TRI. We See some effects of its good taste, Sir.
CLI. Where do you see, Sir, that its taste is so bad?
TRI. Where, Sir! Do not Rasius and Balbus by their learning do honour to France? and yet their merit, so very patent to all, attracts no notice from the court.
CLI. I see whence your sorrow comes, and that, through modesty, you forbear, Sir, to rank yourself with these. Not to drag you in, tell me what your able heroes do for their country? What service do their writings render it that they should accuse the court of horrible injustice, and complain everywhere that it fails to pour down favours on their learned names? Their knowledge is of great moment to France! and the court stands in great need of the books they write! These wretched scribblers get it into their little heads that to be printed and bound in calf makes them at once important personages in the state; that with their pens they regulate the destiny of crowns; that at the least mention of their productions, pensions ought to be poured down upon them; that the eyes of the whole universe are fixed upon them, and the glory of their name spread everywhere! They think themselves prodigies of learning because they know what others have said before them; because for thirty years they have had eyes and ears, and have employed nine or ten thousand nights or so in cramming themselves with Greek and Latin, and in filling their heads with the indiscriminate plunder of all the old rubbish which lies scattered in books. They always seem intoxicated with their own knowledge, and for all merit are rich in importunate babble. Unskilful in everything, void of common sense, and full of absurdity and impertinence, they decry everywhere true learning and knowledge.
PHI. You speak very warmly on the subject, and this transport shows the working of ill-nature in you. It is the name of rival which excites in your breast….
SCENE IV.—TRISSOTIN, PHILAMINTE, CLITANDRE, ARMANDE, JULIAN.
JUL. The learned gentleman who paid you a visit just now, Madam, and whose humble servant I have the honour to be, exhorts you to read this letter.
PHI. However important this letter may be, learn, friend, that it is a piece of rudeness to come and interrupt a conversation, and that a servant who knows his place should apply first to the people of the household to be introduced.
JUL. I will note that down, Madam, in my book.
PHI. (reads). "Trissotin boasts, Madam, that he is to marry your daughter. I give you notice that his philosophy aims only at your wealth, and that you would do well not to conclude this marriage before you have seen the poem which I am composing against him. While you are waiting for this portrait, in which I intend to paint him in all his colours, I send you Horace, Virgil, Terence, and Catullus, where you will find marked in the margin all the passages he has pilfered."