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892 THE INFLUENCE 0!F CLASSICAL LITERATU...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
We Give These Extracts From An Excellent...
workand so made it doubtful wjh . eth . er history lias ; any Hypatia leffc , We inust not fail to utter constant protest against such unfair ?
. ,, ness , and to assert again and again , that not a single weakness , or follattributed to Hypatia by the novelist , neither tlie worship of
Venus y Anadyome nor the prospective marriage with the Roman governor , neither the superstitious fears , the ominous self-conceit ,
nor the half conscious personal ambition , are in the least sustained bthe facts of history . She was pure and stainless , let us see to it
that y such memories are rescued . What do we know of the women of tide age of Augustus ? Of
the galaxy that spanned the sky of Louis XIV ? Do you remember as you read of those crowds of worthless women
what sort of public opinion educated them , what sort of public concerning opinion such the histories men of tend the same to form eras ? , how Do you they ever emp ask loyed any their questions time ,,
and what part they took in those games of wanton folly ? It is time I think some one did .
In speaking of the court of Charles II , Dr . William Alexander atel says as angels , in arose 1799 , or desp degraded ; _-i— ised _« Its what tone to brute they ruined had beasts all themselves wpmeii . Tlie , they satirists created -were , , who and either gave immedi adored the
charact y er to , every line that has since been written concerning women , " down to the verses of Churchill , and that often quoted , well re- ?
membered line of Pope , with -which we need not soil our lips . We may quote here a criticism upon the " _Cinq-Mars" of Alfred
de Vigny , taken from Lady Morgan ' s " France . " You will find it influence especially of interesting historyand because may it be bears compared on what with has been a portion suggested of one of the of
, Margaret _Fiuler's letters , in which she criticises the same work , and makes , in her own way , parallel reflections . .
" I dipped also , " says Lady Morgan , " into the ' Cinq-Mars ' of Alfred de Vignya charming production ! It gives tne best course
of practical politics , in its exposition of the miseries and vices inci- _^ dental to the institutions of the middle ages . Behold Hichlieu and
Louis XIII in the plenitude of their bad passions and unquestioned power , when << < Torture interrogates and Pain replies , ' .
" Behold too , their victims . Urbain , Grandier , De Thou , Cinq-Mars , and the long heart-rending list of worth , genius , and innocence imthe of
molated . With such pictures in . the hands of youtli France works it is impossib of Louis le XV they s should days , when retrograde the . Marivaux How different , Crebillons from , , and . the '
Le Clos wrote for the especial _corruption of that society from whose Men profli would gacy they not now borrowed dare to their name characters in the presence , incidents of virtuous , and morals women . female of rank in
works which were once in the hands of every France duotion ; of works innocence , which for like their the story novels , and witt of y Richardson libertinism , , had and the trium se - -
phant villany for their principal features .
892 The Influence 0!F Classical Literatu...
892 THE INFLUENCE 0 _! F CLASSICAL LITERATUREv
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1860, page 392, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021860/page/32/
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