The words are stately, the numbers smooth; the turn both of
thoughts and words is happy. The first six lines of the stanza seem
majestical and severe, but the two last turn them all into a
pleasant ridicule. Boileau, if I am not much deceived, has modelled
from hence his famous "Lutrin." He had read the burlesque poetry of
Scarron with some kind of indignation, as witty as it was, and found
nothing in France that was worthy of his imitation; but he copied
the Italian so well that his own may pass for an original. He
writes it in the French heroic verse, and calls it an heroic poem;
his subject is trivial, but his verse is noble. I doubt not but he
had Virgil in his eye, for we find many admirable imitations of him,
and some parodies, as particularly this passage in the fourth of the
AEneids -
"Nec tibi diva parens, generis nec Dardanus auctor,
Perfide; sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus, Hyrrcanaeque admorunt ubera tigres:"
which he thus translates, keeping to the words, but altering the
sense:-
"Non, ton pere a Paris, ne fut point boulanger:
Et tu n'es point du sang de Gervais, l'horloger;
Ta mere ne fut point la maitresse d'un coche;
Caucase dans ses flancs te forma d'une roche;
Une tigresse affreuse, en quelque antre ecarte,
Te fit, avec son lait, succer sa cruaute.
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