Curiosities of Literature Volume I Part 16

THE PORT-ROYAL SOCIETY.

Every lover of letters has heard of this learned society, which contributed so greatly to establish in France a taste for just reasoning, simplicity of style, and philosophical method. Their "Logic, or the Art of Thinking," for its lucid, accurate, and diversified matter, is still an admirable work; notwithstanding the writers had to emanc.i.p.ate themselves from the barbarism of the scholastic logic. It was the conjoint labour of Arnauld and Nicolle. Europe has benefited by the labours of these learned men: but not many have attended to the origin and dissolution of this literary society.

In the year 1637, Le Maitre, a celebrated advocate, resigned the bar, and the honour of being _Conseiller d'Etat_, which his uncommon merit had obtained him, though then only twenty-eight years of age. His brother, De Sericourt, who had followed the military profession, quitted it at the same time. Consecrating themselves to the service of religion, they retired into a small house near _the Port-Royal_ of Paris, where they were joined by their brothers De Sacy, De St. Elme, and De Valmont.

Arnauld, one of their most ill.u.s.trious a.s.sociates, was induced to enter into the Jansenist controversy, and then it was that they encountered the powerful persecution of the Jesuits. Constrained to remove from that spot, they fixed their residence at a few leagues from Paris, and called it _Port-Royal des Champs_.[40]

These ill.u.s.trious recluses were joined by many distinguished persons who gave up their parks and houses to be appropriated to their schools; and this community was called the _Society of Port-Royal_.

Here were no rules, no vows, no const.i.tution, and no cells formed.

Prayer and study, and manual labour, were their only occupations. They applied themselves to the education of youth, and raised up little academies in the neighbourhood, where the members of Port-Royal, the most ill.u.s.trious names of literary France, presided. None considered his birth ent.i.tled him to any exemption from their public offices, relieving the poor and attending on the sick, and employing themselves in their farms and gardens; they were carpenters, ploughmen, gardeners, and vine-dressers, as if they had practised nothing else; they studied physic, and surgery, and law; in truth, it seems that, from religious motives, these learned men attempted to form a community of primitive Christianity.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Longueville, once a political chief, sacrificed her ambition on the altar of Port-Royal, enlarged the monastic inclosure with s.p.a.cious gardens and orchards, built a n.o.ble house, and often retreated to its seclusion. The learned D'Andilly, the translator of Josephus, after his studious hours, resorted to the cultivation of fruit-trees; and the fruit of Port-Royal became celebrated for its size and flavour. Presents were sent to the Queen-Mother of France, Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin, who used to call it "fruit beni." It appears that "families of rank, affluence, and piety, who did not wish entirely to give up their avocations in the world, built themselves country-houses in the valley of Port-Royal, in order to enjoy the society of its religious and literary inhabitants."

In the solitudes of Port-Royal _Racine_ received his education; and, on his death-bed, desired to be buried in its cemetery, at the feet of his master Hamon. Arnauld, persecuted, and dying in a foreign country, still cast his lingering looks on this beloved retreat, and left the society his heart, which was there inurned.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Longueville, a princess of the blood-royal, was, during her life, the powerful patroness of these solitary and religious men: but her death, in 1679, was the fatal stroke which dispersed them for ever.

The envy and the fears of the Jesuits, and their rancour against Arnauld, who with such ability had exposed their designs, occasioned the destruction of the Port-Royal Society. _Exinanite, exinanite usque ad fundamentum in ea!_--"Annihilate it, annihilate it, to its very foundations!" Such are the terms of the Jesuitic decree. The Jesuits had long called the little schools of Port-Royal the hot-beds of heresy. The Jesuits obtained by their intrigues an order from government to dissolve that virtuous society. They razed the buildings, and ploughed up the very foundation; they exhausted their hatred even on the stones, and profaned even the sanctuary of the dead; the corpses were torn out of their graves, and dogs were suffered to contend for the rags of their shrouds. The memory of that asylum of innocence and learning was still kept alive by those who collected the engravings representing the place by Mademoiselle Hortemels. The police, under Jesuitic influence, at length seized on the plates in the cabinet of the fair artist.--Caustic was the retort courteous which Arnauld gave the Jesuits--"I do not fear your _pen_, but its _knife_."

These were men whom the love of retirement had united to cultivate literature, in the midst of solitude, of peace, and of piety. Alike occupied on sacred, as on profane writers, their writings fixed the French language. The example of these solitaries shows how retirement is favourable to penetrate into the sanctuary of the Muses.

An interesting anecdote is related of Arnauld on the occasion of the dissolution of this society. The dispersion of these great men, and their young scholars, was lamented by every one but their enemies. Many persons of the highest rank partic.i.p.ated in their sorrows. The excellent Arnauld, in that moment, was as closely pursued as if he had been a felon.

It was then the d.u.c.h.ess of Longueville concealed Arnauld in an obscure lodging, who a.s.sumed the dress of a layman, wearing a sword and full-bottomed wig. Arnauld was attacked by a fever, and in the course of conversation with his physician, he inquired after news. "They talk of a new book of the Port-Royal," replied the doctor, "ascribed to Arnauld or to Sacy; but I do not believe it comes from Sacy; he does not write so well."--"How, sir!" exclaimed the philosopher, forgetting his sword and wig; "believe me, my nephew writes better than I do."--The physician eyed his patient with amazement--he hastened to the d.u.c.h.ess, and told her, "The malady of the gentleman you sent me to is not very serious, provided you do not suffer him to see any one, and insist on his holding his tongue." The d.u.c.h.ess, alarmed, immediately had Arnauld conveyed to her palace. She concealed him in an apartment, and persisted to attend him herself.--"Ask," she said, "what you want of the servant, but it shall be myself who shall bring it to you."

How honourable is it to the female character, that, in many similar occurrences, their fort.i.tude has proved to be equal to their sensibility! But the d.u.c.h.ess of Longueville contemplated in Arnauld a model of human fort.i.tude which martyrs never excelled. His remarkable reply to Nicolle, when they were hunted from place to place, should never be forgotten: Arnauld wished Nicolle to a.s.sist him in a new work, when the latter observed, "We are now old, is it not time to rest?"

"Rest!" returned Arnauld, "have we not all Eternity to rest in?" The whole of the Arnauld family were the most extraordinary instance of that hereditary character, which is continued through certain families: here it was a sublime, and, perhaps, singular union of learning with religion. The Arnaulds, Sacy, Pascal, Tillemont, with other ill.u.s.trious names, to whom literary Europe will owe perpetual obligations, combined the life of the monastery with that of the library.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: The early history of the house is not given quite clearly and correctly in the text. The old foundation of Cistercians, named _Port-Royal des Champs_, was situated in the valley of Chevreuse, near Versailles, and founded in 1204 by Bishop Eudes, of Paris. It was in the reign of Louis XIII. that Madame Arnauld, the mother of the then Abbess, hearing that the sisterhood suffered from the damp situation of their convent and its confined s.p.a.ce, purchased a house as an infirmary for its sick members in the Fauxbourg St. Jacques, and called it the _Port-Royal de Paris_, to distinguish it from the older foundation.]

THE PROGRESS OF OLD AGE IN NEW STUDIES.

Of the pleasures derivable from the cultivation of the arts, sciences, and literature, time will not abate the growing pa.s.sion; for old men still cherish an affection and feel a youthful enthusiasm in those pursuits, when all others have ceased to interest. Dr. Reid, to his last day, retained a most active curiosity in his various studies, and particularly in the revolutions of modern chemistry. In advanced life we may resume our former studies with a new pleasure, and in old age we may enjoy them with the same relish with which more youthful students commence. Adam Smith observed to Dugald Stewart, that "of all the amus.e.m.e.nts of old age, the most grateful and soothing is a renewal of acquaintance with the favourite studies and favourite authors of youth--a remark, adds Stewart, which, in his own case, seemed to be more particularly exemplified while he was reperusing, with the enthusiasm of a student, the tragic poets of ancient Greece. I have heard him repeat the observation more than once, while Sophocles and Euripides lay open on his table."

Socrates learnt to play on musical instruments in his old age; Cato, at eighty, thought proper to learn Greek; and Plutarch, almost as late in his life, Latin.

Theophrastus began his admirable work on the Characters of Men at the extreme age of ninety. He only terminated his literary labours by his death.

Ronsard, one of the fathers of French poetry, applied himself late to study. His acute genius, and ardent application, rivalled those poetic models which he admired; and Boccaccio was thirty-five years of age when he commenced his studies in polite literature.

The great Arnauld retained the vigour of his genius, and the command of his pen, to the age of eighty-two, and was still the great Arnauld.

Sir Henry Spelman neglected the sciences in his youth, but cultivated them at fifty years of age. His early years were chiefly pa.s.sed in farming, which greatly diverted him from his studies; but a remarkable disappointment respecting a contested estate disgusted him with these rustic occupations: resolved to attach himself to regular studies, and literary society, he sold his farms, and became the most learned antiquary and lawyer.

Colbert, the famous French minister, almost at sixty, returned to his Latin and law studies.

Dr. Johnson applied himself to the Dutch language but a few years before his death. The Marquis de Saint Aulaire, at the age of seventy, began to court the Muses, and they crowned him with their freshest flowers. The verses of this French Anacreon are full of fire, delicacy, and sweetness.

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were the composition of his latest years: they were begun in his fifty-fourth year, and finished in his sixty-first.

Ludovico Monaldesco, at the extraordinary age of 115, wrote the memoirs of his times. A singular exertion, noticed by Voltaire; who himself is one of the most remarkable instances of the progress of age in new studies.

The most delightful of autobiographies for artists is that of Benvenuto Cellini; a work of great originality, which was not begun till "the clock of his age had struck fifty-eight."

Koornhert began at forty to learn the Latin and Greek languages, of which he became a master; several students, who afterwards distinguished themselves, have commenced as late in life their literary pursuits.

Ogilby, the translator of Homer and Virgil, knew little of Latin or Greek till he was past fifty; and Franklin's philosophical pursuits began when he had nearly reached his fiftieth year.

Accorso, a great lawyer, being asked why he began the study of the law so late, answered, beginning it late, he should master it the sooner.

Dryden's complete works form the largest body of poetry from the pen of a single writer in the English language; yet he gave no public testimony of poetic abilities till his twenty-seventh year. In his sixty-eighth year he proposed to translate the whole Iliad: and his most pleasing productions were written in his old age.

Michael Angelo preserved his creative genius even in extreme old age: there is a device said to be invented by him, of an old man represented in a _go-cart_, with an hour-gla.s.s upon it; the inscription _Ancora imparo!_--YET I AM LEARNING!

We have a literary curiosity in a favourite treatise with Erasmus and men of letters of that period, _De Ratione Studii_, by Joachim Sterck, otherwise Fortius de Ringelberg. The enthusiasm of the writer often carries him to the verge of ridicule; but something must be conceded to his peculiar situation and feelings; for Baillet tells us that this method of studying had been formed entirely from his own practical knowledge and hard experience: at a late period of life he had commenced his studies, and at length he imagined that he had discovered a more perpendicular mode of ascending the hill of science than by its usual circuitous windings. His work has been compared to the sounding of a trumpet.

Menage, in his Anti-Baillet, has a very curious apology for writing verses in his old age, by showing how many poets amused themselves notwithstanding their grey hairs, and wrote sonnets or epigrams at ninety.

La Casa, in one of his letters, humorously said, _Io credo ch'io far Sonnetti venti cinque anni, o trenta, pio che io sar morto_.--"I think I may make sonnets twenty-five, or perhaps thirty years, after I shall be dead!" Petau tells us that he wrote verses to solace the evils of old age--

---- Petavius aeger Cantabat veteris quaerens solatia morbi.

Malherbe declares the honours of genius were his, yet young--

Je les posseday jeune, et les possede encore A la fin de mes jours!

SPANISH POETRY.

Pere Bouhours observes, that the Spanish poets display an extravagant imagination, which is by no means dest.i.tute of _esprit_--shall we say _wit_? but which evinces little taste or judgment.

Their verses are much in the style of our Cowley--trivial points, monstrous metaphors, and quaint conceits. It is evident that the Spanish poets imported this taste from the time of Marino in Italy; but the warmth of the Spanish climate appears to have redoubled it, and to have blown the kindled sparks of chimerical fancy to the heat of a Vulcanian forge.

Lopez de Vega, in describing an afflicted shepherdess, in one of his pastorals, who is represented weeping near the sea-side, says, "That the sea joyfully advances to gather her tears; and that, having enclosed them in sh.e.l.ls, it converts them into pearls."

"Y el mar como imbidioso A tierra por las lagrimas salia, Y alegre de cogerlas Las guarda en conchas, y convierte en perlas."

Villegas addresses a stream--"Thou who runnest over sands of gold, with feet of silver," more elegant than our Shakspeare's--"Thy silver skin laced with thy golden blood," which possibly he may not have written.