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The latter are precisely the requisites in which the French criticism of the eighteenth century is deficient. It brought neither the imagination nor the heart to bear upon the examination of the masterpieces of literature; for the spirit of reverence it substituted the spirit of ridicule-the critic looked down upon the artist whom he criticised, like a judge upon a criminal at the bar. Hence the whole tone of his even praise wore the appearance of supercilious condescension. The critical tendency of the time was patronising, dictatorial, depreciating, negative-more occupied with faults than beauties-more intent on particulars than on general views. Without imagination to enable them to rise beyond the conventional limitations which French opinions and the practice of French writers had apparently fixed as the laws of taste, and to perceive that excellence might exist under many other forms, all true to nature, and yet each growing out of the habits and feelings of different nations, and peculiarly suited to the people among which it was found, they identified the code of French taste with the eternal laws of nature, and praised or condemned all works according as they approximated to, or receded from, this artificial standard. The absence of simplicity of mind and genuine feeling, which as it prac tically existed in society was reflected in the artificial character of conversation and of literature, made them turn with a nervous horror from every expression which appeared to fall short of that decorum or elegance which the French canons of taste required to be preserved under all circumstances, though the words might be warmed with passion, and stamped with the very signet of Nature herself. "With us, says La Harpe, while contrasting the liberty allowed by the Greek Dramatic Vocabulary with the irksome restraints affecting the French, "with us, the poet does not enjoy the use of more than a third of the national idiom; the rest is interdicted as unworthy of him. There exist for him only a certain number of received words; and the genius of style consists in varying their combinations, and in constantly presenting to the mind and the imagination relations which are new without being

singular, and ingenious without being far-fetched." Such is the state of matters which La Harpe deprecates, but conceives it hopeless to attempt to alter. If at times a momentary expression of admiration was extorted from French criticism by some burst of natural feeling, either in a French poet or in a foreign writer, to which no heart could be insensible, it was generally accompanied by an expression of regret, that while the sentiment was preserved, it had not been embellished by a more courtly and refined expression.

On the other hand certain advantages and certain merits must be conceded to the French criticism of the eighteenth century, of which the more imaginative criticism of Germany and England is not equally entitled to boast. It is possible, for instance, to take too transcendental and cosmopolitan a view of literature-to fix our point of sight so high that the whole landscape beneath us becomes faint and confused-to labour after the universal, till the particular is neglected and overlooked. Thus, in striving to enlarge the circle to which poetry addresses itself, so as to deal with the most extended sympathies, the critics of Germany have sometimes neglected or overlooked the necessity of producing the first and strongest effect upon the poet's own nation; and have advocated systems in which poetry, like the abstract idea of a Lord Mayor, stripped of all that is local and individual, is sent wandering on a fruitless quest into the "void and formless infinite." Sound criticism, however, which is but another word for a wide and enlightened record of experience, teaches us that poetry, like charity, must begin at home; must have its foundation in the present, and be connected with realities with which men are then and there engrossed; and that the poet whose words come most home to the hearts of the wise and good of his own age and country, will speak with the most prevailing accents to the world and for all time.

This vagueness of aim French criticism has entirely escaped, for it proceeded on the just principle, that "to write for France, one must write as a Frenchman ;" and to write for France was, in their view of the mat

*La Harpe-Cours de Littérature.

ter, to write for the world. It may be fairly admitted, too, that it is equally free from that obscurity, mys. ticism, or want of logical precision, with which much of the German criticism may be reproached, and from that arbitrary and capricious distribution of praise or censure, referable to no principle except the personal feeling of the critic, with which our modern English criticism is not less justly chargeable. The principles of the French critics are indeed drawn from a narrow sphere, and, as universal rules, are unquestionably false; but their deductions from them are clearly and logically inade; the opinion is put in a tangible shape, in which it either admits of refutation or compels assent. To clear and consequent reasoning, though from narrow premises, they join a corresponding precision and clearness of style; their learning, though far from extensive, is respectable; in the perception of the ridiculous or the incongruous, their tact is rarely mistaken; where the point and application of the criticism can be heightened by wit, it is seldom wanting. Now that our literary horizon is enlarged, and our principles of taste drawn from a wider experience, much advantage, we humbly think, might be gained from the judicious study of the French criticism of the last century. It would do much to explode that vicious and exaggerated school of criticism, to which the vast increase of periodical writing at the present day has given rise, in which the extravagance of the sentiments is equalled by the inflation of the style; in which praise and blame are equally in extremes, and neither is bestowed upon any consistent, intelligible, or even conscientious principle.

We have said that the tendency towards criticism is not less visible in

Voltaire than in his successors; and, all things considered, he remains the best representative of the French criticism of the eighteenth century. With the true spirit of antiquity, indeed, he was but partially acquainted. His ideas of it were taken at second hand from the writings of the dra

matists and critics of the seventeenth

century. To the manly, bold, and picturesque outlines of Homer, he has done justice. If his criticism on the father of poetry contains nothing profound or novel, it is at least just and discriminating, so far as it

goes. But the simple, statue-like, grandeur of the Greek theatre, he appears to have been altogether unable to appreciate; he is constantly bla. ming its poverty of dramatic resources, its defect of skill in the exposition of plot, the want of a stirring and antithetic dialogue. One of his remarks on a passage in the Edipus Tyrannus, is characteristic of this ignorance of the Greek original, and his incapacity of entering into the spirit of ancient manners. In the first scene of that tragedy, Edipus, alarmed at the groans and lamentations of his people thronging to the altar, comes out to enquire the cause, and addresses them—

I could have sent to learn the fatal

cause,

But see, your anxious sovereign comes himself,

To know of all of you: Behold your king,

Renowned Edipus!"

Whereupon Voltaire thus remarks— "The scene opens with a chorus of Thebans prostrate at the foot of the altar. their king, appears among them. I Edipus, their liberator and through all the world. am Edipus, says he, so renowned There is some likelihood that the Thebans were not ignorant that his name was Edipus. This is no great proof of that perfec tion to which, it has been maintained Boileau,) that tragedy had been some years since," (by Racine and brought by Sophocles. It does not appear that we are much in the wrong in refusing our admiration to a poet, who employs no better artifice to make his personages known than to make them say I am Edipus.' We no longer call such rudeness a noble simplicity." La Harpe justly remarks, which is, indeed, sufficiently obvious, —that Sophocles does not say, "I am Edipus;" but, after stating that he might have employed a meaner messenger, goes on to say, that he, their king himself the world-renowned victor of the Sphynx-Edipus-had not hesitated to come in person to answer the call of his subjects. But if Sophocles be in the wrong, what becomes, on the same principle, of the opening line of the Iphigenie of Racine—

"Oui, c'est Agamemnon, c'est son Roi que l'eveille ?"

Might not a critic with as much justice say-" There is some likeli

hood that Arcas was not ignorant that his master's name was Agamemnon?"

One other instance may be noticed of the false views of Greek tragedy, which the criticisms and analyses of Voltaire on that subject are calculated to convey. He is giving an account of that scene in the Alcestis of Euripides, where the servant describes the conduct of Hercules, who had been received as a guest by Admetus into the mansion of death, after the death of his wife.

"A servant enters alone, speaking of the arrival of Hercules; he describes him as a stranger who opens the door for himself, places himself immediately at table, grumbles that his repast is not served soon enough, fills his cup incessantly with wine, drinks long draughts of white and red, and bellows forth bad songs that resemble howlings, without troubling himself about the king and his wife, whom we are lamenting. He must be some rascal, some vagabond, some as

sassin."

"There is no disputing about tastes," adds Voltaire; "but it is certain that with us such scenes would not be suffered at the Foire," (a second-rate theatre, chiefly frequented by the lower classes.) And La Harpe, who really seems to have formed his idea of the Alcestis from this travestie of Voltaire, expresses a similar opinion.

Now first, let it be kept in view that the scene is not represented at all, but merely described by the servant; for Sophocles would have no more thought of actually introducing such a scene as passing on the stage, than Voltaire himself; and, next, (although we fairly admit the scene even as described by Euripides appears singular,) the ironical description of Voltaire is very far from giving an idea of the reality.

Most readers will recollect under what circumstances the scene to which Voltaire alludes takes place. Overpowered with grief for the loss of his wife, who has just expired, Admetus sees a stranger approaching his threshold. According to the ideas of the ancients, there was something sacred in the presence of a guest; he was considered as a man sent by Jupiter and the gods to receive the rites of hospitality. Admetus tries to disguise his grief from the stranger; he excuses the disorder in which every thing appears, by alleging the death of a female inmate of the family; but he conceals the fact that this was Alcestis. Hercules, unconscious of the grief under which Admetus labours, accepts the invitation; and, it must be admitted, takes his ease in his apartment, in a manner not very consistent with modern usages, which is thus described by the servant who had attended him:

"To many strangers and from various lands,
On their arrival at Admetus' house,
I well remember serving up the feast;
But never till this hour have introduced
So profligate a guest, who, though he saw
Our master sad, advancing, dared to pass
The threshold, and without discretion took
Whate'er our hospitality to him

Presented, though apprised of our distress.
Moreover, were there aught we did not bring,
He call'd for it: a goblet in his hands
With ivy wreathed, uplifting, quaff'd the juice
Of the black grape unmingled, till his veins
Were heated with the flames of wine, and bound
The sprays of verdant myrtle on his brow,
Filling the palace with a clamorous howl

Of dissonance; while twofold sounds were heard,
Regardless of Admetus' woes he sung,—
While for our mistress wail'd the menial train,
But to the stranger did not show their eyes
Swimming with tears,-for such injunction
Admetus."*

* Wodhull's Euripides-Alcestis.

"But what is the result," says Villemain," of this contrast of the tragic and the comic, of sorrow and merriment, which surprises us a little, notwithstanding the literary eclecticism of our time? This noisy guest, who delivers himself up to joy beside a mourning of which he is unconscious,

learns at last, from the grief of the slave, that Admetus, through regard for the laws of hospitality, has deceived him; that she whose death had been spoken of is no stranger, but Alcestis herself, who has died for her husband. Struck with pain and regret, he exclaims

'I with reluctance pass'd

The threshold, and the foaming goblet drain'd
In the abodes of my unhappy host,

Regaled myself, and cover'd o'er these brows
With garlands; but the fault on thee I charge,
Neglecting to inform me what great ill
Oppress'd this house. But where hath he interr'd
The body? Whither shall I go, to find

Her sepulture?'

"Hercules hurries towards the tomb, combats the Genius of Death, who was carrying away the young and beautiful Alcestis, tears her from his hands, and leads her back, unknown and veiled, into the presence of her husband.

"This was what charmed and enchanted the Greeks. What a power of religious illusion was necessary to make them adopt this fable of a wife rescued from death and restored to the husband, who is lamenting her loss? But that belief once admitted, what a pathetic charm in such a spectacle! What becomes of those vulgar rules, so often repeated, which insist that the progress of tragedy shall always be from happiness to misfortune? The pathetic and theatrical, in such a subject, is to be found in the return of Alcestis, still pallid from the tomb, and the unexpected happiness of her husband; the tragic, in the contrast between the funeral preparations of Alcestis, the grief of her children, the lamentations of her husband-and the merriment of that stranger who sits indifferent at table.

"Do we not recognise those vicissitudes of human life which are so striking in Shakspeare? That beautiful Juliet who had glittered at the ball, two days after is dead. The musicians who had been invited for the celebration of her nuptials are come; there are now no nuptials to be celebrated they are to assist at a very different ceremony-at her funeral. And beside that chamber where Juliet is extended in death, and where the family are mourning, they are conversing and uttering their pleasantries."

In one point, however to do justice

to Voltaire-he had the good sense to perceive the incongruity of the form in which the Greek drama had been recast by Corneille and Racine, namely, the perpetual introduction of love scenes, and the language of modern gallantry into the austere tragic pathos of the Greek mythology. He had himself, in his earliest piece, "The Edipus," adopted this conventional absurdity; but he had the sense to perceive, and the candour afterwards to admit, his error. In the epistle dedicatory of his "Orestes," addressed to the Duchess of Maine, speaking of the reception of Edipus, he observes, "Every thing which was in the taste of Sophocles was generally applauded, and all which savoured a little of the passion of love, was condemned by every enlightened critic. And, in truth, what room for gallantry amidst the parricide and incest which are desolating a family, and the plague which is ravaging a country? What more striking example of the absurdities of our theatre, and of the force of habit, than Corneille on the one hand making Theseus say—

Quelque ravage affreux qu'etale ici la peste

L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste!'

And myself, on the other, sixty years after him, addressing the language of antiquated love to an ancient Jocasta, and all this to flatter the emptiest and falsest taste that ever corrupted literature.'

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The criticisms of Voltaire on the literature of modern Europe, are unequal. Spain he has treated with great injustice, arising probably from a very inadequate acquaintance with

its highly peculiar literature. To the profundity, and even romantic beauty which mingles, with broad humour, in the wonderful romance of Cervantes, he appears to have been insensible. Lope is dealt with only as a brilliant barbarian; and Calderon, from whose rich and inventive genius Corneille had more than once borrowed his sources of inspiration, is judged of by one of the wildest of his plays, though full of traits of grandeur, La Vida es Sueno, from which the Heraclius of Corneille was mainly derived. On the other hand, Voltaire has conferred an undue importance on the Araucana of Ercilla-a work which derives its chief interest from its embodying the personal experiences and adven tures of its amiable author; but which is no more entitled to the character of an epic, than the many other productions of the same kind, in which an attempt was made to celebrate the triumphs of Charles V., the very names of which are now forgotten.

In his criticisms on Italian literature he has been less unjust, though he is far enough from being satisfactory. The gloomy grandeur of Dante, and the religious mysticism which he has incorporated with his pictures of human feelings and human sufferings, appear to have revolted him, and he speaks of the Divina Commedia with comparative coldness and severity. Petrarch is blamed for his tediousness and monotony; but some translations from this poet which Voltaire has executed, are among the best specimens of the kind which French literature possesses. But justice, on the whole, is done to Tasso; and between himself and Ariosto there were sufficient points in common, particularly in the light ironical and irreligious vein which pervades the compositions of both, to render his estimate of that poet eminently true and happy.

He

Voltaire piqued himself upon having been the first to make known to his countrymen that England possessed what they wanted, a great epic poem, in the Paradise Lost of Milton. objects, as might be expected, to the war between the good and evil angels, "where the sublime too often merges in the extravagant;" to the harangues and repartees of the infernal council; to the employment of cannon in the great encounter of the warring hosts, and to the manoeuvres

of the battle in general; to the needless erection of the Doric palace in hell, for the purpose of addressing the infernal host, " to whom Satan might just as well have spoken in the open air;" and he is clear that "the devil speaks too much, and harps too long on the same strain." He quotes Boileau's distich :

"Eh! quel objet enfin à presenter aux

yeux

Que le diable toujours heurlaut contre les cieux !"

In these objections there is a mix. ture of truth and falsehood; the following passage, however, is in better taste:-—

"There are two causes, I believe, of the popularity which Paradise Lost will always retain; the first, the interest we take in a happy and inno cent pair whom a powerful and jealous being renders guilty and miserable by his seductions; the second, the beauty of the details.

"The French smiled when they were told that England possessed an epic poem of which the subject was the combat of the devil against God, and the serpent persuading the woman to eat an apple; they conceived that such a subject could afford matter for nothing but vaudevilles. They were afterwards astonished to find in a subject which appeared so barren, such fertility of imagination displayed. They admired the majestic traits with which Milton has dared to delineate God, and the still more striking cha. racter which he has given to the devil. They read with delight the description of the garden of Eden, and the innocent loves of Adam and Eve. It is, indeed, worthy of remark, that in other poems, love is regarded as a weakness; in Milton alone, it is a virtue. He has raised, with a chaste hand, the veil which elsewhere covers the pleasures of this passion; he transports the reader into Paradise; he makes him taste the pure delights with which the hearts of Adam and Eve are filled; he does not elevate himself above buman nature, but only above the corruptions of human nature; and as there is no example of similar love, there is no instance of similar poetry."

Voltaire's treatment of Shakspeare less admits of defence; for his depreciating estimation of the prince of dramatic poets was evidently dictated

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