Nicolas Boileau[232], who was long known in France as the 'Law-giver of Parnassus,' and who, perhaps, exercised a more powerful and lasting influence over the literature of his native country than any other critic has ever enjoyed, was born at Paris on All Saints' Day, 1636. His father held the post of registrar of one of the numerous courts of law, and his family had legal connections of wide range and long date. He himself was brought up to the law, but had not the least inclination for it; and at his father's death, which happened exactly when he attained his majority, his inheritance was considerable enough to allow him to do as he pleased. The family was a large one, and, according to a custom of the time, the brothers, or at least some of them, were distinguished by additional surnames. That which Nicolas took--Despreaux--was, at any rate during his youth, more frequently used than his patronymic, and has continued to be applied to him indifferently, thereby causing some odd blunders on the part of ignorant people. He himself sometimes signed Despreaux and sometimes Boileau-Despreaux. Besides law, he had also studied theology, and, though he never took orders, he enjoyed for a considerable time a priory at Beauvais, the profits of which, however, he returned when he definitely abandoned the idea of the church as a profession. He very early made attempts in literature, and when he was a man of seven- or eight-and-twenty, he joined La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere in the celebrated society of four. Social and literary criticism was even thus early his forte, and his first collections of Horatian satire were published in 1666, though, owing to the influence of Chapelain, the royal privilege was shortly after withdrawn from them. Boileau, however, soon became a great favourite with the king, as, though in actual conversation he retained his natural freedom of speech, he did not hesitate to use the most grovelling flattery of expression in verse. Pensions and places were given to him freely, so that, his own property being not inconsiderable, he was one of the few wealthy men of letters of the day. He was kept out of the Academy for some time by the fact that he had libelled half its members and was unpopular with the other half, but the royal influence at last got him in in 1684. In his later years the morose arrogance, which was his chief characteristic, increased on him, and was doubtless aggravated by the bad health from which he suffered during the whole of his long life. He died in 1711, having outlived all his friends except Louis himself.