96 BAILLY. 
poet took Iphygenia in Tauris for the subject of his sec- 
ond composition. Such was his ardour, that by the end 
of three months, he had already written the last line of 
the fifth act of his new tragedy, and hastened to Passy, 
to solicit the opinion of the author of Mahomet II. This 
time Lanoue thought he perceived that his confiding 
young friend was not intended by nature for the drama, 
and he declared it to him without disguise. Bailly heard 
the fatal sentence with more resignation than could have 
been expected from a youth whose budding self-esteem 
received so violent a shock. He even threw his two 
tragedies immediately into the fire. Under similar cir- 
cumstances, Fontenelle showed less docility in his youth. 
If the tragedy of Aspar also disappeared in the flames, 
it was not only in consequence of the criticism of a 
friend ; for the author went so far as to call forth the 
noisy judgment of the pit. 
Certainly no astronomer will regret that any opinions 
either off-hand or well digested, on the first literary pro- 
ductions of Bailly, contributed to throw him into the 
pursuit of science. Still, for the sake of principle, it 
seems just to protest against the praises given to the 
foresight of Lanoue, to the sureness of his judgment, to 
the excellence of his advice. What was it in fact? A 
lad of sixteen or seventeen years of age, composes two 
tolerable tragedies, and these essays are made irrevoc- 
ably to decide on his future fate. We have then for- 
gotten that Racine had already reached the age of 
twenty-two, when he first appeared, producing T’heagenes 
and Charicles, and the Inimical Brothers ; that Crébillon 
was nearly forty years of age when he composed a trage- 
dy on The Death of the Sons of Brutus, of which not a 
single verse has been preserved; finally, that the two 
