2S9 



SAGE, LE, ALAIN-RENE. 



SAID IBN BATRIC. 



240 



theatre. We find him in 1710 assisting his friend Frangois Petis 

 de la Croix, who was then beginning to publish his 'Mille et Un 

 Jours,' by correcting the language and improving the style of the 

 translation. 



Le Sage's next work was his novel of ' Gil Bias de Santillane : ' 

 2 vols. 12mo, were published in 1710, vol. 3 in 1724, and vol. 4 in 1735. 



Three different and indeed discordant charges have been made 

 against this work. 



The first charge was made by Bruzen de la Martiniere, and followed 

 up by Voltaire, who says (' Siecle de Louis XIV.') that the novel is 

 entirely taken from the ' Relaciones de la Vida del Escudero Don 

 Marco Obregon ' of Vincent EspineL This charge was soon found to 

 be as absurd as it was malignant, by merely looking into Espinel's 

 work, which presents no resemblance to the work of Le Sage either in 

 the narrative, the characters, or the dialogue. 



The next charge was made by the Jesuit Father Isla, who translated 

 ' Gil Bias ' into Spanish, and gave it the title of ' Gil Bias de Santillana 

 buelto d su Patria.' This work was completed by the Pere Isla at 

 Bologna in Italy, in 1781, but was not published till 1787 (Madrid, 

 4 vols. 4to). Isla died in 1783. He asserts that 'Gil Bias' was 

 originally written in Spanish in 1635; that the work was denounced 

 to the government of the day, which prohibited the printing of it, 

 and seized the manuscript; but that the author, having had time to 

 take a copy, fled with it to France, where he died in 1640 ; that this 

 manuscript having accidentally fallen into the hands of Le Sage, he 

 formed his ' Gil Bias ' out of it. It has been asserted that a manu- 

 script, apparently that which had been seized from the author, is still 

 in the Escurial, and that this manuscript is evidently not a translation 

 from the French work. Tina statement is disproved by the facts 

 that Isla translated Le Sage^e work, and not the original, that such 

 original has never been published, and that there is no evidence of its 

 having ever been seen. 



These two charges were examined and refuted by Le Comte Fra^ois 

 de Neufchateau, in an ' Examen de la Question de savoir si Le Sage 

 est Auteur de Gil Bias, ou s'il 1'a pris de 1'Espagnol/ 1819. 



Another charge was made by the Jesuit Llorente, in a small volume 

 published in 1822, ' Critical Observations on the Romance of Gil Bias,' 

 in which he asserts that it is taken from an unpublished work called 

 ' The Bachelor of Salamanca.' We have not the means of examining 

 into the particulars of this charge, but have no doubt that it is just as 

 unfounded as the two former. 



Le Sage had ceased, as we have said, to ^rite for the Theatre 

 Francais, but he had three sons and a daughter, for whom the means 

 of respectable subsistence must be procured. Le Sage's character was 

 one of independence, and he seems to have had a preference for the 

 fruits of honest industry at a time when place and pension were eagerly 

 and unscrupulously sought for by literary men in France. High as 

 his reputation had now become, he was not ashamed to employ about 

 six-and-tweuty years of his life 1713 to 1738 in writing small pieces 

 for the theatrical exhibitions at the fairs of St. Gerirain and St. Laurent. 

 Fuzelier, D'Orneval, Autrau, Piron, Lafont, and Fromaget were his 

 fellow-labourers. Upwards of one hundred pieces were produced in 

 the period above mentioned, of which Le Sage was the sole author of 

 twenty-four, and conjointly of many of the others. These pieces, with 

 hardly an exception, were excessively populai'. He published the 

 greater part of them, in conjunction with D'Orneval, in a collection 

 which they called the ' Theatre de la Foire,' 9 vols. 12mo, and 10 vols. 

 12mo. 



In the meantime however Le Sage was occupied with other compo- 

 sitions. His ' Roland 1'Amoureux,' an imitation rather than a version 

 of Bojardo's ' Orlando Innamorato,' was published in numbers from 

 1717 to 1721. He is said to have got rid of most of the exaggerations 

 of the Italian, but to have lost his fire. In 1732 appeared ' Les Adven- 

 tures de Guzman d'Alfarache,' a compressed imitation of ' La Vida y 

 Hechos del Picaro Guzman de Alfarache ' of Aleman, but superior to 

 the original, and which has entirely superseded the previous transla- 

 tions. In the same year he published ' Les Adventures de Robert dit 

 le Chevalier de Beauchesne,' 2 vols. 12mo. This work is not properly 

 a fiction, but a narrative of the extraordinary adventures of a pirate, 

 extracted from the memorials furnished by his widow. This was 

 followed in 1734 by the two first parts of 'L'Histoire d'Estevanille 

 Gonzales, surnommd le Garcon de bonne Humeur,' 2 vols. 12mo, 

 which Le Sage professes to be an imitation of ' El Escudero Obregon ' 

 before mentioned, but to which it bears little resemblance except in a 

 few circumstances of narrative which have been borrowed. In 1735 

 he published ' Une Jem-ne'e des Parques,' 12mo, a dialogue full of 

 philosophy and wit, the thoughts bold and original, and expressed 

 with great energy. This was also the year in which he completed 

 ' Gil Bias,' a work which he seems to have written especially for 

 posterity, and to which he devoted a large portion of the best period 

 of his life. In 1738, the year in which he produced the last of his 

 little operas, he published 'L* Bachelier de Salamanca,' 2 vols. 12mo, 

 and in 1740 'La Valise trouvde,' 12mo, anonymously, which consists 

 of about thirty letters, supposed to be written by different persons, on 

 satirical subjects. His last work was ' Un Mdlange amusant de Saillies 

 d'Esprit et de Traits Historiques les plus frappants,' 1 vol. 12mo. 



Le Sage appears to have passed his life of literary activity in great 

 domestic happiness, which was only disturbed by his eldest and his 



third son having become actors, a profession to which Le Sage had a 

 strong dislike. He had brought his eldest son up to the bar, but he 

 left it, and, under the assumed name of Montme"nil, acquired a high 

 reputation as an actor. Le Sage had ceased to have any intercourse 

 with him ; but the second son, who had obtained the preferment of a 

 canon at Boulogne-sur-Mer, contrived, by a manoeuvre, to get the old 

 man to see his son play a character in ' Turcaret,' with which he was 

 so much delighted that a reconciliation took place, and they afterwards 

 lived on terms of the greatest friendship. It is related that while 

 Montmdnil was at the theatre, Le Sage passed his evenings at a cafe" in 

 the neighbourhood of his residence, where the company used to assemble 

 round him, and to get upon chairs and tables to listen to "the old man 

 eloquent." The death however of this favourite son, in September 

 1743, at the age of forty-eight, was a severe blow for him. 



At the end of 1743 he retired to Boulogne, with his wife and 

 daughter, in order to be near his son the canon, and here he died 

 November 17, 1747. His wife survived till 1752 : both of them died 

 at the age of eighty. 



The great work of Le Sage is his ' Gil Bias?,' perhaps of its kind the 

 first of all novels, and one that has the rare merit of always being read 

 with new pleasure. This superiority is not owing to the interest of 

 the story, for when a story is well known a novel loses that part of its 

 attraction, and its permanent success must depend on other qualities. 

 When a person has finished a chapter of ' Gil Bias," he will generally 

 have nearly equal pleasure in beginning to read it over again ; and the 

 reason is this ' Gil Bias ' is a series of pictures of human life under all 

 its aspects. The various adventures of Gil Bias concern us little ; we 

 only recollect him because of the persons with whom through him we 

 become acquainted. We neither like him nor dislike him ; we cer- 

 tainly do not admire or re-npect him. He introduces us to a great 

 variety of personages of all classes and conditions, whose failings and 

 vices are painted in enduring colours. Though somewhat of the 

 interest of the novel arises from the great variety of adventures, and 

 the delineation of manners peculiar to Spain, it is as a gallery of por- 

 traits that the work will always maintain its interest. It is true that 

 the author generally gives us the portraits of rogues or fools, or of 

 persons whose distinguishing trait is some weakness of character ; but 

 it is also true that the portraits are likenesses, and represent a large 

 class. As in all great works of the kind, the author is never obtruded 

 on us. We think not of the wonderful art which has produced what 

 appears to be completely simple and natural. It would be difficult to 

 find an idle or unmeaning phrase in the whole book at least in the 

 first two volumes, which in many respects are the best. The ex- 

 pression is suited, to the thought with perfect propriety; there is 

 nothing superfluous, and nothing wanted in the way of explanation. 

 While we admire the innumerable delicate touches which make up the 

 whole of a picture, we find them blended in one harmonious whole, to 

 which each part bears its just proportion ; a merit which arises from 

 the author's clear perception of what was required for the delineation 

 of each character, and the exquisite taste which guided him to the 

 adoption of a pure, simple, and nervous style of expression. A great 

 wofrk or a great intellectual power of any kind is always the fruit of 

 mature years. Le Sage, as already observed, published the first two 

 volumes of ' Gil Bias' in 1715, when he was forty-seven years of age, 

 and the fourth and last in 1735, when he had attained his sixty-seventh 

 year. 



The greater part of the works of Le Sage were collected and pub- 

 lished under the title of ' OZuvres Choisies de Le Sage,' 15 vols. 8vo, 

 Paris, 1783, and 16 vols. 8vo, 1810. Most of his novels have been 

 frequently reprinted, but especially ' Gil Bias," which has appeared in 

 all forms, from the most splendid typography and embellishments to 

 the humblest. It has been translated into all the languages of Europe : 

 the English translation is by Dr. Smollett. ' Le Diablo Boiteux ' is 

 translated into English under the title of ' The Devil on Two Sticks ; ' 

 and we have also translations of the ' Bachelor of Salamanca,' and of 

 most of the other novels. 



SAID IBN BATRIC, the name of a person more commonly known 

 by the appellation of EUTYCHIUS (Evrvxtos, Arabice EFTISHIOUS), which 

 signifies ' Happy ' in Greek, as ' Said ' does in Arabic. He was born 

 A.H. 263 (A.D. 875), at Fostat in Egypt, and was originally brought up 

 as a physician ; and we are told by Ibn Abi Osaibiah ('Oioun Al-Ambd 

 fi Tabaca"t Al-AtebbaY 'Fontes Relationum De Claesibus Medicorum,' 

 cap. 14, sec. 10) that he excelled both in the theory and practice of 

 that profession, and that he composed a work on the subject of 

 medicine. But it is as an historian that he is best known, and as one 

 of the Melchite patriarchs of Alexander, to which dignity he was 

 raised A.H. 321 (A.D. 933), and assumed upon the occasion the name of 

 Eutychius. He died A.H. 328 (A.D. 940). His principal work is a 

 general history of the world, from the creation to his own time, written 

 in Arabic, and edited by Pocock, 2 vols. 4to, Oxou, 1656, Arab, and 

 Lat., with the title ' Nadhm Al-Jausihir : Contextio Gemmarum, sive 

 Eutychii Patriarchs Alexandrini Aunales ' (both the title and the date 

 however vary very much in different copies : see Nicoll and Pusey, 

 ' Catal. MSS. Arab. Bodl. Biblioth.,' pp. 47 and 501). This is styled 

 by Gibbon, chap. 51, note m., " a pompous edition of an indifferent 

 author, translated by Pocock to gratify the Presbyterian prejudices of 

 his friend Selden," who defrayed the expense of the work, and promised 

 to add some annotations, which however his death in 1654 prevented 



