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.  His satires had retarded his election.  “He praised without flattery; he humbled himself nobly” says Louis Racine; “and when he said that admission to the Academy was sure to be closed against him for so many reasons, he set a-thinking all the Academicians he had spoken ill of in his works.”  He was no longer writing verses when Perrault published his Parallele des anciens et desmodernes-.  “If Boileau do not reply,” said the Prince of Conti, “you may assure him that I will go to the Academy, and write on his chair, ‘Brutus, thou sleepest.’” The ode on the capture of Namur,—­intended to crush Perrault whilst celebrating Pindar, not being sufficient, Boileau wrote his Reflexions sur Longin,_ bitter and often unjust towards Perrault, who was far more equitably treated and more effectually refuted in Fenelon’s letter to the French Academy.

[Illustration:  La Fontaine, Boileau, Moliere, and Racine——­657]

Boileau was by this time old; he had sold his house at Auteuil, which was so dear, but he did not give up literature, continuing to revise his verses carefully, pre-occupied with new editions, and reproaching himself for this pre-occupation.  “It is very shameful,” he would say, “to be still busying myself, with rhymes and all those Parnassian trifles, when, I ought to be thinking of nothing but the account I am prepared to go and render to God.”  He died on the 13th of March, 1711, leaving nearly all he had to the poor.  He was followed to the tomb by a great throng.  “He had many friends,” was the remark amongst the people, “and yet we are assured that he spoke evil of everybody.”  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 fluence than his verses.

Boileau had survived all his friends.  La Fontaine, born in 1621 at Chateau-Thierry, had died in 1695.  He had entered in his youth the brotherhood of the Oratory, which he had soon quitted, being unable, he used to say, to accustom himself to theology.  He went and came between town and town, amusing himself everywhere, and already writing a little.

    “For me the whole round world was laden with delights;
     My heart was touched by flower, sweet sound, and sunny day,
     I was the sought of friends and eke of lady gay.”