But except for this, and for fashion's sake, they did not contain much that would appeal to an English taste: and it is a little significant that one great reader of them who is known to us--Mrs.Pepys--was a Frenchwoman.

Indeed, save for the very considerable "pastime" of a kind that they gave to a time, much of which required passing, it is difficult to understand their attraction for English readers.

Their interminable talk never (till perhaps very recently) was a thing to suit our nation: and the "key" interest strikes us at any rate as of the most languid kind.

But they _were_ imitated as well as translated: and the three most famous of the imitations are the work of men of mark in their different ways.

These are the _Parthenissa_ (1654) of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill and Earl of Orrery; the _Aretina_ (1661) of Sir George Mackenzie; and the _Pandion and Amphigeneia_ (1665) of "starch Johnny" Crowne.
Boyle was a strong Francophile in literature, and his not inconsiderable influence on the development of the heroic _play_ showed it only less decidedly than his imitation of the Scudery romance.