COUNT MATTEO MARIA, of a noble and illustrious house established at Ferrara, but originally from Reggio, was born at Scandiano, one of the seignorial estates of his family, near Reggio di Modena, about the year 1434, according to Tiraboschi, or 1420 according to Mazzucchelli. At an early age he entered the university of Ferrara, where he applied to his studies as regularly as if he had not been a person of quality, nor belonged to the privileged class. He acquired the Greek and Latin, and even the oriental languages, and was in due time admitted doctor in philosophy and in law. At the court of Ferrara, where he enjoyed the favour of Duke Borso d'Este and his successor Hercules, he was invested with several honourable employments, and in particular named governor of Reggio, an appointment which he held in the year 1478. Three years afterwards he was elected captain of Modena, and re-appointed governor of the town and citadel of Reggio, where he died in the year 1494, though in what month is uncertain. Almost all of his works, and especially his great poem of the Orlando Inamorato, were composed for the amusement of Duke Hercules and his court, though not written within its precincts. His practice, it is said, was to retire to Scandiano or some other of his estates, and there to devote himself to composition; and Castelvetro, Vallisneri, Mazzucchelli, and Tiraboschi, all unite in stating that he took care to insert in the descriptions of his poem those of the agreeable environs of his chateau, and that the greater part of the names of his heroes, as Mandricar, Gradasse, Sacripant, Agramant, and others, were merely the names of some of his peasants, which, from their uncouthness, appeared to him proper to be given to Saracen warriors. But be this as it may, the Orlando Inamorato deserves to be considered as one of the most important poems in Italian literature, since it forms the first example of the romantic epic worthy to serve as a model, and, as such, undoubtedly produced the Orlando Furioso. Gravina and Mazzucchelli have said, and succeeding writers have repeated on their authority, that Boiardo proposed to himself as his model the Iliad of Homer; that Paris is besieged like the city of Troy, that Angelica holds the place of Helen, and that, in short, the one poem is a sort of reflex image of the other. In point of fact, however, the subject-matter of the poem is derived from the Fabulous Chronicle of Turpin; and with the exception of the names of Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver, and some other principal warriors, who necessarily figure as important characters in the scene, there is not the least resemblance or analogy between the fable of the one and that of the other. This poem, which Boiardo did not live to finish, was printed at Scandiano the year after his death, under the superintendence of his son Count Camille. The title of the book is without date; but a Latin letter from Antonio Caraffa di Reggio, prefixed to the poem, is dated the kalends of June 1495. A second edition, also without date, but which must have been printed before the year 1500, appeared at Venice; and the poem was there twice reprinted during the first twenty years of the sixteenth century. These editions are the more curious and valuable, that they contain nothing but the text of the author, which is comprised in three books, divided into cantos, the third book being incomplete. But Niccolo degli Agostini, a mediocre poet, had the courage to continue the work commenced by Boiardo, adding to it three books, which were printed at Venice in 1526–1531, in 4to; and since this time no edition of the Orlando has been printed without the continuation of Agostini, wretched as it unquestionably is. Nor is this all. Successive rifacimenti were executed by Domenichi and Berni, who took prodigious liberties, especially with the style, which they chose to consider as feeble, and ill suited to the high qualities of the poem in other respects; and the consequence has been, that the original composition has been nearly overlaid by these innovations, and that the romantic epic invented by Boiardo is now almost universally read as remodelled by Berni. The other works of Boiardo are, 1. *Il Timone*, a comedy, Scandiano, 1500, 4to; 2. *Sonetti e Canzoni*, Reggio, 1499, 4to; 3. *Carmen Bacolicon*, Reggio, 1500, 4to; 4. *Cinque Capitolii in terza rima*, Venice, 1523 or 1533; 5. *Apulejo dell'Asino d'oro*, Venice, 1516, 1518; 6. *Asino d'oro de Luciano, tradotto in volgare*, Venice, 1523, 8vo; 7. *Erodoto Alicarnassico historico, tradotto di Greco in Lingua Italiana*, Venice, 1533 and 1538, 8vo; 8. *Rerum Italicae curarum Scriptores*. (Biographie Universelle; Tiraboschi, Storia della Letterat. Ital. lib. c. 3. sect. 26, 33; Crescembeni, tom. i. and iii.)

(J.B.—E.)

**BOILEAU-DESPRAUX**, NICOLAS, a celebrated French poet, born at Paris, or at Crousé, November 1, 1636. After he had gone through a course of literature and philosophy, his relations induced him to study the law, and he was admitted advocate at the age of twenty-one. But though he had all the talents necessary for the bar, he could not adapt himself to a science which turns upon continual equivocations, and often obliges those who follow it to clothe falsehood in the garb of truth; and it may be imagined that the dreamy tomes of Accursius and of Alciat afforded no congenial nourishment to the disciple of Horace and Juvenal. He accordingly deserted what his biographers call "l'antre de la chicane," and determined to study theology. He soon found, however, that scholastic divinity had its tricks and quirks as well as law; and imagined, that in order to allure him the more cunningly, chicaneery, which he thought to avoid, had only changed her habit. Renouncing, therefore, the Sorbonne, he applied himself entirely to the study of the belles-lettres, and soon occupied one of the most distinguished places on the French Parnassus. The public gave his works the reception they deserved; and Louis XIV. not only had Boileau's works read to him as they were composed, but settled a yearly pension of 2000 livres upon him, and gave him the privilege of printing all his works. He was afterwards chosen a member of the French academy, and also of the academy of inscriptions. This great man, who was as remarkable for his integrity, his innocence, and diffusive benevolence, as for the keenness of his satire, died of a dropsy in the chest on the 13th of March 1711, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.

The *Lutrin* of Boileau, still considered by some French critics as one of the best poems to which France has given birth, was first published in 1674. But it is with great reason and justice that Voltaire confesses it inferior to the *Rape of the Lock*. There are two actions recorded of Boileau, which sufficiently prove that the inexorable satirist had a most generous and friendly heart. When Patru, the celebrated advocate who was ruined by his passion for literature, found himself under the painful necessity of selling his extensive library, and had almost agreed to part with it for a moderate sum, Boileau tendered him a higher price; and, after paying the money, added this condition to the purchase, that Patru should retain, during his life, the possession of the books. Another instance of the poet's generosity is of a yet nobler character. When it was rumoured at court that the king intended to retrench the pension of Corneille, Boileau hastened to Madame de Montespan, and represented that his sovereign, equitable as he was, could not, without injustice, grant a pension to an author like himself; just ascending Parnassus, and withdraw it from Corneille, who had so long been seated on the summit; he entreated her, for the honour of the king, to prevail on his Majesty rather to strike off his pension than to withdraw that of a man whose title to that which he enjoyed was incomparably greater; and he declared that he could more easily console himself under the loss of that distinction, than under the affliction of seeing a just reward taken away from such a poet as Corneille. This magnanimous application had the success which it deserved; and it appears the more noble, that the rival of Corneille was the intimate friend of Boileau. The long and unrevealed intercourse which subsisted between Boileau and Racine was highly beneficial and honourable to both. The dying farewell of the latter is the most expressive eulogy on the private character of Boileau: "Je regarde comme un bonheur pour moi de mourir avant vous," said the tender Racine, in taking a final leave of his faithful and generous friend. As a satirist Boileau is inferior to Horace; but in his Epistles he almost equals his illustrious model; whilst in regularity of plan, felicity of transition, and a firm, sustained elegance of style, his *Art Poétique* will stand a comparison with the celebrated *Epistle to the Pisos*.

The works of Boileau consist of his *Satires*; his *Epistles*; his *Art of Poetry*, including his *Epigrams*, and some other pieces of French and Latin poetry; his *Dialogues on Poetry and Music*; a *Dialogue on the Heroes of Romance*; a translation of Longinus's *Treatise on the Sublime*, with critical *Reflections* on that author. The best edition of them, perhaps, is that with the notes and commentaries of M. Daunou, printed at Paris in 1803, in 3 vols. 8vo; but the edition of 1747 by Lefevre de Saint-Marc, in 5 vols. 8vo, with cuts, and accompanied with the remarks of Brossette, is the most recherché. His life has been written by Dessalineaux, Amst. 1712, 12mo.