Such are the
dangers of a retarded study of the classics. Vauvenargues was no less
inflammable. He met with the tragedies of Racine at a moment when the
reputation of that poet had sunk to its lowest point, and, totally
indifferent to the censure of the academical sanhedrim, he extolled
him as a master-anatomist of the human heart.
[Footnote 18: The writings of Vauvenargues exist in a
confusion which is not likely to be ever remedied, for the
bulk of his MSS. were burned during the Commune in May 1871.
But much gratitude is owing to Suard (1806) and Gilbert
(1857) for their pious labours. A variorum edition might
even yet be attempted, and although not complete, might at
least be final.]
In considering the observations of Vauvenargues with regard to poets,
we must bear in mind that he and his contemporaries did not seek from
poetry what we require in the twentieth century. The critics of the
early eighteenth century in France talked about Homer and Virgil, but
what they really admired were Ariosto and Pope. Voltaire, the greatest
of them, considered the "epopee heroi-comique" the top-stone of modern
practical effort; we know what astonishing feats he was himself guilty
of in that species of architecture.
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