“It is not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and, if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind.”—Dryden.
CHAPTER I.
FROM MALHERBE TO BOILEAU.
THE SUPPLANTING OF ITALY BY FRANCE—BRILLIANCY OF THE FRENCH REPRESENTATIVES—MALHERBE—THE ‘COMMENTARY ON DESPORTES’—WHAT CAN BE SAID FOR HIS CRITICISM—ITS DEFECTS STIGMATISED AT ONCE BY REGNIER—HIS ‘NINTH SATIRE’—THE CONTRAST OF THE TWO A LASTING ONE—THE DIFFUSION OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CRITICISM—VAUGELAS—BALZAC—HIS LETTERS—HIS CRITICAL DISSERTATIONS—OGIER AND THE PREFACE TO ‘TYR ET SIDON’—CHAPELAIN: THE HOPELESSNESS OF HIS VERSE—THE INTEREST OF HIS CRITICISM—THE ‘SENTIMENTS DE L’ACADÉMIE SUR LE CID’—PREFACES—‘SUR LES VIEUX ROMANS’—LETTERS, ETC.—CORNEILLE—THE THREE ‘DISCOURSES’—THE ‘EXAMENS’—LA MESNARDIÈRE—SARRASIN—SCUDÉRY—MAMBRUN—SAINT-EVREMOND—HIS CRITICAL QUALITY AND ACCOMPLISHMENT—HIS VIEWS ON CORNEILLE—ON CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS, ETC.—ON ANCIENTS AND MODERNS—GUI PATIN: HIS JUDGMENT OF BROWNE—TALLEMANT, PELLISSON, MÉNAGE, MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ—THE ‘ANA’ OTHER THAN MÉNAGE’S, ESPECIALLY THE ‘HUETIANA’—'VALESIANA'—‘SCALIGERANA’—AND ‘PARRHASIANA’—PATRU, DESMARETS, AND OTHERS—MALEBRANCHE—THE HISTORY OF BOILEAU’S REPUTATION—THE ‘ART POÉTIQUE’—ITS FALSE LITERARY HISTORY—ABSTRACT OF IT—CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF IT—WANT OF ORIGINALITY—FAULTS OF METHOD—OBSESSION OF GOOD SENSE—ARBITRARY PROSCRIPTIONS—BOILEAU’S OTHER WORKS—THE ‘SATIRES’—THE ‘EPIGRAMS’ AND ‘EPISTLES’—PROSE: THE ‘HÉROS DE ROMAN’; THE ‘RÉFLEXIONS SUR LONGIN’—THE “DISSERTATION ON 'JOCONDE'”—A “SOLIFIDIAN OF GOOD SENSE”—THE PLEA FOR HIS PRACTICAL SERVICES—HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF THIS—CONCLUDING REMARKS ON HIM—LA BRUYÈRE AND FÉNELON—THE “DES OUVRAGES DE L’ESPRIT”—GENERAL OBSERVATIONS—JUDGMENTS OF AUTHORS—FÉNELON: THE ‘DIALOGUES SUR L’ELOQUENCE’—'SUR LES OCCUPATIONS DE L’ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE'—AND ITS CHALLENGE TO CORRECTNESS—THE ABBÉ D’AUBIGNAC—HIS ‘PRATIQUE DU THÉÂTRE’—RAPIN—HIS METHOD PARTLY GOOD—HIS PARTICULAR ABSURDITIES AS TO HOMER IN BLAME—AS TO VIRGIL IN PRAISE—AS TO OTHERS—THE READING OF HIS RIDDLE—LE BOSSU AND THE ABSTRACT EPIC—BOUHOURS—ENCYCLOPÆDIAS AND NEWSPAPERS—BAYLE—BAILLET—THE ETHOS OF A CRITICAL PEDANT—GIBERT—THE ANCIENT AND MODERN QUARREL—ITS SMALL CRITICAL VALUE.
The causes of the transference of the course of critical empire, northwards as well as westwards, from Italy to France, in the seventeenth century, lie (except in so far as they will body themselves forth in the plain tale of this course which follows) somewhat outside the plan which has been traced for our History. The supplanting of Italy by France. They belong, in part at least, to that “metacritic” and guesswork which we endeavour to exclude. Indeed, as usually, and more than as usually, in such case, the old puzzle of “the egg from the Owl, or the Owl from the egg?” besets us specially in this division of the History of that Art for which some have had it that the bird of Pallas is a specially suitable symbol. We can see the importance of the establishment of the French Academy, when only the first third of the century had passed, of the extraordinary influence of coteries like that of the Hotel Rambouillet, of the coincidence of the towering ambition of a youthful king and the concentrated force of his at least partially reunited kingdom, with the existence of a remarkable knot of great men of letters, including one critic of the most masterful, if not quite the most masterly, type. But can there possibly be any causation in this latter coincidence? Can we say why Conrart’s Academy, instead of lasting for a time and then breaking up, became a national institution? why the Rambouillet blue-stockings were more influential than those who haunted Mrs Montagu’s peacock-room, or put rubbish into the Bath-Easton vase? Only by guessing, or by arguing in stately circle about national temperaments. And we endeavour to avoid both these things here.[[292]]
What is certain is, that while on the one hand Italy is scarcely less addicted to criticism, and scarcely less fruitful of Brilliancy of the French representatives. critics, in the seventeenth century than in the sixteenth, and while the authority of Scaliger, Castelvetro, Minturno, Piccolomini, is felt[[293]] all over Europe, the contemporary practitioners of the art exercise no such authority, and are of almost the least importance. A page for every score that we gave them in the last Book will nearly suffice in this. In France, on the other hand, no part of the century is not full of the critical labour, and no part is without critics to whom, whether we grant the epithets “good” or “great” or not, we cannot possibly refuse those of “important,” “influential”—in more than one or two cases even “epoch-making.” In the first generation we have the half-revolution, half-reaction of Malherbe, who, for good or for ill, determined the main course of French poetry for two whole centuries, and great part of that course for three. In the second we have the similar work in prose, of Balzac by counsel and example, by example of Descartes and Pascal; the contest over the Cid, and the purblind but still intentionally business-like investigations of Hédelin-d’Aubignac; the constant debates of the Academy: and, perhaps most important of all, the general engouement for literary discussion of pedant and fine gentleman, of prude and coquette alike. From the third come the ambitious code-making of Boileau; the squabble, tedious and desultory, but in intention at least wholly critical, of the Ancients and Moderns; the immense collections of Baillet and others; the work, not bulky but full of germ and promise, of Saint-Evremond, Madame de Sévigné, Boileau, La Bruyère, Fénelon. What century earlier (some may say, what century later) will give us, in any country, a critical galaxy like this, where the stars dart, in at least most cases, so many other rays besides those of criticism?
It is possible—as the historian of such a subject as this could wish that it were possible oftener—to do justice to Malherbe’s undoubtedly prominent position in the history of criticism without wasting much space on him. Malherbe. The universally known phrase of Boileau,[[294]] though containing an innuendo of the grossest critical injustice, and led up to by a passage of astounding historical ignorance or falsification, is yet substantially true. The stage of French poetry which Malherbe started was a new stage; it was a stage not at once, but before long, acquiesced and persevered in by all but the whole population of the French Parnassus; and it cannot be said that seventy years of almost unceasing effort have done more than partially substitute a fresh one. Further, it is undoubtedly in favour of Malherbe, though the compliment may seem a left-handed one, that he was not a man of commanding genius in any way; that he left no important critical work; that his creative work is very scanty, far from consummate as a rule, and by no means all in the style he himself approved; and that even the secondhand accounts which we have of his doctrines are scrappy, vague, and indirect. For it is quite clear that a man who exercises such influence, and exercises it practically at once, in such circumstances, must have hit upon the right string, must have coincided strangely with the general feeling, temper, aspirations, taste of his countrymen. Our documents for these doctrines are an extensive, but fragmentary, commentary on Desportes (the still more destructive and characteristic handling of Ronsard seems either to be a myth or never to have been preserved on paper), the Life by Racan,[[295]] some phrases in the Letters, the vivid and admirable attack of Regnier,[[296]] and the remarks of writers in his own and the next generation.
All concur in showing Malherbe to us as, on the one hand, mainly a verbal critic, and on the other, as verbal critics usually, but by no means always or necessarily are, singularly unable to rise above the word, or its nearest neighbour, the mere sense. Both these things made him the natural enemy (though, for his earlier years at least, he was a more or less disloyal follower) of the Pléiade. Their abundant word-coinages and word-borrowings shocked him; he did not want, and could not feel,[[297]] the poetic souffle which they managed to give by means, or in despite, of their vocabulary. Racan, a rather simple but absolutely honest creature, confesses that his master n’aimait du tout les Grecs, regarded Pindar especially as a maker of galimatias, liked Statius and Seneca best of the Latins,[[298]] and (it was generous) classed the Italians with the Greeks. On the other hand, in French, he had at least the merit of knowing exactly what he wanted, and exactly how to get it. He it was who first invented those rigid laws of rhyme, which even French classicism never quite adopted—the proscription of the different use of a and e in such rhymes as ance and ence, ent and ant; the rule against simples and compounds of them, and even words which commonly go together, out of verse, as père and mère. He was equally rigid on the cæsura: and Racan is not to be suspected of catering for laughers, though Tallemant might be, when he tells us that, while actually in the death-struggle, Malherbe revived himself to tell his nurse that she had used a word qui n'ètoit pas bien Français.
It is, however, in the Commentary on Desportes,[[299]] and there only, that we have the real Malherbe at first hand for our purpose. The Commentary on Desportes. It is a very remarkable piece, and the first of the kind in modern times;[[300]] though Gellius and Macrobius no doubt set a certain pattern for it in ancient. Nor am I acquainted with anything more thorough in the particular species; the modern Zoilus, as a rule, is equally inferior to Malherbe in thoroughness, acuteness, and learning. More than 200 pages—a large page and a small type—are occupied in M. Lalanne’s edition (the only one) with the citations and remarks, the former being rigidly confined to the line or two (rarely more) that Malherbe annotated. It would be almost worth while to reprint[[301]] the original volume as it exists scored by the critic’s hand, and I do not know that it would be at all unfair to Desportes; for it is not the author who comes worst out of the exposure.
Whatever may be said against Malherbe, he cannot be accused of verbiage. He constantly contents himself with a single word—bourre (“padding”), cheville (“expletive”), or simply note or nota, which expresses, much more forcibly, the “Will the reader believe,” or “It will hardly be credited” of our less succinct Aristarchs. It is curious how sensitive Malherbe’s ear is to certain suggestions of real or fancied cacophony, or absurdity, in juxtaposition of different words. There is no doubt that the French habit of delivering verse in a sort of recitative or singsong, running the syllables very much together, putting strong emphasis on certain vowels and slurring others, makes things like the famous “vaincu Loth” and “vingt culottes,” “vieillard stupide” and “vieil as de pique” less of mere childishness with them than with us. Malherbe seems to have a perfect obsession of this kind, especially in the direction of alliterated syllables. Thus he annotates the harmless line—