Which keeps the peace among the gods, The Rhapsody of Poetry, and the Legion Club, are the only two pieces in which there is the least glow of poetical animation; though, in the latter, it takes the shape of ferocious and almost frantic invective, and, in the former, shines out but by fits in the midst of the usual small wares of cant phrases and snappish misanthropy. In the Rhapsody, the following lines, for instance, near the beginning. are vigorous and energetic. nowhere said a word in his praise. His par- "But in the poets we may find A wholesome law, time out of mind, Not empire to the rising sun By valour, conduct, fortune won; Not beggar's brat on bulk begot; To rise in church, or law, or state, Vol. xiv. pp. 310, 311. immediately after this nervous and poetical line, he drops at once into the lowness of vulgar flippancy. "What hope of custom in the fair, While not a soul demands your ware?" &c. There are undoubtedly many strong lines, and much cutting satire in this poem; but the staple is a mimicry of Hudibras, without the richness or compression of Butler; as, for example, "And here a simile comes pat in: Though chickens take a month to fatten, The Legion Club is a satire, or rather a tremendous invective on the Irish House of Commons, who had incurred the reverend author's displeasure for entertaining some propositions about alleviating the burden of the tithes in Ireland; and is chiefly remarkable, on the whole, as a proof of the extraor dinary liberty of the press which was indulged to the disaffected in those days-no prosecution having been instituted, either by that Honourable House itself, or by any of the individual members, who are there attacked in a way in which no public men were ever attacked, before or since. It is also deserving of attention, as the most thoroughly animated, fierce, and energetic, of all Swift's metrical compositions; and though the animation be altogether of a ferocious character, and seems occasionally to verge upon absolute insanity, there is still a force and a terror about it which redeems it from ridicule, and makes us shudder at the sort of demoniacal inspiration with which the malison is vented. The invective of Swift appears in this, and some other pieces, like the infernal fire of Milton's rebel angels, which "Scorched and blasted and o'erthrew-" and was launched even against the righteous with such impetuous fury, "That whom it hit none on their feet might stand, Though standing else as rocks-but down they fell By thousands, angel on archangel rolled." It is scarcely necessary to remark, however, that there is never the least approach to dignity or nobleness in the style of these terrible invectives; and that they do not even pretend to the tone of a high-minded disdain or generous impatience of unworthiness. They are honest, coarse, and violent effusions of furious anger and rancorous hatred; and their effect depends upon the force, heartiness, and apparent sincerity with which those feelings are expressed. The author's object is simply to vilify his opponent,-by no means to do honour to himself. If he can make his victim writhe, he cares not what may be thought of his tormentor; or rather, he is contented, provided he can make him sufficiently disgusting, that a good share of the filth which he throws should stick to his own fingers; and that he should himself excite some of the loathing of which his enemy is the principal object. In the piece now before us, many of the personalities are too coarse and filthy to be quoted; but the very opening shows the spirit in which it is written. "As I stroll the city oft I See a building large and lofty, Half the globe from sense and knowledge! Plac'd against the church direct, 'Near the church'-you know the rest. Meet when butchers bait a bear: Such a noise and such haranguing, 64 Let them, when they once get in, "Let Sir Tom, that rampant ass, Vol. x. pp. 548-550. This is strong enough, we suspect, for most readers; but we shall venture on a few lines more, to show the tone in which the leading by name and surname in those days. characters in the country might be libelled "In the porch Briareus stands, Shows a bribe in all his hands; But we mortals call him Carey. 66 Clio, who had been so wise Lash them daily, lash them duly; Though 'tis hopeless to reclaim them, Scorpion rods, perhaps, may tame them." Vol. x. pp. 553, 554. WORKS OF JONATHAN SWIFT. Such were the libels which a Tory writer | distinguish between a promise and a bargain; for found it safe to publish under a Whig admin- he will be sure to keep the latter, when he has the fairest offer."-Vol. iv. pp. 149-152. istration in 1736; and we do not find that any We have not left ourselves room now to national disturbance arose from their impunity, though the libeller was the most cele- say much of Swift's style, or of the general brated and by far the most popular writer of character of his literary genius:-But our the age. Nor was it merely the exasperation opinion may be collected from the remarks of bad fortune that put that polite party upon we have made on particular passages, and the use of this discourteous style of discus- from our introductory observations on the sion. In all situations, the Tories have been school or class of authors, with whom he the great libellers and, as is fitting, the must undoubtedly be rated. On the subjects great prosecutors of libels; and even in this to which he confines himself, he is unquesearly age of their glory, had themselves, when tionably a strong, masculine, and perspicuous He is never finical, fantastic, or in power, encouraged the same licence of writer. defamation, and in the same hands. It will absurd-takes advantage of no equivocations scarcely be believed, that the following char- in argument-and puts on no tawdriness for acter of the Earl of Wharton, then actually ornament. Dealing always with particulars, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was publicly he is safe from all great and systematic misprinted and sold, with his Lordship's name takes; and, in fact, reasons mostly in a series and addition at full length, in 1710, and was of small and minute propositions, in the handone of the first productions by which the rev-ling of which, dexterity is more requisite than erend penman bucklered the cause of the Tory ministry, and revenged himself on a parsimonious patron. We cannot afford to give it at full length-but this specimen will answer our purpose. "Thomas, Earl of Wharton, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by the force of a wonderful constitution, He bears the gallantries of his lady with the ir difference of a stoic; and thinks them well recompensed, by a return of children to support his family, without the fatigues of being a father. genius; and practical good sense, with an Of his style, it has been usual to speak with great, and, we think, exaggerated praise. It is less mellow than Dryden's-less elegant He has three predominant passions, which you than Pope's or Addison's-less free and noble will seldom find united in the same man, as arising from different dispositions of mind, and naturally than Lord Bolingbroke's-and utterly without thwarting each other: these are, love of power, the glow and loftiness which belonged to our love of money, and love of pleasure; they ride him earlier masters. It is radically a low and sometimes by turns, sometimes all together. Since homely style-without grace and without af he went into Ireland, he seems most disposed to fectation; and chiefly remarkable for a great the second, and has met with great success; hav-choice and profusion of common words and ing gained by his goverment, of under two years, five-and-forty thousand pounds by the most favour- expressions. Other writers, who have used a alle computation, half in the regular way, and half plain and direct style, have been for the most part jejune and limited in their diction, and in the prudential. generally give us an impression of the poverty as well as the tameness of their language; but Swift, without ever trespassing into figured or poetical expressions, or ever employing a a He was never yet known to refuse, or keep promise, as I remember he told a lady, but with an exception to the promise he then made (which was to get her a pension); yet he broke even that, and, I confess, deceived us both. But here I desire to word that can be called fine, or pedantic, has | that except 300l. which he got for Gulliver, he a prodigious variety of good set phrases al- never made a farthing by any of his writings. ways at his command, and displays a sort of Pope understood his trade better, and not homely richness, like the plenty of an old only made knowing bargains for his own English dinner, or the wardrobe of a wealthy works, but occasionally borrowed his friends' burgess. This taste for the plain and sub-pieces, and pocketed the price of the whole. stantial was fatal to his poetry, which subsists This was notoriously the case with three not on such elements; but was in the highest volumes of Miscellanies, of which the greater degree favourable to the effect of his humour, part were from the pen of Swift. very much of which depends on the imposing In humour and in irony, and in the talent of gravity with which it is delivered, and on the debasing and defiling what he hated, we join various turns and heightenings it may receive with all the world in thinking the Dean of St. from a rapidly shifting and always appropriate Patrick's without a rival. His humour, though expression. Almost all his works, after The sufficiently marked and peculiar, is not to be Tale of a Tub, seem to have been written easily defined. The nearest description we very fast, and with very little minute care of can give of it, would make it consist in exthe diction. For his own ease, therefore, it pressing sentiments the most absurd and is probable they were all pitched on a low ridiculous-the most shocking and atrocious key, and set about on the ordinary tone of a --or sometimes the most energetic and origifamiliar letter or conversation; as that from nal-in a sort of composed, calm, and unconwhich there was a little hazard of falling, scious way, as if they were plain, undeniable, even in moments of negligence, and from commonplace truths, which no person could which any rise that could be effected, must dispute, or expect to gain credit by announcing always be easy and conspicuous. A man-and in maintaining them, always in the fully possessed of his subject, indeed, and confident of his cause, may almost always write with vigour and effect, if he can get over the temptation of writing finely, and really confine himself to the strong and clear exposition of the matter he has to bring forward. Half of the affectation and offensive pretension we meet with in authors, arises from a want of matter,-and the other half, from a paltry ambition of being eloquent and ingenious out of place. Swift had complete confidence in himself; and had too much real business on his hands, to be at leisure to intrigue for the fame of a fine writer;-in consequence of which, his writings are more admired by the judicious than if he had bestowed all his attention on their style. He was so much a man of business, indeed, and so much accustomed to consider his writings merely as means for the attainment of a practical end-dependent of the moral or satire, of which whether that end was the strengthening of a party, or the wounding a foe-that he not only disdained the reputation of a composer of pretty sentences, but seems to have been thoroughly indifferent to all sorts of literary fame. He enjoyed the notoriety and influence which he had procured by his writings; but it was the glory of having carried his point, and not of having written well, that he valued. As soon as his publications had served their turn, they seem to have been entirely forgotten by their author;-and, desirous as he was of being richer, he appears to have thought as little of making money as immortality by means of them. He mentions somewhere, gravest and most familiar language, with a consistency which somewhat palliates their extravagance, and a kind of perverted ingenuity, which seems to give pledge for their sincerity. The secret, in short, seems to consist in employing the language of humble good sense, and simple undoubting conviction, to express, in their honest nakedness, sentiments which it is usually thought necessary to disguise under a thousand pretences or truths which are usually introduced with a thousand apologies. The basis of the art is the personating a character of great simplicity and openness, for whom the conventional or artificial distinctions of society are supposed to have no existence; and making use of this character as an instrument to strip vice and folly of their disguises, and expose guilt in all its deformity, and truth in all its terrors. In they may thus be the vehicle, a great part of the entertainment to be derived from works of humour, arises from the contrast between the grave, unsuspecting indifference of the character personated, and the ordinary feelings of the world on the subjects which he discusses. This contrast it is easy to heighten, by all sorts of imputed absurdities: in which case, the humour degenerates into mere farce and buffoonery. Swift has yielded a little to this temptation in The Tale of a Tub; but scarcely at all in Gulliver, or any of his later writings in the same style. Of his talent for reviling, we have already said at least enough, in some of the preceding pages. Correspondance inédite de MADAME DU DEFFAND, avec D'Alembert, Montesquieu, le Président Henault, La Duchesse du Maine, Mesdames de Choiseul, De Staal, &c. &c. 3 tomes, 12mo. Paris: 1809. Lettres de MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE, écrites depuis l'Année 1773 jusqu'à l' Année 1776, &c. 3 tomes, 12mo. Paris: 1809. THE popular works of La Harpe and Mar- Where the letters that are now given to the montel have made the names at least of these world have been secreted for the last thirty ladies pretty well known in this country; and years, or by whom they are at last publishwe have been induced to place their corres-ed, we are not informed in either of the works pondence under one article, both because their history is in some measure connected, and because, though extremely unlike each other, they both form a decided contrast to our own national character, and, taken together, go far to exhaust what was peculiar in that of France. Most of our readers probably remember what La Harpe and Marmontel have said of these two distinguished women; and, at all events, it is not necessary for our purpose to give more than a very superficial account of them. Madame du Deffand was left a widow with a moderate fortune, and a great reputation for wit, about 1750; and soon after gave up her hotel, and retired to apartments in the couvent de St. Joseph, where she continued to receive, almost every evening, whatever was most distinguished in Paris for rank, talent, or accomplishment. Having become almost blind in a few years thereafter, she found she required the attendance of some intelligent young woman, who might read and write for her, and assist in doing the honours of her conversazioni. For this purpose she cast her eyes on Mademoiselle Lespinasse, the illegitimate daughter of a man of rank, who had been boarded in the same convent, and was for some time delighted with her election. By and bye, however, she found that her young companion began to engross more of the notice of her visitors than she thought saitable; and parted from her with violent, generous, and implacable displeasure. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, however, carried with her the admiration of the greater part of her patroness' circle; and having obtained a Emall pension from government, opened her own doors to a society not less brilliant than that into which she had been initiated under Madame du Deffand. The fatigue, however, which she had undergone in reading the old marchioness asleep, had irreparably injured By the first of these circumstances, the old her health, which was still more impaired by Parisian society was rendered considerably the agitations of her own inflammable and more refined, and infinitely more easy and ambitious spirit; and she died, before she had natural. The general and peremptory proobtained middle age, about 1776,-leaving on scription of the bourgeois, excluded, no doubt, the minds of almost all the eminent men in a good deal of vulgarity and coarseness; but France, an impression of talent, and of ardour it had a still better effect in excluding those of imagination, which seems to have been feelings of mutual jealousy and contempt, and considered as without example. Madame du that conflict of family pride and consequential Deffand continued to preside in her circle till opulence, which can only be prevented from a period of extreme old age; and died in disturbing a more promiscuous assembly, by 1780, in full possession of her faculties. means of universal and systematic reserve. before us. That they are authentic, we conceive, is demonstrated by internal evidence; though, if more of them are extant, the selection that has been made appears to us to be a little capricious. The correspondence of Madame du Deffand reaches from the year 1738 to 1764;-that of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse extends only from 1773 to 1776. The two works, therefore, relate to different periods; and, being entirely of different characters, seem naturally to call for a separate consideration. We begin with the correspondence of Madame du Deffand, both out of respect to her seniority, and because the va riety which it exhibits seems to afford room for more observation. As this lady's house was for fifty years the resort of every thing brilliant in Paris, it is natural to suppose, that she herself must have possessed no ordinary attraction-and to feel an eager curiosity to be introduced even to that shadow of her conversation which we may expect to meet with in her correspondence. Though the greater part of the letters are addressed to her by various correspondents, yet the few which she does write are strongly marked with the traces of her peculiar character and talent; and the whole taken together give a very lively idea of the structure and occupations of the best French society, in the days of its greatest splendour. Laying out of view the greater constitutional gaiety of our neighbours, it appears to us, that this society was distinguished from any that has ever existed in England, by three circumstances chiefly:-in the first place, by the exclusion of all low-bred persons; secondly, by the superior intelligence and cultivation of the women; and, finally, by the want of politi cal avocations, and the absence of political antipathies. |