No More Learning

French
was spoken by polite society, and only the middle and lower classes
consented to use their mother tongue. French literature was alone
fashionable, and the few scientific works that appeared were pub-
lished in Latin. Life was hard and sordid. Thought and imagina-
tion languished. Such writings as existed were empty, pompous,
and pedantic. Yet from this dreary waste-
land was to spring that rich harvest of
literature which, in a brief half-century,
made the German nation famous.

Klopstock, Wieland, Lessing, Herder,
Goethe, and Schiller-these were the great
names that were soon to shine like stars
in the literary firmament. But the lesser
men who broke the ground and opened
paths for their brilliant followers are
almost forgotten.
JOHANN JAKOB BODMER
Toward the middle of the century, there
lived in Zürich a modest professor of his-
tory, Johann Jakob Bodmer by name (born
July 19th, 1698), who spoke the first word for a national literature,
and who was the first writer to attempt a scientific criticism of
contemporary authors. His efforts were rude beginnings of a style
that culminated in the polished essays of Lessing. It was Bodmer
whose independence of thought and feeling first revolted from the
slavish imitation of French culture that enchained the German mind.
In his youth he had been sent to Italy to study commerce. This
visit aroused his poetic and artistic nature. He forgot his business
in listening to street singers, in imitation of whom he wrote Italian
lyrics. He read French works on art, and wrote artificial French
verses according to French models. With equal versatility he com-
posed German poetry, copying Opitz, whom he esteemed a great
poet. Nor did he hesitate to try his skill at Latin hexameters.
By chance a copy of Addison's Spectator fell into his hands. He
turned at once from French and Italian culture to admire English


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JOHANN JAKOB BODMER
2129
classics. The first German to appreciate Milton and Shakespeare (the
latter he called the English Sophocles), he never wavered in his
devotion to the English school. With his faithful friend, Johann
Jakob Breitinger, a conscientious scholar, he started in Zürich a
critical weekly paper on the plan of the Spectator. It was called
Discoursen der Mahlern (Discourses of the Painters), and its essays
embody the first literary effort of the Swiss as a nation. A little
weekly coterie soon gathered about Bodmer to discuss the conduct of
the paper; but much of the spirit and enthusiasm of these councils
evaporated in print, the journal being subjected to a rigid censor-
ship. Not alone art and literature came under discussion, but social
subjects. All contributions were signed with the names of famous
painters, and dealt with mistakes in education, the evils of card-
playing, the duties of friendship, love and matrimony, logic, morality,
pedantry, imagination, self-consciousness, and the fear of death.
These discourses were chiefly written by Bodmer and his colleague
Breitinger. The earlier papers, awkwardly expressed, often in Swiss
dialect, masqueraded as the work of Holbein, Dürer, Raphael, or
Michael Angelo. Although intended at first for Swiss readers only,
the little weekly soon captured a German public. Its purpose was to
kindle the imagination, and to suggest a parallel between the art of
painting and the art of literature. Bodmer only dimly outlined what
an infinitely greater mind defined with unerring precision some
twenty years later in the 'Laocoon. ' But the service of the older
man to literature is not therefore to be undervalued. Bodmer created
the function of analytic and psychological criticism in Germany.
Hitherto no writer had been called to account for any literary offense
whatever. Bodmer maintained that the man who demanded a hear-
ing from the public must show good cause for this demand.
After two years the Discourses were discontinued; but Bodmer
had gained great influence over the young writers of the time. He
increased his reputation by translating Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' which
he considered "a masterpiece of poetic genius, and the leading work
of modern times. " He deplores, however, the low standard of public
taste, which, delighting in inferior poets, cannot at once rise to the
greatest works. Already there existed in Leipzig a sort of literary
centre, where Gottsched was regarded as a dictator in matters of
taste. This literary autocrat praised Bodmer's translation of 'Para-
dise Lost' more than the original poem, in which he condemned the
rhymeless metre. A sharp controversy soon divided the literary
world into two hostile parties, known in German literature as the
"conflict between Leipzig and Zürich. " Gottsched followed Voltaire
in considering the English style rude and barbarous; whereas Bodmer,
with keener artistic perception and deeper insight, defended Milton
IV-134


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2130
JOHANN JAKOB BODMER
1
and Shakespeare. The quarrel, in which Zürich prevailed, called the
attention of Germany to the English literature, so closely affiliated
to the German mind and taste, and hastened its liberation from the
French yoke. Besides these services, Bodmer showed untiring zeal
in rescuing from oblivion the beautiful poems and epics of the
Middle Ages. In his essay The Excellent Conditions for Poetic Pro-
duction under the Rule of the Swabian Emperors,' he directs public
attention to the exquisite lyrics of the Minnesänger. It was he who
revealed that hidden treasure of German literature, the Nibelungen-
lied. By his studies and translations of Middle High German, he
opened the vast and important field of Germanic philology. To the
end of his eighty-five years he was occupied with preparing selec-
tions from the Minnesänger, and his joy was unbounded when his
half-century of work was crowned with success, and the first volume
of these poems was placed in his hands.
Notwithstanding his true appreciation of poetry, he could not write
it. He placed the religious above all other poetic productions, and
valued the fable highly.
His hospitable roof in Zürich had an ever cordial welcome for all
writers, and many were the poets who sojourned in the "Dichterher-
berge " (poets' inn); among them Klopstock, Wieland, and Goethe.
He held the esteem of the nation long after his own writings had
been crowded into forgetfulness by the new men whose way he had
prepared, — for the genius of Herder and Lessing may be said to
have completed the work that was so courageously begun by Bodmer.
THE KINSHIP OF THE ARTS
From Rubens >
W"
HEN I consider the close relationship of the arts that are
represented by the pen, brush, and chisel, I am inclined
to think that the manes of these excellent painters and
sculptors whose names our contributors have assumed would
probably not be displeased with the liberty we have taken. Pro-
vided these departed spirits still feel a passionate interest in our
worldly affairs, they might wish to instruct these painting writers
to follow nature as closely and skillfully with their pens as they
themselves had done with delicate brush or chisel. Nature is
indeed the one universal teacher of all artists. Painter, sculptor,
author, not one can succeed unless he hold counsel with her.
The writer who does not respect her is a falsifier, and the
painter or sculptor who departs from her is a dabbler. The


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JOHANN JAKOB BODMER
2131
highest place in art belongs to the writer, for his field compre-
hends most. With one stroke of the pen he will describe more
than a painter can represent in a succession of pictures. On
the other hand, the painter appeals more to the imagination,
and leaves a stronger impression than description can possibly
awaken.
POETRY AND PAINTING
From Holbein'
A
TRUE poet will try to paint pictures on the imagination,
which at a man's birth is devoid of impressions. I hold
that the imagination is a vast plain, capable of compre-
hending all that nature may bring forth, besides innumerable
illusions, fancies, and poetic figures. A writer's pen is his brush,
and words are his colors, which he must blend, heighten, or tone
down, so that each object may assume a natural living form.
The best poet will so paint his pictures that his readers will
see the originals reflected as in a mirror. If his imagination
be vivid, words grow eloquent, he feels all that he sees: he is
impelled onward like a madman, and he must follow whither his
madness leads. This frenzy need not be inspired by any real
object, but it must kindle his imagination to arouse a real emo-
tion. A new conception delights the fancy. The newest is the
most marvelous. To this must be given a semblance of proba-
bility, and to probability a touch of the marvelous.
The poet
must portray to the imagination the struggles of passion and the
emotions of the human heart. His diction must be splendid and
emphatic. Casting aside all earthly love, he must depict the
love that springs from the soul, the love felt by him whose
thoughts soar towards heaven, where God is the source of eternal
beauty. The most artistic ode is that in which art is concealed,
and in which the poet, unfettered, is driven by his own ardor.


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2132
JOHANN JAKOB BODMER
A TRIBUTE TO TOBACCO
From Dürer)
W extraordinary personage.
HOEVER excels in any direction desires to be considered an
Even the coquettish Phryne,
fearing that the arts in which she really excelled might
be forgotten, offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes on condition
that the following inscription were cut thereon:
"The great
Alexander razed these walls, but the hetaira Phryne rebuilt
them. " Gentlemen, I adore tobacco, and I appeal to the world
for recognition. The floor of my room is strewn with tobacco
ashes, on which my footsteps fall like those of the priests in the
temple of Babylon. Pipes that I have buried in this tobacco
desert lift their bowls here and there like stones in a cemetery.
I shall make a pyramid of these relics, yellow, brown, and black,
from which I shall reap renown as others win it with trophies
gained on the battle-field. Besides books, which I love best
after tobacco, my shelves and walls hold pipes collected from all
nations, and grouped as if they were guns or sabres. My favorite
pipe I never fill except on birthdays or festivals. A Frenchman
who brought this from Canada swore that it was an Iroquois
pipe of peace. Certain people take me for an alchemist, and
my pipes for retorts with chimneys; but they do me wrong.
Not only do I draw smoke but food from my distilling appa-
ratus. I should be hailed rather as a philosopher, for while I
watch the floating smoke I meditate on the vanity of man and
his fleeting occupations. The moral of my tale is moderation;
for my pipe is food and drink at once, and I know no better
example of Nature's frugality than the fact that an ounce of
tobacco provides me with a meal. Women delight in tea even
as men prize tobacco. This difference in taste leads to friction
of temper. Drinkers of tea inhale many a disagreeable whiff of
tobacco, and lovers of tobacco are driven to accept many an
unwelcome cup of tea. I, as a sufferer, would gladly set on foot
a formal league which should compel an armed neutrality, and
protect the one belligerent from the odor of the delicious pipe
and the other from the complaisance of the tyrannous tea-cup.
Breath is smoke, and reason is but a spark in our hearts.
When the spark is extinguished, our body perishes like smolder-
ing ashes, and our breath floats away like the smoke.
-


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2133
BOËTIUS
(475-525)
NICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOËTIUS was born about 475 A. D.
His father was Flavius Manlius Boëtius, a patrician of great
wealth and influence, who was trusted by the Emperor
Odoacer and held the consulship in 487. The father died before his
son reached manhood; and the youth was left to the guardianship of
his kinsmen Festus and Symmachus, by whom he was carefully
educated. He was remarkable early in life for his scholarship, and
especially for his mastery of the Greek language, an accomplishment
unusual for a Roman of this period. He
entered public life when about thirty years
of age, but duties of State were not per-
mitted to put an end to his studies. He
had married Rusticiana, the daughter of
his guardian Symmachus.
The Roman world was now ruled by
Theodoric the Ostrogoth. This leader had
succeeded to the headship of the Ostro-
goths on the death of his father Theo-
domir in 474. For a time he was a pen-
sioner of the Byzantine court, with the
duty of defending the lower Danube; but
in 488 he determined to invade Italy and
become a sovereign subordinate to no one. By the defeat of Odoacer
in 489 he accomplished that end; and desiring to conciliate the Sen-
atorial party at Rome, he called Boëtius from his studious retirement,
as one who by his position and wealth could reconcile his country-
men to the rule of a barbarian chief.
BOËTIUS

In 510 Boëtius was made consul, and he continued in the public
service till after his sons Symmachus and Boëtius were elevated
to the consulship in 522. Thus far he had enjoyed the full confi-
dence of Theodoric; but in 523 he was thrown into prison in Pavia
and his property confiscated, and the Senate condemned him to
death. Two years later he was executed. Unfortunately, the only
account we have of the causes which led to this downfall is Boëtius's
own in the 'Consolations. According to this, he first incurred Theo-
doric's displeasure by getting the province of Campania excepted
from the operation of an edict requiring the provincials to sell their


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BOËTIUS
2134
corn to the government, and otherwise championing the people
against oppression; was the victim of various false accusations; and
finally was held a traitor for defending Albinus, chief of the Senate,
from the accusation of holding treasonable correspondence with the
Emperor Justin at Constantinople. "If Albinus be criminal, I and
the whole Senate are equally guilty," Boëtius reports himself to have
said. There is no good reason to doubt his truthfulness in any of
these matters; but he does not tell the whole truth, except in a sen-
tence he lets slip later. Theodoric's act was no outbreak of bar-
barian suspicion and ferocity. Boëtius and the whole Senate were
really guilty of holding an utterly untenable political position, which
no sovereign on earth would endure: they wished to make the Em-
peror at Constantinople a court of appeal from Theodoric, as though
the latter were still a subordinate prince. This may not have been
technical treason, but it was practical insubordination; and under
any other barbarian ruler or any one of fifty native ones, Rome would
have flowed with blood. Theodoric contented himself with executing
the ringleader, and the following year put to death Boëtius's father-
in-law Symmachus in fear of his plotting revenge. Even so, the
executions were a bad political mistake: they must have enraged and
thoroughly alienated the Senatorial party,- that is, the chief Italian
families, and made a fusion of the foreign and native elements
definitively out of the question. We need not blame Boëtius or the
Senate for their very natural aspiration to live under a civilized
instead of a barbarian jurisdiction, even though they had their own
codes and courts; but the de facto governing power had its rights also.
In 996 Boëtius's bones were removed to the church of St. Augus-
e, where his tomb may still be seen. As time elapsed, his death
was considered a martyrdom, and he was canonized as St. Severinus.
Boëtius was a thorough student of Greek philosophy, and formed
the plan of translating all of Plato and Aristotle and reconciling their
philosophies. This work he never completed. He wrote a treatise
on music which was used as a text-book as late as the present
century; and he translated the works of Ptolemy on astronomy, of
Nicomachus on arithmetic, of Euclid on geometry, and of Archime-
des on mechanics. His great work in this line was a translation of
Aristotle, which he supplemented by a commentary in thirty books.
Among his writings are a number of works on logic and a comment-
ary on the Topica' of Cicero. In addition to these, five theological
tracts are ascribed to him, the most important being a discussion of
the doctrine of the Trinity.
___
The work which has done most to perpetuate his name is the
'Consolations of Philosophy,' in five books, - written during his im-
prisonment at Pavia,- which has been called "the last work of


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BOËTIUS
2135
Roman literature. " It is written in alternate prose and verse, and
treats of his efforts to find solace in his misfortune. The first book
opens with a vision of a woman, holding a book and sceptre, who
comes to him with promises of comfort. She is his lifelong com-
panion, Philosophy. He tells her the story of his troubles. In the
second book, Philosophy tells him that Fortune has the right to take
away what she has bestowed, and that he still has wife and children,
the most precious of her gifts; his ambition to shine as statesman
and philosopher is foolish, as no greatness is enduring. The third
book takes up the discussion of the Supreme Good, showing that it
consists not in riches, power, nor pleasure, but only in God. In the
fourth book the problems of the existence of evil in the world and
the freedom of the will are examined; and the latter subject con-
tinues through the fifth book. During the Middle Ages this work
was highly esteemed, and numerous translations appeared. In the
ninth century Alfred the Great gave to his subjects an Anglo-Saxon
version; and in the fourteenth century Chaucer made an English
translation, which was published by Caxton in 1480. Before the six-
teenth century it was translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish,
and Greek.
It is now perhaps best known for the place it occupies in the
spiritual development of Dante. He turned to it for comfort after
the death of his Beatrice in 1291. Inspired by its teachings, he gave
himself up for a time to the study of philosophy, with the result of
his writing the 'Convito,' a book in which he often refers to his
favorite author. In his 'Divine Comedy he places Boëtius in the
Heaven of the Sun, together with the Fathers of the Church and the
schoolmen.
OF THE GREATEST GOOD
From the Consolations of Philosophy'
E
VERY mortal is troubled with many and various anxieties, and
yet all desire, through various paths, to arrive at one goal;
that is, they strive by different means to attain one happi-
ness: in a word, God. He is the beginning and the end of every
good, and he is the highest happiness. Then said the Mind:-
This, methinks, must be the highest good, so that men should.
neither need, nor moreover be solicitous, about any other good
besides it; since he possesses that which is the roof of all other
good, inasmuch as it includes all other good, and has all other
kinds within it. It would not be the highest good if any good
―


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2136
BOËTIUS
were external to it, because it would then have to desire some
good which itself had not. Then answered Reason, and said: - It
is very evident that this is the highest happiness, for it is both
the roof and the floor of all good. What is that then but the
best happiness, which gathers the other felicities all within it, and
includes and holds them within it; and to it there is a deficiency
of none, neither has it need of any, but they come all from it
and again all to it, as all waters come from the sea and again all
come to the sea? There is none in the little fountain, which
does not seek the sea, and again from the sea it returns into the
earth, and so it flows gradually through the earth, till it again
comes to the same fountain that it before flowed from, and so
again to the sea.
Now, this is an example of the true good, which all mortal
men desire to obtain, though they by various ways think to
arrive at it. For every man has a natural good in himself,
because every mind desires to obtain the true good; but it is
hindered by the transitory good, because it is more prone thereto.
For some men think that it is the best happiness that a man
be so rich that he have need of nothing more, and they choose
their life accordingly. Some men think that this is the highest
good, that he be among his fellows the most honorable of his
fellows; and they with all diligence seek this. Some think that
the supreme good is in the highest power. These strive either
themselves to rule, or else to associate themselves to the friend-
ship of rulers. Some persuade themselves that it is best that
a man be illustrious and celebrated and have good fame; they
therefore seek this both in peace and in war. Many reckon it
for the greatest good and for the greatest happiness that a man
be always blithe in this present life, and follow all his lusts.
Some indeed who desire these riches are desirous thereof be-
cause they would have the greater power, that they may the more
securely enjoy these worldly lusts, and also the riches. Many
there are who desire power because they would gather money;
or again, they are desirous to spread their name.
On account of such and other like frail and perishing ad-
vantages, the thought of every human mind is troubled with
anxiety and with care. It then imagines that it has obtained
some exalted good when it has won the flattery of the people;
and to me it seems that it has bought a very false greatness.
Some with much anxiety seek wives, that thereby they may above


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BOËTIUS
2137
all things have children, and also live happily. True friends,
then, I say, are the most precious things of all these worldly
felicities. They are not indeed to be reckoned as worldly goods,
but as divine; for deceitful fortune does not produce them, but
God, who naturally formed them as relations. For of every other
thing in this world, man is desirous, either that he may through
it obtain power, or else some worldly lust; except of the true
friend, whom he loves sometimes for affection and for fidelity,
though he expect to himself no other rewards. Nature joins and
cements friends together with inseparable love. But with these
worldly goods, and with this present wealth, men make oftener
enemies than friends. From these, and from many such proofs,
it may be evident to all men that all the bodily goods are in-
ferior to the faculties of the soul. We indeed think that a man
is the stronger, because he is great in his body. The fairness,
moreover, and the strength of the body, rejoices and invigorates
the man, and health makes him cheerful. In all these bodily
felicities men seek one single happiness, as it seems to them.
For whatsoever every man chiefly loves above all other things,
that, he persuades himself, is best for him, and that is his
highest good. When therefore he has acquired that, he imagines
that he may be very happy. I do not deny that these goods and
this happiness are the highest good of this present life. For
every man considers that thing best which he chiefly loves above
other things, and therefore he deems himself very happy if he
can obtain what he then most desires. Is not now clearly
enough shown to thee the form of the false goods; namely, riches,
and dignity, and power, and glory, and pleasure? Concerning
pleasure, Epicurus the philosopher said, when he inquired con-
cerning all those other goods which we before mentioned: then
said he, that pleasure was the highest good, because all the other
goods which we before mentioned gratify the mind and delight
it, but pleasure chiefly gratifies the body.
But we will still speak concerning the nature of men, and
concerning their pursuits. Though, then, their mind and their
nature be now obscured, and they are by that descent fallen to
evil and inclined thither, yet they are desirous, so far as they
can and may, of the highest good. As the drunken man knows
that he should go to his house and to his rest, and yet is not
able to find the way thither, so is it also with the mind, when it
is weighed down by the anxieties of this world. It is sometimes.


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2138
BOËTIUS
intoxicated and misled by them, so far that it cannot rightly find
out good. Nor yet does it appear to those men that they aught
mistake who are desirous to obtain this, namely, that they need
labor after nothing more. But they think that they are able to
collect together all these goods, so that none may be excluded
from the number.
Two things may dignity and power do, if they come to the
unwise. It may make him honorable and respectable to other
unwise persons.
But when he quits the power, or the power
him, then is he to the unwise neither honorable nor respectable.
Has power, then, the custom of exterminating and rooting out
vices from the minds of great men and planting therein virtues?
I know, however, that earthly power never sows the virtues, but
collects and gathers vices; and when it has gathered them, then
it nevertheless shows and does not conceal them. For the vices
of great men many men see; because many know them and
many are with them. Therefore we always lament concerning
power, and also despise it, when we see that it comes to the
worst, and to those who are to us most unworthy.
Every virtue has its proper excellence; and the excellence and
the dignity which it has, it imparts immediately to every one
who loves it. Thus, wisdom is the highest virtue, and it has in
it four other virtues; of which one is prudence, another temper-
ance, the third is fortitude, the fourth justice. Wisdom makes
its lovers wise, and prudent, and moderate, and patient, and
just; and it fills him who loves it with every good quality. This
they who possess the power of this world cannot do. They can-
not impart any virtue to those who love them, through their
wealth, if they have it not in their nature. Hence it is very
evident that the rich in worldly wealth have no proper dignity;
but the wealth is come to them from without, and they cannot
from without have aught of their own. Consider now, whether
any man is the less honorable because many men despise him.
But if any man be the less honorable, then is every foolish man
the less honorable, the more authority he has, to every wise.
man. Hence it is sufficiently clear that power and wealth can-
not make its possessor the more honorable. But it makes him
the less honorable, when it comes to him, if he were not before
virtuous. So is also wealth and power the worse, if he who
possesses it be not virtuous. Each of them is the more worth-
less, when they meet with each other.


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BOËTIUS
2139
But I can easily instruct you by an example, so that you may
clearly enough perceive that this present life is very like a
shadow, and in that shadow no man can attain the true good.
If any very great man is driven from his country, or goes on
his lord's errand, and so comes to a foreign people, where no
man knows him, nor he any man, nor even knows the language,
do you think his greatness can make him honorable in that
land? Of course it cannot. But if dignity were natural to
wealth and were its own, or again if wealth were the rich man's
own, then it could not forsake him. Let the man who possessed
them be in whatsoever land he might, then his wealth and his
dignity would be with him. But because the wealth and the
power are not his own, they forsake him; and because they have
no natural good in themselves, they go away like a shadow or
smoke. Yet the mistaken opinion and fancy of unwise men
judge that power is the highest good. It is entirely otherwise.
When a great man is either among foreigners, or among wise
men in his own country, his wealth counts nothing to either one
when they learn that he was exalted for no virtue, but through
the applause of the ignorant. But if his power arose from any
personal merit, he would keep that even if he lost the power.
He would not lose the good that came from nature; that would
always follow him and always make him honorable, whatever
land he was in.
Worthless and very false is the glory of this world! Concern-
ing this a certain poet formerly sung. When he contemned this
present life, he said:-O glory of this world! wherefore do erring
men call thee, with false voice, glory, when thou art none! - For
man more frequently has great renown, and great glory, and
great honor, through the opinion of the unwise, than he has
through his deserts. But tell me now, what is more unmeet
than this; or why men may not rather be ashamed of themselves
than rejoice, when they hear that any one belies them. Though
men even rightly praise any one of the good, he ought not the
sooner to rejoice immoderately at the people's words. But at
this he ought to rejoice, that they speak truth of him. Though
he rejoice at this, that they spread his name, it is not the sooner
so extensively spread as he persuades himself; for they cannot
spread it over all the earth, though they may in some land;
for though it be to one known, yet it is to another unknown.
Though he in this land be celebrated, yet is he in another not


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2140
BOËTIUS
celebrated. Therefore is the people's favor to be held by every
man for nothing; since it comes not to every man according to
his deserts, nor indeed remains always to any one. Consider
first concerning noble birth. If any one boast of it, how vain
and how useless is the boast; for every one knows that all men
come from one father and from one mother. Or again, concern-
ing the people's favor, and concerning their applause, I know
not why we rejoice at it. Though they whom the vulgar ap-
plaud be illustrious, yet are they more illustrious and more
rightly to be applauded who are dignified by virtues. For no
man is really the greater or the more praiseworthy for the excel-
lence of another, or for his virtues, if he himself has it not. Are
you ever the fairer for another man's beauty? A man is little
the better though he have a good father, if he himself is inca-
pable of anything. Therefore I advise that you rejoice in other
men's good and their nobility, but so far only that you ascribe
it not to yourself as your own; because every man's good, and
his nobility, is more in the mind than in the flesh. This only,
indeed, I know of good in nobility: that it shames many a man
if he is worse than his ancestors were, and he therefore endeav
ors with all his power to imitate the manners of some one of
the best, and his virtues.


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2141
NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
(1636-1711)
HE name of Louis XIV. suggests ultra-lavishness in life and
taste; a time when French society, surfeited with pleasure,
demanded a stimulus of continual novelty in current litera-
ture. The natural result was preciosité, hyperbole, falsetto sentiment,
which ranked the unusual above the natural, clever conceit above
careful workmanship. It was tainted with artificiality, and now seems
mawkish and superficial.
But Boileau changed all that. Perhaps no author unendowed with
genius has ever so influenced literature.
was usu-
Aside from his work, the man and his
life seem essentially commonplace. Nich-
olas Boileau, who, adding another name to
his own,- quite a fashion then,
ally called Despréaux by his contempora-
ries, was born in Paris, in the palace court,
nearly opposite the royal Sainte Chapelle.
He rarely went farther from the city than
to the little house at Auteuil, where he
spent twenty summers. So he knew his
Paris very intimately, and was limited too
by knowing only her life and thought. To
his repressed youth, guarded by a strict
father and a cross servant,- for his mother
died in his babyhood, -is sometimes attrib-
uted his lack of emotional quality. But his was not an intense nature,
and probably no training could have made the didactic poet lyric or
passionate. Sincerity and common-sense were his predominating qual-
ities, and he had the rare faculty of obedience to his own instincts.
He first studied for the priesthood, but anything like mysticism was
too repellent to his matter-of-fact mind. Then, as many of his family
had been lawyers, he naturally turned toward that career. But the
practice as taught him seemed senseless and arbitrary. Its rational
basis upon a logical theory only dawned upon him later. In spite of
his literary tastes, there was something extremely mundane about the
pleasure-loving bachelor, so fond of good eating and of jovial café
revels with Racine, Furetière, Ninon de L'Enclos, and other witty Bohe-
mians. With them he was much happier than in the more fastidious

—
BOILEAU


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
society of the Hôtel Rambouillet, from which he retired after reading
aloud a satiric poem not favorably received. Neither was he happy
at court, in spite of the favor of Louis XIV. , who, entertained by his
rough honesty, gave him a pension of two thousand francs. Later,
when appointed with Racine to write a history of the reign,- that
unfortunate history which was accidentally burned,—we find him an
unwilling follower on royal expeditions, his ungainly horsemanship
the mock of high-bred courtiers. In fact, he was bourgeois through
and through, and not at ease with the aristocrats. He was thrifty
bourgeois too; so often called miserly as well as malicious that it is
pleasant to remember certain illustrations of his nobler side. The
man who offered to resign his own pension if that of old disfavored
Corneille might be continued, and when the latter was forced to
sell his library, paid him its full value and then left him in lifelong
possession,-was generous if he did love to save sous. His was a fine
independence, which felt his art too lofty for purchase, and would
accept nothing from the booksellers.
He had always wished to be a poet. Feeble of body, asthmatic,
and in later life deaf and almost deprived of voice, he found in
writing all the charm of a brilliant and ingenious game. Then too
he had something definite to say, as all his work consistently testifies.
Neither rich nor poor, without family cares, he could give himself
unreservedly to authorship. In 1660 he published a satire upon the
vices of Paris, which inaugurated his great success. Seven satires
appeared in 1666, and he afterward added five others. Their mali-
cious wit, their novel form, the harmonious swing of the couplet
rhyme, forced immediate attention. They held up contemporary lit-
erary weaknesses to scorn, and indulged in the most merciless per-
sonalities, sparing not even his own brother, the poet Gilles Boileau.
All retorts upon himself the author bore with complacent superiority
which forced his adversaries to feel worsted.
From 1666 to 1774 most of the 'Epistles' were written; and also
his best known work, 'L'Art poétique' (The Art of Poetry). In the
satires he had been destructive, but he was too practical to be neg-
ative. The Art of Poetry,' modeled after Horace's work of that
name, offers the theory of poetic composition. It is a work in four
cantos of couplets: the first setting forth general rules of metrical
composition; the second a dissertation upon different forms-ode,
sonnet, pastoral, and others; the third treating tragedy, comedy, and
epic poetry; and the last consisting of general reflections and advice
to authors. Briefly stated, Boileau's desire was to establish literature
upon a foundation of unchanging laws. Why did some works speed-
ily die while others endure through the centuries? Because works
akin to the eternal classics did not, like much contemporary writing,


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
2143
reflect the trivial and evanescent. They contained what is peren-
nially true of humanity; and stated this in a simple, interesting, and
reasonable way. Above all, Boileau demands truth in subject, and
the conscientious workmanship which finds the most suitable form of
expression. To see a word at the end of a couplet only because it
rhymes with the word above it, he finds inexcusable. Without a
method resulting in unity, clearness, and proportion, writing is not
literature. Later, in his 'Reflections upon Longinus,' Boileau repeated
and emphasized these views.
His mock-heroic poem 'Le Lutrin' (The Reading-Desk), ridiculing
clerical pettinesses, was strong in realistic descriptions, and was per.
haps his most popular work.
A modern poet's definition of poetry as "the heat and height of
sane emotion" would have been unintelligible to Boileau. Deficient
in imagination, he always saw life on its material side, and was irri-
tated by any display of emotion not reducible to logic. Sọ his
poetry is sensible, clear argument in exquisitely careful metre. His
great strength lay in a taste which recognized harmony and fitness
instinctively. To us his quality is best translated by the dainty, per-
fect couplets of his imitator Pope. His talent, essentially French in
its love of effect and classification, has strewn the language with
clever saws, and his works have been studied as authoritative models
by generation after generation of students.
But after all, it is less as a poet than as a critic, "the lawgiver
of the French Parnassus," that the world has always known Boileau.
Before him the art of criticism had hardly existed. Authors had
received indiscriminate praise or blame, usually founded upon inter-
ested motives or personal bias; but there had been little comparison
with an acknowledged standard. This slashing reviewer in verse,"
as Saintsbury calls him, was a severe pedagogue, but his public did
learn their lesson. He made mistakes, was neither broad-minded nor
profound in attainments, was occasionally unjust; but he showed
readers why they should praise or blame; taught them appreciation
of his greater friends Molière and Racine; and pointed out to authors
what their purpose should be. With a greater creative power seek-
ing self-expression, he might have accomplished less in literary
reform.


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2144
NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
ADVICE TO AUTHORS
From The Art of Poetry'
THE
HERE is a kind of writer pleased with sound,
Whose fustian head with clouds is compassed
round-
No reason can disperse them with its light;
Learn then to think, ere you pretend to write
As your idea's clear, or else obscure,
The expression follows, perfect or impure;
What we conceive with ease we can express;
Words to the notions flow with readiness.
Observe the language well in all you write,
And swerve not from it in your loftiest flight.
The smoothest verse and the exactest sense
Displease if uncouth language give offense;
A barbarous phrase no reader can approve;
Nor bombast, noise, or affectation love.
In short, without pure language, what you write
Can never yield us profit or delight.
Take time for thinking; never work in haste;
And value not yourself for writing fast;
A rapid poem, with such fury writ,
Shows want of judgment, not abounding wit.
More pleased we are to see a river lead
His gentle streams along a flowery mead,
Than from high banks to hear loud torrents roar,
With foamy waters, on a muddy shore.
Gently make haste, of labor not afraid;
A hundred times consider what you've said;
Polish, repolish, every color lay,
And sometimes add, but oftener take away.
'Tis not enough, when swarming faults are writ,
That here and there are scattered sparks of wit;
Each object must be fixed in the true place,
And differing parts have corresponding grace;
Till, by a curious art disposed, we find
One perfect whole of all the pieces joined.
Keep to your subject close in all you say,
Nor for a sounding sentence ever stray.


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
The public censure for your writings fear,
And to yourself be critic most severe;
Fantastic wits their darling follies love,
But find you faithful friends that will reprove,
That on your works may look with careful eyes,
And of your faults be zealous enemies.
Lay by an author's pride and vanity,
And from a friend a flatterer descry,
Who seems to like, but means not what he says;
Embrace true counsel, but suspect false praise.
A sycophant will everything admire;
Each verse, each sentence, sets his soul on fire;
All is divine! there's not a word amiss!
He shakes with joy and weeps with tenderness;
He overpowers you with his mighty praise.
Truth never moves in those impetuous ways.
A faithful friend is careful of your fame,
And freely will your heedless errors blame;
He cannot pardon a neglected line,
But verse to rule and order will confine,
Reprove of words the too-affected sound,—
"Here the sense flags, and your expression's bound,
Your fancy tires, and your discourse grows vain;
Your term's improper;-make it just and plain. "
Thus 'tis a faithful friend will freedom use.
But authors partial to their darling muse
Think to protect it they have just pretense,
And at your friendly counsel take offense.
"Said you of this, that the expression's flat?
Your servant, sir, you must excuse me that,"
He answers you. "This word has here no grace,
Pray leave it out. "-"That, sir, 's the properest place. "
"This term I like not. "-"'Tis approved by all. "
Thus, resolute not from one fault to fall,
If there's a symbol as to which you doubt,
'Tis a sure reason not to blot it out.
2145
Yet still he says you may his faults confute,
And over him your power is absolute.
But of his feigned humility take heed:
'Tis a bait laid to make you hear him read;
And when he leaves you, happy in his muse,
Restless he runs some other to abuse,
1
1
1
1
IV-135


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
And often finds; for in our scribbling times
No fool can lack a fool to praise his rhymes;
The flattest work has here within the court
Met with some zealous ass for its support;
And in all times a forward scribbling fop
Has found some greater fool to cry him up.
THE PASTORAL, THE ELEGY, THE ODE, AND THE EPIGRAM
From The Art of Poetry'
SA fair nymph, when rising from her bed,
Α
With sparkling diamonds dresses not her head,
But without gold, or pearl, or costly scents,
Gathers from neighboring fields her ornaments:
Such, lovely in its dress, but plain withal,
Ought to appear a perfect Pastoral.
Its humble method nothing has of fierce,
But hates the rattling of a lofty verse;
There native beauty pleases and excites,
And never with harsh sounds the ear affrights.
But in this style a poet, often spent
In rage, throws by his rural instrument,
And vainly, when disordered thoughts abound,
Amidst the eclogue makes the trumpet sound;
Pan flies alarmed into the neighboring woods,
And frighted nymphs dive down into the floods.
Opposed to this, another, low in style,
Makes shepherds speak a language low and vile;
His writings, flat and heavy, without sound,
Kissing the earth and creeping on the ground;
You'd swear that Randal, in his rustic strains,
Again was quavering to the country swains,
And changing, without care of sound or dress,
Strephon and Phyllis into Tom and Bess.
'Twixt these extremes 'tis hard to keep the right:
For guides take Virgil and read Theocrite;
Be their just writings, by the gods inspired,
Your constant pattern, practiced and admired.
By them alone you'll easy comprehend
How poets without shame may condescend
To sing of gardens, fields, of flowers and fruit,
To stir up shepherds and to tune the flute;


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
2147
Of love's rewards to tell the happy hour,
Daphne a tree, Narcissus make a flower,
And by what means the eclogue yet has power
To make the woods worthy a conqueror;
This of their writings is the grace and flight;
Their risings lofty, yet not out of sight.
The Elegy, that loves a mournful style,
With unbound hair weeps at a funeral pile;
It paints the lover's torments and delights,
A mistress flatters, threatens, and invites;
But well these raptures if you'll make us see,
You must know love as well as poetry.
I hate those lukewarm authors, whose forced fire
In a cold style describes a hot desire;
That sigh by rule, and raging in cold blood,
Their sluggish muse whip to an amorous mood.
Their transports feigned appear but flat and vain;
They always sigh, and always hug their chain,
Adore their prisons and their sufferings bless,
Make sense and reason quarrel as they please.
'Twas not of old in this affected tone
That smooth Tibullus made his amorous moan;
Nor Ovid, when, instructed from above,
By nature's rule he taught the art of love.
The heart in elegies forms the discourse.
The Ode is bolder and has greater force;
Mounting to heaven in her ambitious flight,
Amongst the gods and heroes takes delight;
Of Pisa's wrestlers tells the sinewy force,
And sings the lusty conqueror's glorious course;
To Simois's streams does fierce Achilles bring,
And makes the Ganges bow to Britain's king.
Sometimes she flies like an industrious bee,
And robs the flowers by nature's chemistry;
Describes the shepherd's dances, feasts, and bliss,
And boasts from Phyllis to surprise a kiss,
When gently she resists with feigned remorse,
That what she grants may seem to be by force.
Her generous style at random oft will part,
And by a brave disorder shows her art.
Unlike those fearful poets whose cold rime
In all their raptures keeps exactest time;


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
That sing the illustrious hero's mighty praise-
Lean writers! - by the terms of weeks and days,
And dare not from least circumstances part,
But take all towns by strictest rules of art.
Apollo drives those fops from his abode;
And some have said that once the humorous god,
Resolving all such scribblers to confound,
For the short Sonnet ordered this strict bound,
Set rules for the just measure and the time,
The easy-running and alternate rime;
But above all, those licenses denied
Which in these writings the lame sense supplied,
Forbade a useless line should find a place,
Or a repeated word appear with grace.
A faultless sonnet, finished thus, would be
Worth tedious volumes of loose poetry.
A hundred scribbling authors, without ground,
Believe they have this only phœnix found,
When yet the exactest scarce have two or three,
Among whole tomes, from faults and censure free;
The rest, but little read, regarded less,
Are shoveled to the pastry from the press.
Closing the sense within the measured time,
'Tis hard to fit the reason to the rime.
The Epigram, with little art composed,
Is one good sentence in a distich closed.
These points, that by Italians first were prized,
Our ancient authors knew not, or despised;
The vulgar, dazzled with their glaring light,
To their false pleasures quickly they invite;
But public favor so increased their pride,
They overwhelmed Parnassus with their tide.
The Madrigal at first was overcome,
And the proud Sonnet fell by the same doom;
With these grave Tragedy adorned her flights,
And mournful Elegy her funeral rites.
A hero never failed them on the stage:
Without his point a lover durst not rage;
The amorous shepherds took more care to prove
True to his point, than faithful to their love.
Each word, like Janus, had a double face,
And prose, as well as verse, allowed it place;


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
2149
The lawyer with conceits adorned his speech,
The parson without quibbling could not preach
At last affronted reason looked about,
And from all serious matters shut them out;
Declared that none should use them without shame,
Except a scattering, in the epigram —
-
Provided that by art, and in due time,
They turned upon the thought, and not the rime.
Thus in all parts disorders did abate;
Yet quibblers in the court had leave to prate,
Insipid jesters and unpleasant fools,
A corporation of dull, punning drolls.
'Tis not but that sometimes a dextrous muse
May with advantage a turned sense abuse,
And on a word may trifle with address;
But above all, avoid the fond excess,
And think not, when your verse and sense are lame,
With a dull point to tag your epigram.
TO MOLIÈRE
From The Satires'
UNE
NEQUALED genius, whose warm fancy knows
No rhyming labor, no poetic throes;
To whom Apollo has unlocked his store;
Whose coin is struck from pure Parnassian ore;
Thou, dextrous master, teach thy skill to me,
And tell me, Molière, how to rhyme like thee!
You never falter when the close comes round,
Or leave the substance to preserve the sound;
You never wander after words that fly,
For all the words you need before you lie.
But I, who smarting for my sins of late —
With itch of rhyme am visited by fate,
Expend on air my unavailing force,
And, hunting sounds, am sweated like a horse.
In vain I often muse from dawn till night:
When I mean black, my stubborn verse says white;
If I should paint a coxcomb's flippant mien,
I scarcely can forbear to name the Dean;
If asked to tell the strains that purest flow,
My heart says Virgil, but my pen Quinault;
-


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
In short, whatever I attempt to say,
Mischance conducts me quite the other way.
At times, fatigued and fretted with the pain,
When every effort for relief is vain,
The fruitless chase I peevishly give o'er,
And swear a thousand times to write no more:
But, after thousand vows, perhaps by chance,
Before my careless eyes the couplets dance.
Then with new force my flame bursts out again,
Pleased I resume the paper and the pen;
And, all my anger and my oaths forgot,
I calmly muse and resolutely blot.
Yet, if my eager hand, in haste to rhyme,
Should tack an empty couplet at a time,
Great names who do the same I might adduce;
Nay, some who keep such hirelings for their use.
Need blooming Phyllis be described in prose
By any lover who has seen a rose?
Who can forget heaven's masterpiece, her eye,
Where, within call, the Loves and Graces lie?
Who can forget her smile, devoid of art,
Her heavenly sweetness and her frozen heart?
How easy thus forever to compound,
And ring new changes on recurring sound;
How easy, with a reasonable store
Of useful epithets repeated o'er,
Verb, substantive, and pronoun, to transpose,
And into tinkling metre hitch dull prose.
But I who tremble o'er each word I use,
And all that do not aid the sense refuse,
Who cannot bear those phrases out of place
Which rhymers stuff into a vacant space-
Ponder my scrupulous verses o'er and o'er,
And when I write five words, oft blot out four.
Plague on the fool who taught us to confine
The swelling thought within a measured line;
Who first in narrow thraldom fancy pent,
And chained in rhyme each pinioned sentiment.
Without this toil, contentment's soothing balm
Might lull my languid soul in listless calm:
Like the smooth prebend how might I recline,
And loiter life in mirth and song and wine!


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NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX
Roused by no labor, with no care opprest,
Pass all my nights in sleep, my days in rest.
My passions and desires obey the rein;
No mad ambition fires my temperate vein;
The schemes of busy greatness I decline,
Nor kneel in palaces at Fortune's shrine.
In short, my life had been supremely blest
If envious rhyme had not disturbed my rest:
But since this freakish fiend began to roll
His idle vapors o'er my troubled soul,
Since first I longed in polished verse to please,
And wrote with labor to be read with ease,
Nailed to my chair, day after day I pore
On what I write and what I wrote before;
Retouch each line, each epithet review,
Or burn the paper and begin anew.
While thus my labors lengthen into years,
I envy all the race of sonneteers.
Hail, happy Scudére! whose prolific brain
Brings forth a monthly volume without pain;
What though thy works, offending every rule,
Proclaim their author an insipid fool;
Still have they found, whate'er the critic says,
Traders to buy and emptier fools to praise.
And, truly, if in rhymes the couplets close,
What should it matter that the rest is prose?
Who stickles now for antiquated saws,
Or cramps his verses with pedantic laws?
The fool can welcome every word he meets,
With placid joy contemplating his feats;
And while each stanza swells his wondering breast
Admires them all, yet thinks the last the best.
But towering Genius, hopeless to attain
That unknown summit which he pants to gain,
Displeased himself, enchanting all beside,
Scorns each past effort that his strength supplied,
And filling every reader with delight,
Repents the hour when he began to write.
To you, who know how justly I complain,
To you I turn for medicine to my pain!
Grant me your talent, and impart your store,
Or teach me, Molière, how to rhyme no more.
2151


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2152
GASTON BOISSIER
GASTON BOISSIER
(1823-)
M
ARIE LOUIS GASTON BOISSIER is known in Paris as one of the
most prominent professors of the Collège de France, and to
the outside world as the author of a number of scholarly
books of essays, most of them on Roman subjects. Born at Nîmes
in 1823, his life has been devoted entirely to literature.