A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 Read online

  ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA FOR VOL. I

  P. 13.--"The drawback of explanations is that they almost always requireto be explained." Somebody, or several somebodies, must have said this;and many more people than have ever said it--at least in print--musthave felt it. The dictum applies to my note on this page. An entirelywell-willing reviewer thought me "piqued" at the American remark, andproceeded to intimate a doubt whether I knew M. Bedier's work, partly onlines (as to the _Cantilenae_) which I had myself anticipated, andpartly on the question of the composition of the _chansons_ by this orthat person or class, in this or that place, at that or the other time.But I had felt no "pique" whatever in the matter, and these latterpoints fall entirely outside my own conception of the _chansons_. I lookat them simply as pieces of accomplished literature, no matter how,where, in what circumstances, or even exactly when, they became so. AndI could therefore by no possibility feel anything but pleasure at praisebestowed on this most admirable work in a different part of the field.

  P. 38, l. 27.--A protest was made, not inexcusably, at thecharacterisation of _Launfal_ as "libellous." The fault was only one ofphrasing, or rather of incompleteness. That beautiful story of a knightand his fairy love is one which I should be the last man in the world toabuse _as such_. But it contains a libel on Guinevere which isunnecessary and offensive, besides being absolutely unjustified by anyother legend, and inconsistent with her whole character. It is of thisonly that I spoke the evil which it deserves. If I had not, by mereoversight, omitted notice of Marie de France (for which I can offer noexcuse except the usual one of hesitation in which place to put it andso putting it nowhere), I should certainly have left no doubt as to myopinion of Thomas Chester likewise. Anybody who wants this may find itin my _Short History of English Literature_, p. 194.

  P. 55, l. 3.--_Delete_ comma at "French."

  P. 60, l. 6.--Insert "and" between "half" and "illegitimate."

  P. 72, l. 4.--I have been warned of the "change-over" in "Saracen" and"Christian"--a slip of the pen which I am afraid I have been guilty ofbefore now, though I have known the story for full forty years. ButFloire, though a "paynim," was not exactly a "Saracen."

  P. 75, l. 2 from bottom.--_For_ "his" _read_ "their."

  Pp. 158-163.--When the first proofs of the present volume had alreadybegun to come in, Dr. Hagbert Wright informed me that the London Libraryhad just secured at Sotheby's (I believe partly from the sale of LordEllesmere's books) a considerable parcel of early seventeenth-centuryFrench novels. He also very kindly allowed me perusal of such of theseas I had not already noticed (from reading at the B. M.) in Vol. I. Ofsome, if not all of them, on the principle stated in the Preface of thatvol., I may say something here. There is the _Histoire des Amours deLysandre et de Caliste; avec figures_, in an Amsterdam edition of 1679,but of necessity some sixty years older, since its author, the Sieurd'Audiguier, was killed in 1624. He says he wrote it in six months,during three and a half of which he was laid up with eightsword-wounds--things of which it is itself full, with the appurtenantcombats on sea and land and in private houses, and all sorts of otherdivertisements (he uses the word himself of himself) including a veryagreeable ghost-host--a ghost quite free from the tautology andgrandiloquence which ghosts too often affect, though not so poetical asFletcher's. "They told me you were dead," says his guest andinterlocutor, consciously or unconsciously quoting the _Anthology_. "SoI am," quoth the ghost sturdily. But he wants, as they so often do, tobe buried. This is done, and he comes back to return thanks, which isnot equally the game, and in fact rather bores his guest, who, to stopthis jack-in-the-box proceeding, begins to ask favours, such as that theghost will give him three days' warning of his own death. "I will, _if Ican_," says the Appearance pointedly. The fault of the book, as of mostof the novels of the period, is the almost complete absence ofcharacter. But there is plenty of adventure, in England as well as inFrance, and it must be one of the latest stories in which the actualtourney figures, for Audiguier writes as of things contemporary anddedicates his book to Marie de Medicis.

  _Cleon ou le Parfait Confidant_ (Paris, 1665), and _Hattige ou LesAmours au Roy de Tamaran_ (Cologne, 1676), the first anonymous, thesecond written by a certain G. de Brimond, and dedicated to anEnglishman of whom we are not specially proud--Harry Jermyn, Earl of St.Albans--are two very little books, of intrinsic importance and interestnot disproportioned to their size. They have, however, a little of bothfor the student, in reference to the extension of the novel _kind_. For_Cleon_ is rather like a "fictionising" of an inferior play of Moliere'stime; and _Hattige_, with its privateering Chevalier de Malte for a heroand its Turkish heroine who coolly remarks "L'infidelite a des charmes,"might have been better if the author had known how to make it so. Boththese books have, as has been said, the merit of shortness. Puget de laSerre's _La Clytie de la Cour_ (2 vols., Paris, 1635) cannot plead eventhis; for it fills two fat volumes of some 1500 pages. I have sometimesbeen accused, both in France and in England, of unfairness to Boileau,but I should certainly never quarrel with him for including La Serre(not, however, in respect of this book, I think) among his herd ofdunces. Like most of the novels of its time, though it has not muchactual _bergerie_ about it, it suggests the _Astree_, but the contrastis glaring. Even among the group, I have seldom read, or attempted toread, anything duller. _Le Melante du Sieur Vidal_ (Paris, 1624), thoughalso somewhat wordy (it has 1000 pages), is much more Astreean, andtherefore, perhaps, better. Things do happen in it: among otherincidents a lover is introduced into a garden in a barrow of clothes,though he has not Sir John Falstaff's fate. There are fresh laws oflove, and discussions of them; a new debate on the old Blonde _v._Brunette theme, which might be worse, etc. etc. The same year broughtforth _Les Chastes Amours d'Armonde_ by a certain Damiron, which, as itstitle may show, belongs rather to the pre-Astreean group (_v. sup._ Vol.I. p. 157 _note_), and contains a great deal of verse and (by licence ofits title) a good deal of kissing; but is flatly told, despite not alittle _Phebus_. It is a sort of combat of Spiritual and Fleshly Love;and Armonde ends as a kind of irregular anchorite, having previously"spent several days in deliberating the cut of his vestments."

  _Les Caprices Heroiques_ (Paris, 1644) is a translation, byChateaunieres de Grenaille, from the Italian of Loredano. It consists ofvariations on classical stories, treated rather in the declamationmanner, and ranging in subject from Achilles to "Frine." How manyreaders (at least among those who read with their eyes only) will affirmon their honour that they identified "Frine" at first reading? InItalian there would, of course, be less hesitation. The book is notprecisely a novel, but it has merits as a collection of rhetoricalexercises. Of a somewhat similar kind, though even further from thestrict novel standard, is the _Diverses Affections de Minerve_ (Paris,1625) of the above-mentioned Audiguier, where the heroine is _not_ thegoddess, and all sorts of places and personages, mythological,classical, historic, and modern, compose a miraculous _macedoine_,Brasidas jostling Gracchus, and Chabrias living in the FaubourgSaint-Martin. This _is_ a sort of story, but the greatest part of thevolume as it lies before me is composed of _Lettres Espagnoles_,_Epitres Francaises_, _Libres Discours_, etc.

  We can apparently return to the stricter romance, such as it is, withthe _Histoire Asiatique_ of the Sieur de Gerzan (Paris, 1633), but it isnoteworthy that the title-page of this ballasts itself by an "Avec unTraite du Tresor de la Vie Humaine et La Philosophie des Dames." Iconfess that, as in the case of most of the books here mentioned, I havenot read it with the care I bestowed on the _Cyrus_. But I perceive init ladies who love corsairs, universal medicines, poodles who aresacrificed to save their owners, and other things which may tempt some.And I can, by at least sampling, rather recommend _Les Travaux du PrinceInconnu_ (Paris, 1633) by the Sieur de Logeas. It calls itself, and its700 pages, the completion of two earlier performances, the _RomanHistorique_ and the _Histoire des Trois Freres Princes deConstantinople_, which have not come in my way. There is, however,probably no cause to regret this, for the author
assures us that his newwork is "as far above the two former in beauty as the sun is above thestars." If any light-minded person be disposed to scoff at him for this,let it be added that he has the grace to abstract the whole in the _Avisau Lecteur_ which contains the boast, and to give full chapter-headings,things too often wanting in the group. The hero is named Rosidor, theheroine Floralinde; and they are married with "la rejouissance generalede toute la Chretiente." What can mortals ask for more?

  _Polemire ou l'Illustre Polonais_ (Paris, 1647), is dedicated to no lessa person than Madame de Montbazon, and contains much piety, a good dealof fighting, and some verse. _L'Amour Aventureux_ (Paris, 1623), by thenot unknown Du Verdier, is a book with _Histoires_, and I am not surethat the volume I have seen contains the whole of it. _L'Empire del'Inconstance_ (Paris, 1635), by the Sieur de Ville, and published "atthe entry of the little gallery of Prisoners under the sign of theVermilion Roses," has a most admirable title to start with, and a tableof over thirty _Histoires_, a dozen letters, and two "amorous judgments"at the end. _Les Fortunes Diverses de Chrysomire et de Kalinde_ (Paris,1635), by a certain Humbert, blazons "love and war" on its verytitle-page, while _Celandre_ (Paris, 1671), a much later book than mostof these, has the rather uncommon feature of a single name for title.Thirty or forty years ago I should have taken some pleasure in "cooking"this batch of mostly early romances into a twenty-page article which,unless it had been unlucky, would have found its way into some magazineor review. Somebody might do so now. But I think it sufficient, and notsuperfluous, to add this brief sketch here to the notices of similarthings in the last volume, in order to show how abundant the crop ofFrench romance--of which even these are only further samples--was at thetime.

  P. 231, l. 9 from bottom.--_Add_ 's (Herman sla lerman's).

  P. 237, _note_ 2, l. 1.--_For_ "revision" _read_ "revisal."

  P. 241, 2nd par., last line but two.--_For_ "But" _read_ "Still."

  P. 278, l. 7 from bottom.--Delete comma at "Thackeray's."

  P. 286, l. 18.--It occurred to me (among the usual discoveries which onemakes in reading one's book after it has passed the irremeable press)that I ought to have said "Planchet's" horse, not "D'Artagnan's." True,as a kindly fellow-Alexandrian (who had not noticed the slip) consoledmy remorse by saying, the horse was D'Artagnan's _property_; but thephrase usually implies riding at the moment. And Aramis, brave as hewas, would have been sure to reflect that to play a feat of possiblyhostile acrobatism on the Gascon, without notice, might be a littledangerous.

  P. 304, ll. 4 and 7.--Shift "with his wife and mistress" to l. 4,reading "the relations with his wife and mistress of that Henri II.,"etc.

  P. 314, l. 12 from bottom.--_For_ "usual" _read_ "common" (commonnorm.)

  P. 338, l. 21.--Delete "in" before "among."

  P. 381.--One or two reviewers and some private correspondents haveexpressed surprise at my not knowing, or at any rate not mentioning, thelate Professor Morley's publication of _Rasselas_ and a translation of_Candide_ together. I cannot say positively whether I knew of it or not,though I must have done so, having often gone over the lists of thateditor's numerous "libraries" to secure for my students texts notoverlaid with commentary. But I can say very truthfully that no slightwhatever was intended, in regard to a scholar who did more than almostany other single man to "vulgarise" (in the wholly laudable sense ofthat too often degraded word) the body of English literature. Only, sucha book would not have been what I was thinking of. To bring out the fullcontrast-complement of these two strangely coincident masterpieces, bothmust be read in the originals. Paradoxically, one might even say that aFrench translation of Johnson, with the original of Voltaire, would showit better than the converse presentment. _Candide_ is so intenselyFrench--it is even to such an extent an embodiment of one side ofFrenchness--that you cannot receive its virtues except through theoriginal tongue. I am personally fond of translating; I have had somepractice in it; and some good wits have not disapproved some of myefforts. But, unless I knew that in case of refusal I should be rankedas a Conscientious Objector, I would not attempt _Candide_. The Frenchwould ring in my ears too reproachfully.

  P. 396, last line.--Shift comma from after to before "even."

  P. 399, l. 10.--_For_ "Rousseau" _read_ "his author."

  P. 424, _note_, first line.--Delete quotes before "The."

  P. 453, l. 15.--_For_ "Courray" _read_ "Cou_v_ray."

  P. 468, l. 17.--_For_ "France has" _read_ "France had."

  P. 477.--In the original preface I apologised--not in the idle hope ofconciliating one kind of critic, but out of respect for a very differentclass--for slips due to the loss of my own library, and to thedifficulty (a difficulty which has now increased owing to circumstancesof no public interest, in respect of the present volume) of consultingothers in regard to small matters of fact. I have very gratefully toacknowledge that I found the latter class very much larger than theformer. Such a note as that at Vol. I. p. xiii, will show that I havenot spared trouble to ensure accuracy. The charge of _in_accuracy canalways be made by anybody who cares to take "the other authority." Thishas been done in reference to the dates of Prevost's books. But I mayperhaps say, without _outrecuidance_, that there is an _Art de negligerles dates_ as well as one _de les verifier_. For the purposes of such ahistory as this it is very rarely of the slightest importance, whether abook was published in the year one or the year three: though theimportance of course increases when units pass into decades, and becomesgrave where decades pass into half-centuries. Unless you can collateactual first editions in every case (and sometimes even then) dates ofbooks as given are always second-hand. In reference to the same subjectI have also been rebuked for not taking account of M. Harrisse'scorrection of the legend of Prevost's death. As a matter of fact I knewbut had forgotten it, and it has not the slightest importance inconnection with Prevost's work. Besides, somebody will probably, sooneror later, correct M. Harrisse. These things pass: _Manon Lescaut_remains.