in France
Congreve could count on an audience's recognizing a reference to it. In
the _Double Dealer_ (II, ii) Brisk says to Lady Froth: "I presume your
ladyship has read _Bossu_?" The reply comes with the readiness of a
_cliche_: "O yes, and _Rapine_ and _Dacier_ upon _Aristotle_ and
_Horace_." A quarter of a century later Dacier's reputation was still
great enough to allow Charles Gildon to eke out the second part of his
_Complete Art of Poetry_ (1718) by translating long excerpts from the
Preface to the "admirable" Dacier's Aristotle.[1] Addison ridiculed the
pedantry of Sir Timothy Tittle (a strict Aristotelian critic) who
rebuked his mistress for laughing at a play: "But Madam," says he, "you
ought not to have laughed; and I defie any one to show me a single rule
that you could laugh by.... There are such people in the world as
_Rapin_, _Dacier_, and several others, that ought to have spoiled your
mirth."[2] But the scorn is directed at the pupil, not the master, whom
Addison considered a "true critic."[3] A work so much esteemed was
certain to be translated, and so in 1705 an English version by an
anonymous translator was published.

It cannot be claimed that Dacier's Aristotle introduced any new critical
theories into England. Actually it provides material for little more
than an extended footnote on the history of criticism in the Augustan
period. Dacier survived as an influence only so long as did a respect
for the rules; and he is remembered today merely as one of the
historically important interpreters--or misinterpreters--of the
_Poetics_.[4] He was, however, the last Aristotelian formalist to affect
English critical theory, for the course of such speculation in the next
century was largely determined by other influences. None the less, his
preface and his commentary are worth knowing because they express
certain typically neo-classical ideas about poetry, especially dramatic
poetry, which were acceptable to many men in England and France at the
end of the seventeenth century. Dacier's immediate and rather special
influence on English criticism may be observed in Thomas Rymer's
proposal to introduce the chorus into English tragedy and in the
admiration which the moralistic critics at the turn of the century felt
for his theories.

In the very year of its publication Rymer read with obvious approbation
Dacier's _Poetique d'Aristote_. In the preface to _A Short View of
Tragedy_ (1692) he announced that "we