The verse had been prose,and prose,perhaps,it should have remained.Yet for this precious "Pucelle,"in the age when "Paradise Lost"was sold for five pounds,you are believed to have received about four thousand.Horace was wrong,mediocre poets may exist (now and then),and he was a wise man who first spoke of aurea mediocritas.At length the great work was achieved,a work thrice blessed in its theme,that divine Maiden to whom France owes all,and whom you and Voltaire have recompensed so strangely.In folio,in italics,with a score of portraits and engravings,and culs de lampe,the great work was given to the world,and had a success.
Six editions in eighteen months are figures which fill the poetic heart with envy and admiration.And then,alas!the bubble burst.
A great lady,Madame de Longueville,hearing the "Pucelle"read aloud,murmured that it was "perfect indeed,but perfectly wearisome."Then the satires began,and the satirists never left you till your poetic reputation was a rag,till the mildest Abbe at Menage's had his cheap sneer for Chapelain.
I make no doubt,Sir,that envy and jealousy had much to do with the onslaught on your "Pucelle."These qualities,alas!are not strange to literary minds;does not even Hesiod tell us that "potter hates potter,and poet hates poet"?But contemporary spites do not harm true genius.Who suffered more than Moliere from cabals?Yet neither the court nor the town ever deserted him,and he is still the joy of the world.I admit that his adversaries were weaker than yours.What were Boursault and Le Boulanger,and Thomas Corneille and De Vise,what were they all compared to your enemy,Boileau?
Brossette tells a story which really makes a man pity you.You remember M.de Puimorin,who,to be in the fashion,laughed at your once popular Epic."It is all very well,"said you,"for a man to laugh who cannot even read."Whereon M.de Puimorin replied:
"Qu'il n'avoit que trop su lire,depuis que Chapelain s'etoit avise de faire imprimer."A new horror had been added to the accomplishment of reading since Chapelain had published.This repartee was applauded,and M.de Puimorin tried to turn it into an epigram.He did complete the last couplet,Helas!pour mes peches,je n'ai su que trop lire Depuis que tu fais imprimer.
But by no labour would M.de Puimorin achieve the first two lines of his epigram.Then you remember what great allies came to his assistance.I almost blush to think that M.Despreaux,M.Racine,and M.de Moliere,the three most renowned wits of the time,conspired to complete the poor jest,and assail you.Well,bubble as your poetry was,you may be proud that it needed all these sharpest of pens to prick the bubble.Other poets,as popular as you,have been annihilated by an article.Macaulay put forth his hand,and "Satan Montgomery"was no more.It did not need a Macaulay,the laughter of a mob of little critics was enough to blow him into space;but you probably have met Montgomery,and of contemporary failures or successes I do not speak.
I wonder,sometimes,whether the consensus of criticism ever made you doubt for a moment whether,after all,you were not a false child of Apollo?Was your complacency tortured,as the complacency of true poets has occasionally been,by doubts?Did you expect posterity to reverse the verdict of the satirists,and to do you justice?You answered your earliest assailant,Liniere,and,by a few changes of words,turned his epigrams into flattery.But Ifancy,on the whole,you remained calm,unmoved,wrapped up in admiration of yourself.According to M.de Marivaux,who reviewed,as I am doing,the spirits of the mighty dead,you "conceived,on the strength of your reputation,a great and serious veneration for yourself and your genius."Probably you were protected by the invulnerable armour of an honest vanity,probably you declared that mere jealousy dictated the lines of Boileau,and that Chapelain's real fault was his popularity,and his pecuniary success,Qu'il soit le mieux rente de tous les beaux-esprits.
This,you would avow,was your offence,and perhaps you were not altogether mistaken.Yet posterity declines to read a line of yours,and,as we think of you,we are again set face to face with that eternal problem,how far is popularity a test of poetry?Burns was a poet:and popular.Byron was a popular poet,and the world agrees in the verdict of their own generations.But Montgomery,though he sold so well,was no poet,nor,Sir,I fear,was your verse made of the stuff of immortality.Criticism cannot hurt what is truly great;the Cardinal and the Academy left Chimene as fair as ever,and as adorable.It is only pinchbeck that perishes under the acids of satire:gold defies them.Yet I sometimes ask myself,does the existence of popularity like yours justify the malignity of satire,which blesses neither him who gives,nor him who takes?Are poisoned arrows fair against a bad poet?I doubt it,Sir,holding that,even unpricked,a poetic bubble must soon burst by its own nature.Yet satire will assuredly be written so long as bad poets are successful,and bad poets will assuredly reflect that their assailants are merely envious,and (while their vogue lasts)that the purchasing public is the only judge.After all,the bad poet who is popular and "sells"is not a whit worse than the bad poets who are unpopular,and who deride his songs.
Monsieur,Votre tres-humble serviteur,&c.
