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Updated: June 3, 2025
In the original a dull and spiritless imitation of Marivaux, the work was not improved by translation, and met naturally the reception due its slender merits. But along with the English versions of Le Sage, Marivaux, and the Abbé Prévost, "The Virtuous Villager" helped to accustom the readers of fiction to two volume novels and to pave the way for the numerous pages of Richardson.
Nicholas thought so too, especially when he began to find that his elixir could not keep off death, and that the grim foe was making rapid advances upon him. He richly endowed the church of St. Jacques de la Boucherie, near the Rue de Marivaux, where he had all his life resided, besides seven others in different parts of the kingdom. He also endowed fourteen hospitals, and built three chapels.
The patois of Languedoc and Champagne, such as "Mein fis sest ai bai via," Mon fils c'est un beau veau, exercises, it is true, the ingenuity of travellers, and renders many scenes of Moliere and Marivaux difficult, if not unintelligible, to those who have never resided in the French provinces; but no French patois is more unintelligible than the following specimen of Tummas and Meary's Lancashire dialogue:
Are you acquainted with Marivaux, who has certainly studied, and is well acquainted with the heart; but who refines so much upon its 'plis et replis', and describes them so affectedly, that he often is unintelligible to his readers, and sometimes so, I dare say, to himself?
Boccaccio, Decameron; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales. Shakespeare; Lope de Vega; Calderon. Defoe, Robinson Crusoe; Le Sage, Gil Blas. Marivaux, Marianne; Prévost, Manon Lescaut. Richardson, Clarissa; Goethe, Werther. Goethe, Faust; Wordsworth, Michael, &c.. Victor Hugo, Légende des Siècles. There are English translations of the greater number of these.
Never had Florine or Manton, never had a lady's maid of Marivaux, a more mischievous face, an eye more quick, a smile more roguish, teeth more white, cheeks more roseate, figure more coquettish, feet smaller, or form smarter, attractive, and enticing. Though it was yet very early, Georgette was carefully and tastefully dressed.
It was upon love and flirtation that this rustic society was built; gallantry was the essence of life among the Ayrshire hills as well as in the Court of Versailles; and the days were distinguished from each other by love-letters, meetings, tiffs, reconciliations, and expansions to the chosen confidant, as in a comedy of Marivaux.
If my recollection does not mislead me, he will be found in some parts of this novel to have had before him the Pharsamond of Marivaux, another copy of Cervantes. But it does not anywhere like Count Fathom, betray symptoms of being a mere translation.
The mind of the reader has the limits of a mere recipient, while that of the author, even after his work, is teeming with creation. "On many occasions, my soul seems to know more than it can say, and to be endowed with a mind by itself, far superior to the mind I really have," said MARIVAUX, with equal truth and happiness.
According to M. de Marivaux, who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits of the mighty dead, you 'conceived, on the strength of your reputation, a great and serious veneration for yourself and your genius. Probably you were protected by this invulnerable armour of an honest vanity, probably you declared that mere jealousy dictates the lines of Boileau, and that Chapelain's real fault was his popularity, and his pecuniary success, Qu'il soit le mieux rente de tous les beaux-esprits.
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