La bruyere

1699 · AA768 — Paris: Estienn & Michallet 1699. Tenth. Good-. <p>Jean de La Bruyere 1645 â€" 1696 was a French philosopher and moralist who was noted for his satire The plan of "Les Caracteres" is thoroughly original if that term may be accorded to a novel and skillful combination of elements exists in it The treatise of Theophrastus may have furnished the concept but it gave little more With the ethical generalizations and social Dutch paintings accompanying his original La Bruyere combined the peculiarities of the Montaigne Essais of the Pensees and Maximes of which Pascal and La Rochefoucauld are the masters respectively and lastly of that peculiar seventeenth century product the "portrait" or elaborate literary picture of the personal and mental characteristics of an individual The result was quite unlike anything that had been seen previously and it has not been exactly reproduced since although the essay of Addison and Steele resembles it very closely especially in the introduction of fancy portraits La Bruyere's privileged position at Chantilly provided him with a unique vantage point from which he could witness the hypocrisy and corruption of the court of Louis XIV As a Christian moralist he aimed at reforming people's manners and ways by publishing records of his observations of aristocratic foibles and follies which earned him many enemies at the court In the titles of his work and in its extreme desultoriness La Bruyere reminds the reader of Montaigne but he aimed too much at sententiousness to attempt even the apparent continuity of the great essayist The short paragraphs of which his chapters consist are made up of maxims proper of criticisms literary and ethical and above all of the celebrated sketches of individuals baptized with names taken from the plays and romances of the time These last are the greatest feature of the work and that which gave it its immediate if not its enduring popularity They are wonderfully piquant extraordinarily lifelike in a certain sense and must have given great pleasure or more frequently exquisite pain to the apparent subjects who in many cases were unmistakable and most recognizable</p> <p>This stated tenth edition volume is bound in full leather featuring raised bands and gilt tooling and lettering on the panels The work is adorned with an engraved portrait frontispiece titled "Tout Espirit orgueilleux qui s'aime Par mes lecons se void gueri; Et dans mon livre si cheri Apprend a se hair soy-mesme" The title page is printed in red and black The work is bound with "Discours Prononce Dans L'Academie Francoise" The book shows mild to moderate signs of age and wear with light rubbing/scraping to the boards as well as a section of material lacking from the spine cover The spine also shows some edgewear/cracking Text is clear and crisp through mild age toning The title page has been trimmed at the top with no obstruction to the text Endpapers show previous owner inscriptions and labels </p> 652 xliv pp. Estienn & Michallet unknown