“Beyond the arrows, shouts, and views of men.”
Desportes is not exactly an eagle, and Malherbe has better game with him, but still not the best of the game.
[302]. Not to be confounded with the critic and versifier, René Rapin, who was not born till after Regnier’s death, and whom to call “favourite, &c.,” would indeed have been a dreadful thing to do; still less with the historian Rapin de Thoyras, who was a generation later again. This Rapin was Nicolas, part author of the glorious Satire Menippée, victor in the burlesque contest of the Flea (see Southey’s Doctor), a good versifier in Latin, and no ill one in French, though he was of the (in France not very numerous) partisans of classical metres. He died in 1608, not long after the date of this satire.
[303]. I read my Regnier in two editions, both very desirable as books, and of different merits otherwise. The one, that of Prosper Poitevin (Paris, 1860), is very compact; and, besides other matter, has the old commentary of Brossette, which is extremely interesting as expressing the views of a disciple of Boileau on a poet whom, to do him justice, Boileau could not but admire, though he characteristically belittled him. The other, that of E. Courbet (Paris, 1875), has a text adjusted in the scrupulous modern manner, and some important additions to the biography.
[304]. For instance, the yoking of Virgil, Tasso, and Ronsard. This Pisgah-sight of literature was what the Renaissance, and the whole neo-classic period, almost invariably failed to attain.
[305]. There was, however, a remnant. Even Balzac called him “Le tyran des mots et des syllabes;” even Chapelain recognised (acutely enough) the fact that his methods were rhetorical rather than poetical; even Tallemant practically summed him up, once and for all, in the words, “Il n’avait pas beaucoup de génie: la méditation et l’art l’ont fait poëte.” But the majority and the hour were with him.
[306]. Those who wish for something more on this subject, without attacking Vaugelas for themselves, may be strongly recommended to the full and excellent article of M. Brunot in Petit de Julleville (vi. 674-690), one of the very best papers in the book.
[307]. He is often called this, but not quite fairly, for he was born in Bresse.
[308]. For other grammarian-rhetoricians of 1610-1660 see M. Brunot as above. On the Art Poétique of P. de Deimier (1610), compare also Rücktaschel ubi sup.
[309]. He was born in Angoulême.