Henry Gally - A Critical Essay on Characteristic Writings
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Henry Gally >> A Critical Essay on Characteristic Writings
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HENRY GALLY
A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings
from his translation of
The Moral Characters of Theophrastus
(1725)
With an Introduction by
Alexander H. Chorney
Publication Number 33
Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1952
* * * * *
GENERAL EDITORS
H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
ROBERT S. KINSMAN, _University of California, Los Angeles_
JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_
ASSISTANT EDITOR
W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_
ADVISORY EDITORS
EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
LOUIS BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
LOUIS A. LANDA, _Princeton University_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
EDNA C. DAVIS, _Clark Memorial Library_
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION
Henry Gally's _A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings_, here
reprinted, is the introductory essay to his translation of _The Moral
Characters of Theophrastus_ (1725). Of Gally's life (1696-1769) little
is known. Apparently his was a moderately successful ecclesiastical
career: he was appointed in 1735 chaplain-in-ordinary to George II. His
other published works consist of sermons, religious tracts, and an
undistinguished treatise on the pronunciation of Greek.
His essay on the character, however, deserves attention because it is
the first detailed and serious discussion by an Englishman of a literary
kind immensely popular in its day. English writers before Gally had, of
course, commented on the character. Overbury, for example, in "What A
Character Is" (_Sir Thomas Overbury His Wife..._ 1616) had defined the
character as "wit's descant on any plain-song," and Brathwaite in his
Dedication to _Whimzies_(1631) had written that character-writers must
shun affectation and prefer the "pith before the rind." Wye Saltonstall
in the same year in his Dedicatory Epistle to _Picturae Loquentes_ had
required of a character "lively and exact Lineaments" and "fast and
loose knots which the ingenious Reader may easily untie." These remarks,
however, as also Flecknoe's "Of the Author's Idea of a Character"
(_Enigmaticall Characters_, 1658) and Ralph Johnson's "rules" for
character-writing in _A Scholar's Guide from the Accidence to the
University_ (1665), are fragmentary and oblique. Nor do either of the
two English translations of Theophrastus before Gally--the one a
rendering of La Bruyere's French version,[1] and the other, Eustace
Budgell's _The Moral Characters of Theophrastus_ (1714)--touch more
than in passing on the nature of the character. Gally's essay, in which
he claims to deduce his critical principles from the practice of
Theophrastus, is both historically and intrinsically the most
important work of its kind.
Section I of Gally's essay, thoroughly conventional in nature, is
omitted here. In it Gally, following Casaubon,[2] theorizes that the
character evolved out of Greek Old Comedy. The Augustans saw a close
connection between drama and character-writing. Congreve (Dedication to
_The Way of the World_, 1700) thought that the comic dramatist Menander
formed his characters on "the observations of Theophrastus, of whom he
was a disciple," and Budgell, who termed Theophrastus the father of
modern comedy, believed that if some of Theophrastus's characters "were
well worked up, and brought upon the British theatre, they could not
fail of Success."[3] Gally similarly held that a dramatic character
and Theophrastan character differ only in
the different Manner of representing the same Image. The _Drama_
presents to the Eyes of a Spectator an Actor, who speaks and acts as
the Person, whom he represents, is suppos'd to speak and act in real
Life. The _Characteristic_ Writer introduces, in a descriptive manner,
before a Reader, the same Person, as speaking and acting in the same
manner.
Section III of Gally's essay, like Section I thoroughly conventional,
is also omitted here. Gally attributes to Theophrastus the spurious
"Proem," in which Theophrastus, emphasizing his ethical purpose,
announces his intention of following up his characters of vice with
characters of virtue. At one point Gally asserts that Theophrastus
taught the same doctrine as Aristotle and Plato, but
accommodated Morality to the Taste of the _Beau Monde_, with all the
Embellishments that can please the nice Ears of an intelligent Reader,
and with that inoffensive Satir, which corrects the Vices of Men,
without making them conceive any Aversion for the Satirist.
It is Gally's concept of the character as an art-form, however, which
is most interesting to the modern scholar. Gally breaks sharply with
earlier character-writers like Overbury who, he thinks, have departed
from the Theophrastan method. Their work for the most part reflects
corrupted taste:
A continued Affectation of far-fetched and quaint Simile's, which
runs thro' almost all these Characters, makes 'em appear like so many
Pieces of mere Grotesque; and the Reader must not expect to find
Persons describ'd as they really are, but rather according to what
they are thought to be like.
And Gally attacks one of the favorite devices of the seventeenth-century
character:
An Author, in this Kind, must not dwell too long upon one Idea; As
soon as the masterly Stroke is given, he must immediately pass on
to another Idea.... For if, after the masterly Stroke is given, the
Author shou'd, in a paraphrastical Manner, still insist upon the same
Idea, the Work will immediately flag, the Character grow languid, and
the Person characteris'd will insensibly vanish from the Eyes of the
Reader.
One has only to read a character like Butler's "A Flatterer" to
appreciate Gally's point. The Theophrastan method had been to describe
a character operatively--that is, through the use of concrete dramatic
incident illustrating the particular vice. The seventeenth-century
character is too often merely a showcase for the writer's wit. One
frequently finds a succession of ingenious metaphors, each redefining
from a slightly different angle a type's master-passion, but blurring
rather than sharpening the likeness.
Gally insists that the style of the character be plain and easy,
"without any of those Points and Turns, which convey to the Mind nothing
but a low and false Wit." The piece should not be tediously rambling,
but compact. It must have perfect unity of structure: each sentence
should add a significant detail to the portrait. The manner ought
to be lively, the language pure and unaffected.
As for the character-writer's materials, they are "Human Nature, in its
various Forms and Affections." Each character should focus on a single
vice or virtue, yet since "the Heart of Man is frequently actuated by
more Passions than one," subsidiary traits ought to be included to round
out the portrait (e.g., the covetous man may also be impudent, the
impudent man generous). Budgell had expressed a similar conception. A
character, he wrote, "may be compared to a Looking-glass that is placed
to catch a particular Object; but cannot represent that Object in its
full Light, without giving us a little Landskip of every thing else
that lies about it."[4] By Gally's time writers like Pascal, La
Rochefoucauld, and La Bruyere had done much to show the complex
and paradoxical nature of human behaviour. Gally, who praises La
Rochefoucauld as the one modern as well equipped as Theophrastus to
compose characters, reacts with his age against the stale types which
both comedy and the character had been retailing _ad nauseam_. Human
nature, says Gally, is full of subtle shadings and agreeable variations
which the character ought to exploit. He quotes Temple to the effect
that England is richer than any other nation in "original Humours" and
wonders that no one has yet attempted a comprehensive portrait-gallery
of English personality. Those writers who have come closest to Gally's
idea of how "humour" ought to be handled are the "great Authors" of the
_Tatlers_ and _Spectators_, with their "interspers'd Characters of Men
and Manners compleatly drawn to the Life."
In admiring the Roger de Coverley sketches, Gally typifies the
increasingly tolerant attitude of the Augustans toward eccentric
behavior.[5] Like Sterne and Fielding he is delighted by people whose
idiosyncracies are harmless and appealing. As for the harsh satiric
animus of a character-writer like Butler, it is totally alien to Gally,
who would chide good-naturedly, so as "not to seem to make any Attacks
upon the Province of Self-Love" in the reader. "Each Man," he writes,
"contains a little World within himself, and every Heart is a new
World." The writer should understand and appreciate, not ridicule,
an individual's uniqueness.
Of course, the character as Theophrastus wrote it described the type,
not the particular person. Gally, who sets up Theophrastus as his model,
apparently fails to realize that a "humourist" like Sir Roger verges on
individuality. Indeed, while discussing the need for writers to study
their own and other men's passions, he emphasizes that "without a
Knowledge of these Things, 'twill be impossible ever to draw a Character
so to the Life, as that it shall hit one Person, and him only." Here
Gally might well be talking of the Clarendon kind of portrait. If a
character is "one Person, and him only," he is no longer a type, but
somebody peculiarly himself.
Gally, then, is not as Theophrastan as he professes to be. True, he
harks back to Theophrastus in matters of style and technique. And he
does not criticize him, as does La Bruyere,[6] for paying too much
attention to a man's external actions, and not enough to his "Thoughts,
Sentiments, and Inclinations." Nevertheless his mind is receptive to
the kind of individuated characterization soon to distinguish the
mid-eighteenth century novel. The type is still his measuring-stick, but
he calibrates it far less rigidly than a Rymer analyzing Iago or Evadne.
A man can be A Flatterer or A Blunt Man and still retain a private
identity: this private identity Gally recognizes as important. Gally's
essay thus reflects fundamental changes in the English attitude toward
human nature and its literary representation.
Alexander H. Chorney
Fellow, Clark Library
Los Angeles, California
Notes to the Introduction
1. _The Characters, Or The Manners of the Age. By Monsieur De La
Bruyere of the French Academy. Made English by several hands. With the
Characters of Theophrastus..._ 1699. 2 vols.
2. Isaac Casaubon's Latin edition of Theophrastus appeared in 1592 and
was reprinted frequently during the seventeenth century.
3. Eustace Budgell, _The Moral Characters of Theophrastus_ (1714),
Preface, sig. a5.
4. _Ibid._, sig. a6 verso.
5. For a full account of the shift in attitude see Edward Miles
Hooker, "Humour in the Age of Pope," _Huntington Library Quarterly_,
XL (1948), 361-385.
6. "A Prefatory Discourse concerning Theophrastus," in _The
Characters, Or The Manners of the Age_, II, xxii.
* * * * *
The
Moral Characters
of
THEOPHRASTUS.
Translated from
The Greek, with Notes.
To which is prefix'd
A
CRITICAL ESSAY
on
Characteristic-Writings.
By Henry Gally, M.A. Lecturer of
St. Paul's Covent-Garden, and
Rector of Wanden in Buckinghamshire.
Respicere exemplar vitae morumque jubebo
Doctum imitatorem, & vivas hinc ducere voces.
Hor. in Art. Poet.
LONDON:
Printed for John Hooke, at the _Flower-
de-luce_ over-against St. _Dunstan's_ Church in
_Fleet-street_. MDCCXXV.
* * * * *
THE
PREFACE.
The following Papers, which I now commit to the Public, have lain by
me unregarded these many Years. They were first undertaken at the
Request of a Person, who at present shall be nameless. Since that
Time I have been wholly diverted from Studies of this Nature, and
my Thoughts have been employed about Subjects of a much greater
Consequence, and more agreeable to my Profession: Insomuch, that I had
nothing in my Mind less than the Publication of these Papers; but some
Friends, who had perus'd them, were of Opinion, that they deserv'd to
be publish'd, and that they might afford an agreeable Entertainment
not without some Profit to the Reader. _These_ Motives prevailed upon
me to give _them_ a second Care, and to bestow upon them so much
Pains, as was necessary to put them in that State, in which they now
appear.
The first Piece that the Reader will meet with is, _A Critical
ESSAY on Characteristic-Writings_: It treats of the Origin of those
Writings: It points out the general Laws to be observ'd in such
Compositions, and it contains some Reflexions on _Theophrastus's_ and
Mr. _de la Bruyere's_ Performances in this Way. The Design of this at
least is, I think, new. Mr. _Fabricius_ mentions a [A]Book, which, by
its Title, shou'd bear some Relation to this Essay, but tho' I have
enquir'd after it pretty strictly, yet I never cou'd get a Sight of
it, nor have I conversed with any Person that had perus'd it.
[A: Georgii Paschii Professoris Kiloniensis Diatriba de
philosophia Characteristica & Paraenetica. 4to. _Kilonie._ 1705.
Vid. Fabric. Bib. Graec. L. 3. p. 241.]
The next Piece is a Translation of the _Moral Characters of
Theophrastus_ from the _Greek_. This is not the first Time that
_Theophrastus_ has appeared in a modern Dress. Mr. _de la Bruyere_
translated him into _French_: And this was the Foundation of those
Characters, which he himself compos'd, and which gave Rise to those
many Performances, that were afterwards attempted in the same Way.
[B]Mr. _Menage_ has highly extoll'd this Translation. _Elle est_, says
he, _bien belle, & bien francoise, & montre que son Auteur entend
parfaitement le Grec. Je puis dire que j'y ay vu des Choses, que,
peut etre, Faute d'Attention, je n'avois pas vues dans le Grec._ This
is great; and it must be own'd that Mr. _Menage_ was a Man of very
extensive Learning, and a great Master of the _Greek_ Tongue; but that
his Judgment was always equal to his Knowledg of Words, will not be so
readily allow'd. Besides, the Credit of the Books ending in _ana_ runs
very low, and in particular the _Menagiana_ have been disown'd by Mr.
_Menage's_ own [C]Relations, as being injurious to the Merit and
Memory of that great Man. And therefore it must still be left to the
inquisitive and judicious Reader to determine, whether those Faults,
which I have observ'd in Mr. _de la Bruyere'_s Translation are justly
censur'd or not.
[B: Menagiana. Ed. _Paris._ 1715. T. 4. p. 219.]
[C: Mr. _du Tremblay_. Traite des Langues. ad fin.]
The _Characters_ of _Theophrastus_ have been twice translated into
_English_. The former Translation is _anonymous_, and the latter was
done by the ingenious Mr. _Eustace Budgell_. It will be expected that
I shou'd say something of these two Translations. And I shall be the
more ready to do this, because I shall hereby insensibly lead the
Reader to the Reasons which induc'd me to undertake a
third.
The anonymous _English_ Translation is said to have been done upon
the _Greek_. But this is only a Pretence, and a low Artifice of the
ignorant Translator: For in reality 'tis no more than a mean and
insipid Translation of the _French_ of Mr. _de la Bruyere_, revis'd
upon the _Latin_ of _Casaubon_, which answers almost verbally to the
Original _Greek_. If this were a Matter of Importance, I wou'd here
fully demonstrate it: For the Fact is so glaring, that tho' the
Translator is wholly unknown to me, yet I can aver what I have
asserted to be Truth, almost as certainly, as if I had been an Eye
Witness to the doing of it_.
Mr. _Budgell_'s Translation must be own'd to be polite: But politeness
is not the only Qualification that is required in such a Translation.
The learn'd Reader, who understands the Original, will consider it in
a different View. And to judg of it according to those Rules which
Translators ought to observe, it must be condemned. In general, it is
not exact and accurate enough; but what is far worse, Mr. _Budgell_
gives, in too many Instances, his own Thoughts instead of representing
the true Sense of _Theophrastus_. This is perverting the _Humour_ of
the Original, and, in Effect, making a new Work, instead of giving
only a Translation. Mr. _Budgell_ ingenuously confesses, that he has
taken a great deal of Liberty; but when a Translator confesses thus
much, it does but give the Reader good Reason to suspect that instead
of taking a great deal, he has in reality taken too
much.
Antient Authors (when they are translated) suffer in nothing more,
than in having the Manners and Customs, to which they allude,
transformed into the Manners and Customs of the present Age. By this
Liberty, or rather Licenciousness of Translators, Authors not only
appear in a different Dress, but they become unlike themselves, by
losing that peculiar and distinctive Character in which they excel.
This is most palpable in those Authors, whose Character consists in
_Humour_. Let any one read _Terence_, as he is translated by Mr.
_Echard_, and he will take him to have been a Buffoon: Whereas
_Terence_ never dealt in such a Kind of low Mirth. His true Character
is, to have afforded to his Spectators and Readers the gravest, and,
at the same Time, the most agreeable, most polite Entertainment of
any antient Author now extant. This is, in some Measure, the Case of
_Theophrastus:_ He has been transformed; and he has suffer'd in the
Transformation. What I have endeavoured is, to do him that Justice
which, I think, he has not hitherto met with, by preserving the native
Simplicity of his Characters, by retaining those antient Manners and
Customs which he alludes to, and keeping up the peculiar _Humour_ of
the Original as nearly, as the Difference of Language wou'd allow.
This is the Attempt; how far I have succeeded, must be let to the
judicious and curious Reader to determine. Thus much I thought
necessary to say concerning former Translations, in order to justify
my own Undertaking, which will not acquire an intrinsic Merit from the
Censures, that I have pass'd upon others. No: The Faults of others
cannot extenuate our own; and that Stamp, which every Work carries
along with it, can only determine of what Kind it really
is.
The Reader will expect that I shou'd here say a Word or two
concerning the _Notes_ which follow the _Characters_. Some Authors or
Commentators (call them which you will) out of a vain Ostentation of
Literature, lay hold of the slightest of Opportunities to expose all
their Learning to the World, without ever knowing when they have said
enough: Insomuch, that in most Commentaries upon antient Authors, one
may sooner meet with a System of Antiquities, than with Solutions of
the real Difficulties of the Text. Consider'd barely as a Translator,
I lay under no immediate Necessity of writing _Notes_, but then as
I was highly concern'd, even in that Capacity, to lay before the
_English_ Reader, what I took to be the true Sense of the _Greek_,
and as I farther propos'd to preserve that particular _Humour_ of the
Original, which depends on those Manners and Customs which are alluded
to, I found, my self necessitated to add some _Notes_; but yet I have
endeavoured to shun that Fault, which I have already censur'd, by
saying no more, but what was immediately necessary, to illustrate
the Text, to vindicate a received Sense, or to propose a new one.
I am not conscious of having made any great Excursions beyond the
Bounds which these Rules prescrib'd to me, unless it is in the Chapter
concerning _Superstition_. And even here, unless the Commentary had
been somewhat copious, the Text it self wou'd have appear'd like a
motly Piece of mysterious Nonsense. Thus much I thought my self
oblig'd to do in Justice to _Theophrastus_; and as for the
Enlargements which I have made, over and above what wou'd have
satisfy'd this Demand, they will not, 'tis hop'd, be unacceptable to
the curious Reader. They are Digressions I own; but I shall not here
offer to make one Digression to execute another, or, according to the
Custom and Practice of modern Authors, beg a thousand Pardons of the
Reader, before I am certain of having committed one Offence. Such a
Procedure seems preposterous. For when an Author happens to digress,
and take a Trip +huper ta eskammena+, beyond the Bounds prescrib'd;
the best, the only consistent thing he can do, is to take his Chance
for the Event. If what he has said does not immediately relate to the
Matter in Hand, it may nevertheless be _a propos_, and good in its
Kind; and then instead of Censure, he will probably meet with Thanks;
but if it be not good, no prefatory Excuses will make it so: And
besides, it will ever be insisted on, that 'tis an easier Matter to
strike out bad Digressions, than it is to write good
Apologies.
One Word more, and then I have done. Since Mr. _Budgell_ has thought
fit to censure Mr. _de la Bruyere_, for troubling his Reader with
_Notes_, I think my self oblig'd, in order to justify both Mr. _de la
Bruyere_ and my self, to shew that this Censure is very unreasonable,
and very unjust.[D] Mr. _Budgell's_ Words are as follow.
_Theophrastus_, at the Time he writ, referr'd to nothing but what
was well known to the meanest Person in _Athens_; but as Mr. _Bruyere_
has manag'd it, by hinting at too many _Grecian_ Customs, a modern
Reader is oblig'd to peruse one or two _Notes_, which are frequently
longer than the Sentence it self he wou'd know the meaning of. But if
those Manners and Customs, which _Theophrastus_ alludes to, were, in
his Time, well known to the meanest _Athenian_, it does not follow
that they are now so well known to a modern Reader.
[D: Preface to his Translation of _Theophrastus_.]
_Mr. _de la Bruyere's_ Fault does not consist in having put _Notes_
to his Translation, but rather in not having put enough. When a
Translator of an antient Author intends to preserve the peculiar
Character of the Original, _Notes_ become absolutely necessary to
render the Translation intelligible to a modern Reader. The Learn'd
may pass them over; and those, for whom _Explanatory Notes_ are
chiefly designed, must not think it too much Trouble, to bestow a
second Reading on the Text, after they have given a First to the
Whole. This Trouble (if any thing ought to be call'd so that conveys
Instruction) is no more than what many persons, who have attained to
no small share of Knowledg in the learn'd Languages, must submit to,
at the first Perusal of an Original Author. If in a translated Author
any Difficulties occur, on this Head, to a modern Reader, and the
Translator has taken Care to clear up those difficulties by adding
_Notes_, the modern Reader ought to thank him for his Pains, and not
think his Labour superfluous.
'Tis hop'd then that the _Notes_, that I have added, will be kindly
receiv'd. The Reader will nevertheless be at full Liberty to peruse
them, or to pass them over. If he if but so favourable as to approve
of the Translation it self, this will be a sufficient Satisfaction to
the Translator, and be looked upon as no finall Commendation of the
Performance. For a Translation, if it be well performed, ought in
Justice to be receiv'd as a good Commentary_.
SECT. II.
There is no Kind of polite Writing that seems to require a deeper
Knowledge, a livelier Imagination, and a happier Turn of Expression
than the Characteristic. Human Nature, in its various Forms and
Affections, is the Subject; and he who wou'd attempt a Work of this
Kind, with some assurance of Success, must not only study other Men;
he has a more difficult Task to perform; he must study himself. The
deep and dark Recesses of the Heart must be penetrated, to discover
how Nature is disguis'd into Art, and how Art puts on the Appearance
of Nature.--This Knowledge is great; 'tis the Perfection of Moral
Philosophy; 'tis an inestimable Treasure: But yet if it shou'd fall
into the Hands of one, who wants proper Abilities to communicate his
Knowledge to the World, it wou'd be of no Service but to the Owner: It
wou'd make him, indeed, an able Philosopher, but not an able Writer of
Characters.