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Updated: May 17, 2025
The church was crowded one didn't remark the absence of certain "esprits forts" who gloried in remaining outside and the service was most interesting. The lecture or rather "Éloge de Racine" was beautifully given by the Abbé Vignot.
The various speculations of that great and energetic intellect in metaphysic, logic, natural theology, natural law, are merely drawn out in a long table of succinct propositions, while the account of the life and character of Leibnitz is simply taken from the excellent éloge which had been published upon him by Fontenelle in 1716.
When in the elegant prosopopoeia which closes the éloge, the King of England has recalled with arrogance the fatal day of Poitiers, ought he not instantly to have restrained that pride within just limits? ought he not to have cast a hasty glance on the components of the Black Prince's army? to examine whether a body of troops, starting from Bordeaux, recruiting in Guienne, did not contain more Gascons than English? whether France, now bounded by its natural limits, in its magnificent unity, would not have a right, every thing being examined, to consider that battle almost as an event of civil war? ought he not, in short, to have pointed out, in order to corroborate his remarks, that the knight to whom King John surrendered himself, Denys de Morbecque, was a French officer banished from Artois?
In the eloge pronounced upon him at the Paris Academie Des Sciences, of which Halley had been made a member in 1719 it was said, "he possessed all the qualifications which were necessary to please princes who were desirous of instruction, with a great extent of knowledge and a constant presence of mind; his answers were ready, and at the same time pertinent, judicious, polite and sincere."
Sir Samuel Romilly, in his autobiography, confessed himself to have been powerfully influenced by the life of the great and noble-minded French Chancellor Daguesseau: "The works of Thomas," says he, "had fallen into my hands, and I had read with admiration his 'Eloge of Daguesseau; and the career of honour which he represented that illustrious magistrate to have run, excited to a great degree my ardour and ambition, and opened to my imagination new paths of glory."
This, let it be well remarked, is not a puerile susceptibility. Great events may, on a given day, depend on the opinion that the nation has formed of itself. Our neighbours on the other side of the Channel, afford examples on this subject that it would be well to imitate. In 1767, the Academy of Berlin proposed a prize for an éloge of Leibnitz. The public was somewhat surprised at it.
I read yesterday a little Latin poem upon a Mouse Trap, with which I was most highly delighted; wrote near a century ago, by a Mr. Holdsworth. It has been much celebrated, but never fell into my hands before yesterday. There is a great eloge upon the Cambrians, but whether Mr. Campbell would be flattered with it I am not sure.
Gladstone, in his eloquent Eloge on Wedgwood recently delivered at Burslem, well observed that the disease from which he suffered was not improbably the occasion of his subsequent excellence.
But so outspoken had St.-Pierre been against corruption in high places, that Maupertius, his Successor at the Academy, was not permitted to pronounce his ELOGE; nor was it until thirty-two years after his death that this honour was done to his memory by D'Alembert. The true and emphatic epitaph of the good, truth-loving, truth-speaking Abbe was this "HE LOVED MUCH!"
I have the greatest opinion of his judgment in the conductive part of life. I really believe, if any man ever went through life with consummate discretion, it has been himself, and he has preserved his reputation at the same time, or else I should not give his conduct this eloge. He hoped much that you would take this opportunity, as he said, of leaving Ireland.
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