[40] M. de La Bruyère adopts the chronology of Suidas, a Greek lexicographer who flourished during the latter end of the eleventh century; according to the Hebrew chronology the world had only existed 5692 years when the “Characters” were first published in 1688. [41] _Abile_ in the original, in the sense of the English word “able,” and used as a noun, was already then considered antiquated. [42] _Sentiment_, in the original, was during the seventeenth century not seldom employed in French for “opinion,” as “sentiments” are at present in English. [43] This magistrate is said to have been Pierre Poncet de la Rivière, Count dʼAblys (1600-1681), a barrister, a councillor of state, and member of the royal council of finances, whose absurd moral treatise, _Considérations sur les avantages de la vieillesse dans la vie chrétienne, politique, civile, économique et solitaire_, was published under the pseudonym of the Baron de Prelle, in the month of August 1677, about one month before the death of the Lord Chancellor dʼAligre, and more than three months before President Lamoignonʼs decease. [44] At that time so-called collections of anecdotes, such as _Boléana_, _Ménagiana_, and _Segraisiana_, were greatly in vogue. [45] It is said that the great dramatic poet Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) is alluded to as one of those poets. [46] All the “Keys” pretend this is a hit at the “Dictionary of the Academy,” and they may be right; for the Dictionary, only published in 1694, six years after the “Characters” first saw the light, had been expected for more than forty years. But most likely La Bruyère was thinking of the tragedy-ballet of _Psyché_ (1671), words by Pierre Corneille and Molière, music by Quinault and Lulli; of the opera which in 1680 Racine and Boileau, joint _historiographes_ of Louis XIV., began, and which never saw the light; and of the newly-acted _Idylle sur la Paix_ and the _Eglogue de Versailles_ (1685), written by Quinault, Racine, and Molière. [47] Even in La Bruyèreʼs lifetime doubts were already expressed about the Iliad being written by Homer. [48] This Roman orator was Cicero. [49] La Bruyère adds in a footnote: “Even merely considered as an author.” [50] Almost every one felt during the seventeenth century a dislike for Gothic architecture. [51] Probably Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757) is meant here. This author had made excellent classical studies in a Jesuit college, but attacked the ancients in his _Discours sur LʼEglogue_ and in his _Digression sur les anciens et les modernes_, published together with his _Poésies Pastorales_ in 1688. The paragraph beginning “A man feeds” and ending “nurses” was only printed for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689. [52] It is generally thought that Charles Perrault (1628-1703), a member of the French Academy, is alluded to, but this seems more than doubtful.