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What has Racine done that he is not Pradon, and Boileau that he is not Cotin? The circumstances with which we are concerned are quite different. Let us keep to the common level. I assumed that my pupil had neither surpassing genius nor a defective understanding. I chose him of an ordinary mind to show what education could do for man. Exceptions defy all rules.
In a sense he was right: for it is certain that the works of Molière and Racine were more natural, more reasonable, and more truthful than those of l'Abbé Cotin and Pradon; his mistake lay in his assumption that these qualities were the monopoly of the Classical school.
Cotin had nothing to say in his own favour, but requested his judges would allow him to address them from the sermons which he preached.
Dragged from his Hebrew and Greek, poor Cotin resolved to make over his entire fortune to one of his heirs, on condition of maintenance. His other relations assuming that a man who parted with his estate in his lifetime must necessarily be deranged, brought the learned Cotin into court.
Would that, through the ages, we could hear you after supper, merry with Boileau, and with Racine, not yet a traitor, laughing over Chapelain, combining to gird at him in an epigram, or mocking at Cotin, or talking your favourite philosophy, mindful of Descartes. Surely of all the wits none was ever so good a man, none ever made life so rich with humour and friendship. XIX. To Robert Burns.
He had a good deal of learning, but much pretension, and Moliere has given him an undesirable immortality as Vadius in "Les Femmes Savantes," in company with his deadly enemy, the Abbe Cotin, who figures as "Trissotin." It appears that the susceptible savant lost his heart to his lively pupil, and sighed not only in secret but quite openly.
You des wrop er hank er yo' hyar roun' de hine foot, honey, en' w'en de night time done come, you teck'n hide it unner a rock in de big road. W'en de devil goes a-cotin' at de full er de moon en he been cotin' right stiddy roun' dese yer parts he gwine tase dat ar frawg foot a mile off." "A mile off?" repeated the child, stretching out her hands.
A parallel circumstance occurred to the Abbé COTIN, the victim of a rhyme of the satirical Boileau. Studious, and without fortune, Cotin had lived contented till he incurred the unhappiness of inheriting a large estate. Then a world of cares opened on him; his rents were not paid, and his creditors increased.
The members of this academy would have had a very great advantage over those who first formed that of the French, for Swift, Prior, Congreve, Dryden, Pope, Addison, &c. had fixed the English tongue by their writings; whereas Chapelain, Colletet, Cassaigne, Faret, Perrin, Cotin, our first academicians, were a disgrace to their country; and so much ridicule is now attached to their very names, that if an author of some genius in this age had the misfortune to be called Chapelain or Cotin, he would be under a necessity of changing his name.
A number of foreign savants and scholars were the recipients of his distinguished bounty, in the form of presents or pensions; among Frenchmen who were similarly benefited were Racine, Quinault, Fléchier, Chapelain, Cotin, Lulli.
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