Let us not be unjust to Mr. Greville. Kings, pontiffs, statesmen, and authors may have been “blackguards” or “vulgar buffoons,” the most refined society of both sexes in England a “herd” of Yahoos; but that he was not insensible to real merit, that he had a true appreciation of the good and the beautiful when he found it, one single example, shining out in these many pages of depreciation, proves beyond peradventure. In the flood of universal cynicism that pours over them, one man there is at least who lifts his head above the waters—one other gentle Houyhnhnm, fit companion for Mr. Greville, possessing all that wisdom and discretion denied to the rest of the world, and, more wonderful still, that elegant taste the fastidious critic finds nowhere else. This phenomenon is Mr. John Gully, prize-fighter retired! “Strong sense,” “discretion,” “reserve and good taste”—these are the encomiums heaped upon him; to crown all, “remarkably dignified and graceful in his manners and actions.” Ah! poor Macaulay, or thou, gentle Diedrich Knickerbocker, where wanders now thy ghost, condemned for thy “vulgarity” to pace the borders of the sluggish Styx, while the “champion heavy-weight” is ferried over to immortality by this new Charon of gentility?
We decline to soil our pages with any of Mr. Greville’s impure stories. Those who have seized on the book for the purpose of reading them must have been sadly disappointed if they hoped to find in them a doubtful amusement. Not a scintilla of wit relieves their baseness. Their vileness is equalled only by their dulness. They are simply falsehoods from beginning to end. Where Mr. Greville, with a singular depravity, does not himself admit them to be false while wilfully publishing them, they have been elsewhere fully and indignantly disproved. In a single word, as Mrs. Charles Kean aptly says in her letter published in the Times, “the grossness was in Mr. Greville’s mind,” not in the conduct of those he slanders.
If it be said that our criticism upon these volumes and their author has been too unsparing; that the old saying, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, should have inspired a smoother tone, the answer is given by Mr. Greville himself. “Memoirs of this kind,” he said in a conversation held some time before his death with his editor, Mr. Reeve, “ought not to be locked up till they had lost their principal interest by the death of all those who had taken any part in the events they describe.” In other words, the diseased vanity and cynicism which made him rail at everybody while he lived made him unwilling to lose the pleasure by anticipation of wounding everybody after his death. The shallow eagerness to have himself talked about after he was gone made him insensible to those ideas which seem to have animated Saint-Simon, who was content to look forward to an indefinite time for the publication of his Memoirs, desiring them rather to be a truthful and interesting contribution to history than a hasty means of venting his passing spleen. Mr. Greville has indeed been talked about sufficiently; but that the conversation would be pleasing to him, could he hear it, is more doubtful.
One thing at least is to be commended in Mr. Greville—his style. This, for certain uses, is admirable. It is easy and plain. He is a master of that part of the art of writing which Horace describes in the 10th Satire:
“Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.”
His is “the language of the well-bred man,” the pure English of the society in which he lived. We do not take account here of his occasional coarseness, and even oaths—these were of the character of the man, not of his style. The latter, for purposes of correspondence, or even a short diary, might generally be taken for a model. Any single page will be read with pleasure. But as, on the other hand, he neglects the other side of the Venusian’s advice, seldom rising to “support the part of the poet or rhetorician,” these closely-printed volumes eventually become tiresome to the reader. Even good English will grow monotonous if it has nothing else to sustain it.
Little room is left to speak of the greatest of French memoir-writers, or perhaps of any literature—Saint-Simon. A few remarks may be jotted down, having reference chiefly to the points of contrast suggested by the Greville Memoirs. Of the substance and texture of Saint-Simon’s great and voluminous work, as it unrolls itself slowly before us—the opening splendor, the daring, the eccentricities, the wit, and the vices of the courts under which he lived; the prodigies of baseness and monuments of heroic virtue that rear themselves opposed in that marvellous age; the long line of portraits, dark, lurid, threatening, radiant, gentle, so full of surprises to the student of history as ordinarily written; the turning of the fate of campaigns by the caprice of an angry woman; the crippling of fleets by the jealousy of a minister; the desolation of whole provinces by the corruption of intendants; the closing scenes of profligacy and bankruptcy under the regency—many pages would be required to give even an outline. The analysis of his genius and character would make a distinct essay. Sainte-Beuve and other masters of criticism have labored in the field; yet the soil is so rich that humbler students will still find enough to repay them. We indicate the landmarks of the country, without entering on it. Nor would we be supposed to endorse or give our sanction to many of the opinions and sentiments Saint-Simon so freely gives utterance to. His Gallicanism, which he shared with the court; his sympathy with the Jansenist leaders, if not with their heresy; his violent hatred of the Jesuits—these are blots on his work that cover many pages.
The Duc de Saint-Simon was born in 1675. During the lifetime of his father he bore the name of the Vidame de Chartres, and in a subsequent passage of his Memoirs, relating to the birth of his own eldest son, he gives a highly characteristic account of the title. At his first appearance at court the king was already privately married to Mme. de Maintenon, the widow Scarron, whose character and astonishing fortunes are nowhere more vividly described than in the pages of Saint-Simon. Louis XIV. was at the summit of his glory. Henceforward, though none could then foresee it, the course was all down-hill. Saint-Simon in his first campaigns accompanied the king into Flanders. Some discontent about promotion, to which he believed himself entitled, caused him to retire from the service. Henceforward he continued to live chiefly at court, having already begun the composition of his Memoirs. On the death of his father, the confidential adviser of Louis XIII., even under the ministry of the famous Cardinal Richelieu, he succeeded to the title and the government of Blaye. At this early age he was accustomed secretly to visit the monastery of La Trappe for meditation and retreat. His gravity and seriousness of mind are everywhere felt through his Memoirs, although these qualities do not lessen the pungency of his style, nor blunt the bon mots of the court, or his graphic description of the surprising adventures of the men of his day. He married Mlle. de Durfort, the daughter of Marshal de Durfort. This union was one of singular happiness, interrupted only by her death.