THE

IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. XXIII. SEPTEMBER, 1856.

ART. I.-ODD PHASES IN LITERATURE.

FIRST PAPER.

1. Catalogue of the Library of the late Samuel Rogers, Esq.; which will be Sold by Auction, by Messrs. Christie and Manson, at their Great Room, 8, King-street, St. James's Square, on Monday, May 12th, 1856, and Six following Days, at One o'clock Precisely.

2. Historiette de la Marquise de Rambouillet. Par Tallemant des Réaux. Paris, 1834.

We have two vagabond tastes, both derived from that literary man-about-Rome, Horace. He loved to listen to the Fortune Tellers, we love to hear the Ballad Singers: he delighted to linger about the columns; we are happy in tumbling the volumes of the book stall, and of the book auctionroom. We know every ballad, sung from the Coombe to Donnybrook, from the dirge which tells us of O'Connell, that "He is gone, he is dead,

He is raised to high Heaven;
His soul is at rest,

An' his bones is in Glasnevin ;"

to that which teaches the wise truth, that a young lady should not meet her lover

"Along the dark arches

Down by the Railway."

We know all the books of our obliging friend Connolly, of Ormond Quay ; and we have had many a flirtation with the ever changing stock of our learned, and zealous to please friend, Jones, of D'Olier-street. Then we have had old friendships amongst the quaint, rare stock of George Bumstead on Holborn Hill; and we have known pleasant days amongst the fine old books of Russell Smith, of Quaritch, and of Waller, in Fleetstreet. But, for the bright days of wandering amongst the stalls, give us, as those marked with stone peculiarly white,

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the sweet summer's times when, commencing at the Institute, we have continued along the quays to the Tuileries, and then have returned to the Institute, by the river wall, amongst the very cheap book stalls. At one side are the wonfully tight, bright-eyed little women who ask you to look at all the books and pictures at once. At the other side you have those dream books, and song books, and letter writers, with every dream, and song, and letter, except the very dream or song, or letter you want. The old pictures out of La Fontaine, which make you blush, but are expatiated on by the seller. The astoundingly cheap old odd books, the books we love and pounce on, that are forced upon you; the bright sun, the bright faces, the fragrant segars you may smoke and no body be offended; the riant air of all about you make this line of quays the most agreeable of all, in all the world, to the literary flâneur. That old, ever reviving Tuileries beside you; Notre Dame before you; records of romance, of crime, of suffering, and of glory-the wisdom of literature living on for ever, and never changing its kings of thought, all around

you.

But the GREAT Libraries are great, for references particularly. We never enter the Imperial or the British without recalling our old friend Burton's words, and exclaiming, "What tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, &c.! Their names alone are the subject of whole volumes, we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them."

We think thus with the old Anatomist, and a recent visit to the Museum Library, and a stroll amongst Rogers's books,have suggested to us the possibility of making a few interesting papers out of the materials of our odd books, collected in these vagrant wanderings amongst old books to which we have confessed ourselves most addicted.

To the literary student the term ACADEMY is one of frequent occurrence. What is the history of Academies as we now understand the term? Our history is as follows.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a poet, a friend of Ronsard, J. Antoine Baïf, founded, in a house in the Rue Fosses-Saint-Victor, a reunion of wits and musicians, whose chief object it was to study grammatically the language of

sound. They gave concerts which attracted a great number of young noblemen. In 1570, Charles IX granted letters patent, in which he declares," that the Academy, though yet low, was deserving of the highest honors," "he accepted the surname of protector and auditor of it." Parliament, supported by the bishop of Paris and the university, after offering great opposition to the registering of those letters, were at length obliged to yield. The successor of Charles IX, Henry III., took the Academy under his protection; but the death of Baïf, and the troubles of the League, speedily caused the downfall of this establishment, which had already gained importance, as we learn from the following passage in a manuscript of G. Collete: "Philosophical lectures, by Amadis Jamyn, were delivered in presence of Henry III, in the Academy of Jean Antoine Baïf, established in the neighbourhood of the Faubourg Saint Marcel. For I know by tradition, that Amadis Jamyn was of this celebrated company, to whom also belonged Gui de Pibrac, Pierre de Ronsard, Philippe Desportes, Jaques Davy Duperron, and many other great wits of that time. Apropos of what I mentioned, that I had formerly seen some leaves of a book of manuscript of the institution of this noble and famous Academy, in the hand of William Baïf, son of Anthony Baïf, who had rescued them from a pastry cook's shop, where the natural son of Phillippe Desportes, who did not walk in the glorious footsteps of his father, had sold them, with several other curious and learned manuscripts; irreparable loss! What was more painful still, in the book of this institution, which was a beautiful book in vellum, we saw that the good King Henry III, the Duke de Guise and the greater number of the nobles and ladies of the court, had all promised to aid in the establishment and support of the Academy, which took part with Henry III, in the troubles and confusion of the civil war that agitated the kingdom. The King, the Princes, the Nobles, the savants who formed this celebrated body, had all subscribed to this book, and affixed their names to it. This was not, after all, the first design of this noble institution, which was to have effected wonders in the development of science and language." *

In the early part of the reign of Louis XIII. some wits

* Lives of French Poets, Manuscript of the Bibliothèque du Louvre, quoted by M. Sainte Beuve, in the first volume of The State of French Poetry in the Seventeenth Century.

renewed the project designed by Baïf, and a scholar, David Rivault, published, in 1612, a little pamphlet from eight to sixteen pages, which is very rare. It was named, The Design of an Academy and its Introduction into Court. The Author proposed to establish an academy which should embrace all sciences, theology excepted.

Towards 1630, a counsellor, secretary to the King, Valentine Conrart, established at his own house a re-union of learned men more or less esteemed. There were Godeau, Gombauld, Chapelain, Giry, Habert, the abbé de Cerisy, Serisay, and Malleville. Introduced into this society by Malleville, Faret, in his turn, brought Desmarets and the abbé de Bois Robert, who mentioned it to his patron, Cardinal Richelieu, who in 1634, offered to take the members of the society under his patronage, and proposed to constitute it a public society. Notwithstanding the resistance of Serisay, de Malleville and several others, who wished respectfully to refuse the Minister, it was decided, "that the abbé de Bois Robert be requested to thank very humbly M. le Cardinal for the honor he had done them, and to assure him, that their aspirations had never reached so high; that his Eminence's intention had taken them. by surprise, but that they were determined to obey his wish."

In accordance with Richelieu's orders the society wrote out themselves their statutes, and took the title of The French Academy before they were called indiscriminately by the names of The Academy of Beaux Esprits, Academy of Eloquence, Eminent Academy. They announced distinctly the object they had in view in a discourse, where several remarkable passages have been found on the arrangement of the French language. It was there said: "That it seemed to want nothing to perfect the happiness of the kingdom but to extricate the language which we now speak from a number of barbarous tongues-that our language, more perfect already than any other of the living languages, could as easily succeed to the Latin, as the Latin to the Greek, if they were only more careful with regard to elocution; that the duty of the academicians would be to purify the language from the corruption which it had contracted in the mouths of the people, or in the throng of the palace, and in the impurity of wranglers, or the incorrect use of it by ignorant courtiers, or by the abuse of those who corrupted it in writing, and by those who spoke well in the pulpit what was necessary to say, but did not otherwise," &c.