DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0048
34
INTRODUCTION.
partiality for the language and literature of France ; and after his
return to the throne, French became the fashionable lang’uag’e at
court. The patriotic Evelyn inveighs against this innovation ; and
only excuses the King as having “ in some sort a right to speak
French, he beino- Kino- of France.”* There are some lines in
Andrew Marvel’s Works, in allusion to this fashion, so beautiful
and so little known, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of
quoting them: —
“ Cselia, whose English cloth more richly flow
Than Tagus—purer than dissolved snow,
And sweet as are her lips that speak it, she
Now learns the tongues of Erance and Italy ;
But she is Caflia still; no other grace
But her own smiles commend that lovely face!
Her native beauty’s not Italianated,
Nor her chaste mind into the French translated;
Her thoughts are English, though her speaking wit
With other language doth them fitly fit.”
Here compliment and reproof are exquisitely blended : but Dryden,
in the comedy of Marriage a-la-Mode, has rallied the same fashion
with more severity, and infinite comic humour. Melantha, the
fine lady of the piece, most industriously interlards her discourse
with French phraseology. “ No one can be so curious of a new
fashion, as she is of a new French word : she is the very mint of
the nation; and, as fast as any bullion comes out of France, coins
it immediately into our language.”! Her waiting-maid, who is
the “ heir of her cast words as well as of her old clothes,” and
supplies her toilet every morning with a list of new French words
for her daily conversation, betrays her vocabulary to her lover, who
* Preface to the Essay in Evelyn’s Works, entitled “ Tyrannus, or the Mode.”
f Marriage a-la-Mode, Act i., Scene 1. In a subsequent scene Melantha thus
expresses her admiration of a French, and her contempt for an English beau :—
How charming is the French air! and what an etourdi hete is one of our untra-
velled Islanders ! When he would make his court to me, let me die but he is
just TEsop’s Ass, that would imitate the courtly French in their addresses; but,
instead of those, comes pawing upon me, and doing all things so mal-a-droitly.-—
Act ii., Scene 1.
INTRODUCTION.
partiality for the language and literature of France ; and after his
return to the throne, French became the fashionable lang’uag’e at
court. The patriotic Evelyn inveighs against this innovation ; and
only excuses the King as having “ in some sort a right to speak
French, he beino- Kino- of France.”* There are some lines in
Andrew Marvel’s Works, in allusion to this fashion, so beautiful
and so little known, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of
quoting them: —
“ Cselia, whose English cloth more richly flow
Than Tagus—purer than dissolved snow,
And sweet as are her lips that speak it, she
Now learns the tongues of Erance and Italy ;
But she is Caflia still; no other grace
But her own smiles commend that lovely face!
Her native beauty’s not Italianated,
Nor her chaste mind into the French translated;
Her thoughts are English, though her speaking wit
With other language doth them fitly fit.”
Here compliment and reproof are exquisitely blended : but Dryden,
in the comedy of Marriage a-la-Mode, has rallied the same fashion
with more severity, and infinite comic humour. Melantha, the
fine lady of the piece, most industriously interlards her discourse
with French phraseology. “ No one can be so curious of a new
fashion, as she is of a new French word : she is the very mint of
the nation; and, as fast as any bullion comes out of France, coins
it immediately into our language.”! Her waiting-maid, who is
the “ heir of her cast words as well as of her old clothes,” and
supplies her toilet every morning with a list of new French words
for her daily conversation, betrays her vocabulary to her lover, who
* Preface to the Essay in Evelyn’s Works, entitled “ Tyrannus, or the Mode.”
f Marriage a-la-Mode, Act i., Scene 1. In a subsequent scene Melantha thus
expresses her admiration of a French, and her contempt for an English beau :—
How charming is the French air! and what an etourdi hete is one of our untra-
velled Islanders ! When he would make his court to me, let me die but he is
just TEsop’s Ass, that would imitate the courtly French in their addresses; but,
instead of those, comes pawing upon me, and doing all things so mal-a-droitly.-—
Act ii., Scene 1.