LECTURE VI.

BOILEAU.

CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC TRAGEDY. — SHAKSPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET COMPARED WITH BACINE'S BERNICE.

THERE are essential differences between English and French tragedy. Justly admiring your world-renowned Shakspeare, we could not fail when we had the works of Corneille under notice, to draw a comparison be tween the genius of these two eminent men. Nor can there be a question that the comparison resulted to the advantage of the English poet. We are accustomed in France, to hear the English, and especially the Germans, unsparingly criticize our classic authors; condemning the tragedies of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, as being too cold, too pompous; and even according to some, heavy, unnatural, and tiresome.

It may, then, be well for us, before examining Racine, to consider this difference, and see if it is not possible to render justice to the classic French tragedies, without scandalizing the admirers of the opposite style.

This question presents itself to us very naturally in reviewing the works of Boileau, who was for so long a time, the legislator of the French Parnassus; the sym (235)

bol and representative of classic tragedy, and even of ancient French poetry.

The merits and defects of Boileau can be summed up in two words; he was not a poet, but he was the master of the great poets of his time. His rare good sense, his sound and stable judgment, made him an excellent critic; though he had neither the sensibility nor the imagination of a poet. He was merely a skilful versifier; always calm, always self-possessed; and would that we could add, always just and true. He very well characterizes himself as "possessing more skill in finding fault, than in writing well." Having an eminently critical mind joined to an exquisite taste, he rendered immense service to literature and the French language. The French writers of that day were exposed to the danger of servility; imitating, on the one side, the pompous style of the Spanish authors, into which Corneille inser able fell, in his later years; and on the other, the studied and affected style of the Italians. But Boileau was on his guard; and the French language is indebted to him for that perspicuity and conciseness which has caused it to be adopted as the language of diplomacy.

Every bad author met in him an independent and incorruptible adversary; for, bad taste never found grace in his eyes. Such writers were naturally his enemies; but men of talent always found in him a friend, a wise counsellor, and sound critic. It was under his influ ence that Racine formed his style, and was preserved from the faults of the day; and this alone would suffice to immortalize the satirist. He was in the habit of boasting that he had taught Racine to write with difficulty, easy verses; meaning thereby to say, that he had made him comprehend, that the most simple things do

not present themselves the first to the mind; and that what is natural, instead of being produced without effort, is often, on the contrary, the result of labor.

We shall say but little respecting the works of Boileau; the French scarcely reading them but at college, where I confess having relished him. But afterward, when the course in Rhetoric has been completed, the charm is broken, and the legislator of Parnassus is found to savor a little too much of the antique. His odes, so enthusiastically admired by his contemporaries, are now found so cold that few have the courage to read them through. And his satires are even more wanting in power to interest. They are twelve in number. To get an idea of his style we may cite the commencement of the eighth satire, on man:

"Of all the tribes of animals; in heav'n above,

That fly, or creep on earth, or in the sea do move;
From Paris to Peru; from Rome to far Japan;

I think, without a doubt, the greatest brute is man."

In proof of his position he cites the ant as more wise and prudent than man. In a subsequent satire on civilized life, he exclaims:

"Do bears within the forests wild, their brothers rend;

Or vultures in the air with their own kind contend?"

And because animals of the same species do not make war on one another, he concludes that in this respect also they are superior to man. After enumerating the difficulties of science, he puts the question to himself through his interlocutor:

"What! mean you by this argument profane to prove

That learned men, ev'n in a lower sphere than asses, move!"