Part 81

Poets, I confess, frequently indulge reveries, which, though they offer no charms to their friends, are too delicious to forego. In the ideal world, peopled with all its fairy inhabitants, and ever open to their contemplation, they travel with an unwearied foot. Crebillon, the celebrated tragic poet, was enamoured of solitude, that he might there indulge, without interruption, in those fine romances with which his imagination teemed. One day when he was in a deep reverie, a friend entered hastily: "Don't disturb me," cried the poet; "I am enjoying a moment of happiness: I am going to hang a villain of a minister, and banish another who is an idiot."

Amongst the anti-poetical may be placed the father of the great monarch of Prussia. George the Second was not more the avowed enemy of the muses. Frederic would not suffer the prince to read verses; and when he was desirous of study, or of the conversation of literary men, he was obliged to do it secretly. Every poet was odious to his majesty. One day, having observed some lines written on one of the doors of the palace, he asked a courtier their signification. They were explained to him; they were Latin verses composed by Wachter, a man of letters, then resident at Berlin. The king immediately sent for the bard, who came warm with the hope of receiving a reward for his ingenuity. He was astonished, however, to hear the king, in a violent passion, accost him, "I order you immediately to quit this city and my kingdom." Wachter took refuge in Hanover. As little indeed was this anti-poetical monarch a friend to philosophers. Two or three such kings might perhaps renovate the ancient barbarism of Europe. Barratier, the celebrated child, was presented to his majesty of Prussia as a prodigy of erudition; the king, to mortify our ingenious youth, coldly asked him, "If he knew the law?" The learned boy was constrained to acknowledge that he knew nothing of the law. "Go," was the reply of this Augustus, "go, and study it before you give yourself out as a scholar." Poor Barratier renounced for this pursuit his other studies, and persevered with such ardour that he became an excellent lawyer at the end of fifteen months; but his exertions cost him at the same time his life!

Every monarch, however, has not proved so destitute of poetic sensibility as this Prussian. Francis I. gave repeated marks of his attachment to the favourites of the muses, by composing several occasional sonnets, which are dedicated to their eulogy. Andrelin, a French poet, enjoyed the happy fate of Oppian, to whom the emperor Caracalla counted as many pieces of gold as there were verses in one of his poems; and with great propriety they have been called "golden verses." Andrelin, when he recited his poem on the Conquest of Naples before Charles VIII., received a sack of silver coin, which with difficulty he carried home. Charles IX., says Brantome, loved verses, and recompensed poets, not indeed immediately, but gradually, that they might always be stimulated to excel. He used to say, that poets resembled race-horses, that must be fed but not fattened, for then they were good for nothing. Marot was so much esteemed by kings, that he was called the poet of princes, and the prince of poets.

In the early state of poetry what honours were paid to its votaries! Ronsard, the French Chaucer, was the first who carried away the prize at the Floral Games. This meed of poetic honour was an eglantine composed of silver. The reward did not appear equal to the merit of the work and the reputation of the poet; and on this occasion the city of Toulouse had a Minerva of solid silver struck, of considerable value. This image was sent to Ronsard, accompanied by a decree, in which he was declared, by way of eminence, "The French Poet."

It is a curious anecdote to add, that when, at a later period, a similar Minerva was adjudged to Maynard for his verses, the Capitouls, of Toulouse, who were the executors of the Floral gifts, to their shame, out of covetousness, never obeyed the decision of the poetical judges. This circumstance is noticed by Maynard in an epigram, which bears this title: On a Minerva of silver, promised but not given.

The anecdote of Margaret of Scotland, wife of the Dauphin of France, and Alain the poet, is generally known. Who is not charmed with that fine expression of her poetical sensibility? The person of Alain was repulsive, but his poetry had attracted her affections. Passing through one of the halls of the palace, she saw him sleeping on a bench; she approached and kissed him. Some of her attendants could not conceal their astonishment that she should press with her lips those of a man so frightfully ugly. The amiable princess answered, smiling, "I did not kiss the man, but the mouth which has uttered so many fine things."

The great Colbert paid a pretty compliment to Boileau and Racine. This minister, at his villa, was enjoying the conversation of our two poets, when the arrival of a prelate was announced: turning quickly to the servant, he said, "Let him be shown everything except myself!"

To such attentions from this great minister, Boileau alludes in these verses:--

Plus d'un grand m'aima jusqnes à la tendresse; Et ma vue à Colbert inspiroit l'allégresse.

Several pious persons have considered it as highly meritable to abstain from the reading of poetry! A good father, in his account of the last hours of Madame Racine, the lady of the celebrated tragic poet, pays high compliments to her religious disposition, which, he says, was so austere, that she would not allow herself to read poetry, as she considered it to be a dangerous pleasure; and he highly commends her for never having read the tragedies of her husband! Arnauld, though so intimately connected with Racine for many years, had not read his compositions. When at length he was persuaded to read Phædra, he declared himself to be delighted, but complained that the poet had set a dangerous example, in making the manly Hippolytus dwindle to an effeminate lover. As a critic, Arnauld was right; but Racine had his nation to please. Such persons entertain notions of poetry similar to that of an ancient father, who calls poetry the wine of Satan; or to that of the religious and austere Nicole, who was so ably answered by Racine: he said, that dramatic poets were public poisoners, not of bodies, but of souls.

Poets, it is acknowledged, have foibles peculiar to themselves. They sometimes act in the daily commerce of life as if every one was concerned in the success of their productions. Poets are too frequently merely poets. Segrais has recorded that the following maxim of Rochefoucault was occasioned by reflecting on the characters of Boileau and Racine. "It displays," he writes, "a great poverty of mind to have only one kind of genius." On this Segrais observes, and Segrais knew them intimately, that their conversation only turned on poetry; take them from that, and they knew nothing. It was thus with one Du Perrier, a good poet, but very poor. When he was introduced to Pelisson, who wished to be serviceable to him, the minister said, "In what can he be employed? He is only occupied by his verses."

All these complaints are not unfounded; yet, perhaps, it is unjust to expect from an excelling artist all the petty accomplishments of frivolous persons, who have studied no art but that of practising on the weaknesses of their friends. The enthusiastic votary, who devotes his days and nights to meditations on his favourite art, will rarely be found that despicable thing, a mere man of the world. Du Bos has justly observed, that men of genius, born for a particular profession, appear inferior to others when they apply themselves to other occupations. That absence of mind which arises from their continued attention to their ideas, renders them awkward in their manners. Such defects are even a proof of the activity of genius.

It is a common foible with poets to read their verses to friends. Segrais has ingeniously observed, to use his own words, "When young I used to please myself in reciting my verses indifferently to all persons; but I perceived when Scarron, who was my intimate friend, used to take his portfolio and read his verses to me, although they were good, I frequently became weary. I then reflected, that those to whom I read mine, and who, for the greater part, had no taste for poetry, must experience the same disagreeable sensation. I resolved for the future to read my verses only to those who entreated me, and to read but a few at a time. We flatter ourselves too much; we conclude that what please us must please others. We will have persons indulgent to us, and frequently we will have no indulgence for those who are in want of it." An excellent hint for young poets, and for those old ones who carry odes and elegies in their pockets, to inflict the pains of the torture on their friends.

The affection which a poet feels for his verses has been frequently extravagant. Bayle, ridiculing that parental tenderness which writers evince for their poetical compositions, tells us, that many having written epitaphs on friends whom they believed on report to have died, could not determine to keep them in their closet, but suffered them to appear in the lifetime of those very friends whose death they celebrated. In another place he says, such is their infatuation for their productions, that they prefer giving to the public their panegyrics of persons whom afterwards they satirized, rather than suppress the verses which contain those panegyrics. We have many examples of this in the poems, and even in the epistolary correspondence of modern writers. It is customary with most authors, when they quarrel with a person after the first edition of their work, to cancel his eulogies in the next. But poets and letter-writers frequently do not do this; because they are so charmed with the happy turn of their expressions, and other elegancies of composition, that they perfer the praise which they may acquire for their style to the censure which may follow from their inconsistency.

After having given a hint to young poets, I shall offer one to veterans. It is a common defect with them that they do not know when to quit the muses in their advanced age. Bayle says, "Poets and orators should be mindful to retire from their occupations, which so peculiarly require the fire of imagination; yet it is but too common to see them in their career, even in the decline of life. It seems as if they would condemn the public to drink even the lees of their nectar." Afer and Daurat were both poets who had acquired considerable reputation, but which they overturned when they persisted to write in their old age without vigour and without fancy.

What crowds of these impenitently bold, In sounds and jingling syllables grown old, They run on poets, in a raging rein, E'en to the dregs and squeezings of the brain: Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense, And rhyme with all the rage of impotence.

POPE.

It is probable he had Wycherley in his eye when he wrote this. The veteran bard latterly scribbled much indifferent verse; and Pope had freely given his opinion, by which he lost his friendship!

It is still worse when aged poets devote their exhausted talents to divine poems, as did Waller; and Milton in his second epic. Such poems, observes Voltaire, are frequently entitled "sacred poems;" and sacred they are, for no one touches them. From a soil so arid what can be expected but insipid fruits? Corneille told Chevreau several years before his death, that he had taken leave of the theatre, for he had lost his poetical powers with his teeth.

Poets have sometimes displayed an obliquity of taste in their female favourites. As if conscious of the power of ennobling others, some have selected them from the lowest classes, whom, having elevated into divinities, they have addressed in the language of poetical devotion. The Chloe of Prior, after all his raptures, was a plump barmaid. Ronsard addressed many of his verses to Miss Cassandra, who followed the same occupation: in one of his sonnets to her, he fills it with a crowd of personages taken from the Iliad, which to the honest girl must have all been extremely mysterious. Colletet, a French bard, married three of his servants. His last lady was called la belle Claudine. Ashamed of such menial alliances, he attempted to persuade the world that he had married the tenth muse; and for this purpose published verses in her name. When he died, the vein of Claudine became suddenly dry. She indeed published her "Adieux to the Muses;" but it was soon discovered that all the verses of this lady, including her "Adieux," were the compositions of her husband.

Sometimes, indeed, the ostensible mistresses of poets have no existence; and a slight occasion is sufficient to give birth to one. Racan and Malherbe were one day conversing on their amours; that is, of selecting a lady who should be the object of their verses. Racan named one, and Malherbe another. It happening that both had the same name, Catherine, they passed the whole afternoon in forming it into an anagram. They found three: Arthenice, Eracinthe, and Charinté. The first was preferred, and many a fine ode was written in praise of the beautiful Arthenice!

Poets change their opinions of their own productions wonderfully at different periods of life. Baron Haller was in his youth warmly attached to poetic composition. His house was on fire, and to rescue his poems he rushed through the flames. He was so fortunate as to escape with his beloved manuscripts in his hand. Ten years afterwards he condemned to the flames those very poems which he had ventured his life to preserve.

Satirists, if they escape the scourges of the law, have reason to dread the cane of the satirised. Of this kind we have many anecdotes on record; but none more poignant than the following:--Benserade was caned for lampooning the Duc d'Epernon. Some days afterwards he appeared at court, but being still lame from the rough treatment he had received, he was forced to support himself by a cane. A wit, who knew what had passed, whispered the affair to the queen. She, dissembling, asked him if he had the gout? "Yes, madam," replied our lame satirist, "and therefore I make use of a cane." "Not so," interrupted the malignant Bautru, "Benserade in this imitates those holy martyrs who are always represented with the instrument which occasioned their sufferings."

ROMANCES.

Romance has been elegantly defined as the offspring of FICTION and LOVE. Men of learning have amused themselves with tracing the epocha of romances; but the erudition is desperate which would fix on the inventor of the first romance: for what originates in nature, who shall hope to detect the shadowy outlines of its beginnings? The Theagenes and Chariclea of Heliodorus appeared in the fourth century; and this elegant prelate was the Grecian Fenelon. It has been prettily said, that posterior romances seem to be the children of the marriage of Theagenes and Chariclea. The Romance of "The Golden Ass," by Apuleius, which contains the beautiful tale of "Cupid and Psyche," remains unrivalled; while the "Däphne and Chloe" of Longus, in the old version of Amyot, is inexpressibly delicate, simple, and inartificial, but sometimes offends us, for nature there "plays her virgin fancies."

Beautiful as these compositions are, when the imagination of the writer is sufficiently stored with accurate observations on human nature, in their birth, like many of the fine arts, the zealots of an ascetic religion opposed their progress. However Heliodorus may have delighted those who were not insensible to the felicities of a fine imagination, and to the enchanting elegancies of style, he raised himself, among his brother ecclesiastics, enemies, who at length so far prevailed, that, in a synod, it was declared that his performance was dangerous to young persons, and that if the author did not suppress it, he must resign his bishopric. We are told he preferred his romance to his bishopric. Even so late as in Racine's time it was held a crime to peruse these unhallowed pages. He informs us that the first effusions of his muse were in consequence of studying that ancient romance, which, his tutor observing him to devour with the keenness of a famished man, snatched from his hands and flung it in the fire. A second copy experienced the same fate. What could Racine do? He bought a third, and took the precaution of devouring it secretly till he got it by heart: after which he offered it to the pedagogue with a smile, to burn like the others.

The decision of these ascetic bigots was founded in their opinion of the immorality of such works. They alleged that the writers paint too warmly to the imagination, address themselves too forcibly to the passions, and in general, by the freedom of their representations, hover on the borders of indecency. Let it be sufficient, however, to observe, that those who condemned the liberties which these writers take with the imagination could indulge themselves with the Anacreontic voluptuousness of the wise Solomon, when sanctioned by the authority of the church.

The marvellous power of romance over the human mind is exemplified in this curious anecdote of oriental literature.