Part 32

If these “CHARACTERS” are not liked, I shall be astonished; and if they are, my astonishment will not be less.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Pascalʼs _Pensées_ were published in 1670, six years after their authorʼs death; La Rochefoucauldʼs _Maximes_ appeared in 1665, and of both works from five to six editions had been sold before the “Characters” saw the light. I have borrowed the definition of these authorsʼ labours from La Bruyèreʼs “Prefatory Discourse concerning Theophrastus,” which came out at the same time as the “Characters,” and served as an introduction.

[2] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Characters,” page v.

[3] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of the French Academy, June 15, 1693,” which preface was published for the first time with the eighth edition of the “Characters,” in 1694.

[4] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Characters,” page i.

[5] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of the French Academy, June 15, 1693.”

[6] Preface to La Bruyèreʼs “Speech upon his Admission as a Member of the French Academy, June 15, 1693.”

[7] Sir Walter Scott, in his introduction to Drydenʼs “Absalom and Achitophel,” says: “He who collects a gallery of portraits disclaims, by the very act of doing so, any intention of presenting a series of historical events.”

[8] It was the custom in Paris, at the time La Bruyère wrote, for any gentleman or lady to leave part of their gains on the table, to pay, as it were, for the cards; hence the allusion.

[9] All the passages on pages _15_ and _16_ between inverted commas (“ ”) have been taken from La Bruyèreʼs “Prefatory Discourse concerning Theophrastus.”

[10] See the Chapter “Of the Great,” page 230, § 25. When, in the Chapter “Of Certain Customs,” page 408, § 14, he speaks of his “descent from a certain Godfrey de la Bruyère,” he does so jocularly.

[11] Compare “Preface,” page iv., “I did not hesitate,” till page v., “and more regular.”

[12] In his “Introduction to the Reader,” printed before “Absalom and Achitophel,” and published in 1681, Dryden openly admits: “I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire, where justice would allow it, from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced at their own cost that I can write severely with more ease than I can write gently.” La Bruyère would never have ventured to speak so plainly, and this difference between the French and English author seems very characteristic of the two nations. Compare also Drydenʼs poetic delineation of Buckingham as Zimri to La Bruyèreʼs portrait of Lauzun as Straton.

[13] Perhaps no author is more quoted in Littréʼs _Dictionnaire de la langue française_ than La Bruyère is.

[14] M. G. Servois, in his bibliographic Notice of La Bruyèreʼs works, &c., vol. iii., first part, quotes a passage from the London correspondent of the _Histoire des Ouvrages des savants_ (see page 19, note 3) in affirmation of this statement, and seems to think this translation to have been the first edition of the one mentioned in No. 4.

[15] Wattʼs “Bibliotheca Britannica.”

[16] According to M. Servois, this edition is mentioned in Lowndesʼ “The Bibliographerʼs Manual,” but I have not been able to find it there.

[17] I imagine I can observe slight traces of La Bruyère in Swiftʼs “Account of the Empire of Japan, written in 1728,” beginning with the words: “Regoge was the 34th emperor of Japan;” in nearly all he wrote for the Tatler; in many of the portraits to be found in the Examiner, for example in the portrait of “Laurence Hyde, late earl of Rochester,” beginning with the words: “The person who now presides at the Council, etc.” Compare also “A Short Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton;” the “Narrative of Guiscardʼs Examination;” and in the “True Relation of the Intended Riot,” the passage beginning with “the surprising generosity, and fit of housekeeping the German princess has been guilty of this summer.” Swift, moreover, possesses a far more trenchant style than the French author, but I imagine the latter did as much execution, though he used a rapier, whilst Swift employed a bludgeon.

[18] There are few portraits in Shaftesburyʼs “Characteristics;” one of the few exceptions being the portrait of “a notable enthusiast of the itinerant kind,” supposed to be Van Helmont; now and then, however, he seems to have borrowed a few ideas of La Bruyère, as for example, in the second section of “A Letter concerning Enthusiasm,” his remarks on criticism and ridicule. Compare also Shaftesbury in section 2, saying: “The vulgar, indeed, may swallow any sordid jest, any mere drollery or buffoonery; but it must be a finer and truer wit which takes the men of sense and breeding,” to La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Works of the Mind,” §§ 51, 52; the whole of this “Letter” is somewhat like La Bruyère, as in section iv. the crafty beggars, addressing some one they meet in a coach, and of whose quality they are ignorant. In Shaftesburyʼs “Sensus Communis, an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour,” part 1, section 3, his remarks about true raillery; and the opening of the second part, section 1: “If a native of Ethiopia were of a sudden transported into Europe,” etc., as well as in the “Soliloquy,” the allegory of the love-spent nobleman, and in the “Moralists” the portraits of Palemon, Philocles, and Theocles, and the opening of the third part, “it was yet deep night,” appear somewhat like reminiscences of the French author.

[19] “English Philosophers:” Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. By Thomas Fowler, President of Corpus Christi College: London, 1882.

[20] It will, of course, be impossible to give “chapter and verse” for every passage of the “Spectator” which is faintly like one of La Bruyèreʼs observations, nor do I mean to say that Addison, Steele, and the other contributors to the English paper borrowed literally, and without acknowledgment, from the French author. But what I intended to convey was that, though the humour of the Spectator and its Sir Roger de Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport, Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry, &c., are pre-eminently English, several of the remarks and portraits to be found there are more or less inspired by a careful study of La Bruyère. Compare for example Addisonʼs paper about the opera, Spectator No. 5, to § 47 of La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Works of the Mind;” and the remarks in No. 10 of the Spectator, about the occupations of the female world, and Nos. 144, 156, and No. 265 of the same paper, with some paragraphs of La Bruyèreʼs Chapter “Of Women.” Nos. 45, 57, 77, 88, 98, 100, 129, 193, 236, 238, and 494, appear to me somewhat like several of La Bruyèreʼs paragraphs. The “fair youth” in No. 104 of the “Spectator” is not unlike a reverse picture of La Bruyèreʼs portrait of Iphis in the Chapter “Of Fashion,” page 389, § 14; whilst the remark in No. 226, “Who is the better man for beholding the most beautiful Venus,” &c., reminds one of La Bruyèreʼs remark on obscene “pictures painted for certain princes of the Church,” in his Chapter “Of Certain Customs,” page 409, § 17. Steeleʼs opinions about corporal punishments (Spectator, No. 157) are very much in advance of those of La Bruyère on the same subject; the English author remarks about Louis XIV. (Spectator, No. 180 and 200) should be compared with La Bruyèreʼs glorification of the same monarch.

[21] I have consulted the edition of Dr. R. Southʼs sermons, eleven vols., the first six published by H. Lintot, 1732; the last five by Charles Bathurst, 1744. In the sermon preached at Westminster Abbey, February 22, 1684-85, on Prov. xvi. 33: “The lot is cast into the lap,” &c., the passage about Alexander the Great, in his famed expedition against Darius, the remarks about Hannibal and Cæsar, Agathocles, the potter who became King, Masaniello, and finally what the Doctor says about Cromwell: “and who, that had beheld such a bankrupt beggarly fellow as Cromwell first entering the Parliament House, with a threadbare, torn cloak, and a greasy hat (and perhaps neither of them paid for), could have suspected that in the space of so few years, he should, by the murder of one king, and the banishment of another, ascend the throne, be invested in the royal robes, and want nothing of the state of a king, but the changing of his hat into a crown,” seem like some expressions of La Bruyère. Compare also sermon x.: “Good Intentions no Excuse for Bad Actions,” full of pithy characteristics in word-painting, and his sermons: “The Fatal Imposture and Force of Words,” Isaiah v. 20, “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil,” which are very La Bruyèresque, and somewhat like several paragraphs of the Chapter “Of Certain Customs.” See also in “The Nature and Measures of Conscience,” a sermon preached Nov. 1, 1691, the portrait of the “potent sinner upon earth,” and a sermon on “Pretence of Conscience no Excuse for Rebellion,” preached before Charles II., 13th January, 1662-63, the anniversary of the “execrable murder” of Charles I., in which South says, “I wonder where the blasphemy lies which some charge upon those who make the kingʼs suffering something to resemble our Saviourʼs.” Compare finally the portrait of the “cozening, lying, perjured shop-keeper” in the second sermon, “On Avarice as contradictory to Religion,” with La Bruyèreʼs tradesman in his Chapter “Of the Gifts of Fortune,” § 43.

[22] The Abbé Claude Fleury, the learned author of the _Histoire Ecclésiastique_, who succeeded La Bruyère as a member of the French Academy, said of his predecessor in his opening speech: “Il savait les langues mortes et les vivantes.”

[23] See the Chapter “Of Mankind,” page 289, note 2.

[24] See the Chapter “Of the Great,” page 242, § 53.

[25] Some of the passages of this “Prefatory Discourse” will be found in the Introduction.

[26] In a lecture read before the Academy of Sciences and Literature of Berlin, the 23d of August 1787, and printed in the memoirs of that Academy, Formey told this story on the authority of M. de Maupertuis, who is said to have heard it from the lady herself, the wife of the financier, Charles Rémy de July, to whom she brought a dowry of more than 100,000 _livres_.

[27] See note 3, page 4.

[28] See the Chapter “Of Society and Conversation,” page 122, § 66, and note 1; about Fontenelle, see in the same Chapter the character of Cydias, page 127, § 75.

[29] This he stated openly in the speech he delivered at his reception at the Academy, the 15th of June 1693; his enemies would certainly have contradicted him if it had not been the truth.

[30] See the Chapter “Of the Court,” page 201, note 2.

[31] In the Introduction are to be found some extracts from this preface.

[32] La Bruyèreʼs bitter feelings appear in such paragraphs as § 43, page 56; in the Chapter “Of the Town,” page 166, § 4; in that “Of the Great,” pages 223 and 224, §§ 11 and 12; page 232, § 33; and in the Chapter “Of Opinions,” page 334, § 19. Molière felt a somewhat similar bitterness; at least in the dedication of _les Fâcheux_ he says to Louis XIV.: “Those that are born in an elevated rank may propose to themselves the honour of serving your Majesty in great employments; but, for my part, all the glory I can aspire to, is to amuse you.” Compare also Shakespeareʼs hundred and eleventh Sonnet beginning—“Oh! for my sake do you with Fortune chide.”

[33] See the Chapter “Of Society and of Conversation,” page 120, §§ 56, 57.

[34] See in the Chapter “Of the Great,” page 230, § 26, which seems to me to prove this fear.

[35] “We have wished to warn and not to bite; to be useful and not to wound; to benefit the morals of men, and not to be detrimental to them.” This quotation is taken from one of the letters of Erasmus to Martin Dorpius, in which the former replies to some criticisms on his “Praise of Folly.” The preface to the “Characters,” altered and augmented several times by the author himself, is found for the first time, in its present form, in the eighth edition of his work.

[36] The first edition of the “Characters,” published in 1688, contained 420 characters, the fourth edition 771.

[37] This mark, a ((¶)) between double parentheses, as well as the same mark between single parentheses, was first employed in the fifth edition (1690) of the “Characters,” and in all the following ones. But the mere ¶ without any parentheses was used by La Bruyère in all editions to denote the beginning of a paragraph.

[38] This refers to the sixth (1691), seventh (1692), and eighth (1694) editions. The fifth edition contained 923 characters, the sixth 997, the seventh 1073, and the eighth 1120. The ninth edition (1696) was published about a month after the death of La Bruyère.

[39] This seems to allude to La Rochefoucauldʼs “Maxims.”

[40] M. de La Bruyère adopts the chronology of Suidas, a Greek lexicographer who flourished during the latter end of the eleventh century; according to the Hebrew chronology the world had only existed 5692 years when the “Characters” were first published in 1688.

[41] _Abile_ in the original, in the sense of the English word “able,” and used as a noun, was already then considered antiquated.

[42] _Sentiment_, in the original, was during the seventeenth century not seldom employed in French for “opinion,” as “sentiments” are at present in English.

[43] This magistrate is said to have been Pierre Poncet de la Rivière, Count dʼAblys (1600-1681), a barrister, a councillor of state, and member of the royal council of finances, whose absurd moral treatise, _Considérations sur les avantages de la vieillesse dans la vie chrétienne, politique, civile, économique et solitaire_, was published under the pseudonym of the Baron de Prelle, in the month of August 1677, about one month before the death of the Lord Chancellor dʼAligre, and more than three months before President Lamoignonʼs decease.

[44] At that time so-called collections of anecdotes, such as _Boléana_, _Ménagiana_, and _Segraisiana_, were greatly in vogue.

[45] It is said that the great dramatic poet Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) is alluded to as one of those poets.

[46] All the “Keys” pretend this is a hit at the “Dictionary of the Academy,” and they may be right; for the Dictionary, only published in 1694, six years after the “Characters” first saw the light, had been expected for more than forty years. But most likely La Bruyère was thinking of the tragedy-ballet of _Psyché_ (1671), words by Pierre Corneille and Molière, music by Quinault and Lulli; of the opera which in 1680 Racine and Boileau, joint _historiographes_ of Louis XIV., began, and which never saw the light; and of the newly-acted _Idylle sur la Paix_ and the _Eglogue de Versailles_ (1685), written by Quinault, Racine, and Molière.

[47] Even in La Bruyèreʼs lifetime doubts were already expressed about the Iliad being written by Homer.

[48] This Roman orator was Cicero.

[49] La Bruyère adds in a footnote: “Even merely considered as an author.”

[50] Almost every one felt during the seventeenth century a dislike for Gothic architecture.

[51] Probably Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757) is meant here. This author had made excellent classical studies in a Jesuit college, but attacked the ancients in his _Discours sur LʼEglogue_ and in his _Digression sur les anciens et les modernes_, published together with his _Poésies Pastorales_ in 1688. The paragraph beginning “A man feeds” and ending “nurses” was only printed for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689.

[52] It is generally thought that Charles Perrault (1628-1703), a member of the French Academy, is alluded to, but this seems more than doubtful.

[53] Those “able men” were the dramatist Jean Racine (1639-1699) and the satirist Nicolas Boileau Despréaux (1636-1711).

[54] Zoilus, a Greek grammarian, flourished about 356-336 B.C., and assailed Homer, Plato, Isocrates, and other Greek authors with merciless severity.

[55] According to all the “Keys,” this is said to be an allusion to the Abbé de Dangeau (1643-1723), a member of the French Academy, and a brother of the better known marquis. But why and wherefore this Abbé has been singled out, has not reached posterity. Some say the President Cousin, the editor of the _Journal des Savants_, was meant.

[56] Ζηλωτής means “envious.”

[57] In his _Recueil de divers ouvrages en prose et en vers_, 1676, Charles Perrault defended the _Alceste_ of Quinault and attacked the _Alcestis_ of Euripides. Unfortunately his criticism contained several errors, which Racine noticed in the preface of _Iphigénie_, accusing Perrault at the same time of having carelessly read the work he was censuring.

[58] This was meant for Henri-Joseph de Peyre, Count de Troisvilles (1642-1708), pronounced Tréville, a very intelligent and highly-cultivated nobleman, brought up in his youth with Louis XIV., whose talents he rather undervalued. He was on intimate terms with the Port-Royalists, and after several alternate fits of devotion and dissipation, ended his days devoutly and penitently.

[59] The Abbé de Dangeau, a pedantical purist mentioned already, page 13, note.

[60] In the seventeenth century fireworks were in French _feu gréçois_, literally “Greek fire.”

[61] The _Cid_, the dramatic masterpiece of Pierre Corneille, was first performed in 1636. Cardinal Richelieu tried to get up a cabal to crush it, but was unsuccessful; he also persuaded the Academy to publish a severe criticism on it, which is too favourably spoken of by La Bruyère. Boileau says in his ninth satire:—

“En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue, Tout Paris pour Chimère a les yeux de Rodrigue. LʼAcadémie en corps a beau le censurer, Le public révolté sʼobstine à lʼadmirer.”

[62] _Courageux_ and _courage_ were not seldom used in the seventeenth century for “heartfelt” and “heart,” whilst _main dʼouvrier_, “hand of a workman,” was sometimes employed instead of _main de maître_, “hand of a master.”

[63] The dramatist Edme Boursault (1638-1701) had had a literary quarrel with Boileau, who attacked him in his ninth _Satire_, to which Boursault replied by his comedy _La Satire des Satires_. But they had been reconciled more than a year before the “Characters” were published.

[64] Father Bouhours (1628-1702), a literary Jesuit of some reputation and talent, published in 1689 his _Pensées ingénieuses des anciens et des modernes_, in which he several times praised the “Characters.” La Bruyère, not to be behind-hand, inserted the learned fatherʼs name in his fifth edition, published in 1690.

[65] Roger de Rabutin, Count de Bussy (1618-1693), a friend of our author, enjoyed a certain literary reputation in the seventeenth century, now completely lost. He is only remembered by his licentious and satirical _Histoire amoureuse des Gaules_, for which he was banished from the court for more than twenty years.

[66] Damis was meant for Boileau.

[67] There had been a whole family of printers of that name, though only André was alive when the “Characters” appeared. At that time books in France and in England were almost always sold bound.

[68] By “newsmonger” our author alludes to the manufacturers of manuscript newspapers, containing all kinds of social and political scandal, eagerly sought for, and who were severely punished when caught. The English translator of 1702 gives for _nouvelliste_ “journalist,” and says in his “Key:” “The author of the Works of the Learned of Paris,” etc. The _Histoire des Savants_, edited by H. Basnage (1656-1710), was published in Holland. Mr. N. Rowe, in his translation published in 1713, also uses the word “journalist,” and says in the “Key:” “On the authors of Journals, or accounts of books and News, published in France, Holland,” etc.

[69] La Bruyère speaks here of himself.

[70] In the seventeenth century, _bel esprit_, plural _beaux esprits_, in the original, meant a man of intelligence, but began already in La Bruyèreʼs time to have the meaning of “witling.”

[71] Jean Guez de Balzac (1594-1655), one of the first members of the French Academy, wrote, besides his over-praised “Letters,” a _Socrate Chrétien_, the _Prince_, a panegyric on Louis XIII., and _Entretiens ou Dissertations littéraires_.

[72] Voiture (1598-1648), also a member of the French Academy, is chiefly known by his “Letters” and some namby-pamby poetry, amongst which is the well-known sonnet on “Uranie,” which was by many preferred to the sonnet on “Job” by Benserade, and gave rise to a pretty literary quarrel in the seventeenth century. Voiture and Balzac are now deservedly buried in oblivion.

[73] The letters of Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696) were not published until 1726, or thirty years after La Bruyèreʼs death, though perhaps he might have seen some of them in manuscript. Among the ladies celebrated for their epistolary style in the seventeenth century were Madame de Maintenon, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, Madame de Bussy-Lameth, and above all Madame de Boislandry. See the Chapter “Of Opinions,” § 28, “A Fragment.”

[74] Publius Terentius Afer (194-158 B.C.), a celebrated Latin comic dramatist.

[75] Some commentators on La Bruyère think that the words “vulgar tongue (_jargon_) and barbarisms” refer to Molière having put peasants on the stage, and letting them speak their dialect. See § 52.

[76] Malherbe (1555-1628) was one of the greatest purists amongst the authors of his time. Théophile de Viau (1591-1626), a writer of tragedies and a poet, was by some of his contemporaries thought to be a rival of Malherbe.

[77] In the original _il feint_, the Latin _fingit_, he shapes, imagines.

[78] Ronsard (1524-1585), the chief of the “Pleiad” or constellation of seven authors, was the most celebrated poet of his time, and the author of the _Franciade_.

[79] Clément Marot (1495-1544), the favourite poet of Francis I., was born twenty-nine years before Ronsard, who lived about forty years longer than Marot.

[80] Rémy Belleau (1528-1577), Jodelle (1532-1573), and du Bartas (1544-1590), were all poets of the school of Ronsard and belonging to the “Pleiad.” Du Bartasʼs chief work has been translated into English by “silver-tongued” Joshua Sylvester (1563-1618), under the title of “The Divine Week and Works;” and Spenser speaks of “his heavenly muse,” and of his filling “the world with never-dying fame.”

[81] Honorat de Bueil, Marquis de Racan (1589-1670), the favourite pupil of Malherbe, is chiefly known by his pastoral dialogue, _Les Bergeries_. La Bruyère praises Malherbe and Racan for their pure style, but the fabulist Jean de la Fontaine says of them:—

“Malherbe avec Racan parmi le chœur des anges, Là-haut de lʼEternel célébrant les louanges Ont emporté leur lyre.”

[82] François Rabelais (1459-1553), author of the _Chroniques de Gargantua et de Pantagruel_.

[83] La Bruyère writes “Montagne,” and so it is even now pronounced. Montaigneʼs (1533-1592) “Essays” are known everywhere.

[84] The author who “thinks too little” is said to have been the Port-Royalist, Pierre Nicole (1625-1695), though some imagine Balzac was meant; the author who thought “with too much subtlety” seems to have been Father Malebranche (1638-1715), who attacked Montaigne in his _Recherche de la Vérité_ (1674).

[85] Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), the translator of Plutarch. Nicolas Coëffeteau (1574-1623), bishop of Marseille, is best known by his translation of the Roman historian, Florus.

[86] The letters H. G. stand for _Hermes Galant_, “Hermes” being the Greek for Mercury, and there existing since 1672 a kind of monthly review, called the _Mercure Galant_, edited by Donneau de Visé, Thomas Corneille, and Fontenelle, and printing some news from the court and the army, a few literary articles, and as many advertisements as possible. Since 1677 its title changed to _Mercure de France_.

[87] Boileau, La Fontaine, and Saint Evremond were, like La Bruyère, no lovers of the opera.