[71] Jean Guez de Balzac (1594-1655), one of the first members of the French Academy, wrote, besides his over-praised “Letters,” a Socrate Chrétien, the Prince, a panegyric on Louis XIII., and Entretiens ou Dissertations littéraires.
[72] Voiture (1598-1648), also a member of the French Academy, is chiefly known by his “Letters” and some namby-pamby poetry, amongst which is the well-known sonnet on “Uranie,” which was by many preferred to the sonnet on “Job” by Benserade, and gave rise to a pretty literary quarrel in the seventeenth century. Voiture and Balzac are now deservedly buried in oblivion.
[73] The letters of Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696) were not published until 1726, or thirty years after La Bruyèreʼs death, though perhaps he might have seen some of them in manuscript. Among the ladies celebrated for their epistolary style in the seventeenth century were Madame de Maintenon, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, Madame de Bussy-Lameth, and above all Madame de Boislandry. See the Chapter “Of Opinions,” [§ 28], “A Fragment.”
[74] Publius Terentius Afer (194-158 B.C.), a celebrated Latin comic dramatist.
[75] Some commentators on La Bruyère think that the words “vulgar tongue (jargon) and barbarisms” refer to Molière having put peasants on the stage, and letting them speak their dialect. See [§ 52].
[76] Malherbe (1555-1628) was one of the greatest purists amongst the authors of his time. Théophile de Viau (1591-1626), a writer of tragedies and a poet, was by some of his contemporaries thought to be a rival of Malherbe.
[77] In the original il feint, the Latin fingit, he shapes, imagines.
[78] Ronsard (1524-1585), the chief of the “Pleiad” or constellation of seven authors, was the most celebrated poet of his time, and the author of the Franciade.
[79] Clément Marot (1495-1544), the favourite poet of Francis I., was born twenty-nine years before Ronsard, who lived about forty years longer than Marot.
[80] Rémy Belleau (1528-1577), Jodelle (1532-1573), and du Bartas (1544-1590), were all poets of the school of Ronsard and belonging to the “Pleiad.” Du Bartasʼs chief work has been translated into English by “silver-tongued” Joshua Sylvester (1563-1618), under the title of “The Divine Week and Works;” and Spenser speaks of “his heavenly muse,” and of his filling “the world with never-dying fame.”