[246] Fontenelle had written for his uncle Thos. Corneille (1625-1709) certain parts of two operas, Psyché (1678) and Bellérophon (1679); for Beauval, in prose, an eulogy on Perrault (1688), and for a certain Mdlle. Bernard, part of a tragedy of Brutus (1691).
[247] Lucianus of Samosata, a satirist and a rhetorician (120-200 A.D.)
[248] The author adds “a philosopher and a tragic poet.” See page [124], note 235.
[249] Plato, the well-known Greek philosopher (430-347 B.C.)
[250] Publius Virgilius Maro, the Roman epic and bucolic poet (70-19 B.C.)
[251] Theocritus, a Greek bucolic poet, who flourished about 272 B.C. Fontenelle had written Dialogues of the dead, as Lucianus had done; philosophical works and tragedies like Seneca, philosophical dialogues in Platoʼs style, and pastoral poetry like Virgil and Theocritus.
[252] Perrault, La Motte (1672-1731), De Visé (1640-1710), and others.
[253] This friend is supposed to have been La Motte.
[254] The right of presentation to nearly all offices at court, or official positions, was publicly bought and sold in Louis XIV.ʼs time.
[255] Commentators, who see allusions everywhere, suppose the “very rich man” was Louvois, whose sons-in-law were the Dukes de la Rocheguyon and de Villeneuve; or Colbert, who became the father-in-law of the Dukes de Chevreuse, de Beauvilliers, and de Mortemart; or, finally, Frémont, keeper of the royal treasury, who married his daughter to the Duke de Lorges.