Huet had done-Origen, the Demonstra- | tended itself to bis clergy, who were in the tio, and the Delphin Classics—he could not habit of going to law with each other on the be blamed for this. Had he retired from the most frivolous matters. To check this spirits field altogether, he had retired with honour. and to complete the work of the bringing in But be continued, on the contrary, to write the Huguenots to the church, which his preand publish, and only ceased to give the mind decessor Froulai had nearly achieved, appear and toil which had made his first productions to bave been the only memorable acts of his valuable. Scholars, philosophers, or poets, episcopate. have an undoubted right to enjoy themselves Avranches is proud of her bishop, whose in their own way; and the spectacle of an name now distinguisbes a Place which occuindependent leisure, amused and adorned by pies the site of the cathedral. Of that church, literature is one we love to contemplate. But at the door of which Henry II. received abif they write, it must not be alleged in defence solution for the murder of Becket, a single of shortcomings that they only write for stone, called " la Pierre d'Henri II.,' is all that amusement. To write is to deliver opinions, remains. But it was not, as the usually acand to instruct others who in a greater or less curate · Murray' tells us, the viction of a revo; degree depend on what they read for guidance. lutionary mob. It had become dilapidated An opinion then, crudely formed, hastily ex- from neglect; the roof fell

, and some children pressed, inadequately expounded, weakly de- were hurt by it; and the walls, being profended, yet backed by a name perhaps de- nounced dangerous, were pulled down by servedly eminent, is an offence to be visited order of the Maire in 1799. with all the rigours of criticism.

The infirmities of the bishop increased with Before we proceed to give an account of bis years; he did not like the place for a Huet's philosophical writings, we must notice residence, the water disagreed with him; and what was really only a short interlude in his he would not, in spite of the numerous premusing life-his episcopate. In 1685 he was cedents for such a course, continue to hold nominated by the King to the see of Soissons, the office without discharging the duties. The but never was more than bishop-designate of see was not rich, and he gladly accepted as a that place. No instruments of any kind could retirement the abbey of Fontenai, two miles be obtained from Rome during the embroil- froro Caen. He lived twenty-two years after ment of the Court of France with the Papal his resignation, partly at Fontenai, chiefly at See. In the mean time he had exchanged Paris, but with frequent visits in the season Soissons for Avranches with another bishop- to the waters of Bourbon. He neglected not designate-Brulart, whose native place of the acts and thoughts of piety, but the studies Sillery was in the neighbourhood of Soissons, which had been the pursuit of his youth were as Avranches was of Caen. On the arrange- the solace of his age. No works of any mo ment of matters between Louis and Invocent ment were to be expected from him, yet he he was consecrated bishop, in 1692. He continued to evince his lively interest in letters filled the see only seven years, when he vo- by occasional pieces. It was now that he luntarily resigned it, and in 1699 returned to compiled the Origines de Caen,' of which we the life of study which he had learned to have before spoken. He would turn off short value more by the temporary estrangement. pieces in French while riding in his carriage The well-known anecdote to which we have through the streets, and he continually added already alluded intimates to us that even to his Latin compositions. He had already during the years of episcopate the books were fixed on the future owners of his cherished not laid aside. But we must not hastily in- books, of which in so long a life he had fer from the story, that the episcopal duties amassed not a few. He had seen with grief were neglected for the books. Far from this, De Thou's magnificent collection dispersed he set himself with an activity not universal | under the hammer, and he could not bear the among prelates to look into the affairs of bis thought that his own should undergo the diocese, which the long interregnum had same-fate. To the man who is destitute of thrown somewhat into disorder. He held living ties of affection, books become an obannual visitations, made the acquaintance of all ject of attachment. Nor is it wonderful when his clergy, and promulgated an entirely new we consider the communion his mind has beld set of synodal statutes for the regulation of with them; they bave been more to him than the diocese, founded on the primitive codes. friends. Cujas, the civil lawyer, directed in These are extant, and are said by the Abbé bis will that his library should be sold seDes Roches to be a complete treatise of theo- parately, jealous that any one man should logy. He was not fond of long sermons, and possess what he had possessed. Huet's desire one of his orders is, that the sermon or ex- was to keep his together. He made an planation of the Gospel should never exceed agreement with the Jesuit house in Paris, by half an hour. The Norman litigiousness ex- which he made over to them his collection by

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Preceptor to the Dauphin. But his own pre-eminence in letters leads to the usual ardour of study was pure and independent of rewards, as surely as any other excellence; such aims. Fond of society, flattered by the or that mediocrity in literature, unlike medionotice of the great, vain of social distinction, crity in other pursuits, leads to failure. These -all these inclinations were overcome by the observations are often true, but they are not yet more absorbing passion for knowledge. the main truth. For this he resigned court life and a bishopric, The subject of philosophy was that wbich and, if he may be believed, found his reward principally engaged bis attention during the in doing so.

latter balf of his life, and it was by the opi

nions he promulgated on it that he became Those men make a great mistake who turn to most widely known throughout the learned study with a view to arrive by it at honours and world, and excited the greatest amount of riches. The retirement, the inaction, the unfit opposition and hostility. His first publication Dess for business and the common occupations of of tbis sort, Censura Philosophiæ Cartesianæ,' life, the habit of interior meditation and abstrac- appeared in 1689. The last, the "Traité Pbition, are not qualities which equip us for the road losopbique de la Foiblesse de l'Esprit Humain,' of fortune. But there were men of old, Democritus, Epimenides, and others, who held them

was published posthumously at Amsterdam in selves recompensed for the sacrifice of the favours 1723. However slight may be the intrinsic of the world by the pleasures of the mind merit of these works, yet the positions taken pleasures more vivid, exciting, and elevating than up in them, and the storm of controversy any others. He on whose cradle the Muse bas raised, especially by the last, make them imsmiled with hold cheap the applause of the multi-portaut features in the history of modern phitude, the seductions of wealth and honours, and losophy. The History of Cartesianism,' after will seek the rewards of his labour in itself. He the death of its founder, has still to be written ; will not be repelled by its infiniteness, or its unfruitfulness-rather his passion for acquisition

and though so much has been published on will grow with the extent of his acquisitions.

Descarles himself, we know no source to These are not unmeaning words of praise ; I which we can turn for a view of the fortunes speak of what I have experienced an experience of his systen, though two fragments of M. which length of days has only confirmed. If Cousin are most important contributions to it. anything could make me desire my life prolonged, The remarks which follow will be strictly it would be to have time to learn that of which confined to the personal share which the am still ignorant. As for Joseph Scaliger, who said that if he had had ten sons he would not Bishop of Avranches had in these controhave brought up one

versies. his own career, but would have sont them to seek preferment in the courts

The seventeenth century witnessed the rise of princes," he held language unworthy of his and growth of a vernacular literature in eminent learning language, too, contradicted by France. This growth and expansion was not his own life-long pursuit of knowledge.' accomplished without a violent struggle with

the old learning and literature. We are not now holding up such lives as ceding century, the sixteenth, nothing that Huet's and Scaliger's as models of general can be called a French literature existed. Aln imitation ; but it may, at least, correct our books of solid character were composed in judgments to recollect, what we are too much Latin, and addressed to a learned and a Eurogiven to overlook in our comparative estimate pean public. In the eighteenth century Latin of literature as a profession, namely, the satis- is entirely disused, and French writers, on factions which may be drawn from the pur- whatever subjects, address a French reading: suit of it for its own sake. Compared with public, and in French. During the interthe other professions, as a profession, it may mediate period, the latter half of the seven-sometimes deserve the accusations wbich dis- teenth century, the authors and their readers. appointed writers have heaped on it. If you were separated into two camps: the adherents want a livelihood and a worthy career, still of the old school who used Latin, the converts more if your ambition ascends to fame, of the new who employed French. But the honours, wealth, seek it not by authorship; language was but the dress or uniform by seek it in trade, on the stock-exchange, at the which the respective armies were distin-bar. The chosen few only in whom the appe- guished. Their character, subjects, method, tite for knowledge with which all are born opinions, were wholly distinct and irreconcil. bas not been quenched by the more vehement able. The great modern revolution in thought passions, love, ambition, or avarice, may see to which the Reformation was but the pre-in a life like that of Huet that it is as possible face, was then commencing in earnest." It to find happiness in the pursuit of knowledge was not merely a change of opinion on specuas in the pursuit of any other object. This is lative points of theo ogy or metaphysics, but: the proper moral of a literary biography. an entire metamorphosis of the human mind The moral commonly drawn is either that and all its habits. Any such total change:

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must imply as its preliminary a revolution in Latin, and the decay of sound philological philosophy, and that revolution was due in lore—all which he ascribed to Cartesianism. France to Descartes. His principal doctrines His Censura is professedly directed against must be well known to our readers. There that audacious contemner of Christian and was in them a mighty power of truth, with a ancient learning” (meaning Descartes). Mavast addition of fantastic error. But it is not dame de Sevigné, who honestly believed that requisite for our purpose to recall any one of the haute noblesse disposed at will of the Descartes' doctrines; for the term Cartesian- souls of authors as they did of the bodies of ism, as applied after Descartes' death (1651), the peasants, thought he wrote against Desmust not be taken to mean only those pecu- cartes to please the Duke of Montausier. liar dogmas on Physics and Metaphysics M. Bartholméss supposes Huet was converted which he bad promulgated. It was the title by a letter of Isaac Voss. Not so. Huet beeither of convenience or opprobrium which longed by nature and pursuits to the past the men of the old learning fastened on their world. opponents, on the men of progress, of free Huet fought Cartesianism with two weathought. The battle was nominally fought pons--argument and ridicule. The ridicule is under the banner of Aristotle on the one side contained in the Nouveaux Mémoires pour and Descartes on the other—the Aristotelian servir à l'Histoire du Cartesianisme. нө orthodoxy and the Cartesian heresy; but it dictated this to a secretary at a time when his was really only another epoch of the old strug- eyes were weak and he was precluded from gle between a dead tradition and the living more serious study. Ho calls it a jocular roenergy of mind, between conventional for- mance (ludicra fabula). But the jest is exmnulæ, which bad long ceased to '

mcan any- tremely tbin. It is, in fact, a poor imitation thing, and a serious faith. The course and of the Père Daniel's Voyage du Monde de issue of such a conflict could not be doubtful. Descartes'—itself not a very felicitous perforAll the genius, the original thinkers, the wits, mance. The Jesuits have never succeeded in and the popular writers, fell in, of course, with humour, which requires a geniality, a native the movement. The Jansenists, or the reli- growth and raciness of character, to which gious party, the Oratorians, who had succeeded their education is directly opposite. Huet the Jesuits as the most successful teachers, pretends to disclose the secret, that Descartes the higher clergy, Bossuet as well as Fénélon, bad not, as had hitherto been believed, died in were, in the extended sense of the term, Car- Sweden. Like another Zalmoxis, he had tesians, whether or no they rejected substan- feigned death and had a mock funeral, but tial forms, or had ever heard of the Vortices. had really retired into Finland, wearied of On the other side were ranged the lower inaintaining so long the onerous dignity of clergy, whose ignorance removed them from oracle of mankind. Here he had gathered any intellectual influences; the Universities, round him a small academy of young Laps, the lawyers, and the men of business; and, to whom he laid down the law in all the comabove all, the Jesuits. The Jesuits set in fort of incognito.

. motion the arms of authority-the French The foppery of Descartes, his green coat, Government, which they were able to com- and cap with the white feather, are not omitmand, and the See of Rome, the inveterate ted, and we may recognise the philosopher enemy of intellectual progress. It will be even in Huet’s dim water-colour drawing. easily understood how Huet came to be found But it was not easy for humour to make a in the rauks of the antiquated party. He was man like Descartes ridiculous; and, as D' intimately lié with the Jesuits; he had been Alembert says, "s'il fallait absolument que

le brought up at la Flèche; be returned in old ridicule reståt à quelqu'un, ce ne serait pas à age to be an inmate of their Maison Professe Descartes.' Huet's serious polemic is not much in Paris. He did not like Bossuet, who more formidable. This is the Censura Phieclipsed him at court and held him at a dis- losophiæ Cartesianæ,' written in Latin. It is tance. He was on friendly terms with the chiefly noticeable in the history of the Conlawyers, and all the men of sense (les yens troversy as having called out the reply of Sylsensés) detested this new-fangled nonsense, vain Regis (P. D. Huetii Censura, &c., Pawhich they were sure the Jansenists had only ris, 1692), à reply of which Fontenelle has taken up out of spite to the Jesuits. But, said that it is a model of moderate and courabove all, Huet was devotedly attached to teous controversy. To the personalities of classical studies, and it was an error, though Huet-and Huet, who was always complainnatural

one, of the new school to pour un-ing of 'la médisance des gens de Caen, leur measured contempt upon the ancients. This vice favori,' had not been sparing of banter lies at the bottom of Huet's anti-Cartesianism. more angry than smart-Regis makes no reHe is ever complaining of the neglect of anti- | tort. Over the argumentation of Huet, vague, quity, of the growing ignorance of Greek and declamatory, and superficial, Regis had no