Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3

Isaac Disraeli

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• Publié par: madot
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3), by
Isaac Disraeli
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Title: Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Author: Isaac Disraeli
Release Date: January 25, 2010 [EBook #31078]
Language: English
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the marked passage. CURIOSITIES OF
LITERATURE.
BY
ISAAC DISRAELI.
EDITED, WITH MEMOIR AND NOTES,
BY HIS SON,
THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.


LONDON:
FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.
PAGE
LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS 1
MASQUES 4
OF DES MAIZEAUX, AND THE SECRET HISTORY OFANTHONY COLLINS’S MANUSCRIPTS 13
HISTORY OF NEW WORDS 23
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS 32
CONFUSION OF WORDS 65
POLITICAL NICKNAMES 80
THE DOMESTIC LIFE OF A POET—SHENSTONE
VINDICATED 90
SECRET HISTORY OF THE BUILDING OF BLENHEIM 102
SECRET HISTORY OF SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH 111
AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE LAST HOURS OF
SIR WALTER RAWLEIGH 124
LITERARY UNIONS 131
OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED 136
CAUSE AND PRETEXT 141
POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS 144
EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION 150
AUTOGRAPHS 163
THE HISTORY OF WRITING-MASTERS 167
THE ITALIAN HISTORIANS 177
OF PALACES BUILT BY MINISTERS 186
“TAXATION NO TYRANNY” 193
THE BOOK OF DEATH 200
HISTORY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH 206
THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN 215
OF LENGLET DU FRESNOY 221
THE DICTIONARY OF TREVOUX 229
QUADRIO’S ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY 233
“POLITICAL RELIGIONISM” 238
TOLERATION 245
APOLOGY FOR THE PARISIAN MASSACRE 255
PREDICTION 260
DREAMS AT THE DAWN OF PHILOSOPHY 280
ON PUCK THE COMMENTATOR 296
LITERARY FORGERIES 303
OF LITERARY FILCHERS 316
OF LORD BACON AT HOME 320
SECRET HISTORY OF THE DEATH OF QUEEN
ELIZABETH 328
JAMES THE FIRST AS A FATHER AND A HUSBAND 333
THE MAN OF ONE BOOK 337
340A BIBLIOGNOSTE 340
SECRET HISTORY OF AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY 346
BUILDINGS IN THE METROPOLIS, AND RESIDENCE IN
THE COUNTRY 363
ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS 371
TRUE SOURCES OF SECRET HISTORY 380
LITERARY RESIDENCES 394
WHETHER ALLOWABLE TO RUIN ONESELF? 400
DISCOVERIES OF SECLUDED MEN 408
SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY 414
LITERARY PARALLELS 425
THE PEARL BIBLES, AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA 427
VIEW OF A PARTICULAR PERIOD OF THE STATE OF
RELIGION IN OUR CIVIL WARS 423
BUCKINGHAM’S POLITICAL COQUETRY WITH THE
PURITANS 443
SIR EDWARD COKE’S EXCEPTIONS AGAINST THE HIGH
SHERIFF’S OATH 446
SECRET HISTORY OF CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS
FIRST PARLIAMENTS 448
THE RUMP 482
LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY—OLDYS
AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS 493
INDEX 513
1
CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.
LOCAL DESCRIPTIONS.
NOTHING is more idle, and, what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more
tedious, than minute and lengthened descriptions of localities; where it is
very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable
notion of the place they describe,—it is certain their readers never can!
These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so frequently
indulge, are usually a glittering confusion of unconnected things;circumstances recollected from others, or observed by themselves at
different times; the finest are thrust in together. If a scene from nature, it is
possible that all the seasons of the year may be jumbled together; or if a
castle or an apartment, its magnitude or its minuteness may equally
bewilder. Yet we find, even in works of celebrity, whole pages of these
general or these particular descriptive sketches, which leave nothing
behind but noun substantives propped up by random epithets. The old
writers were quite delighted to fill up their voluminous pages with what was
a great saving of sense and thinking. In the Alaric of Scudery sixteen
pages, containing nearly five hundred verses, describe a palace,
commencing at the façade, and at length finishing with the garden; but his
description, we may say, was much better described by Boileau, whose
good taste felt the absurdity of this “abondance stérile,” in overloading a
work with useless details,
Un auteur, quelquefois, trop plein de son objet,
Jamais sans l’épuiser n’abandonne un sujet.
S’il rencontre un palais il m’en dépeint la face,
Il me promène après de terrasae en terrasse.
Ici s’offre un perron, là règne un corridor;
Là ce balcon s’enferme en un balustre d’or;
Il compte les plafonds, les ronds, et les ovales—
Je saute vingt feuillets pour en trouver la fin;
Et je me sauve à peine au travers du jardin!
2And then he adds so excellent a canon of criticism, that we must not
neglect it:—
Tout ce qu’on dit de trop est fade et rébutant;
L’esprit rassasié le rejette à l’instant,
Qui ne sait se borner, ne sut jamais écrire.
We have a memorable instance of the inefficiency of local descriptions in
a very remarkable one by a writer of fine genius, composing with an
extreme fondness of his subject, and curiously anxious to send down to
posterity the most elaborate display of his own villa—this was the
Laurentinum of Pliny. We cannot read his letter to Gallus, which the English
1reader may in Melmoth’s elegant version, without somewhat participating
in the delight of the writer in many of its details; but we cannot with the
writer form the slightest conception of his villa, while he is leading us over
from apartment to apartment, and pointing to us the opposite wing, with a
“beyond this,” and a “not far from thence,” and “to this apartment another of
the same sort,” &c. Yet, still, as we were in great want of a correct
knowledge of a Roman villa, and as this must be the most so possible,
architects have frequently studied, and the learned translated with
extraordinary care, Pliny’s Description of his Laurentinum . It became sofavourite an object, that eminent architects have attempted to raise up this
edifice once more, by giving its plan and elevation; and this extraordinary
fact is the result—that not one of them but has given a representation
different from the other! Montfaucon, a more faithful antiquary, in his close
translation of the description of this villa, in comparing it with Felibien’s plan
of the villa itself, observes, “that the architect accommodated his edifice to
his translation, but that their notions are not the same; unquestionably,” he
adds, “if ten skilful translators were to perform their task separately, there
would not be one who agreed with another!”
If, then, on this subject of local descriptions, we find that it is impossible
to convey exact notions of a real existing scene, what must we think of
those which, in truth, describe scenes which have no other existence than
the confused makings-up of an author’s invention; where the more he
details the more he confuses; and where the more particular he wishes to
be, the more indistinct the whole appears?
3Local descriptions, after a few striking circumstances have been
selected, admit of no further detail. It is not their length, but their happiness,
which enters into our comprehension; the imagination can only take in and
keep together a very few parts of a picture. The pen must not intrude on the
province of the pencil, any more than the pencil must attempt to perform
what cannot in any shape be submitted to the eye, though fully to the mind.
The great art, perhaps, of local description, is rather a general than a
particular view; the details must be left to the imagination; it is suggestion
rather than description. There is an old Italian sonnet of this kind which I
have often read with delight; and though I may not communicate the same
pleasure to the reader, yet the story of the writer is most interesting, and the
lady (for such she was) has the highest claim to be ranked, like the lady of
Evelyn, among literary wives.
Francesca Turina Bufalini di Citta di Castello , of noble extraction, and
devoted to literature, had a collection of her poems published in 1628. She
frequently interspersed little domestic incidents of her female friend, her
husband, her son, her grandchildren; and in one of these sonnets she has
delineated her palace of San Giustino , whose localities she appears to
have enjoyed with intense delight in the company of “her lord,” whom she
tenderly associates with the scene. There is a freshness and simplicity in
the description, which will perhaps convey a clearer notion of the spot than
even Pliny could do in the voluminous description of his villa. She tells us
what she found when brought to the house of her husband:—
Ampie salle, ampie loggie, ampio cortile
E stanze ornate