surrounded with the splendors of Versailles, is remarkable for such profound contemplations? It is because he enjoyed a soli tude in religion-because his body was in the world and his mind. in the desert-because he had found a refuge for his heart in the secret tabernacles of the Lord-because, as he himself said of Maria Theresa of Austria, "he repaired to the altars, there to enjoy with David an humble tranquillity, and retired to his oratory, where, in spite of the bustle of the court, he found the Carmel of Elias, the desert of John, and the mountain which so often witnessed the sorrows of Jesus."

All of Bossuet's funeral orations are not equal in merit; but they are all in some respect sublime. That on the Queen of England is a master-piece of style and a model of philosophical and political composition.

The oration on the Duchess of Orleans is the most remarkable of all, because it is wholly created by genius. Here are none of those pictures of the troubles of nations,-none of those developments of public affairs which commonly keep up the tone of the orator. It seems natural to suppose that the interest excited by a princess expiring in the prime of life would be speedily exhausted. The whole subject is limited to a few commonplace topics of beauty, youth, grandeur, and death; and yet upon this slender foundation Bossuet has reared one of the most solid and splendid monuments of his eloquence. From this point he sets out to display the misery of man by his perishable part, and his greatness by the immortal portion of his being. He first debases him below the worms which prey upon him in the grave, and then describes him resplendent with virtue in the regions of incorruptibility.

Every reader knows with what genius he has, in the funeral oration on the Princess Palatine, descended, without derogating from the majesty of the rhetorical art, even to the simple interpretation of a dream; though he has evinced in the same discouse his high capacity for philosophical abstractions.

If, in his sermons on Maria Theresa and the Chancellor of France, the panegyrist dwells not on the usual subjects of eulogy, his thoughts move in a more enlarged sphere-in more profound. contemplations. Alluding to Le Tellier and Lamoignon, he says:"Now do those two pious souls who on earth were desirous of

effecting the ascendency of the laws behold clearly those eternal. laws from which ours are derived; and, if any trace whatever of our short-sighted distinctions is apparent in this simple and luminous vision, they adore God in the attribute of supreme justice and rule."

In this theology of Bossuet how many other beautiful features present themselves, as the sublime, the graceful, the sad, or the pleasing! Turn to the picture of the Fronde. "The monarchy shaken to its very foundations, war at home, war abroad, fire and sword within and without. . . . Was this one of those storms in which Heaven sometimes finds it necessary to pour forth its wrath? . . . . or may it be considered as the throes of France ready to bring forth the miraculous reign of Louis?" This is followed by some reflections on the illusions of earthly friendships, which "expire with years and interests," and on the profound obscurity of the human heart, "which never knows what it will in future desire; which frequently cannot tell what it at present wishes, and which uses not less concealment and deceit with itself than with others."3

،، But the trumpet sounds, and Gustavus appears. He appears to surprised and betrayed Poland like a lion holding his prey in his talons, and ready to tear it in pieces. What has become of that formidable cavalry which once was seen to rush upon the enemy with the swiftness of the eagle? Where are those martial spirits, those vaunted battle-axes, and those bows which used never to be bent in vain? The horses are now swift, the men are now active, only to flee before the conqueror."

As we advance, our ears tingle with the words of a prophet. Is it Isaias or Jeremias who apostrophizes the island of conference and the nuptial ceremonies of the Fourteenth Louis? ،، Sacred festival! auspicious marriage! nuptial veil, benediction, sacrifice! Let me this day mingle your ceremonies and your splendor with this funeral pomp, and the height of grandeur with its ruins."5

The poet-it will not be taken amiss if we apply to Bossuet an appellation which constitutes the glory of David-the poet con

The party opposed to the Court was called the Fronde.

2 Fun. Orat. for An. de Gonz.

+ Ibid.

3 Fun. Orat. for An. de Gonz.

5 Fun. Orat. on Mar. Ther. of Aust.

tinues his strains. He no longer touches the inspired chords; but, lowering the tone of his lyre to the mode which Solomon. adopted to celebrate the flocks of Mount Gilead, he chants those peaceful words:-"In the solitude of St. Fare, as far removed from the ways of secular life as it is separated by its happy situa tion from all commerce with the world,-on that sacred mountain chosen by God above a thousand years ago-where the spouses of Jesus Christ renewed the charms of ancient dayswhere the joys of the earth were unknown-where the footsteps of the man of the world, the inquisitive, and the lawless wanderer, never appear,-under the superintendence of the holy abbess, who knew how to dispense milk to babes as well as bread to the strong, the life of the Princess Anne dawned auspi ciously."

This passage, which you would almost suppose to have been extracted from the book of Ruth, does not exhaust the pencil of Bossuet. He has still enough of those antique and soft colors left to delineate a happy death. "Michael Le Tellier," says he, "began the hymn in celebration of the divine mercies. I will sing forever the mercies of the Lord. With these words upon his lips he expires, and continues the sacred song with the angels of the Most High."

We were for some time of opinion that the funeral oration on the Prince of Condé, with the exception of the incomparable passage with which it concludes, had generally been too highly extolled. We considered it more easy, as it really is, to reach the form of eloquence which appears in the exordium of that eulogy than that in the oration on the Princess Henrietta. But when we re-perused that discourse with attention,—when we beheld the orator blowing the epic trumpet during one half of his narrative, and, as it were, sounding an Homeric strain,-when, retiring to Chantilly, he resumes the Christian tone, and recovers all the grand and solemn ideas with which the above-mentioned funeral orations are replete,-when, after having followed Condé to the coffin, he summons nations, princes, prelates, and warriors, around the cenotaph of the hero,-when, finally, advancing with his hoary locks, like a majestic spirit of another world, he exhibits Bossuet

1 Fun. Orat. for An. de Gonz.

declining to the tomb, and the age of Louis XIV. (whose obsequies you would almost conceive him to be celebrating) on the brink of eternity,-at this utmost effort of human eloquence tears of admiration flowed from our eyes and the book dropped from our hands.

CHAPTER V.

INFIDELITY THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF THE DECLINE OF TASTE AND THE DEGENERACY OF GENIUS.

THE preceding observations may have led the reader to this reflection, that infidelity is the principal cause of the decline of taste and the degeneracy of genius. When the national religion had lost its influence at Athens and at Rome, talents disappeared with the gods, and the Muses consigned to barbarism those who no longer had any faith in them

In an enlightened age one would scarcely believe to what a degree good morals depend on good taste, and good taste on good morals. The works of Racine, gradually becoming more pure in proportion as the author became more religious, at last concluded with his Athalia. Take notice, on the contrary, how the impiety and the genius of Voltaire discover themselves at one and the same time in his productions by a mixture of delightful and disagreeable subjects. Bad taste, when incorrigible, is a perversion of judgment, a natural bias in the ideas. Now, as the mind acts upon the heart, the ways of the latter can scarcely be upright. when those of the former are not so. He who is fond of deformity at a time when a thousand master-pieces might apprise him of his error and rectify his taste is not far from loving vice; and 'tis no wonder if he who is insensible to beauty should also be blind to virtue.

Every writer who refuses to believe in a God, the author of the universe and the judge of men, whose soul he has made immortal, in the first place excludes infinity from his works. He

confines his intellect within a circle of clay, from which it has then no means of escaping. He sees nothing noble in nature. All her operations are, in his infatuated opinion, effected by impure means of corruption and regeneration. The vast abyss is but a little bituminous water; the mountains are small protuberances of calcareous or vitrifiable rock; and the heavens, where the day produces an immense solitude, as if to serve as a camp for the host of stars which the night leads forth in silence,—the heavens are but a petty vault thrown over us for a moment by the capricious hand of Chance.

If the unbeliever is thus limited in regard to physical objects, how can he describe with eloquence the dignity of man? For him language has no richness, and from the treasures of expres sion he is irrevocably excluded. Contemplate the corpse interred in yonder grave, that statue of nothing, wrapt in a windingsheet. There is man according to the atheist! Sprung from the impure body of a woman; inferior to the animals in point of instinct; dust like them, and returning, as they do, to dust; having no passions, but impelled by appetites; obeying not moral laws, but only physical influences; looking forward to no other end than a sepulchre and worms,-there is that being who had fancied himself animated by an immortal spirit! Talk no more of the mysteries of the soul, of the secret delights of virtue! Ye graces of infancy, ye loves of truth, generous friendship, elevation of sentiment, charms of the tombs and of our native country, all your enchantments are destroyed!

By a necessary consequence, infidelity also introduced a spirit of cavilling and disputation, abstract definitions, the scientific style, and with it the practice of coining new words, all deadly foes to taste and eloquence.

It is possible that the amount of talent among the authors of the eighteenth century equalled that of the writers in the seventeenth. Why, then, does the latter rank so much above the former? for we can no longer dissemble the fact that the writers of our age have been, in general, placed too high. If, as it is

1 We make this admission to give the greater weight to the argument; but we are far from being of that opinion. Pascal and Bossuet, Molière and La Fontaine, were four writers absolutely incomparable, and such as we shall never again possess. If we omit Racine, it is because he has a rival in Virgil.