ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

       Table of Contents

      The great cause of the ancients versus the moderns is not yet disposed of; it has been at issue ever since the silver age, which succeeded the golden one. Men have always pretended that the good old times were much better than the present. Nestor, in the "Iliad," wishing to insinuate himself, like a wise mediator, into the good opinion of Achilles and Agamemnon, begins with saying: "I have lived with better men than you; never have I seen, nor shall I ever see again, such great personages as Dryas, Cæneus, Exadius, Polyphemus equal to the gods," etc. Posterity has made ample amends to Achilles for Nestor's bad compliment, so vainly admired by those who admire nothing but what is ancient. Who knows anything about Dryas? We have scarcely heard of Exadius or of Cæneus; and as for Polyphemus equal to the gods, he has no very high reputation, unless, indeed, there was something divine in his having a great eye in the middle of his forehead, and eating the raw carcasses of mankind.

      Lucretius does not hesitate to say that nature has degenerated:

       Ipsa dedit dulces fœtus et pabula lœta, Quæ nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore; Conterimusque boves, et vires agricolarum, etc.

      Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote:

      Les hommes, en tout tems, ont pensé qu'autrefois, De longs ruisseaux de lait serpentaient dans nos bois; La lune était plus grande, et la nuit moins obscure; L'hiver se couronnait de fleurs et de verdure; Se contemplait à l'aise, admirait son néant, Et, formé pour agir, se plaisait à rien faire, etc. Men have, in every age, believed that once Long streams of milk ran winding through the woods; The moon was larger and the night less dark; Winter was crowned with flowers and trod on verdure; Man, the world's king, had nothing else to do Than contemplate his utter worthlessness, And, formed for action, took delight in sloth, etc.

      Horace combats this prejudice with equal force and address in his fine epistle to Augustus. "Must our poems, then," says he, "be like our wines, of which the oldest are always preferred?" He afterward says:

      Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crasse Compositum illepideve putetur, sed quia nuper; Nec veniam antiquis, sed honorem et præmia posci. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Ingeniis non ille favet plauditque sepultis, Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit. I feel my honest indignation rise, When, with affected air, a coxcomb cries: "The work, I own, has elegance and ease, But sure no modern should presume to please"; Thus for his favorite ancients dares to claim, Not pardon only, but rewards and fame. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Not to the illustrious dead his homage pays, But envious robs the living of their praise.—FRANCIS.

      On this subject the learned and ingenious Fontenelle expresses himself thus:

      "The whole of the question of pre-eminence between the ancients and moderns, being once well understood, reduces itself to this: Were the trees which formerly grew in the country larger than those of the present day? If they were, Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes cannot be equalled in these latter ages; but if our trees are as large as those of former times, then can we equal Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes.

      "But to clear up the paradox: If the ancients had stronger minds than ourselves, it must have been that the brains of those times were better disposed, were formed of firmer or more delicate fibres, or contained a larger portion of animal spirits. But how should the brains of those times have been better disposed? Had such been the case, the leaves would likewise have been larger and more beautiful; for if nature was then more youthful and vigorous, the trees, as well as the brains of men, would have borne testimony to that youth and vigor."

      With our illustrious academician's leave, this is by no means the state of the question. It is not asked whether nature can at the present day produce as great geniuses, and as good works, as those of Greek and Latin antiquity, but whether we really have such. It is doubtless possible that there are oaks in the forest of Chantilly as large as those of Dodona; but supposing that the oaks of Dodona could talk, it is quite clear that they had a great advantage over ours, which, it is probable, will never talk.

      La Motte, a man of wit and talent, who has merited applause in more than one kind of writing, has, in an ode full of happy lines, taken the part of the moderns. We give one of his stanzas:

       Et pourquoi veut-on que j'encense Ces prétendus Dieux dont je sors? En moi la même intelligence Fait mouvoir les mêmes ressorts. Croit-on la nature bizarre, Pour nous aujourd'hui plus avare Que pour les Grecs et les Romains? De nos aînés mere idolâtre, N'est-elle plus que la marâtre Dure et grossière des humains?

      And pray, why must I bend the knee

       To these pretended Gods of ours?

       The same intelligence in me

       Gives vigor to the self-same powers.

       Think ye that nature is capricious,

       Or towards us more avaricious

       Than to our Greek and Roman sires—

       To them an idolizing mother,

       While in their children she would smother

       The sparks of intellectual fires?

      He might be answered thus: Esteem your ancestors, without adoring them. You have intelligence and powers of invention, as Virgil and Horace had; but perhaps it is not absolutely the same intelligence. Perhaps their talents were superior to—yours; they exercised them, too, in a language richer and more harmonious than our modern tongues, which are a mixture of corrupted Latin, with the horrible jargon of the Celts.

      Nature is not capricious; but it is possible that she had given the Athenians a soil and sky better adapted than Westphalia and the Limousin to the formation of geniuses of a certain order. It is also likely that, the government of Athens, seconding the favorable climate, put ideas into the head of Demosthenes which the air of Clamar and La Grenouillere combined with the government of Cardinal de Richelieu, did not put into the heads of Omer Talon and Jerome Bignon.

      Some one answered La Motte's lines by the following:

      Cher la Motte, imite et revère Ces Dieux dont tu ne descends pas; Si tu crois qu'Horace est ton père, Il a fait des enfans ingrats. La nature n'est point bizarre; Pour Danchet elle est fort avare, Mais Racine en fut bien traité; Tibulle était guide par elle, Mais pour notre ami La Chapelle, Hélas! qu'elle a peu de bonté! Revere and imitate, La Motte, Those Gods from whom thou'rt not descended; If thou by Horace wert begot, His children's manners might be mended. Nature is not at all capricious; To Danchet she is avaricious, But she was liberal to Racine; She used Tibullus very well, Though to our good friend La Chapelle, Alas! she is extremely mean!

      This dispute, then, resolves itself into a question of fact. Was antiquity more fertile in great monuments of genius of every kind, down to the