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BOOK XI.

FOURTH BRANCH-WRITING.

"Je ne vous donne point d'autres définitions des vertus qu'un tableau des gens vertueux, ni d'autres règles pour bien écrire que les livres qui sont bien écrits.”— J. J.ROUSSEAU.*

"Iter est longum per præcepta, breve et efficax per exempla."-SENECA.†

CHAPTER I.

DOUBLE TRANSLATION.

SECT. I.-IMITATION-BASIS OF COMPOSITION.

THE art of writing demands an extensive stock of ideas, great command of words, and acquaintance with their idiomatic and grammatical arrangements as well as with their orthography. Progress in it may be said to be commensurate with practice in the other three branches. Written composition will present little difficulty to those who have steadily pursued the course prescribed; who, by careful observation, have collected useful facts and right notions; who, by attentive and persevering study of the best writers, have their judgment developed, their memory enriched, and their taste cultivated.

The exercises which we will suggest as further preparation for composition, different from those resorted to in speaking, which require the active co-operation of the teacher, ought to be such as may be attended to without his assistance, that he may entirely devote his attention to what exclusively depends on him. He should make the early compositions of his pupils

* J. J. Rousseau, Emile ou de l'Education.

"The way is long by precepts; it is short and effective by examples."-Seneca, ad Lucilium, Epist. 6.

means of giving them not only habits of correct spelling and grammatical accuracy, but also familiarity with the idioms and elegances of the language.

It is not by the common routine of grammatical exercises that these ends can be attained. They waste years in only showing learners how difficult it is to write-disheartening them by constantly finding fault with and erasing what has cost them much time and labour. Whereas, by judicious delay and a proper course of instruction, innumerable blunders are avoided which impatient teachers force on their pupils. Imitation, rather than rules, is the basis of improvement in the art of writing.

The best speakers and writers are those who, with highly developed imitative and imaginative powers, have had the good fortune to meet habitually with excellent models, and have applied all the resources of their minds, first to emulate, and then to surpass them. In accordance with this truth, the most effective exercise will be that which affords the readiest means of imitating good writers: their works are preferable to rules; for they give the words as they teach the form. "Every exercise," says the Abbé Gaultier, "which compels the mind to contemplate the great models, is the true and the only means of acquiring the power of imitating them, and perhaps of one day equalling them.” *

We have already observed, that, by adhering to this principle, all great writers and orators have attained their acknowledged excellence. The imitative faculty fosters in them a merit analogous to that of their favourite authors. They afterwards improve on it, according to their peculiar genius. "It is impossible to bring your mind for any length of time under the influence of another mind without having your language and modes of thinking influenced by that mind. It is a law of nature that our minds insensibly imbibe a colouring from those with whom we associate, whether they are brought in contact by the living voice or on the written page."+

Demosthenes, to be well impressed with the style of a great writer, transcribed eight times the "Peloponnesian war of Thucydides. Malherbe, the father of French poetry, had a predilection for Horace, which he called his breviary. When Clarendon was employed in writing his history, he was con

Méthode pour exercer à la Composition française. ↑ John Todd, The Student's Manual.

stantly studying Livy and Tacitus. The latter classic was also the favourite author of Montesquieu. Bourdaloue never passed a year without reading Cicero, St. Paul, and St. Chrysostom. Benj. Franklin, adopting Dr. Johnson's opinion, made the "Spectator" his model-book. To Fénélon's study of the Odyssey" we owe “Télémaque,” that master-piece of French literature.

The sentiments expressed on this subject by eminent writers will further show the propriety of making the study and imitation of standard works the basis of composition.

'It is indeed," says Dugald Stewart, "necessary for our information that we should peruse, occasionally, many books, which have no merit in point of expression: but I believe it to be extremely useful to all literary men to counteract the effect of this miscellaneous reading, by maintaining a constant and familiar acquaintance with a few of the most faultless models which the language affords." *

Voltaire observes, "There is more to be learned from Demosthenes, Cicero, Bossuet, than from all the treatises of rhetoric: they are the masters of the art." We are informed by D'Alembert that this great writer always had within his reach Massillon's "Petit-Carême" and Racine's "Tragedies," the former to fix his taste in prose composition, and the latter in poetry.

The learned Arnauld recommends the daily study of Cicero, as the best means of forming a good style. J. J. Rousseau made Plutarch the object of his meditations: "This is the book," he says, "which pleases and benefits me most; it was the first reading of my childhood, it will be the last of my old age.” ‡ "Plutarch is the man of my choice!" also exclaims Montaigne. §

Boileau declares himself the imitator of Horace. He used to say, "I am but a beggar clad with the spoils of Horace." Galileo attributes the perspicuity and grace of his style to the continual study of Ariosto. Dante acknowledges Virgil for his model. "Thou art my master and my author," he exclaims in his sublime poem; "it is from thee alone I took that beautiful style which has done me honour." ||

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind.

↑ Essai sur les Mœurs et l'Esprit des Nations.

Essais. Liv. г. Ch. x.

Confessions. Promenade 4.

"Tu se' lo mio maestro e lo mio autore;

Tu se' solo colui da cui io tolsi

Lo bello stile che mi ha fatto onore."-Divina Commedia.

Robert Burns says in one of his letters, "It is an excellent method for improvement, and what, I believe, every poet does, to place some favourite classic author in his own walks of study and composition before him as a model."* Byron corroborates this opinion he had early read and studied Pope. In the maturity of his genius, he recollected what he owed him, and, in one of his letters, mentions him in these terms, “The delight of my boyhood, the study of my manhood, perhaps, if allowed to me to attain it, he may be the consolation of my old age.”+

There have been, these two centuries, few eminent men in the sciences or belles-lettres, the filiation of whose works cannot be traced to those of a predecessor. Gibbon and Robertson descend from Tacitus; Boileau and Pope from Horace; Racine from Virgil; Molière from Plautus on one side, from Terence on the other; Lafontaine, on one side, from Ariosto and Boccaccio, on the other, from Phædrus, who descends from Æsop; Thos. Moore from Anacreon; Lagrange and Laplace from Euler and Newton ; Condillac descends from Locke, Locke from Bacon, Bacon from Aristotle.

Jacotot's method is principally founded on this truth: he pretends to make his pupils derive every information from one book. They learn and repeat incessantly that model-work, decompose and recompose it, form infinite variations on the same theme, endeavour, in fact, in every possible way, to imitate their model; and thus acquire some readiness in expressing ideas. We do not, however, agree with this educationist as regards the propriety of confining students to the exclusive reading of one work. To learn by rote any one volume, whether it be "Télémaque," the one selected, or any other, cannot surely impart the ability to read all French works, especially those which, differing from it in style and subject-matter, necessarily contain words and idioms not to be found in that volume; it cannot enable them to understand the diversified and rapid expression of social intercourse; it cannot give them the familiar and idiomatic phraseology of conversation; and, besides these defects, this method makes them practise a barbarous pronunciation. Under the influence of this exclusive study, young people lose their individuality, and become servile imitators in thought and style of their model author. Such are the effects of a system which, based on good principles, errs only by abuse of their application.

*Letter to Mr. P. Hill.

† Moore's Life of Byron.

The process by which the language of foreign works is imitated must be such that the difficulty of the exercise will be proportioned to the proficiency of the learner. We cannot repeat too often that no exercise of any kind, physical or intellectual, should be so easy as to dispense with exertion of the faculty engaged; for the careless ease of the performance does away with all chance of improvement; nor should it, on the other hand, be so difficult as to present insurmountable obstacles, which waste time, occasion discouragement, and early excite disinclination for exertion.

Merely copying, like learning by rote, is not imitating an author; it is a servile mechanical operation which, at best, exercises only the memory. If Demosthenes had contented himself with repeatedly transcribing the models of his time, his name would not have come down to us. To be able to compose we must bring imagination and judgment in aid of imitation. Attempting to write in imitation of a modelcomposition, and after simple perusal of it, would be the other extreme, and impracticable at an early period of learning: it can be had recourse to only by a person already advanced in the foreign language, with a view to perfect his style, as is often practised in the native tongue. In the study of the fine arts it would be equally injudicious to begin by copying the outlines of a model through transparent paper, or by drawing at once from the human figure.

There is no exercise better calculated for avoiding these two extremes in the process of imitation, than the writing of double translation, as recommended by Cicero, Pliny the younger, Quintilian, and nearly all those who, to the present day, have suggested means for acquiring the art of composition.

SECT. II.-TRANSLATION FROM A FOREIGN INTO THE NATIVE

TONGUE.

Double translation consists in translating from a foreign author into the national tongue, and from this version back into the original language. By this means the just medium before alluded to may easily be attained, as will shortly be seen; and other advantages will result, which we will point out in explaining more particularly the nature of this exercise.