Before his time, those kind of itinerant authors, called troubadours or romanciers, were a species of madmen who attracted the admiration of fools.  Toward the end of Cardinal de Richelieu’s reign, and the beginning of Lewis XIV.’s, the Temple of Taste was established at the Hotel of Rambouillet; but that taste was not judiciously refined this Temple of Taste might more properly have been named a Laboratory of Wit, where good sense was put to the torture, in order to extract from it the most subtile essence.  There it was that Voiture labored hard and incessantly to create wit.  At length, Boileau and Moliere fixed the standard of true taste.  In spite of the Scuderys, the Calprenedes, etc., they defeated and put to flight ARTAMENES, Juba, Oroondates, and all those heroes of romance, who were, notwithstanding (each of them), as good as a whole Army.  Those madmen then endeavored to obtain an asylum in libraries; this they could not accomplish, but were under a necessity of taking shelter in the chambers of some few ladies.  I would have you read one volume of “Cleopatra,” and one of “Clelia”; it will otherwise be impossible for you to form any idea of the extravagances they contain; but God keep you from ever persevering to the twelfth.

During almost the whole reign of Lewis XIV., true taste remained in its purity, until it received some hurt, although undesignedly, from a very fine genius, I mean Monsieur de Fontenelle; who, with the greatest sense and the most solid learning, sacrificed rather too much to the Graces, whose most favorite child and pupil he was.  Admired with reason, others tried to imitate him; but, unfortunately for us, the author of the “Pastorals,” of the “History of Oracles,” and of the “French Theatre,” found fewer imitators than the Chevalier d’Her did mimics.  He has since been taken off by a thousand authors:  but never really imitated by anyone that I know of.

At this time, the seat of true taste in France seems to me not well established.  It exists, but torn by factions.  There is one party of petits maitres, one of half-learned women, another of insipid authors whose works are ‘verba et voces, et praeterea nihil’; and, in short, a numerous and very fashionable party of writers, who, in a metaphysical jumble, introduce their false and subtle reasonings upon the movements and the sentiments of the soul, the heart, and the mind.

Do not let yourself be overpowered by fashion, nor by particular sets of people with whom you may be connected; but try all the different coins before you receive any in payment.  Let your own good sense and reason judge of the value of each; and be persuaded, that nothing can be beautiful unless true:  whatever brilliancy is not the result of the solidity and justness of a thought, it is but a false glare.  The Italian saying upon a diamond is equally just with regard to thoughts, ’Quanto Piu sodezza, tanto piu splendore’.