Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/707

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CRITICISM.] FRANCE 671 before the Revolution the Gazette de France was in the hands of Suard, a man who was nothing if not a literary critic. Perhaps, however, the most remarkable contribution of the century to criticism of the periodical kind was the Feuillcs de Grimm, a circular sent for many years by the comrade of Diderot and Rousseau to the German courts, and containing a compte rendu of the ways and works of Paris, literary and artistic as well as social. These Leaves not only include much excellent literary criticism by Diderot, but also gave occasion to the incomparable salons or accounts of the exhibition of pictures from the same hand, essays which founded the art of picture criticism, and which have hardly been surpassed since. The prize competitions of the Academy were also a considerable stim ulus to literary criticism, though the prevailing taste in such compositions rather inclined to elegant themes than to careful studies or analyses. Larger works on the arts in general or on special divisions of them were not wanting, as, for instance, that of Dubos before alluded to, and those of the Pere Bouhours, the Abbe Trublet, and the Abbe" Terrasson, the fissai stir la Peinlnreot Diderot, and others. Critically annotated editions of the great French writers also came into fashion, and were no longer written by mere pedants. Of these Voltaire s edition of Corneille was the most remarkable, and his annotations, united separately under the title of Commentaire sur Corneille, form not the least important portion of his works. Even older writers, looked down upon though they were by the general taste of the day, received a share of this critical interest. In the earlier portion of the century Lenglet-Dufresnoy and La Monnoye devoted their attention to Rabelais, Regnier, Villon, Marot, and others. Barbazan (1696-1774) and Le Grand d Aussy (1737-1800) gathered and brought into notice the long scattered and unknown rather than neglected fabliaux of the Middle Ages. Even the chansons de gestes attracted the notice of the Comte de Caylus (1692-1765) and the Comte de Tressan (1705-1785). The latter, in his Bibliotheque des Romans, worked up a large number of ^the old epics into a form suited to the taste of the century. In his hands they became lively tales of the kind suited to readers of Voltaire and Crebillon. -But in this travestied form they had considerable influence both in France and abroad Wieland, for instance writing his Oberon merely from a knowledge, and very soon after the appearance, of Tressan s version of Huon de Bordeaux. By these publica tions attention was at least called to early French literature, and when it had been once called, a more serious and ap preciative study became merely a matter of time. The style of much of the literary criticism of the close of this period was indeed deplorable enough. Laharpe (1739- 1803), who though a little later in time as to most of his critical productions is perhaps its most representative figure, shows criticism in one of its worst forms. He has all the defects of Malherbe and Boileau, with few of their merits and none of their excuses. The critic specially abhorred by Sterne, who looked only at the stop-watch, was a kind of prophecy of Laharpe; but such a writer is a natural enough expression of an expiring principle. The year after the death of Laharpe Sainte-Beuve was born. l&th Century Savants. In science and general erudition the 18th century in France was at first much occupied with the mathematical studies for which the French genius is so peculiarly adapted, which the great discoveries of Descartes had made possible and popular, and which those of his supplanter Newton only made more popular still. Vol taire took to himself the credit which he fairly deserves of first introducing the Newtonian system into France, and it was soon widely popular even ladies devoting them selves to the exposition of mathematical subjects, as in the case of the Marquise du Chatelet. Many of the greatest mathematicians of the age, such as De Moivre and Laplace, were French by birth, while others like Euler belonged to French-speaking races, and wrote in French. The physical sciences were also ardently cultivated, the impulse to them being given partly by the generally materialistic tendency of the age, partly by the Newtonian system, and partly also by the extended knowledge of the world provided by the circumnavigatory voyage of Bougainville (1729-1811), and other travels. Maupertuis (1698-1759) and La Condamine (1701-1774) made long journeys for scientific purposes, and duly recorded their experiences. The former, a mathema tician and physicist of some ability but more oddity, is chiefly known to literature by the ridicule of Voltaire in the Diatribe du Docteur Akakia. D Alembert (1713-1783), a great mathematician and a writer of considerable though rather academic excellence, is principally known from his connexion with and introduction to the Encycloi>edie, of which more presently. Chemistry was also assiduously cultivated, the Baron d Holbach, among others, being a de votee thereof, and helping to advance the science to the point where, at the conclusion of the century, it was illus trated by Berthollet and Lavoisier During all this devo tion to science in its modern acceptation, the older and more literary forms of erudition were not neglected, especially by the illustrious Benedictines of the abbey of St Maur. Calmet (1672-1757), the author of the well- known Dictionary of the Bible, belonged to this order, and to them also (in particular to Dom Rivet) was due the beginning of the immense Histoire Litteraire de la France, a work interrupted by the Revolution and long suspended, but for the last quarter of a century diligently continued. Of less orthodox names distinguished for erudition, Frdret (1688-1749), secretary of the Academy, is perhaps the most remarkable. But in the consideration of the science and learning in the 18th century from a literary point of view, there is one name and one book which require particular and, in the case of the book, somewhat extended mention. The man is Buffon ( 1 747-1 780), the book the Encyclopedic. The Buflbn. immense Natural History of Buffon, though not entirely his own, is a remarkable monument of the union of scientific tastes with literary ability. As has happened in many simi lar instances, there is in parts more literature than science to be found in it ; and from the point of view of the latter, Buffon was far too careless in observation and far too solicit ous of perfection of style and grandiosity of view. The style of Buffon has sometimes been made the subject of the highest eulogy, and it is at its best admirable ; but one still feels in it the fault of all serious French prose in this cen tury before Rousseau, the presence, that is to say, of an artificial spirit rather than of natural variety and power. The Encyclopedic, unquestionably on the whole the most import- The Buoy ant French literary production of the century, if we except clopedie. the works of Rousseau and Voltaire, was conducted for a time by Diderot and D Alembert, afterwards by Diderot alone. It numbered among its contributors almost every Frenchman of eminence in letters. It is often spoken of as if, under the guise of an encyclopa}dia, it had been merely a plaidoyer against religion, but this is entirely erroneous. Whatever anti-ecclesiastical bent some of the articles may have, the book as a whole is simply what it professes to be, a dictionary, that is to say, not merely an historical and cri tical lexicon, like those of Bayleand Moreri (indeed, history and biography were nominally excluded), but a dictionary of arts, sciences, trades, and technical terms. Diderot himself had perhaps the greatest faculty of any man that ever lived for the literary treatment in a workman-like manner of the most heterogeneous and in some cases rebellious subjects ; and his untiring labour, not merely in writing original articles, but in editing the contributions of others, deter mined the character of the whole work. There is no doubt