He began by thanking me at table for my present of Merlin Coccaeus.

"You certainly gave it me with good intentions," said he, "but I owe you
no thanks for praising it so highly, as you made me lose four hours in
reading nonsense."

I felt my hair stand on end, but I mastered my emotions, and told him
quietly enough that one day, perhaps, he would find himself obliged to
praise the poem more highly than I had done. I quoted several instances
of the insufficiency of a first perusal.

"That's true," said he; "but as for your Merlin, I will read him no more.
I have put him beside Chapelain's 'Pucelle'."

"Which pleases all the critics, in spite of its bad versification, for it
is a good poem, and Chapelain was a real poet though he wrote bad verses.
I cannot overlook his genius."

My freedom must have shocked him, and I might have guessed it when he
told me he had put the 'Macaronicon' beside the 'Pucelle'. I knew that
there was a poem of the same title in circulation, which passed for
Voltaire's; but I also knew that he disavowed it, and I thought that
would make him conceal the vexation my explanation must have caused him.
It was not so, however; he contradicted me sharply, and I closed with
him.

"Chapelain," said I, "has the merit of having rendered his subject-matter
pleasant, without pandering to the tastes of his readers by saying things
shocking to modesty and piety. So thinks my master Crebillon:"