He died of dropsy on the chest, on the 13th of March, 1711, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was buried in the lower chapel of the Sainte Chapelle, immediately under the spot which, in the upper chapel, is immortalised by his "Lutrin." Numerous friends attended the funeral; and one among them overheard a woman say, "He had many friends, it seems, yet I have heard that he spoke ill of everybody." This is an exaggeration of what may be considered as the only flaw in Boileau's character:--generous and charitable; simple and natural in his manners; full of friendship, kindness, and integrity; we almost hesitate to pronounce severity of criticism against bad books a fault; but we cannot avoid perceiving that the ridicule he has attached to the names of Chapelain, Cotin, and others, however well deserved by their writings, might have been spared to the men. It reminds us too strongly of the anonymous critics of the present day not to be held in detestation. It is not necessary to enter at length on the subject of his works. He possessed to a high degree the faculty of wit; generally speaking wit simply, not humour[95]: point the most acute, expressions the most happy, embody and carry home his meaning. He is not as elegant as Horace, nor as bitter nor as elevated as Juvenal: he indeed resembles the former more than the latter; but he has vivacity and truth, and a high tone of moral and critical feeling, which give strength to his epigrams; his principal defect being the want of a playful fancy, which caused a sort of aridity to be spread over his happiest sallies. He laboured to polish his verses diligently; and their apparent ease results from the justness of taste that taught him to retrench every superfluity of expression. The "Lutrin" rises superior to his other productions; and in these days, and for posterity, his fame will chiefly rest upon that poem. [Footnote 78: The place of his birth and the date have been disputed. Critics have decided on the farts above given. The doubt partly originated in Boileau himself. Louis XIV. one day asked him his age; he replied, "I came into the world a year before your majesty, that I might announce the glories of your reign." The reply pleased the king, and was applauded by the courtiers; nor did Boileau err much in the fact; for, being born as late in the year as December, he was scarcely more than a year older than the king, though the date of that monarch's birth was 1638.]