II.

TO MADAME DE GRIGNAN.

PARIS, Sunday, April 26, 1671.

This is Sunday, April 26, and this letter will not go out till Wednesday; but it is not so much a letter as a narrative that I have just learned from Moreuil of what passed at Chantilly with regard to poor Vatel. I wrote to you last Friday that he had stabbed himself. These are the particulars of the affair: The king arrived there on Thursday night; the walk and the collation, which was served in a place set apart for the purpose, and strewed with jonquilles, were just as they should be. Supper was served, but there was no roast meat at one or two of the tables on account of Vatel's having been obliged to provide several dinners more than were expected. This affected his spirits, and he was heard to say several times,

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"I have lost my fame! I cannot bear this disgrace!" My head is quite bewildered," said he to Gourville. "I have not had a wink of sleep these twelve nights; I wish you would assist me in giving orders."

Gourville did all he could to comfort and assist him; but the failure of the roast meat (which, however, did not happen at the king's table, but at some of the other twenty-five) was always uppermost with him. Gourville mentioned it to the prince [Condé], who went directly to Vatel's room and said to him, "Everything is extremely well conducted, Vatel; nothing could be more admirable than his Majesty's supper. "Your Highness's goodness," replied he, "overwhelms me; I am aware that there was a deficiency of roast meat at two tables."

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"Not at all," said the prince; "do not worry yourself, and all will go well."

Midnight came; the fireworks did not succeed, they were covered with a thick cloud; they cost sixteen thousand francs. At four o'clock in the morning Vatel went round, and found everybody asleep; he met one of the under purveyors, who had just come in with only two loads of fish.

"What!" said he, "is that all?"

"Yes, sir," said the man, not knowing that Vatel had dispatched other people to all the seaports round. Vatel waited for some time; the other purveyors did not arrive; his head

grew distracted; he thought there was no more fish to be had; he flew to Gourville; "Sir," said he, "I cannot outlive this disgrace."

Gourville laughed at him. Vatel went up to his room, set the hilt of his sword against the door, and, after two ineffectual attempts, succeeded in the third in forcing the sword through his heart: he fell dead. At that instant the carriers arrived with the fish; Vatel was inquired after to distribute it. People went to his room, knocked at the door, broke it open, and found him weltering in his blood. They ran to acquaint the prince, who was in despair. The duke wept, for his Burgundy journey depended upon Vatel. The prince related the whole affair to his Majesty with an expression of great concern. It was considered as the consequence of too nice a sense of honor; some blamed, others praised him for his courage. The king said he had put off this excursion for more than five years, because he was aware that it would be attended with infinite trouble, and told the prince that he ought to have had but two tables, and not have been at the expense of so many, and declared he would never suffer him to do so again; but all this was too late for poor Vatel.

However, Gourville endeavored to supply the loss of Vatel, which he did in great measure. The dinner was elegant, the collation was the same. They supped, they walked, they hunted; all was perfumed with jonquilles, all was enchant

ment.

Yesterday, which was Saturday, the entertainments were renewed, and in the evening the king set out for Liancourt, where he had ordered a media-noche [a hearty meal of meat, eaten just after the stroke of midnight, when a feast day succeeds a fast day]; he is to stay there three days. This is what Moreuil has told me, hoping I should acquaint you with it. I wash my hands of the rest, for I know nothing about it. M. d'Hacqueville, who was present at the scene, will no doubt give you a faithful account of all that passed; but because his handwriting is not quite so legible as mine, I write too. If I am circumstantial, it is because on such an occasion I should like circumstantiality myself.

THE ART OF POETRY.

BY BOILEAU.

[NICHOLAS BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX, French critic and poet, was born at Paris, November 1, 1636. He studied law and theology at Beauvais, but appears to have devoted himself entirely to authorship, among his friends being Racine, Molière, and La Fontaine. His first works were a series of seven satires (16601665, collected 1666); some twenty editions were issued in two years, and revolutionized French canons of literary art. To the attack on them he replied in two others (1669). In 1674 he published a volume containing "The Art of Poetry (L'Art Poétique), "The Lectern" (Le Lutrin), a mock-heroic poem, and "Epistles," which placed him in the foremost rank of French writers. In 1677 he received a pension of two thousand livres and an appointment as joint historiographer, with Racine, to Louis XIV.; and in 1684 entered the French Academy at the expressed desire of the king. He published also a collection of epigrams. His last years were passed in retirement at Auteuil, where he died March 13, 1711.]

CANTO I.

RASH author, 'tis a vain presumptuous crime
To undertake the sacred art of rime;

If at thy birth the stars that ruled thy sense
Shone not with a poetic influence,

In thy strait genius thou wilt still be bound,
Find Phoebus deaf, and Pegasus unsound.
You, then, that burn with a desire to try
The dangerous course of charming poetry,
Forbear in fruitless verse to lose your time,
Or take for genius the desire of rime;
Fear the allurements of a specious bait,
And well consider your own force and weight.
Nature abounds in wits of every kind,

And for each author can a talent find;
But authors, that themselves too much esteem,
Lose their own genius, and mistake their theme:
Whate'er you write of pleasant or sublime,
Always let sense accompany your rime;
Falsely they seem each other to oppose,
Rime must be made with reason's laws to close;
And when to conquer her you bend your force,
The mind will triumph in the noble course;
To reason's yoke she quickly will incline,
Which, far from hurting, renders her divine;
But if neglected, will as easily stray,
And master reason, which she should obey.

Most writers mounted on a resty muse,
Extravagant and senseless objects choose;
They think they err, if in their verse they fall
On any thought that's plain or natural.
Fly this excess; and let Italians be
Vain authors of false glittering poetry.

All ought to aim at sense: but most in vain
Strive the hard pass and slippery path to gain;
You drown, if to the right or left you stray;
Reason to go has often but one way.

Sometimes an author, fond of his own thought, Pursues its object till it's overwrought:

If he describes a house, he shows the face,
And after walks you round from place to place;
Here is a vista, there the doors unfold,
Balconies here are balustered with gold;
Then counts the rounds and ovals in the halls,
"The festoons, friezes, and the astragals."
Tired with his tedious pomp, away I run,
And skip o'er twenty pages, to be gone.
Of such descriptions the vain folly see,
And shun their barren superfluity.
All that is needless carefully avoid;
The mind once satisfied is quickly cloyed.

He cannot write who knows not to give o'er,
To mend one fault he makes a hundred more:
A verse was weak, you turn it much too strong,
And grow obscure for fear you should be long;
Some are not gaudy, but are flat and dry;
Not to be low, another soars too high.

Would you of every one deserve the praise?
In writing vary your discourse and phrase;
A frozen style, that neither ebbs nor flows,
Instead of pleasing, makes us gape and doze.
Those tedious authors are esteemed by none,
Who tire us, humming the same heavy tone.
Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe !
His works will be admired wherever found,
And oft with buyers will be compassed round.

In all you write be neither low nor vile;
The meanest theme may have a proper style.
The dull burlesque appeared with impudence,
And pleased by novelty in spite of sense;
All, except trivial points, grew out of date;

Parnassus spoke the cant of Billingsgate;
Boundless and mad, disordered rime was seen;
Disguised Apollo changed to Harlequin.
This plague, which first in country towns began,
Cities and kingdoms quickly overran ;
The dullest scribblers some admirers found,
And the Mock Tempest was awhile renowned.
But this low stuff the town at last despised,
And scorned the folly that they once had prized,
Distinguished dull from natural and plain,
And left the villages to Flecknoe's reign.
Let not so mean a style your muse debase,
But learn from Butler the buffooning grace,
And let burlesque in ballads be employed.
Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid,

Nor think to raise, though on Pharsalia's plain,
"Millions of mourning mountains of the slain."
Nor, with Dubartas, "bridle up the floods,
And periwig with wool the baldpate woods."
Choose a just style. Be grave without constraint,
Great without pride, and lovely without paint.

Write what your reader may be pleased to hear, And for the measure have a careful ear;

On easy numbers fix your happy choice;

Of jarring sounds avoid the odious noise;
The fullest verse, and the most labored sense,
Displease us if the ear once take offense.

Our ancient verse, as homely as the times,
Was rude, unmeasured, only tagged with rimes;
Number and cadence, that have since been shown,
To those unpolished writers were unknown.
Fairfax was he, who, in that darker age,
By his just rules restrained poetic rage;
Spenser did next in pastorals excel,

And taught the noble art of writing well,
To stricter rules the stanza did restrain,

And found for poetry a richer vein.

Then Davenant came, who, with a new-found art,
Changed all, spoiled all, and had his way apart;
His haughty muse all others did despise,
And thought in triumph to bear off the prize,
Till the sharp-sighted critics of the times
In their Mock Gondibert exposed his rimes,
The laurels he pretended did refuse,
And dashed the hopes of his aspiring muse.