Curiosities of Literature Volume I Part 35

To understand the nature of this gift, it will be necessary to give the history of the parties.

The beautiful Julia d'Angennes was in the flower of her youth and fame, when the celebrated Gustavus, king of Sweden, was making war in Germany with the most splendid success. Julia expressed her warm admiration of this hero. She had his portrait placed on her toilet, and took pleasure in declaring that she would have no other lover than Gustavus. The Duke de Montausier was, however, her avowed and ardent admirer. A short time after the death of Gustavus, he sent her, as a new-year's gift, the POETICAL GARLAND of which the following is a description.

The most beautiful flowers were painted in miniature by an eminent artist, one Robert, on pieces of vellum, all of equal dimensions. Under every flower a s.p.a.ce was left open for a madrigal on the subject of the flower there painted. The duke solicited the wits of the time to a.s.sist in the composition of these little poems, reserving a considerable number for the effusions of his own amorous muse. Under every flower he had its madrigal written by N. Du Jarry, celebrated for his beautiful caligraphy. A decorated frontispiece offered a splendid garland composed of all these twenty-nine flowers; and on turning the page a cupid is painted to the life. These were magnificently bound, and enclosed in a bag of rich Spanish leather. When Julia awoke on new-year's day, she found this lover's gift lying on her toilet; it was one quite to her taste, and successful to the donor's hopes.

Of this Poetical Garland, thus formed by the hands of Wit and Love, Huet says, "As I had long heard of it, I frequently expressed a wish to see it: at length the d.u.c.h.ess of Usez gratified me with the sight. She locked me in her cabinet one afternoon with this garland: she then went to the queen, and at the close of the evening liberated me. I never pa.s.sed a more agreeable afternoon."

One of the prettiest inscriptions of these flowers is the following, composed for

THE VIOLET.

Modeste en ma couleur, modeste en mon sejour, Franche d'ambition, je me cache sous l'herbe; Mais, si sur votre front je puis me voir un jour, La plus humble des fleurs sera la plus superbe.

Modest my colour, modest is my place, Pleased in the gra.s.s my lowly form to hide; But mid your tresses might I wind with grace, The humblest flower would feel the loftiest pride.

The following is some additional information respecting "the Poetical Garland of Julia."

At the sale of the library of the Duke de la Valliere, in 1784, among its numerous literary curiosities this garland appeared. It was actually sold for the extravagant sum of 14,510 livres! though in 1770, at Gaignat's sale, it only cost 780 livres. It is described to be "a ma.n.u.script on vellum, composed of twenty-nine flowers painted by one Robert, under which are inserted madrigals by various authors." But the Abbe Rive, the superintendent of the Valliere library, published in 1779 an inflammatory notice of this garland; and as he and the duke had the art of appreciating, and it has been said _making_ spurious literary curiosities, this notice was no doubt the occasion of the maniacal price.

In the great French Revolution, this literary curiosity found its pa.s.sage into this country. A bookseller offered it for sale at the enormous price of 500_l._ sterling! No curious collector has been discovered to have purchased this unique; which is most remarkable for the extreme folly of the purchaser who gave the 14,510 livres for poetry and painting not always exquisite. The history of the Garland of Julia is a child's lesson for certain rash and inexperienced collectors, who may here

Learn to do well by others harm.

TRAGIC ACTORS.

Montfleury, a French player, was one of the greatest actors of his time for characters highly tragic. He died of the violent efforts he made in representing Orestes in the Andromache of Racine. The author of the "Parna.s.se Reforme" makes him thus express himself in the shades. There is something extremely droll in his lamentations, with a severe raillery on the inconveniences to which tragic actors are liable.

"Ah! how sincerely do I wish that tragedies had never been invented! I might then have been yet in a state capable of appearing on the stage; and if I should not have attained the glory of sustaining sublime characters, I should at least have trifled agreeably, and have worked off my spleen in laughing! I have wasted my lungs in the violent emotions of jealousy, love, and ambition. A thousand times have I been obliged to force myself to represent more pa.s.sions than Le Brun ever painted or conceived. I saw myself frequently obliged to dart terrible glances; to roll my eyes furiously in my head, like a man insane; to frighten others by extravagant grimaces; to imprint on my countenance the redness of indignation and hatred; to make the paleness of fear and surprise succeed each other by turns; to express the transports of rage and despair; to cry out like a demoniac: and consequently to strain all the parts of my body to render my gestures fitter to accompany these different impressions. The man then who would know of what I died, let him not ask if it were of the fever, the dropsy, or the gout; but let him know that it was of _the Andromache_!"

The Jesuit Rapin informs us, that when Mondory acted Herod in the Mariamne of Tristan, the spectators quitted the theatre mournful and thoughtful; so tenderly were they penetrated with the sorrows of the unfortunate heroine. In this melancholy pleasure, he says, we have a rude picture of the strong impressions which were made by the Grecian tragedians. Mondory indeed felt so powerfully the character he a.s.sumed, that it cost him his life.

Some readers may recollect the death of Bond, who felt so exquisitely the character of Lusignan in Zara, which he personated when an old man, that Zara, when she addressed him, found him _dead_ in his chair.

The a.s.sumption of a variety of characters by a person of irritable and delicate nerves, has often a tragical effect on the mental faculties. We might draw up a list of ACTORS, who have fallen martyrs to their tragic characters. Several have died on the stage, and, like Palmer, usually in the midst of some agitated appeal to the feelings.[73]

Baron, who was the French Garrick, had a most elevated notion of his profession: he used to say, that tragic actors should be nursed on the lap of queens! Nor was his vanity inferior to his enthusiasm for his profession; for, according to him, the world might see once in a century a _Caesar_, but that it required a thousand years to produce a _Baron_! A variety of anecdotes testify the admirable talents he displayed.

Whenever he meant to compliment the talents or merits of distinguished characters, he always delivered in a pointed manner the striking pa.s.sages of the play, fixing his eye on them. An observation of his respecting actors, is not less applicable to poets and to painters.

"RULES," said this sublime actor, "may teach us not to raise the arms above the head; but if Pa.s.sION carries them, it will be well done; Pa.s.sION KNOWS MORE THAN ART."

Betterton, although his countenance was ruddy and sanguine, when he performed Hamlet, through the violent and sudden emotion of amazement and horror at the presence of his father's spectre, instantly turned as white as his neckcloth, while his whole body seemed to be affected with a strong tremor: had his father's apparition actually risen before him, he could not have been seized with more real agonies. This struck the spectators so forcibly, that they felt a shuddering in their veins, and partic.i.p.ated in the astonishment and the horror so apparent in the actor. Davies in his Dramatic Miscellanies records this fact; and in the Richardsoniana, we find that the first time Booth attempted the ghost when Betterton acted Hamlet, that actor's look at him struck him with such horror that he became disconcerted to such a degree, that he could not speak his part. Here seems no want of evidence of the force of the ideal presence in this marvellous acting: these facts might deserve a philosophical investigation.

Le Kain, the French actor, who retired from the Parisian stage, like our Garrick, covered with glory and gold, was one day congratulated by a company on the retirement which he was preparing to enjoy. "As to glory," modestly replied this actor, "I do not flatter myself to have acquired much. This kind of reward is always disputed by many, and you yourselves would not allow it, were I to a.s.sume it. As to the money, I have not so much reason to be satisfied; at the Italian Theatre, their share is far more considerable than mine; an actor there may get twenty to twenty-five thousand livres, and my share amounts at the most to ten or twelve thousand." "How! the devil!" exclaimed a rude chevalier of the order of St. Louis, who was present, "How! the devil! a vile stroller is not content with twelve thousand livres annually, and I, who am in the king's service, who sleep upon a cannon and lavish my blood for my country, I must consider myself as fortunate in having obtained a pension of one thousand livres." "And do you account as nothing, sir, the liberty of addressing me thus?" replied Le Kain, with all the sublimity and conciseness of an irritated Orosmane.

The memoirs of Mademoiselle Clairon display her exalted feeling of the character of a sublime actress; she was of opinion, that in common life the truly sublime actor should be a hero, or heroine off the stage. "If I am only a vulgar and ordinary woman during twenty hours of the day, whatever effort I may make, I shall only be an ordinary and vulgar woman in Agrippina or Semiramis, during the remaining four." In society she was nicknamed the Queen of Carthage, from her admirable personification of Dido in a tragedy of that name.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 73: Palmer's death took place on the Liverpool stage, August 2, 1798; he was in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The death of his wife and his son had some time before thrown him into a profound melancholy, and on this occasion he was unfortunately "cast" for the agitating part of "the Stranger." He appeared unusually moved on uttering the words "there is another and a better world," in the third act. In the first scene of the following act, when he was asked "Why did you not keep your children with you? they would have amused you in many a dreary hour," he turned to reply--and "for the s.p.a.ce of about ten seconds, he paused as if waiting for the prompter to give him the word"--says Mr. Whitfield the actor, who was then with him upon the stage--"then put out his right hand, as if going to take hold of mine.

It dropt, as if to support his fall, but it had no power; in that instant he fell, but not at full length, he crouched in falling, so that his head did not strike the stage with great violence. He never breathed after. I think I may venture to say he died without a pang." It is one of the most melancholy incidents connected with theatrical history.]

JOCULAR PREACHERS.

These preachers, whose works are excessively rare, form a race unknown to the general reader. I shall sketch the characters of these pious buffoons, before I introduce them to his acquaintance. They, as it has been said of Sterne, seemed to have wished, every now and then, to have thrown their wigs into the faces of their auditors.

These preachers flourished in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries; we are therefore to ascribe their extravagant mixture of grave admonition with facetious ill.u.s.tration, comic tales which have been occasionally adopted by the most licentious writers, and minute and lively descriptions, to the great simplicity of the times, when the grossest indecency was never concealed under a gentle periphrasis, but everything was called by its name. All this was enforced by the most daring personalities, and seasoned by those temporary allusions which neither spared, nor feared even the throne. These ancient sermons therefore are singularly precious, to those whose inquisitive pleasures are gratified by tracing the _manners_ of former ages. When Henry Stephens, in his apology for Herodotus, describes the irregularities of the age, and the minutiae of national manners, he effects this chiefly by extracts from these sermons. Their wit is not always the brightest, nor their satire the most poignant; but there is always that prevailing _navete_ of the age running through their rude eloquence, which interests the reflecting mind. In a word, these sermons were addressed to the mult.i.tude; and therefore they show good sense and absurdity; fancy and puerility; satire and insipidity; extravagance and truth.

Oliver Maillard, a famous cordelier, died in 1502. This preacher having pointed some keen traits in his sermons at Louis XI., the irritated monarch had our cordelier informed that he would throw him into the river. He replied undaunted, and not forgetting his satire: "The king may do as he chooses; but tell him that I shall sooner get to paradise by water, than he will arrive by all his post-horses." He alluded to travelling by post, which this monarch had lately introduced into France. This bold answer, it is said, intimidated Louis: it is certain that Maillard continued as courageous and satirical as ever in his pulpit.

The following extracts are descriptive of the manners of the times.

In attacking rapine and robbery, under the first head he describes a kind of usury, which was practised in the days of Ben Jonson, and I am told in the present, as well as in the times of Maillard. "This," says he, "is called a palliated usury. It is thus. When a person is in want of money, he goes to a treasurer (a kind of banker or merchant), on whom he has an order for 1000 crowns; the treasurer tells him that he will pay him in a fortnight's time, when he is to receive the money. The poor man cannot wait. Our good treasurer tells him, I will give you half in money and half in goods. So he pa.s.ses his goods that are worth 100 crowns for 200." He then touches on the bribes which these treasurers and clerks in office took, excusing themselves by alleging the little pay they otherwise received. "All these practices be sent to the devils!" cries Maillard, in thus addressing himself to the _ladies_: "it is for _you_ all this d.a.m.nation ensues. Yes! yes! you must have rich satins, and girdles of gold out of this accursed money. When any one has anything to receive from the husband, he must make a present to the wife of some fine gown, or girdle, or ring. If you ladies and gentlemen who are battening on your pleasures, and wear scarlet clothes, I believe if you were closely put in a good press, we should see the blood of the poor gush out, with which your scarlet is dyed."

Maillard notices the following curious particulars of the mode of _cheating in trade_ in his times.

He is violent against the apothecaries for their cheats. "They mix ginger with cinnamon, which they sell for real spices: they put their bags of ginger, pepper, saffron, cinnamon, and other drugs in damp cellars, that they may weigh heavier; they mix oil with saffron, to give it a colour, and to make it weightier." He does not forget those tradesmen who put water in their wool, and moisten their cloth that it may stretch; tavern-keepers, who sophisticate and mingle wines; the butchers, who blow up their meat, and who mix hog's lard with the fat of their meat. He terribly declaims against those who buy with a great allowance of measure and weight, and then sell with a small measure and weight; and curses those who, when they weigh, press the scales down with their finger. But it is time to conclude with Master Oliver! His catalogue is, however, by no means exhausted; and it may not be amiss to observe, that the present age has retained every one of the sins.

The following extracts are from Menot's sermons, which are written, like Maillard's, in a barbarous Latin, mixed with old French.

Michael Menot died in 1518. I think he has more wit than Maillard, and occasionally displays a brilliant imagination; with the same singular mixture of grave declamation and farcical absurdities. He is called in the t.i.tle-page the _golden-tongued_. It runs thus, _Predicatoris qui lingua aurea, sua tempestate nuncupatus est, Sermones quadragesimales, ab ipso olim Turonis declamati_. _Paris, 1525_, 8vo.

When he compares the church with a vine, he says, "There were once some Britons and Englishmen who would have carried away all France into their country, because they found our wine better than their beer; but as they well knew that they could not always remain in France, nor carry away France into their country, they would at least carry with them several stocks of vines; they planted some in England; but these stocks soon degenerated, because the soil was not adapted to them." Notwithstanding what Menot said in 1500, and that we have tried so often, we have often flattered ourselves that if we plant vineyards, we may have English wine.

The following beautiful figure describes those who live neglectful of their aged parents, who had cherished them into prosperity. "See the trees flourish and recover their leaves; it is their root that has produced all; but when the branches are loaded with flowers and with fruits, they yield nothing to the root. This is an image of those children who prefer their own amus.e.m.e.nts, and to game away their fortunes, than to give to their old parents that which they want."

He acquaints us with the following circ.u.mstances of the immorality of that age: "Who has not got a mistress besides his wife? The poor wife eats the fruits of bitterness, and even makes the bed for the mistress."

Oaths were not unfas.h.i.+onable in his day. "Since the world has been world, this crime was never greater. There were once pillories for these swearers; but now this crime is so common, that the child of five years can swear; and even the old dotard of eighty, who has only two teeth remaining, can fling out an oath."

On the power of the fair s.e.x of his day, he observes--"A father says, my son studies; he must have a bishopric, or an abbey of 500 livres. Then he will have dogs, horses, and mistresses, like others. Another says, I will have my son placed at court, and have many honourable dignities. To succeed well, both employ the mediation of women; unhappily the church and the law are entirely at their disposal. We have artful Dalilahs who shear us close. For twelve crowns and an ell of velvet given to a woman, you gain the worst lawsuit, and the best living."

In his last sermon, Menot recapitulates the various topics he had touched on during Lent. This extract presents a curious picture, and a just notion of the versatile talents of these preachers.

"I have told _ecclesiastics_ how they should conduct themselves; not that they are ignorant of their duties; but I must ever repeat to girls, not to suffer themselves to be duped by them. I have told these ecclesiastics that they should imitate the lark; if she has a grain she does not remain idle, but feels her pleasure in singing, and in singing always is ascending towards heaven. So they should not ama.s.s; but elevate the hearts of all to G.o.d; and not do as the frogs who are crying out day and night, and think they have a fine throat, but always remain fixed in the mud.

"I have told the _men of the law_ that they should have the qualities of the eagle. The first is, that this bird when it flies fixes its eye on the sun; so all judges, counsellors, and attorneys, in judging, writing, and signing, should always have G.o.d before their eyes. And secondly, this bird is never greedy; it willingly shares its prey with others; so all lawyers, who are rich in crowns after having had their bills paid, should distribute some to the poor, particularly when they are conscious that their money arises from their prey.

"I have spoken of the _marriage state_, but all that I have said has been disregarded. See those wretches who break the hymeneal chains, and abandon their wives! they pa.s.s their holidays out of their parishes, because if they remained at home they must have joined their wives at church; they liked their prost.i.tutes better; and it will be so every day in the year! I would as well dine with a Jew or a heretic, as with them.

What an infected place is this! Mistress Lubricity has taken possession of the whole city; look in every corner, and you'll be convinced.

"For you _married women_! If you have heard the nightingale's song, you must know that she sings during three months, and that she is silent when she has young ones. So there is a time in which you may sing and take your pleasures in the marriage state, and another to watch your children. Don't d.a.m.n yourselves for them; and remember it would be better to see them drowned than d.a.m.ned.