ber, 1827, and lasted only three years. | mie Française. His fame reached its highest They reappeared to give lectures, after an point towards 1827, at the time he reäsnterruption of many years, occasioned by cended, after an intermission of some years, he blind and bigoted policy of the old his chair at the Sorbonne. His eloquence Bourbons; they thus reäppeared with the reëchoed through every part of France; prestige of unjustly silenced and persecuted each of his lectures became a literary event; en. Public opinion was anxious to atone every sentence, every opinion, whatever it for this persecution, and eager to avenge might be, that fell from his lips, was hailed and glorify the popular professors. Hence, like the voice of prophecy; his influence was combined with their splendid and really su- immense. Collected by stenography, these perior abilities, the extraordinary éclat which lectures have been printed in five volumes, greeted their lecturing, the enthusiasm and of which two are on the middle ages, and fluence which they produced throughout three on the seventeenth and eighteenth cenFrance and even Europe. turies. But the latter century was not completed; and some years afterwards, in 1837, he published two additional volumes, carefully composed in the closet, to supply the deficiency left in the literary history of that age. We will say something hereafter of these two volumes, which differ materially in character from the preceding. Two thousand persons, the élite of society, but mostly young men between twenty and twenty-five years of age, crowded, long fore the appointed hour, in the vast hall of the old Sorbonne, anxiously awaiting the oming of the professor, and when he was ven, they broke out in a perfect storm of audits. These lectures, collected by expeenced phonographists, were printed by housands in the shape of books, and spread rough all Europe. The oral lectures at the Sorbonne seemed to flow extempore. They had in effect the stamp of improvisation, the abandon, the vivacity, the digressions, the flashes of wit Very few literary men have begun their or high flights of eloquence, which have so career as splendidly as M. Villemain. At magical an attraction. But we doubt not twenty-four years of age, he had obtained that they were carefully meditated and premany crowns from the Académie Française, pared, when at home. It was easy to perreulogiums upon distinguished men, Mon- ceive a deliberate order in a seeming disoraigne, Montesquieu, &c., and had won a der. But never did he avail himself of a lebrated name. The public had been sheet of paper as a help to memory. He ruck with surprise and admiration in find- occasionally brought a few volumes from g in the writings of a very young man, which to make quotations; and yet he was arcely out of college, the purity of taste, gifted with so wonderful, so well-stocked a e maturity of thought, the superior style memory, that in a great many instances we od eloquence, which are so rarely met in a heard him deliver from memory long extracts debut. In 1816, he was appointed to the from orators or gods, without any hesitation, hair of French Literature and Eloquence at and with delightful expression and emphasis. Le Faculty of Letters in Paris. He signal- He began usually in a conversational maned his advent to that position by inocu- ner, calm and dispassionate. But soon the ting criticism with a judicious compound spirit roused up, and his voice assumed an f vivacity, imagination, biography, and his- oratorical energy. His voice, sonorous, flexDry; and gradually, as his studies extended ible, and vibrating, was admirably suited to ver a wider circle, his ideas acquired greater the expression of strong passions, as well as nergy and originality, his eloquence became to that of irony and sarcasm. He varied nore glowing, and his admiration of intel- his intonations with a consummate skill; his ctual greatness more enthusiastic. His delivery kept the hearers in breathless dectures possessed in the highest degree all light. And when it is recollected that from the attractions of a fascinating conversation. these lips burst forth ingenious thoughts, witty There are no records of his lectures during allusions, profound reflections, brilliant and Le first years after his appointment. Mean unexpected expositions, it will be easily conwhile, M. Villemain took an active part, at ceived how attractive and powerful was the ifferent periods, in political affairs, and in lecture. His fluency and felicity of language hat career exhibited a firm progressive spi- was extraordinary. He found always, as by rt. In 1821, he was called to the Acade-inspiration, the proper or imaginative word, to give to a sentence the utmost strength | first years of the empire of Napoleon. or elegance. He excelled in biographical Emperor welcomed him in the most g sketches, in parallels, in great characteristics way. 'Well,' said he, one day, in a of a literary period, as well as in what the conversation, 'you have lately left Ger ancients call the playfulness of an orator, how did you leave your mother a consisting of the attractive anecdote and the towards me? I have been told th jocular sally. cordially detests me. Is there any ho she will ever love me?' 'Sire,' repli Count, with a respectful bow, 'it n that her feelings are still confined to admiration.' Could it be possible to more felicitous reply, to show respec to truth and to high rank?" Those alone who have heard M. Villemain can bear testimony to the brilliant variety of his words, to the deep and impressive intonation of his voice, to the playfulness of his allusions, to his eloquent and compressed action, and to those numerous instances when his soul, heaving like a wave ready to burst, pauses and calmly subsides, resuming the dignity becoming a lecturer, and leaving an ineffable thrill of pleasurable emotion in the mind. He was fond of relating anecdotes to illustrate the wit or character of celebrated men. They were short, lively, and told en passant. This kind of dainties relished very well with the audience. One day, he was speaking of Voltaire, and of his wit, always ready with ingenious and sarcastic replies, so characteristic of the man. "An Englishman," said he, "after travelling over Switzerland, came one fine morning, with a proper introduction, to pay him a visit at his Château de Ferney. The gentleman was a scholar, and the conversation took a literary turn. The traveler said he had had the honor of being introduced to M. de Haller, and he had been very much pleased with him. M. de Haller!' exclaimed Voltaire, forgetting that at this very time there was a coldness between them, M. de Haller! he is a great man, a superior man, Sir! great poet, great scholar, profound naturalist!' The Englishman waited till the eulogy was over, and then candidly said: "This is very fair and creditable to you, Sir, for I know that M. de Haller has the misfortune of not speaking in such fair and high terms of you.' 'Alas!' smartly replied Voltaire, with a peculiar smile, perhaps, my dear Sir, we both are mistaken!'" Speaking of the wits and of the accomplished courtiers of the eighteenth century, he related the following: "The Count of Narbonne belonged to the highest nobility. Though he was a friend to liberty and reformation, he was carried out to foreign countries by the torrent of emigration and the exigences of his birth. He came back to France during the Speaking of England one day, h expatiated upon the genius of the n the far-sighted and skilful governme wonderful increase of power and wea spite of the tremendous struggle an which she had sustained against Fran twenty-five years. "Look at the p situation of England," said he. "W it? Under the influence of her repre tive and free government, and throug most able and efficient administratio has triumphantly emerged from this t warfare, which was very near hurling ruin and destruction. Look at what now in Europe, and throughout the Her conquests and possessions have so increased, that she is every where prese powerful! It was formerly said of 1 gal that 'the accessory of its empire Europe, and the principal scattered o the world.' This, in the decayed pros of Portugal, is no longer true; but strictly true, if applied to England. Sl boast, as Spain of old, that the sun sets upon her dominions. To-day, she an immense colonial empire, which em one hundred and thirty millions of in ants! "Take a map of the world: you wil England proudly conspicuous in almost part of it. In America, she has und domination the northern portion of the nent, Canada, New-Brunswick, Nova S the greatest part of the West India Is Honduras; in Africa, the fine colony Cape of Good Hope, Sierra Leone, Ga and Mauritius; in Asia, the splendid immense India and Ceylon, with one dred and twenty millions of inhabitant Oceanica, New South Guinea, Van Die Land, Western and South Australasia New-Zealand; in Europe, Gibraltar, A Corfu, and the Ionian Islands! Sh 1 he almost encircled the globe with an uninterrupted chain of forts, factories, settlements, possessions and colonies, over which runs, like the electric fluid, the spirit of this mighty nation. And do you know how much time it took to conquer, to organize, and to secure this gigantic colonial empire? Hardly one hundred years! A wonderful, prodigious, and immense achievement !" The professor had delivered this tableau with so much spirit and eloquence, (and alas! after twenty years, I can find only in my brain a faint and languid sketch of it,) that here he was interrupted by enthusiastic applause; upon which, assuming a stern look, he said, in a grave, but with half bantering smile: "Gentlemen, I should be much pleased to know if it is me you intend thus to applaud, or the colossean and wide-spread power of our proud rival, which I tried to delineate as an historical fact." The audience broke into a laughter, with new plaudits, and the lecturer passed on to other topics. The originality of M.Villemain as a criticthat originality which elevated him to a position unequalled in France-was of a lofty character. Before him, criticism kept in a special narrow path, aiming solely to teach the art of writing correctly and of expressing thoughts rationally; or, if it exceeded the prescribed limits, under pretense of deducing the laws of nature, it fell into the strangest aberrations. Before him, it was either cold, didactic, and fettered, like that of Laharpe, or lyrical and highly paradoxical, like that of Diderot. He opened new and higher paths; he effected a great revolution in the history of literature. In what consists the excellence of high critical literature? Undoubtedly in combining a profound and comprehensive knowledge of history with great powers of imagination, in order to vivify the past. Criticism must follow the tide of ages, marking not only the vigorous intellects that speak with the action and tone of their nation and epoch, but also the political condition, whose practical influence is so powerful and universal on the development of genius. The critic, in following the stream of time, must alternately fix his eyes on the ruins he passes by and the abodes of the living; he must listen to the tumult that arises from the cities now flourishing, and note also the traces left on communities by preceding ages. Criticism, thus understood, is the history of in tellect; it is history elucidated by the progress of arts and letters; it becomes a vast picture, presenting within its frame a succession of illustrious individuals, renowned in their day for their deeds or writings, to gether with all that has happened in the world, attended by striking and important effects, thus forming the most instructive ensemble that can be offered to the study and contemplation of mankind. Nations succeed each other; governments are established and fall to the ground; great battles have been fought in every era; all these worldly commotions reecho from the powerful intellects of each period, insomuch that criticism, or the history of letters, is the most animated part of history itself. When nations have disappeared from the earth, the literature that survives them serves as the beacon to guide explorers in the path of discovery and research. M. Villemain was the first to feel that mere scholastic and literary inquiry could not satisfy the demands of our time, so aspiring in its objects of study, and so deeply agitated by political passions. He was the first to blend political science with art, to seek what had been the influence of an epoch on a writer, and, availing himself of a profound knowledge of history, of antiquity, and of several modern literatures, to draw historical pictures of a period, and to appreciate, with the searching impartiality of philosophy, the life and genius of an author. History with him vivifies the imagination, and rhetorical precepts form but the ground-work of the picture. M. Villemain possessed abundant sources of knowledge for his critiques, and what he drew from them, skilfully combined, formed the great material of his literary eloquence. The first of those sources consisted in a profound knowledge of antiquity and of classic authors. The second was derived from an arduous study of the Fathers of the Church, who may be said to form the Christian antiquity. After having abundantly nourished his genius with those inestimable and inexhaustible remains of human intellect, the third mine he worked was England-Milton, Shakspeare, and the English orators. Germany was overlooked. In fact, M. Villemain had, by his investigations on England, imparted an impulse so great to the study of English literature, as to be justly deemed a mighty step for France, a country that had before been so exclusive; and a knowledge | under the influence of the men he jud of Germany is only now beginning to be and is partially dazzled by the splendo generally appreciated among writers. The their talents. We think him deficient fourth and last, but most prolific source of religious feeling, and, for that sole reas M. Villemain's criticisms lay in his immense we consider that his works are not desti historical studies; he has plunged into all to exercise a lasting influence on fut the darkness of the middle ages, and generations. proved himself as erudite an historian as able and sagacious a critic. Such is the vast stock of knowledge whence M. Villemain drew the multitude of parallels, the luminous illustrations, which characterize his lectures on French literature. At the time when he gave them, the republic of letters was violently distracted by the strife of classicists and romanticists. He preserved a medium between the rival schools. Although praised by the latter, he has not shown himself duly sensible of their eulogiums; for, in his lectures on the seventeenth century, he often throws out indirect but warm reproaches on a school that had spoken irreverently of the polished language of Louis the Fourteenth's time, and even of the magnificent style of Bossuet. On the other hand, his propensity to extend the circle of literature and of language, his evident partiality for some of the most decided modern innovations, clearly absolve him from the imputation of being blindly opposed to all efforts for breaking the fetters of the old school. When M. Villemain takes up the pen, ceases to be the literary orator; he no lon possesses the same vivacity nor the sa style. When he writes, his phraseology no doubt, more polished and perfect, fitt the thought with precision; but it bears the same time a character of frigidity rather paleness, when compared to the vi animation sparkling in the oral lectur Furthermore, in general, the written style M. Villemain is of the utmost correctne elegance, and brightness; but it is somewh deficient at times in energy, pithiness, a vivid and soul-inspired eloquence. This the case in the two additional volumes of Villemain, published within the last f years, on the eighteenth century. Nev theless, they breathe a spirit of wholeso criticism, and abound in admirable disqui tions. There are some delightful pages Vauvenargues, whose lofty and pensive so is wreathed in the purest virtue; some markable ones on Rousseau, who is tender treated by the critic, notwithstanding t few partial chidings he addresses to the ph osopher of Geneva towards the close of th chapter. Secondary names, as Prevost, Ro lin, Louis Racine, D'Aguesseau, &c., a often revived with a peculiar charm and fu appreciation of their merit. His opinions on the eighteenth century steer equally clear of the fervent admiration entertained by many for the philosophy of that period, and, on the other hand, of the furious wrath with which it is regarded by by the brethren of the modern Catholic After the Revolution of 1830, M. Vill school. Whilst sentiments and ideas remain main was transferred from the stage of So in such conflict as at present, there is nothing bonne to a higher, more splendid and infl so difficult as to form a candid judgment, a ential, but somewhat dangerous theatreair appreciation of that extraordinary epoch. politics and administrative station. He b The historical critic could not fail to appre-came a peer of France, Minister of the Publ hend the great mission of this century as an intermediate agency to terminate all that belonged to the middle ages, and to prepare the way for modern society. All the thinkers of the eighteenth century were heralds of the new era; but M. Villemain scarcely seems sufficiently convinced of the error of many of those philosophers who labored to involve in one common destruction institutions founded on piety and faith, and abuses that had become burdensome and oppressive; and, however studious his efforts to attain a strict impartiality, he is nevertheless often Instruction, and a man of political eminenc and importance; but he was no longer brilliant lecturer at Sorbonne, though he re tained among his titles that of professo The storm of 1848 having swept away the Chamber of Peers, M. Villemain renounce the political scene, to live in a quiet an literary retirement. He has scarcely attained the age of sixty. May he avail himself o his leisure to prepare and to perfect, for the enjoyment of his admirers and of the literary public, a new book of the same stamp as the former! J. CH. SOME SHAKSPEARIAN AND SPENSERIAN MSS. THE LEARNING OF SHAKSPEARE, favor. Thus, Pope and Theobald, consenting in nothing else, agree in assigning him a considerable quantity of classical learning. Upton, a man of deep and critical erudition, carried his belief of our poet's scholarship perhaps to an excess. Whalley, the learned editor of Ben Jonson, unswayed by partiality for his own hero, wrote a very able defense of his rival's skill in the languages; and the elder Colman, the translator of "Terence," found evidence in the works of Shakspeare enough to convince him that the author was not deficient in classical attainments. Authorities such as these, and so numerous, ought at least to suffice to set the reader's judgment in equilibrio until he shall have time to examine the question for himself; and we believe that nothing more is necessary than an unprejudiced examination of his works, to lead to the conclusion that our HALES was a contemporary of Shakspeare, and disinterested; and if his opinion of his learning had been positive, it would have been entitled to the utmost deference. It is, however, any thing but conclusive; for it is put forward as a purely hypothetic case. "If," said he, speaking of Shakspeare's learning, "if he had not read the classics, he bad likewise not stolen from them;" [a sly hit, by the way, at Ben Jonson ;] "and if any topic was produced from a poet of antiquity, he [Hales] would undertake to show somewhat on the same subject at least as well written by Shakspeare." Of this testimony we make the opponents of our poet's learning a generous present. Next comes Milton; but might not the same thing, with equal truth, be applied to himself, without the slightest impeachment of his profound acquaintance with the whole range of literature, ancient and mod-poet was, to say the least, as well acquainted ern, as it was then known? The "woodnotes wild" of "Fancy's child" are as distinctly to be heard in the "Comus," the "Arcades," the "Lycidus," "L'Allegro," and "Il Penseroso" of Milton, as in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the "Winter's Tale," the "As You Like It" of Shakspeare; and in neither case do they derogate from the scholarship of the respective poets. Rowe's opinion, founded on a vague tradition, inconsistent with the well-known facts of the case, and picked up some century too ate, is a mere inference of prepossession, and is worth nothing; and as to Dr. Farmer's essay, it is really surprising how very little it contains seriously affecting the question at issue. We shall return to it presently more in detail; meanwhile, we must observe that the received opinion of Shakspeare's ignorance of the learned languages is far from having the general assent of the critics. Men of competent learning and observation have declared in favor of his erudition, however acquired; and were a true finding to be taken from the votes of the majority, the verdict would run in his VOL. IX. NO. I. NEW SERIES. with the writings of the ancients and such 2 |