The "_Methode pour etudier l' Histoire_," by the Abbe Lenglet du
Fresnoy, is a master-key to all the locked-up treasures of ancient and
modern history, and to the more secret stores of the obscurer
memorialists of every nation. The history of this work and its author
are equally remarkable. The man was a sort of curiosity in human nature,
as his works are in literature. Lenglet du Fresnoy is not a writer
merely laborious; without genius, he still has a hardy originality in
his manner of writing and of thinking; and his vast and restless
curiosity fermenting his immense book-knowledge, with a freedom verging
on cynical causticity, led to the pursuit of uncommon topics. Even the
prefaces to the works which he edited are singularly curious, and he
has usually added _bibliotheques_, or critical catalogues of authors,
which we may still consult for notices on the writers of romances--of
those on literary subjects--on alchymy, or the hermetic philosophy; of
those who have written on apparitions, visions, &c.; an historical
treatise on the secret of confession, &c.; besides those "Pieces
Justificatives," which constitute some of the most extraordinary
documents in the philosophy of history. His manner of writing secured
him readers even among the unlearned; his mordacity, his sarcasm, his
derision, his pregnant interjections, his unguarded frankness, and often
his strange opinions, contribute to his reader's amusement more than
comports with his graver tasks; but his peculiarities cannot alter the
value of his knowledge, whatever they may sometimes detract from his
opinions; and we may safely admire the ingenuity, without quarrelling
with the sincerity of the writer, who having composed a work on _L'Usage
des Romans_, in which he gaily impugned the authenticity of all history,
to prove himself not to have been the author, ambidexterously published
another of _L'Histoire justifiee contre les Romans_; and perhaps it was
not his fault that the attack was spirited, and the justification dull.
This "Methode" and his "Tablettes Chronologiques," of nearly forty other
publications are the only ones which have outlived their writer;
volumes, merely curious, are exiled to the shelf of the collector; the
very name of an author merely curious--that shadow of a shade--is not
always even preserved by a dictionary-compiler in the universal charity
of his alphabetical mortuary.
The history of this work is a striking instance of those imperfect
beginnings, which have often closed in the most important labours. This
admirable "Methode" made its first meagre appearance in two volumes in
1713. It was soon reprinted at home and abroad, and translated into
various languages. In 1729 it assumed the dignity of four quartos; but
at this stage it encountered the vigilance of government, and the
lacerating hand of a celebrated _censeur_, Gros de Boze. It is said,
that from a personal dislike of the author, he cancelled one hundred and
fifty pages from the printed copy submitted to his censorship. He had
formerly approved of the work, and had quietly passed over some of these
obnoxious passages: it is certain that Gros de Boze, in a dissertation
on the Janus of the ancients in this work, actually erased a high
commendation of himself,[149] which Lenglet had, with unusual courtesy,
bestowed on Gros de Boze; for as a critic he is most penurious of
panegyric, and there is always a caustic flavour even in his drops of
honey. This _censeur_ either affected to disdain the commendation, or
availed himself of it as a trick of policy. This was a trying situation
for an author, now proud of a great work, and who himself partook more
of the bull than of the lamb. He who winced at the scratch of an
epithet, beheld his perfect limbs bruised by erasures and mutilated by
cancels. This sort of troubles indeed was not unusual with Lenglet. He
had occupied his old apartment in the Bastile so often, that at the
sight of the officer who was in the habit of conducting him there,
Lenglet would call for his nightcap and snuff; and finish the work he
had then in hand at the Bastile, where, he told Jordan, that he made his
edition of Marot. He often silently restituted an epithet or a sentence
which had been condemned by the _censeur_, at the risk of returning once
more; but in the present desperate affair he took his revenge by
collecting the castrations into a quarto volume, which was sold
clandestinely. I find, by Jordan, in his _Voyage Litteraire_, who
visited him, that it was his pride to read these cancels to his friends,
who generally, but secretly, were of opinion that the decision of the
_censeur_ was not so wrong as the hardihood of Lenglet insisted on. All
this increased the public rumour, and raised the price of the cancels.
The craft and mystery of authorship was practised by Lenglet to
perfection; and he often exulted, not only in the subterfuges by which
he parried his _censeurs_, but in his bargains with his booksellers, who
were equally desirous to possess, while they half feared to enjoy, his
uncertain or his perilous copyrights. When the _unique_ copy of the
_Methode_, in its pristine state, before it had suffered any
dilapidations, made its appearance at the sale of the curious library of
the _censeur_ Gros de Boze, it provoked a Roxburgh competition, where
the collectors, eagerly outbidding each other, the price of this
uncastrated copy reached to 1500 livres; and even more extraordinary in
the history of French bibliography, than in our own. The curious may now
find all these cancel sheets, or _castrations_, preserved in one of
those works of literary history, to which the Germans have contributed
more largely than other European nations, and I have discovered that
even the erasures, or _bruises_, are amply furnished in another
bibliographical record.[150]
This _Methode_, after several later editions, was still enlarging itself
by fresh supplements; and having been translated by men of letters in
Europe, by Coleti in Italy, by Mencken in Germany, and by Dr. Rawlinson
in England, these translators have enriched their own editions by more
copious articles, designed for their respective nations. The sagacity of
the original writer now renovated his work by the infusions of his
translators; like old AEson, it had its veins filled with green juices;
and thus his old work was always undergoing the magic process of
rejuvenescence.[151]
The personal character of our author was as singular as many of the
uncommon topics which engaged his inquiries; these we might conclude had
originated in mere eccentricity, or were chosen at random. But Lenglet
has shown no deficiency of judgment in several works of acknowledged
utility; and his critical opinions, his last editor has shown, have, for
the greater part, been sanctioned by the public voice. It is curious to
observe how the first direction which the mind of a hardy inquirer may
take, will often account for that variety of uncommon topics he delights
in, and which, on a closer examination, may be found to bear an
invisible connexion with some preceding inquiry. As there is an
association of ideas, so in literary history there is an association of
research; and a very judicious writer may thus be impelled to compose on
subjects which may be deemed strange or injudicious.
This observation may be illustrated by the literary history of Lenglet
du Fresnoy. He opened his career by addressing a letter and a tract to
the Sorbonne, on the extraordinary affair of Maria d'Agreda, abbess of
the nunnery of the Immaculate Conception in Spain, whose mystical Life
of the Virgin, published on the decease of the abbess, and which was
received with such rapture in Spain, had just appeared at Paris, where
it excited the murmurs of the pious, and the inquiries of the curious.
This mystical Life was declared to be founded on apparitions and
revelations experienced by the abbess. Lenglet proved, or asserted, that
the abbess was not the writer of this pretended Life, though the
manuscript existed in her handwriting; and secondly, that the
apparitions and revelations recorded were against all the rules of
apparitions and revelations which he had painfully discovered. The
affair was of a delicate nature. The writer was young and incredulous; a
grey-beard, more deeply versed in theology, replied, and the Sorbonnists
silenced our philosopher in embryo.
Lenglet confined these researches to his portfolio; and so long a period
as fifty-five years had elapsed before they saw the light. It was when
Calmet published his Dissertations on Apparitions, that the subject
provoked Lenglet to return to his forsaken researches. He now published
all he had formerly composed on the affair of Maria d'Agreda, and two
other works; the one, "_Traite historique et dogmatique sur les
Apparitions, les Visions, et les Revelations particulieres_," in two
volumes; and "_Recueil de Dissertations anciennes et nouvelles, sur les
Apparitions, &c._," with a catalogue of authors on this subject, in four
volumes. When he edited the _Roman de la Rose_, in compiling the
glossary of this ancient poem, it led him to reprint many of the
earliest French poets; to give an enlarged edition of the _Arrets
d'Amour_, that work of love and chivalry, in which his fancy was now so
deeply embedded; while the subject of Romance itself naturally led to
the taste of romantic productions which appeared in "_L'Usage des
Romans_," and its accompanying copious nomenclature of all romances and
romance-writers, ancient and modern. Our vivacious Abbe had been
bewildered by his delight in the works of a chemical philosopher; and
though he did not believe in the existence of apparitions, and certainly
was more than a sceptic in history, yet it is certain that the "grande
oeuvre" was an article in his creed; it would have ruined him in
experiments, if he had been rich enough to have been ruined. It altered
his health; and the most important result of his chemical studies
appears to have been the invention of a syrup, in which he had great
confidence; but its trial blew him up into a tympany, from which he was
only relieved by having recourse to a drug, also of his own discovery,
which, in counteracting the syrup, reduced him to an alarming state of
atrophy. But the mischances of the historian do not enter into his
history: and our curiosity must be still eager to open Lenglet's
"Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique," accompanied by a catalogue of
the writers in this mysterious science, in two volumes: as well as his
enlarged edition of the works of a great Paracelsian, Nicholas le Fevre.
This philosopher was appointed by Charles the Second superintendent over
the royal laboratory at St. James's: he was also a member of the Royal
Society, and the friend of Boyle, to whom he communicated the secret of
infusing young blood into old veins, with a notion that he could
renovate that which admits of no second creation.[152] Such was the
origin of Du Fresnoy's active curiosity on a variety of singular topics,
the germs of which may be traced to three or four of our author's
principal works.
Our Abbe promised to write his own life, and his pugnacious vivacity,
and hardy frankness, would have seasoned a piece of autobiography; an
amateur has, however, written it in the style which amateurs like, with
all the truth he could discover, enlivened by some secret history,
writing the life of Lenglet with the very spirit of Lenglet: it is a
mask taken from the very features of the man, not the insipid wax-work
of an hyperbolical eloge-maker.[153]
Although Lenglet du Fresnoy commenced in early life his career as a man
of letters, he was at first engaged in the great chase of political
adventure; and some striking facts are recorded, which show his
successful activity. Michault describes his occupations by a
paraphrastical delicacy of language, which an Englishman might not have
so happily composed. The minister for foreign affairs, the Marquis de
Torcy, sent Lenglet to Lille, where the court of the Elector of Cologne
was then held: "He had particular orders to _watch_ that the two
ministers of the elector should do nothing prejudicial to the king's
affairs." He seems, however, to have _watched_ many other persons, and
detected many other things. He discovered a captain, who agreed to open
the gates of Mons to Marlborough, for 100,000 piastres; the captain was
arrested on the parade, the letter of Marlborough was found in his
pocket, and the traitor was broken on the wheel. Lenglet denounced a
foreign general in the French service, and the event warranted the
prediction. His most important discovery was that of the famous
conspiracy of Prince Cellamar, one of the chimerical plots of Alberoni;
to the honour of Lenglet, he would not engage in its detection unless
the minister promised that no blood should be shed. These successful
incidents in the life of an honourable spy were rewarded with a moderate
pension.--Lenglet must have been no vulgar intriguer; he was not only
perpetually confined by his very patrons when he resided at home, for
the freedom of his pen, but I find him early imprisoned in the citadel
of Strasburgh for six months: it is said for purloining some curious
books from the library of the Abbe Bignon, of which he had the care. It
is certain that he knew the value of the scarcest works, and was one of
those lovers of bibliography who trade at times in costly rarities. At
Vienna he became intimately acquainted with the poet Rousseau, and
Prince Eugene. The prince, however, who suspected the character of our
author, long avoided him. Lenglet insinuated himself into the favour of
the prince's librarian; and such was his bibliographical skill, that
this acquaintance ended in Prince Eugene laying aside his political
dread, and preferring the advice of Lenglet to his librarian's, to
enrich his magnificent library. When the motive of Lenglet's residence
at Vienna became more and more suspected, Rousseau was employed to
_watch_ him; and not yet having quarrelled with his brother spy, he
could only report that the Abbe Lenglet was every morning occupied in
working on his "Tablettes Chronologiques," a work not worthy of
alarming the government; that he spent his evenings at a violin-player's
married to a Frenchwoman, and returned home at eleven. As soon as our
historian had discovered that the poet was a brother spy and newsmonger
on the side of Prince Eugene, their reciprocal civilities cooled.
Lenglet now imagined that he owed his six months' retirement in the
citadel of Strasburgh to the secret officiousness of Rousseau: each grew
suspicious of the other's fidelity; and spies are like lovers, for their
mutual jealousies settled into the most inveterate hatred. One of the
most defamatory libels is Lenglet's intended dedication of his edition
of Marot to Rousseau, which being forced to suppress in Holland, by
order of the States-general; at Brussels, by the intervention of the
Duke of Aremberg; and by every means the friends of the unfortunate
Rousseau could contrive; was, however, many years afterwards at length
subjoined by Lenglet to the first volume of his work on Romances; where
an ordinary reader may wonder at its appearance unconnected with any
part of the work. In this dedication, or "Eloge Historique," he often
addresses "Mon cher Rousseau," but the irony is not delicate, and the
calumny is heavy. Rousseau lay too open to the unlicensed causticity of
his accuser. The poet was then expatriated from France for a false
accusation against Saurin, in attempting to fix on him those criminal
couplets, which so long disturbed the peace of the literary world in
France, and of which Rousseau was generally supposed to be the writer;
but of which on his death-bed he solemnly protested that he was
guiltless. The _coup-de-grace_ is given to the poet, stretched on this
rack of invective, by just accusations on account of those infamous
epigrams, which appear in some editions of that poet's works; a lesson
for a poet, if poets would be lessoned, who indulge their imagination at
the cost of their happiness, and seem to invent crimes, as if they
themselves were criminals.
But to return to our Lenglet. Had he composed his own life, it would
have offered a sketch of political servitude and political adventure, in
a man too intractable for the one, and too literary for the other. Yet
to the honour of his capacity, we must observe that he might have chosen
his patrons, would he have submitted to patronage. Prince Eugene at
Vienna; Cardinal Passionei at Rome; or Mons. Le Blanc, the French
minister, would have held him on his own terms. But "Liberty and my
books!" was the secret ejaculation of Lenglet; and from that moment all
things in life were sacrificed to a jealous spirit of independence,
which broke out in his actions as well as in his writings; and a passion
for study for ever crushed the worm of ambition.
He was as singular in his conversation, which, says Jordan, was
extremely agreeable to a foreigner, for he delivered himself without
reserve on all things, and on all persons, seasoned with secret and
literary anecdotes. He refused all the conveniences offered by an
opulent sister, that he might not endure the restraint of a settled
dinner-hour. He lived to his eightieth year, still busied, and then died
by one of those grievous chances, to which aged men of letters are
liable: our caustic critic slumbered over some modern work, and, falling
into the fire was burnt to death. Many characteristic anecdotes of the
Abbe Lenglet have been preserved in the _Dictionnaire Historique_, but I
shall not repeat what is of easy recurrence.