Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

It is always dangerous to speak about one's self before a large assembly. We are even careful to avoid this absurdity in small companies; and it appears to me that it was owing to good taste as much as to Christian humility that the word I was banished from the writings of Port-Royal.

The Abbé de Fleury says, that the historian should himself be kept out of view in his narration,

[ocr errors]

so that the reader may not have leisure to reflect whether the facts recorded be written well or ill; whether they be written at all; whether he have a book in his hands; whether there be an author in the world. It is thus that Homer wrote."*

* What the amiable FENELON says of poets, and which he strengthens with the sanction of Plato's judgment, may with equal propriety be applied to historians: "The poems of Homer and Virgil are full of a noble simplicity; their art is entirely concealed; nature itself appears in all they say. We do not find a single word that seems purposely designed to show the poet's wit. They thought it their greatest glory never to appear, but to employ our attention on the objects they describe; as a painter endeavours to set before your eyes wild forests, mountains, rivers, distant views, and buildings, or the adventures, actions, and different passions of men, in such a lively manner that you cannot trace the masterly strokes of his pencil, for art looks mean and coarse when it is perceived. Plato, who hath thoroughly examined this matter, assures us that, in composing, the poet [so also the historian or orator] should always keep out of sight, make himself to be quite forgotten by his readers, and represent only those

Now if an historian be not suffered to attempt to show himself in his relations, doubtless a preacher ought to be more attentive to keep himself out of the view of his auditory.*

things and persons which he would set before their eyes." -FENELON'S Dialogues concerning Eloquence, p. 63.

Mr. Knox tells us that his "opinion coincides with that of the best judges of antiquity, that the diction of the historian should not be such, either in the construction or selection of words, as to allure the attention of the reader from the facts to the words, from the hero to the writer." The same author condemns "some of the most popular historians of France, who have violated the gravity and dignity of the historic page by perpetual attempts to be witty." And he adds, "though the works of such may afford pleasure, it is not such as results from legitimate history. The writer evidently labours to display himself and his own ingenuity: but it is one great secret in the art of writing that the writer should keep himself out of sight, and cause the ideas which he means to convey fully to engross the reader's attention. They cannot, indeed, otherwise produce their proper effect. If there are any readers who choose to have the writer present to their view rather than the matter which he writes, they may be said to resemble those spectators who go to the theatre rather to see and hear a favourite actor than to attend to the persons of the drama. It is not Shakspeare's Hamlet or Lear whom they admire, but some name which stands in rubric characters on the walls and in the playbills."KNOX's Essays, vol. i., No. 23, p. 110.

* Let us hear what M. CLAUDE says on this subject: "When it was needful to exalt the grace of God, St. PAUL

There are occasions, however, when an orator becomes himself the subject of an argument which

spoke of his raptures, miracles, and visions; and when it was needful to show the faithfulness of his conduct in discharging his ministry against the bold accusations of his enemies, he recounted his voyages, labours, and persecutions; but when he had a law to impose upon men's consciences, or a doctrine of faith, or a rule of conduct to establish, he introduced it only with the name of GOD. Nothing but what is divine; no consideration at all of man is mentioned here; for faith and conscience acknowledge no authority but that of God, nor obey any voice but that of the common Master of all creatures. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants, says the apostle elsewhere. Herein he resembles the prophets, who, when they advanced anything, always used this preface, Thus saith the Lord."-CLAUDE's Essay on the Composition of a Sermon, vol. ii., p. 316.

"Let young and fashionable divines take care, as they will answer it to Him in whose name they ascend the pulpit, not to preach themselves, but the Gospel; not to be so solicitous in the display of a white hand as of a pure heart, of a diamond ring as of a shining example."-KNOX's Essays, No. 123.

A celebrated preacher among the Dissenters, now deceased, the Rev. Mr. R―n, in a charge which he delivered to a young minister at his ordination, thus addressed him: "Let me remind you, sir, that when you come into this place and address this people, you are never to bring your little self with you. I repeat this again, sir, that it may more deeply impress your memory: I say that you are never to bring your little self with you. No, sir; when

interests the public, and when he may speak of himself without being personal. Where can I find a better example to illustrate this precept than in the following passage of Fontenelle, in his treatise "On Happiness" (a work written with distinguished and vast precision): "It is necessary, first of all, to investigate the pretensions of that which boasts of contributing to our happiness. Wherefore is this dignity I am pursuing so necessary for me? It is so that I may have the pre-eminence before But wherefore should this be necessary? may receive their respect and homage. what service to me is this homage and respect? They will very much caress me. But in what estimation can I hold those caresses, which are paid to my dignity and not to myself?"

others.

That I But of

In thus making application to himself of a general maxim, the Christian orator reasons in the name of his auditory, All other egotism is forbidden him.

Bossuet affects me when he speaks of his white hairs. Bourdaloue penetrates me with a sacred veneration when he apologizes for his sermon "On Impurity," in his "Homily of Magdalen." But it is the privilege of these great masters to fall into such

you stand in this sacred place, it is your duty to hold up your great Master to your people, in his character, in his office, in his precepts, in his promises, and in his glory. This picture you are to hold up to the view of your hearers, while you are to stand behind it, and not so much as your little finger must be seen."

[ocr errors]

sort of digressions; and yet they never allow themselves in them unnecessarily, nor without attaining a vigour of genius which renders all excusable.

SECTION XLIII.

OF BOURDALOUE.

WHAT I am chiefly pleased with and admire in Bourdaloue, is his keeping himself out of sight; that, with a style too often sacrificed to declamation, he never strains Christian duties, never converts simple advices into positive precepts, but his morality is such as can always be reduced to practice. It is the inexhaustible fertility of his plans, which are never alike, and the happy talent of arranging his arguments with that order of which Quintilian speaks when he compares the merit of an orator who composes a discourse to the skill of a general who commands an army ;* it is that accurate and forcible logic, which excludes sophisms, contradictions, paradoxes; it is the art with which he establishes our duty upon our interest, and that valuable secret, which I seldom see but in his sermons, of converting the recital of conversations into proofs of his subject; it is that redundancy of genius, which in his discourses leaves nothing farther to be supposed, although he composed at least two, often three, sometimes even four sermons on the same subject, without our even knowing, after having read them,

* Est velut Imperatoria virtus.-Instit., 2.

« AnteriorContinuar »