“ 
702 
ruit, which this fcientific tree of good 
and evil has produced. That which re- 
trieves the honor of letters moft is, that 
our academies conftantly execute with 
energy the important concerns govern- 
ment has committed to their care, and 
ftrugele, but with that flow circum{pection 
which becomes their dignity, againit thefe 
anti-republicans who would wiih to de- 
grade them: therefore the good which 
they have done belongs to them as a body ; 
and the evil to which they may have given 
origin, is attributable only to that fceptre 
of iron which prefided over their infancy.. 
After having examined the literary and 
philofophical focieties of Europe with the 
double torch of criticif{m and liberality, I 
thall difcufs the merits of the Inftitute it- 
felf; I fhall bring into full difplay the 
great advantages refulting to government, 
trom the union round one focus, of the 
fcattered members of the three academies; 
and fhall venture, with a philofophical 
boldnefs, to. hint at thofe regulations, 
which are {till wanting to that celebrated 
body, to raife it to its proper eminence, 
and to make its members lefs the repre- 
fentatives of a literary people, than of 
the general republic of letters. 
This treatife on the literary focieties of 
ll ages and all nations, fo extended. in 
ts original intention, yet neceflarily con- 
ned in its execution, cannot be confidered 
in any other light but as the colonnade of 
a.grand edifice, which it is my intention 
to rear to the honor of literature. 
The great work, of which this intro- 
duction may. be confidered only as an out- 
line, is the hiftory of literature fince that 
epocha, when the clouds which feemed to 
hang over it began to difperfe, that is, 
fince the days ot Marcus Aurelius to the 
beginning of the French Republic. 
Such a work would be unworthy the 
Inftitute and all ifucceeding ages, unlefs 
it embraced thefe two diltinét objets: the 
rational hiftory of literature, and that of 
jiterary men. 
‘The jhiftory of literature, like a table 
of contents, mult be looked upon as an 
aggregate: It muft prefent at one glance 
that partof the world which it illuminates, 
and that which it configns to darknefs and 
fiupidity. It is the cloudy pillar of 
Moies,—half-enlightened ;. which conduét- 
ed by its bright fide the Hraelitifh army 
through the red fea, and {cattered darknets 
round the hoft of Pharaoh. 
The hiftory of literary men is more 
fimple; it only requires a judicious felec- 
tion of faéts, refined by criticif{m, and 
tied together by the invifible bond of me. 
belle 03 
th 
De Sales’ Philojophical Sketch of the Progrefs of Literature. [O&. 
thod: faéts are the foul of necrology; 
they prevent the hiftory of art from being 
loft in the vortex of oratorical declama- 
tion, and, what is much more danger- 
ous, faves it from the corruption and 
degeweracy of infipid panegyric. 
The idea of fetting off with the hiftory 
of literature and of the literati, is perhaps 
new. Brucker, Gouget, Condorcet, &c. 
have treated of the firft; Bayle, and a 
crowd of encyclopzdian authors have only 
attempted at the fecond: in the mean time 
it is very evident, that every philofophical 
intention goes wnanfwered, unlefs the hif- 
tory of art is illuminated by that of the 
artift,—unlefs we give to the fabric of li- 
terature an architeétural individuality, as 
well as totality. 
It is poffrble that the difficulty of unit. 
ing thefe two objects, without injury from 
their imterference with each other, pre- 
vented thofe celebrated men who have 
written before me, from proceeding in the 
way I propofe; by doimg which, they 
would have obviated the neceflity of my 
endeavors. Robertfon has preceded his 
indifferent Life of Charles the Fifth by a 
pompous introduction, in which he gives 
an out-line of our laws, and manners, but 
particularly of our literature. HH one had 
propofed to him, from time to time to re- 
heve our eyes from the contemplation of 
this brilliant mafs of hiftery, by placing 
before us thofe very literati who ferve as 
the elements of his original ideas, it is 
moft likely he would have refufed to de- 
fcend from his elevated walk to the petit 
details of minute necrology. 4 
But I fhould have-anfwered Robertfon ; 
Tt is not defcending, to write in a philo- 
fophical manner the lives of men of letters, 
and to expofe to pablic view thofe docu- 
ments by. which they decide on the merits. 
of any particular enlightened age. Pinighit 
have added, that the fublime hiforian who 
rote the reigns of ‘Tiberius and Nero, 
thought it no degradation to repofe his. 
pencil on the Life of Agricola, and would 
have thought perhaps the compromife with 
glory lefs, to have become the biographer 
of Tibullus, of Terence, or.of Virgil. 
Iam perluaded, the prevailing motive 
which deters. phnlofophers from undertak- 
ing that grand arrangement of hiftory 
which I propole, is, that they. think, the 
firit part of the hiftory of literature woud 
be embarraffed in its execution, by. the 
acceffory part, which is a_ philofophical 
account of the innumerable phalaux of 
men of letters. 
But this pretext, at the bottom is it 
not ilufery? Zs there not truly a principal 
and 
