“Prendre garde qu’un qui ne heurte une diphtongue,”
which labels the whole proceeding—
“C’est proser de la rime et rimer de la prose;”
compares it to the tricks of rouging and dressing up in women, and contrasts the natural beauties of poetry with all this powder and pomatum.
The first hundred lines are the best part of the satire, and the remainder is, to a certain extent, amplification and repetition. Yet it is good art, and good sense, not merely in the scattered phrases—
“Sans juger nous jugeons,”
and
“Votre raison vous trompe, aussi bien que vos yeux,”
and
“O débile raison! où est ores ta bride,”