by Paul Hazard
But before long, one strong point at least had to be conceded to the English; it had to be admitted that they were profound and original thinkers. Thus, here again, a contrast was beginning to develop: to France belonged the art of social life, of good conversation, elegant manners, intellectual adornments. To England, a sturdy individualism, an earnest and courageous spirit of enquiry, complete independence in the realm of philosophical speculation. Had England been able to boast only writers of the trivial, popular order, devisers of amusing but dissolute comedies, which still kept alive on the stage the profligacy that had characterized the Restoration, men such as Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh or Farquhar, then England would have had to be content with playing second-fiddle, since in these things she was merely imitating the French, and openly borrowing from French authors. But that was not the limit of her output. . . . She was engaged in debating loftier questions than, say, how to carry on a secret love-affair, or how to portray the character of a rake. So far from shelving religious questions, on the ground that they had been settled long ago, English writers were ceaselessly discussing the various ways in which different individuals explained the nature of their relationship with God; there was the puritanical mysticism of Bunyan; the enlightened conformity of a Clarke or a Tillotson, and there was the uncompromising deism of a Toland. One of her sons, Locke, was busy building a new philosophy; another, Newton, was bringing about a revolution in scientific thought: the Principia mathematica philosophiae naturalis dates from 1687. These were some of the outward manifestations of the living force which England stood for, a force from which France herself could not withhold an admiring tribute:
Les Anglais pensent profondément;
Leur esprit, en celà, suit leur tempérament;
Creusant dans les sujets, et forts d’expériences,
Ils étendent partout l’empire des sciences . . . .[8]
But at length the time arrived when the English made a bid for fame in the sphere of letters, and from that day forth, the empire of the intellectual world was definitely divided. When Dryden died, in 1700, England considered that she had lost her one great poet. But now, behold! a marvellous revival takes place. If the English were asked what philosophers they could muster, they replied with Cudworth and Berkeley; what moralists? with Addison, Steele, Arbuthnot; what scholars? with Bentley; what poets? with Pope and Gay. And if they were asked whether they had anyone capable of excelling in all these different spheres together, they said they had; his name was Swift. So quickly and so keenly did they come to realize the value of this asset, that they overwhelmed their writers and men of learning with honours and rewards. It was now the turn of the French writers and scholars to show envy of the English. The actors had changed rôles. The hour of triumph had arrived; the hour when the sturdy plant in which the sap had so long been rising was to burst into blossom at last.
One cannot but be struck by the sort of nostalgic emotion which the historians of English literature are wont to display when they set themselves to treat of this memorable period in its evolution. “In 1702”, wrote Edmund Gosse, “Queen Anne ascended the throne, and her brief reign is identified with a brilliant revival in English letters, in the hands of a group of men of the highest accomplishment and originality. . . . Between 1711 and 1714, a perfect galaxy of important works in prose and verse burst almost simultaneously from the London Presses. It was as though a cloud which had long obscured the heavens had been swept away by a wind, which, in so doing, had revealed a splendid constellation. In 1702, no country in civilized Europe was in a more melancholy condition of intellectual emptiness than England; in 1712, not France itself could compare with us for copious and vivid production.” Ah, 1713! what a prodigious year! “The little volume of dialogues which Berkeley issued under the title of Hylas and Philonous belongs to the annus mirabilis 1713, when Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Addison, Steele, were all at the brilliant apex of their genius, and when England had suddenly combined to present such a galaxy of literary talent as was to be matched, or even approached, nowhere on the continent of Europe.”
It had come to pass; the light had shone forth—and it had come from the North! The North could now stand erect, and proudly confront the South. To the fruits of the mind, could now be applied these words of a contemporary rhymster:
What fine things else you in South can have,
Our North can show as good, if not the same . . .[9]
And now that they had come to the front, these Englishmen, how they plumed themselves on their triumph! They turned and took a backward glance along the way they had travelled. But a little while since, they said, and their case had been all but hopeless. Their liberty, their religion, the very integrity of their soil, had been threatened by the most puissant of monarchs. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole face of things in Europe had changed, and changed so thoroughly that, thanks be to God, the wicked were cast down and the righteous exalted; the righteous, needless to say, being themselves. They belauded their philosophy, their literature, indeed, everything connected with them. During these years a movement began whose consequences survive to this very day. Who, as a matter of fact, would dream that, as far back as 1713, English was being spoken of as a substitute for French? “The English language, a rival of the Greek and the Latin, is as fertile as it is forceful; a foe to all constraint (like the people who speak it), it readily admits whatever is calculated to lend beauty and nobility to verbal expression; whereas French, weakened and impoverished by over-refinement, is always afraid to launch out, always labouring under the relentless necessity of conforming to rule and precedent, and never permits itself the smallest deviation. Risking nothing, it never reaps the reward of daring.”[10]
In order that this force, this energy might have enough elbow-room to play its destined part, a number of prerequisites had to be fulfilled. To start with, the old stereotyped ideas about England had to be got rid of, and a new picture, at once more accurate and more engaging, put in their place. Up to now the “Quality” had always been more than delighted to betake themselves to Paris, but who in the world had ever thought of going to London? Yet, from about 1660, the expedition to England became a sort of recognized thing. The drawbacks were many, no doubt. English manners and customs were generally supposed to be barbarous. Then there was their incomprehensible language; but by far the most redoubtable obstacle of all was the inhospitable sea that had to be crossed before you could get there; a terrifying prospect indeed. Most people know the story of the good Normandy abbé who set forth for Cherbourg, fully resolved to risk the crossing. Arriving at the coast, he gave one glance at the white horses in the offing, faced about, and promptly made for home. But the actual coast-dwellers were not so easily daunted. It was they who set the example. Among those who did the crossing were the important personages proceeding to the Court of St. James’s, eminent scholars, men of letters, not to mention mere sightseers. The packet, the preventive men, the mail-coach, the inns (anything but “The Traveller’s Rest”, these!), the London road, the fields, the meadows, the lawns—the finest in the world—the metropolis and its motley sights, the Thames thronged with shipping, Westminster, the Tower, the strange customs of the English, their odd table-manners, the solemn gravity with which they took their pleasures. When these doughty travellers got home again and told of their adventures, painful and pleasurable, their stories took on a quasi-heroic tone. Finally, in 1715, the notion of England took definite shape; men saw her as she really was. The picture was complete. Henceforth, all that had to be done to it was to touch it up here and there, adding fresh details, as required, to a piece of portraiture that was henceforth to hold its rightful and permanent place in the gallery of nations.
Before long we shall find English ideas pullulating in Germany. When the Hanoverian dynasty succeeded to the English throne, the two countries were knit more closely together by political bonds. They were further united, at least in a certain measure, by their Protestantism, by their common dislike of th
e Papacy, their common hostility to Rome. In 1697, a Tübingen professor, Andrew Adam Hochstetter, delivered himself of a Latin oration in which he dwelt on the advantages of visiting England. He entitled it, Oratio de utilitate peregrinationis anglicanae. “It is not”, said the speaker, “on the fertility of the English soil that I wish now to dilate; nor will I dwell on the sights which London, that great city, has to offer. I shall address myself rather to the consideration of scientific thought in England, and still more to her religion. Who”, he went on, “who of us here is not aware of the magnificent courage with which, in the reign of James II, a band of elect spirits stood boldly forth against the emissaries of the Roman Synagogue, and championed a cause which is dear to us both?” Then came philosophy and Locke. Then literature in general. One effect English ideas were bound to have on German thought; they were bound to draw it away from the influence of France, an influence which was entirely alien to its real spirit, and to offer it instead something more akin to itself, more familiar, to help it to slough off extraneous accretions, and regain its pristine form. As the eighteenth century wore on, Germany was to give evidence, and that in no uncertain fashion, of the effect the emergence of England had had on her, notably by her revolt against French hegemony, and by the formation of a northern league to counteract it.
But those southern countries—how was England to reach them? What means of approach was open to her? Books published in London were likely to hang fire a prodigiously long time, English being a dead letter on the Continent. Few were those of the Latin family who could read English; fewer still could speak it. Something little short of a miracle would have to happen if the tempo of diffusion was to be appreciably accelerated. If only the English would use French as an instrument for the propagation of their ideas, the language that was universally familiar; then the French would undertake that the treasure hidden away in the island of its origin should be made accessible to all. “It would be lamentable indeed if so many excellent works were to remain imprisoned, as it were, within the narrow confines of the British Isles. However excellent a language English may be, French has one great advantage over it, the advantage, namely, of being the normal means of communication between almost all the different European countries. Indeed, as touching the range of its influence, we may say of English, as compared with French, what Cicero in his Pro Archia said of Greek, as compared with Latin: Graeca leguntur in omnibus gentibus: Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur.[11] Precisely; but supposing a team of translators could be enlisted; supposing a sufficient number of Frenchmen could be induced to come and take up their quarters in London; diligent, scholarly men. Then, when they had settled down, let them make themselves acquainted with English literature; let them get interested in it, and choose and publish French versions of the books that appealed to them. In this way they would be earning their daily bread and showing their gratitude to the country that had made them welcome”. No better plan to meet the case could possibly have been devised—but it was all in the air, a dream.
Nevertheless, the dream came true. And this is how it happened. When the religious persecution drove pastors, teachers, authors and the like out of France, and compelled them to take refuge in London, they there became the interpreters of English thought. To be absolutely correct, things did not happen in quite such a cut-and-dried fashion. As a matter of fact, there had been some preliminaries, some preparatory feelers. Nothing happened ex abrupto. Moreover, these exiles were at least as eager to disseminate a knowledge of French literature in England as they were to export English literature to the Continent. All the same, one of the effects least foreseen of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was to furnish England with a whole swarm of intermediaries, interpreters, who did in fact notably stimulate the propagation of her literary output and promote the extension of her influence. On the very eve of her revival, she found herself with heralds at her disposal ready to trumpet her glories far and wide among the civilized nations of the world.
What manner of men were they, these heralds? Not exactly geniuses, perhaps; but, at any rate, men of eager and enquiring minds, of lively intelligence, of tough moral fibre, prepared to face, with stout heart and steady eye, whatever that great adventure, exile, might have in store for them. Not the sort of men, these, to think only of their material well-being, to live by bread alone. What manner of men were they, these seekers after pastures new? Well; there was Abel Boyer, who began his studies at the Protestant Academy, Puylaurens. He was nineteen when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. Making his way into Holland, he arrived in England in the year 1689, and, as a means of keeping body and soul together, took up teaching. He brought out a number of translations from the French, as well as some school-books. Then, in 1702, came the Dictionnaire Royal to which whole generations of students were to be indebted and which, useful in England, in France became a classic. Later, he translated Addison’s Cato which, on the Continent, was regarded as the crowning example of English tragedy. He came to be looked upon as a semi-official chronicler of English national affairs. He took part in the literary controversies of the day, and at last, after innumerable balks and set-backs, died peacefully in a house which, like a good, sound Londoner, he had built for himself at Chelsea. Then there was Pierre des Maizeaux, a pastor’s son. When the persecution of the Protestants began, he crossed the border into Switzerland and applied himself to the study of theology at Berne and Geneva. His father hoped he would become “his faithful successor in the task of rebuilding the shattered walls of Jerusalem”. However, he went to try his fortune in Holland and there fell in with Pierre Bayle, whose strong point was anything rather than religious orthodoxy. Consequently des Maizeaux did not become a pastor. Instead, he embraced the calling of a man of letters and was something of a free-lance. His next home was England. Switzerland, Holland, England—what an endless procession of refugees wound their way along that well-worn route! Owing to the fact that, among other things, he brought out editions of Saint-Évremond and Bayle, that he was a friend of Shaftesbury, Toland and Collins, that he published selections from Locke and Toland, that he was a student of Chillingworth, that he got together the records of a controversy of first-rate importance between Leibniz, Clarke and Newton on philosophy, religion and science, and, finally, because, frequenting various cafés, contributing to gazettes and writing endless letters, finding jobs for the workless and help for the needy, he was stationed so to speak, at the spot where all roads met, a vantage-point whence he could see the long procession of ideas, and of men, go streaming by—for all these reasons combined, he represents, as it were, the intellectual clearing-house of the times, as well as all the restlessness, all the enterprise and daring, and, be it added, all the usefulness, all the infinite promise, that are implicit in the life intellectual.
But it is when we come to Pierre Coste that we reach the summit in this hierarchy of sound workmen. Pierre Coste, who was born at Uzès in 1688, and was intended for an ecclesiastical career, was sent to the Academy at Geneva. On the completion of his studies, he would, in the ordinary course, have become a schoolmaster or a pastor somewhere in the Cévennes. In that capacity, he would have duly conducted his religious services and taught his flock the way they should go, conscientiously performing his duties in that little world, until death came for him at last. But it was not to be. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes prevented his returning to France, and he took to a wandering existence. We see him successively at the Universities of Lausanne, Zurich and Leyden: he was accepted as a student for the ministry by the Synod of the Walloon Church at Amsterdam; a little later, he obtained employment in a firm of printers as a proof-corrector; in 1697 he crossed over to England, and thenceforth his place in the history of ideas was definitely determined. He became in due course a tutor in illustrious houses, and travelled about Europe with the young hopefuls, his charges, doing the Grand Tour. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He brought out a number of philosophical lectures and historical treatise
s; he edited La Bruyère, Montaigne, La Fontaine. He translated Xenophon from the Greek and Gregorio Leti and Redi from the Italian; but, most important of all, he translated Shaftesbury’s Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour and Newton’s Optics into French. To have been the means of introducing these great men —Newton and Shaftesbury—into France, and, through France, into all the countries of the Latin family of nations, would have been no small achievement. But his was greater still, for he became the interpreter of John Locke. Intellectually alert and passionately absorbed in his work, he translated the Essay concerning Human Understanding into French and so laid the way open for a European appreciation of English philosophy. “The French are as deeply indebted to M. Coste as the English are to Locke.”[12]
If, in considering the general trend of ideas, we are sometimes led to marvel at the unexpected lines they followed, there is no less cause for astonishment in the readiness, the willing alacrity, with which France accepted the rôle which circumstances allotted her. The rise of that new power in the North, though it threatened her own hegemony, she not only regarded with equanimity, she even aided and abetted it. To her own creative activities she added yet a further one, she undertook to secure the quotation, so to put it, of those Nordic stocks on the markets of the South. With notable assiduity, she assumed the rôle of a broker introducing British ideas to an Italian, Spanish and Portuguese clientèle. Sometimes she even acted the part of a connecting-link between one northern country and another, as happened when a work, produced in London, passed by way of Paris in its passage across the Rhine. But far more often she despatched, not only her own, but British and, later on, German, products to Rome, Madrid and Lisbon. Moreover, she treated them, not like the ordinary carrier, who is stolidly indifferent to the nature of the goods he conveys. On the contrary, she titivated them up, trimmed them to suit the prevailing European taste, that is, of course, the taste for which she herself was responsible, the French taste. These English writers were obscure, and they needed careful filtering; they transgressed the rules of logic, their ideas must be properly co-ordinated; they were diffuse, and needed pruning; they were inelegant, and needed refining. So she set to work with her scissors, altering, cutting up, refashioning the clothes, touching up the features with a modicum of paint and powder. The people she presents to the world, after she has finished with them, are perhaps a trifle foreign-looking, but attractively, not alarmingly so. She knows where she excels; she knows what her public likes; and so she sets to work, with an eye to her own interests as well as to those of England and Europe. The translators she commissions are fully aware of the dignity of their office. They are no unimaginative drudges, no mere hacks inexorably fettered to a slavish verbal fidelity. No; they, too, are creators in their own right, or, at the very lowest, ministers armed with unlimited discretionary powers. “Whenever I have had difficulty in mastering a passage in English, owing to some term or other being insufficiently defined (the English are none too particular on that score) I have tried, as soon as I have thoroughly grasped what the author is driving at, to express the thing so clearly in French that no one could possibly fail to understand it. It is mainly in its clarity, its lucidity that French is superior to all other languages. In that connection, it occurs to me that a translator might be likened to a minister plenipotentiary. The comparison is somewhat on the grand scale, and I fear I may be criticized for making too much of a calling which the general run of people do not esteem very highly. Be that as it may, I think that the translator and the plenipotentiary would both find themselves seriously handicapped if their discretionary powers were too rigidly curtailed”[13]—France, the intermediary between English thought and the Latin races: another stream to which this period gave birth, a stream that was destined to flow right through the eighteenth century, and beyond it.