[53] Those “able men” were the dramatist Jean Racine (1639-1699) and the satirist Nicolas Boileau Despréaux (1636-1711). [54] Zoilus, a Greek grammarian, flourished about 356-336 B.C., and assailed Homer, Plato, Isocrates, and other Greek authors with merciless severity. [55] According to all the “Keys,” this is said to be an allusion to the Abbé de Dangeau (1643-1723), a member of the French Academy, and a brother of the better known marquis. But why and wherefore this Abbé has been singled out, has not reached posterity. Some say the President Cousin, the editor of the _Journal des Savants_, was meant. [56] Ζηλωτής means “envious.” [57] In his _Recueil de divers ouvrages en prose et en vers_, 1676, Charles Perrault defended the _Alceste_ of Quinault and attacked the _Alcestis_ of Euripides. Unfortunately his criticism contained several errors, which Racine noticed in the preface of _Iphigénie_, accusing Perrault at the same time of having carelessly read the work he was censuring. [58] This was meant for Henri-Joseph de Peyre, Count de Troisvilles (1642-1708), pronounced Tréville, a very intelligent and highly-cultivated nobleman, brought up in his youth with Louis XIV., whose talents he rather undervalued. He was on intimate terms with the Port-Royalists, and after several alternate fits of devotion and dissipation, ended his days devoutly and penitently. [59] The Abbé de Dangeau, a pedantical purist mentioned already, page 13, note. [60] In the seventeenth century fireworks were in French _feu gréçois_, literally “Greek fire.” [61] The _Cid_, the dramatic masterpiece of Pierre Corneille, was first performed in 1636. Cardinal Richelieu tried to get up a cabal to crush it, but was unsuccessful; he also persuaded the Academy to publish a severe criticism on it, which is too favourably spoken of by La Bruyère. Boileau says in his ninth satire:— “En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue, Tout Paris pour Chimère a les yeux de Rodrigue. LʼAcadémie en corps a beau le censurer, Le public révolté sʼobstine à lʼadmirer.” [62] _Courageux_ and _courage_ were not seldom used in the seventeenth century for “heartfelt” and “heart,” whilst _main dʼouvrier_, “hand of a workman,” was sometimes employed instead of _main de maître_, “hand of a master.” [63] The dramatist Edme Boursault (1638-1701) had had a literary quarrel with Boileau, who attacked him in his ninth _Satire_, to which Boursault replied by his comedy _La Satire des Satires_. But they had been reconciled more than a year before the “Characters” were published. [64] Father Bouhours (1628-1702), a literary Jesuit of some reputation and talent, published in 1689 his _Pensées ingénieuses des anciens et des modernes_, in which he several times praised the “Characters.” La Bruyère, not to be behind-hand, inserted the learned fatherʼs name in his fifth edition, published in 1690.