French poets numerous. 47. This was an age of verse in France; and perhaps in no subsequent period do we find so long a catalogue of her poets. Goujet has recorded not merely the names, but the lives, in some measure, of nearly two hundred, whose works were published in this half century. Of this number scarcely more than five or six are much remembered in their own country. It is possible indeed that the fastidiousness of French criticism, or their idolatry of the age of Louis XIV., and of that of Voltaire, may have led to a little injustice in their estimate of these early versifiers. Our own prejudices are apt of late to take an opposite direction.
Change in the tone of French poetry. 48. A change in the character of French poetry, about the commencement of this period, is referrible to the general revolution of literature. The allegorical personifications which, from the æra of the Roman de la Rose, had been the common field of verse, became far less usual, and gave place to an inundation of mythology and classical allusion. The Désir and Reine d’Amour of the older school became Cupid with his arrows and Venus with her doves; the theological and cardinal virtues, which had gained so many victories over Sensualité and Faux Semblant, vanished themselves from a poetry which had generally enlisted itself under the enemy’s banner. This cutting off of an old resource rendered it necessary to explore other mines. All antiquity was ransacked for analogies; and, where the images were not wearisomely commonplace, they were absurdly far-fetched. This revolution was certainly not instantaneous; but it followed the rapid steps of philological learning, which had been nothing at the accession of Francis I., and was everything at his death. In his court, and in that of his son, if business or gallantry rendered learning impracticable, it was at least the mode to affect an esteem for it. Many names in the list of French poets are conspicuous for high rank, and a greater number are among the famous scholars of the age. These, accustomed to writing in Latin, sometimes in verse, and yielding a superstitious homage to the mighty dead of antiquity, thought they ennobled their native language by destroying her idiomatic purity.
Ronsard. 49. The prevalence however of this pedantry, was chiefly owing to one poet, of great though short-lived renown, Pierre Ronsard. He was the first of seven contemporaries in song under Henry II., then denominated the French Pleiad; the others were Jodelle, Bellay, Baif, Thyard, Dorat, and Belleau. Ronsard, well acquainted with the ancient languages, and full of the most presumptuous vanity, fancied that he was born to mould the speech of his fathers into new forms more adequate to his genius.
Je fis des nouveaux mots,
J’en condamnai les vieux.[1185]
[1185] Goujet, Bibliothéque Française xii. 199.
His style, therefore, is as barbarous, if the continual adoption of Latin and Greek derivatives renders a modern language barbarous, as his allusions are pedantic. They are more ridiculously such in his amatory sonnets; in his odes these faults are rather less intolerable, and there is a spirit and grandeur which show him to have possessed a poetical mind.[1186] The popularity of Ronsard was extensive; and, though he sometimes complained of the neglect of the great, he wanted not the approbation of those whom poets are most ambitious to please. Charles IX. addressed some lines to Ronsard, which are really elegant, and at least do more honour to that prince than anything else recorded of him; and the verses of this poet are said to have enlightened the weary hours of Mary Stuart’s imprisonment. On his death in 1586 a funeral service was performed in Paris with the best music that the king could command; it was attended by the Cardinal de Bourbon and an immense concourse; eulogies in prose and verse were recited in the university; and in those anxious moments, when the crown of France was almost in its agony, there was leisure to lament that Ronsard had been withdrawn. How differently attended was the grave of Spenser![1187]
[1186] Id. 216.
[1187] Id. 207.
50. Ronsard was capable of conceiving strongly, and bringing his conceptions in clear and forcible, though seldom in pure or well-chosen language before the mind. The poem, entitled Promesse, which will be found in Auguis’s Recueil des Anciens Poëtes, is a proof of this, and excels what little besides I have read of this poet.[1188] Bouterwek, whose criticism on Ronsard appears fair and just, and who gives him, and those who belonged to his school, credit for perceiving the necessity of elevating the tone of French verse above the creeping manner of the allegorical rhymers, observes that, even in his errors, we discover a spirit striving upwards, disdaining what is trivial, and restless in the pursuit of excellence.[1189] But such a spirit may produce very bad and tasteless poetry. La Harpe, who admits Ronsard’s occasional beauties and his poetic fire, is repelled by his scheme of versification, full of enjambemens, as disgusting to a correct French ear as they are, in a moderate use, pleasing to our own. After the appearance of Malherbe, the poetry of Ronsard fell into contempt, and the pure correctness of Louis XIV.’s age was not likely to endure his barbarous innovations and false taste.[1190] Balzac not long afterwards turns his pedantry into ridicule, and admitting the abundance of the stream, adds that it was turbid.[1191] In later times more justice has been done to the spirit and imagination of this poet, without repealing the sentence against his style.[1192]
[1188] Vol. iv. p. 135.