Popular Tales

The quarrel is too old and too futile to require a long history. Perrault's remarks on Homer, the cause of the war, merely show that Perrault was quite out of sympathy with the heroic age and with heroic song. He avers that, if a favourable Heaven had permitted Homer to be born under Louis XIV, Homer would have been a much better poet.

'Cent défauts qu'on impute au siècle où tu naquis Ne profaneroient pas tes ouvrages exquis[2].'

Men of letters who were men of sense would have smiled and let Perrault perorate. But men of letters are rarely