Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles | Page 8

in 1663, it contained over a hundred and fifty portraits, and was
offered to the public as _La Galerie des Peintures, ou Recueil des
portraits et éloges en vers et en prose, contenant les portraits du Roy, de
la Reyne, des princes, princesses, duchesses, marquises, comtesses, et
autres seigneurs et dames les plus illustres de France; la plupart
composés par eux-mêmes_.[12] The introductory defence of the
portrait cites Suetonius and Plutarch, and Horace and Montaigne, but
also states frankly the true original of the new fashion--'il faut avouer
que nous sommes très redevables au Cyrus et à la _Clélie_ qui nous en
ont fourni les modèles.' About the same time Antoine Baudeau, sieur de
Somaize, brought out his _Grand Dictionnaire des Précieuses_,[13] in
which there are many portraits in the accepted manner. The portrait was

more than a fashion at this time in France; it was the rage. It therefore
invited the satirists. Molière has a passing jest at them in his
_Précieuses Ridicules_;[14] Charles Sorel published his _Description
de I'isle de la Portraiture et de la ville des Portraits_; and Boileau wrote
his _Héros de Roman_.
The effects of all this in England are certainly not obvious. It is quite a
tenable view that the English characters would have been no less
numerous, nor in any way different in quality, had every Englishman
been ignorant of French. But the _mémoires_ and romances were well
known, and it was after 1660 that the art of the character attained its
fullest excellence. The literary career of Clarendon poses the question
in a simple form. Most of his characters, and the best as a whole, were
written at Montpelier towards the close of his life. Did he find in
French literature an incentive to indulge and perfect his natural bent?
Yet there can be no conclusive answer to those who find a sufficient
explanation in the leisure of these unhappy years, and in the solace that
comes to chiefs out of war and statesmen out of place in ruminating on
their experiences and impressions.
* * * * *
Something may have been learned also from the other kind of character
that is found at its best in modern literature in the seventeenth century,
the character derived from Theophrastus, and depicting not the
individual but the type. In France, the one kind led on to the other. The
romances of Scudéry prepared the way for the _Caractères ou les
Moeurs de ce Siècle_ of La Bruyère. When the fashionable portrait of
particular persons fell out of favour, there arose in its place the
description of dispositions and temperaments; and in the hands of La
Bruyère 'the manners of the century' were the habits and varieties of
human nature. In England the two kinds existed side by side. They
correspond to the two methods of the drama. Begin with the individual,
but draw him in such a way that we recognize in him our own or others'
qualities; or begin with the qualities shared by classes of people,
embody these in a person who stands for the greatest common measure
of the class, and finally--and only then--let him take on his distinctive
traits: these are methods which are not confined to the drama, and at all
stages of our literature have lived in helpful rivalry. Long before France
had her La Bruyère, England had her Hall, Overbury, and Earle.[15]

The Theophrastan character was at its best in this country at the
beginning of the seventeenth century when the historical character was
still in its early stages; and it was declining when the historical
character had attained its full excellence. They cannot always be clearly
distinguished, and they are sometimes purposely blended, as in Butler's
character of 'A Duke of Bucks,' where the satire on a man of
pronounced individuality is heightened by describing his eccentricities
as if they belonged to a recognized class.
The great lesson that the Theophrastan type of character could teach
was the value of balance and unity. A haphazard statement of features
and habits and peculiarities might suffice for a sketch, but perspective
and harmony were necessary to a finished portrait. It taught that the
surest method in depicting character was first to conceive the character
as a whole, and then to introduce detail incidentally and in proper
subordination. But the same lesson could have been learned elsewhere.
It might have been learned from the English drama.
[Footnote 1: North's Plutarch went into five editions between 1579 and
1631; Thucydides was translated by Hobbes in 1629, and Polybius by
Edward Grimeston in 1633; Xenophon's Anabasis was translated by
John Bingham in 1623, and the _Cyropædia_ by Philemon Holland in
1632; Arthur Golding's version of Cæsar's Gallic War was several
times reprinted between 1565 and 1609; Philemon Holland, the
translator-general of the