166 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

The society of madame de la Sabliere comprisedprinces, nobles, poets, and philosophers. She cultivatedscience as well as literature, — but in secret. Bernier,who also had an apartment in her house, gave La Fon-taine some notions in natural philosophy. It was underthis influence, whilst his head was filled with physicalscience, that he wrote his poem on Jesuits ’ bark (LeQuinquina) — a dull production, on a barren subject;which, however, was not then quite so uninviting as itmay appear now. Bark had just performed what weredeemed marvellous cures on Louis XIV. and Colbert,and it was sold by the Jesuits at its weight in gold.Colbert had the littleness to be unjust to La Fontaine ;but the poet had the magnanimity to be just to theminister. He alludes to him in this poem in a tone ofmanly, independent, and merited praise.

La Fontaine added considerably to the number of hisfables and tales, and wrote several dramatic pieces,whilst he lived under the roof of madame de la Sabliere.His dramas, chiefly operas and light comedies, with anattempt or two at tragedy, are below mediocrity. Hewanted the dramatic instinct. There are scenes of easygraceful dialogue, but strung together without art orinterest. Some were written by him in partnershipwith the comedian Champmele, husband of the cele-brated actress of that name, who played in the trage-dies and figures in the life of Racine, and in the lettersof madame de Sevigne . It is told of him that, whilstsitting in the pit, during the first performance of oneof his own operas, he fell asleep ! But this is too much,even for La Fontaine ; and it should not be forgotten,that an opera was the cause of the only satire he everwrote, and of one of the only two quarrels he ever had.The celebrated Lulli obtained his easy promise to writehim an opera on the story of Daphne, teased himuntil it was completed, and then capriciously adoptedthe “ Proserpine” of Quinault. La Fontaine, now anold man, or, as he called himself, “ un enfant a barbegrise ,” a child with a grey beard, knew, for the first