BOILEAU. 



G39 



Boiieau. These works were not only relished but rewarded by 

 Louis, who bestowed a pension on their author, and 

 appointed him jointly with his intimate friend, the 

 celebrated Racine, to write the history of his reign. 

 To improve their qualifications for this duty, the 

 two royal historiographers visited the army in Flan- 

 ders, which was then engaged in the siege of Ypres. 

 The duty, however, notwithstanding this pompous 

 preparation, was never executed. It is curiou9 to 

 observe, that the illustration of the military exploits 

 of Marlborough, like those of his royal antagonist, 

 should have been entrusted to two poets (Glover and 

 Mallet), and that in both cases, by an additional co- 

 incidence, the reward should have been conferred, 

 and the task neglected. In 1683, Boiieau was elect- 

 ed a member of the Academic Francoise ; and, soon 

 after, of the Academie des Inscriptions. To the for- 

 mer of these he published an address of thanks. A- 

 bout this time a violent controversy had arisen in 

 France respecting the comparative merit of the an- 

 cient and modern authors, in which Boiieau took a 

 zealous part, as an advocate for those classical writers, 

 the successful imitation of whom is among his prin- 

 cipal merits. His chief opponent was Perrault, and 

 the controversial ardour of the disputants produced 

 many valuable additions to the maxims of criticism, 

 though it was also the unfortunate cause of much 

 personal animosity. With Fontenelle the quarrel of 

 Boiieau never abated, but with Perrault it termina- 

 ted in a cordial reconciltation, of which the poet, in 

 the triumph of a benevolent nature, hastened to ap- 

 prise the public. Boiieau, we have seen, was a suc- 

 cessful courtier ; and Louis, who mu3t have possess- 

 ed a part of that taste which he affected, added to 

 his pecuniary favours the personal distinction of re- 

 serving a weekly hour for conversation with the poet. 

 On the death of Racine, however, his friend and col- 

 league withdrew from court, and dividing his time 

 between the country and the capital, slid down the 

 descent of life with more enjoyment than is the usual 

 lot of literary genius. Like Pope, whom he resem- 

 bled in his moral as well as in his mental character, 

 but unlike the majority of other poets, he was ad- 

 dicted to no dissipation, and so careful to suit his ex- 

 penses to his means, that he even incurred the impu- 

 tation of avarice. Pope, by his figure and infirmi- 

 ties, and Boiieau, a3 is supposed, by the effects of an 

 accident, in an early operation for the stone, were 

 deterred from certain gross pursuits, which have em- 

 bittered and abridged the days of numbers, to whom 

 mankind are indebted for their most refined gratifi- 

 cations. After enduring, with patient serenity, the 

 frequent intimations of approaching dissolution, in 

 pain, faintings, and ferer, Boiieau died of water in 

 the chest, on the 11th of March 1711, in his 75th 

 year. 



The character of Boiieau differed widely from 

 what the circumstances of his life would lead us to 

 expect. In general, when men abandon a profession 

 for the seductions of poetry, this radical irregularity 

 diminishes their dread t f others, and involves them in 

 errors, for which the pleasure derived from their ge- 

 nius cannot always purchase our indulgence. 1 he 

 case was otherwise with Boiieau, whose conduct was 

 guided by the same good sense and correctness which 



chiefly recommend his compositions. As he was 

 not among that elevated order of poets, whose lofti- 

 ness occasionally swells into extravagance, neither did 

 his actions exhibit any of that negligent vehemence, 

 by which the former too often defr?nd themselves of 

 outward respect and inward repose. He had, by 

 his own information, in his fifth epistle, a sufficient 

 patrimony to warrant the indulgence of his peculiar 

 taste ; and though he was certainly too lavish of 

 courtly adulation, with which even his Lutrin is art- 

 fully interlarded, yet this proceeded more from the 

 contagion of universal practice, than from a profli- 

 gate or parasitical cupidity. The force of mind, 

 which qualified him to judge for himself, and to op- 

 pose the prevailing corruptions in literature, was not- 

 sufficient to make him stand alone, in a hopeless ef- 

 fort to separate triumph from applause, or to mea- 

 sure splendid actions by moral rules, which he knew 

 the loyal vanity of Frenchmen would reject. The 

 esteem which he deserved, appears from the number, 

 the cordiality, and the duration of his friendships ; 

 and from the encomiums which his worth extorted 

 even from those whose works he had ridiculed. 

 Though his intimacy with Racine was so tender and 

 impassioned, as to make the latter, on his deathbed, 

 rejoice at escaping the misfortune of surviving him, 

 yet such was the benignity of his nature, and such 

 his uniform sympathy with genius, that when Cor- 

 neille, the rival of his friend, was about to lose his 

 pension, he sued with success to Madame Maintenon 

 for its continuance, which he offered to purchase by 

 the resignation of his own. From the charge of ava- 

 rice he* ought to be absolved, by a fact so decisive, 

 as well as by his generosity to Patra, (the chosen 

 censor of his works before publication,) whose libra- 

 ry he not only purchased at a price much greater 

 than distress would have compelled its possessor to 

 accept, but also allowed him to retain it for life. 

 In the catalogue of poets, it is a relief to the mind to 

 discover one whose virtues we can thus extol ; nor is 

 it among the slenderest merits of his sovereign, that 

 he was studying the comforts of those who had 

 added to his rational pleasures, while Butler and 

 Otway were amusing a prince who permitted them 

 to starve. 



As a writer, Boiieau was more distinguished by 

 rectitude of judgment, than by richness of imagina- 

 tion. He was, therefore, less qualified to invent, 

 than to improve the inventions of others; and though 

 he could seldom create new materials for poetry, yet 

 of those which were prepared, he could frame a more 

 chaste and beautiful edifice than preceding architects. 

 Though far from deficiency in original thoughts, yet 

 his singular power of giving the gloss of novelty to 

 the ideas of others, suggested to the Journalists of 

 Trevoux a charge of plagiarism, which roused him, 

 towards the end of his life, to a severe reply, in his 

 epistle " on Equivocation." Plagiarism was a term 

 by no means applicable to the practice of Boiieau, 

 which is most happily described by La Breiyere, 

 when he says, " Que Despreatix paroissoit creer les 

 penscet d'autrui ;" and by Dryden, when he obr 

 serves of Jonson, " he has done his robberies 6o open- 

 ly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any 

 law. He invades authors like a monarch ; and What 



Boileaii." 



