[Footnote 3:  is]

[Footnote 4:  Dominique Bouhours, a learned and accomplished Jesuit, who died in 1702, aged 75, was a Professor of the Humanities, in Paris, till the headaches by which he was tormented until death compelled him to resign his chair.  He was afterwards tutor to the two young Princes of Longueville, and to the son of the minister Colbert.  His best book was translated into English in 1705, as

’The Art of Criticism:  or the Method of making a Right Judgment upon Subjects of Wit and Learning.  Translated from the best Edition of the French, of the Famous Father Bouhours, by a Person of Quality.  In Four Dialogues.’

Here he says: 

’Truth is the first Quality, and, as it were, the foundation of Thought; the fairest is the faultiest, or, rather, those which pass for the fairest, are not really so, if they want this Foundation ...  I do not understand your Doctrine, replies Philanthus, and I can scarce persuade myself that a witty Thought should be always founded on Truth:  On the contrary, I am of the opinion of a famous Critic (i.e.  Vavassor in his book on Epigrams) that Falsehood gives it often all its Grace, and is, as it were, the Soul of it,’

&c., pp, 6, 7, and the following.]

[Footnote 5:  As in the lines

  Tout doit tendre au Bon Sens:  mais pour y parvenir
  Le chemin est glissant et penible a tenir.

‘Art.  Poetique’, chant 1.

And again,

  Aux depens du Bon Sens gardez de plaisanter.

‘Art.  Poetique’, chant 3.]

[Footnote 6:  Dedication of his translation of the ‘AEneid’ to Lord Normanby, near the middle; when speaking of the anachronism that made Dido and AEneas contemporaries.]

[Footnote 7:  Jean Regnauld de Segrais, b. 1624, d. 1701, was of Caen, where he was trained by Jesuits for the Church, but took to Literature, and sought thereby to support four brothers and two sisters, reduced to want by the dissipations of his father.  He wrote, as a youth, odes, songs, a tragedy, and part of a romance.  Attracting, at the age of 20, the attention of a noble patron, he became, in 1647, and remained for the next 24 years, attached to the household of Mlle. de Montpensier.  He was a favoured guest among the Precieuses of the Hotel Rambouillet, and was styled, for his acquired air of bon ton, the Voiture of Caen.  In 1671 he was received by Mlle. de La Fayette.  In 1676 he married a rich wife, at Caen, his native town, where he settled and revived the local ‘Academy.’  Among his works were translations into French verse of the ‘AEneid’ and ‘Georgics’.  In the dedication of his own translation of the ‘AEneid’ by an elaborate essay to Lord Normanby, Dryden refers much, and with high respect, to the dissertation prefixed by Segrais to his French version, and towards the end (on p. 80 where the essay occupies 100 pages), writes as above quoted.  The first parenthesis is part of the quotation.]