CHAPTER XXXII

1.-21. les livres de morale et d'agrément, books on ethics, and composed for récréation.

1. 28. îe tour, le nombre, la propriété du style, élégance of construction, harmony, appropriateness of style.

1. 31. VI ais c'était tout. "Enfin Malherbe vint..." says Boileau : the merit of Malherbe consists less in his poetical talent than in the remarkable tact with which he reformée! the French language.

1. 34. rebelle entre leicrs mains. Notwithstanding Voltaire's assertion the speeches of L'Hôpital are monuments of excellent writing, although perhaps the author is too fond of metaphors.

Page 106.

1. I. qui avait fait le seul mérite..No\1'3\xçi% appréciation of mediseval and sixteenth centuiy authors, made from the point of view of what has been called f école classique, is singularly erroneous. We are amused at seeing him (i) put together in one category writers so différent from each other as Joinville, Amyot, Marot, &c., and (2) assign naïveté as their only literary nierit. What does Voltaire mean further by the irrégularité of thèse authors, and by their grossièreté? If the former of his grievances consists in their not having allowed themselves to be fettered by the pseudo-Aristotelic ruîes, we own that they acted most wisely ; as to the latter, if by grossièreté Voltaire meant that the French language of the middle âges and of the Renaissance period was barbarous, such an accusation proves that in common with most of his contemporaries, he knew nothing whatever of the subject he was talking about ; if, on the other hand, he was thinking of coarseness of ideas, the charge is, to say the least, a most extraordinary one when applied to Joinville.