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They act in the sanie manner with regard to letters, and this genius of imitation and mimickry, peculiar to them above any other people present or past, drew ali the critics, poeta and writers of every ki^^witbcmt any reserve into the opinion of a man so great as Boileau was; and ali threw themselves upon the Italians with this gre^i leader at the head of the army.
Thus our language, which through caprice and fashion was in the time of Lewis XIII an idol adored by the French, became in the same manner an object of ridicule and contempt in the beginning oX-th€^eign of Lewis XIV.
Father Bouhoujs, a Jesuit who understood our language as well as Boileau, ^d quoting the verses of Boiardo (after having lamed them with his bad translations) attributed them to Ariosto, wrote an elegant but most impertinent dialogue in French against the Italians. The undescerning marquis John Joseph Orsi g^ve himself the trouble to answer him and wrote against the’Jesuit a large volume of reasons mixed with fiorentine invectives (’), which Bouhours could not understand. The jesuit journalists of Trévoux turned the pedantic bulky apology of the marquis into ridicule without reading it, and to conclude the enchantment of French pride operating upon French ignorance was so strong, that caprice itself hath not yet had force enough to break it.
Such was the rise and progress of that ill-grounded contempt the French bave for the Italians and the tvne spring of ali that cold scurrility which monsieur de Voltaire, when he was in England some years ago, threw out in his Essay against us and against a language and works which he ought to bave better studied, and better understood than to judge of them with half-shut eyes. His unjust censures will dishonour his taste and discernment in the opinion of posterity, notwithstanding the many good things he hath written in his own language.
Since I bave sppken-ses^much of Marini, I will quote bere a passage of \\\^’^ Adone , tp give a specimen of that character of his poetry which I bave endeavoured to exhibit. In the
(i) Dialogo di Ciancione e Baione, ecc.
