Nicolas Boileau

“ Sleep’st thou securely, till the Chanter come,
“ And without Bull, or Brief procur’d from Rome,
“ Whilst thou’re wrap in sloath, and free from Fears,
“ Rotchet and Surplice shall pluck o’re thy Ears ?
“ Sluggard, awake, arise, bestir thee quick,
“ Renounce thy Ease, or quit thy Bishoprick !
She spoke, and from her Poysonous Mouth did fling
Into his Soul the Zeal of Quarrelling.
The Dean awakes ; The choler in his breast
Formented boils ; yet he the Fury Blest ! ”

“ Boileau (Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas, eminent French poet and satirist) , 1636-1711. "It is a great consolation for a dying poet to have never written a word against morality."
Boleyn or Bullen (Anne, wife of Henry VIII) , 1507-1536. Just before she knelt to lay her head on the block she clasped her neck with her hands, and said: "It is small, very small indeed."
Bolingbroke (Henry St. John, Viscount, English author, orator, and politician) , 1678-1751. ”

“ For others were invited at times, men of the world, the court, and the camp. And Boileau was the common centre of these excentric stars, and when each, in his own special atmosphere of coolness, swayed from the others' vicinage, Boileau alone let no alienation come between him and any one of them. For each, he was what Racine had found him, "the best friend and the best man in the world."
The house was near a noted cabaret, to which they sometimes resorted, at the Saint-Sulpice end of the street. The cabaretier was the illustrious Cresnet, made immortal in Boileau's verse. ”

“ The eldest son and heir was Sir John Peter Boileau, Bart, (so created, July 1838) , of Tacolnestone Hall, Norfolk, and of Kettering Park in the same county. Sir John was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries, also President of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society. His services in the walks of science, antiquities, and agricultural improvement are detailed in The Register, 1869, vol. i. He was also a Director of the French Hospital in London. ”

“ He urged, also, the claim of Boileau to royal favor: "We must not be separated," he said to his amanuensis; "begin your letter again, and let Boileau know that I have been his friend to my death."
His death came on April 21, 1699. His body lay one night in the choir of Saint-Sulpice, his parish church, and then it was carried for burial to the Abbey of Port-Royal. On the destruction of that institution, his remains were brought back to Paris, in 1711, and placed near those of Pascal, at the entrance of the lady-chapel of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. ”

“ He has the tastes and the weaknesses which suit his cast of intellect. He holds in the highest estimation "the admirable Boileau, whose numbers are excellent, whose expressions are noble, whose thoughts are just, whose language is pure, whose satire is pointed, and whose sense is close. What he borrows from the ancients, he repays with usury of his own, in coin as good, and almost as universally valuable." ”

“ Il est admirable à Paris; mais il est aimable à sa maison de campagne, et vous savez qu'on a plus de plaisir à [Pg xxiii] aimer qu'à admirer." On his death, Rapin thus speaks of him: "Il n'y eut jamais une plus belle ame jointe à un plus bel esprit. Le plus grand de tous les éloges est, que le peuple l'a pleuré; et chacun s'est plaint de sa mort comme de la perte d'un ami, ou de celle d'un bienfacteur."
The name of Boileau is too interesting to be overlooked. Many of his letters and pages discover the delight he took in his garden at Auteuil. ”

“ No writer ever contributed more than Boileau to the formation of poetry; no more correct or shrewd judgment ever assessed the merits of authors; no loftier spirit ever guided a stronger and a juster mind. Through all the vicissitudes undergone by literature, and spite of the sometimes excessive severity of his decrees, Boileau has left an ineffaceable impression upon the French language. His talent was less effective than his understanding; his judgment and his character have had more influence than his verses. ”

“ He was the first to recall his countrymen from the vapid hyperbole and puerile conceits of the ancient farces, and to instruct' them in the maxim which Boileau has since condensed into a memorable verse, that "nothing is beautiful bat what is natural." We have already spoken of the reformation which one of his early pieces effected in the admirers of the Hôtel de Rambouillet and its absurdities; and when this confederacy afterward rallied under an affectation of science, as it had before done of letters, he again broke it with bis admirable satire of the Femmes Savantes. ”

“ It is by attacking not the dead and decrepit, but the young and rising, that a man shows himself a great warrior and a useful citizen in criticism. In fact, the principles of correctness which Boileau espoused had, as we have seen, been practically taken up long before, even by poor creatures like the Abbé d’Aubignac, in certain departments, and Chapelain himself had smitten in this sense before he felt the wounds. ”

“ Some friends of the author were disputing concerning epic poetry, and Boileau maintained the opinion advanced in his "Poetics," that an heroic poem ought to have but a slender groundwork, and that its excellence depended on the power of its inventor to sustain and enlarge the original theme. The argument grew warm; but no one was convinced, and the conversation changed. It turned upon a ridiculous dispute between the treasurer and chanter of the Chapelle Royale of Paris, concerning the placing of a reading desk (Lutrin) . ”

“ This is an exaggeration of what may be considered as the only flaw in Boileau's character:—generous and charitable; simple and natural in his manners; full of friendship, kindness, and integrity; we almost hesitate to pronounce severity of criticism against bad books a fault; but we cannot avoid perceiving that the ridicule he has attached to the names of Chapelain, Cotin, and others, however well deserved by their writings, might have been spared to the men. It reminds us too strongly of the anonymous critics of the present day not to be held in detestation. ”

“ In the noble and touching brotherhood of these great minds, Boileau continued invariably to be the bond between the rivals; intimate friend as he was of Racine, he never quarrelled with Moliere, and he hurried to the king to beg that he would pass on the pension with which he honored him to the aged Corneille, groundlessly deprived of the royal favors. He entered the Academy on the 3d of July, 1684, immediately after La Fontaine. ”

“ Thy pen is full as harmless as thy sword.
Of the satire against Man, Rochester can only claim what remains when all Boileau's part is taken away.
In all his works there is spriteliness and vigour, and every where may be found tokens of a mind which study might have carried to excellence. What more can be expected from a life spent in ostentatious contempt of regularity, and ended before the abilities of many other men began to be displayed?
Poema CI. V . Joannis Passeratii,
Regii in Academia Parisiensi Professoris,
Ad ornatissimum virum Erricum Memmium. ”

“ He was named Boileau; not the friend of Bontems, who so often preached before the King, and still less the celebrated poet and author of the 'Flagellants', but a doctor of much wit and learning whom M. de Paris had taken into his favour and treated like a brother. Who would have believed that "Probleme" could spring from such a man? M. de Paris was much hurt; but instead of imprisoning Boileau for the rest of his days, as he might have done, he acted the part of a great bishop, and gave him a good canonical of Saint Honore, which became vacant a few days afterwards. ”

“ He left the army in 1711, and resided at Southampton till 1722, when he removed to Dublin. He became a wine-merchant in Bride Street, and the ancestral business and premises now belong to John George Boileau, one of his descendants. ”

“ He became the favourite guest of the best society in Paris, where genius and wit were honoured. Joined to his faculty of writing satires, whose every word was as a gem set in gold, Boileau read his verses well, and possessed the talent of mimicry, which added greatly to the zest of his recitations. Chapelain, Cotin, and the poetasters whom he lashed, passed thus, as it were, in living {Pg 263} array before his audience ”

“ On the formation of the Norwich Light Horse he held a commission in the corps, and subsequently transferred his services to the 3rd Volunteer Battalion Norfolk Regiment, of which he was for several years lieutenant-colonel. In politics Sir Francis Boileau was formerly a Liberal, but he became strongly Unionist, and one of his last acts was to write, on behalf of the Unionists of South Norfolk, an address presented to Mr. Edward Mann for his services to the party at the General Election. ”

“ BOILEAU, once the undisputed arbiter of taste throughout Europe, is now hardly remembered save as the high-priest of an effete tradition and as the author of some brilliant lines which have passed as proverbs into the French language. He was a man of vivid intelligence—courageous, independent, passionately devoted to literature, and a highly skilled worker in the difficult art of writing verse. But he lacked the force and the finesse of poetic genius; and it is not as a poet that he is interesting: it is as a critic. ”

“ In the life of Boileau there is mention of the poet's first campaign, and the pleasantries that ensued. Boileau never attended another; but Racine followed the king in several; and his correspondence with his friend from the camp is very pleasing. Whatever faults might diminish the brightness of his character, he had a charming simplicity, a warmth of heart, a turn for humour, and a modesty, that make us love the man. His life was peaceful: his attendance at court, domestic peace, the {Pg 317} open-hearted intimacy between him and Boileau, were the chief incidents of his life. ”

“ My talent does not consist in proving to the great that I am clever, but in teaching them that they are so themselves." His faithful friendship for Boileau is one of the most pleasing circumstances of his life. His letters show the kindly nature of the intimacy. ”

“ On November 22, 1694, the day after his birth, he was carried across the river to Saint-André-des-Arts—no one knows why his baptism was not in the island church of the parish—and there christened François-Marie Arouet. His earlier years were passed in the house of Boileau's nephew Dongois, whose airs of importance did not escape the keen infant eyes, as we have seen in the same letter in verse in our preceding chapter. Then he was sent to Lycée Louis-le-Grand, whither we have gone with young Poquelin, seventy years earlier. ”

“ Although, as we have already seen, previous to the thirteenth century many of the corporations of artisans had been authorised by several of the kings of France to make special laws whereby they might govern themselves, it was really only from the reign of St. Louis that the first general measures of administration and police relating to these communities can be dated. The King appointed Etienne Boileau, a rich bourgeois, provost of the capital in 1261, to set to work to establish order, wise administration, and "good faith" in the commerce of Paris. ”

“ You are the person that ought to be accused of jansenism; yet I am much more attacked. What can be the reason?" "It {Pg 283} is an obvious one," replied Boileau; "you go to mass every day; I only go on Sundays and festivals."
The honour of belonging to the academy was in those days eagerly sought after. Boileau aspired to a seat, but never solicited it, and was passed over. It has been related in the life of La Fontaine how displeased the king was with this omission, and how he refused to confirm La Fontaine's election till Boileau was also chosen. ”

“ It certainly appears as if some people took great delight in what Boileau calls murdering their neighbor in due form and ceremony, and inflicting on him unutterable torments. These people live in the forty-ninth degree of latitude, which is precisely the position of the Iroquois. Let us hope that they may, some time or other, become civilized.
Among this nation of barbarians, there are always to be found two or three thousand persons of great kindness and amiability, possessed of correct taste, and constituting excellent society. ”

“ NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX (1636-1711)
he name of Louis XIV. suggests ultra-lavishness in life and taste; a time when French society, surfeited with pleasure, demanded a stimulus of continual novelty in current literature. The natural result was preciosité, hyperbole, falsetto sentiment, which ranked the unusual above the natural, clever conceit above careful workmanship. It was tainted with artificiality, and now seems mawkish and superficial.
But Boileau changed all that. Perhaps no author unendowed with genius has ever so influenced literature,
Boileau. ”

“ Difficult [xxxv] indeed it is for us at the present day to understand the European homage paid to Boileau. As Hannay says, "He was a dignified classic figure supposed to be the model of fine taste", [15] His word was law in the realm of criticism, and for many years he was known, not alone in France, but throughout a large portion of Europe, as "The Lawgiver of Parnassus". Prof. Dowden, referring to his critical authority, remarks:—
"The genius of Boileau was in a high degree intellectual, animated by ideas. ”