To such vile slavery you refused to bend,
Your time you gave to study, and a friend;
And in your nature were at once combined,
A tender heart, and philosophic mind."
Among these wits we met some Jesuits. A Jansenist would say upon this that the Jesuits intrude everywhere, but the God of Taste receives their enemies too; and it is diverting to see in this Temple Bourdaloue conversing with Pascal upon the great art of uniting eloquence and close reasoning. Father Bouhours stands behind them, setting down in his pocketbook all the improprieties and inelegances of language which escape them. The cardinal could not help addressing Father Bouhours thus:
The care each little fault to spy,
That pedants diligence lay by;
Let us in eloquence respect
Each careless phrase and bold defect.
Were I to choose, I should prefer
Wild genius, and like great men err,
Rather than be the wight who dwells
On syllables, who scans and spells.
This reprimand was expressed in terms, much more polite than those which I have made use of; but we poets are sometimes guilty of deviations from good breeding for the sake of a rhyme. When I visited this temple my attention was not entirely engaged by the wits.
Harmonious verse and prose refined,
To you alone I'm not confined;
I scorn a taste that's fixed on parts,
And now invoke all pleasing arts.
