OF LITERATURE. 



Hjf 



have eclipsed BUCHANAN,* had the latter not 

 lavished his extraordinary talents upon Latin 

 composition. 



Of the first negative effects (for so they must 

 be termed) of the reformed faith upon the IRISH 

 mind, we have already spoken. Nevertheless, a 

 taste for letters as well as science showed itself 

 among the protestants of Ireland previously to 

 the close of the seventeenth century. The name 

 of USHER f is sufficient to recall a season of high 

 distinction in biblical and antiquarian researches, 

 and of great promise as to the future progress of 

 his countrymen. 



The second period of FRENCH literature opens 

 with the reign of Francis I.f The ancient 

 classics had then become known : printing had 

 been introduced : the middle class, and the useful 

 arts which it is prone to cultivate, had risen to a 

 degree of eminence that was partly due to the 

 policy of Louis XI. To eradicate the barbarism 

 that still lingered in colleges and elsewhere, ajid 

 to propagate classical learning, were darling 

 aims with the magnificent Francis. After him, 

 Henry IV., who strove, with Sully's assistance, 

 to soothe by every potent anodyne the rankling 

 sores of religious hatred, was the next benefactor 

 to letters. Then were the treasures of the East, 

 in addition to those of Greece and Rome, made 

 familiar to French students ; and the modern 

 achievements of other European countries incited 

 and directed their literary ardour. In the suc- 

 ceeding reign, Cardinal Richelieu, of whom it is 

 enough to say that he was the real sovereign of 

 France, courted relief from state-intrigues, or 

 from the weight of the iron sceptre which he 

 wielded, in the prosecution of his early studies 

 and intercourse with men of genius. After a 

 certain period, devoted to Latin and theology, 

 the improvement of the French tongue and poetry 

 became his final and favourite object. For once 

 even the institution of an Academy, || on the 

 Delia Cruscan plan, was serviceable to so good 

 an end. The French Academy, while it humoured 

 its founder by persecuting Corneille, did at the 

 same time rally the first wits of the day around 

 the standard of taste, and thus ushered in that 

 brilliant era of Louis XIV.,^[ when the glory of 

 great ministers, great generals, and a great 

 master of the art of government, was surpassed 

 by that of the greatest writers to whom France 

 has given birth. 



The best evidence of the manner in which the 

 etudies patronised by Francis operated, and of 



A. D. 15061582. 

 t A. D. 15151547. 

 | A. D. 1635. 



t A. D. 15801656. 

 A. D. 15891610. 

 f Reigns A. D. 16431715. 



the follies with which they had to struggle, may 

 be gathered from the pages of RABELAIS.* Little 

 do they know of this consummate genius, who 

 dwell only on his riotous mirth ; though none ever 

 loved better than he a joke for the joke's sake, 

 or hunted it down, when started, with more per- 

 severing and obstreperous hilarity. Still less do 

 they know of him, who think of his obscenity or 

 absurdity alone, and cannot understand that much 

 of his coarsest filth, and much of his wildest non- 

 sense, are but the cover of bold truths, too 

 dangerous to dispense with such protection. If, 

 like Shakspeare's Edgar, he played the bedlamite, 

 like him it was for a noble cause. They should 

 think also of his vast erudition, of his shrewd 

 satire, of the hard blows he dealt the papacy. 

 Not without a high design was it ordained that 

 Rabelais should be born in the same year with 

 Martin Luther. Observe, too, how eloquent he 

 is, even with so rude an instrument as the French 

 prose of his time afforded. To raise that prose 

 to elegance, without robbing it of simplicity, was 

 a task reserved for AMTOT,f the translator of 

 Plutarch. Then MONTAIQNE,^ by dexterous man- 

 agement, compelled it to express, without for- 

 mality, the pith of his philosophy. The bombast 

 and affectation of some succeeding writers testify, 

 however, that more of their success was due to the 

 happy talent of these two individuals than to the 

 existing state of the language. But after Riche- 

 lieu's academy had promulgated its laws, their 

 goodness was exemplified in the purity of 

 PASCAL'S style ; and in the refined precision, 

 and the moving rhetoric, that flourished together 

 under Louis XIV. What names, among many 

 others, are those of ROCHEFOUCAULT and SB- 

 VIONE, of BOURDALOUE and BOSSUET ! What 

 anatomical demonstrations of the human heart ! 

 What mirror-like reflections of courts and of 

 the world ! Then, too, was the sententiousness 

 of LA BRUTERE ; the ingenuity of BATLE ; the 

 amenity of MALEBRANCHE ; the graciousness of 

 FENELON ! 



Who doubts that the poetry of the French, in 

 its fullest bloom, is prodigiously inferior to 

 their prose ? Hear Eichhorn upon the charac- 

 teristics of the former : " French poetry is 

 nothing but agreeable discourse, set off with 

 some becoming finery : and the aim of the French 

 poet is no other than by a nice choice of thoughts 

 and images, by the delicacy of his turns, by a 

 strict observance of propriety in expression, by 

 correct and harmonious versification, to instruct 

 and entertain. He thinks it no part of his duty 



* A. D. 14831553. 

 J A. D. 15331692. 



t Died A. D. 1593. 

 J Died A. D. 1662. 



