ΤΗ

STENDHAL.

HE name of Stendhal, or Henri Beyle, while not exactly familiar to the reading world, is yet not altogether unknown, through the critical works of his distinguished disciple, M. Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, who has made brilliant use of the critical methods of his master.

To readers who have admired M. Taine's work in the fields of literature and art, it may be interesting to know something of the man from whom he borrowed much of what was best in his treatment and method. Nor may it be altogether out of place to cite more particularly some of the principles or methods of criticism which M. Taine owes to Beyle; take, for example, the principle of milieu as applied to the consideration of the artist and his work. It was Beyle who first called attention to the importance of studying the surrounding (milieu,) of place, time and historical development under which an artist creates. How brilliantly and ably M. Taine has utilized this in his History of English Literature, it boots not to speak, while some of his less known works, such as Art in the Netherlands and Greece, are more than amplifications of this principle of milieu, illustrating its application to the various subjects treated.

Stendhal's own life, indeed, was, strangely enough, a capital example of his principle and its working upon the individual. He was born in Grenôble, in the southwestern part of France, in 1783. He opened his eyes upon the verge of a whirlpool. It was the same year in which the independence of the United States was acknowledged; it was the year of Montgolfier's hot air balloon, and of D'Alembert's death. Politics, science and philosophy were in the ferment of change. In short, Europe, sick and feverish for two centuries and a half since the Reformation, was approaching the crisis of her disease, and already began to twitch and shudder with the premonitions of the awful convulsion that was to result in the recovery or death of the patient. Beyle was a child of the period, a true pupil of the revolution that has had so many and such distinguished scholars. It was the age of experiments; and Beyle became an experimenter in criticism, as others had been in politics and religion.

His early years were spent in the quiet retirement of Grenôble, hundreds of miles from the great world of Paris. We have in his biography a very pleasing though scanty picture of his life in the little provincial town, with its few actors, and its monotony broken only by the arrival of the lumbering yellow diligence from Paris. Having distinguished himself at the Ecole Centrale by taking all the prizes, he was, in consequence of his success, sent to Paris to enter the Polytechnic School there. He was sixteen years of age when he thus made his first appearance at the capital of France. But his intention of entering the Polytechnic was soon abandoned for more brilliant, or at least more lucrative, prospects. M. Pierre Daru, a friend of his family, to whom he bore letters of introduction, was appointed Secretary-General of War, and young Beyle received a clerkship in his department.

Like another and more famous critic,-Ruskin,—he had not been long in Paris before he tried his hand at painting under the teaching of M. Regnault. He had the good sense to soon discover, however, that he was not an artist, and discontinued his painting lessons. It is characteristic of his artistic sensibility that, during the time of his first stay in Paris, he greatly missed the mountains and woods near Grenôble. But more stirring matters than art, or regrets for the sylvan beauties of Grenôble, were soon to demand the youth's attention.

The Italian campaign of 1800 was just on the eve of beginning, and M. Daru, his patron, who had been very active in assisting Carnot, the Minister of War, in planning it, was detailed to accompany the French army. Napoleon crossed the Alps May 17, 1800, and entered Milan, amid the greatest rejoicing, June 18th. Beyle followed, and joined M. Daru in that city. It is impossible to imagine the effect on the excitable young man of the beautiful scenery of the plains of Lombardy, of the military glory, of the political enthusiasm that filled Italy on the arrival of the French. They were welcomed as the heralds of the golden age, the deliverers of an enslaved people. It was not simply a political revolution that Napoleon brought with him; it was a great moral revolution as well. All these things united with the new world of art and beauty which opened to him beyond the Alps to intoxicate his youthful soul as with new wine; for he was as enthusiastic a follower of the new ideas as he was exquisitely sensitive to artistic

impressions. It was at this time that he first heard the operas of Cimarosa, for whose music he conceived a passionate fondness. What a profound effect the scene which burst upon him at Milan produced, we may learn from his accurate description of it in his novel, Chartreuse de Parme.

Wearying of his clerical duties in the office of M. Daru, he joined the 6th Dragoon Regiment as quartermaster. His courage in action gained him a lieutenant's commission and placed him on the staff of Division-General Michaud. His life in Italy was full of adventure and pleasure. When, by the treaty of Amiens, peace was restored, he returned to Paris, employing his time in the study of English, Italian, and literature. He wrote a play,—he fell in love with a beautiful actress whom he followed to Marseilles; his was anything but a contemplative life. In 1806, he again attached himself to the army, under the auspices of his old patron, M. Daru, and was present at the battle of Jena. After Napoleon's triumphal entry into Berlin, which took place two weeks later, October 27th, 1806, he received an official appointment in Brunswick. He spent his time studying German philosophy and literature. During 1809-10, M. Beyle played his role in the great European drama, meeting the most powerful persons on the footing of equality, and even assisting in the delicate negotiations which preceded Napoleon's marriage with the Austrian Archduchess Marie Louise. He continued in the civil employment of the Government, and in constant association with the great and powerful, until he entered into active military life once more in the Prussian campaign of 1812. The preceding year of peace he employed in travel in Italy, to which he again returned in the autumn of 1813 to recruit his health, broken-down by his hardships in the retreat from Moscow. He stood loyal to the Emperor and the Imperial Government to the last, occupying himself with various employments. His fortunes fell with the Emperor's in 1814, but he bore it bravely, and betook himself for consolation to his favorite Italy. He reached Milan in August, 1814. He spent three delightful years in this city. It was during this time he wrote his History of Painting in Italy, a book which he always considered his chief title to literary fame. Here he met Byron, Mme. de Staël, David, Schlegel and Brougham. In 1817, he made a journey to Paris and to England. returning to Milan again before 1818. In 1821, he left Milan for

Paris, where his History of Painting, published in 1817, made him a kind reception. He occupied himself in various literary works here; he contributed to some English magazines, and attempted to found one of his own. In 1830, he was appointed consul of France at Trieste. The year following, he was sent to Civita Vecchia. Both of these cities were dry and uninteresting. He generally relieved the monotony of them by visits to Venice and Rome respectively. He held his position as consul at Civita Vecchia, until his death, March 22, 1842, at Paris, whither he had gone to recruit his health.

M. Beyle lies buried at the cemetery of Montmartel, Paris, under a plain stone, which bears an inscription in Italian, according to his own directions. This inscription bears testimony, as had his life, to his strong attachment to Italy, declaring his love for his adopted country. In 1840, he had formally abdicated (such was his expression,) his title to the name of Frenchman, because the Government had acted contrary to his opinions on the Eastern question.

With this brief sketch of his life and experience, we shall be better able to understand his critical work. His life runs like an invisible scholium along the margins of his books. Side by side with every opinion, there dwelt a corresponding experience.

Bearing this in mind, we shall briefly recount all that entitles. him to a place in the memory of posterity. Beyle was, as we have reiterated, a man of affairs, of the grande monde, and, when he came to a work of art, he came to it in this character, with no preconceived theories in accordance with which he felt constrained to regulate his criticism. He came to it naturally, as he came to a dinner or to a hunting party. He looked on a picture or heard an opera, as he looked at a house or a landscape, not as something altogether without the natural course of things, but as something strictly amenable to the laws of common sense and common feeling.

In his History of Painting, which approaches as nearly as any of his works to a systematic statement of his critical views, he constantly comes back to his great standard of criticism," Myself the author, and yourself the reader." "I may be wrong," he says, speaking of the early Italian painters; "but what I say about Cimabue, Giotto and Masaccio, I have really felt before their works."

"The greatest gift you can bring to these works of art is a natural spirit. You ought to really feel what you feel."

That this was his own way of regarding pictures, is abundantly shown by the foot-notes and the casual expressions strewn through his works. He put down his experience and feelings about pictures, warm and living, just as they came from his heart.

I never But reflection

"To-day I have seen enough of Cimabue's paintings. want to see one again. I find them displeasing.

tells me that without Cimabue we should never have had Andrea del Sarto; and I would go twenty leagues to see again the Madonna del Sacco."

Again, a note at the foot of the chapter on the Sistine Chapel, informs us that it was written in the gallery of the Sistine Chapel, January 13th, 1807.

All this gives a life and reality to his opinions which are wanting to theoretical critics, if we may call them so. All his criticisms are concrete. He says, such a picture pleases me, such an opera or such a song displeases me; and then he gives his reasons, such reasons as would occur to a man of esprit, to use his own expression, and stated clearly and concisely, as a cultivated man would place them before his friend. Such a method, besides the charm and power which abundant examples and illustrations always give an author over his readers, and besides the novelty of it, had this additional merit, that, whether the opinion expressed were right or wrong, it had a value of its own, as the truthful and real utterance of the feeling of a man of cultivation. His Life of Rossini and his Lives of Haydn and Mozart are chiefly made up of criticisms of individual works, rather than an enumeration of any distinct principles. Indeed, all of Stendhal's literary work partakes of a spasmodic and fragmentary character. He never depended for bread upon the labors of his pen, but rather took it up as an elegant relief from other work. Now and then, we come to an abstract statement of truth, as he conceived it, such as the following: Beauty is the expression of the manner in which a man is accustomed to seek his happiness; the passions are the manner in which he accidentally chances to seek it. Now, the passions alter the moral tendencies and their physical expression. A passion is a new end in life, a new way of seeking happiness, which causes a man to forget all the others, to lose his usual character. To what extent,