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such a revolution in the literary taste of his countrymen as has been accomplished by few works of a more imposing form, and which may be considered as the basis of the dramatic glory of Molière, and the dawn of good comedy in France. This epoch was the commencement of that brilliant period in French literature which is so well known as the age of Louis the Fourteenth; and yet it was distinguished by such a puerile, meretricious taste, as is rarely to be met with except in the incipient stages of civilization, or in its last decline. The cause of this melancholy perversion of intellect is mainly imputable to the influence of a certain coterie of wits, whose rank, talents, and successful authorship had authorized them, in some measure, to set up as the arbiters of taste and fashion. This choice assembly, consisting of the splenetic Rochefoucault; the bel-esprit Voiture; Balzac, whose letters afford the earliest example of numbers in French prose; the lively and licentious Bussy; Rabutin; Chapelain, who, as a wit has observed, might still have had a reputation had it not been for his "Pucelle;" the poet Bensérade; Ménage, and others of less note; together with such eminent women as Madame Lafayette, Mademoiselle Scudéri (whose eternal romances, the delight of her own age, have been the despair of every other), and even the elegant Sévigné, was accustomed to hold its réunions principally at the Hotel de Rambouillet, the residence of the marchioness of that name, and which, from this circumstance, has acquired such ill-omened notoriety in the history of letters.