Calprenade and Scuderi, which were read for the amusement of the fair sex of France during the long reign of Louis XIV, and were supposed to contain the only legitimate language of love and gallantry. In this reign they encountered the satire of Molière and Boileau. A similar disorder, spreading into private society, formed the ground of the affected dialogue of the Précieuses, as they were styled, who formed the coterie of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and afforded Molière matter for his admirable comedy, Les Précieuses Ridicules. In England, the humour does not seem to have long survived the accession of James I.
The author had the vanity to think that a character, whose peculiarities should turn on extravagances which were once universally fashionable, might be read in a fictitious story with a good chance of affording amusement to the existing generation, who, fond as they are of looking back on the actions and manners of their ancestors, might be also supposed to be sensible of their absurdities. He must fairly acknowledge that he was disappointed, and that the Euphuist, far from being accounted a well-drawn and humorous character of the period, was condemned as unnatural and absurd.
It would be easy to account for this failure by supposing the defect to arise from the author's want of skill, and, probably, many readers may not be inclined to look further. But as the author himself can scarcely be supposed willing to acquiesce in tliis final cause, if any other can be alleged, he has been led to suspect that, contrary to what he originally supposed, his subject was injudiciously chosen, in which, and not in his mode of treating it, lay the source of the want of success.
The manners of a rude people are always founded on nature, and therefore the feelings of a more polished generation immediately sympathize with them. We need no numerous notes, no antiquarian dissertations, to enable the most ignorant to recognize the sentiments and diction of the characters of Homer; we have but, as Lear says, to strip off our lendings—to set aside the factitious principles and adornments which we have received from our comparatively artificial system of society, and our natural feelings are in unison with those of the bard of Chios and
