viction arising from experience, he will probably feel no addition to his faith from any arguments drawn from other sources, and may regard as needless any attempts to support the system by probable reasoning, or what he may consider fanciful and wire-drawn analogies. But there may be minds so constituted as to be affected by such arguments and analogies, and which require to be invited to the study of the facts by such means. He then proceeds to state, in detail, a variety of objections which have occurred to him in opposition to the system. As we do not design this for a controversial article, we decline entering into the discussion of his difficulties. He shows great candour in judgment, and displays powers of analysis and reflection, calculated to give weight to any opinions which he supports; and while we commend the spirit and the execution of his present work, as a preliminary essay, we trust that, at a future time, he will come forward as an advocate for or against Phrenology, founding his arguments on the basis of observation, to which we strongly recommend to him to resort. We conclude by stating our high approbation of Mr. Abernethy's conduct in publishing his opinions concerning Phrenology, in the candid and liberal spirit in which he has written the present work; and by recommending the OBSERVATIONS to such of our readers as desire to become acquainted, in an easy and agreeable manner, with the leading topics of these much agitated doctrines. The Early French Poets. PHILIPPE DESPORTES. BOILEAU, in the first cauto of his Art Poetique, has drawn a slight and rapid sketch of the progress which the French poetry had made before his own time. To Villon he attributes the first improvement on the confusion and grossness of the old romancers. Soon after, Marot succeeded; and under his hands, flourished the ballad, triolet, and mascarade; the rondeau assumed a more regular form, and a new mode of versifying was struck out. Ronsard next embroiled every thing by his ill-directed efforts to reduce the art into order. In the next generation, his Muse, who had spoken Greek and Latin in French, saw her high-sweling words and her pedantry fallen into disesteem; and the failure of the boastful bard rendered Desportes and Bertaut more cautious. Ce poëte orgueilleux trébuché de si haut Rendit plus retenus Desportes et Bertaut. Boileau would have done well to temper the severity of this censure on Ronsard, who had more genius than himself. There is, however, some truth in what he has said of Desportes and Bertaut. They are much less bold than their predecessor; nor is it unlikely that the ex cesses into which he had run might have increased their natural timidity; though it will be seen, that the latter of these two writers, especially, held him in the utmost veneration. They both in a great measure desisted from the attempt made by those who had gone before them, to separate the language of poetry from that of prose, not more by its numbers than by the form and mould of its phrases and words; and although they were not ambitious of that extreme purity and refinement, which Malherbe afterwards affected, and on which his countrymen have since so much prided themselves, yet by their sparing use of the old licenses, they made the transition less difficult than it would otherwise have been. Of the works of Desportes, printed at Rouen in 1611, a few years after his death, a large proportion consists of sonnets. They amount all together to about four hundred in number, and turn for the most part bears some resemblance to an exon the subject of love. The following quisite song of Mrs. Barbauld's, beginning Come here, fond youth, whoe'er thou be, That boasts to love as well as me. Si c'est aimer que porter bas la veuë, Qu'il n'est prison, ni torture, ni flame, Diane, Sonnet xxix. p. 23, If this be love, to bend on earth the sight, To loathe one's life, and for one's death implore; That neither racks, imprisonment, nor flame, The invitation to a weary traveller, in another of his sonnets, is unusu¬ ally elegant:- Cette fontaine si froide, et son eau doux-coulante A la couleur d'argent semble parler d'amour; Un herbage mollet reverdit tout autour, Et les aunes font ombre à la chaleur brulante: Le fueillage obeit à zephir qui l'evante Soupirant amoureux en ce plaisant sejour : Passant par le travail du long chemin lassé, L'ombrage et le vent frais ton ardeur chassera, Bergeries, p. 595. This cool spring, and its waters silver-clean, And as the west-wind fans them, scarcely move; Stay, traveller, and rest thy limbs awhile, Faint with the thirst, and worn with heat and toil; The wind and shade refresh thee from the heat, The character of ease and sweet ness, which he maintains in such verses as these, is often deserted for quaintness and conceit. At times, indeed, he is most extravagant, as in Sonnet lxi, where he tells his mistress that they shall both go to the infernal regions,-she for her rigour, and himself for having foolishly fol- Car mon ame ravie en l'objet de vos yeux, In another place (Diane, L. 2, S. xlviii. p. 137) he has the same thought of their being both condemned, but draws a different conclusion from it. In the Chant d'Amour, (p. 66,) there is a mixture of metaphysics and allegory, such as we sometimes meet in Spenser, and that would not have disgraced that writer. La Grace quand tu marche est tousiours au devant, Grace, whereso'er thou walkest, still precedes ; In his Procez contre Amour au Siege de la Raison, (p. 70,) he introduces himself pleading at the bar of Reason against Love, who re- Je l'ay fait ennemy du tumulte des villes, Je luy ay fait dresser et la veuë et les ailes I made him from the city's crowd retire, I chased the fiend Ambition from his side, I bade him raise his view and prune his wings The conclusion is equally unexpected and sprightly:— Puis nous teusmes tous deux attendant la sentence Then both were silent, waiting the decree That said, she laugh'd, and suddenly withdrew. There are a few lines on his mistress Hippolyte, which are a pitch above the usual strain of love-verses. Les traits d'une jeune guerriere, Un port celeste, une lumiere, Et mille vertûs amassées Sont les sorciers qui m'ont charmées. Chanson, p. 174. Features of a warlike maid, Such as live in antique story; A heavenly port; a light display'd; He expresses a hope that the fame of his mistress will rival that of Laura. J'espere avec le tans que sa belle ramée Pourra par mes escrits jusqu'aux astres monter, La dedaigneuse Nimphe en laurier transformée. Diverses Amours, Sonnet xi. p. 516. I trust, in time, her lovely branch will rise, If Petrarch were in any danger of being eclipsed by Desportes, it would be fron. the veil which he has cast over his lustre in those passages of which he has attempted a translation into French. The reader will see an instance of this inferiority, by comparing the well-known sonnet, Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi, with Desportes, S. xlv. p. 201. A pas lens et tardifs tout seul je me pro maine. He did not wish to conceal the numerous obligations he lay under to the Italian poets; and when a book was written with the design of showChaulicu. Fontenai, lieu délicieux, T. 2, p. 145. Paris, 1757. ing how much the French had taken from them, good-humouredly observed, that if he had been apprized of the author's intention to expose him, he could have contributed largely to swell the size of the volume. If he has made thus free with the property of others, there are those who in their turn have not scrupled to borrow from him. Some stanzas in an admired ode by Chaulieu, on his native place Fontenai, must have been suggested by the pathetic complaint which Desportes supposes to be uttered by Henry III. at Fontainbleau, where that monarch first saw the light. Nymphs of the forest, in whose arms I lay The song at the beginning of the Bergeries and Masquerades is exceedingly sprightly and gracious. I will add another, which, though scarce less animated, is in a graver style. Alas! how hard a lot have we, That live the slaves of men's decrees, As are the leaves on forest trees. The thoughts of men, they still resemble His verses on Marriage, and his Adieu to Poland, prove that he could be at times sarcastic. At p. 596, we find a sonnet on the Bergerie of Remy Belleau; and at p. 631, another on the death of the same poet. There are commendatory verses on Desportes himself, by the Cardinal Il estoit franc, ouvert, bon, liberal, et doux; Philippe Desportes was born at Chartres, in 1546; and died at his Abbey of Bonport, in Normandy, on the fifth of October, 1606. Charles IX. presented him with eight thousand crowns for his poem of Rodomont; and for one of his sonnets, he was remunerated with the Abbey of Tiron. It was a piping time for the Muses. Of the wealth, which thus flowed in upon him, he was as generous as his eulogist has described him. Almost all the contemporary poets were his friends; and those amongst them, who stood in need of his assistance, did not seek it in vain. |