SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY •
lawatusg,
Coors d'Etudes 1Flistoriques, par C. F. Donau. Pair de France, &c. Tome Sep. turns—Art d'EcrirerHistoire Didot, Paris. AMON.
Agincourt; a Romance. By G. P. R. James, Esq., Author of "Darnley." "Do L'Orme," Ste. &c. In three volumes
m, Bentley.
Cernots Imagination and Fancy; or Selections from the English Poets, illustrative of those first principles of their art ; with Markings of the best Passages, Critical Notices of the Writers, and an Essay in answer to the Question "What is Poetry ? " By
Leigh Hunt . Smith and Elder. Mgraciax, Ou Diet, with its Influence on Man; being an address to Parents, &c., or How to Obtain Health, Strength, Sweetness, Beauty. Development of Intellect. and Long Life. By Thomas Parry Highley. Fractical Observations on the Efficacy of Medicated Inhalations in the Treatment of Consumption, Asthma, Bronchitis, Chronic Cough, and other Diseases of the Respiratory Organs, and also Affections of the Heart. By Alfred Beaumont Maddock, M.D., Surgeon, &c. Illustrated with Cases and Explanatory Notes. Simpitin and Marshall. )(MELT-M.1E017S LITIMATURE, Essays. Second Series. By R. W. Emerson Chaprnas.
DAUM:Kr COBBS D'ETUDES HISTORIQUES.
THE art of writing history is a theme in treating of which the late M. Deusion might have been expected to show himself more at home than in any other part of his Historical Lectures. By educa- tion—it might almost be said by nature—he was a writer, in con- tradistinction to a thinker or a man of imagination. For fifteen years (1777-1792) he was a sedulous member of the Oratory, first as a student, afterwards as a teacher. This semi-monastic order was founded in 1611, to combat Protestantism ; not, like the Jesuits, by devising and inculcating a system of philosophy in harmony with the claims of the Romish Church, but by adopting every new discovery, every new fashion in science, and seeking to soften down or explain away anything they might have of dangerous to those claims. The pupil or teacher of the Oratory was expected to be familiar with the whole circle of the literature and science of his day, but to allow it no influence on his preconceived opinions. His business was to win for the Church the respect of the literary class, by showing them that priests knew all about their favourite pur- suits; and to gloss over in the pulpit all contradictions between the discoveries of reason and the dogmas of Rome. His task was to learn, not truth, but what others said or believed—to teach, not what he believed, but what was prescribed to him. Scepticism, elegant taste, and a decorous manner, were the whole man of the disciple of the Oratory. He was all talk and no belief. The effect of this training upon Daustou is visible in the elaborate judgments he has pronounced on some of his contemporaries : he gravely enu- merates the incorrectness of Nat-co-Ewes style both in French and Italian among his political and moral faults; and he winds up a sketch of ROBESPIERRE, terribly true in other respects, by express- ing reluctance to condemn without reserve one who after all wrote tolerably well. This was not the training to form an eminent investigator or suc- cessful expounder of the science of history or any thing else. The seven volumes of DAIINOB'S Lectures on History—they will fill when completed seventeen or eighteen volumes—show this. The classification of these Lectures, announced by M. DAUNOU and his literary executor, is imposing enough. They are arranged, we are told, under three heads-1. Lectures on the investigation of facts and the selection of historical subjects. In these the author des- cants on the sources of historical knowledge and the laws of evi- dence, and on the moral uses of history. 2. Lectures on the clas- sification of facts according to their relations in space and time, or, in common language, on geography and chronology. 3. Lectures on the art of narrating facts. To these, it is announced, will be added an examination of the influence of philosophical systems on history, and a history of philosophy from the time of PLATO. This framework is promising ; but the filling up is unsatisfactory. In the lectures which fall under the first head, we find no traces of intimate acquaintance with the sources of historical knowledge, and no distinct exposition of the laws of evidence. The lecturer hur- ries over these topics, of paramount importance to the student of history, in order to dilate on a topic more familiar to a preacher of the Oratory—the commonplace morals which may be tortured out of history. His geographical lectures consist of a hasty and super- ficial sketch of the history of the science, and a brief description of the scientific methods by which greater precision has been com- municated to modern geography. His chronological lectures are more diffuse : but they are rather a popular outline of universal history than a treatise on chronology. These lectures are full of , matter, always neatly, sometimes brilliantly expressed; and yet the perusal of them is fatiguing and unprofitable. They have no sys- tematic coherence ; there is no object kept in view throughout ; there is no discernible reason why any one passage should not be found in any other place than that which it occupies. There is a great deal of talk about history and historical characters ; but the author does not succeed in conveying any distinct notion of what he means by history, or by what means historical investigations may best be prosecuted. The seventh volume, which is the commencement of the third class of lectures, is a work complete in itself, and one in which M. DAUNOU might have been expected to succeed if in any. One who had studied and practised the art of writing so diligently—and, it may be added, so successfully—might have been expected to know something of the theory of his own art. Such generalization, how- ever, appears to have been beyond him. At the close of the intro- ductory lecture, he quotes the passage in which exam° has laid down four rules for historical composition,—to tell the whole troll': to conceal no truth ; to appear superior to favour or hatred ; and to write a full flowing style. The whole of the twenty-one mortal lectures that follow are little more than a perpetual iteration of these precepts. CICERO'S grain of gold is beaten out into an im- measurable and imponderable expanse of gold-leaf. Three lectures are devoted to a review of the treatises on the art of composing history which have appeared from the time of Cress() to the beginning of the seventeenth century, during the seventeenth century, and during the eighteenth century. Some writers are enumerated really unworthy of notice ; while others (Bscort, for example, whose invaluable and influential remarks on History are relegated to another part of the course) are passed over unnoticed. And apart from this defect, the whole result of these three lectures appears to be, that the writers cited have only reproduced in different phrase the four rules of CICERO. The next four lectures are devoted to lengthy expositions of CICERO'S "fundamental rules" with illustrations. Then comes a lecture entitled "the general theory of the art of writing applied to history." The application is omitted ; but the remarks on the art of composition, though de- sultory, are the best and most readable part of the volume. The remaining fourteen lectures are devoted to "special directions for the composition of history." These are arranged under three heads,—the art of collecting materials for an historical work ; the art of arranging these materials; how to acquire a good style. Two of these lectures are devoted to pompous demonstrations of propositions which really might have been taken for granted,—that the historian's narrative ought to be strictly true, and that it ought to be instructive. The lecturer then goes on to point out the proper places for sticking in "judgments, maxims, thoughts, and reflections " ; to expatiate on the use and beauty of historical por- traits and parallels ; to inquire whether imaginary harangues ought to be put in the mouths of historical characters (two lectures are devoted to this topic) ; to lay down canons for the division of a history into " books, chapters, articles, paragraphs," Ste. The most puerile and the most important topics are discussed with equal emphasis ; form and substance are regarded as equally important. It is cheering to reflect that men have been able to compose histories before M. Daustoris lucubrations were published; for it is not easy to see how anybody will be better able to compose one after reading them. M. DAUNOU was most in his proper place as editor of the Journal des Savans. With another man's book before him, he could discourse pleasantly and profitably on the thoughts it sug- gested. He could quote and illustrate the merits of a beautiful passage ; he could detect a weak point, and place fallacies in a striking light : but he could not originate any train of thought. Hence, his lectures are rather a series of critiques than a systema. tic exposition of a science. He tells what CICERO has said on this subject and MABLY on that, and expresses ingeniously enough his assent to or dissent from their opinions ; but he can scarcely be said to state a positive opinion of his own. His art of writing history is a pretty enough piece of mosaic of the thoughts of other men, with no necessary coherence among themselves, connected only by his arbitrarily placing them in juxtaposition.
The works of M. DAIINOC will enjoy a reputation about as en- during as was that of BEATTIE'S Essay on Truth in this country; and from the same cause—because they chime in with the tastes and opinions of a considerable portion of the public. When the public taste changes, they will be laid aside, for the want of that origi- nality which lends interest even to obsolete discussions. They will be a little less popular and a little longer lived than his con- versation; which was that of a man of taste and discrimination— not imaginative, not impassioned, and not possessed of strong powers of reasoning, but extensively read in the literature of his own age.
We have allowed ourselves to run into this lengthened notice of DAIINOIT'S commonplace works because he is an apt representative of a class among litterateurs—the manufacturers of books which are on everybody's shelves and which nobody ever reads through— of literary pieces de resistance, which are admired by a large public because they are as commonplace as itself. There is one passage in the life of Danstou that entitles him to a more enduring fame, and will insure it—his conduct as a member of the National Convention at the trial of Louis the Sixteenth. At that critical moment, he entered the lists against the terrible Sr. JUST, and exposed, in three successive discourses, the illegality, the cruelty, and the inexpediency of condemning the King. The quiet and timid ex-priest—the man who conformed to every suc- cessive Government from 1789 to 1830—obeyed the impulse of generosity and justice, which cowardice or passion neutralized in the breasts of bolder men. His very style assumed an unwonted power and dignity. His timid correctness and pretty turns of thought were superseded, for the time, by a bold, versatile, and even picturesque strain of eloquence. "It may be that I oppose to the energic opinion of St. Just nothing but timid opinions, dictated rather by habit and fears than by the austere Repub- lican philosophy to which alone he has listened. But I will say, that Cwsar still reigned when the conspirators struck him." Again—" Believe me, under such circumstances, a National Con- vention cannot appear unjust or deceived but to the detriment of the public : it is not enough for you to be, unless you also appear, wise. The preservation of your honour is what the nation most stands in need of." And again—" I am suspicious of enthusiasm even when it allies itself to .thesentler virtues and rouses, to gene. Tons actions; but the enthusiasm which condemns is mere ferocity: to cold equity, tranquil and calculating reason, ought the right to punish to be reserved. It will never do to change the national character—to ensavage the manners of a people hitherto mild, just, humane, sensible. The sternness of a Republican is not the barbarism of a fanatical cannibal. We must not dignify with the epithet moral height of the Revolution, what would be a region of 'vultures: let us remain in the atmosphere of humanity and justice." Of all the Liberal party in France at that moment, Davao° alone appears to have preserved the just balance of his mind ; over him alone the denunciations of the combined Gironde and Mountain had no influence.
Previous page
