The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born at Château Thierry, in France, 1621. Died in Paris, 1695. Aged 74.] A great French poet! His fables in verse, published when he was forty years of age, placed him at once amongst the first writers in verse that France had produced, and created an epoch in French literature. As a writer of fables he is probably not surpassed by any writer of any country. His life was full of vicissitudes. He succeeded his father, as Keeper of the Royal Domains at Château Thierry, but deserting both his wife and his occupation, he went to Paris, where he formed a lasting friendship with Molière, Racine, and Boileau. A pension saved him from starvation; and losing this with the fall of the Minister, Fouquet, who gave it, he was again rescued by the charity of Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I., and wife to the Duke of Orleans. Upon the death of this princess, he was again fortunately provided for by Madame de Sablière, in whose house the poet lived for twenty years. In society, La Fontaine was dull, silent, and subject to absence of mind. In his youth he was remarkable for his aversion to poetry. He lies buried by the side of Molière, who ever regarded him with affection, and who discovered his genius years before it was acknowledged by the world. His style is easy, sprightly, graceful, witty, pointed, and inimitably naïve. [This is from the bust in terra cotta in the Théâtre Français, by Caffieri. It has served as the authority for that by Dessine, at Versailles, and the statue in the Vestibule of the Admirals, by M. Seurre, done in 1837. Unfortunately, none of these could have been modelled from the life.] 220A. JEAN DE LA FONTAINE. _Poet._ [By Auguste Dumont.]