Chapter 36
Section 36 of Curiosities of Literature, Volume 1. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sonia. Curiosities of Literature, Volume 1, by Isaac Disraeli.
Chapter 36. The Scuderies Bienheureux Scuderies, dont la fertile plume peut tous les mois sans peine enfanter un volume. Boileau has written this couplet on the Scuderis, the brother and sister, both famous in their day for composing romances, which they sometimes extended to ten or twelve volumes. It was the
favourite literature of that period, as novels are now. Our nobility not unfrequently condescended to translate these voluminous compositions. The diminutive size of our modern novels is undoubtedly an improvement, but in resembling the size of primers, it were to be wished that their contents had also resembled their inoffensive pages. Our great-grandmothers were incommoded with overgrown folios, and instead of finishing the eventful history of two lovers at one or two
sittings, it was sometimes six months, including Sundays, before they could get quit of their Clélias, their Cyruses, and Partenissas. Mademoiselle Scudery had composed ninety volumes. She had even finished another romance, which she would not give the public, whose taste she perceived no more relish this kind of works. She was one of those unfortunate authors who, living to more than ninety years of age, survived their own celebrity.
She had her panegyrists in her day. Ménage observes, What a pleasing description has Mademoiselle Scudery made in her Cyrus of the little court at Rambouillet. A thousand things in the romances of this learned lady render them inestimable. She has drawn from the ancients their happiest passages, and has even improved upon them. like the prince in the fable whatever she touches becomes gold we may read her works with great profit if we possess a correct taste and love instruction those who censure their length only show the littleness of their judgment
as if homer and virgil were to be despised because many of their books were filled with episodes and incidents that necessarily retard the conclusion it does not require much penetration to observe that cyrus and clelia are a species of the epic poem the epic must embrace a number of events to suspend the course of the narrative which only taking in a part of the life of the hero would terminate too soon to display the skill of the poet without this artifice the charm of uniting the greater part of the episodes to the principled subject of the romance would be lost mademoiselle de scudery has so well treated them and so aptly introduced a variety of beautiful passages that nothing in this kind is comparable to her productions some expressions and certain turns have become somewhat obsolete all the rest will last forever and outlive the criticisms they have undergone menage has here certainly uttered a false prophecy the curious only look over her romances they contain doubtless many beautiful inventions the misfortune is that time and patience are rare requisites for the enjoyment of these iliads in prose The misfortune of her having written too abundantly has occasioned an unjust contempt,
said a French critic. We confess there are many heavy and tedious passages in her voluminous romances, but if we consider that in the Clelia and the Atamen are to be found inimitable delicate touches and many splendid parts which would do honour to some of our living writers, we must acknowledge that the great defects of all her works arise from her not writing in an age when taste had reached the acme of cultivation. Such is her erudition that the French place her next
to the celebrated Madame D'Assier. Her works, containing many secret intrigues of the court and city, her readers must have keenly relished on their early publication. Her Atamen, or the great Cyrus, and principally her Clélia, are representations of what then passed at the court of France. The map of the Kingdom of Tenderness, in Clélia, appeared at the time as one of the happiest inventions. This once-celebrated map is an allegory which distinguishes the different
kinds of tenderness, which are reduced to esteem, gratitude and inclination. The map represents three rivers which have these three names, and on which are situated three towns called tenderness. Tenderness on inclination, tenderness on esteem, and tenderness on gratitude. Pleasing attentions, or petit soin, is a village very beautifully situated. Mademoiselle de Scudery was extremely proud of this little allegorical map,
and had a terrible controversy with another writer about its originality. Georges Scudery, her brother, and inferior in genius, had a striking singularity of character. He was one of the most complete votaries to the universal divinity, vanity. With a heated imagination, entirely destitute of judgment, his military character was continually exhibiting itself by that peaceful instrument of the pen,
so that he exhibits the most amusing contrast of ardent feelings in a cool situation. Not liberally endowed with genius, but abounding with its semblance in the fire of eccentric gasconade, no man has portrayed his own character with a bolder colouring than himself, in his numerous prefaces and addresses. Surrounded by a thousand self-illusions of the most sublime class, everything that related to himself had a numeric grandeur of conception.
In an epistle to the Duke of Montmorency, Scuderi says, i will learn to write with my left hand that my right hand may more nobly be devoted to your service and alluding to his pen plume declares he comes from a family who never used one but to stick in their heads when he solicits small favors from the great he assures them that princes must not think him importunate and that his writings are merely inspired by his own individual interest no he exclaims i am studious only of your glory while i am careless of my own fortune and indeed to do him justice he acted up to these romantic feelings after he had published his epic of alaric christina of sweden proposed to honour him with a chain of gold of the value of five hundred pounds provided he would expunge from his epic the eulogiums he bestowed on the count of gardi whom she had disgraced the apical soul of scuderi magnanimously scorned the bribe and replied that if the chain of gold should be as weighty as that chain mentioned in the history of the incas i will never destroy any altar on which i have sacrificed proud of his boasted nobility and erratic life he thus addresses the reader
You will lightly pass over any faults in my work if you reflect that I have employed the greater part of my life in seeing the finest parts of Europe, and that I have passed more days in the camp than in the library. I have used more matches to light my musket than to light my candles. I know better to arrange columns in the field than those on paper, and to square battalions better than to round periods. In his first publication he began his literary career perfectly in character by a challenge to his critics.
He is the author of sixteen plays, chiefly heroic tragedies, children who all bear the features of their father. He first introduced in his L'amour tyrannique a strict observance of the Aristotelian unities of time and place, and the necessity and advantages of this regulation are insisted on, which only shows that Aristotle's art goes but little to the composition of a pathetic tragedy. In his last drama, Arminius, he extravagantly scatters his panegyrics on its fifteen predecessors,
but of the present one he has the most exalted notion. It is the quintessence of Scuderi. An ingenious critic calls it the downfall of mediocrity. It is amusing to listen to this blazing preface. At length, Rita, nothing remains for me but to mention the great Arminius, which I now present to you, and by which I have resolved to close my long and laborious course. It is indeed my masterpiece, and the most finished work that ever came from my pen.
For whether we examine the fable, the manners, the sentiments, or the versification, it is certain that I never performed anything so just, so great, nor more beautiful, and if my labours could ever deserve a crown, I would claim it for this work. The actions of this singular personage were in unison with his writings. He gives a pompous description of a most unimportant government which he obtained near Marseilles,
but all the grandeur existed only in our author's heated imagination. Bachaumont and De La Chapelle describe it in their playful voyage, Mais il faut vous parler du fort, qui, sans doute, est une merveille. C'est Notre-Dame de la Garde, gouvernement commode et beau, à qui suffit pour toute garde, un Suisse avec sa halbarde, peint sur la porte du château.
A fort very commodiously guarded, only requiring one sentinel with his halberd, painted on the door. In a poem on his disgust with the world, he tells us how intimate he has been with princes. Europe has known him through all her provinces. He ventured everything in a thousand combats. L'an me vit obéir, l'an me vit commander, Et mon poil tout poudreux a blanchi sous les armes.
Il est peu de beaux-arts où je ne sois instruit. En prose et en vers, mon nom fit quelques bruits, Et par plus d'un chemin, je parvins à la gloire. Imitated. day though heroes soon command they first obey t'was not for me too long a time to yield born for a chieftain in the tented field around my plumed helm my silvery hair hung like an honored wreath
of age and care the finer arts have charmed my studious hours versed in their mysteries skillful in their powers in verse and prose my equal genius glowed pursuing glory by no single road. Such was the vain Georges Scudery, whose heart, however, was warm. Poverty could never degrade him, adversity never broke down his magnanimous spirit.
