(Fox) me combattait alors avec cha- : rience, however, tells us, that great linguists are not always of a corresponding range of mind; and memory, like the appetite, must be appreciated more by its power of digestion than its capacity. Even the most renowned, Picus Mirandula, Postel, Ludolf, Magliabecchi, Mezzofanti, &c. were, in other respects, of limited faculties.— "Verborum flumen ubique vidi, mentis et judicii vix guttam," says St. Augustin (De Civitate Dei); although we may proudly cite Sir W. Jones, Dr. Lee, and others: but languages may be assimilated to riches, laboriously acquired and easily lost.* Reverting to my interview with Gib * In a class where we should not generally look for deep students of languages, we find the renowned La Tour d'Auvergne, " le premier grenadier de la France," as he was emphatically named by Napoleon after the battle of Marengo, who had ready for impression a Glossary of forty-five languages, when he met the death of the brave at Neubourg in Germany. His remains lay for several years unhonoured by any memorial; but, as Goldsmith, with his usual grace of diction, (Vicar of Wakefield, chap. 31,) says, "The most precious tears are those with which Heaven bedews the unburied head of a soldier;" and not long since the sympathy of his friends erected a modest monument for him on the battle-field where he had closed his noble career. Every honour was paid to this memory at Paris by order of the First Consul. (See Bignon, Hist. tom. i. p. 250.) The epitaph is remarkable for its appropriate simplicity, the record of an officer falling on foreign ground in the sacred cause of his country. "Wer seinen Tod im heiligen Kampfe fand, Ruht auch in fremder Erd' im Vaterland.” "Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim,' I would add, with Tibullus (lib. iii. el. 2.) Théophile-Malo-Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne, an illegitimate scion of the illustrious house of Bouillon and Turenne, constantly refused a higher rank than that of Captain of the 44th regiment, which long gloried in the possession of his embalmed heart contained in an urn of gold. Lately, however, it was claimed by the two families of Lauragais and Kersausie, his relatives, and after a protracted litigation has just been adjudged to the latter; but will shortly repose in a monument now in course of subscription for the warrior, in his native Brittany. Another soldier of republican France, and distinguished as a linguist, was the celebrated Paul-Louis Courier, whose political pamphlets his countrymen compare to the Letters of our Junius,-an author much overrated in the estimation of Lord Brougham (character of Lord Mansfield); though, in my mind, the French writer should rather be likened to Swift or Sidney Smith. His learning, however, cannot be doubted; for he restored to Greek literature, from a manuscript which he had discovered in the Laurentian library at Florence, while serving under Bonaparte in his Italian campaigns, a passage in the Pastorels (or, Daphnis and Chloe) of Longus, the absence of which had made the text inexplicable. This accomplished officer published the whole at Rome, in 1810. The beautiful edition of Amyot's translation, illustrated by the designs of the Regent of France, (not all very decorous,) and printed in 1718, is an object of research with book-collectors.- Paul Louis's pamphlets were published by the unfortunate Armand Carrel, who, in 1835, fell in a duel with M. Emile de Girardin: this terræ filius was lately ejected from the Chamber of Deputies for want of a baptismal or birth certificate. Many interesting details of the horrors committed during the renowned campaigns of 1796 and 1797 are to be found in Paul Louis, an eye-witness; though I have not seen him cited on the history of that period, the brilliancy of which has thrown these lamentable fruits of conquest into the shade.Armand Carrel obtained great celebrity as editor of the National, a republican journal; but his history of the two last monarchs of the house of Stuart is a wretched production. M. E. Girardin's wife, better known as Delphine Gay, is not without merit as a writer, nor is her mother, Mad. Sophie Gay. bon, I may state how greatly his aspect disappointed me when I saw him in Switzerland; for I had just read his description of Mahomet (chapter 50 of his History), where the prophet is represented as distinguished by the beauty of his person; an outward gift," says Gibbon, which is seldom despised except by those to whom it has been refused;" whence I, naturally enough, inferred that the advantage had not been wholly denied to himself. But nature, I found, had scarcely been more prodigal to him of mental, than niggard of personal favours, as the silhouette, or portrait en découpure, prefixed to the quarto edition of his Miscellaneous Works, will affirm. Nor is he otherwise delineated in the Memoirs of M. Suard, one of the translators of his history, where, (page 191, tome 2,) it is said "L'auteur de la grande et superbe Histoire de l'Empire Romain avait à peine quatre pieds sept à huit pouces, (about five feet, English;) le tronc énorme de son corps à gros ventre de Siléne était posé sur cette espèce de jambes grêles qu'en appele flûtes . . . la racine de son nez s'enfonçait dans le crâne plus profondément que celle du nez d'un Kalmouck; et sa voix, qui n'avait que des accens aigus, ne pouvait avoir d'autre moyen d'arriver au cœur que de percer les oreilles." There is, no doubt, considerable exaggeration, or caricature, in this description; but it certainly could not be said of Gibbon, as of Agricola, the father-in-law of another great historian, “gratia oris supererat," (Tacit. Vita Agricolæ cap. 44 ;) nor that he had the ATTIкóv Вλéπov. (Aristophan. Nub. 1171.) Wilkes, however, to whom nature gave no favourable letter of introduction, maintained that the handsomest men in England had only the advantage of the first half hour over him; and we know that Mirabeau made his ugliness necessary to his influence. "Personne ne connait la puissance de ma laideur," was his expression, as cited by Lord Brougham, (Statesmen, 2nd Series, page 251.) The appearance of such men was overlooked in the effulgence of their genius; nor should we omit the re buke of Louis XIV. when his courtiers made the deformity of a distinguished officer the subject of derision. "Je le trouve un des plus beaux hommes de mon royaume, parcequ'il est un des plus braves." Hume, while secretary to the English legations at Turin and Paris, was a great favourite both in social and literary circles, though of unwieldy and most unprepossessing appearance. Some years ago I had occasion to mark an anachronism in connexion with the names of Louis and Gibbon, which I discovered in the “Dictionnaire des Ouvrages Anonymes, &c." by M. Barbier, (Paris 18221827, 4 vols. 8vo.) though certainly a very learned and elaborate compilation. It is there stated, that Louis XVI. when Dauphin, had translated the first volume of Gibbon ; an assertion at once refuted by the fact, that the book was not published until February (27th) 1776, nearly two years after Louis had ceased to be Dauphin, by having succeeded his grandfather, as we have seen, the 10th May 1774. The version, therefore, had it existed, must have been made from the manuscript previous to its being committed to the press; a circumstance so remote from probability, as, like Gibbon's explanation of the paragraph complained of by Louis, to be fairly classed in the category of impossibilities. Indeed, his own words are decisive; for he assures us, (page 289,) that not a sheet had been seen by any human eyes, excepting those of the author and printer, before publication. The revolutionary horrors, which hurried Gibbon from his cherished residence, (though, at that period, by no means arrived at their consummation,) opened his eyes to the danger, because he thus experienced the consequences, of undermining the Christian faith, characterised, indeed, in his vocabulary, as a superstition, but still the acknowledged fountain of public morality, and pillar of social order. He then obviously regretted his own share in preparing the work of destruction, and, while little disposed to retract, would gladly have recalled many portions of his history— "Cum relego, scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cerno Ovid. De Ponto. lib. 1. Eleg. 5, At page 300 of his Memoirs, he says, I have sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of the dead, in which Lucian, Erasmus, and Voltaire should mutually acknowledge the danger of exposing an old superstition to the contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude." The idea was a good one; and would be best executed by a recantation of the sentiments which the interlocutors had propagated; but their number is far too limited; and Gibbon would find his place there more fittingly than Erasmus. The great Frederic, too, in his latter years recoiled in the pursuit of infidelity; and, probably, so would several others be driven, like Duclos, to exclaim to their compeers in mischief, "Vous faites tant, que vous nous rendrez enfin Chrêtiens!" Of these apostles of evil, the mortal and systematic warfare denounced against Christianity by their patriarch and coryphæus, Voltaire, is abundantly notorious. It is unequivocally declared in the ever-recurring— "ECRASEZ L'INFAME," which formed the pith and burden of his voluminous correspondence; but Christianity has emerged triumphant from the contest; and, in the elegant imagery of the French poet, seeing with him that the light, which these wretched men had sought to obscure, has beamed with resplendent lustre, even on themselves, we may repeat, "Cris impuissans! fureurs bizarres ! Sur ces obscurs blasphémateurs." Euvres de M. Le Franc de Pompignan, Paris 1784. les oreilles; l'autre menace de me les The author of these lines, which à Messieurs Le Franc: l'un m'écorche will also be found in Mr. Charles Butler's Reminiscences, page 88, I may transiently state, was a most respectable magistrate, (Président de la Cour des Aides,) and high in favour with Voltaire, as several letters prove, (14th April, 1738, &c.) until, in his discourse of admission to the French Academy, (10th March, 1760,) he dared to arraign the literature of the day as irreligious. The patriarch's wrath was, in consequence, vented with all the poignancy of his wit and rancour of his hate, on his former friend, which incensed M. de Pompignan's brother, a military officer, so much, that he threatened personal chastisement, when Voltaire, "whose talent breathed most in ridicule," (Childe Harold, iii. 105,) thus characteristically addressed the Duke de Choiseul, then prime minister: "Je ne sais ce que j'ai fait "Medium non deserit unquam Volumes indeed, might be filled with the frauds of every kinds, interpolations, supposititious authorships,the suggestio falsi, and suppressio veri, practised by the arch-infidel; and yet it is probable that the language of regret, I will not say of repentance, which Gibbon had destined for him in the Dialogue, would have been the genuine expression of his awakened ter rors, had he lived, like his disciple La Harpe, to witness the evil he had excited. As it is, the punishment allotted by Dante to an earlier agent of discord and schism, would not have been unsuited to Voltaire, for a beacon and warning "E'l capo tronco tenea per le chiome, As the great poet describes Bretran Louis the Sixteenth is represented, we have seen, by Gibbon, as partial to English reading; which I may corroborate; for I possess a volume, used by him in prison for the instruction of his son in that language, with some 'corrections in his hand. It is a translation of the history of Henry IV. by Péréfixe, executed, very imperfectly indeed, by M. Le Moine, and dedicated to Louis, who had it beautifully printed at the press of Didot l'ainé, in 1785. My copy, purchased at public sale after the monarch's death, had originally been a presentation to his angelic sister, Madame Elizabeth, whose arms it bears; and, though the corrections are unimportant, they testify his study of the language. It was natural, also, that he should make the life of his glorious progenitor the textbook of his lessons, while proposing him to his son as the model and exemplar of his imitation, should he ever ascend the throne of his ancestors de Brunio (Inferno, Canto xxviii. 120.) -a fate which the unhappy child was never destined to accomplish. Nor, we may admit, could a brighter precedent of conduct, in popular and vulgar apprehension, be presented to a royal pupil, if we could remove from our view, not only those indulgences for which the seductions of the throne have procured a palliative consideration, rendered more dangerous by the prominence of commission and influence of high example,* but many acts, personal and administrative, little honourable to his mind or feelings, which history produces against him. Burke did not suffer his judgment of the monarch to be dazzled by the blaze of popularity, which has so long encircled his name in France; and Sismondi (Histoire des François, tome xxii.) concludes an estimate of his character with these emphatic words-"Il abandonna tous ses amis -son administration et sa politique manquaient de bonne foi, sa vie privée * The laxity of pagan morality may be inferred from the tone and tenor of even the gravest of ancient authors on this subject. Tacitus (Annal. xiii. 12.) describes the stoic Seneca, and austere Burrhus, the guardians of the youth and ministers of the government of Nero, as providing for his passions, in a less guilty form than, they apprehended, he would otherwise be hurried into-" Delapso Nerone in amorem libertæ, cui vocabulum Acte, ne severioribus quidem principis amicis adversantibus . . . . . . ne in stupra feminarum illustrium prorumperet, si illa libidine prohiberetur." Nero at this time was married to Octavia, under circumstances extremely similar to the conjugal alliance of Henry IV. and Marguerite de Valois. At an earlier period, and during the Commonwealth, (U. C. 566,) P. Æbutius, a Roman youth, through whose means the Bacchanalian orgies, which caused such consternation in the city, were revealed, is calmly represented by Livy (xxxix. 9.) as frequenting a "scortum nobile, Hispala Fecenia, cujus consuetudo minime adolescentis aut rei aut famæ damnosa fuit." Modern practice may not be better; but, at least, the language of reproof rather than of indifference would be expected, in the present state of society, from such writers as Livy and Tacitus, to whom, in general moral feeling, the cynic propensities of Gibbon offer no advantageous comparison; nor, probably, would the latter now dare to adopt the style of the French philosophical school, as, to the prejudice of his fame, he unhappily did. The pollutions of the imperial Cæsars, all, with the solitary reserve of Claudius, Gibbon remarks, of an abominable character, as unblushingly displayed in the pages of Suetonius, deter and revolt by their naked prominence; but the idea insinuated and not unfolded-the image half veiled to excite its further pursuit, were the seductions of that school, and resemble the enticements of the coquette -"modestiam præferre et lascivia uti . . . . velatâ parte aris, ne satiaret adspectum, vel quia sic decebat ”- -as Tacitus, with his wonted energy of pencil, pourtrays the arts of Sabina Poppea (Annal. xiii. 46). fut scandaleuse," &c.; though it may perhaps be not quite fair to judge the political morality of that age by the stricter rule of the present. The generally vicious system of princely tuition has provoked the sharp and apposite animadversion of Lord Brougham; though his illustrations of the momentous subject are not always incontrovertible. At page 4, of the second series of his Statesmen, he indignantly produces the answer of the Right Reverend preceptor of Louis the Fifteenth, when Dauphin, (Fleury, bishop of Frejus,) on being asked by his royal pupil-" Quoi donc, les rois meurent-ils ?" Quelquefois, Monseigneur," was the cautious reply, says his lordship; but I would deferentially submit, that, as Louis could not have been above five years old at the time, for he succeeded to the crown, and, of course, was no longer Dauphin, at that infant age, there was nothing extraordinary in the courtier-like response. It is, in fact, pretty much the evasive one that would have been made to a child so young in any class of society. But, as applicable to a King of France, it is further excusable; for the monarchs, death, like the fiction of our law which declares the Sovereign incapable of doing wrong, was never recognized, as the following historical anecdote will elucidate-"Le 14 Mai 1610, Marie de Médecis éplorée, lorsque son Conseil fut réuni auprès d'elle, dit, Helas! le roi est mort!-le roi est mort! .... Vous vous trompez, Madame, répondit le chancelier, Brulart de Sillery, (ancestor of Madame de Genlis's busband,) le roi ne meurt pas en France." All the contemporary historians confirm this fact, which a recent one, M. A. Bazin, repeats, (Histoire de Louis XIII. 1836;) and, in like manner, the uniform announcement of the royal demise was -"Le roi est mort-Vive le roi!" simultaneously. The death of Henry the Fourth is the event here referred to; and the tortures inflicted on his assassin, the fanatic Ravaillac, descended in the female line, it was said, from the Protestant fanatic, Poltrot, (Gentleman's Magazine for July 1839,) as Robespierre is stated to have been the nephew of Damien,* form an_appalling recital in the Chronologie Septenaire (1610, &c.) a publication or journal of the period. But these efforts of inhuman ingenuity did not satisfy Pasquier, "la gloire de la magistrature Française,” as he is usually designated, and ardent enemy of the Jesuits; for he wrote-" Pour moi, si je m'étois trouvé au jugement, j'euse passe outre : les père, mère, frère et sœur fussent bien morts avec lui." At this hour, we should hardly eulogize the justice or humanity of such a magistrate; but, though the punishment did not extend so far, the family residence was razed to the ground; and I have seen at Angoulême, the spot where it had existed, still vacant, though now, I believe, occupied. * The concluding lines of Goldsmith's Traveller refer to Damien's rack—(1757) : "The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel :" which, in relation to the latter, are historically confirmed; but I know not to whom Luke's Iron Crown applies-to no saint, I am pretty sure, in the martyrology. Perhaps Mr. Prior may have explained the allusion; but I have no access here to his edition. [The following explanation of "Luke's iron crown" is from Boswell's Life of Johnson : "In the' Respublica Hungaria,' there is an account of a desperate rebellion in 1514, headed by two brothers, of the name of Zeck, George and Luke. When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by his head being encircled with a redhot iron crown: coroná candescente ferreá coronatur.' The same severity of torture was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the murderers of King James I. of Scotland."-EDIT.] An eye-witness of Damien's torments, has often expressed to me his amazement at their endurance by the wretched man, whose saying "La journée sera dure, mais elle passera," sufficiently attested his fortitude. The humane orders of Louis XV. who on receiving the blow cried out-"C'est cet homme-là qui m'a frappé ; qu'on l'arrête, et qu'on ne lui fasse point de mal," were little attended to; for, five minutes after, in the very palace of Versailles, he was tortured, and continued to be so for above two months. See Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XV. chap. 37, where his reflections on these cruelties do him credit. |