Boileau's works consist of twelve satires, of the same number of epistles, of an _Art Poetique_, of the _Lutrin_, a serio-comic poem, of two odes, and of three or four score epigrams and miscellaneous pieces in verse, with a translation of Longinus on the Sublime, some short critical dissertations, and a number of letters in prose. With the exception of the _Lutrin_ it will be observed that almost all his poetical work is very closely modelled on Horace. His satire is extremely clever, but, as necessarily happens when the frame and manner of one time are used for the circumstances of another, it is altogether artificial. The Horatian satire is nothing if not personal, and as Boileau (even more than Pope, who strongly resembles him) had a bad heart, his personalities are unusually reckless and offensive. Thus in a couplet against parasites he inserted at one time the name of Colletet (son of the Colletet mentioned above), at another that of Pelletier, though both were notoriously free from the vice, and guilty of no fault except poverty and a disposition to produce indifferent verse. Boileau's crusade, too, against the minor poets of his day was unfortunately followed by his own production of a ridiculous ode, excellently burlesqued by Prior, on the taking of Namur in 1692 by the French. This, with certain pieces of Young's, is perhaps the most glaring example extant of how a writer of great talent and literary skill may combine the basest flattery with the most abjectly bad verse. But where he confined himself to his proper sphere, Boileau exhibited no small power. He was, in fact, a slashing reviewer in verse, and there has rarely been so effective a practitioner of the craft. Narrow as was his idea of poetry, it was perfectly clear and precise, and, as his pupil Racine showed, he could teach it to others with the most striking success. _Le Lutrin_, too, is a poem which, in a rather trivial kind, is something of a masterpiece. Its subject, the quarrel of a chapter of ecclesiastics about the position of a _lutrin_ (lectern), afforded Boileau plenty of opportunity for introducing that sarcasm on the upper middle classes which was his forte; the verse is polished and correct, the satire, though rather facile and conventional, agreeable enough. His satires and epistles are full of striking traits evidently studied from the life, but he is always personal and almost always artificial, never rising to the large satiric conception of Regnier or of Dryden. So, too, most of the stories which are recorded of him (and they are many) are stories of ill-natured remarks. In his heart of hearts he knew and acknowledged the greatness of Corneille, yet formally and in public he could not refrain from directing unjust satire at the veteran whose masterpieces had been produced when he was in his cradle, in order to exalt his own pupil Racine, whom he privately owned to be simply a very clever and docile rhymester.