It is possible—as the historian of such a subject as this could wish that it were possible oftener—to do justice to Malherbe’s undoubtedly prominent position in the history of criticism without wasting much space on him. [Sidenote: _Malherbe._] The universally known phrase of Boileau,[294] though containing an innuendo of the grossest critical injustice, and led up to by a passage of astounding historical ignorance or falsification, is yet substantially true. The stage of French poetry which Malherbe started was a new stage; it was a stage not at once, but before long, acquiesced and persevered in by all but the whole population of the French Parnassus; and it cannot be said that seventy years of almost unceasing effort have done more than partially substitute a fresh one. Further, it is undoubtedly in favour of Malherbe, though the compliment may seem a left-handed one, that he was not a man of commanding genius in any way; that he left no important critical work; that his creative work is very scanty, far from consummate as a rule, and by no means all in the style he himself approved; and that even the secondhand accounts which we have of his doctrines are scrappy, vague, and indirect. For it is quite clear that a man who exercises such influence, and exercises it practically at once, in such circumstances, must have hit upon the right string, must have coincided strangely with the general feeling, temper, aspirations, taste of his countrymen. Our documents for these doctrines are an extensive, but fragmentary, commentary on Desportes (the still more destructive and characteristic handling of Ronsard seems either to be a myth or never to have been preserved on paper), the _Life_ by Racan,[295] some phrases in the _Letters_, the vivid and admirable attack of Regnier,[296] and the remarks of writers in his own and the next generation. ----- Footnote 294: _Enfin Malherbe vint._ The edition in the _Grands Ecrivains_, by M. Ludovic Lalanne (5 vols., Paris, 1862-69), is not only by far the best, but in our case indispensable, as giving the full commentary on Desportes. Footnote 295: The _Historiette_ of Tallemant (ed. Monmerqué, i. 236-278) is apparently based upon a fuller version of Racan, and must be compared. Footnote 296: In the Ninth Satire (_v. infra_). Regnier was Desportes’ nephew, and is said by the anecdotists (see last note) to have been incensed against Malherbe, not merely by the latter’s literary opposition to his uncle, but by a piece of gross rudeness of Malherbe’s to Desportes in the latter’s own house, where Regnier himself had introduced him. -----