turns. Where any expression or construction is of such a nature, attention has been drawn to it in the Notes. La Fontaine's Fables were not written specially for the young. Indeed their subtle charm, to a great extent consisting in the perfection of the style, can hardly be appreciated by them. Yet both here and in France they are very generally read and learnt at home and in the junior forms of schools. No work can be better suited to extend a pupil's command of words, and the ease with which the verses can be remembered makes them a valuable means of retaining grammatical rules. An elaborate life and study of La Fontaine would be out of place here. Still, the author of the Fables was in every sense so remarkable a man, and holds so prominent a place in literature, that it is well to know the leading facts of his career. Jean de la Fontaine was born on the 8th of July 1621, in the little country town of Château-Thierry, in the province of Champagne. His father, who held an appointment in the Civil Service, belonged to the wellto-do middle class. La Fontaine was educated at home, and for a time read with a view to taking Holy Orders, an intention which he eventually abandoned. He was married in 1646-not a particularly well-selected union. In those days literature, even to an industrious and energetic writer, could hardly bring a livelihood. The patronage of some great person was needed. La Fontaine at first followed the fortunes of the ill-starred Fouquet, the great Finance Minister. In 1658 his father died, leaving him master of a small property, which he sold piecemeal, and holder of an appointment the duties of which he was alike unwilling and unable to perform. In 1664 the Duchess of Bouillon withdrew from the Court to Château-Thierry, and took La Fontaine back to Paris on her return thither. There he obtained the appointment of gentleman-in-waiting to Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchess of Orleans. The first collection of Contes et Nouvelles appeared in 1665, the first Fables in 1668, when the poet was 47 years old. In 1672 the duchess died, and La Fontaine found a kind and accomplished patroness in Mme. de la Sablière, in whose house he lived for twenty years. In 1683 he was elected a member of the French Academy, with the reluctant consent of King Louis XIV. The grand monarque was shocked by the want of decorum in La Fontaine's life, and was unable to see the true merit of his work. On the death of Mme. de la Sablière the poet was taken up by M. and Mme. d'Hervart, who kindly looked after him in his last years. He died, aged seventy-three, on the 13th of April 1695. The last of the Fables had been published in the previous year. The plot or 'skeleton' of the Fables is, as a rule, drawn from earlier sources. For instance, of the Fables contained in this selection, twenty-four (Fables iii., viii., ix., xii., xiv., xvi., xviii., xxi., xxv., xxvi., xxvii., xxix., xxxiv., xxxix., xliii., xliv., xlvi., xlviii., lii., liv., lx., lxi., lxii., lxx.) are drawn from Æsop; thirteen (i., iv., v., vi., X., XV., xix., xxxi., xxxiii., xxxv., li., lix., lxiii.) from Phædrus; twelve (ii., vii., xi., xiii., xvii., xxxii., xxxvi., xxxvii., xlii., xlv., lvii., lxviii.) have been treated by both fabulists. The remainder are derived from various other sources, chiefly medieval and Indian. It is interesting to notice how La Fontaine has, by the magic of his touch-curiosa felicitas-turned what was often a bald or a rhetorical account into a little drama sparkling with wit and good taste. A large collection of anecdotes, more or less founded on fact, but all probable enough, have clustered round La Fontaine's name and prove what an impression his personality made upon the circles in which he lived. They all combine to show his good humour, his love of ease, his hatred of worry and constraint, and his aversion to take any duty seriously. His literary life was always somewhat erratic and impulsive. He was not a learned man. He never knew Greek, and his knowledge of antiquity was superficial. But his easy simple ways, and, when he chose (for his fits of abstraction were probably more than half assumed), the unrivalled brilliancy of his conversation endeared him to the leading men of letters of the day, including Racine, Boileau, and Molière. At court he was never a favourite, and the King entirely failed to appreciate his worth. As a matter of fact, La Fontaine does not, as a writer, belong to the grand siècle. He really belongs to the preceding period, and is the literary child of Rabelais and Montaigne. A life of easy dependence, all unpleasant duties shirked or forgotten, all ordinary wants supplied without personal effort, plenty of bright and witty society, indulgent friends, a life of cultured indolence, of busy idleness, far removed from the clamour and strain and struggle of the world-all this was just suited to La Fontaine's temperament and intellect. To these circumstances are due, to a great extent, the ease, the abandon, and yet, at the same time, the correctness, the polish and tastefulness of his writings. MIDDLE TEMPLE, Jan. 1885. |