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Longuerue had profound erudition; but he decided on poetry in the same manner as those learned men. Nothing so strongly characterises such literary men as the following observations in the Longueruana, p. 170.

“There are two books on Homer, which I prefer to Homer himself. The first is Antiquitates Homericae of Feithius, where he has extracted everything relative to the usages and customs of the Greeks; the other is, Homeri Gnomologia per Duportum, printed at Cambridge. In these two books is found everything valuable in Homer, without being obliged to get through his Contes a dormir debout!” Thus men of science decide on men of taste! There are who study Homer and Virgil as the blind travel through a fine country, merely to get to the end of their journey. It was observed at the death of Longuerue that in his immense library not a volume of poetry was to be found. He had formerly read poetry, for indeed he had read everything. Racine tells us, that when young he paid him a visit; the conversation turned on poets; our erudit reviewed them all with the most ineffable contempt of the poetical talent, from which he said we learn nothing. He seemed a little charitable towards Ariosto.–“As for that madman,” said he, “he has amused me sometimes.” Dacier, a poetical pedant after all, was asked who was the greater poet, Homer or Virgil? he honestly answered, “Homer by a thousand years!”

But it is mortifying to find among the anti-poetical even poets themselves! Malherbe, the first poet in France in his day, appears little to have esteemed the art. He used to say that “a good poet was not more useful to the state than a skilful player of nine-pins!” Malherbe wrote with costive labour. When a poem was shown to him which had been highly commended, he sarcastically asked if it would “lower the price of bread?” In these instances he maliciously confounded the useful with the agreeable arts. Be it remembered, that Malherbe had a cynical heart, cold and unfeeling; his character may be traced in his poetry; labour and correctness, without one ray of enthusiasm.

Le Clerc was a scholar not entirely unworthy to be ranked amongst the Lockes, the Seldens, and the Longuerues; and his opinions are as just concerning poets. In the Parhasiana he has written a treatise on poets in a very unpoetical manner. I shall notice his coarse railleries relating to what he calls “the personal defects of poets.” In vol. i. p. 33, he says, “In the Scaligerana we have Joseph Scaliger’s opinion concerning poets. ‘There never was a man who was a poet, or addicted to the study of poetry, but his heart was puffed up with his greatness.’–This is very true. The poetical enthusiasm persuades those gentlemen that they have something in them superior to others, because they employ a language peculiar to themselves. When the poetic furor seizes them, its traces frequently remain on their faces, which make connoisseurs say with Horace,

Aut insanit homo, ant versus facit.

There goes a madman or a bard!

“Their thoughtful air and melancholy gait make them appear insane; for, accustomed to versify while they walk, and to bite their nails in apparent agonies, their steps are measured and slow, and they look as if they were reflecting on something of consequence, although they are only thinking, as the phrase runs, of nothing!” I have only transcribed the above description of our jocular scholar, with an intention of describing those exterior marks of that fine enthusiasm, of which the poet is peculiarly susceptible, and which have exposed many an elevated genius to the ridicule of the vulgar.

I find this admirably defended by Charpentier: “Men may ridicule as much as they please those gesticulations and contortions which poets are apt to make in the act of composing; it is certain, however, that they greatly assist in putting the imagination into motion. These kinds of agitation do not always show a mind which labours with its sterility; they frequently proceed from a mind which excites and animates itself. Quintilian has nobly compared them to those lashings of his tail which a lion gives himself when he is preparing to combat. Persius, when he would give us an idea of a cold and languishing oration, says that its author did not strike his desk nor bite his nails.”