royal favors. He entered
the Academy on the 3d of July, 1684, immediately after La Fontaine. His
satires had retarded his election. "He praised without flattery; he
humbled himself nobly" says Louis Racine; "and when he said that
admission to the Academy was sure to be closed against him for so many
reasons, he set a-thinking all the Academicians he had spoken ill of in
his works." He was no longer writing verses when Perrault published his
_Parallele des anciens et desmodernes-. "If Boileau do not reply," said
the Prince of Conti, "you may assure him that I will go to the Academy,
and write on his chair, 'Brutus, thou sleepest.'" The ode on the capture
of Namur,--intended to crush Perrault whilst celebrating Pindar, not
being sufficient, Boileau wrote his _Reflexions sur Longin,_ bitter and
often unjust towards Perrault, who was far more equitably treated and
more effectually refuted in Fenelon's letter to the French Academy.

[Illustration: La Fontaine, Boileau, Moliere, and Racine----657]

Boileau was by this time old; he had sold his house at Auteuil, which was
so dear, but he did not give up literature, continuing to revise his
verses carefully, pre-occupied with new editions, and reproaching himself
for this pre-occupation. "It is very shameful," he would say, "to be
still busying myself, with rhymes and all those Parnassian trifles, when,
I ought to be thinking of nothing but the account I am prepared to go and
render to God." He died on the 13th of March, 1711, leaving nearly all
he had to the poor. He was followed to the tomb by a great throng. "He
had many friends," was the remark amongst the people, "and yet we are
assured that he spoke evil of everybody." No writer ever contributed
more than Boileau to the formation of poetry; no more correct or shrewd
judgment ever assessed the merits of authors; no loftier spirit ever
guided a stronger and a juster mind. Through all the vicissitudes
undergone by literature, and spite of the sometimes excessive severity of
his decrees, Boileau has left an ineffaceable impression upon the French
language. His talent was less effective than his understanding; his
judgment and his character have had more influence fluence than his
verses.

Boileau had survived all his friends. La Fontaine, born in 1621 at
Chateau-Thierry, had died in 1695. He had entered in his youth the
brotherhood of the Oratory, which he had soon quitted, being unable, he
used to say, to a