was the appellation which his friends pleasantly gave him, and by
which he became known everywhere;--and never did a man better deserve it
in its best sense. He was good by nature--not by the calculation of
consequences. Indeed it does not seem ever to have occurred to him that
kindness, gratitude, and truth, could have any other than good
consequences. He was truly a Frenchman without guile, and possessed to
perfection that comfortable trait,--in which French character is commonly
allowed to excel the English,--_good-humour_ with the whole world.

La Fontaine was the intimate friend of Moliere, Boileau, and Racine.
Moliere had already established a reputation; but the others became known
to the world at the same time. Boileau hired a small chamber in the
Faubourg Saint Germain, where they all met several times a week; for La
Fontaine, at the age of forty-four, had left Chateau-Thierry, and become
a citizen of Paris. Here they discussed all sorts of topics, admitting to
their society Chapelle, a man of less genius, but of greater
conversational powers, than either of them--a sort of connecting link
between them and the world. Four poets, or four men, could hardly have
been more unlike. Boileau was blustering, blunt, peremptory, but honest
and frank; Racine, of a pleasant and tranquil gaiety, but mischievous and
sarcastic; Moliere was naturally considerate, pensive, and melancholy; La
Fontaine was often absent-minded, but sometimes exceedingly jovial,
delighting with his sallies, his witty _naivetes_, and his arch
simplicity. These meetings, which no doubt had a great influence upon
French literature, La Fontaine, in one of his prefaces, thus
describes:--"Four friends, whose acquaintance had begun at the foot of
Parnassus, held a sort of society, which I should call an Academy, if
their number had been sufficiently great, and if they had had as much
regard for the Muses as for pleasure. The first thing which they did was
to banish from among them all rules of conversation, and everything which