Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning/Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
Reflections upon Monsieur Perrault's Hypothesis, That Modern Orators and Poets are more excellent than Ancient.
WHatever becomes of the Reasons given in the last Chapter, for the Excellency of Ancient Eloquence and Poetry, the Position it self is so generally held, that I do not fear any Opposition here at home. It is almost an Heresie in Wit, among our Poets, to set up any Modern Name against Homer or Virgil, Horace or Terence. So that though here and there one should in Discourse preferr the present Age, yet scarce any Man who sets a Value upon his own Reputation, will venture to assert it in Print. Whether this is to be attributed to their Judgment, or Modesty, or both, I will not determine; though I am apt to believe, to both, because in our Neighbour-Nation, which is remarkable for a good deal of what Sir William Temple calls Sufficiency, some have spoken much more openly.
For the Members of the Academy in France, who since the Cardinal de Richelieu's Time, have taken so much Pains to make their Language capable of all those Beauties which they find in Ancient Authors, will not allow me to go so far as I have done. Monsieur Perrault, their Advocate, in Oratory sets the Bishop of Meaux against Pericles, (or rather, Thucydides,) the Bishop of Nismes against Isocrates, F. Bourdaloüe against Lysias, Monsieur Voiture against Pliny, and Monsieur Balzac against Cicero. In Poetry likewise he sets Monsieur Boileau against Horace, Monsieur Corneille and Monsieur Moliere against the Ancient Dramatick Poets. In short, though he owns that some amongst the Ancients had very exalted Genius's, so that it may, perhaps, be very hard to find any Thing that comes near the Force of some of the Ancient Pieces, in either Kind, amongst our Modern Writers, yet he affirms, that Poetry and Oratory are now at a greater heighth than ever they were, because there have been many Rules found out since Virgil's and Horace's Time; and the old Rules likewise have been more carefully scanned than ever they were before. This Hypothesis ought a little to be enquired into; and therefore I shall offer some few Considerations about his Notion. Sir William Temple, I am sure, will not think this a Digression, because the Author of the Plurality of Worlds,(e) Pag. 5. (e) by censuring of the Old Poetry, and giving Preference to the New, raised his Indignation; which no Quality among Men was so apt to raise in him as Sufficiency, the worst Composition out of the Pride and Ignorance of Mankind.
1. Monsieur Perrault takes it for granted, that Cicero was a better Orator than Demosthenes; because, living after him, the World had gone on for above Two Hundred Years, constantly improving, and adding new Observations, necessary to compleat his Art: And so by Consequence, that the Gentlemen of the Academy must out-do Tully, for the same Reasons. This Proposition, which is the Foundation of a great part of his Book, is not very easie to be proved; because Mankind loves Variety in those Things wherein it may be had so much, that the best Things, constantly re-iterated, will certainly disgust. Sometimes the Age will not bear Subjects, upon which an Orator may display his full Force; he may often be obliged to little, mean Exercises. A Thousand Accidents, not discoverable at a distance, may force Men to stretch their Inventions to spoil that Eloquence which, left to it self, would do admirable Things. And that there is such a Thing as a Decay of Eloquence in After-Ages, which have the Performances of those that went before constantly to recurr to, and which may be supposed to pretend to Skill and Fineness, is evident from the Writings of Seneca and the Younger Pliny, compared with Tully's.
2. The Ancients cannot justly be accused of not using an exact and artificial Method in their Orations, if one examines Tully's Pleadings, or reads over Quinctilian's Institutions. And if Panegyricks and Funeral-Orations do not seem so regular, it is not because Method was little understood, but because in those Discourses it was not so necessary. Where Men were to reason severely, Method was strictly observed: And the Vertues discoursed upon in Tully's Offices are as judiciously and clearly digested under their proper Heads, as the Subject-Matter of most Discourses written by any Modern Author, upon any Subject whatsoever. And it does not seem possible to contrive any Poem, whose Parts can have a truer, or more artful Connexion, than Virgil's Æneis: And though it is now objected by Monsieur Perrault, as a Fault, that he did not carry on his Poem to the Marriage of Æneas and Lavinia, yet we may reasonably think, that he had very good Reasons for doing so; because, in Augustus's Court, where Matters of that sort were very well understood, it was received with as great Veneration as it has been since; and never needed the Recommendation of Antiquity, to add to its Authority.
Nay, we can give very probable Reasons, at this distance, for it. It is a Fault in Heroick Poetry, to fetch Things from their first Originals: And to carry the Thread of the Narrative down to the last Event, is altogether as dull. As Homer begins not with the Rape of Helen, so he does not go so far as the Destruction of Troy. Men should rise from Table with some Appetite remaining: And a Poem should leave some View of something to follow, and not quite shut the Scenes; especially if the remaining Part of the Story be not capable of much Ornament, nor affords a Variety. The Passion of Love, with those that always follow upon its being disappointed, had been shown already in the Story of Dido. But Monsieur Perrault seems to have had his Head possessed with the Idea of French Romances; which, to be sure, must never fail to end in a general Wedding.
For I observe, Secondly, That among other Arguments produced by him, to prove that the Ancients did not perfect their Oratory and Poesie, he urges this; That the Mind of Man, being an inexhaustible Fund of new Thoughts and Projects, every Age added Observations of its own to the former Store; so that they still increased in Politeness, and by Consequence, their Eloquence of all sorts, in Verse or Prose, must needs be more exact. And as a Proof of this Assertion, he instances in Matters of Love: wherein the Writings of the best bred Gentlemen of all Antiquity, for want of Modern Gallantry, of which they had no Notion, were rude and unpolished, if compared with the Poems and Romances of the present Age. Here Monsieur Perrault's Skill in Architecture seems to have deceived him: For there is a wide Difference between an Art that, having no Antecedent Foundation in Nature, owes its first Original to some particular Invention, and all its future Improvements to Superstructures raised by other Men upon that first Ground-work; and between Passions of the Mind, that are Congenial with our Natures; where Conversation will polish them, even without previous Intentions of doing so; and where the Experiences of a few Ages, if assisted by Books that may preserve particular Cases, will carry them to as great an Heighth as the Things themselves are capable of. And therefore, he that now examines the Writings of the Ancient Moral Philosophers, Aristotle for instance, or the Stoicks, will find, that they made as nice Distinctions in all Matters relating to Vertue and Vice; and that they understood Humane Nature, with all its Passions and Appetites, as accurately as any Philosophers have done since. Besides, It may be justly questioned, whether what Monsieur Perrault calls Politeneẞ, be not very often rather an Aberration from, and Straining of Nature, than an Improvement of the Manners of the Age: If so, it may reasonably be supposed, that those that medled not with the Niceties of Ceremony and Breeding, before unpractised, rather contemned them as improper or unnatural, than omitted them because of the Roughness of the Manners of the Ages in which they lived. Ovid and Tibullus knew what Love was, in its tenderest Motions; they describe its Anxieties and Disappointments in a Manner that raises too too many Passions, even in unconcerned Hearts; they omit no probable Arts of Courtship and Address; and keeping the Mark they aim at still in view, they rather chuse to shew their Passion, than their Wit: And therefore they are not so formal as the Heroes in Pharamond or Cassandra; who, by pretending to Exactness in all their Methods, commit greater Improbabilities than Amadis de Gaule himself. In short, (e) The Author of Astræa.
(f) The Author of Cleopatra.Durse (e), and Calprenede (f), and the rest of them, by over-straining the String, have broke it: And one can as soon believe that Varillas and Maimbourg wrote the Histories of great Actions just as they were done, as that Men ever made Love in such a Way as these Love-and-Honour Men describe. That Simplicity therefore of the Ancients, which Monsieur Perrault undervalues, is so far from being a Mark of Rudeness, and Want of Complaisance, that their Fault lay in being too Natural, in making too lively Descriptions of Things, where Men want no Foreign Assistance to help them to form their Idea's; and where Ignorance, could it be had, is more valuable than any, much more than a Critical Knowledge.
3. Since,
We learn, that Sound, as well as Sense, persuades;
the Felicity of a manageable Language, when improved by Men of nice Ears, and true Judgments, is greater, and goes further to make Men Orators and Poets, than Monsieur Perrault seems willing to allow; though there is a plain Reason for his Unwillingness: The French Language wants Strength to temper and support its Smoothness for the nobler Parts of Poesie, and perhaps of Oratory too, though the French Nation wants no Accomplishments necessary to make a Poet, or an Orator. Therefore their late Criticks are always setting Rules, and telling Men what must be done, and what omitted, if they would be Poets. What they find they cannot do themselves, shall be so clogged where they may have the Management, that others shall be afraid to attempt it. They are too fond of their Language, to acknowledge where the Fault lies; and therefore the chief Thing they tell us is, that Sence, Connexion and Method are the principal Things to be minded. Accordingly, they have translated most of the Ancient Poets, even the Lyricks, into French Prose; and from those Translations they pass their Judgments, and call upon others to do so too. So that when (to use Sir J. Denham's Comparison) by pouring the Spirits of the Ancient Poetry from one Bottle into another, they have lost the most Volatile Parts, and the rest becomes flat and insipid; these Criticks exclaim against the Ancients, as if they did not sufficiently understand Poetical Chymistry. This is so great a Truth, that even in Oratory it holds, though in a less Degree. Thucydides therefore has hard Measure to be compared with the Bishop of Meaux, when his Oration is turned into another Language, whilst Monsieur de Meaux's stands unaltered; for, though Sence is Sence in every Tongue, yet all Languages have a peculiar Way of expressing the same Things; which is lost in Translations, and much more in Monsieur D'Ablancourt's, who professed to mind two very different Things at once; to translate his Author, and to write elegant Books in his own Language; which last he has certainly done; and he knew that more Persons could find fault with his Stile, if it had been faulty, than find out Mistakes in his Rendring of the Greek of Thucydides. Besides, the Beauty of the Author's Composition is, in all Translations, entirely lost, though the Ancients were superstitiously exact about it; and in their elegant Prose, as much almost as in their Verse. So that a Man can have but half an Idea of the ancient Eloquence, and that not always faithful, who judges of it without such a Skill in Greek and Latin as can enable him to read Histories, Orations and Poems in those Languages, with Ease and Pleasure. But it is time to return to my Subject.