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Monsieur Boileau, a French officer, was governor of the town, but Lauzun, having examined the fortifications, pronounced the place wholly incapable of defence, declaring that the walls could be knocked down with roasted apples, and so ordered the entire French division to march to Galway, and there await an opportunity for embarking for France, leaving the Irish to defend the city if they chose.
But the French have the art of rendering vice and impiety more agreeable than the English. Boileau. I am not very proud of this superiority in the talents of my countrymen. But as I am told that the good sense of the English is now admired in France, I hope it will soon convince both nations that true wisdom is virtue, and true virtue is religion. Pope.
He was far more just to Boileau, of whom Keats had probably never read a word. "If I would only cross the seas," he says, "I might find in France a living Horace and a Juvenal in the person of the admirable Boileau, whose numbers are excellent, whose expressions are noble, whose thoughts are just, whose language is pure, whose satire is pointed, and whose sense is just.
The general soundness and healthfulness of his mental constitution, his information, of vast superficies, though of small volume, his wit scarcely inferior to that of the most distinguished followers of Donne, his eloquence, grave, deliberate, and commanding, could not save him from disgraceful failure as a rival of Shakspeare, but raised him far above the level of Boileau.
He had not written a play for upwards of ten years; he now composed his Esther, making that character a flattering reflection of Maintenon's career. Boileau and Racine derived little or no profit from the booksellers. Boileau particularly, though fond of money, was so delicate on this point that he gave all his works away.
Classical mythology, taken in its first simplicity, is too bold, taken as a mere figure of rhetoric, too insipid, to give us satisfaction. As to the marvellous element in Christianity, Boileau is right: no fiction is compatible with such a dogmatism.
All the words which one can use are, as Boileau said, "in the dictionaries"; every writer selects and arranges them to suit his own ideas. But when Flinders said that the country around Port Phillip looked "pleasing and fertile," he had seen it to advantage.
Beyond this, to the right, are the tombs of Grétry the composer, Fourcroy the great chemist, Fontenelle, Boileau, Racine, and of Mademoiselle Raucourt, the celebrated actress, to whom the bigotry of the clergy refused burial in consecrated ground in 1815! a circumstance which gave rise to much clamour and dissatisfaction.
But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pretence, Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Skill in Fence, And great Achilles' Eloquence doth show As if no Centaur trained him, but Boileau! Again, your Verse is orderly, and more, 'The Waves behind impel the Waves before; Monotonously musical they glide, Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied. But turn to Homer! How his Verses sweep!
His people, a people among whose many fine qualities moderation in prosperity cannot be reckoned, seemed for a time to be drunk with pride. Even Boileau, hurried along by the prevailing enthusiasm, forgot the good sense and good taste to which he owed his reputation.
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