Racine more artful and refined,
Who touched with gentle woe the mind;
Who still profound attention draws,
And never breaks dramatic laws;
His lovers' parts with critic eye,
Remarks, but in them can't descry
Those various touches which in nature,
Distinguish character like feature:
In all the same perfections meet,
They're tender, gallant, and discreet;
And love whose power, o'er all prevails,
Believes them courtiers of Versailles:
La Fontaine, poet born to please,
By happy negligence and ease;
Whose careless style, with bold neglect,
Pleases us more than if correct.
Your own opinion freely tell
Of works, which in their kind excel:
We'd gladly be informed by you,
About your tales and fables too.
La Fontaine, who retained the simplicity of his character, and who in the Temple of Taste joined acuteness and penetration to that happy instinct, which inspired him during his life, blotted out some of his fables. He abridged almost all his tales, and tore the greater part of a collection of posthumous works, printed by those editors who live by the folly of the dead.
There Boileau reigned who taught his age,
By reason roused to satire's rage;
Who framed with care poetic laws,
And followed them with just applause:
