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Still over that scene hung the spells of a genius which, if artificial and cold, was also vast, stately, and magnificent, a genius which had swelled in the rich music of Racine, which had raised the nobler spirit and the freer thought of Pierre Corneille,* which had given edge to the polished weapon of Boileau, which had lavished over the bright page of Moliere, Moliere, more wonderful than all a knowledge of the humours and the hearts of men, which no dramatist, save Shakspeare, has surpassed.
It was Latin poetry without Lucretius and Catullus, without the odes of Horace, without the higher strain of the genius of Virgil. In other words, it was poetry as conceived by Boileau or Addison-or Mr. Yet again. In the hands of Johnson and it was a necessary consequence of his critical method poetry becomes more and more a mere matter of mechanism.
The keen edge of our wit was frequently turned against those whom it was more a shame to contend with than an honour to vanquish. Boileau. Yes. But in general we were the champions of good morals, good sense, and good learning. If our love of these was sometimes heated into anger against those who offended them no less than us, is that anger to be blamed? Pope.
Some of his local critics, not having comprehended the inner life of Jasmin, compared his wife to the gardener of Boileau and the maid-servant of Moliere. But the comparison did not at all apply. Jasmin had no gardener nor any old servant or housekeeper. Jasmin and Marie were quite different. They lived the same lives, and were all in all to each other.
In 1258 he chose as provost Stephen Boileau, a burgher of note and esteem in Paris; and in order to give this magistrate the authority of which he had need, the king sometimes came and sat beside him when he was administering justice at the Chatelet. Stephen Boileau justified the king's confidence, and maintained so strict a police that he had his own godson hanged for theft.
A gentleman should know those which I call classical works, in every language; such as Boileau, Corneille, Racine, Moliere, etc., in French; Milton, Dryden, Pope, Swift, etc., in English; and the three authors above mentioned in Italian; whether you have any such in German I am not quite sure, nor, indeed, am I inquisitive.
"I had my men, but the rest of it was pretty much alone. The nearest post that could give me orders was fifteen miles away, and we used to heliograph to them, and they used to give us orders same way too many orders." "Who was your C. 0.?" said Boileau. "Bounderby Major. Pukka Bounderby; more Bounder than pukka. He went out up Bhamo way. Shot, or cut down, last year," said The Infant.
Moliere, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, used to read all his comedies to an old woman who was his housekeeper as she sat with him at her work by the chimney-corner, and could foretell the success of his play in the theatre from the reception it met at his fireside; for he tells us the audience always followed the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the same place.
'I have always remarked, said Boileau, on returning from Versailles, 'that, when the conversation does not turn on himself, the King directly gets tired, and is either ready to yawn or to go away. Every great poet, when he is growing old, is a little like Louis XIV. in this respect. Madame Récamier had each day a thousand pleasant contrivances to excite and flatter him.
Some he has made tribunes, prefects, or legislators; others he has appointed his Ministers in foreign countries, and on those to whom he has not yet been able to given places, he bestows much greater pensions than any former Sovereign of this country allowed to a Corneille, a Racine, a Boileau, a Voltaire, a De Crebillon, a D' Alembert, a Marmontel, and other heroes of our literature and honours to our nation.
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