Chapter XXI: Part 21

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 abbé 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.

Furetière, 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 égaux; 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 _naïveté_ 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 Iræ!" 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 già 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 André 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 zéphyre
Anime la fin d'un beau jour;
Au pied de l'échafaud j'essaie encore ma lyre,
Peut-être est ce bientôt mon tour;

Peut-être avant que l'heure en cercle promenée
Ait posé sur l'émail brillant,
Dans les soixante pas où sa route est bornée
Son pied sonore et vigilant,

Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupière--

Here, at this pathetic line, was André 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.

Père Bohours was a French grammarian, who had been justly accused of paying too scrupulous an attention to the minutiæ 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 Abbé 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 tête 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 à 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'Aubigné, 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;
Hôpital 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:--

_Epître à M. Sarrazin._

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

He describes himself--

Un pauvret,
Très maigret;
Au col tors,
Dont le corps
Tout tortu,
Tout bossu,
Suranné,
Décharné,
Est réduit,
Jour et nuit,
A souffrir
Sans guérir
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 CÆTERA.

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 Mélite, 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 Mélite 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 à 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 _naïveté_ 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 à tous;
Le prix que nous valons que le sçait mieux que nous?
Et puis la mode en est, et la cour l'autorise,
Nous parlons de nous-mêmes avec toute franchise,
La fausse humilité ne met plus en credit.
Je sçais 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 quêter de réduit en réduit.
Mon travail sans appui monte sur le theâtre,
Chacun en liberté l'y blame ou idolâtre;
Là, sans que mes amis prêchent leurs sentimens,
J'arrache quelquefois leurs applaudissemens;
Là, content da succès que le mérite donne,
Par d'illustres avis je n'éblouis personne;
Je satisfais ensemble et peuple et courtisans;
Et mes vers en tous lieux sent mes seuls partisans;
Par leur seule beauté ma plume est estimée;
Je ne dois qu'à moi seul toute ma renommée;
Et pense toutefois n'avoir point de rival,
A qui je fasse tort, en le traitant d'égal.

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. Gaçon, 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 Phædon 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 Homericæ_ 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 à 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!"

But it is mortifying to find among the _anti-poetical_ even _poets_ themselves! Malherbe, the first poet in France in his day, appears little to have esteemed the art. He used to say that "a good poet was not more useful to the state than a skilful player of nine-pins!" Malherbe wrote with costive labour. When a poem was shown to him which had been highly commended, he sarcastically asked if it would "lower the price of bread?" In these instances he maliciously confounded the _useful_ with the _agreeable_ arts. Be it remembered, that Malherbe had a cynical heart, cold and unfeeling; his character may be traced in his poetry; labour and correctness, without one ray of enthusiasm.

Le Clerc was a scholar not entirely unworthy to be ranked amongst the Lockes, the Seldens, and the Longuerues; and his opinions are as just concerning poets. In the Parhasiana he has written a treatise on poets in a very unpoetical manner. I shall notice his coarse railleries relating to what he calls "the personal defects of poets." In vol. i. p. 33, he says, "In the Scaligerana we have Joseph Scaliger's opinion concerning poets. 'There never was a man who was a poet, or addicted to the study of poetry, but his heart was puffed up with his greatness.'--This is very true. The poetical enthusiasm persuades those gentlemen that they have something in them superior to others, because they employ a language peculiar to themselves. When the poetic furor seizes them, its traces frequently remain on their faces, which make connoisseurs say with Horace,

Aut insanit homo, ant versus facit.

There goes a madman or a bard!

"Their thoughtful air and melancholy gait make them appear insane; for, accustomed to versify while they walk, and to bite their nails in apparent agonies, their steps are measured and slow, and they look as if they were reflecting on something of consequence, although they are only thinking, as the phrase runs, of nothing!" I have only transcribed the above description of our jocular scholar, with an intention of describing those exterior marks of that fine enthusiasm, of which the poet is peculiarly susceptible, and which have exposed many an elevated genius to the ridicule of the vulgar.

I find this admirably defended by Charpentier: "Men may ridicule as much as they please those gesticulations and contortions which poets are apt to make in the act of composing; it is certain, however, that they greatly assist in putting the imagination into motion. These kinds of agitation do not always show a mind which labours with its sterility; they frequently proceed from a mind which excites and animates itself. Quintilian has nobly compared them to those lashings of his tail which a lion gives himself when he is preparing to combat. Persius, when he would give us an idea of a cold and languishing oration, says that its author did not strike his desk nor bite his nails."

Nec pluteum cædit, nec demorsos sapit ungues.

These exterior marks of enthusiasm may be illustrated by the following curious anecdote:--Domenichino, the painter, was accustomed to act the characters of all the figures he would represent on his canvas, and to speak aloud whatever the passion he meant to describe could prompt. Painting the martyrdom of St. Andrew, Carracci one day caught him in a violent passion, speaking in a terrible and menacing tone. He was at that moment employed on a soldier who was threatening the saint. When this fit of enthusiastic abstraction had passed, Carracci ran and embraced him, acknowledging that Domenichino had been that day his master; and that he had learnt from him the true manner to succeed in catching the expression--that great pride of the painter's art.

Thus different are the sentiments of the intelligent and the unintelligent on the same subject. A Carracci embraced a kindred genius for what a Le Clerc or a Selden would have ridiculed.

Poets, I confess, frequently indulge _reveries_, which, though they offer no charms to their friends, are too delicious to forego. In the ideal world, peopled with all its fairy inhabitants, and ever open to their contemplation, they travel with an unwearied foot. Crebillon, the celebrated tragic poet, was enamoured of solitude, that he might there indulge, without interruption, in those fine romances with which his imagination teemed. One day when he was in a deep reverie, a friend entered hastily: "Don't disturb me," cried the poet; "I am enjoying a moment of happiness: I am going to hang a villain of a minister, and banish another who is an idiot."

Amongst the anti-poetical may be placed the father of the great monarch of Prussia. George the Second was not more the avowed enemy of the muses. Frederic would not suffer the prince to read verses; and when he was desirous of study, or of the conversation of literary men, he was obliged to do it secretly. Every poet was odious to his majesty. One day, having observed some lines written on one of the doors of the palace, he asked a courtier their signification. They were explained to him; they were Latin verses composed by Wachter, a man of letters, then resident at Berlin. The king immediately sent for the bard, who came warm with the hope of receiving a reward for his ingenuity. He was astonished, however, to hear the king, in a violent passion, accost him, "I order you immediately to quit this city and my kingdom." Wachter took refuge in Hanover. As little indeed was this anti-poetical monarch a friend to philosophers. Two or three such kings might perhaps renovate the ancient barbarism of Europe. Barratier, the celebrated child, was presented to his majesty of Prussia as a prodigy of erudition; the king, to mortify our ingenious youth, coldly asked him, "If he knew the law?" The learned boy was constrained to acknowledge that he knew nothing of the law. "Go," was the reply of this Augustus, "go, and study it before you give yourself out as a scholar." Poor Barratier renounced for this pursuit his other studies, and persevered with such ardour that he became an excellent lawyer at the end of fifteen months; but his exertions cost him at the same time his life!

Every monarch, however, has not proved so destitute of poetic sensibility as this Prussian. Francis I. gave repeated marks of his attachment to the favourites of the muses, by composing several occasional sonnets, which are dedicated to their eulogy. Andrelin, a French poet, enjoyed the happy fate of Oppian, to whom the emperor Caracalla counted as many pieces of gold as there were verses in one of his poems; and with great propriety they have been called "golden verses." Andrelin, when he recited his poem on the Conquest of Naples before Charles VIII., received a sack of silver coin, which with difficulty he carried home. Charles IX., says Brantome, loved verses, and recompensed poets, not indeed immediately, but gradually, that they might always be stimulated to excel. He used to say, that poets resembled race-horses, that must be fed but not fattened, for then they were good for nothing. Marot was so much esteemed by kings, that he was called the poet of princes, and the prince of poets.

In the early state of poetry what honours were paid to its votaries! Ronsard, the French Chaucer, was the first who carried away the prize at the Floral Games. This meed of poetic honour was an eglantine composed of silver. The reward did not appear equal to the merit of the work and the reputation of the poet; and on this occasion the city of Toulouse had a Minerva of solid silver struck, of considerable value. This image was sent to Ronsard, accompanied by a decree, in which he was declared, by way of eminence, "The French Poet."

It is a curious anecdote to add, that when, at a later period, a similar Minerva was adjudged to Maynard for his verses, the Capitouls, of Toulouse, who were the executors of the Floral gifts, to their shame, out of covetousness, never obeyed the decision of the poetical judges. This circumstance is noticed by Maynard in an epigram, which bears this title: _On a Minerva of silver, promised but not given_.

The anecdote of Margaret of Scotland, wife of the Dauphin of France, and Alain the poet, is generally known. Who is not charmed with that fine expression of her poetical sensibility? The person of Alain was repulsive, but his poetry had attracted her affections. Passing through one of the halls of the palace, she saw him sleeping on a bench; she approached and kissed him. Some of her attendants could not conceal their astonishment that she should press with her lips those of a man so frightfully ugly. The amiable princess answered, smiling, "I did not kiss the man, but the mouth which has uttered so many fine things."