Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century [pp. 63-77]

1852.] Men ai~J Women of the Eighteenth Century. ~5
character,. Love was never so unlike itself as in I~5O; it;vas
enough to m~ke the world regret the bureaux of intellect and the
bureaux of fashion (as they were affectedly called) of ~1ademoiselle
de Scudery; those assaults with epigrams of an affected conceit,
and with far-fetched madrigals wl~en the result was nonsense, but
everything was conducted in all decency and honour, in the sentimental style of the day.
"Art, in l~5O, was only a plaything like love; it was a mere
warbling and cooing of birds. Ask the composers of musical airs,
how they had to spice their musieM ragouts; the painters of pastels
how they had to put the roses into the J~eeks; the small poets
what a number of artificial bouquets and pretty nothings in verse
they had to get up. Art, snerificing its majestic beauty, followed
the train of ~fadame de Parabere, all painted, perfumed, wearing
patches, gorgeous with lace and ribands. llence all those poetical
bouquets to Chloris, those Graces in deshabille, those licentious madrigals, those unceremonious musical airs of the little operas, those
Cupids whose roses even crowned their tor&nes. One day, France
had wandered so far from Nature and all virtue, that poetry and
painting, as if from a chaste remembrance of earlier times, or, perhaps, in order to veil in history the scandals of their day, sang and
painted the pure heaven of innocence; the idyl flourished again;
but in spite of the pure rays and fresh dews which came from Germany, it flourished,,hadly. The breath exhausted in pleasure, was
wanting for poetry.
The specimens of the wit and the poetry of the French
Sardanapalus, we have not time to quote.
The first volume ends with the statuettes of three Graces of the Opera. Mademoiselle de Camargo, Sophie Arnould, and Mademoiselle Guimaud. They are as necessary parts in the drama of the eighteenth century, as some
ladies of the same sort are in the charming pages of Gil
BIas.
Crebillon, the tragic, and Crebillon, the gay, are two
portraits we would gladly spend some time before, only
we fear that we shall rob our readers of pleasure by giving them too many draughts in anticipation.
We extract a short anecdote fiom the life of Buffon:
"One day when the`i\Tatural ilistory,' was quoted. in the presence of Voltaire,`Not so natural,' he replied. Voltaire, with his
hatred of the deluge, allowed himself to contradict the opinion of
Buffon in regard to the shells found upon the surface of the earth,
which, according to the naturalist, had been deposited there by the
sea. In Voltaire's opinion, the pilgrims in the times of the Cru