For the renewed outbreak of the old quarrel between
Classical and Romantic grew out of nothing more than an attempt of the
modern spirit to free itself from laws of taste laid down by the _Grand
Siecle_. But we must not forget the debt which all modern prose
literature owes to France. It is true that Machiavelli was the first to
write with classic pith and point in a living language; but he is, for
all that, properly an ancient. Montaigne is really the first modern
writer,--the first who assimilated his Greek and Latin, and showed that
an author might be original and charming, even classical, if he did not
try too hard. He is also the first modern critic, and his judgments of
the writers of antiquity are those of an equal. He made the ancients his
servants, to help him think in Gascon French; and, in spite of his
endless quotations, began the crusade against pedantry. It was not,
however, till a century later, that the reform became complete in France,
and then crossed the Channel. Milton is still a pedant in his prose, and
not seldom even in his great poem. Dryden was the first Englishman who
wrote perfectly easy prose, and he owed his style and turn of thought to
his French reading. His learning sits easily on him, and has a modern
cut.
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