uet, in a letter, and
Perrault trusts that great poets will follow his example, and write on
sacred subjects. Happily his example was not followed, _la raillerie et
l'amour_ possessing stronger attractions for minstrels, as Perrault
complains. He throws his stone at Comedy, which Bossuet notably disliked
and condemned. But this did not prevent Perrault, seven years later,
from writing little comedies of his own. _Saint Paulin_ is prettily
illustrated with vignettes on copper after Sebastien le Clerc, vignettes
much better than those which hardly decorate _Histoires ou Contes du
Tems passe_. An angel appearing to Saint Paulin in gardens exactly like
the parterres of Versailles is particularly splendid and distinguished.
As for the poem, 'qui eut assez de succes malgre les critiques de
quelques personnes d'esprit,' the story is not badly told, for the
legend of the Bishop has a good deal of the air of a _conte_, reclaimed
for sacred purposes. The _Ode aux Nouveaux Convertis_ is not a success.
Perrault comparing Reason to Faith, says that Reason makes the glories
beheld by Faith disappear, as the Sun scatters the stars. This was an
injudicious admission. The _Saint Paulin_ may be bought for two or three
francs, while the _Histoires ou Contes_, when last sold by public
auction in the original edition (Nodier's copy, at the Hamilton Sale,
May 1884), fetched L85. It is a commercial but not inaccurate test of
merit.

Perrault's _Memoires_ end just where they begin to be interesting. He
tells us how he read his poem _Le Siecle de Louis XIV_, to the Academy,
how angrily Boileau declared that the poem was an insult to the great
men of times past, how Huet took Perrault's side, how Boileau wrote
epigrams against him, how Racine pretended not to think him in earnest,
and how he defended himself in _Le Parallele des Anciens et des
Modernes_. Here close the Memoirs, and the hero of the great Battle of
the Books leaves its tale untold.

The quarrel is too old and too futile to require a long history.
Perrault's remarks on Homer, the cause of the war, merely show that
Perrault was quite out of sympathy with the heroic age and with heroic
song. He avers that, if a favourable Heaven had permitted Homer to be
born under Louis XIV, Homer would have been a much better poet.

'Cent defauts qu'on impute au siecle ou tu naquis
Ne profaneroient pas tes ouvrages exquis[2].'

Men of letters who were men of sense would have smiled and let