u de celle d'un bienfacteur."

The name of Boileau is too interesting to be overlooked. Many of his
letters and pages discover the delight he took in his garden at
_Auteuil_. In his epistle to _Lamoignon_, he describes his seat there as
his "bless'd abode," his "dear delicious shades," and he then paints the
pleasures of his country seat:

_Give me these shades, these forests, and these fields,
And the soft sweets that rural quiet yields;
Oh, leave me to the fresh, the fragrant breeze,
And let me here awhile enjoy my ease.
Let me Pomona's plenteous blessings crop,
And see rich autumn's ripen'd burden drop,
Till Bacchus with full clusters crowns the year,
And gladdens with his load the vintager._

His celebrated epistle to _Anthony_, his old gardener, not only shews
the kind master, but his own love to his garden. I cannot refrain from
quoting a few lines from Lempriere: "As a poet, Boilieu has deservedly
obtained the applauses of every man of genius and taste. Not only his
countrymen boast of the superior effusions of his muse, but foreigners
feel and admire the graces, the strength and harmony of his verse, and
that delicacy of satire, and energy of style, by which he raised himself
to immortality." Another of his biographers says: "La religion, qui
eclaira ses derniers momens, avoit anime toute sa vie." The author of
the Pursuits of Literature thus speaks of him: "The most perfect of all
modern writers, in true taste and judgment. His sagacity was unerring;
he combined every ancient excellence, and appears original even in the
adoption of acknowledged thoughts and allusions. He is the just and
adequate representative of Horace, Juvenal, and Perseus, united, without
one indecent blemish; and for my own part, I have always considered him
as the most finished gentleman that ever wrote." In his Life, translated
by Ozell, we are told, that "he was full of sentiments of humanity,
mildness, and justice. He censured vice, and sharply attacked the bad
taste of his time, without one spark of envy, or calumny. Whatever
shocked truth, raised in him an indignation which he could not master,
and which accounts for that energy and fire which pervades his satires.
The sight of any learned man in want, made him so uneasy, that he could
not forbear lending money. His good nature and justice did farther
appear in his manner of recompensing his domestics, and by his
liberality to the poor. He gave by his will