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LIFE OF SAMUEL BUTLER.
the scanty reward bestowed ou literary pursuits; yet we are inclined to think, though authors had then a less certain support in the patronage of a few than now when they appeal to a numerous public, that the improvidence of the individual was more to blame than the niggardliness of the patrons, and of this improvidence there does not appear to be the slightest ground for accusing Butler."
Mr Butler spent some time in France, it is supposed when Lewis XIV. was in the height of his glory and vanity, but neither the language nor manners of Paris were pleasing to our modest poet. As some of his observations are amusing, they are inserted in a note.[1] About
- ↑ "The French use so many words, upon all occasions, that if they did not cut them short in pronunciation, they would grow tedious,and insufferable.
"They infinitely affect rhyme, though it becomes their language the worst in the world, and spoils the little sense they have to make room for it, and make the same syllable rhyme to itself, which is worse than metal upon metal in heraldry: they find it much easier to write plays in verse than in prose, for it is much harder to imitate nature, than any deviation from her; and prose requires a more proper and natural sense and expression than verse, that has something in the stamp and coin to answer for the alloy and want of intrinsic value. I never came among them, but the following line was in my mind:
Raucaque garrulitas, studiumque inane loquendi;
for they talk so much, they have not time to think; and if they had all the wit in the world, their tongues would run before it.
"The present king of France is building a most stately triumphal arch in memory of his victories, and the great actions which he has performed: but, if I am not mistaken, those edifices which bear that name at Home were not raised by the emperors whose names they bear (such as Trajan, Titus, &c.), but were decreed by the Senate, and built at the expense of the public; for that glory is lost which any man designs to consecrate to himself.
"The king takes a very good course to weaken the city of Paris by adorning of it, and to render it less by making it appear greater and more glorious; for he pulls down whole streets to make room for his palaces and public structures.
"There is nothing great or magnificent in all the country, that I have seen, but the buildings and furniture of the king's houses and the churches; all the rest is mean and paltry.
"The king is necessitated to lay heavy taxes upon his subjects in his own defence, and to keep them poor in order to keep them quiet; for if they are suffered to enjoy any plenty, they are naturally so insolent, that they would become ungovernable, and use him as they have done his predecessors: but he has rendered himself so strong, that they have no thoughts of attempting anything in his time.
