When Fontenelle’s “Discours” was translated in 1695, the first phrase of it quoted above was translated as “those Pedants who profess a kind of Religion which consists of worshipping the Ancients” (p.294).  Fontenelle’s phrase more nearly than that of the English translator describes Rapin.  Though Rapin’s erudition was great, he escaped the quagmire of pedantry.  He refers most frequently to the scholiasts and editors in “The First Part” (which is so trivial that one wonders why he ever troubled to accumulate so much insignificant material), but after quoting them he does not hesitate to call their ideas “pedantial” (p. 24) and to refer to their statements as grammarian’s “prattle” (p. 11).  And, though at times it seems that his curiosity and industry impaired his judgment, Rapin does draw significant ideas from such scholars and critics as Quintilian, Vives, Scaliger, Donatus, Vossius, Servius, Minturno, Heinsius, and Salmasius.

Rapin’s most prominent disciple in England is Pope.  Actually, Pope presents no significant idea on this subject that is foreign to Rapin, and much of the language—­terminology and set phrases—­of Pope’s “Discourse” comes directly from Rapin’s “Treatise” and from the section on the pastoral in the Reflections.  Contrary to his own statement that he “reconciled” some points on which the critics disagree and in spite of the fact that he quotes Fontenelle, Pope in his “Discourse” is a neoclassicist almost as thoroughgoing as Rapin.  The ideas which he says he took from Fontenelle are either unimportant or may be found in Rapin.  Pope ends his “Discourse” by drawing a general conclusion concerning his Pastorals:  “But after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old authors, whose works as I had leisure to study, so I have not wanted care to imitate.”  This statement is diametrically opposed to the basic ideas and methods of Fontenelle, but in full accord with and no doubt directly indebted to those of Rapin.

The same year, 1717, that Pope ‘imitated’ Rapin’s “Treatise,” Thomas
Purney made a direct attack on Rapin’s neoclassic procedure.  In the
“Preface” to his own Pastorals he expresses his disapproval of
Rapin’s method, evidently with the second passage from Rapin quoted
above in mind: 
  Rapine’s Discourse is counted the best on this Poem, for ’tis
  the longest.  You will easily excuse my not mentioning all his
  Defects and Errors in this Preface.  I shall only say then, that
  instead of looking into the true Nature of the Pastoral Poem,
  and then judging whether Theocritus or any of his Followers
  have brought it to it’s utmost Perfection or not. Rapine
  takes it for granted that Theocritus and Virgil are
  infallible; and aim’s at nothing beyond showing the Rules which
  he thinks they observ’d.  Facetious Head! (Works, Oxford,
  1933, pp. 51-52.  The Peroy Reprints, No.  XII)