Easy or facile not only signifies something easily done, but also something which seems to be easy . Correggio's brushwork is facile . Quinaut's style is much more facile than that of Despréaux, as Ovid's style surpasses in facility that of Perseus. This ease in Painting, Music, Eloquence, Poetry, consists of a natural felicity that does not admit any studied elegance, and that might surpass it in strength and profundity. In this manner, Paul Veronese's paintings appear more facile and less finished than those of Michelangelo. Rameau's symphonies are superior to those of Lully, and appear less facile . Bossuet is truly more eloquent and more facile than Flechier. Rousseau's Epistles did not approach the facility and truth found in those of Despréaux. Despréaux's commentator says this precise and hard-working poet had learned from the illustrious Racine to write difficult verses; and those which appear facile are those which were made with most difficulty. It is very true that it often takes much work to express oneself with clarity: it is true that naturalness may be achieved through effort; but it is also true that a fortunate genius often produces facile beauties with little effort, and that enthusiasm travels further than art. The majority of impassioned pieces from our great poets flowed from their pens fully formed, and appear all the more facile because composed, in fact, with little difficulty: the imagination thus conceives and gives birth with ease . It is not the same with didactic works: this is where effort is needed to appear easy . There is, for example, much less ease than profundity in Pope's admirable Essay on Man. It is easy to write really bad works that won't tax the reader at all, that will appear simple , and it falls to the lot of those without genius the unfortunate habit of writing them. It is in this sense that a character of the old so-called "Italian" theatre says to another:

The term easy is an insult for a woman: sometimes in society it is a form of praise for a man: it is sometimes a flaw in a statesman. Atticus's morals were easy , he was the most lovable of the Romans. The easy Cleopatra gave herself to Anthony as easily as to Caesar. The easy Claudius allowed himself to be governed by Agrippina. Easy, as it relates to Claudius, is nothing but a euphemism; the proper word is weak . An easy man has, in general, a disposition that lends itself easily to reason, to remonstrance; a heart which allows itself to bend to prayers: and weak is he who allows over himself too great an imposition of authority.