Letters concerning the English Nation/Letter XXIV
THE English had an Academy of Sciences many Years before us, but then it is not under such prudent Regulations as ours, the only Reason of which very possibly is, because it was founded before the Academy of Paris; for had it been founded after, it would very probably have adopted some of the sage Laws of the former, and improv'd upon others.
Two Things, and those the most essential to Man, are wanting in the Royal Society of London, I mean Rewards and Laws. A Seat in the Academy at Paris is a small, but secure Fortune to a Geometrician or a Chymist; but this is so far from being the Case at London, that the several Members of the Royal Society are at a continual, tho' indeed small Expence. Any Man in England who declares himself a Lover of the Mathematicks and natural Philosophy, and expresses an Inclination to be a Member of the Royal Society, is immediately elected into it[1]. But in France 'tis not enough that a Man who aspires to the Honour of being a Member of the Academy, and of receiving the Royal Stipend, has a love for the Sciences; he must at the same Time be deeply skill'd in them; and is oblig'd to dispute the Seat with Competitors who are so much the more formidable as they are fir'd by a Principle of Glory, by Interest, by the Difficulty it self, and by that Inflexibility of Mind, which is generally found in those who devote themselves to that pertinacious Study, the Mathematicks.
The Academy of Sciences is prudently confin'd to the Study of Nature, and, indeed, this is a Field spacious enough for fifty or threescore Persons to range in. That of London mixes indiscrimately Literature with Physicks: But methinks the founding an Academy merely for the polite Arts is more judicious, as it prevents Confusion, and the joining, in some Measure, of Heterogeneals, such as a Dissertation on the Head-dresses of the Roman Ladies with an hundred or more new Curves.
As there is wery little Order and Regularity in the Royal Society, and not the least Encouragement; and that the Academy of Paris is on a quite different Foot, 'tis no wonder that our Transactions are drawn up in a more just and beautiful Manner than those of the English. Soldiers who are under a regular Discipline, and besides well paid, must necessarily, at last, perform more glorious Atchievements than others who are mere Voluntiers. It must indeed be confess'd that the Royal Society boast their Newton, but then he did not owe his Knowledge and Discoveries to that Body; so far from it, that the latter were intelligible to very few of his Fellow-Members. A Genius like that of Sir Isaac belong'd to all the Academies in the World, because all had a thousand Things to learn of him.
The celebrated Dean Swift form'd a Design, in the latter End of the late Queen's Reign, to found an Academy for the English Tongue upon the Model of that of the French. This Project was promoted by the late Earl of Oxford, Lord High Treasurer, and much more by the Lord Bolingbroke, Secretary of State, who had the happy Talent of Speaking without Premeditation in the Parliament-house with as much Purity as Dean Swift writ in his Closet, and who would have been the Ornament and Protector of that Academy. Those only wou'd have been chosen Members of it, whose Works will last as long as the English Tongue, such as Dean Swift, Mr. Prior, whom we saw here invested with a publick Character, and whose Fame in England is equal to that of La Fontaine in France; Mr. Pope the English Boileau, Mr. Congreve who may be call'd their Moliere, and several other eminent Persons whose Names I have forgot; all these would have rais'd the Glory of that Body to a great Height even in it's Infancy. But Queen Anne being snatch'd suddenly from the World, the Whigs were resolv'd to ruin the Protectors of the intended Academy, a Circumstance that was of the most fatal Consquence to polite Literature. The Members of this Academy would have had a very great Advantage over those who first form'd that of the French, for Swift, Prior, Congreve, Dryden, Pope, Addison, &c. had fix'd the English Tongue by their Writings; whereas Chapelain, Colletet, Cassaigne, Faret, Perrin, Cotin, our first Academicians, were a Disgrace to their Country; and so much Ridicule is now attach'd to their very Names, that if an Author of some Genius in this Age had the Misfortune to be call'd Chapelain or Cotin, he would be under a Necessity of changing it.
One Circumstance, to which the English Academy should especially have attended, is, to have prescrib'd to themselves Occupations of a quite different kind from those with which our Academicians amuse themselves. A Wit of this Country ask'd me for the Memoirs of the French Academy. I answer'd, they have no Memoirs, but have printed threescore or fourscore Volumes in Quarto of Compliments. The Gentleman perus'd one or two of 'em, but without being able to understand the Style in which they were written, tho' he understood all our good Authors perfectly. All, says he, I see in these elegant Discourses is, that the Member elect having assur'd the Audience that his Predecessor was a great Man, that Cardinal Richelieu was a very great Man, that the Chancellor Seguier was a pretty great Man, that Lewis the Fourteenth was a more than great Man; the Director answers in the very same Strain, and adds, that the Member elect may also be a sort of great Man, and that himself, in Quality of Director, must also have some Share in this Greatness.
The Cause why all these academical Discourses have unhappily done so little Honour to this Body is evident enough. Vitium est temporis potiùs quam hominis. (The Fault is owing to the Age rather than to particular Persons.) It grew up insensibly into a Custom for every Academician to repeat these Elogiums at his Reception; 'twas laid down as a kind of Law, that the Publick should be indulg'd from Time to Time the fallen Satisfaction of yawning over these Productions. If the Reason should afterwards be sought, why the greatest Genius's who have been incorporated into that Body have sometimes made the worst Speeches; I answer , that 'tis wholly owing to a strong Propension, the Gentlemen in Question had to shine, and to display a thread-bare, worn-out Subject in a new and uncommon Light. The Necessity of saying something, the Perplexity of having nothing to say, and a Desire of being witty, are three Circumstances which alone are capable of making even the greatest Writer ridiculous. These Gentlemen, not being able to strike out any new Thoughts, hunted after a new Play of Words, and deliver'd themselves without thinking at all; in like Manner as People who should seem to chew with great Eagerness, and make as tho' they were eating, at the same Time that they were just starv'd.
'Tis a Law in the French Academy, to publish all those Discourses by which only they are known, but they should rather make a Law never to print any of them.
But the Academy of the Belles Lettres have a more prudent and more useful Object, which is, to present the Publick with a Collection of Transactions that abound with curious Researches and Critiques. These Transactions are already esteem'd by Foreigners; and it were only to be wish'd, that some Subjects in them had been more thoroughly examin'd, and that others had not been treated at all. As for Instance, we should have been very well satisfied, had they omitted I know not what Dissertation on the Prerogative of the Right Hand over the Left; and some others, which tho' not publish'd under so ridiculous a Title, are yet written on Subjects that are almost as frivolous and silly.
The Academy of Sciences, in such of their Researches as are of a more difficult kind and a more sensible Use, embrace the Knowledge of Nature and the Improvements of the Arts. We may presume that such profound, such uninterrupted Pursuits as these, such exact Calculations, such refin'd Discoveries, such extensive and exalted Views, will, at last, produce something that may prove of Advantage to the Universe. Hitherto, as we have observ'd together, the most useful Discoveries have been made in the most barbarous Times. One wou'd conclude, that the Business of the most enlightned Ages and the most learned Bodies, is, to argue and debate on Things which were invented by ignorant People. We know exactly the Angle which the Sail of a Ship is to make with the Keel, in order to its sailing better; and yet Columbus discover'd America, without having the least Idea of the Property of this Angle: However I am far from inferring from hence, that we are to confine our selves merely to a blind Practice, but happy it were, wou'd Naturalists and Geometricians unite, as much as possible, the Practice with the Theory.
Strange, but so it is, that those Things which reflect the greatest Honour on the human Mind, are frequently of the least Benefit to it! A Man who understands the four Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic, aided by a little good Sense, shall amass prodigious Wealth, in Trade, shall become, a Sir Peter Delmé a Sir Richard Hopkins, a Sir Gilbert Heathcot, whilst a poor Algebraist spends his whole Life, in searching for astonishing Properties and Relations in Numbers, which at the same time are of no manner of Use, and will not acquaint him with the Nature of Exchanges. This is very nearly the Case with most of the Arts; there is a certain Point, beyond which, all Researches serve to no other Purpose, than merely to delight an inquisitive Mind. Those ingenious and useless Truths may be compar'd to Stars, which, by being plac'd at too great a Distance, cannot afford us the least Light.
With regard to the French Academy, how great a Service would they do to Literature, to the Language, and the Nation, if, instead of publishing a set of Compliments annually, they would give us new Editions of the valuable Works written in the Age of Lewis the Fourteenth, purged from the several Errors of Diction which are crept into them. There are many of these Errors in Corneille and Moliere, but those in La Fontaine are very numerous. Such as could not be corrected, might at least be pointed out. By this Means, as all the Europeans read those Works, they would teach them our Language in its utmost Purity, which, by that Means, would be fix'd to a lasting Standard; and valuable French Books being then printed at the King's Expence, would prove one of the most glorious Monuments the Nation could boast. I have been told that Boileau formerly made this Proposal, and that it has since been revived by a [2]Gentleman eminent for his Genius, his fine Sense, and just Taste for Criticism; but this Thought has met with the Fate of many other useful Projects, of being applauded and neglected.
F I N I S.
- ↑ The Reader will call to Mind that these Letters were written about 1728 or 30, since which Time the Names of the several Candidates are, by a Law of the Royal Society, posted up in it, in order that a Choice may be made of such Persons only as are qualified to be Members. The celebrated Mr. de Fontenelle had the Honour to pass thro' this Ordeal.
- ↑ L'Abbé de Rothelin of the French Academy.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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