Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/81

SAINT-AMANT 65 received from the Queen of Poland, with the profits of his works, which were highly esteemed before Boi- leau's time, with the friendship of the Due d'Arpajon, the various members of the family De Retz, and many other great lords, we find it hard to believe that he was in that deep indigence generally attributed to him by several satires." We know that he re-issued his works in 165 1, a pretty sure sign of their continued popularity. About 1656, following the fashion of the time, he undertook a "Map of the Land of Reason." In 1658 appeared La Genereuse, a poem. It is said that the glass- works failed, but we know not when. It is also said that some years before his death the troubles in Poland stopped his pension from the queen. He left some fragments of a poem, " Joseph and his Brothers in Egypt." There is a story that " he founded his hopes of the future " on a poem in honour of the king. He had certainly once promised, in his most modest fashion, to write such a poem, com- paring the exploits of the king to those of Samson, " wherein I will display as much strength of genius as he had vigour in his arms." Is not that in the truly great style ! But the story in question relates that the poem in question was entitled, "The Speak- ing Moon " {La Lune Parlante) ; that it was written in honour of the birth of the Dauphin ; that it com- plimented Louis XIV. on his swimming; that the king could not endure the reading of it ; and that the author did not long survive this disgrace. Now the Dauphin was born ist November 1661, and Saint- Amant died on the 29th December, so that the death certainly came soon after the birth. But, on the one £