636 
“ Pardon me this burst of enthusiasm. 
T return to you, my dear friend: you do 
not love politics; in the arts, you pretend 
not to be a connoiseur; literature alone 
interests you, and it is relative to it that 
I am now about to write to you. 
“« The present, is scarcely a favourable 
moment of literature. The French live 
on their past glory,in the same manner that 
& merchant without any money lives on 
his credit. Debauchery, which ever 
since the time of the Regency, occupied 
the place of gallantry, the precious rem- 
nant of the days of chivalry, has equally 
depraved the taste and the morals. The 
ladies have become judges of literature, 
and placed themselves on the throne of 
criticism; formed as they are, to seize the 
delicate shades of sentiment, and decide 
on sallies of wit, they are not equally cal- 
culated to appreciate profound medita- 
tion, and the burning energy of real elo- 
quence. What is grand therefore, is no 
longer known; and what is pretty, is alone 
culuvated. ‘The dissipated lives of men 
of letters bereaves them of the time ne- 
cessary for great works, while it deprives 
them of that peculiar turn of mind, which 
conveys acolour of originality to their 
writings. 
“The writers of the last age, closely fol- 
lowing the steps of the ancients, have 
seized those simple and striking features, 
which characterise true beauty; their de- 
scendants have wisned to excel them, but 
they have fallen into turgidity and exag- 
geration. 
“©The exact sciences, and especially 
hysics, have annihilated poetry; general 
leas have been substituted in the place 
ot the pleasing fictions of antiquity; 
abstractions instead of images, maxims 
and sentences instead of a picture of the 
passions: such is the character of the 
poems which we behold born one day, in 
order to die the next. Alli these causes 
have produced the decadency of litera- 
ture. Who knows what may be the in- 
fluence of the approaching revolution -on 
the republic of letters? We have con- 
stantly perceived, that the agitation of 
political convulsions has always been fol- 
lowed by great success in the arts and 
sciences. 
«“ There are a great number of literary 
men in this capital, who live, and .will 
perhaps ever remain unknown, notwith- 
standing this efforts at celebrity. Many 
of the poets who compose verses in des- 
pite of Apollo, stand a chance of dying 
from hunger, while they in their turn 
make their readers die from mere ennui: 
Retrospect of French Eaterature—Miscellanies. - 
this however, is a necessary effect, arising 
from the progress of knowledge, and the 
success of genius: one good work pro- 
duces a thousand monsters in imitation of 
it. Out of ten theatrical pieces brought 
forward annually at the Théatre Francois, 
there are not two that have any thing hke 
a complete success. The vanity of these 
men is intolerable! I listened to the tra- 
gedy of one, the plot of which was found- 
ed on the massacre of St. Barthulomew, 
and really thought it passable, until the 
author hinted to me how superior it was 
to that of Berenice. 
“< T have formed an acquaintance with 
the Abbé* Delille, on whom I wait at 
nine o’clock in the moralng, as it is ne-, 
cessary to catch him on his rising from 
bed ; for he has no sooner composed five 
or six verses, than he jumps into his cab- 
riolet, and drives about during the whole 
day. He is a little frisky man, whose 
eyes sparkle with wit and fire. He is in 
€ continual agitation ; ‘lively, roguish, and 
at home the best creature in the world. 
T had already heard him recite some mor- 
sels of his Poem on the Imagination at 
the Academy, and he has since favoured 
me with a variety of passages. It is wit 
rather than imagination that has guided 
his pencil, This new poem contains 
more beauties than that called‘ Les Jar- 
dins, but they are beauties of the same 
kind. A soft melancholy is spread over 
both these compositions, and each of 
them is strictly consonant with moral pro- 
priety. Ashe does not commit any of his 
verses to paper, but carries them all in 
his head, they are thought to be extem- 
poraneous; the fire darting from his eye, 
the expression of his countenance, and 
his quick and apposite movements, while 
he recites them, at once announce and 
produce enthusiasm, sothat one is tempt- 
ed to exclaim, Deus, ecce Deus! 
He tells me that he adores the coun- 
try, and is passionately addicted to soli- 
tude ; yet he is constantly in the world. 
A single anecdote will fully depict his 
malignity. When his Georgies were pub- 
lished, a sorry writer, called Rosset, hap- 
pened to compose a poem on agriculture, 
in which he mentioned Delille with 
scorn. -It was at that time the fashion to 
make cabriolets out of pasteboard. The 
Abbé accordingly employed the works of 
his rival, which were rotting at his book- 
seller’s, and while driving along in his 
* M.Delille is since dead. His nephew, 
who is at once a poet and soldier, is the au- 
thor of the celebrated Marsei/lois March. 
carriage, 
— 
