Page images
PDF
EPUB

defk was to ftand. We thought it a droll affair. Upon this, one of the critics in company, who could not fo foon forget our late difpute, asked me, if I, who thought fo little MATTER neceffary for an heroic poem, would undertake to write one on a quarrel fo little abounding in incidents, as this of the two ecclefiaftics. "J'eus plutôt dit, pourquoi non? que je n'eus fait reflexion fur ce qu'il me demandoit." This made the company laugh, and I could not help laughing with them; not in the leaft imagining, that I fhould ever be able to keep my word. But finding myself at leisure in the evening, I revolved the fubject in my mind, and having confidered in every view the pleasantry that it would admit of, I made twenty verfes which I fhewed to my friends. They were diverted with this beginning. The pleasure which I saw these gave them, induced me to write twenty more. Thus, from twenty verses to twenty, I lengthened the work to near nine hundred. This is the whole history of the trifle I now offer to the public. It is a

new

new kind of burlefque, which I have introduced into our language: for as in the other kind of burlesque, that of Scarron, Dido and Æneas fpoke like fish-women and porters, in this of mine, a clock-maker and his wife talk like Dido and Æneas. I do not know whether my poem will have all the qualities requifite to fatisfy a reader: but I dare flatter myself, that it will at least be allowed to have the grace of novelty; because I do not conceive, that there are any works of this nature in our language; the DEFAITES DES BOUTS RIMES of Sarafin being rather a mere allegory than a poem, as this is."

ON a fubject feemingly fo unpromifing and incapable of ornament, has Boileau found a method of raifing a poem full of beautiful imagery; which appears like that magnificent city, which the greatest of princes caufed to be built in a morafs. Boileau has enlivened this piece with many unexpected incidents and entertaining episodes;

*Altered afterwards to a BARBER.

+ Petersburg.

Particularly

Maxima de nihilo nafcitur hiftoria. Prop.

Particularly that of the Perruquier, in the fecond canto, and of the Battle of the Books, in the fifth. The fatire throughout is poignant, though polite, to the last degree. The indolence and luxury of the priests are ridiculed with the most artful delicacy. What a picture has he drawn of the chamber and bed of the treasurer, where every thing was calculated to promote and preferve inactivity and ease!

Dans le reduit obfcur d'un alcove enfoncée *
S'eleve un lit de plume a grand frais amaffée.
Quatre rideaux pompeux, par un double contour,
En defendent l'entrée à la clartè du jour.
Là, parmi les douceurs d'un tranquille filence,
Regne fur le duvet une heureuse Indolence.
C'est là que Prelat muni d'un déjeûner,
Dormant d'un leger fomme, attendoit le dîner.
La jeunesse en fa fleur brille fur fon visage,
Son menton fur fon fein defcend a double étage:
Et fon corps ramaffé dans fa courte groffeur,
Faits gémir les couffins foit fa molle épaiffeur +

*Compare with this the account of the Canon fed by his House-keeper, in Gil Blas.

+ Chant. i.

Dd

The

The astonishment of Gilotin, the treasurer's almoner, to find that his master intends to go out before dinner, is extremely natural; and his remonstrances are inimitably droll and pertinent.

Lui montre le peril: Que midi va fonner:
Qu'il va faire, f'il fort, refroidir le dîner.
Quelle fureur, dit-il, quel aveugle caprice,
Quand le diner eft preft, vous appelle a l'Office?
De votre dignitè foûtener mieux l'eclat.

Eft-ce

pour travailler que vous êtes Prélat?
A quoi bon ce dégoût et ce zelo inutile?
Eft-il donc pour jeuner Quatre temps, ou Vigile?
Reprenez vos efprits, et fouvenez-vous bien,
Qu'un diner rechauffé ne valut jamais rien

How admirably, is the character of an ignorant and eating priest, preserved in this speech of the fleek and pampered Canon Evrard, one of the drones, who,

In that exhaustless hive

On fat pluralities supinely thrive +!

Moi? dit-il, qu'a mon âge Ecolier tout noveau,

[blocks in formation]

O le plaifant confeil! non, non fongeons a vivre,
Va maigrir, fi tu veux, et fecher fur un Livre.
Pour moi je lis la Bible autant que l'Alcoran :
Je fai ce qu'un Fermier nous doit rendre par an:
Sur quelle vigne a Rheims nous avons hypotheque;
Vignt muids rangez chez moi font ma Bibliothoque.
En plaçant un Popitre on croit nous rabbaiffer,
Mon bras feul fans Latin faura le renverfer.

Que m'importe qu'Arnauld me condamne ou m'approuve?
J'abbats ce que me nuit par tout où je le trouve.
C'est la mon sentiment. A quoi bon tant d'apprêts?
Du refte déjeunons, Meffieurs, et beuvons frais *.

His knowledge of the rents of his church, and of the mortgages belonging to it, his fcorn of the pious and laborious Arnauld, his contempt of learning, and, above all, his ruling paffion of good-eating, are strokes highly comic. It is wonderful the ecclefiaftics of France were not as much irritated by the publication of the LUTRIN, as by the TARTUFFE of Moliere; which was fuppreffed by their intereft, after it had been acted a few nights: although at the fame time, a very profane farce was permitted to

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »