An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe/Chapter 6
CHAP. VI.
A parallel between the decline of ancient and modern learning.
The similitude between the rise and decline of ancient and modern learning is so obvious, that it scarcely requires an illustration. We may have seen, that wherever the poet was permitted to improve his native language, polite learning flourished; where the critic undertook the same task, it never rose to any degree of perfection. We have seen the genius of every country make more feeble advances to excellence in proportion, as the number of critics was great, and learning become more loquacious as it was less improving.
An encrease of criticism is, however, the natural consequence of learning's becoming universal. There are proportionably a greater number of learned men without any natural genius in every country, when the love of science is diffused among all ranks of people, than in its incipient state, when this passion influences only the ambitious; but it is ten to one, that every man of learning without genius becomes a critic, therefore critics must be proportionably more numerous when learning is diffus'd through all the degrees of mankind.
If critics, therefore, or all such as judge by rule, and not by feelings, must necessarily become more numerous in the maturity of learning, than in its beginning; and if they have been always found by experience to injure it; I may be permitted to call criticism, the natural decay of politeness. A decay which may be deplored, but cannot be prevented, since it encreases as the love of learning is diffused. It cannot be remedied by rule, for every prescription encreases the disease, since the man who writes against the critics, is obliged to add himself to the number. Other depravations in the republic of letters, such as affectation in some popular writer, leading others into vicious imitation; political struggles in the state; a depravity of morals among the people; ill directed encouragement, or no encouragement from the Great, these have been often found to cooperate in the decline of literature; and it has sometimes declined, as in modern Italy, without them; but an encrease of criticism has always portended a decay. Of all misfortunes, therefore, in the commonwealth of letters, this of judging from rule, and not from feeling, is the most severe. At such a tribunal, no work of original merit can please. Sublimity, if carried to an exalted height, approaches burlesque, and humour sinks into vulgarity; the person who cannot feel, may ridicule both as such, and bring rules to corroborate his assertion. There is, in short, no excellence in writing, that such judges may not place among the neighbouring defects. Rules render the reader more difficult to be pleased, and abridge the author's power of pleasing.
If we turn to England and France, we shall perceive evident symptoms of this natural decay beginning to appear. Upon a moderate calculation, there seems to be as many volumes of criticism published in those countries, as of all other kinds of polite erudition united. Paris sends forth not less than four literary journals every month, the Anné-literaire, and the Fuille by Freron, the Journal Etrangere by the Chevalier D'Arc, and Le Mercure by Marmontel. We have two literary reviews in London, with critical news-papers and magazines without number. The compilers of these resemble the commoners of Rome, they are all for levelling property, not by encreasing their own, but by diminishing that of others. The man who has any good nature in his disposition must, however, be somewhat displeased to see distinguished reputations often the sport of ignorance. To see by one false pleasantry, the future peace of a worthy man's life disturbed, and this only because he has unsuccessfully attempted to instruct or amuse us. Tho' ill nature is far from being wit, yet it is generally laughed at as such. The critic enjoys the triumph, and ascribes to his parts, what is only due to his effrontery.
If there be any, however, among these writers, who being bred gentlemen and scholars, are obliged to have recourse to such an employment for subsistence, I wish them one more suited to their inclinations; but for such who, wholly destitute of education and genius, indent to the press, and turn mere book-makers, they deserve the severest censure. These add to the sin of criticism the sin of ignorance also. Their trade is a bad one, and they are bad workmen in the trade.
When I consider those industrious men as indebted to the works of other authors for a precarious subsistence, when I see them coming down at stated intervals to rummage the bookseller's compter for materials to work upon; it raises a smile, tho' mixed with pity. It reminds me of an animal called by naturalists the soldier. This little creature, says the historian, is passionately fond of a shell, but not being supplied with one by nature, has recourse to the deserted shell of some other. I have seen these harmless reptiles, continues he, come down once a-year from the mountains, rank and file, cover the whole shoar and ply busily about, each in quest of a shell to please it. Nothing can be more amusing than their industry upon this occasion. One shell is too big, another too little, they enter and keep possession sometimes for a good while until one is, at last, found entirely to please. When all are thus properly equipped, they march up again to the mountains, and live in their new acquisition, till under a new necessity of changing.
But to leave this subject, let us proceed to consider those corruptions which admit of correction. Let us examine the merits of modern learning in England and in France; where, though it may be on the decline, yet it is still capable of retrieving much of its former splendor. In other places, a decay has already taken place, here it is only beginning. To attempt the amendment of Italy or Germany, would be only like the application of remedies to a part mortified, but here, still there is life, and there is hope.