[377]. Written in 1700 and published next year. Letter vi. of the ordinary collection.
[378]. The First and Sixth Satires are a little, and some smaller pieces much, earlier than this, but they are indecisive and unimportant.
[379]. Cf. Bolæana. On the other hand, the Rev. J. Garbett, whom anti-Tractarian feeling made Professor of Poetry at Oxford when Isaac Williams was a candidate, has “Bollevian” (De Re Critica Prælectiones, Oxford, 1847, Præl. iv. i.) I am not bigoted on the point.
[380]. “Greek, the Alpha and Omega of all knowledge,” as Dr Folliott calls it, is certainly not less so in criticism than elsewhere.
[381]. By M. Bourgoin in the interesting book cited above.
[382]. Editions again innumerable; but none, I think, can compare with that of M. Servois in the Grands Écrivains de la France (Paris, 1865-1882).
[383]. “Entre toutes les différentes expressions qui peuvent rendre une seule de nos pensées il n’y en a qu’une qui soit la bonne,” &c.—Ed. cit., i. 118.
[384]. It is a pity that in the best modern account known to me, that of M. Bourgoin, the question of Fénelon’s character and of his relations with Bossuet is brought in. It is really quite extraneous to the matter. Very favourable reference can be made to the notice by the Cardinal de Bausset, prefixed to the most accessible edition of Fénelon’s critical work (in Œuvres Choisies, Paris, Garnier, n.d.) Bausset, who wrote, besides an extensive life of Fénelon, one of Bossuet, and died in 1824, came before the Renaissance of criticism in France: but he was no perruque.
[385]. P. 125 ed. cit.
[386]. “L’excès choquant de Ronsard nous a un peu jetés dans l’extrémité opposée; on a appauvri, desséché et gâté notre langue.” And he proceeds, with much humour and more truth, to stigmatise the prim following of grammar, the “substantive hand in hand with its adjective,” the verb “walking behind with an adverb at its heels, and an accusative in a place unalterable.” “C’est ce,” this great locus continues, “qui exclut toute suspension d’esprit, toute surprise, toute variété, et souvent toute magnifique cadence.” 1830 could say no more; and often said it with less authority.