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several places, and laid them down with more correctness than heretofore but his map is still defective, and the whole province of Seistan, Kerman and Mekran are left almost a blank. One great fault in his memoir is the silence which he observes as to the authorities on which it is drawn up; and the reader is left entirely to guess what parts of Persia have been visited by himself, and those for the account of which he is indebted to others.

Mr. Morier's book is of that light desultory kind of writing which never fails to afford pleasure to those who read for mere amusement: the large portion of it, which is bestowed in praise of the good management of the mission, must be peculiarly gratifying to Sir Harford Jones.

ART. VI. Correspondance Littéraire, Philosophique, et Critique, addressée à un Souverain d'Allemagne, depuis 1770 jusqu'en 1782, par le Baron de Grimm et par Diderot. 5 tomes, 8vo, Paris.

1812.

WE have been brought very intimately acquainted, by several late publications, with the state of society at Paris, and with the characters and persons of those who formed its principal ornaments, during the middle and latter end of the last century. It seems to be agreed on all hands that the arts of social intercourse were never, at any period of the civilised world, carried to so high a pitch of refinement and polish; and there are not wanting those even among our less harmonised countrymen, who have been so captivated by the brilliant and seducing picture, as to appear content to fix in such a state the standard for the greatest possible quantity of human happiness. From all such opinions we widely differ, not in disputing the fact, but the inference. To the production of so perfect a specimen of society, it seems to have been necessary to make certain sacrifices; and we are by no means satisfied that the objects sacrificed were not often of much greater importance in the scale of real felicity than those acquired.

We have thought it necessary to explain so much at the outset, that the entertainment which we profess ourselves to derive from these accounts of Parisian society, may not be confounded with any supposed admiration of the principles on which it was established, or desire of seeing them reduced more generally into practice among ourselves. It would be a miserable exchange, that of the heart for the imagination, of the domestic affections for the social graces.

After this, we shall have done with the subject, and, instead of moralizing, hasten to convey to our readers as large a por

tion of the information and amusement with which the work before us abounds, as we can concentrate within the limits of the following pages.

M. de Grimm, who was a German by birth, and of obscure parentage, owed his introduction into good society at Paris to the capacity in which he travelled, of governor to the children of Count Schomberg. His earliest intimacy, among the wits and philosophists of the day, was with Jean Jacques Rousseau; and through him he became acquainted with Diderot, Baron Holbach, and the principal authors of the Encyclopédie. These connections, aided by what his biographer calls la souplesse de son esprit,' were not long in opening to him une carrière brillante. During several years he was employed as secretary by the late duke of Orleans; and was applied to by several of the German princes to transmit to them, in the way of free and lively correspondence, all the literary and philosophistical gossip of Paris. Of the mass of information and amusement which this miscellaneous correspondence must have contained, it was not known (says the editor of these volumes) that any portion existed, until the discovery of the MSS. from which this selection is made, and which, (we are told,) if printed entire, would have extended to three times the present quantity; but it was judged proper to curtail it, in the first place, of all the analyses of dramatic pieces with which the original appears to have abounded, and secondly of various jeux d'esprit, and indeed of some entire works of Diderot and others, which have since appeared in other forms before the public. These curtailments might have been considerably enlarged without injury to the book. Several pieces, which we ourselves know to have been published before, are republished now; and doubtless there are several others, of the previous appearance of which we are ignorant; and, though the long accounts of tragedies, operas, farces, ballets, &c. are very properly omitted, yet all the criticisms, even upon the worst and most insignificant of them, are retained; and, however lively and even just in their taste and spirit, might have been reduced, at least, two-thirds without prejudice (we should imagine) to any modern reader. The same may be said of the criticisms. on the publications of the day, which we should have doomed to amputation in an equal proportion. After all these curtailments, enough would be left to fill two volumes out of the five which lie before us; and these would form a magazine of good sense, lively anecdote, spirited criticism, and laughable whim, such as no collection of ana or table-talk that we are acquainted with, exceeds, or even rivals.

Part of the correspondence, as we are informed in the Preface, was furnished by Diderot; but it appears to have been but a small

portion

portion of it, and the philosophist seems only to have supplied the place of his friend occasionally, when prevented by illness or absence from completing his engagement with the sovereign prince' to whom it was addressed. Who this sovereign was, we are not informed: but we have been told that the late Margrave of Anspach was one of those to whom Grimm was in the habits of addressing his Parisian communications, and that the Margravine has still in her possession several volumes of his correspondence. A great deal of this may, in all likelihood, be merely a duplicate of that now published; as it surely formed no part of the Baron's contract with his illustrious employers to furnish different matter for each of them; but the treasure, at all events, would be worth the ransacking; and the lacune of two years, (1775 and 1776,) which the editor laments in the present publication, might be supplied if only ordinary good fortune attended the search.

We must bring our readers a little better acquainted with the author of the Correspondence, before we dive into the book itself.

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'M. de Grimm,' says the editor, a été long-temps connu à Paris par la finesse de son esprit, la variété de ses connaissances, et surtout par ses liaisons avec les hommes les plus célèbres du siècle dernier. Quoique étranger, il sut prendre en France le caractère, les formes, et l'urbanité parisienne, et vengea l'Allemagne des épigrammes de nos petits-maîtres.'

This eulogium is borne out by the general tenor of the Correspondence. Among all the bons mots and witticisms of others which he details in profusion, there are few which exceed either in humour or in naïveté those which he occasionally intersperses of his own; and the freedom and manliness of his remark on books; on characters, and on passing events, are only equalled by the tone of good humour in which they are delivered. One fatal exception is, indeed, to be made to this general commendation. The good sense of the individual was not proof against the prevailing and overwhelming spirit of the age in which he lived, and of the society with which he was chiefly united. His religious, or, to use his own language, his philosophical principles, as far as this correspondence reveals them to us, exhibit an absence of all sound reflection, remarkable even in a Parisian wit of the 18th century. He seems to have been fixed in nothing but the habit of irreverent ridicule; and when he occasionally attempts to be serious, we have in one month a profession of sentiments amounting to downright atheism, which are disavowed in the next, and perhaps reassumed in the succeeding, but always with an air of indifference which forms a curious contrast to the zeal and enthusiasm with which he es

pouses

pouses the cause of a favourite actress, or defends the merits of an unpopular pantomime.

Though possessed undoubtedly of considerable talents, and a German, he was a most decided petit-maître. Not long after his arrival at Paris, he fell violently in love with une vertu d'Opéra, named Mademoiselle Fel, who refused (chose inouie!) to listen to his vows. This disappointment threw him into a sort of catalepsy, which lasted many days. Il restait étendu sur son lit, les yeux fixes, les membres roides, sans parler, sans manger, sans donner aucun signe de sentiment.' His friends thought him actually dead, and Raynal and Rousseau sat up several nights to watch by him; but his physician thought better of him; ' et en effet, un beau matin Grimm prit son parti, se leva sur son séant, s'habilla, et ne pensa plus à sa Lucrèce de l'Opéra.' This adventure gave him great éclat among the ladies, who adored him for the sensibility which he had so strikingly demonstrated; but their favours seem to have turned his head in good earnest; and he gave himself such airs that his friend Jean Jacques determined to break off all connexion with him. This is Rousseau's own account of the origin of the disagreement between them. Grimm, perhaps, told a different story. He did not, it seems, add to his other qualifications the charms of an agreeable person, and took incredible pains to supply his natural deficiency by the artificial resources of the toilet. No lady in Paris employed the brush to so much effect; and the quantity of ceruse with which he daily filled up the lines and wrinkles of his face, joined to the want of moderation which he displayed in the enjoyment of his bonnes fortunes, procured for him the appellation of Tyran le blanc. His various connections with the sovereign princes of Germany and the north, among whom Frederick, Gustavus, and Catherine are reckoned, procured him high honours as well as emoluments; and he has been accused of having recourse to low and unworthy practices to recommend himself to those favours and advantages; but his editor indignantly repels all these insinuations. With the exception of the important article of religion, he seems to have merited the farther encomium which is here passed upon his philosophy.

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Grimm était philosophe sans doute, mais de cette philosophie que tout homme de bien peut avouer; de cette philosophie qui éclaire et ne brûle pas; de cette philosophie qui sait respecter l'ordre et les lois sociales. Sa Correspondance prouve qu'il ne partageait nullement les excès de quelques enfans perdus de l'Encyclopédie, qui, en voulant servir la raison, la trahissaient tous les jours. Ce caractère de sagesse et de modération lui valut en effet des cordons et des dignités, mais il les obtint honorablement, sans intrigue et sans bassesse.'

Notwithstanding the moderation of his philosophy, he very nar

rowly

rowly escaped the Bastille for the ardour with which he defended the party of the Coin de la Reine (the advocates for the Italian Opera) against the Royalistes, who asserted the cause of the national music. Such were the factions which divided all Paris in those happy days! In 1776, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary for the Duke of Saxe-Gotha at Paris, and it was then he first assumed the title of Baron. He continued to reside at the French capital long enough to witness the commencement of disorders rather more serious than those of the Piccinistes and Gluckistes: his latter days were passed in literary retirement at Gotha; and he died there at a very advanced age about five years ago.

Attached as he was to the parti philosophique, we are not to expect much impartiality in those parts of his correspondence which relate either to the chiefs of that party or their principal enemies and antagonists. There is amply sufficient, however, in these memoirs, after making all due allowances for exaggeration, to confirm our former impressions, that the blind animosity of the advocates for religion and social order advanced an equal length with the Encyclopédistes, though in a contrary direction, towards the accomplishment of the terrible catastrophe. One fatal delusion appears to have involved all parties in the state, and all ranks of society: it was, however, at least as true of the philosophists as of their enemies, that when once the bandage was removed, and the precipice on which they stood revealed to their eyes, they would fain have retreated, but it was no longer possible. We know not a more instructive lesson than is to be derived from the contemporary memoirs of the times immediately preceding the Revolution; and a reflecting man can hardly peruse them without frequently starting as he asks himself the question, Am I not at this moment on the edge of a similar precipice?' What are the signs of the times by which our danger may be made manifest, and how is it to be avoided? We have indeed a tremendous lesson before us; but who shall say that we are capable of turning it to that account without which it will be lost upon us, and the neglect of its warning only serve to render our fall less pitiable?

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Voltaire is, throughout this correspondence, the hero of the song, the unfailing oracle in whose decisions the writer reposes with as much confidence as the most devout catholic in the Pope's infallibility, except indeed when, now and then, the timidity of old age, or a partial gleam of futurity, may have induced the veteran infidel to profess sentiments foreign to the habitual current of his thoughts and expressions. In the light and irreverent language of the Eucyclopédistes, the sage of Ferney is styled patriarch of the holy philosophical church; and his disciples are accustomed to meet together in frequent commemoration of their founder. It is no won

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