網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

times were much better than the present. Nestor, in the Iliad, wishing to insinuate himself, like a wise mediator, into the good pinion of Achilles and Agamemnon, begins with saying, I have lived with better men than you; never have I seen, nor shall I ever see again, such great personages as Dryas, Caneus, Exadius, Polyphemus equal to the gods, &c. Posterity has made ample amends to Achilles for Nestor's bad compliment, so vainly ad

Was it for him who had made Mentor and all the rest of his personages discourse at such length, sometimes even tediously, was it for him to shut the mouth of Theramenes! Who among the spectators would not listen to him? Who would not enjoy the melancholy pleasure of hearing the circumstance of Hippolytus' death? Who would have so much as three lines struck out? This is no vain description of a storm unconnected with the piece-no ill-written amplifica-mired by those who admire nothing but tion; it is the purest diction-the most affecting language; in short, it is Racine. Amplification, declamation, and exaggeration, were at all times the faults of the Greeks, excepting Demosthenes and Aristotle.

There have been absurd pieces of poetry on which time has set the stamp of almost universal approbation, because they were mixed with brilliant flashes which threw a glare over their imperfections, or because the poets who came afterwards did nothing better. The rede beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demi-god, while Rameau had only enemies. In fine, men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is inost as rare as talent.

what is ancient. Who knows anything about Dryas? We have scarcely heard of Eradius or of Caneus; and as for Polyphemus equal to the gods, he has no very high reputation, unless, indeed, there was something divine in his having a great eye in the middle of his forehead, and eating the raw carcases of mankind.

Lucretius does not hesitate to say that nature has degenerated

Ipsa dedit dulces foetus et pabula loeta,

Quae nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore;
Conterimusque boves, et vires agricolarum, &c.

Antiquity is full of the praises of an other antiquity still more remote

Les hon mes, en tout tems, ont pensé qu'autrefois
De longs ruisseaux de lait serpentaient dans nos bois;
La lune était plus grande, et la nuit moins obscure;
L'hiver se couronnait de fleurs et de verdure;
L'homme, ce roi du monde, et roi très-fainéant,
Se contemplait à l'aise, admirait son néant,
Et, formé pour agir, se plaisait à rien faire, &c.
Men have, in every age, believed that once
Long streams of milk ran winding through the woods;
The moon was larger, and the night less dark;
Winter was crowned with flowers and trod on verdure;
Man, the world's king, had nothing else to do
Than contemplate his utter worthlessness,
And, formed for action, took delight in sloth, &c.

At the present day, most of our sermons, funeral orations, set discourses, and harangues in certain ceremonies, are tediHorace combats this prejudice with ous amplifications-strings of cominon-equal force and address, in his fine epistle place expressions repeated again and again

a thousand times. These discourses are only supportable when rarely heard. Why speak when you have nothing new to say? It is high time to put a stop to this excessive waste of words, and therefore we conlude our article.

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS

THE great cause of the Ancients versus the Moderns is not yet disposed of; it has been at issue ever since the silver age, which succeeded the golden one. Men have always pretended, that the good old

to Augustus. "Must our poems, then,"
says he, "be like our wines, of which the
oldest are always preferred?" lie after-
wards says-

Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse
Compositum iilepideve putetur, sed quia nuper:
Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et praemia posci.
Ingeniis non ille favet plauditquo sepultis,
Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit,
I feel my honest indignation rise,
When, with affe ted air, a coxcomb cries
"The work, I own, has elegance an ese,
But sure no modern should presume to please."
Thus for his favourite ancients dares to claim,
Not pardon only, but rewards and fame.
Not to the illustrious dead his homage pay,
But envious robs the living of their praise.- TUNIS

On this subject, the learned and ingenious Fontenelle expresses himself thus:

"The whole of the question of preeminence between the ancients and moderns, being once well understood, reduces itself to this :-Were the trees which formerly grew in the country larger than those of the present day? If they were, Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes cannot be equalled in these latter ages; but, if our trees are as large as those of former times, then can we equal Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes.

And pray, why must I bend the knee
To these pretended Gods of ours:
The same intelligence in me
Gives vigour to the self-same powers.
Think ye that nature is capricious,
Or towards us more avaricious
Than to our Greek and Roman sires-
To them an idolizing mother,

While in their children she would smother
The sparks of intellectual files?

He might be answered thus :-Esteem your ancestors, without adoring them. You have intelligence and powers of invention, as Virgil and Horace had; but perhaps it is not absolutely the same intelligence. Perhaps their talents were superior to yours; they exercised them,

monious than our modern tongues, which are a mixture of corrupted Latin, with the horrible jargon of the Celts.

"But to clear up the paradox:-If the ancients had stronger minds than our-too, in a language richer and more harselves, it must have been that the brains of those times were better disposed, were formed of firmer or more delicate fibres, or contained a larger portion of animal Nature is not capricious; but it is posspirits. But how should the brains of sible that she had given the Athenians a those times have been better disposed? soil and sky better adapted than WestHad such been the case, the leaves would phalia and the Limousin to the formation likewise have been larger and more beau- of geniuses of a certain order. It is also tiful; for if Nature was then more youth-likely that the government of Athens, seful and vigorous, the trees, as well as the conding the favourable climate, put ideas brains of men, would have borne testi-into the head of Demosthenes which the mony to that youth and vigour."

With our illustrious academician's leave, this is by no means the state of the question. It is not asked whether Nature can at the present day produce as great geniuses, and as good works, as those of Greek and Latin antiquity, but whether we really have such. It is doubtless possible, that there are oaks in the forest of Chantilly as large as those of Dodona; but supposing that the oaks of Dodona could talk, it is quite clear that they had a great advantage over ours, which, it is probable, will never talk.

La Motte, a man of wit and talent, who has merited applause in more than one kind of writing, has, in an ode full of happy lines, taken the part of the moderns. We give one of his stanzas :

Et pourquoi "eut-on que j'encense
Ces prétendus Dieux dont je sors?
En moi la même intelligence
Fait mouvoir les mêmes ressorts.
Croit-on la nature bizarre,
Pour nous aujourd'hui plus avare
Que pour les Grecs et les Romains?
De nos ainé mère idolâtre,
N'est-elle plus que la mâratre
Dar este grossier des humains?

air of Clamar and La Grenouillére, combined with the government of Cardinal De Richelieu, did not put into the heads of Omer Talon and Jerome Bignon.

Some one answered La Motte's lines by the following:

Cher la Motte, imite et revere

Ces Dieux dont tu ne descends pas;
Si tu crois qu' Horace est ton père,
Il a fait des enfa s ingrats.
La nature n'est point bizarre;
Pour Danchet eile est fort avare,
Mais Racine en fut bien traité;
Tibulle était guidé par elle,
Mais pour notre ami La Chapelle,
Hélas! qu'elle a peu de bonté !

Revere and imitate, La Motte,

Those Gods from whom thou'rt not descended;
If thou by Horaee wert begot,

His children's manners might be mended.
Nature is not at all capricious;
To Danchet she is avaricious,
But she was liberal to Racine;
She used Tibullus very well,
Though to our good friend La Chapelle,
Alas! she is extremely mean!

This dispute, then, resolves itself into a question of fact. Was antiquity more fertile in great monuments of genius of every kind, down to the time of Plutarch, than modern ages have been, from that of

the house of Medicis to that of Louis XIV. inclusively?

ders of his contemporaries, and opened them only to admire ancient ignorance.

The Chinese, more than two hundred He even goes so far as to regret that years before our Christian era, built their we have nothing left of the magic of the great wall, which could not save them Indians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians. By from invasion by the Tartars. The this magic, he understands a profound Egyptians had, four thousand years be-knowledge of nature, which enabled them fore, burthened the earth with their asto-to work miracles-of which, however, he nishing pyramids, the bases of which does not mention one, because the truth covered ninety thousand square feet. No is, that they never worked any. "What," one doubts that, if it were thought advisa- says he, "has become of the charms of ble to undertake such useless works at that music which so often enchanted men the present day, they might be accom- and beasts, fishes, birds, and serpents, and plished by lavishing plenty of money. even changed their nature?" This eneThe great wall of China is a monument my to his own times believed implicitly of fear; the pyramids of Egypt are monu-in the fable of Orpheus, and, it should ments of vanity and superstitions: both seem, had never heard of the fine music testify the great patience of the two people, of Italy, nor even of that of France, which but no superior genius. Neither the Chi-do not charm serpents, it is true, but nese nor the Egyptians could have made which do charm the ears of the connoisa single statue like those formed by our living sculptors.

Sir William Temple, who made a point of degrading the moderns, asserts, that they have nothing in architecture which can be compared to the temples of Greece and Rome; but, Englishman as he was, he should have allowed that St. Peter's at Rome is incomparably more beautiful & than the Capitol.

seur.

It is still more strange that, having all his life cultivated the belles-lettres, he reasons no better on our good authors than on our philosophers. He considers Rabelais a great man, and speaks of Les Amours des Gaules (The Loves of the Gauls), as one of our best works. He was, nevertheless, a learned man, a courtier, a man of considerable wit, and an There is something curious in the as-ambassador, who had made profound resurance with which he asserts that thereflections on all that he had seen; he posis nothing new in our astronomy, nor insessed great knowledge; one prejudice our knowledge of the human body, er-sufficed to render all this merit unavailing cept, says he, it be the circulation of the Boileau and Racine, when writing in blood. The love of his opinion, founded favour of the Ancients against Perrault, on his extreme self-love, makes him for- showed more address than Sir William get the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, of Temple. They knew better than to touch Saturn's five moons and ring, of the Sun's on astronomy and physical science. Boirotation on his axis, the calculation of the leau seeks only to vindicate Homer against positions of three thousand stars, the de- Perrault, at the same time gliding adroitly velopement by Kepler and Newton of the over the faults of the Greek poet, and the law by which the motions of the heavenly slumber with which Horace reproaches bodies are governed, and the knowledge him. He strove to turn Perrault, the of a thousand other things of which the enemy of Homer, into ridicule. Wherever ancients did not even suspect the possi- Perrault misunderstands a passage, or bility. The discoveries in anatomy have renders inaccurately a passage which he been no less numerous. A new universe understands, Boileau, seizing this little in miniature, discovered by the micro-advantage, falls upon him like a redoubtscope, went as nothing with Sir William able enemy, and beats him as an ignoraTemple; he closed his eyes to the won-mus-a dull writer. But it is not at all

improbable that Perrault, though often the courage to do yourself? Believe me, mistaken, was frequently right in his re- you ought rather to be silent. You love marks on the contradictions, the repe-life; others love it no less. Be assured titions, the uniformity of the combats, the that, if you continue to abuse me, you long harangues in the midst of them, the shall have reproaches, and not false ones, indecent and inconsistent conduct of the in return." gods in the poem-in short, on all the errors into which this great poet is asserted to have fallen. In a word, Boileau ridicules Perrault much more than he justifies Homer.

Here he is interrupted by the chorus, with-" Enough! too much on both sides! Old man, cease this ill language towards your son.'

father.

All the rest of the scene is in the same style :

Pheres (to his son).-Thou speakest against thy father, without his having in{jured thee.

Admetus.-Oh! I am well aware that you wish to live as long as possible.

One would think that the chorus should Racine used the same artifice, for he rather give the son a severe reprimand for was at least as malignant as Boileau. Al-speaking in so brutal a manner to his though he did not, like the latter, make his fortune by satire, he enjoyed the pleasure of confounding his enemies on the occasion of a small and very pardonable mistake into which they had fallen respecting Euripides, and, at the same time, of feeling much superior to Euripides himself. He rallies the same Perrault and his partisans upon their critique on the Alceste of Euripides, because these gentlemen had unfortunately been deceived by a faulty edition of Euripides, and had taken some replies of Admetus for those of Alceste; but Euripides does not the less appear in all countries to have done very wrong in making Admetus use such extraordinary language to his father, whom he violently reproaches for not having died for him :

[ocr errors]

{

Pheres. And art thou not carrying to the tomb her who has died for thee! Admetus.- Ah! most infamous of men! 'tis the proof of thy cowardice!

Pheres.-At least, thou canst not say she died for me.

Admetus.-Would to heaven that thou wert in a situation to need my assistance!

Pheres.-Thou wouldst do better to think of marrying several wives, who may die that thy life may be lengthened.

After this scene, a domestic comes and talks to himself about the arrival of Her{cules.

[ocr errors]

"How!" replies the king his father; "whom, pray, are you addressing so haughtily? Some Lydian or Phrygian slave? Know you not that I am free, and "A stranger," says he, opens the a Thessalian? (Fine language, truly, for door of his own accord; places himself a king and a father!) You insult me as without more ado at table; is angry beif I were the meanest of men. Where is cause he is not served quick enough; fills the law which says, fathers must die for his cup every moment with wine, and their children? Each for himself here drinks long draughts of red and of white; below. I have fulfilied all my obligations { constantly singing or rather howling bad towards you. In what, then, do I wrong songs, without giving himself any concern you? Do I ask you to die for me? The about the king and his wife, for whom we light is dear to you: is it less so to me? are mourning. He is, doubtless, some You accuse me of cowardice! Coward cunning rogue, some vagabond, or assasthat you yourself are! You were not sin." ashamed to urge your wife to save you, by dying for you. After this, does it become you to treat as cowards those who refuse to do for you what you have not

It seems somewhat strange that Hercules should be taken for a cunning rogue, and no less so that Hercules, the friend of Admetus, should be unknown to the

household. It is still more extraordinary that Hercules should be ignorant of Alceste's death, at the very time when they were carrying her to her tomb.

Tastes must not be disputed, but such scenes as these would, assuredly, not be tolerated at one of our country fairs.

Brumoy, who has given us the Théâtre des Grecs (Greek Theatre), but has not translated Euripides with scrupulous fidelity, does all he can to justify the scene of Admetus and his father: the argument he makes use of is rather singular.

First, he says, that "there was nothing offensive to the Greeks in these things which we regard as horrible and indecent; therefore it must be allowed that they were not exactly what we take them to have been; in short, ideas have changed." To this it may be answered, that the ideas of polished nations on the respect due from children to their fathers have never changed.

He adds, "Who can doubt that in different ages ideas have changed, relative to points of morality of still greater importance?" We answer, that there are scarcely any points of greater importance. "A Frenchman," continues he, "is insulted; the pretended good sense of the French obliges him to run the risk of a duel, and to kill or be killed, in order to recover his honour." We answer, that it is not the pretended good sense of the French alone, but of all the nations of Europe without exception. He pro ceeds

Plutarch relates that Hephaestion and Craterus were fighting a duel, but were separated by Alexander. Quintus Curtius tells us, that two other of Alexander's officers fought a duel in the presence of Alexander, one of them armed at all points, the other, who was a wrestler, supplied only with a staff, and that the latter overcame his adversary. Besides, what has duelling to do with Admetus and his father Pheres reproaching each other by turns with having too great a love for life, and with being cowards?

I shall give only this one instance of the blindness of translators and commentators; for if Brumoy, the most impartial of all, has fallen into such errors, what are we to expect from others? I would, however, ask the Brumoys and the Daciers, if they find much sult in the language which Euripides puts into the mouth of Polyphemus?" I fear not the thunder of Jupiter; I know not that Jupiter is a prouder or a stronger god than myself; I care very little about him. If he sends down rain, I shut myself up in my cavern; there I eat a roasted calf or some wild animal; after which, I lie down all my length, drink off a great potful of milk, and send forth a certain noise, which is as good as his thunder."

The schoolmen cannot have very fine {noses, if they are not disgusted with the noise which Polyphemus makes when he has eaten heartily.

They say that the Athenian pit laughed at this pleasantry, and that the Athenians never laughed at anything stupid. So the whole populace of Athens had more wit than the court of Louis XIV.! and the populace are not the same every where !

"The world in general cannot be fully sensible how ridiculous this maxim will appear two thousand years hence, nor how it would have been scoffed at in the time of Euripides." This maxim is cruel and fatal, but it is not ridiculous; nor would Nevertheless, Euripides has beauties, it have been in any way scoffed at in the and Sophocles still more; but they have time of Euripides. There were many in- much greater defects. We may venture stances of duels among the Asiatics. In to say, that the fine scenes of Corneille, the very commencement of the first book and the affecting tragedies of Racine, are of the Iliad, we see Achilles half-unsheath- as much superior to the tragedies of So ing his sword, and ready to fight Aga-phocles and Euripides, as these two Greeks memnon, had not Minerva taken him by were to Thespis. Racine was quite senthe hair, and made him desist. sible of his great superiority over Euri

« 上一頁繼續 »