Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles | Page 7

written.'[7]
One of Clarendon's tests of a good history, it will be noted, is the 'lively
representation of persons'; the better writers are distinguished by
making 'their characters always very lively'. In his own hands, and in
Burnet's, the character assumes even greater importance than the
continental historians had given it. At every opportunity Clarendon
leaves off his narrative of events to describe the actors in the great
drama, and Burnet introduces his main subject with what is in effect an
account of his _dramatis personæ_. They excel in the range and variety
of their characters. But they had studied the continental historians, and

the encouragement of example must not be forgotten.
* * * * *
The debt to French literature can easily be overstated. No French
influence is discoverable in the origin and rise of the English character,
nor in its form or manner; but its later development may have been
hastened by French example, especially during the third quarter of the
seventeenth century.
France was the home of the _mémoire_, the personal record in which
the individual portrays himself as the centre of his world, and describes
events and persons in the light of his own experience. It was
established as a characteristic form of French literature in the sixteenth
century,[8] and it reached its full vigour and variety in the century of
Sully, Rohan, Richelieu, Tallemant des Réaux, Bassompierre, Madame
de Motteville, Mlle de Montpensier, La Rochefoucauld, Villars,
Cardinal de Retz, Bussy-Rabutin--to name but a few. This was the age
of the _mémoire_, always interesting, often admirably written; and, as
might be expected, sometimes exhibiting the art of portraiture at
perfection. The English memoir is comparatively late. The word, in the
sense of a narrative of personal recollections, was borrowed at the
Restoration. The thing itself, under other names, is older. It is a branch
of history that flourishes in stirring and difficult times when men
believe themselves to have special information about hidden forces that
directed the main current of events, and we date it in this country from
the period of the Civil Wars. It is significant that when Shaftesbury in
his old age composed his short and fragmentary autobiography he
began by saying, 'I in this follow the French fashion, and write my own
memoirs.' Even Swift, when publishing Temple's _Memoirs_, said that
''tis to the French (if I mistake not) we chiefly owe that manner of
writing; and Sir William Temple is not only the first, but I think the
only Englishman (at least of any consequence) who ever attempted it.'
Few English memoirs were then in print, whereas French memoirs
were to be numbered by dozens. But the French fashion is not to be
regarded as an importation into English literature, supplying what had
hitherto been lacking. At most it stimulated what already existed.
The _mémoire_ was not the only setting for French portraits at this
time. There were the French romances, and notably the _Artamène ou
le Grand Cyrus_ and the _Clélie_ of Madeleine de Scudéry. The full

significance of the Grand Cyrus has been recovered for modern readers
by Victor Cousin, with great skill and charm, in his _Société française
au XVIIe siècle_, where he has shown it to be, 'properly speaking, a
history in portraits'. The characters were drawn from familiar figures in
French society. 'Ainsi s'explique', says Cousin, 'l'immense succès du
Cyrus dans le temps où il parut. C'était une galerie des portraits vrais et
frappants, mais un peu embellis, où tout ce qu'il y avait de plus illustre
en tout genre--princes, courtisans, militaires, beaux-esprits, et surtout
jolies femmes--allaient se chercher et se reconnaissaient avec un plaisir
inexprimable.'[9] It was easy to attack these romances. Boileau made
fun of them because the classical names borne by the characters were
so absurdly at variance with the matter of the stories.[10] But instead of
giving, as he said, a French air and spirit to Greece and Rome,
Madeleine de Scudéry only gave Greek and Roman names to France as
she knew it. The names were a transparent disguise that was not meant
to conceal the picture of fashionable society.
The next stage was the portrait by itself, without any setting. At the
height of the popularity of the romances, Mlle de Montpensier hit upon
a new kind of entertainment for the talented circle of which she was the
brilliant centre. It was nothing more nor less than a paper game. They
drew each other, or persons whom they knew, or themselves, and under
their real names. And they played the game so well that what was
written for amusement was worth printing. _Divers Portraits, Imprimés
en l'année M DC LIX_ was the simple title of the first collection, which
was intended only for the contributors.[11] When it reached its final
form