An Address on the Influence of the Federative Republican System of Government Upon Literature and the Development of Character [pp. 261-282]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
great as that of the political world. The literature of
the Augustan age is distinguished by that tone and
spirit which mark the downfall of liberty, and the con sequent thraldoin of the mind. The bold and manly
voice of eloquence was hushed. The high and lofty
spirit of the republic was tamed down to a sickly and
disgusting servility. The age of poetry came when
that of eloquence and philosophy was past; and Virgil
and Horace and Propertius, flattered, courted and enriched by an artful prince and an elegant courtier, could
consent to sing the sycophantic praises of the monarch
who had signed the proscriptions of the triumvirate, and
rivetted a despotism on his country.
But the men who most adorned the various departments of learning during the long reign of Augustus,
were born in the last days of the republic. They saw
what the glory of the commonwealth had been-they
beheld with their own eyes the greatness of their country, and they had inhaled in their youth the breath of
fireedom. No Roman writer, for example, excels the
Lyric Bard in true feeling and sympathy for heroic
greatness. We ever behold through the medium of his
writings-even the gayest-a deep rooted sorrow locked
up in his bosom, for the subversion of the liberties of
the commonwealth. "On every occasion we can see
the inspiring flame of patriotism and freedom breaking
through that mist of levity in which his poetry is
involved." " He constrained his inclinations," says
Schlegel, "and endeavored to write like a royalist, but
in spite of himself he is still manifestly a republican
and a Roman."*
" In the last years of Augustus," says the same
writer, "the younger generation who were born, or at
least grew up to manhood, after the commencement of
the monarchy, were altogether different. We can already perceive the symptoms of declining taste-in
Ovid particularly, who is overrun with an unhealthy
superfluity of fancy, and a sentimental effeminacy of
expression." Even History itself, in which the Romans
so far excelled, yielded to the corrupting influence of
the Cwsars. Tacitus concluded the long series of splendid and vigorous writers, and he grew up and was
educated under the comparatively happy reigns of
Vespasian and Titus, arid wrote under the mild government of Nerva. Unnatural pomp and extravagance of
expression seem, strange as it may appear, to be the necessary results of social and political degradation. And
it is curious indeed to behold among the writers under
the first Cwesars, the extraordinary compounds which
genius can produce, when impelled on the one hand by
the all-powerful and stimulating love of liberty, and
vivid glimpses of the real dignity of human nature,
while checked and subdued on the other by the fear of
arbitrary powrer. Take Lucan for an example. "In
him we find the most outrageously republican feelings
making their chosen abode in the breast of a wealthy
and luxurious courtier of Nero. It excites surprise
and even disgust, to observe how hIe stoops to flatter
that disgusting tyrant, in expressions the meanness of
* Horace fought under Brutus and Cassius, on the side of the
Republic, at the battle of Philippi, and he was after the battle
saved from the wreck of the republican army, and treated with
great respect ard kindness by Augustus and his riaisiter Mecae
nas.
which amounts to a crime, and then in the next page,
exalts Cato above the Gods themselves, and speaks cf
all the enemies of the first Caesar with an admiration
that approaches to idolatry."
Let us now look for an exemplification of the same
great truths, to the reign of Louis the fourteenth, a
reign which has been celebrated as the zenith of war like and literary splendor-and here I borrow the lan guage of Macintosh. "Talent seemed robbed of the
conscious elevation, of the erect and manly port, which
is its noblest associate and its surest indication. The
mild purity of Feneloin, the lofty spirit of Bossuet, the
masculine mind of Boileau, the sutblimne fervor of Corneille, were confounded by the contagion of ignominious
and indiscriminate servility." Purity, propriety and
beauty of style, were indeed carried during this reign
to a high pitch of perfection. The literature of this
period was "the highest attainment of the imagination."
An aristocratic society, such as that which adorined tlhe
court of Louis XIV, is particularly favorable to the
delicacy and polish of style, the fascinations of wit and
gaiety, and to all the decorations of an elegant imagination. No one has ever surpassed Racine, Fene'on,
and Bossuet, in purity of style and elegance of language.
The literature of this age, however, as well asserted
by Madame de Stael, was not a "philosophic power."
" Sometimes indeed, authors were seen, like Achilles, to
take up warlike weapons in the midst of frivolous employments, but, in general, books at that time did not
treat upon subjects of real importance. Literary men
retired to a distance fiom the active interests of life.
An analysis of the principles of government, an examination into religious opinions, a just appreciation of
men in power, every thing in short that could lead to any
applicable result, was strictly forbidden them."'' Hence,
however perfect the compositions of this age in mere
style and ornament, we find them sadly deficient in
profundity of reflection and utility of purpose. The
human mind during this period had not yet reached its
proper elevation, because it was enthralled by arbitrary
power. The succeeding, was one of more grandeur of
thought, and consequently of a more bold, daring, and
profound philosophy. In vain would we look over the
annals of the age of Louis XIV, to find a parallel to
Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Raynal. And
what, let me ask, had so soon produced this mighty
difference in the philosophy of France? It surely could
not be the patronage of that base, profligate, licentious
libertine, who during the period of his unfortunate regency, loosened the very foundation of human virtue,
polluted the morals of his country, and weakened or
destroyed those dearest of ties which bind together in
harmony, in happiness and in love, the whole social
fabric. It could not surely be the patronage of a monarch who had been reared and educated in such a
school as this. No! it was the now spirit svhich animated the age-the spirit of liberty-the spirit of fiee
inquiry-the spirit of utility. It was this spirit which
quickened and aroused the stagnant genius of the nation, and filled the soul with the "ealiqicid immnetsiant
inyflitunque," which had in the days of antiquity inspired the eloquence of a Tully and the sublime veliemence of Demosthenes. It was this new spirit, and not
the puny patronage of a monarch, that called forth
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