Louis Racine (1692-1763), son of the author of _Athalie_, in his versified discourses on _La Grace_ and _La Religion_ was devout and edifying, but with an edification which promotes slumber. If a poet in sympathy with the philosophers desired to edify, he described the phenomena of nature as Saint-Lambert (1716-1803) did in his _Saisons_--"the only work of our century," Voltaire assured the author, "which will reach posterity." To describe meant to draw out the inventory of nature's charms with an eye not on the object but on the page of the Encyclopaedia, and to avoid the indecency of naming anything in direct and simple speech. The _Seasons_ of Saint-Lambert were followed by the _Months_ (_Mois_) of Roucher (1745-94)--"the most beautiful poetic shipwreck of the century," said the malicious Rivarol--and by the _Jardins_ of Delille (1738-1813). When Delille translated the _Georgics_ he was saluted by Voltaire as the Abbe Virgil.[1] The _salons_ heard him with rapture recite his verses as from the tripod of inspiration. He was the favourite of Marie-Antoinette. Aged and blind, he was a third with Homer and Milton. In death they crowned his forehead, and for three days the mourning crowd gazed on all that remained of their great poet. And yet Delille's _Jardins_ is no better than a patchwork of carpet-gardening, in which the flowers are theatrical paper-flowers. If anything lives from the descriptive poetry of the eighteenth century, it is a few detached lines from the writings of Lemierre. [Footnote 1: Or was this Rivarol's ironical jest?] The successor of J.-B. Rousseau in the grand ode was Ecouchard Lebrun (1729-1807), rival of Pindar. All he wanted to equal Pindar was some forgetfulness of self, some warmth, some genuine enthusiasm, some harmony, a touch of genius; a certain dignity of imagination he exhibits in his best moments. If we say that he honoured Buffon and was the friend of Andre Chenier, we have said in his praise that which gives him the highest distinction; yet it may be added that if he often falsified the ode, he, like Rousseau, excelled in epigram. It was not the great lyric but _le petit lyrisme_ which blossomed and ran to seed in the thin poetic soil. The singers of fragile loves and trivial pleasures are often charming, and as often they are merely frivolous or merely depraved. Grecourt; Piron; Bernard, the curled and powdered Anacreon; Bernis, Voltaire's "Babet la Bouquetiere," King Frederick's poet of "sterile abundance"; Dorat, who could flutter at times with an airy grace; Bertin, born in the tropics, and with the heat of the senses in his verse; Parny, an estray in Paris from the palms and fountains of the Isle Bourbon, the "dear Tibullus" of Voltaire--what a swarm of butterflies, soiled or shining!