M. de Puimorin replied: 'Qu'il n'avoit que
trop su' lire, depuis que Chapelain s'etoit avise de faire imprimer.'
A new horror had been added to the accomplishment of reading since
Chapelain had published. This repartee was applauded, and M. de Puimorin
tried to turn it into an epigram. He did complete the last couplet,

Helas! pour mes peches, je n'ai su' que trop lire
Depuis que tu fais imprimer.

But by no labour would M. de Puimorin achieve the first two lines of his
epigram. Then you remember what great allies came to his assistance. I
almost blush to think that M. Despreaux, M. Racine, and M. de Moliere,
the three most renowned wits of the time, conspired to complete the poor
jest, and madden you. Well, bubble as your poetry was, you may be proud
that it needed all these sharpest of pens to prick the bubble. Other
poets, as popular as you, have been annihilated by an article. Macaulay
puts forth his hand, and 'Satan Montgomery' was no more. It did not need
a Macaulay, the laughter of a mob of little critics was enough to blow
into space; but you probably have met Montgomery, and of contemporary
failures or successes I do not speak.

I wonder, sometimes, whether the consensus of criticism ever made you
doubt for a moment whether, after all, you were not a false child of
Apollo? Was your complacency tortured, as the complacency of true poets
has occasionally been, by doubts? Did you expect posterity to reverse
the verdict of the satirists, and to do you justice? You answered your
earliest assailant, Liniere, and, by a few changes of words, turned his
epigrams into flattery. But I fancy, on the whole, you remained calm,
unmoved, wrapped up in admiration of yourself. According to M. de
Marivaux, who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits of the mighty dead,
you 'conceived, on the strength of your reputation, a great and serious
veneration for yourself and your genius.' Probably you were protected by
this invulnerable armour of an honest vanity, probably you declared that
mere jealousy dictates the lines of Boileau, and that Chapelain's real
fault was his popularity, and his pecuniary success, Qu'il soit le mieux
rente de tous les beaux-esprits.

This, you would avow, was your offence, and perhaps you were not
altogether mistaken. Yet posterity declines to read a line of yours,
and, as we think of you, we are again set face to face with that eternal
problem, how far is popularity a test of poetry? Burns was a poet,