[360]. Boileau did not merely “convey” from the ancients. He had the specially ugly, though not so specially uncommon, trick of insulting a man and stealing from him at the same time. (Cf. Théophile Gautier’s article, in Les Grotesques, on his namesake.)
“C’est en vain qu’au Parnasse un témeraire auteur,
Pense de l’art des vers attendre la hauteur.”
[362]. It may be sometimes forgotten in the quotation of this famous line, that long poem was a technical term in French criticism, from the days of the Pléiade downwards, and means definitely an Epic, or Heroic Poem, not a long piece of verse. It is characteristic of Boileau to hit backwards at the modern epic, of which he was no admirer, in this rather treacherous praise of the sonnet, towards which he was equally lukewarm.
[363]. As it takes ten lines (171-180) in the French to explain our single epithet, they need not make fun of it.
[364]. See on the Petronian passage, vol. i. p. 245, and on its mischievous influence the present chapter, passim.
[365]. I like to vary Boileau’s stale criticism with his admirably fresh and vigorous verse.
[366]. “She can do without them,” as L. Arruntius most excellently remarked on a parallel occasion. Vide i. 238.
[367]. As usual Boileau gives the actual names of half a score inhabitants of the French Grub Street, of whom Cyrano de Bergerac (he was long dead, and Boileau was safe) has the consolation prize of being merely fou.