[350]. Not in the general edition above cited. My copy is that of Cologne, 1695, with no printer’s name, but with a nice red and black title-page, an agreeable frontispiece (representing Joseph Justus, in a chair and a long beard, addressing attentive standing periwig-pated persons), and (as a MS. note of a former possessor informs me) a great deal of matter not in any other ed.
[351]. Also not in the collection. My copy is the Amsterdam edition, 2 vols., 1699.
[352]. The suggestion of this, though not the exact phrase, will be found in Sainte-Beuve’s essay (Causeries du Lundi, v. 275).
[353]. Paris, 1675.
[354]. On all these, see Tallemant, Bayle, and others down to Sainte-Beuve. For a typical literary and critical quarrel, beginning politely and ending in something like Billingsgate, nothing can be better than that battle of Costar and M. de Girac, first over the dead body of Voiture and the live one of Balzac, and then over both these departed, which Sainte-Beuve tells in his liveliest manner at pp. 210-231 of the 12th vol. of the Causeries.
[355]. To those who are acquainted with the most interesting handling of Desmarets in M. Rigault’s so often cited book (Querelle des Anc. et Mod., pp. 80-103), my reference to him may seem too low and little. As a matter of fact, I think rather better of Desmarets than M. Rigault did. But the latter’s purpose of enlarging—I do not say exaggerating—his portraits of everybody who had to do with the “quarrel” sometimes, I think, throws them a little out of proportion, if not of focus, for a general critical history. His chapter, however, is excellent, if not quite just; and it should have by itself sufficed to save those who will not read originals from a blunder into which some writers have fallen—that of crediting Desmarets with the first vindication of the Christian epic, and the first denunciation of heathen mythology as a poetic stuff. The mere name of Tasso ought to suffice as a reminder of the falsity of this; the work of Gambara (v. supra, p. 107 note), though I cannot speak of it at first hand, must be got out of the way by them; and Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (v. supra, p. 131) had in France itself made the way plain, for the author of Clovis. But he certainly drew a good bow in this not too happy battle; and if he takes any pleasure in the progeniture, he may probably claim John Dennis (v. infra, p. 436) as his son. That Boileau’s treatment of him was quite unfair M. Rigault himself fully admits; but to whom and to what (including those talents of his own which he by turns prostitutes and cripples) is Boileau not unfair?
[356]. As this of the very authors he censures, “Leurs paroles, toutes mortes qu’elles sont, ont plus de vigueur que la raison de certaines gens.” II. 300, Ed. J. Simon, Paris, 1871.
[357]. The literary Pensées of Pascal are still fewer, and in dealing with Montaigne he is even further from the literary point of view than Malebranche. His chief utterance is a piece of characteristic scorn at poetical clichés like bel astre, fatal laurier, &c.
[358]. Of the immense number (estimated years ago at nearly five hundred) of editions of the Works in whole or part, that of Berriat de Saint-Prix in 4 vols., 1830-34, is, I believe, as nearly the standard as any. There is, however, a magnificent modern edition of the Œuvres Poétiques, edited by M. Brunetière (Paris, 1889), which I am glad to possess. The ordinary “Collection” editions, such as that of Garnier, though complete enough on the verse side, are apt to omit what they think the less interesting pieces of prose.
[359]. He was thirty-three when he began it, and thirty-eight when it was finished. A very excellent separate edition of it is that of the Cambridge University Press, by Mr D. Nichol Smith (1898).