Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/418

 406 FRANCE (LANGUAGE AND LITEEATUEE) satility enabled him to treat successfully almost all branches of literature; as a tragic poet he takes rank next to Corneille and Racine ; his tragedies, Merope, Zaire, Mahomet, Alzire, &c., combine pathos with dramatic interest and liveliness of style ; his Discours sur I'homme and other philosophical poems are to be classed with the first of their kind ; while his miscella- neous effusions, as numerous as they are spright- ly, raise him in this sphere above any other French poet. The perspicuity of his mind ap- pears in his Dictionnaire philosophique and other philosophical works ; and his wit in his novels, which, notwithstanding their licentious- ness, are models of their kind. His various books on history, Charles XIL, Le siecle de Louis XIV., ISEssai sur les mceurs des nations, are still read with profit and pleasure ; while his bulky correspondence is scarcely excelled by that of Mme. de Sevigne. If Voltaire may be said to have been the master of minds, J. J. Rousseau was the master of souls. His passionate eloquence conquered the .coldest and even the most prejudiced ; eloquence indeed is the mainspring of all his works. As a writer of impassioned prose he has no superior, scarce- ly an equal, among the most perfect of his rivals. His first essay, Discours centre les sciences et les arts, which he wrote when 38 years of age, was a declaration of war against civilization ; the second, Origine de Vinegalite parmi les hommes, was an attack upon the existing social order. In his fimile he drew a visionary plan of education, and in his Contrat social pro- claimed the principles of popular sovereignty and universal suffrage. His Nbuvelle Helolse is a novel in which love and paradox are blended together, while his Confessions excite a mixed feeling of sympathy and disgust. Buffon occu- pied a less agitated sphere, devoting his labors to the description of nature; and his great Histoire naturelle is a literary masterpiece, though its scientific reputation has passed away. Diderot, a passionate and incorrect writer, and D'Alembert, a great geometer, founded the Encylopedie, a vast review of human knowl- edge, often threatening to social order, always hostile to religion. Helve~tius in his treatise De Vesprit, D'Holbach in his Systeme de la nature, Lamettrie in his Homme-machine, and Raynal in his Histoire philosophique des deux Indes, far exceeded the doctrines of the ency- clopaedists ; while other writers, such as Vau- venargues, Fontenelle, whose style is yet ad- mired for its clearness and elegance, Condil- lac, a most perspicuous analytic philosopher, Mably, a bold publicist, and Condorcet, who wrote afterward an Esquisse des progres de Vesprit humain, mostly kept on the side of moderation. The various branches of litera- ture connected with philosophy were the most productive ; but the others were far from be- ing neglected, as appears from the following names, which we take almost at random : Cre- billon and Ducis, both tragic poets, appeal- ing, the former to terror, the latter to sym- pathy; Marivaux, whose novels and comedies were very famous in their day, and some of whose plays still keep the stage ; Gilbert, a sat- irist of uncommon power ; Le Sage, the author of Gil Bias, the most celebrated novel of the age, and of Turcaret, perhaps the best comedy next to those of Moliere ; Beaumarchais, the author of hsBarbier de Seville; Bernardin de St. Pierre, the author of Paul et Virginie ; La Harpe, whose Cours de litterature was once popular ; Duclos, Mile. Delaunay, and Saint-Simon, whose Memoires gained a de- served celebrity; Barthelemy, who wrote the Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grece ; Rulhiere, a historical essayist; Prevost, who produced the novel of Manon Lescaut ; Mar- montel, the author of Belisaire; Gresset, the author of Vert- Vert ; and J. B. Rousseau and Lebrun, the lyric poets. The age was not poeti- cal ; poetry had degenerated into verse making, and the verse makers, in imitation of Thomson's " Seasons," indulged in all sorts of descrip- tive pieces. Delille, the most skilful of them, gained a reputation by various didactic po- ems, and by translating, not without a certain degree of accuracy, the "Georgics" of Vir- gil. Florian wrote fables which rank next to those of La Fontaine, and his novels are yet popular. Toward the end of the century imita- tion was the order of the day, and the only poet who was gifted with originality, Andre Chenier, died on the scaffold before his best effusions were published. Neither the revolu- tion nor the empire was favorable to literature. Some tragedies after the classical pattern, among which those of Joseph Chenier may be mentioned, a few light comedies, besides novels and short poems, were not sufficient to relieve the general dulness. Mine, de Stael and Cha- teaubriand were the forerunners of a revival ; but the improvement was perhaps owing less to the Corinne and UAllemagne of the former, Le genie du Christianisme and Les martyrs of the latter, than to the influence upon the pub- lic taste of the masterpieces of English and German literature, which found more and more admirers in France. The romantic school now inaugurated anew era. Through the exertions of many young and original writers new life was infused into nearly every branch of lite- rature, poetry, history, philosophy, and the drama. An animated controversy was main- tained in pamphlets and periodicals, between the supporters of reform and the adherents of the classical school ; but the contest reached its utmost fury when Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Frederic Soulie, and others produced on the stage dramas framed according to their own ideas of the Shakespear- ian style. The performances of these dramas were indeed regular battles between the oppo- sing literary parties ; and it was only at the end of several years that the younger body of com- batants came out victorious. Among the plays thus received with both enthusiasm and cen- sure, Henri III. et sa cour, Antony, Teresa,