Note 391 — Chapter I · FROM MALHERBE TO BOILEAU. (continued 2)

Chap. vii. In the preceding chapter there is one of those sentences which ruin this kind of criticism, by and of themselves. “Games are of the number of those actions which may occur in the lives of heroes.” Most certainly: but one feels that Rapin said it simply because there are games in Homer and Virgil, and that, if there had not been, he would probably have said, “Games are not,” &c.