M. Domergue, M. Sicard, successfully duces strength of style, has treated imcultivate universal and particular gram-portant questions of general policy. A mar. We shall have to remark a work writer, celebrated in more than one kind on our language, one of the best produc- of composition, now the Prince Archtions of Marmontel. treasurer of the empire; like him, M. Roederer, M. Dupont de Nemours, M. Barbé-Marbois; after them, M. M. I. B. Say; M. Ganilh, have treated, in an interesting, and perspicuous manner, of different branches of political economy. The Elements of Legislation, published by M. Perrau, are not unworthy of being quoted. The author of a work, honoured with the prize of utility, which the French Academy used to decree, M. Pastoret, in developing the principles of penat legislation, thought that he could determine how the law should proceed, in order to be humane, when it should strike to be just, and where it should stop to be useful. We remark in the works of M. de Lacretelle, a brilliant and celebrated discourse, on the nature of ignominious punishments. All these writers have kept pace with the reason of the age, and some have accelerated its progress. M. Degerando, a man of sagacity and methodical mind, has enquired into the connexions of signs, with the art of thinking. The comprehensive genius of M. de Tracy, has collected the three sciences linked together, in one body, as they are in nature. M. Cabanis, as interesting as he is perspicuous and profound, by comparing the physical and the moral man, has submitted inedicine to the analysis of the understanding. M. Garat, appointed to lecture on this analysis, in the normal schools, has, by his brilliant imagination, rendered reason itself luminous; a kind of service for which, in questions yet abstract, reason can be indebted to talents of a superior order only. The science of the duties of man, morality, without producing so many works, has not however been barren. We have found in the lectures which Marmontel bequeathed to his children, the precepts of Cicero blended with evangelical wisdom. We ought particularly to distinguish an important work of Saint Lambert, who formerly enriched our literature by an elegant, harmonious, and philosophical poem. Arrived at the last period of his life, he did not abandon the banners under which he enlisted in his youth. Invariable in his principles, shunning extremes even in good, he neither affected excessive piety, nor stoical austerity. Without detaching morality from the social, necessary demonstrable principle of a superintending and protecting God, he founds it alto gether on the relations which unite man to man, on our wants, on our passions, on the innumerable multitude of individual interests, constantly at variance with each other, but compelled by nature to commingle, and forming by their union, the general interest of society. We consider, in their turn, those who have applied the art of writing, to matters of policy and legislation: not the crowd of subordinate wits, who by periodical papers, or pamphlets, less transitory, flattered the passions of the multitude, while the multitude possessed power; but a small number of men, more or less, distinguished for their talents, and equally laudable for their intentions. An able dialectician, M. Sieyes, in works where the strength of thought proMONTHLY MAG. No. 195. Before we proceed to the oratorical art, in which we again find policy and legislation presented under new forms to France, we shall have to mention a Treatise on the Eloquence of the Pulpit, a book itself eloquent, in which Cardinal Maury gives excellent precepts, after having exhibited striking examples. In literary criticism, several writers furnish us with profound studies, and judicious comments on our great classics: M. Cailhava, on Moliere; M. Palissot, on Corneille and on Voltaire; Chamfort, on Lafontaine, whom he had, while young, made the subject of a charining eulogy; and Laharpe, on Racine, whom he had also worthily praised before. We do not omit remarking numerous additions to the Literary Memoirs of M. Palissot, a work frequently instructive, and always written with uncommon elegance. Nor do we forget the labours of M. Ginguéné, on Italian literature, a considerable and useful work, already in a state of great forwardness. Here the last volumes of Laharpe's Course present themselves, with his Correspondence in Russia. After having done justice to the indisputable talents of that man of letters, now no more, we shall be obliged to point out the extreme severity with which he thought himself authorised to treat his contemporaries, and particu larly his rivals; his unreserved censure, H whic which is scarcely ever just;, the pleasure of condemning, which discredits an able censor; his injustice often palpable; and even in a just cause his offensive bitterness so opposite to French urbanity. On this occasion, Sire, we shall examine the rules of sound criticism, and in so doing, we engage to observe them in the whole course of our work; and perhaps it may be of importance to repeat them, when they appear to be forgotten. In the oratorical art, at the commencement of our period, appears a colJection of the funeral orations and sermons, by Beauvais, bishop of Senez, a prelate indebted for his dignities, to his merit; and who sometimes shewed himself the worthy successor of Bossuet, and Massillon. The French bar appeared impoverished, when its supporters enriched the tribune. At this term our memory recurs with pain to turbulent assemblies. We shall hasten through them, Sire, to avoid numerous shoals. We shall be able to conform ourselves to the views manifested by your equity and wisdom; and forced to recollect that factions existed, we shall not forget that there were also talents. We begin with that celebrated orator, who, gifted with a mind as vigorous as flexible, attached his personal renown to almost all the labours of the constituent assembly. After Mirabeau, follow those who combatted his opinions with energy, the Cardinal Maury, Cazalès; those who successfully supported him, Chapelier, Barnave, and M. Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely, who still displays, in the hall where we are now admitted, that precision and perspicuity, which peculiarly distinguish his eloquence. Could we forget the number of able civilians, who have applied the oratorical art, to the different objects of legislation. Thouret, Tronchet, rivals worthy of each other; Camus, who to great knowledge joined great austerity of manners; Target, M. Merlin, M. Treilhard, whose extensive learning has enlightened the tribunals? We pay homage to the plan of public instruction, that monument of literary glory, erected by M. de Talleyrand; a work, in which all the philosophic ideas are embellished by all the charms of style. The subsequent assemblies furnish us with two works of uncommon merit, of the same kind; the one by the profound Condorcet, the other by M. Daunou, whose useful labours, eloquence, and modesty, have been esteemed by several legislatures. We remark in the same assemblies, orators who united to a courageous probity, a diction both pathetic and imposing: Vergniaux, for instance; M. Français de Nantes, M. Boissy d'Anglas, M. Garat, Portalis, M. Simeon, and that able statesman so eminent for jurisprudence, and the oratorical art, so elevated amongst the great dignitaries of the empire. In the camps, where, remote from the calamities of the interior, the national glory was preserved unsullied; there arose another species of eloquence, unul then unknown to modern nations. It must even be admitted, when we read in the writers of antiquity, the harangues of the most renowned chiefs, we are often tempted to admire only the genius of the historians. But here, doubt is impossible; the monuments exist; history has only to collect them. From the army of Italy proceeded those beautiful proclamations, in which the conqueror of Lodi and Arcole, at the same time that he created a new art of war, created the military eloquence of which he will remain the model. This eloquence, like Fortune accompanying him, resounded through the city of Alexandria, in Egypt, where Pompey perished; through Syria, which received the last breath of Ger manicus. Subsequently in Germany, in Poland, in the midst of the astonished capitals, Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, it was faithful to the hero of Austerlitz, of Jena, of Friedland; while in the language of honour, so well understood by the French armies, from the bosom of victory, he still commanded victory, and inspired heroism. At the moment, when men of science and literature, long tossed about by storms, found refuge in a new asylum; and particularly at the epoch, when your Majesty, improving the Institute, honoured it with your special favour: academical eloquence soon began to revive, and to flourish again. That species of composition, the various models of which belong exclusively to the literature of the last century, is not contracted within narrower limits. Two illustrious writers, Thomas and M. Garat, have proved, that in certain subjects, it admits of grand images, and of the most beautiful movements of oratory. The art also often consists in avoiding them. But it always requires elegance and regularity in the forms, perspicuity, justness, and a happy harmony between the ideas and the expressions. These qualities have been found combined, in the discourses which M. Suard delivered, as perpetual The important branch of bistory, Sire, splendid. We shall not forget an interesting publication of M. de Beausset: the life of that immortal prelate, who enriched our language by Telemachus, combined eloquence, religion, philoso phy, and was at the same time simple in his genius, his piety, and his virtue. Voyages and travels form a part of history. We shall follow through North America, the steps of M. de Volney, who formerly, in traversing Egypt and Syria, wrote one of the finest works of the eighteenth century, and a masterpiece of its kind. Able men have collected the annals of the sciences, or drawn a faithful view of human opinions. M. Naigeon, completing the great labour commenced by Diderot, describes the Inminous progress of ancient and modern philosophy: M. Bossut, interests by his diction, in the History of Mathematics: with M. de Volney, eloquent Reason interrogates ruins, accumulated during forty centuries: with M. Dupuis, a judicious Erudition searches for the comnon origin of religious traditions. Here we find again, a profound and rapid sketch of the progress of the human mind, the last work, and nearly the last sigh of Condorcet, a will made by a sage in favour of humanity. Before the art of writing was applied amongst us to the history of the sciences, it was known to what an elevation it could attain, even in the sciences the object of which is the study of nature. Buffon had taught it; and we shall have an occasion to remark, how well his worthy continuator, M. de Lacepede, has benefited by the lessons of so great a master. We shall see Lavoisier, and Fourcroy diffusing over chemistry that clearness, which is the first quality of style, and the most necessary for instruction. We shall next examine whether the theories, relative to the different arts of imitation, do not offer in the same light very remarkable improvements. Our researches will not be fruitless. We shall remark particularly, with what ease and elegance M. Gretry has treated the musical art, which he has long honoured by compositions, the melody and truth of which can never be come obsolete. We shall not proceed to poetry without taking a rapid view of novels, a kind of writing which resembles history, bý the recital of events; the epic by an action wholly, or partly fabulous; tragedy by the passions, comedy by the representations of society. We shall not notice notice a heap of frivolous compositions of no character; but we shall appreciate the wit and talents of several ladies, who follow with distinction the steps of the illustrious female, to whom we are indebted for the Princess of Cleves. We shall remark Atala, the ornament of a considerable work, in which M. de Chateaubriant illustrates the Genius of Christianity. As early as the first year, we find the best, the most moral, and the shortest of the novels of the whole, pe riod, the Indian Cottage, in which one of our great surviving writers, M. Ber. nardin de Saint Pierre, has united, as in his other works, the art of painting by expression, the art of pleasing the car by the music of speech, with the supreme art of adorning philosophy by the graces. Poetry will first present to us the, eminent and sublime species consecrated, Sire, to celebrate the men who form the destiny of nations, the heroic poem. The poets capable of attaining the Epopée, are not less rare than the men worthy of being adopted by it. Five master pieces only produced within thirty centuries, are a sufficient proof of it. If within the period which we have to consider, we perceive scarcely one laudable, but defective attempt, the Helvetians we may indulge in higher expectations, warranted by the poetical talents of M, de Fontanes, who now shines as an orator at the head of the legislative body. In proceeding to the Heroi-comic poem, we shall not forget the extreme circumspection necessary, in certain subjects, and at the same time to pay the tribute of praise justly due to one of our best poets, M. de Parny. After original compositions, follow imitations and translations, in verse, of some celebrated epic poems. Amongst the imitators, M. Parceval de Grandmaison, to whom wẹ are indebted for the Epic Amours, and M. Luce de Lancival, author of Achilles at Seyros, must be distinguished from the crowd: but translations of the greatest merit will more particularly engage our attention. Virgil and Milton themselves seem to speak our language; and, thanks to a living classic; thanks also to Monsieur de Saint Ange, an able and laborious translator of Ovid; we shall have the pleasure of observing, that in this respect, the present period is superior to every other. Until now, at least, in works of such importance, the difficult art of conquering the beauties of foreign poetry, and of translating genius by talent, had not been carried so far. In didactic poetry, it is also to M. Delille that the period is indebited for its fecundity. He has diffused through threẻ original poems, the same richness of style which he had displayed in translating the Ancid, and Paradise Lost. The poem on the Imagination, would particularly be a sufficient foundation, upon which to establish a high renown, M. Esmenard, M. Castel, and some others come next; deserving of praise, but far behind their model. Lebrun alone, would have been equal to the competition with M. Delille, if he had finished his poem on Nature; of which some fragnients, of superior merit, remain. Without a rival in the Ode, Lebrun obtained harmonious sounds from the Pindaric lyre, so rebellious to vulgar poets; and we shall remark, Sire, that his last notes were consecrated to your triumphs; he was worthy to celebrate them. M. Daru the translator of Horace, has, in that difficult undertaking, displayed a pure taste, a flexible mind, a profound study of the resources of our versification. Erotic poetry, is honoured by M. de Parny, by M. de Boufflers. Poets, whom we shall find again with lustre on the French stage, already present themselves under brilliant and va rious forms: M. Ducis, in the Epistle; M. Arnault, in the Apologue; M. Andrieux, in tales; M. Legouvé, M. Ray nouard, in short poems of a serious and philosophical kind. After these experienced authors, we observe some rising talents now forming, which afford more than hopes. During two successive years, M. Millevoie, distinguished for the elegance of his style, has obtained the prize of poetry. M. Victorin Fabre, still younger, has merited, during two years successively, an honourable distinction. Several, whom it is now impossible to name, will not be forgotten in our work, where we shall avoid severity: persuaded, that in literature, as in every thing else, indulgence approaches nearer to justice. Here is presented to your Majesty's view, dramatic poetry; the two kinds of which had so much influence on our language, our whole literature, and the national manners. In tragedy, appears first M. Ducis, an inventor, even when he imitates; inimitable when he gives lan guage to filial piety, a poet deservedly celebrated celebrated, and whose pathetic genius has tempered the gloomy terror of the English stage. Competitors, worthy of each other, come next: M. Arnault, so noble in Marius, so tragic in the Venetians; M. Legouvé, whose Death of Abel presents an elegant imitation of Gesner, and who displayed great energy in Epicharis; M. Lemercier, who in Agamemnon so ably blended together the beauties of Eschylus and Seneca; lastly, M. Raynouard, who rendered so brilhant an homage to victims honoured by the regrets of history. We shall notice the interesting scenes of the Joseph of M. Baour Lormian, and the estimable parts of Mr. de Murville's, Abdelasis. We must not omit a few reflections. The good tragic compositions of the period cannot be reproached with the multiplicity of incidents, the profusion of subordinate personages, useless episodes, the insipidity of elegiac scenes. In all, the action is simple, and almost always severe. The progress of the poets is not timid. Without violating the ancient rules, they have obtained new effects. Upon the whole, they have preserved the philosophical character impressed on tragedy, by the finest genius of the last century; by following whose steps, the greater part have opened to themselves the various routes of modern history; an immense career, which promises for a long time, new palms to the. poets capable of pursuing it. In proceeding to comedy, we find as early as the first years, the pretty little piece, the Convent, by M. Laujon; the Greek Menechms, by M. Cailbava, an entertaining and well-conducted co medy of intrigue; a work elegantly versified, the Pamela of Mr. François; a copy of that of M. Goldoni, but a copy superior to the original. Two, Fabre d'Eglantine, and Colin d'Harleville, competitors experienced in contending with each other, enrich the higher order of comedy, the one by forcibly pourtraying impassible egotism, and impassioned virtue; the other in representing, with strongly comic truth, the inconveniences of a protracted celibacy. M. Andrieux, shines in the same rank, by a pleasing vivacity, graceful and interesting details, and the uninterrupted charm of his style. A fertile imagination, an unaffected In obedience to the class of French literature, Mr. Chenier is here named. His tragedy of Fenelon has succeeded, protected by the memory of a great mun, gaiety, an original portraiture of man ners, have secured the success of M, Picard. Not less gay, and nearly as fertile, M. Duval is partly entitled to the same commendations. The purity of diction is esteemed in some essays of M. Roger. Here we point out an inprovement, the merit of which is due to the principal writers, whom we have just named; perhaps also to the change which has taken place in our manners. During the whole period, the comedics worthy of notice preserve no traces of that jar gon, which was so long in vogue. To succeed, it was found necessary to be natural. The pedantic, prudish style, the false wit, the affected tone, which had been introduced on the comic stage, by authors more refined than ingenious, have been entirely banished. In the drama, a defective species of composition, but susceptible of beauties, we distinguish Beaumarchais, whom his comedies and his memoirs, had already rendered celebrated. M. Monvel, an author who has deservedly obtained numerous successes, and one of our greatest performers; M. Bouilli, whose pieces breathe that interest which excel lent morality inspires. On the theatre, rendered illustrious by Quinault, are to be remarked M. Guillard, and M. Hofman; more recently, M. Esmenard, and M. Joui: on the other lyric scene, M. Hoffman again, M..Monvel, M. Marsolier, M. Duval. After having done justice to some pleasing productions compelled however to renew some opinions of Voltaire, and to observe what he had foreseen and dreaded, the influence of the comic opera on the general taste of the spectators, we shall endea vour, in consequence of that observation, to enquire into the means of supporting, of augmenting, if possible, the splendor of the French Theatre; where the dramatic art essentially resides. Your Majesty, is pleased benevolently to attend to this art, as beautiful, as it is difficult; and it is more casy than ever to perceive, of what importance it may become, when your soul, in unison with that of Corheille, applauds the conceptions of that man of genius, whose natural language was sublime, and who forced berves to weep. In finishing, Sire, a vast view, of which want of time now permits us only to present to your Majesty an incomplete, but at least a faithful sketch, general considerations on the whole period will detain us a moment. Science and liter |