The Biggest Curiosities of Literature. Disraeli Isaac
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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.
IMITATED.
Princes were proud my friendship to proclaim,
And Europe gazed, where'er her hero came!
I grasp'd the laurels of heroic strife,
The thousand perils of a soldier's life;
Obedient in the ranks each toilful day!
Though heroes soon command, they first obey.
'Twas not for me, too long a time to yield!
Born for a chieftain in the tented field!
Around my plumed helm, my silvery hair
Hung like an honour'd wreath of age and care!
The finer arts have charm'd my studious hours,
Versed in their mysteries, skilful in their powers;
In verse and prose my equal genius glow'd,
Pursuing glory by no single road!
Such was the vain George Scudery! whose heart, however, was warm: poverty could never degrade him; adversity never broke down his magnanimous spirit!
DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT.
The maxims of this noble author are in the hands of every one. To those who choose to derive every motive and every action from the solitary principle of self-love, they are inestimable. They form one continued satire on human nature; but they are not reconcilable to the feelings of the man of better sympathies, or to him who passes through life with the firm integrity of virtue. Even at court we find a Sully, a Malesherbes, and a Clarendon, as well as a Rouchefoucault and a Chesterfield.
The Duke de la Rochefoucault, says Segrais, had not studied; but he was endowed with a wonderful degree of discernment, and knew the world perfectly well. This afforded him opportunities of making reflections, and reducing into maxims those discoveries which he had made in the heart of man, of which he displayed an admirable knowledge.
It is perhaps worthy of observation, that this celebrated French duke could never summon resolution, at his election, to address the Academy. Although chosen a member, he never entered, for such was his timidity, that he could not face an audience and deliver the usual compliment on his introduction; he whose courage, whose birth, and whose genius were alike distinguished. The fact is, as appears by Mad. de Sévigné, that Rochefoucault lived a close domestic life; there must be at least as much theoretical as practical knowledge in the opinions of such a retired philosopher.
Chesterfield, our English Rochefoucault, we are also informed, possessed an admirable knowledge of the heart of man; and he, too, has drawn a similar picture of human nature. These are two noble authors whose chief studies seem to have been made in courts. May it not be possible, allowing these authors not to have written a sentence of apocrypha, that the fault lies not so much in human nature as in the satellites of Power breathing their corrupt atmosphere?
PRIOR'S HANS CARVEL.
Were we to investigate the genealogy of our best modern stories, we should often discover the illegitimacy of our favourites; and retrace them frequently to the East. My well-read friend Douce had collected materials for such a work. The genealogies of tales would have gratified the curious in literature.
The story of the ring of Hans Carvel is of very ancient standing, as are most of the tales of this kind.
Menage says that Poggius, who died in 1459, has the merit of its invention; but I suspect he only related a very popular story.
Rabelais, who has given it in his peculiar manner, changed its original name of Philelphus to that of Hans Carvel.
This title is likewise in the eleventh of Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles collected in 1461, for the amusement of Louis XI. when Dauphin, and living in solitude.
Ariosto has borrowed it, at the end of his fifth Satire; but has fairly appropriated it by his pleasant manner.
In a collection of novels at Lyons, in 1555, it is introduced into the eleventh novel.
Celio Malespini has it again in page 288 of the second part of his Two Hundred Novels, printed at Venice in 1609.
Fontaine has prettily set it off, and an anonymous writer has composed it in Latin Anacreontic verses; and at length our Prior has given it with equal gaiety and freedom. After Ariosto, La Fontaine, and Prior, let us hear of it no more; yet this has been done, in a manner, however, which here cannot be told.
Voltaire has a curious essay to show that most of our best modern stories and plots originally belonged to the eastern nations, a fact which has been made more evident by recent researches. The Amphitryon of Molière was an imitation of Plautus, who borrowed it from the Greeks, and they took it from the Indians! It is given by Dow in his History of Hindostan. In Captain Scott's Tales and Anecdotes from Arabian writers, we are surprised at finding so many of our favourites very ancient orientalists.—The Ephesian Matron, versified by La Fontaine, was borrowed from the Italians; it is to be found in Petronius, and Petronius had it from the Greeks. But where did the Greeks find it? In the Arabian Tales! And from whence did the Arabian fabulists borrow it? From the Chinese! It is found in Du Halde, who collected it from the Versions of the Jesuits.
THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS.
A man of letters, more intent on the acquisitions of literature than on the intrigues of politics, or the speculations of commerce, may find a deeper solitude in a populous metropolis than in the seclusion of the country.
The student, who is no flatterer of the little passions of men, will not be much incommoded by their presence. Gibbon paints his own situation in the heart of the fashionable world:—"I had not been endowed by art or nature with those happy gifts of confidence and address which unlock every door and every bosom. While coaches were rattling through Bond-street, I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my books. I withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure." And even after he had published the first volume of his History, he observes that in London his confinement was solitary and sad; "the many forgot my existence when they saw me no longer at Brookes's, and the few who sometimes had a thought on their friend were detained by business or pleasure, and I was proud and happy if I could prevail on my bookseller, Elmsly, to enliven the dulness of the evening."
A situation, very elegantly described in the beautifully polished verses of Mr. Rogers, in his "Epistle to a Friend:"
When from his classic dreams the student steals
Amid the buzz of crowds, the whirl of wheels,
To muse unnoticed, while around him press
The meteor-forms of equipage and dress;
Alone in wonder lost, he seems to stand
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