Works
Dubos' first work was L'Histoire des quatre Gordiens prouvée et illustrée par des médailles (Paris, 1695), which, in spite of its ingenuity, did not succeed in convincing most people. At the beginning of the war of 1701 he was charged with different negotiations (both in the Netherlands and England). In an attempt to persuade those countries to adopt a policy of peace, he published a work entitled Les Intéréts de l'Angleterre mal entendus dans la guerre présente (Amsterdam, 1703). This work contained indiscreet disclosures and predictions that were not fulfilled. The enemy took advantage of the work, and a wag took occasion to remark that the title ought to be read thus: Les Intérêts de l'Angleterre mal entendus par l'abbé Dubos. It is remarkable as containing a distinct prophecy of the revolt of the American colonies from Great Britain.
Dubos' next work was L'Histoire de la Ligue de Cambray (Paris, 1709, 1728 and 1785, 2 vols.), a full, clear and interesting history, commended by Voltaire. In 1734 he published his Histoire critique de l'établissement de la monarchie française dans les Gaules (3 vols. 4to)--a work the object of which was to prove that the Franks had entered Gaul, not as conquerors, but at the request of the nation, which, according to him, had called them in to govern it. But this system, though unfolded with a degree of skill and ability that, at first, procured many zealous partisans, was victoriously refuted by Montesquieu at the end of the thirtieth book of the Esprit des lois.
Dubos' Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture, published for the first time in 1719 (2 vols, but often reprinted in three volumes), constitute one of the works in which the theory of the arts is explained with the utmost sagacity and discrimination. Like his history of the League of Cambray, it was highly praised by Voltaire. The work was rendered more remarkable by the fact that its author had no practical acquaintance with any one of the arts whose principles he discussed. Besides the works above enumerated, a manifesto of Maximilian II Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, against the emperor Leopold (relative to the succession in Spain) has been attributed to Dubos from the excellence of the style.
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.”
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“That man’s best works should be such bungling imitations of Nature’s infinite perfection, matters not much; but that he should make himself an imitation, this is the fact which Nature moans over, and deprecates beseechingly. Be spontaneous, be truthful, be free, and thus be individuals! is the song she sings through warbling birds, and whispering pines, and roaring waves, and screeching winds.”
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“The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.”
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