Bien heureux SCUDERY, dont la fertile plume
Peut tous les mois sans peine enfanter un volume.
Boileau has written this couplet on the Scuderies, 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 Clelias, their Cyrus's, and Parthenissas.
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 relished this kind of works. She was one
of those unfortunate authors who, living to more than ninety years of
age, survive their own celebrity.
She had her panegyrists in her day: Menage 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 principal 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
for ever, 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," says 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 Artamene 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
_acmé_ of cultivation. Such is her erudition, that the French place her
next to the celebrated Madame Dacier. Her works, containing many secret
intrigues of the court and city, her readers must have keenly relished
on their early publication."
Her Artamene, or the Great Cyrus, and principally her Clelia, are
representations of what then passed at the court of France. The _Map_ of
the _Kingdom of Tenderness_, in Clelia, 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,
_Petits Soins_, 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.
GEORGE 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 the pen, so that he exhibits a 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 an Homeric grandeur of
conception.
In an epistle to the Duke of Montmorency, Scudery 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 hats." When he
solicits small favours 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
Gardie, whom she had disgraced. The epical soul of Scudery 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 Scudery! An ingenious critic calls it "The downfall of
mediocrity!" It is amusing to listen to this blazing preface:--"At
length, reader, 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,
A qui suffit pour tout garde,
Un Suisse avec sa hallebarde
Peint sur la porte du château!
A fort very commodiously guarded; only requiring one sentinel with his
halbert--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'on me vit obeïr, l'on me vit commander,
Et mon poil tout poudreux a blanchi sons les armes;
Il est peu de beaux arts où je ne sois instruit;
En prose et en vers, mon nom fit quelque bruit;
Et par plus d'un chemin je parvins à la gloire.