Thou warden of the prison black, Who didst on heaven turn thy back, The chieftain of th' infernal war! To shun thy arrows and thy rack, A velvet road hath ESCOBAR. The verses of La Fontaine did more for his reputation than for his purse. His paternal estate wasted away under his carelessness; for, when the ends of the year refused to meet, he sold a piece of land sufficient to make them do so. His wife, no better qualified to manage worldly gear than himself, probably lived on her family friends, who were able to support her, and who seem to have done so without blaming him. She had lived with him in Paris for some time after that city became his abode; but, tiring at length of the city life, she had returned at Château-Thierry, and occupied the family mansion. At the earnest expostulation of Boileau and Racine, who wished to make him a better husband, he returned to Château-Thierry himself, in 1666, for the purpose of becoming reconciled to his wife. But his purpose strangely vanished. He called at his own house, learned from the domestic, who did not know him, that Madame La Fontaine was in good health, and passed on to the house of a friend, where he tarried two days, and then returned to Paris without having seen his wife. When his friends inquired of him his success, with some confusion he replied, "I have been to see her, but I did not find her: she was well." Twenty years after that, Racine prevailed on him to visit his patrimonial estate, to take some care of what remained. Racine, not hearing from him, sent to know what he was about, when La Fontaine wrote as follows:--"Poignant, on his return from Paris, told me that you took my silence in very bad part; the worse, because you had been told that I have been incessantly at work since my arrival at Château-Thierry, and that, instead of applying myself to my affairs, I have had nothing in my head but verses. All this is no more than half true: my affairs occupy me as much as they deserve to--that is to say not at all; but the leisure which they leave me--it is not poetry, but idleness, which makes away with it." On a certain occasion, in the earlier part of his life, when pressed in regard to his improvidence, he gaily produced the following epigram, which has commonly been appended to his fables as "The Epitaph of La Fontaine, written by Himself":-- Jean s'en alla comme il était venu, Mangea le fonds avec le revenu, Tint les trésors chose peu nécessaire. Quant à son temps, bien sut le dispenser: Deux parts en fit, don't il soûloit passer L'urie à dormir, et l'autre à ne rien faire. This confession, the immortality of which was so little foreseen by its author, liberally rendered, amounts to the following:-- John went as he came--ate his farm with its fruits, Held treasure to be but the cause of disputes; And, as to his time, be it frankly confessed, Divided it daily as suited him best,-- Gave a part to his sleep, and to nothing the rest.