[310]. Pp. 509-689 of the second of two stately folios (Paris, 1665). The Letters are in the first.
[311]. Balzac himself rather mincingly deprecates this word. “Je ne donne” he says to Chapelain (XX. 25) “jamais de jugement; mais je dis quelquefois mon avis.”
[312]. With this it is interesting to compare the disquisition written to Balzac, and apparently at his request, De Ludicra Dictione (opening his Opera, fol., Amst., 1709) by François Vavasseur, a Jesuit Professor, who also wrote not a bad book on Epigrams and some other literary work, besides sermons and theological treatises. Vavasseur is at once refreshingly logical and audacious. The Greeks (he is bold enough even to face the retort of “Aristophanes”?) did not use ludicra dictio or burlesque language. Nor did the Romans: for Lucilius desideratur (scarcely so much as to warrant the conclusion to those who know the fragments well), and as for Petronius and Apuleius, decent people never mention them. Secondly, the ancient critics give no precepts for it. Thirdly, there is no reason for using it. Fourthly, there are many reasons for not using it. So that is settled. One may like Vavasseur.
[313]. Some authorities give this as the anagram, the other as the name. But it does not in the least matter.
[314]. The Pleiad tragedies (v. supra, p. 127) had been Senecan, but not quite “regular”; and though Hardy broke loose from Time and Place, it was not always very violently.
[315]. Ogier, like his Italian predecessors, is firm on the pleasure-giving quality of dramatic art. His manner is well illustrated by his remark that the constant arrival of messengers is more suitable to a good inn than to a good tragedy. One wonders whether he knew the Spaniards (v. inf. ch. 2).
[316]. His mother was deeply devoted to this school, and had in her youth known Ronsard personally. The gibing part of the anecdote about the author of the Pucelle being “bred a poet” was never very funny, and is now more than very stale. The historical part remains and flourishes.
[317]. It is formally the Academy’s and not his. But there is no real doubt that nearly all of it expresses his sentiments, and that much of it is actually his in language. The whole history of the Cid dispute is minute and complicated, and may be found in many books. The persons chiefly responsible for it, besides Richelieu and Chapelain, were Georges de Scudéry, an eccentric failure of a genius, Mairet, a playwright of talent, and Claveret, one of none. In all cases, it is to be feared, the extraordinary success of the piece was the exciting cause.
[318]. Of course there is much to be said for them, rightly understood, from the point of view of mere theatrical arrangement: while mediocre writers are more safely to be trusted with than without them. But we are speaking of literature, not the theatre; and in literature the weak brother is rather a nuisance to be extirpated, than a person to be provided for, or conceded to.
[319]. M. Jules Lemaître’s article on the subject in Petit de Julleville (iv. 273 sq.) most ingenuously cites the virtuous authority of M. Dumas fils in support of Chapelain, and is not far from opining in the same sense. It is always difficult for a Frenchman to pardon an honest love. If Chimène had been married and Rodrigue her gallant, it would have been quite different. She might have overlooked the blood of 20,000 fathers.