, in return."

He is here interrupted by the chorus, with: "Enough! Too much on both sides! Old man, cease this ill language toward your son."

One would think that the chorus should rather give the son a severe reprimand for speaking in so brutal a manner to his father.

All the rest of the scene is in the same style:

_Pheres (to his son)._--Thou speakest against thy father, without his having injured thee.

_Admetus._--Oh! I am well aware that you wish to live as long as possible.

_Pheres._--And art thou not carrying to the tomb her who died for thee?

_Admetus._--Ah! most infamous of men! 'Tis the proof of thy cowardice!

_Pheres._--At least, thou canst not say she died for me.

_Admetus._--Would to heaven that thou wert in a situation to need my assistance!

_Pheres._--Thou wouldst do better to think of marrying several wives, who may die that thy life may be lengthened.

After this scene a domestic comes and talks to himself about the arrival of Hercules.

"A stranger," says he, "opens the door of his own accord; places himself without more ado at table; is angry because he is not served quick enough; fills his cup every moment with wine, and drinks long draughts of red and of white; constantly singing, or rather howling, bad songs, without giving himself any concern about the king and his wife, for whom we are mourning. He is, doubtless, some cunning rogue, some vagabond, or assassin."

It seems somewhat strange that Hercules should be taken for a _cunning rogue_, and no less so that Hercules, the friend of Admetus, should be unknown to the household. It is still more extraordinary that Hercules should be ignorant of Alceste's death, at the very time when they were carrying her to her tomb.

Tastes must not be disputed, but such scenes as these would, assuredly, not be tolerated at one of our country fairs.

Brumoy, who has given us the _Théâtre des Grecs_ (Greek Theatre), but has not translated Euripides with scrupulous fidelity, does all he can to justify the scene of Admetus and his father: the argument he makes use of is rather singular.

First, he says, that "there was nothing offensive to the Greeks in these things which we regard as horrible and indecent, therefore it must be admitted that they were not exactly what we take them to have been, in short, ideas have changed." To this it may be answered that the ideas of polished nations on the respect due from children to their fathers have never changed. He adds, "Who can doubt that in different ages ideas have changed relative to points of morality of still greater importance?" We answer, that there are scarcely any points of greater importance.

"A Frenchman," continues he, "is insulted; the pretended good sense of the French obliges him to run the risk of a duel, and to kill or be killed, in order to recover his honor." We answer, that it is not the pretended good sense of the French alone, but of all the nations of Europe without exception. He proceeds:

"The world in general cannot be fully sensible how ridiculous this maxim will appear two thousand years hence, nor how it would have been scoffed at in the time of Euripides." This maxim is cruel and fatal, but it is not _ridiculous_; nor would it have been in any way scoffed at in the time of Euripides. There were many instances of duels among the Asiatics. In the very commencement of the first book of the "Iliad," we see Achilles half unsheathing his sword, and ready to fight Agamemnon, had not Minerva taken him by the hair and made him desist.

Plutarch relates that Hephæstion and Craterus were fighting a duel, but were separated by Alexander. Quintus Curtius tells us that two other of Alexander's officers fought a duel in the presence of Alexander, one of them armed at all points, the other, who was a wrestler, supplied only with a staff, and that the latter overcame his adversary. Besides, what has duelling to do with Admetus and his father Pheres, reproaching each other by turns, with having too great a love for life, and with being cowards?

I shall give only this one instance of the blindness of translators and commentators; for if Brumoy, the most impartial of all, has fallen into such errors, what are we to expect from others? I would, however, ask the Brumoys and the Daciers, if they find much _salt_in the language which Euripides puts into the mouth of Polyphemus: "I fear not the thunder of Jupiter; I know not that Jupiter is a prouder or a stronger god than myself; I care very little about him. If he sends down rain, I shut myself up in my cavern; there I eat a roasted calf or some wild animal, after which I lie down all my length, drink off a great potful of milk, and send forth a certain noise, which is as good as his thunder."

The schoolmen cannot have very fine noses if they are not disgusted with the noise which Polyphemus makes when he has eaten heartily.

They say that the Athenian pit laughed at this pleasantry, and that the Athenians never laughed at anything stupid. So the whole populace of Athens had more wit than the court of Louis XIV., and the populace are not the same everywhere!

Nevertheless, Euripides has beauties, and Sophocles still more; but they have much greater defects. We may venture to say that the fine scenes of Corneille and the affecting tragedies of Racine are as much superior to the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, as these two Greeks were to Thespis. Racine was quite sensible of his great superiority over Euripides, but he praised the Greek poet for the sake of humbling Perrault.

Molière, in his best pieces, is as superior to the pure but cold Terence, and to the buffoon Aristophanes, as to the merry-andrew Dancourt.

Thus there are things in which the moderns are superior to the ancients; and others, though very few, in which we are their inferiors. The whole of the dispute reduces itself to this fact.

_Certain Comparisons between Celebrated Works._

Both taste and reason seem to require that we should, in an ancient as well as in a modern, discriminate between the good and the bad that are often to be found in contact with each other.

The warmest admiration must be excited by that line of Corneille's, unequalled by any in Homer, in Sophocles, or in Euripides:

_Que vouliez-vous qu'il fût contre trois?_--_Qu'il mourût._
What could he do against three weapons?--Die.

And, with equal justice, the line that follows will be condemned.

The man of taste, while he admires the sublime picture, the striking contrasts of character and strong coloring in the last scene of Rodogyne, will perceive how many faults, how many improbabilities, have prepared the way for this terrible situation--how much Rodogyne has belied her character, and by what crooked ways it is necessary to pass to this great and tragical catastrophe.

The same equitable judge will not fail to do justice to the fine and artful contexture of Racine's tragedies, the only ones, perhaps, that have been well wrought from the time of Æschylus down to the age of Louis XIV. He will be touched by that continued elegance, that purity of language, that truth of character, to be found in him only; by that grandeur without bombast, that fidelity to nature which never wanders in vain declamations, sophistical disputes, false and far-fetched images, often expressed in solecisms or rhetorical pleadings, fitter for provincial schools than for a tragedy. The same person will discover weakness and uniformity in some of Racine's characters; and in others, gallantry and sometimes even coquetry; he will find declarations of love breathing more of the idyl and the elegy, than of a great dramatic passion; and will complain that more than one well-written piece has elegance to please, but not eloquence to move him. Just so will he judge of the ancients; not by their names--not by the age in which they lived--but by their works themselves.

Suppose Timanthes the painter were at this day to come and present to us, by the side of the paintings in the _Palais Royal_, his picture in four colors of the "Sacrifice of Iphigenia," telling us that men of judgment in Greece had assured him that it was an admirable artifice to veil the face of Agamemnon, lest his grief should appear to equal that of Clytemnestra, and the tears of the father dishonor the majesty of the monarch. He would find connoisseurs who would reply--it is a stroke of ingenuity, but not of painting; a veil on the head of your principal personage has a frightful effect; your art has failed you. Behold the masterpiece of Rubens, who has succeeded in expressing in the countenance of Mary of Medicis the pain attendant on childbirth--the joy, the smile, the tenderness--not with four colors, but with every tint of nature. If you wished that Agamemnon should partly conceal his face, you should have made him hide a portion of it by placing his hands over his eyes and forehead; and not with a veil, which is as disagreeable to the eye, and as unpicturesque, as it is contrary to all costume. You should then have shown some falling tears that the hero would conceal, and have expressed in his muscles the convulsions of a grief which he struggles to suppress; you should have painted in this attitude majesty and despair. You are a Greek, and Rubens is a Belgian; but the Belgian bears away the palm.

_On a Passage in Homer._

A Florentine, a man of letters, of clear understanding and cultivated taste, was one day in Lord Chesterfield's library, together with an Oxford professor and a Scotchman, who was boasting of the poem of Fingal, composed, said he, in the Gaelic tongue, which is still partly that of Lower Brittany. "Ah!" exclaimed he, "how fine is antiquity; the poem of Fingal has passed from mouth to mouth for nearly two thousand years, down to us, without any alteration. Such power has real beauty over the minds of men!" He then read to the company the commencement of Fingal:

"Cuthullin sat by Tara's wall; by the tree of the rustling sound. His spear leaned against a rock. His shield lay on the grass by his side. Amid his thoughts of mighty Carbar, a hero slain by the chief in war, the scout of ocean comes, Moran, the son of Fithil!

"'Arise,' says the youth, 'Cuthullin, arise! I see the ships of the north! many, chief of men, are the foe; many the heroes of the sea-born Swaran!' 'Moran,' replied the blue-eyed chief, 'thou ever tremblest, son of Fithil! thy fears have increased the foe. It is Fingal, king of deserts, with aid to green Erin of streams.' 'I beheld their chief,' says Moran, 'tall as a glittering rock. His spear is a blasted pine. His shield the rising moon! He sat on the shore, like a cloud of mist on the silent hill!'" etc.

"That," said the Oxford professor, "is the true style of Homer; but what pleases me still more is that I find in it the sublime eloquence of the Hebrews. I could fancy myself to be reading passages such as these from those fine canticles:

"'Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundation also of the hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth. The Lord also thundered in the heavens; and the Highest gave His voice hailstones and coals of fire. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun. Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber.

"'Break their teeth in their mouth, O God; break the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord. Let them pass away as waters that run continually; when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces. As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away, like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as in a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.

"'They return at evening; they make a noise like a dog. But Thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them; Thou shalt have all the heathen in derision. Consume them in wrath; consume them that they may not be.

"'The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan, a high hill as the hill of Bashan. Why leap ye, ye high hills? The Lord said I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring up my people again from the depths of the sea; that thy feet may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same.

"'Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind. As the fire burneth the wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire; so persecute them with Thy tempest and make them afraid with Thy storm.

"'He shall judge among the heathen; he shall fill the places with dead bodies; He shall wound the heads over many countries. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones,'" etc.