Letters on England [54]
is now attached to their very names, that if an author of
some genius in this age had the misfortune to be called Chapelain or
Cotin, he would be under a necessity of changing his name.
One circumstance, to which the English Academy should especially
have attended, is to have prescribed to themselves occupations of a
quite different kind from those with which our academicians amuse
themselves. A wit of this country asked me for the memoirs of the
French Academy. I answered, they have no memoirs, but have printed
threescore or fourscore volumes in quarto of compliments. The
gentleman perused one or two of them, but without being able to
understand the style in which they were written, though he
understood all our good authors perfectly. "All," says he, "I see
in these elegant discourses is, that the member elect having assured
the audience that his predecessor was a great man, that Cardinal
Richelieu was a very great man, that the Chancellor Seguier was a
pretty great man, that Louis XIV. was a more than great man, the
director answers in the very same strain, and adds, that the member
elect may also be a sort of great man, and that himself, in quality
of director, must also have some share in this greatness."
The cause why all these academical discourses have unhappily done so
little honour to this body is evident enough. Vitium est temporis
potius quam hominis (the fault is owing to the age rather than to
particular persons). It grew up insensibly into a custom for every
academician to repeat these elogiums at his reception; it was laid
down as a kind of law that the public should be indulged from time
to time the sullen satisfaction of yawning over these productions.
If the reason should afterwards be sought, why the greatest geniuses
who have been incorporated into that body have sometimes made the
worst speeches, I answer, that it is wholly owing to a strong
propension, the gentlemen in question had to shine, and to display a
thread-bare, worn-out subject in a new and uncommon light. The
necessity of saying something, the perplexity of having nothing to
say, and a desire of being witty, are three circumstances which
alone are capable of making even the greatest writer ridiculous.
These gentlemen, not being able to strike out any new thoughts,
hunted after a new play of words, and delivered themselves without
thinking at all: in like manner as people who should seem to chew
with great eagerness, and make as though they were eating, at the
same time that they were just starved.
It is a law in the French Academy, to publish all those discourses
by which only they are known, but they should rather make a law
never to print any of them.
But the Academy of the Belles Lettres have a more prudent and more
useful object, which is, to present the public with a collection of
transactions that abound with curious researches and critiques.
These transactions are already esteemed by foreigners; and it were
only to be wished that some subjects in them had been more
thoroughly examined, and that others had not been treated at all.
As, for instance, we should have been very well satisfied, had they
omitted I know not what dissertation on the prerogative of the right
hand over the left; and some others, which, though not published
under so ridiculous a title, are yet written on subjects that are
almost as frivolous and silly.
The Academy of Sciences, in such of their researches as are of a
more difficult kind and a more sensible use, embrace the knowledge
of nature and the improvements of the arts. We may presume that
such profound, such uninterrupted pursuits as these, such exact
calculations, such refined discoveries, such extensive and exalted
views, will, at last, produce something that may prove of advantage
to the universe. Hitherto, as we have observed together, the most
useful discoveries have been made in the most barbarous
some genius in this age had the misfortune to be called Chapelain or
Cotin, he would be under a necessity of changing his name.
One circumstance, to which the English Academy should especially
have attended, is to have prescribed to themselves occupations of a
quite different kind from those with which our academicians amuse
themselves. A wit of this country asked me for the memoirs of the
French Academy. I answered, they have no memoirs, but have printed
threescore or fourscore volumes in quarto of compliments. The
gentleman perused one or two of them, but without being able to
understand the style in which they were written, though he
understood all our good authors perfectly. "All," says he, "I see
in these elegant discourses is, that the member elect having assured
the audience that his predecessor was a great man, that Cardinal
Richelieu was a very great man, that the Chancellor Seguier was a
pretty great man, that Louis XIV. was a more than great man, the
director answers in the very same strain, and adds, that the member
elect may also be a sort of great man, and that himself, in quality
of director, must also have some share in this greatness."
The cause why all these academical discourses have unhappily done so
little honour to this body is evident enough. Vitium est temporis
potius quam hominis (the fault is owing to the age rather than to
particular persons). It grew up insensibly into a custom for every
academician to repeat these elogiums at his reception; it was laid
down as a kind of law that the public should be indulged from time
to time the sullen satisfaction of yawning over these productions.
If the reason should afterwards be sought, why the greatest geniuses
who have been incorporated into that body have sometimes made the
worst speeches, I answer, that it is wholly owing to a strong
propension, the gentlemen in question had to shine, and to display a
thread-bare, worn-out subject in a new and uncommon light. The
necessity of saying something, the perplexity of having nothing to
say, and a desire of being witty, are three circumstances which
alone are capable of making even the greatest writer ridiculous.
These gentlemen, not being able to strike out any new thoughts,
hunted after a new play of words, and delivered themselves without
thinking at all: in like manner as people who should seem to chew
with great eagerness, and make as though they were eating, at the
same time that they were just starved.
It is a law in the French Academy, to publish all those discourses
by which only they are known, but they should rather make a law
never to print any of them.
But the Academy of the Belles Lettres have a more prudent and more
useful object, which is, to present the public with a collection of
transactions that abound with curious researches and critiques.
These transactions are already esteemed by foreigners; and it were
only to be wished that some subjects in them had been more
thoroughly examined, and that others had not been treated at all.
As, for instance, we should have been very well satisfied, had they
omitted I know not what dissertation on the prerogative of the right
hand over the left; and some others, which, though not published
under so ridiculous a title, are yet written on subjects that are
almost as frivolous and silly.
The Academy of Sciences, in such of their researches as are of a
more difficult kind and a more sensible use, embrace the knowledge
of nature and the improvements of the arts. We may presume that
such profound, such uninterrupted pursuits as these, such exact
calculations, such refined discoveries, such extensive and exalted
views, will, at last, produce something that may prove of advantage
to the universe. Hitherto, as we have observed together, the most
useful discoveries have been made in the most barbarous