THE JESUIT GUESSET. 577 



It is but natural to suppose that Gresset, previously to addressing 

 this fulminating discourse to a court chiefly composed of non-resident 

 prelates, would fully have made up his mind as to the probable con- 

 sequences. True, he had not in all this transgressed the bounds of 

 truth ; but the event proved, that although Boileau, protected by Louis 

 XIV., had been able to point the arrows of his satire against the pre- 

 lates of the court with impunity, yet Gresset under Louis XV. had 

 not the same privilege : the last phrase especially seemed to close with 

 so discordant a twang, that it was struck out of the " Recueil" of the 

 Academy. When he appeared at Versailles to present his discourse, 

 the king turned his back upon him. Gresset, thunderstruck at this 

 disgrace, forgot all his literary projects, and terrified at the idea of 

 being looked upon at Versailles as a dangerous man, he opened his 

 mind to his friend the bishop of Amiens, and consulted with him on 

 the means of escaping the reputation of a philosopher and an " esprit 

 fort." It was under the combined influence of this prelate, and of 

 the prospect of returning favour at court of the royal patronage, and 

 even of an appointment as tutor to the young Duke of Burgundy, 

 douceurs held out to him in brilliant perspective, that our author, in 

 May 1759, came to a resolution equally strange and unexpected. 

 After having thrown into the fire a number of plays and other pro- 

 ductions, the fruit of years of laborious study (amongst which, to the 

 lasting regret of all true lovers of verse, were included the fifth and 

 sixth canto of Vert- Vert), he solemnly abjured the theatre, in a letter 

 which he inserted in the greater part of the public journals of the 

 period. In this production, as may well be supposed, the stage and 

 all its connexions are handled with the severity of an enraged eccle- 

 siastic, embittered by the usual hatred of a renegade partisan a spe- 

 cies of malevolence which, according to ethic writers, is more to be 

 dreaded than any other in the affairs of religion and friendship. Our 

 modern saints cannot fail to be in raptures at the terrific blows therein 

 dealt out, with all the powers of eloquence, on the devoted head of 

 their arch-enemy the stage. The Rev. (Brunswick theatre) Smith 

 could scarcely desire a more zealous champion against the many- 

 headed monster. By the way, it is not a little amusing to discover, 

 in the letter before us, an almost perfect coincidence, in point of style 

 and argument, between a Jesuit of the year 1759 and the " modern 

 Saints" of our day. In the first place, we have the same unqualified 

 begging of the question as it regards the Christian religion. Gresset 

 remarks " Je vous avouerai done que clepuis plusieurs annees j'avois 

 beaucoup a souffrir interieurement d'avoir travaille pour le theatre, 

 etant convaincu, comme je 1'ai toujours ete, des veritcs lumineuses de 

 notre religion, la seule," &c. * * * * " il s'clevoit souvent des nuages 

 dans mon ame sur un art si peu conforme a I' esprit du christianisme" 



then we find the usual portion of humble, pious vanity.- 



" Dieu a daigne eclairer entierement mes tenebres, et dissiper a mes 

 yeux tous les enchantements de Fart et du genie. Guide par la foi," 

 &c. &c. But, above all, we recognize^the sensitiveness to satire, the 

 same dread of ridicule, the same endeavours to turn its edge by being 

 the first to revile the antagonist from whom the attack is most natu- 

 rally to be expected. Thus, for the information of all whom it may 



M. M. No. 95. 4 B 



