1660-67;
the first nine of the epistles to the years 1669-77; three satires
and three epistles may be described as belated. The year 1674 is
memorable as that in which were published _L'Art Poetique_ and the
first four _chants_ of _Le Lutrin_.

The genius of Boileau was in a high degree intellectual, animated
by ideas; but it is an error to suppose that a sensuous element is
absent from his verse. It is verse of the classical school, firm and
clear, but it addresses the ear with a studied harmony, and what
Boileau saw he could render into exact, definite, and vivid expression.
His imagination was not in a large sense creative; he was wholly
lacking in tenderness and sensibility; his feeling for external
nature was no more than that of a Parisian bourgeois who enjoys for
a day the repose of the fields; but for Paris itself, its various
aspects, its life, its types, its manners, he had the eye and the
precise rendering of a realist in art; his faithful objective touch
is like that of a Dutch painter. As a moralist, he is not searching
or profound; he saw too little of the inner world of the heart, and
knew too imperfectly its agitations. When, however, he deals with
literature--and a just judgment in letters may almost be called an
element in morals--all his penetration and power become apparent.

To clear the ground for the new school of nature, truth and reason
was Boileau's first task. It was a task which called for courage and
skill. The public taste was still uncertain. Laboured and lifeless
epics like Chapelain's _La Pucelle_, petty ingenuities in metre like
those of Cotin, violence and over-emphasis, extravagances of
sentiment, faded preciosities, inane pastoralisms, gross or vulgar
burlesques, tragedies languorous and insipid, lyrics of pretended
passion, affectations from the degenerate Italian literature,
super-subtleties from Spain--these had still their votaries. And the
conduct of life and characters of men of letters were often unworthy
of the vocation they professed. "La haine d'un sot livre" was an
inspiration for Boileau, as it afterwards was for our English satirist
Pope; and he felt deeply that dignity of art is connected with dignity
of character and rectitude of life--"Le vers se sent toujours des
bassesses de coeur." He struck at the follies and affectations of
the world of letters, and he struck with force: it was a needful duty,
and one most effectively performed. Certain of the Epistles, which