Between the lyric spirit of the poet, and the energy of the declaimer, La Fontaine's dormant faculty was suddenly excited. For some days he could think of nothing but the odes of Malherbe. He read them, recited them, spoke of them, with an unconscious and comic disregard of time, place, and persons. He commenced immediately writing odes in imitation of his great idol; and the happy father, on beholding his first essay, wept for joy. But if La Fontaine had written nothing else, or if he had always adhered to the same model, he would have left only the proofs of his own mediocrity, and of his father's want of taste. The choice of Malherbe was as unhappy a mistake of his peculiar genius as his previous destination had been of his character. That poet's forced thoughts and lofty diction are directly opposed to the simple graces of expression and imagination which characterise La Fontaine. He fortunately discovered his mistake, and the secret of his strength, chiefly through the advice of a judicious friend. This was a man of cultivated mind, named Pintrel, translator of the letters of Seneca. His name and his translation would doubtless have sunk into oblivion, were they not thus associated with the early studies of La Fontaine, who, ever grateful to the memory of his guide and friend, republished the forgotten translation. La Fontaine's modern reading was hitherto confined to Malherbe,--his education, to just as much or as little Latin as was requisite for his admission to a religious order. Pintrel recommended to him the abandonment of Malherbe and verse-making for a time, and the studious perusal of Virgil, Horace, Terence, Livy, and Quintilian. He adopted this judicious counsel, and improved at the same time his knowledge of the Latin language and his taste. Horace, he long afterwards declared, in a letter to the learned Huet, bishop of Avranches, saved him from being spoiled by Malherbe.