ravage Western Europe. Their sails were long1 the terror of both coasts of the channel. Their arms were repeatedly carried far into the heart of the Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of Maestricht and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, watered by a noble river, and contiguous to the sea, which was their favourite element. In that province they founded a mighty state, which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring principalities of Brittany and Maine. Without laying aside that dauntless valour which had been the terror of every land from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the country where they had settled. Their courage secured their territory against foreign invasion. They established internal order, such as had been long unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced Christianity, and with Christianity they learned a great part of what the clergy had to teach. They abandoned their native speech, and adopted the French tongue, in which the Latin was the predominant element. They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never before possessed. They found it a 10 barbarous jargon; they fixed it in writing; and they employed it in legislation, in poetry, and in romance. They renounced that brutal intemperance to are somewhat different in meaning: idiome means the language peculiar to a nation, and is sometimes, though seldom, synonymous with patois (dialect); whereas idiotisme always signifies a peculiar expression in a language, such as those, for instance, which constitute what we call Anglicisms, Gallicisms, Latinisms, &c. See page 8, note, and page 32, note 12. 10 ils n'avaient trouvé qu'un; or, ils le (relating to langage, subst. masc.) trouvèrent à l'état de. 11 ils en firent une langue écrite. 4 which all the other branches of the Great German family were too much inclined. The polite1 luxury of the Norman presented a striking contrast to2 the coarse voracity and drunkenness of his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink,3 but in large and stately edifices, rich armour, gallant horses, choice falcons, wellordered tournaments, banquets delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite flavour than for their intoxicating power.5 That chivalrous spirit which has exercised so powerful an influence on the politics, morals, and manners of all European nations, was found in the highest exaltation among the Norman nobles. Those nobles were distinguished by their graceful bearing and insinuating address. They were distinguished also by their skill in negotiation, and by a natural eloquence which they assiduously cultivated. It was the boast of one of their historians, that the Norman gentlemen 10 were orators from 11 the cradle. But their chief fame was derived from their military exploits.12 Every country, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Dead Sea, witnessed the prodigies of their discipline and valour. One Norman knight, at the head of a handful of warriors, scattered the Celts of Connaught.13 Another founded the monarchy of the Two Sicilies, and saw the emperors, both of the East and of the West,14 fly before his arms. A third, the Ulysses of the first Crusade, was invested by his fellow 9 1 élégant, or, raffiné, in this (subst. masculine, in this sense; we also say, le plus haut période, dit-il (page 32, 12 Mais c'est surtout par.... qu'ils s'illustrèrent. 13 See above, page 101, note 3. 14 les empereurs d'Orient et l'Oo soldiers with the sovereignty of Antioch ; and a fourth, the Tancred whose name lives in the great poem of Tasso,2 was celebrated through Christendom as the bravest and most generous of the champions of the Holy Sepulchre. 3 The vicinity of so remarkable a people early began to produce an effect on the public mind of England. Before the Conquest, English princes received their education in Normandy. English sees and English estates 3 were bestowed on Normans. Norman-French was familiarly spoken in the palace of Westminster. The court of Rouen 5 seems to have been to the court of Edward the Confessor what the court of Versailles, long afterwards, was to the court of Charles II. (LORD Macaulay, History of England.) cident; we never use est and ouest, in this sense, that is, when speaking of those empires or emperors, or of Europe and of the countries that lie eastward of it: thus 'the Eastern question,' la question d'Orient (but we say vent d'est, d'ouest, east, west, wind,' &c.). 1 fut placé par ses compagnons d'armes à la tête de la souveraineté d'Antioche. 2 que le Tasse a chanté dans son immortel poëme. In imitation of the Italians, the French use the article with the following proper names: le Tasse, l'Arioste, le Corrége, and a few others. 3 Des évêchés et des domaines anglais; or, Des terres et des évêchés anglais. If we use terres instead of domaines, then we must put évêchés last. The grammatical rule is this: when two substantives qualified by an adjective have not the same gender (here terres is fem., and evêchés is masc.), euphony requires the masculine substantive to be used last, if the adjective has a different termination in the feminine and in the masculine, as anglais (masc.), anglaise (fem.), bon (masc.), bonne (fem.), &c. This rule is sensible enough, for what could sound worse than "des évêchés et des terres anglais ?" The student is here supposed to know already— and know well-that, as to anglais, it could not be altered, and that it must be so used in the masculine plural, on account of one of the two nouns (évêchés) being masculine. 4 Le français de Normandie était familier au. 5 This last sentence being a kind of résumé of the preceding details, had better begin so:-En un mot, la cour de Rouen; or, La cour de Rouen enfin. 6 Charles II.-pronounce Charles deux. The cardinal numbers, not the ordinal, are used, in French, before names of sovereigns, except when speaking of the first of a name (as, Charles I., pron. Charles premier, not un); but, in all cases, the French omit the article 'the,' used in English before the numeral following the name of a sovereign. INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. FRANCE united at that period almost every species of ascendency. Her military glory was at the height.2 She had vanquished mighty coalitions. She had dictated treaties. She had subjugated great cities and provinces. She had forced the Castilian pride to yield her the precedence. She had summoned Italian princes to prostrate themselves at her footstool.4 Her authority was supreme in all matters of good breeding,5 from a duel to a minuet. In literature she gave law to the world. The fame of her great writers filled Europe. No other country could produce a tragic poet equal to Racine, a comic poet equal to Molière, a trifler so agreeable as La Fontaine, a rhetorician so skilful as Bossuet. The literary glory of Italy and of Spain had set; that of Germany had not yet dawned.10 The genius, therefore, of the eminent men who adorned 11 Paris shone forth with a splendour which was set off to full advantage by contrast.12 France, indeed, had at that time an empire over 1 possédait à cette époque la supériorité dans presque tous les genres. height,' here, apoyée. 3 le pas. 4 obligé les .... à s'humilier à ses pieds. en matière de bon ton (or, de bon goût).-'a duel' a minuet; use the definite article ('the'), in French, here. 6 faisait ia lui; or, donnait des lois. 7 montrer,--to avoid ambiguity. 8 un poète badin; 'so,' aussi. 9 un orateur aussi puissant; or, simply, un orateur tél. The word rhétoricien means merely one who knows rhetoric; and as to rhéteur, it either means a teacher of rhetoric, or is taken in a bad sense, signifying a studied and bombastic mankind, such as1 even the Roman Republic never atLained. For, when Rome was politically dominant, she was in arts and letters the humble pupil of Greece. France had, over the surrounding countries, at once the ascendency which Rome had over Greece, and the ascendency which Greece had over Rome. French was becoming the universal language, the language of fashionable society,2 the language of diplomacy. At several courts princes and nobles spoke it more accurately and politely than their mother tongue.* In our island there was less of this servility5 than on the continent. Neither our good nor our bad qualities were those of imitators. Yet even here homage was paid,7 awkwardly indeed, and sullenly, to the literary supremacy of our neighbours. The melodious Tuscan, so familiar to the gallants and ladies of the court of Elizabeth, sank into contempt. New canons 10 of criticism, new models of style, came into fashion.11 The quaint ingenuity which had deformed 12 the verses of Donne, and had been a blemish on 13 those of Cowley, disappeared from our poetry. Our prose became less majestic, less artfully involved,14 less 1 See page 38, note 3, and page wish, on the contrary, to dwell on 10, note 3. 2 la haute société. 3 et plus élégamment. leur propre langue; or, la langue de leur pays; or, leur langue maternelle (a more poetical than prosaic expression). 5 cette servilité fut moindre. 6 Put a colon, or a semi-colon, after continent.'-ni nos bonnes ni nos mauvaises qualités ne furent jamais celles des imitateurs; or, better, nous n'avons jamais eu les qualités ou les défauts des imita the continuance or repetition of it, on the habit in which people were, at that period, of paying homage,' &c., we must then use the inperfect. 8 quoique bien gauchement et comme à regret (or, et comme d contre-cœur). 9 preux, or, chevaliers. 10 règles. 11 devinrent (or, vinrent) à la mode. In the same way we say, être hors de mode, to be out of fashion,' and passer de mode, 'to go out of fashion.' 12 déparé. 13 Simply, et entaché. |