B 6 I 



640 



B O I 



Boileau. would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him." 

 s_ v Boileau appears to have looked with comparative in- 

 difference on the charms of external nature, and even 

 on human conduct, when modified by lofty passions, 

 or extraordinary situations. Like Pope, he prefer, 

 red the study of man as he appears in ordinary life, 

 or as he is fashioned by local -and accidental habits. 

 His genius, therefore, turned to ethical, didactic, 

 and satirical poetry ; and this circumscription of his 

 ambition left him more at liberty to attend to the 

 minuter decorations of his art. His familiarity with 

 ancient authors, which, as it was not conspicuous in 

 his youth, must have been owing to the voluntary 

 preference of his maturer years, when he became stu- 

 dieux amateur et de Perse et d' Horace, made him 

 anxious to transfuse the classical graces of regularity 

 and smoothness into the versification of his country. 

 Previous to this period, the French and English poets 

 had been inattentive to rhime and measure, and trust- 

 ed more to the value of the cargo, than to the beauty 

 of the vehicle. Here, therefore, Boileau perceived 

 an opportunity for the exertion of his talents ; and 

 while the wit of Butler was procuring not only par- 

 don, but applause, for slovenly and harsh expression, 

 Boileau was studying the combination of melody with 

 mirth, and exemplifying the precept, which he couch- 

 es in the following lines : 



N'Offrcs rien au Leteur gve ce qui peut le plain ; 

 Ayez pout la cadence une oreille severe 

 Lie vers le mieux rempli, la plus noble pensee 

 JVe pent plaire a Vesprit qvand Voreillc est blessee. 



Though Boileau and Butler agree in the applica- 

 tion of mock-heroic irony to the follies of religionists, 

 the characters of their satire differ as widely as come- 

 Jy from farce, or as the polished eloquence of a legi- 

 timate pulpit, from the vigorous and impressive, but 

 endless and unequal harangue of the conventicle. 

 Butler overlays us with an accumulation of wit, and 

 fatigues us with the learning by which he increases 

 its ludicrous effect. Boileau, inferior in both, ac- 

 commodates them with more address to ordinary 

 readers, and calculates more correctly, from the na- 

 ture of the mind, the period when attention must 

 flag, and risibility languish from excess. He also 

 verifies the remark of Johnson, that " the learning of 

 the French is, like their food, not the best, but they 

 know how to cook it." In Butler, we are surfeited 

 with substantial, but inelegant, profusion ; while Boi- 

 leau, by the rapidity and lightness of the repast, pre- 

 vents any decay of appetite till it is finished. Of all 

 the British poets, Pope has been most frequently 

 -compared with Boileau. There seems to have been 

 a natural resemblance in their minds ; and Pope was 

 enabled by the priority of Boileau, as Boileau by 

 that of Horace, to transfuse into his writings more 

 of it than might otherwise have appeared. In the 

 works of both we find the same bias to ethical seve- 

 rity ; the same abundance of pointed and proverbial 



Bo is. 



couplets; the same felicity in complimentary or re- Boiling 

 prehensory'criticism ; the same classical correctness 

 of design ; and the same copious mellifluence of num- 

 bers. It must be allowed, however, that Pope pos- 

 sessed a greater variety of talents than Boileau ; for 

 we doubt if the latter was capable of producing any 

 thing so pathetic as the " Epistle of Eloisa," or so 

 original as the fanciful machinery of the Sylphs; and 

 in lyric poetry Boileau sinks farther beneath Pope, 

 than Pope beneath Dryden. The " Rape of the 

 Lock" and the " Lutrin" have been always consi- 

 dered by critics as poems of the same class, though 

 the latter, perhaps from its subject, appears to shade 

 at times into the coarser manner of the Dunciad. 

 The follies of fashionable life admitted of a light and 

 smiling airiness of ridicule, which would not have 

 harmonized with the rebuke of ignorance, gluttony, 

 and sloth. Between the two poems, however, there 

 is an obvious likeness, from parity of conception and 

 felicity of execution ; from the wit which sparkles in 

 the parts, and the seasoning of humour which enrich- 

 es the whole.* In humour we, indeed, consider them 

 as nearly equal ; but on comparing their wit, we ap- 

 prehend the balance will incline to our countryman. 

 Our limits not permitting the enlargement of these 

 remarks, we shall close them with the literary cha- 

 racter of Boileau, which was drawn by Voltaire witk 

 his usual discrimination. Incapable peut-etre du su- 

 blime qui eleve I'ame, et du sentiment qui I'attendrit, 

 maisjait pour eclairer ceux a qui la nature accorda 

 I'un et I' autre, laboricux, severe, precis pur, karmo- 

 nieux, il devint, ctifin, le poete de la raison. (w) 



BOILING. See Chemistry. 



BOIS, Du, or Lake of the Woods, a lake in 

 North America, situated to the north-west of Lake 

 Superior, and to the south of Winnipeg lake. Thi* 

 lake, which is nearly round, has a cluster of 

 islands in the middle of it, so large, that by those 

 who sail past them, they have been taken for the main 

 land. Large quantities of oak, pine, fir, spruce, &c. 

 grow upon its banks, and from this circumstance it 

 derives its name. It stretches about 70 miles from 

 east to west ; and, in some parts, it is about 40 miles 

 wide. See Mackenzie's Voyage Jrom Montreal 

 through .the Continent of North America, Introd. 

 p. 59. 0) 



BOIS-le-Duc, Silva Ducis, or the Duke's 

 Wood, called also Hertogenborch, which has the 

 same meaning, is the capital of Dutch Brabant, and 

 is situated at the confluence of the Dommel and the 

 Aa, in a low, sandy, but cultivated tract, almost 

 surrounded by a morass. This city was built in 1 184-, 

 by Godfrey III., duke of Brabant, who had been 

 accustomed to resort to that quarter for the pleasures 

 of the chace. The town is of a triangular form, and 

 above three miles in circumference. It has four gates, 

 one towards Breda, called Vucherpoorte ; another to- 

 wards Grave and Nimeguen, called Hintemmpoorte ; 

 a third towards Bommel and Utrecht, called Ortcr. 



* Between wit and humour we take the distinction of Mr Jackson, whose precise words, however, we do not recollect- 

 Wit he represents as a sort of intellectual legerdemain, by which we are led to expect one idea, and surprised by the dexter- 

 ous substitution of another, as a juggler leads us to expect an egg, and discovers an orange. A juggler is a wit in thinga ; a 

 wit is a juggler in ideas, andi punster in words. Humour again, without these sudden changes, produces its elTcct by pre- 

 tending a disposition contrary to what the subject naturally creates, as by censuring with praise, and praising with censure, 

 or by treating a light subject gravely, and a grave subject lightly. 



