[81] Honorat de Bueil, Marquis de Racan (1589-1670), the favourite pupil of Malherbe, is chiefly known by his pastoral dialogue, Les Bergeries. La Bruyère praises Malherbe and Racan for their pure style, but the fabulist Jean de la Fontaine says of them:—
“Malherbe avec Racan parmi le chœur des anges,
Là-haut de lʼEternel célébrant les louanges
Ont emporté leur lyre.”
[82] François Rabelais (1459-1553), author of the Chroniques de Gargantua et de Pantagruel.
[83] La Bruyère writes “Montagne,” and so it is even now pronounced. Montaigneʼs (1533-1592) “Essays” are known everywhere.
[84] The author who “thinks too little” is said to have been the Port-Royalist, Pierre Nicole (1625-1695), though some imagine Balzac was meant; the author who thought “with too much subtlety” seems to have been Father Malebranche (1638-1715), who attacked Montaigne in his Recherche de la Vérité (1674).
[85] Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), the translator of Plutarch. Nicolas Coëffeteau (1574-1623), bishop of Marseille, is best known by his translation of the Roman historian, Florus.
[86] The letters H. G. stand for Hermes Galant, “Hermes” being the Greek for Mercury, and there existing since 1672 a kind of monthly review, called the Mercure Galant, edited by Donneau de Visé, Thomas Corneille, and Fontenelle, and printing some news from the court and the army, a few literary articles, and as many advertisements as possible. Since 1677 its title changed to Mercure de France.
[87] Boileau, La Fontaine, and Saint Evremond were, like La Bruyère, no lovers of the opera.