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Vincent Minutoli's Depeches du Parnasse, ou la Gazette des Savants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

George B. Watts
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Extract

Among the early literary journals which appeared in Europe toward the end of the seventeenth century was Vincent Minutoli's Dépêches du Parnasse, ou la Gazette des Savants, the first number of which was published at Geneva on September 1, 1693. It was the plan of the editor to put out a number every fortnight, but plagiarism on the part of some editors of Lyons, who copied each gazette shortly after its appearance, caused him to abandon his plan after a few issues. Because of the part which it played in the famous Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns, and of the light which it casts on literary men and matters of its day, this short-lived periodical has an interest and an importance which have been quite overlooked.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 1926 , pp. 935 - 941
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

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References

1 Paris, 1764, X, 664.

2 Vol. VIII, p. 567.

3 Vol. II, p. 265.

4 Vol. II, p. 256.

5 Table Générale, loc. cit.

6 No literary historian seems to have seen the five issues which are believed to have been published.

7 MS. Nouv. Acq. Fr. 22337, fol. 361 ff.

8 Cf. Bayle, Dictionnaire, Amsterdam, 1734, IV, 121.

9 Cf. Senebier, Hist. litt. de Genève, 1785, II, 265.

10 Ibid.

11 Hatin says of the Dépêches, “elles eurent une assez grande vogue,” (Loc. cit). The manuscript of the Bibliothèque Nationale says (fol. 361): “l'empressement avec lequel le public recherchait le journal de M. Minutoli causa des contrefaçons.” Senebier states, on the other hand: “H entreprit en 1693 un journal sous le titre de Dépêches du Parnasse, mais il ne réussit pas.” (Op. cit., II, 265).

12 Fontenelle, Œuvres, III, 105.

13 Boileau, Œuvres (Gidel), III, 16.

14 The author of the manuscript article reports the contemporary opinion that Boileau would have done well to have destroyed the stanza in question.

15 Fontenelle, Œuvres, V, 233.

16 The author of the manuscript points out that Minutoli was of the opinion that Perrault had administered a beating to Boileau, but, reads the manuscript, “Cette aventure a bien l'air d'un conte fait à plaisir et éclos de l'imagination fertile et peu charitable des ennemis de ce poète.” Minutoli is also corrected because of his attribution of the Sonnet contre Phédre to Perrault and of the parody of the sonnet “Dans un fauteuil doré” to Boileau. Of the first sonnet the author says “On sait que cette petite pièce a été composée à table par Madame Deshoulières au sortir de la représentation de cette admirable tragédie,” and of the parody, “Il est certain que ce satirique n'y a eu aucune part et que ce fut un jeu d'esprit de quelques seigneurs de la cour, très amis de M. Racine.”

17 Cizeron-Rival in his Récréations littéraires (1765) page 90 is not sure that the epigram is by Racine. In Racine's Oeuvres (Grands Ecrivains) IV, 125, are noted early attributions to Racine, to which that of Minutoli of 1693 must be added.