The authentic models for historical composition were in Greek and
Latin. Much as our literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries owed to the classics, the debt was nowhere more obvious,
and more fully acknowledged, than in our histories. The number of
translations is in itself remarkable. Many of them, and notably
the greatest of all, North's Plutarch, belong to the early part of
Elizabeth's reign, but they became more frequent at the very time when
the inferiority of our native works was engaging attention.[1] By the
middle of the seventeenth century the great classical historians could
all be read in English. It was not through translation, however, that
their influence was chiefly exercised.
The classical historians who were best known were Thucydides,
Polybius, and Plutarch among the Greeks, and Sallust, Livy, Tacitus,
and Suetonius among the Latins; and the former group were not so well
known as the latter. It was recognized that in Thucydides, to use
Hobbes's words, 'the faculty of writing history is at the highest.'[2]
But Thucydides was a difficult author, and neither he nor Polybius
exerted the same direct influence as the Latin historians who had
imitated them, or learned from them. Most of what can be traced
ultimately to the Greeks came to England in the seventeenth century
through Latin channels. Every educated man had been trained in Latin,
and was as familiar with it for literary purposes as with his native
tongue. Further, the main types of history--the history of a long
period of years, the history of recent events, and the biographical
history--were all so admirably represented in Latin that it was not
necessary to go to Greek for a model. In one respect Latin could claim
pre-eminence. It might possess no single passage greater than the
character study of Pericles or of the Athenians by Thucydides, but it
developed the character study into a recognized and clearly defined
element in historical narrative. Livy provided a pattern of narrative
on a grand scale. For 'exquisite eloquence' he was held not to
have his equal.[3] But of all the Latin historians, Tacitus had the
greatest influence. 'There is no learning so proper for the direction
of the life of man as Historie; there is no historie so well worth the
reading as Tacitus. Hee hath written the most matter with best conceit
in fewest words of any Historiographer ancient or moderne.'[4] This
had been said at the beginning of the first English translation of
Tacitus, and it was the view generally held when he came to be better
known. He appealed to Englishmen of the seventeenth century like no
other historian. They felt the human interest of a narrative based
on what the writer had experienced for himself; and they found
that its political wisdom could be applied, or even applied itself
spontaneously, to their own circumstances. They were widely read in
the classics. They knew how Plutarch depicted character in his Lives,
and Cicero in his Speeches. They knew all the Latin historians. But
when they wrote their own characters their chief master was Tacitus.
* * * * *
Continental historians provided the incentive of rivalry. They too
were the pupils of the Ancients, and taught nothing that might not be
learned equally well or better from their masters, but they invited
the question why England should be behind Italy, France, or the Low
Countries in worthy records of its achievements. In their own century,
Thuanus, Davila, Bentivoglio, Strada, and Grotius set the standard for
modern historical composition. Jacques Auguste de Thou, or Thuanus,
wrote in Latin a history of his own time in 138 books. He intended to
complete it in 143 books with the assassination of Henri IV in 1610,
but his labours were interrupted by his death in 1617. The collected
edition of his monumental work was issued in 1620 under the title
_Iacobi Augusti Thuani Historiarum sui temporis ab anno 1543 usque
ad annum 1607 Libri CXXXVIII_. Enrico Caterino Davila dealt with the
affairs of France from Francis II to Henri IV in his _Historia
delle guerre civili di Francia_, published in 1630. Cardinal Guido
Bentivoglio described the troubles in the Low Countries in his _Della
Guerra di Fiandra_, published from 1632 to 1639. Famianus Strada
wrote on the same subject in Latin; the first part of his _De Bella
Belgico_, which was meant to cover the period from 1555 to 1590 but
was not completed, appeared in 1632, and the second in 1647. Hugo
Grotius, the great Dutch scholar, had long been engaged on his
_Annales et Historiæ de Rebus Belgicis_ when he died in 1640; it was
brought out by his sons in 1657, and contained five books of Annals
from 1566 to 1588, and eighteen books of Histories to 1609. These
five historians were well known in England, and were studied for their
method as well as their matter. Burnet took Thuanus as his model. 'I
have made him ', he says, 'my pattern in writing.'[5] The others are
discussed by Clarendon in a long passage of his essay 'On an Active
and on a Contemplative Life'.[6] He there develops the view, not
without reference to his own history, that 'there was never yet a good
History written but by men conversant in business, and of the best
and most liberal education'; and he illustrates it by comparing the
histories of his four contemporaries:
Two of these are by so much preferable before the other Two,
that the first may worthily stand by the Sides of the best
of the Ancients, whilst both the others must be placed under
them; and a Man, without knowing more of them, may by reading
their Books find the Difference between their Extractions,
their Educations, their Conversations, and their Judgment. The
first Two are _Henry D'Avila_ and Cardinal _Bentivoglio_, both
_Italians_ of illustrious Birth; ... they often set forth and
describe the same Actions with very pleasant and delightful
Variety; and commonly the greatest Persons they have occasion
to mention were very well known to them both, which makes
their Characters always very lively. Both their Histories are
excellent, and will instruct the ablest and wisest Men how to
write, and terrify them from writing. The other Two were _Hugo
Grotius_ and _Famianus Strada_, who both wrote in _Latin_
upon the same Argument, and of the same Time, of the Wars of
_Flanders_, and of the _Low-Countries_.
He proceeds to show that Grotius, with all his learning and abilities,
and with all his careful revisions, had not been able to give his
narrative enough life and spirit; it was deficient in 'a lively
Representation of Persons and Actions, which makes the Reader present
at all they say or do'. The whole passage, which is too long to
be quoted in full, is not more valuable as a criticism than as an
indication of his own aims, and of his equipment to realize them. Some
years earlier, when he was still thinking 'with much agony' about the
method he was to employ in his own history, he had cited the methods
of Davila, 'who', he added, 'I think hath written as ours should be
written.'[7]
One of Clarendon's tests of a good history, it will be noted, is
the 'lively representation of persons'; the better writers are
distinguished by making 'their characters always very lively'. In
his own hands, and in Burnet's, the character assumes even greater
importance than the continental historians had given it. At every
opportunity Clarendon leaves off his narrative of events to describe
the actors in the great drama, and Burnet introduces his main subject
with what is in effect an account of his _dramatis personæ_. They
excel in the range and variety of their characters. But they had
studied the continental historians, and the encouragement of example
must not be forgotten.
* * * * *
The debt to French literature can easily be overstated. No French
influence is discoverable in the origin and rise of the English
character, nor in its form or manner; but its later development may
have been hastened by French example, especially during the third
quarter of the seventeenth century.
France was the home of the _mémoire_, the personal record in which
the individual portrays himself as the centre of his world, and
describes events and persons in the light of his own experience. It
was established as a characteristic form of French literature in the
sixteenth century,[8] and it reached its full vigour and variety
in the century of Sully, Rohan, Richelieu, Tallemant des Réaux,
Bassompierre, Madame de Motteville, Mlle de Montpensier, La
Rochefoucauld, Villars, Cardinal de Retz, Bussy-Rabutin--to name but
a few. This was the age of the _mémoire_, always interesting, often
admirably written; and, as might be expected, sometimes exhibiting the
art of portraiture at perfection. The English memoir is comparatively
late. The word, in the sense of a narrative of personal recollections,
was borrowed at the Restoration. The thing itself, under other names,
is older. It is a branch of history that flourishes in stirring
and difficult times when men believe themselves to have special
information about hidden forces that directed the main current of
events, and we date it in this country from the period of the Civil
Wars. It is significant that when Shaftesbury in his old age composed
his short and fragmentary autobiography he began by saying, 'I in this
follow the French fashion, and write my own memoirs.' Even Swift, when
publishing Temple's _Memoirs_, said that ''tis to the French (if I
mistake not) we chiefly owe that manner of writing; and Sir William
Temple is not only the first, but I think the only Englishman (at
least of any consequence) who ever attempted it.' Few English memoirs
were then in print, whereas French memoirs were to be numbered by
dozens. But the French fashion is not to be regarded as an importation
into English literature, supplying what had hitherto been lacking. At
most it stimulated what already existed.
The _mémoire_ was not the only setting for French portraits at this
time. There were the French romances, and notably the _Artamène ou
le Grand Cyrus_ and the _Clélie_ of Madeleine de Scudéry. The full
significance of the _Grand Cyrus_ has been recovered for modern
readers by Victor Cousin, with great skill and charm, in his _Société
française au XVIIe siècle_, where he has shown it to be, 'properly
speaking, a history in portraits'. The characters were drawn from
familiar figures in French society. 'Ainsi s'explique', says Cousin,
'l'immense succès du _Cyrus_ dans le temps où il parut. C'était une
galerie des portraits vrais et frappants, mais un peu embellis,
où tout ce qu'il y avait de plus illustre en tout genre--princes,
courtisans, militaires, beaux-esprits, et surtout jolies
femmes--allaient se chercher et se reconnaissaient avec un plaisir
inexprimable.'[9] It was easy to attack these romances. Boileau made
fun of them because the classical names borne by the characters
were so absurdly at variance with the matter of the stories.[10] But
instead of giving, as he said, a French air and spirit to Greece and
Rome, Madeleine de Scudéry only gave Greek and Roman names to France
as she knew it. The names were a transparent disguise that was not
meant to conceal the picture of fashionable society.
The next stage was the portrait by itself, without any setting. At the
height of the popularity of the romances, Mlle de Montpensier hit upon
a new kind of entertainment for the talented circle of which she was
the brilliant centre. It was nothing more nor less than a paper game.
They drew each other, or persons whom they knew, or themselves, and
under their real names. And they played the game so well that what was
written for amusement was worth printing. _Divers Portraits, Imprimés
en l'année M DC LIX_ was the simple title of the first collection,
which was intended only for the contributors.[11] When it reached its
final form in 1663, it contained over a hundred and fifty portraits,
and was offered to the public as _La Galerie des Peintures, ou Recueil
des portraits et éloges en vers et en prose, contenant les portraits
du Roy, de la Reyne, des princes, princesses, duchesses, marquises,
comtesses, et autres seigneurs et dames les plus illustres de France;
la plupart composés par eux-mêmes_.[12] The introductory defence of
the portrait cites Suetonius and Plutarch, and Horace and Montaigne,
but also states frankly the true original of the new fashion--'il faut
avouer que nous sommes très redevables au _Cyrus_ et à la _Clélie_
qui nous en ont fourni les modèles.' About the same time Antoine
Baudeau, sieur de Somaize, brought out his _Grand Dictionnaire des
Précieuses_,[13] in which there are many portraits in the accepted
manner. The portrait was more than a fashion at this time in France;
it was the rage. It therefore invited the satirists. Molière has a
passing jest at them in his _Précieuses Ridicules_;[14] Charles Sorel
published his _Description de I'isle de la Portraiture et de la ville
des Portraits_; and Boileau wrote his _Héros de Roman_.
The effects of all this in England are certainly not obvious. It is
quite a tenable view that the English characters would have been
no less numerous, nor in any way different in quality, had every
Englishman been ignorant of French. But the _mémoires_ and romances
were well known, and it was after 1660 that the art of the character
attained its fullest excellence. The literary career of Clarendon
poses the question in a simple form. Most of his characters, and the
best as a whole, were written at Montpelier towards the close of
his life. Did he find in French literature an incentive to indulge
and perfect his natural bent? Yet there can be no conclusive answer
to those who find a sufficient explanation in the leisure of these
unhappy years, and in the solace that comes to chiefs out of war
and statesmen out of place in ruminating on their experiences and
impressions.
* * * * *
Something may have been learned also from the other kind of character
that is found at its best in modern literature in the seventeenth
century, the character derived from Theophrastus, and depicting not
the individual but the type. In France, the one kind led on to the
other. The romances of Scudéry prepared the way for the _Caractères ou
les Moeurs de ce Siècle_ of La Bruyère. When the fashionable portrait
of particular persons fell out of favour, there arose in its place the
description of dispositions and temperaments; and in the hands of La
Bruyère 'the manners of the century' were the habits and varieties
of human nature. In England the two kinds existed side by side. They
correspond to the two methods of the drama. Begin with the individual,
but draw him in such a way that we recognize in him our own or others'
qualities; or begin with the qualities shared by classes of people,
embody these in a person who stands for the greatest common measure of
the class, and finally--and only then--let him take on his distinctive
traits: these are methods which are not confined to the drama, and
at all stages of our literature have lived in helpful rivalry. Long
before France had her La Bruyère, England had her Hall, Overbury, and
Earle.[15] The Theophrastan character was at its best in this country
at the beginning of the seventeenth century when the historical
character was still in its early stages; and it was declining when
the historical character had attained its full excellence. They cannot
always be clearly distinguished, and they are sometimes purposely
blended, as in Butler's character of 'A Duke of Bucks,' where
the satire on a man of pronounced individuality is heightened by
describing his eccentricities as if they belonged to a recognized
class.
The great lesson that the Theophrastan type of character could teach
was the value of balance and unity. A haphazard statement of
features and habits and peculiarities might suffice for a sketch,
but perspective and harmony were necessary to a finished portrait.
It taught that the surest method in depicting character was first
to conceive the character as a whole, and then to introduce detail
incidentally and in proper subordination. But the same lesson could
have been learned elsewhere. It might have been learned from the
English drama.
[Footnote 1: North's Plutarch went into five editions between 1579
and 1631; Thucydides was translated by Hobbes in 1629, and Polybius
by Edward Grimeston in 1633; Xenophon's _Anabasis_ was translated
by John Bingham in 1623, and the _Cyropædia_ by Philemon Holland in
1632; Arthur Golding's version of Cæsar's _Gallic War_ was several
times reprinted between 1565 and 1609; Philemon Holland, the
translator-general of the age, as Fuller called him, brought out
his Livy in 1600, and his Suetonius in 1606; Sallust was translated
by Thomas Heywood in 1608, and by William Crosse in 1629; Velleius
Paterculus was 'rendred English by Sir Robert Le Grys' in 1632; and by
1640 there had been six editions of Sir Henry Savile's _Histories_ and
_Agricola_ of Tacitus, first published in 1591, and five editions of
Richard Grenewey's _Annals_ and _Germany_, first published in 1598.
See H.R. Palmer's _English Editions and Translations of Greek and
Latin Classics printed before 1641_, Bibliographical Society, 1911.]
[Footnote 2: 'Thucydides ... in whom (I beleeve with many others) the
Faculty of writing History is at the Highest.' Thucydides, 1629, 'To
the Readers.']
[Footnote 3: Philemon Holland's Livy, 1600, 'Dedication to
Elizabeth.']
[Footnote 4: Sir Henry Savile's Tacitus, 1591, 'A.B. To the Reader.']
[Footnote 5: _Supplement to Burnet's History_, ed. H.C. Foxcroft, p.
451.]
[Footnote 6: In 'Reflections upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and
Moral, by Way of Essays', printed in _A Collection of several Tracts
of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, 1727, pp. 80-1.]
[Footnote 7: Letter to the Earl of Bristol, February 1, 1646
(_State Papers_, vol. ii, p. 334). Davila was very well known in
England--better, it would appear, than the other three--and was
credited with being more than a mere literary model. Clarendon says
that from his account of the civil wars of France 'no question our
Gamesters learned much of their play'. Sir Philip Warwick, after
remarking that Hampden was well read in history, tells us that the
first time he ever saw Davila's book it was lent to him 'under the
title of Mr. Hambden's _Vade Mecum_' (_Mémoires_, 1701, p. 240).
A translation was published by the authority of the Parliament in
1647-8. Translations of Strada, Bentivoglio, and Grotius followed in
1650, 1654, and 1665. Only parts of Thuanus were translated. The size
of his history was against a complete version.]
[Footnote 8: See the _Mémoires_ of Monluc, Brantôme, La Noue, &c. The
fifty-two volumes in Petitot's incomplete series entitled _Collection
des Mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France jusqu'au commencement
du dix-septième siècle_ show at a glance the remarkable richness of
French literature in the _mémoire_ at an early date.]
[Footnote 9: _La Socíété française au XVIIe siècle_, 1858 vol. i, p.
7. The 'key' drawn up in 1657 is printed as an appendix.]
[Footnote 10: _Art poétique_, iii. 115-18.]
[Footnote 11: Cousin, _Madame de Sablé_, 1854, pp. 42-8.]
[Footnote 12: Edited by Edouard de Barthélemy in 1860 under the title
_La Galerie des Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier_.]
[Footnote 13: Edited by Ch. Livet, 1856 (Bibliothèque Elzevirienne. 2
vols.).]
[Footnote 14: Sc. x, where Madelon says 'Je vous avoue que je suis
furieusement pour les portraits: je ne vois rien de si galant que
cela', and Mascarille replies, 'Les portraits sont difficiles, et
demandent un esprit profond: vous en verrez de ma manière qui ne vous
déplairont pas.']
[Footnote 15: Joseph Hall's _Characters of Vertues and Vices_ appeared
in 1608 Overbury's _Characters_ 1614-22. For Earle, see pp. 168-70.]