ument the pen, so that he exhibits a most
amusing contrast of ardent feelings in a cool situation; not liberally
endowed with genius, but abounding with its semblance in the fire of
eccentric gasconade; no man has portrayed his own character with a
bolder colouring than himself, in his numerous prefaces and addresses;
surrounded by a thousand self-illusions of the most sublime class,
everything that related to himself had an Homeric grandeur of
conception.

In an epistle to the Duke of Montmorency, Scudery says, "I will learn to
write with my left hand, that my right hand may more nobly be devoted to
your service;" and alluding to his pen (_plume_), declares "he comes
from a family who never used one, but to stick in their hats." When he
solicits small favours from the great, he assures them "that princes
must not think him importunate, and that his writings are merely
inspired by his own individual interest; no! (he exclaims) I am studious
only of your glory, while I am careless of my own fortune." And indeed,
to do him justice, he acted up to these romantic feelings. After he had
published his epic of Alaric, Christina of Sweden proposed to honour him
with a chain of gold of the value of five hundred pounds, provided he
would expunge from his epic the eulogiums he bestowed on the Count of
Gardie, whom she had disgraced. The epical soul of Scudery magnanimously
scorned the bribe, and replied, that "If the chain of gold should be as
weighty as that chain mentioned in the history of the Incas, I will
never destroy any altar on which I have sacrificed!"

Proud of his boasted nobility and erratic life, he thus addresses the
reader: "You will lightly pass over any faults in my work, if you
reflect that I have employed the greater part of my life in seeing the
finest parts of Europe, and that I have passed more days in the camp
than in the library. I have used more matches to light my musket than to
light my candles; I know better to arrange columns in the field than
those on paper; and to square battalions better than to round periods."
In his first publication, he began his literary career perfectly in
character, by a challenge to his critics!

He is the author of sixteen plays, chiefly heroic tragedies; children
who all bear the features of their father. He first introduced, in his
"L'Amour Tyrannique," a strict observance of the Aristotelian unities of
time and place; and the necessity and advantages of this regulation