Between the simple and the sublime there are many shades, and it is the art of adjusting them which contributes to the perfection of eloquence and poetry. It is by this art that Virgil frequently exalts the eclogue. This verse— Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error! Eclog 8, v. 41. 1 saw,1 perished, yet indulged my pain! Dryden. would be as fine in the mouth of Dido as in that of a shepherd, because it is nature, true and elegant, and the sentiment belongs to any condition. But this verse that he is not able to resist a philosopher so powerful. Another who has written a small book which he imagines to be physical and moral, against the utility of inoculation, says that if the small-pox be diffused artificially, death will be defrauded. The above defect springs from a ridıculous affectation. There is another which is the result of negligence, which is that of mingling with the simple and {noble style required by history, popular phrases and low expressions, which are We often read inimical to good taste. in Mezerai, and even in Daniel, who, having written so long after him, ought to be more correct, that "a general pursued at the heels of the enemy, followed his track, and utterly basted him" (a plute couture). We read nothing of this belongs not to an heroic personage, be-kind in Livy, Tacitus, Guicciardini, or cause the allusion is not such as would Le made by a hero. Castaneasque nuces me quas Amaryllis amabat. grove, Such as my Amaryllis used to love....Dryden. These two instance are examples of the cases in which the mingling of styles may be defended. Tragedy may occasionally stoop; it even ought to do so. Simplicity, according to the precept of Horace, often relieves grandeur. Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri, Clarendon. Let us observe, that an author accustomed to this kind of style can seldom change it with his subject. In his operas, La Fontaine composed in the style of his fables; and Benserade, in his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, exhibited the same kind of pleasantry which rendered his madrigals successful. Perfection consists in knowing how to adapt our style to the various subjects of which we treat; but who is altogether These two verses in Titus, so natural the master of his habits, and able to and so tenderdirect his genius at pleasure? Depuis cinq ans entiers chaque jour je la vois, would not be at all out of place in seri- Dans l'orient desert quel devint mon ennui! The lonely east, how wearisome to me, VARIOUS STYLES DISTINGUISHED. The Feeble. Weakness of the heart is not that of the mind, nor weakness of the soul that of the heart. A feeble soul is without resource in action, and abandons itself to those who govern it. The heart which is weak or feeble is easily softened, changes its inclinations with facility, resists not the seduction or the ascendancy required, and may subsist with a strong mind; for we may think strongly and act weakly. The weak mind receives impressions without resistance, embraces opinions without examination, is alarmed without cause, { and tends naturally to superstition. lighter species of literature, and whose imagination is lively. A work may be feeble either in its matter or its style; by the thoughts, when too common, or when, being correct, they are not sufficiently profound; and by the style, when it is destitute of images, or turns of expression, and of figures which rouse attention. Com-strength or stability. pared with those of Bossuet, the funeral orations of Mascaron are weak, and his style is lifeless. A flowery discourse is more replete with agreeable than with strong thoughts, with images more sparkling than sublime, and terms more curious than forcible. This metaphor is correctly taken from flowers, which are showy without Every speech is feeble when it is not relieved by ingenious turns, and by energetic expressions; but a pleader is weak, when, with all the aid of eloquence, and all the earnestness of action, he fails in ratiocination. No philosophical work is feeble, notwithstanding the deficiency of its style, if the reasoning be correct and profound. A tragedy is weak, although the style be otherwise, when the interest is not sustained, The bestwritten comedy is feeble if it fails in that which the Latins call the 'vis comica,' which is the defect pointed out by Cæsar in Terence : Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis This is above all the sin of the weeping or sentimental comedy (larmoyante). The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work. While banishing the flowery style, we are not to reject the soft and lively images which enter naturally into the sub(ject; a few flowers are even admissible; but the flowery style cannot be made suitable to a serious subject. This style belongs to productions of mere amusement; to idyls, eclogues, and descriptions of the seasons, or of gardens. It may gracefully occupy a portion of the most sublime ode, provided it be duly relieved by stanzas of more masculine beauty. It has little to do with comedy, which, as it ought to possess a resemblance to common life, requires more of the style of ordinary Feeble verses are not those which sin Conversation. It is still less admissible against rules, but against genius; which in tragedy, which is the province of in their mechanism are without variety, without choice expression, or felicitous and when occasionally employed in strong passions and momentous interests; inversions; and which retain in poetry tragedy or comedy, it is in certain dethe simplicity and homeliness of prose. scriptions in which the heart takes no The distinction cannot be better compre-part, and which amuses the imagination hended, than by a reference to the simi- without moving or occupying the soul. lar passages of Racine, and Campistran, his imitator. Flowery Style. 'Flowery,' that which is in blossom; a tree in blossom, a rose-bush in blossom people do not say, flowers which blossom. Of flowery bloom, the carnation seems a mixture of white and rosecolour. We sometimes say a flowery mind, to signify a person possessing a The flowery style detracts from the interest of tragedy, and weakens ridicule in comedy. It is in its place in the French opera, which rather flourishes upon the passions than exhibits them. The flowery is not to be confounded with the easy style, which rejects this class of embellishment. Coldness of Style. It is said that a piece of poetry, of not. eloquence, of music, and even of paint- the waves." Coldness of style, thereing, is cold, when we look for an ani- } fore, often arises from a sterility of ideas; mated expression in it, which we find often from a deficiency in the power of Other arts are not so susceptible governing them; frequently from a too of this defect; for instance, architecture, common diction, and sometimes from geometry, logic, metaphysics, all the one that is too far-fetched. principle merit of which is correctness, cannot properly be called warm or cold. The picture of the family of Darius, by Mignard, is very cold in comparison with that of Lebrun, because we do not discover in the personages of Mignard the same affliction which Lebrun has so animatedly expressed in the attitudes and countenances of the Persian princesses. Even a statue may be cold; we ought to perceive fear and horror in the features of an Andromeda, the effect of a writh-eloquence is corrupted, although we have ing of the muscles; and anger mingled with courageous boldness in the attitude and on the brow of Hercules, who suspends and strangles Antæus. The author who is cold only in consequence of being animated out of time and place, may correct this defect of a too fruitful imagination; but he who is cold from a deficiency of soul is incapable of self-correction. We may allay a fire which is too intense, but cannot ac{quire heat if we have none. On Corruption of Style. A general complaint is made, that models of almost all kinds. One of the greatest defects of the day, which contributes most to this defect, is the mixture of style. It appears to me, that we authors do not sufficiently imitate the painters, who never introduce the attitudes of Calot with the figures of Ra In poetry and eloquence, the great movements of the soul become cold, when they are expressed in common terms, and are unaided by imagination.phael. I perceive in histories, otherwise It is this latter which makes love so animated in Racine, and so languid in his imitator Campistron. The sentiments which escape from a soul which seeks concealment, on the contrary, require the most simple expression. Nothing is more animated than those verses in the Cid-“Go; I hate thee not-thou knowest it; I cannot." This feeling would become cold, if conveyed in studied phrases. tolerably well written, and in good doctrinal works, the familiar style of conversation. Some one has formerly said, that we must write as we speak; the sense of which law is, that we should write naturally. We tolerate irregularity in a letter, freedom as to style, incorrectness, and bold pleasantries, because letters written spontaneously, without particular object or act, are negligent conversations; but when we speak or treat of a subject formally, some attention is due to decorum; and to whom ought we to pay more respect than to the public? For this reason, nothing is so cold as the timid style. A hero in a poem says, that he has encountered a tempest, and that he has beheld his friend perish in the storm. He touches and affects, if he Is it allowable to write in a mathemaspeaks with profound grief of his loss-tical work, that "a geometrician who that is, if he is more occupied with his friend than with all the rest; but he becomes cold, and ceases to affect us, if he amuses us with a description of the tempest; if he speaks of the source of "the fire which was boiling up the waters, and of the thunder which roars and which redoubles the furrows of the earth and of would pay his devotions, ought to ascend to heaven in a right line; that evanescent quantities turn up their noses at the earth for having too much elevated them; that a seed sown in the ground takes an opportunity to release and amuse itself; that if Saturn should perish, it would be his fifth and not his first satellite that would take his place, because kings always keep their heirs at a distance; that there is no void except in the purse of a ruined man; that when Hercules treats of physics, no one is able to resist a philosopher of his degree of power?" &c. Some very valuable works are infected with this fault. The source of a defect so common seems to me to be the accu sation of pedantry, so long and so justly made against authors. In vitium ducit culpæ fuga.' It is frequently said, that we ought to write in the style of good company; that the most serious authors are becoming agreeable: that is to say, in order to exhibit the manners of good company to their readers, they deliver themselves in the style of very bad company. Authors have sought to speak of science as Voiture spoke to Mademoiselle Paulet of gallantry, without dreaming that Voiture by no means exhibits a correct taste in the species of composition in which he was esteemed excellent; for he often takes the false for the refined, and the affected for the natural. Pleasantry is never good on serious points, because it always regards subjects in that point of view in which it is not the purpose to consider them. It almost always turns upon false relations and equivoque, whence jokers by profession usually possess minds as incorrect as they are superficial. It appears to me, that it is as improper to mingle styles in poetry as in prose. The macaroni style has for some time past injured poetry by this medley of mean and of elevated, of ancient and of modern expression. In certain moral pieces it is not musical to hear the whistle of Rabelais in the midst of sounds from the flute of Horace,- a practice which we should leave to inferior minds, and attend to the lessons of good sense and of Boileau. The following is a singular instance of style, in a speech delivered at Versailles in 1745: Speech addressed to the King Louis XV.) by M. le Camus, First President of the Court of Aids. "Sire,-The conquests of your Majesty are so rapid, that it will be necessary to consult the power of belief on the part of posterity, and to soften their surprise at so many miracles, for fear that heroes should hold themselves dispensed from imitation, and people in general from believing them. "But no, sire, it will be impossible for them to doubt it, when they shall read in history that your majesty has been at the head of your troops, recording them yourself in the field of Mars, upon a drum. This is to engrave them eternally in the temple of Memory. Ages the most distant will learn, that the English, that bold and audacious foe, that enemy so jealous of your glory, have been obliged to turn away from your victory; that their allies have been witnesses of their shame, and that all of them have hastened to the combat only to immortalize the glory of the con queror. "We venture to say to your majesty, relying on the love that you bear to your people, that there is but one way of augmenting our happiness, which is to diminish your courage; as heaven would lavish its prodigies at too costly a rate, if they increased your dangers, or those of the young heroes who constitute our dearest hopes." SUICIDE. SOME years ago, an Englishman named Bacon Morris, a half-pay officer and a man of much intellect, came to see me at Paris. He was afflicted with a cruel malady, the cure of which he could scarcely hope for. After a certain number of visits, he one day came to me with a purse and a couple of papers in his hand. “One of these papers," says he to me, " contains my will, the other my epitaph; and this bag of money is intended to defray the expenses of my funeral; I am resolved to try for fifteen days what can be effected by the regimen and the remedies prescribed, in order to render life less insupportable, and if I succeed not, I am determined to kill myself. You will bury me in what manner you please; my epitaph is short.' He made me read it; and it consisted only of the following two words from Petronius:- Valete curæ.' Farewell care. 66 At Rome, which however is the country of Mutius Scævola, his action would pass for a barbarous piece of ferocity; at Paris, for madness; and at London, for greatness of soul. I shall make very few reflections in this place upon suicide; nor will I examine whether the late Mr. Creech was right, when he wrote in the margin of his Lucretius-" Nota bene. When I have finished my translation of Lucretius, I must kill myself;" or whether he did right to fulfil this resolution. I will not dive into the motives of my ancient prefect Father Bienasses, a Jesuit, who bid us good night one evening, and the next morning, after saying mass and sealing some letters, threw himself down from the window of a third story. Everybody has some motives for his conduct. Fortunately for him, and myself who loved him, he was cured, and did not kill himself. If such had not been the case, he would certainly have done what he had proposed to do. I was informed, that before his arrival in France, he had passed through Rome, at a time when it was feared, certainly without cause, that some attempt would be made by the English on an unfortunate prince. My All I will venture to assert with confriend Bacon was suspected of a visit to fidence is, that there is no reason to Rome with this intention. He had been apprehend that suicide will become an there fifteen days, when the govenor sent epidemic malady. Nature has provided to inform him, that he must quit Rome too well for that. Hope and fear are too in twenty-four hours. "Oh," returned powerful as inducements, not to frethe Englishman, "I will depart instantly;quently stop the hands of a wretch about for the air does not agree with a free terminate his own life. man: but why send me away ?"-" You are expected to take great care how you return again," said the governor, as it is feared that you will attempt the life of the pretender."-"We may combat, vanquish, and depose princes," rejoined the Englishman, "but we are not in general assassins. Now, Mr. Governor, how long do you think I have been at Rome?"- "Fifteen days," returned the governor. "For fifteen days therefore I have had it in my power to kill the person to whom you allude, if I had come for that purpose; and behold! I am ordered away. Had I been so inclined I would first have decorated an altar to Mutius Scævola; have struck the pretender the first blow between you and the pope, and have killed myself with the second; but we only kill men in{tion which may just pass in an ode, or battle; so, Mr. Governor, farewell." So saying he returned home, and quitted Rome. Some persons have asserted the existence of a country in which a council was establised, with the authority to allow citizens to kill themselves, when they could give sensible reasons for so doing. I reply, that either there has never been such a country, or that the niagistrates of it had very little to do. Why therefore did Cato, Brutus, Anthony, Otho, and so many others, kill themselves so resolutely, while our party leaders either allow themselves to be hanged, or languish out their miserable lives in a prison? Certain wits have observed, that these ancients did not possess genuine courage; that Cato killed himself like a poltroon, and that he would have discovered more greatness of soul by cringing to Cæsar: an observa as a figure of rhetoric. He is certainly not destitute of courage who can tranquilly prepare for a voluntary bloody |
