(Vol. ii., p. 278.)
Although I am not afraid of the fate with which that unfortunate monk met,
of whom it is said,--
"Pro solo puncto caruit Martinus Asello,"
yet a blunder is a sad thing, especially when the person who is supposed to
commit it attempts to correct others.
Now the printer of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" has introduced, in my short
remark on Pascal, the _very error_ which has led the author of the article
in the _British Quarterly Review_, as well as many others, to mistake the
Bishop of Meaux for the editor of Pascal's works. Once more, that
unfortunate editor is BOSSUT, not BOSSUET; and if it may appear to some
that the difference of one letter in a name is not of much consequence, yet
it is from an error as trifling as this that people of my acquaintance
confound Madame de Staël with Madame de Staal-Delauney, in spite of
chronology and common sense. Again, by the leave of the _Christian
Remembrancer_ (vol. xiii. no. 55.), the elegant and accomplished scholar to
whom we owe the only complete text of Pascal's thoughts, is M. Faugère, not
Fougère. All these are minutiæ; but the chapter of minutiæ is an important
one in literary history.
Another remarkable question which I feel a wish to touch upon before
closing this communication, is that of _impromptus_. Your correspondent MR.
SINGER (p. 105.) supposes Malherbe the poet to have been "ready at an
impromptu." But, to say the least, this is rather doubtful, unless the
extemporaneous effusions of Malherbe were of that class which Voiture
indulged in with so much success at the Hôtel de Rambouillet--sonnets and
epigrams leisurely prepared for the purpose of being fired off in some
fashionable "_ruelle_" of Paris. Malherbe is known to have been a very slow
composer; he used to say to Balzac that ten years' rest was necessary after
the production of a hundred lines: and the author of the _Christian
Socrates_, himself rather too fond of the file, after quoting this fact,
adds in a letter to Consart:
"Je n'ai pas besoin d'un si long repos après un si petit travail. Mais
aussi d'attendre de moi cette heureuse facilité qui fait produire des
volumes à M. de Scudéry, ce serait me connaître mal, et me faire une
honneur que je ne mérite pas."
Malherbe certainly had a most happy influence on French poetry; he checked
the ultra-classical school of Ronsard, and began that work of reformation
afterwards accomplished by Boileau.
As I have mentioned Voiture's name, I shall add a very droll "_soi-disant_"
impromptu of his, composed to ridicule Mademoiselle Chapelain, the sister
of the poet. Like her brother, she was most miserly in her habits, and not
distinguished by that virtue which some say is next to godliness.
"Vous qui tenez incessamment
Cent amans dedans votre manche,
Tenez-les au moins proprement,
Et faites qu'elle soit plus blanche.
"Vous pouvez avecque raison,
Usant des droits de la victoire,
Mettre vos galants en prison;
Mais qu'elle ne soit pas si noire.
"Mon coeur, qui vous est bien dévot,
Et que vous réduisez en cendre,
Vous le tenez dans un cachot
Comme un prisonnier qu'on va pendre.
"Est-ce que, brûlant nuit et jour,
Je remplis ce lieu de fumée,
Et que le feu de mon amour
En a fait une cheminée?"