because by writing in the mother tongue he escaped the contempt which quite naturally was poured on the later Latinists who had no enthusiasm but that of a repulsive pedantry. That contempt was extended to certain poets who do not altogether deserve it; and it would be only an act of justice for those who have admired the Pléiade to recognize that they could have hardly have existed without the previous work of men like Pontano, Navagero, Flaminio, Sannazaro and the Amalthei. Even our own Elizabethan lyric poetry, so superior to the French and Italian, is yet much under foreign influence. Happily, a lack of learning kept the Elizabethans fresh and vital; the truly conceited Italian manner did not strike root in this country. The poetry of Du Bellay is mid-way between the Italian and the English-fresher than the Italian, more pedantic than the English. But even Du Bellay in Rome could forget his books sometimes; and (while awaiting the day when it is discovered to be a translation) we may admire as his this sonnet from "Les Regrets "— Voicy le Carneval, menons chascun la sienne, Allons baller en masque, allons nous pourmener, Et voyons par le nez le sot bufle mener : . Et voyons au combat l'adresse Italienne : Et la fusee ardent' siffler menu par l'air. Là nous ferons l'amour, mais ce sera des yeux, III A SATIRIST AT THE COURT OF HENRI IV HERE exists no portrait of the courtier who THERE was one of the numerous satirists in the reign of Henri IV, the greatest among them being Maturin Régnier. This is not wholly unfortunate, because in reading these satires, which so often pass the vague limits of satire to become mere dirt or mere scolding, we can give a free range to fancy in trying to imagine what this extraordinary personage—a real Théophile Gautier " grotesque "-can have looked like. It would be positively disappointing if any portrait were to show him as different from the fantastic creatures imagined by Callot. He must surely have been thin, bony, and sharp, with pointed beard and moustachios, long legs, and large ugly hands, his face pale except for the nose-well lit up with copious visitations of sack and Alicantthe whole singular man dressed in tarnished finery and trailing a huge rapier. In short, the complete out-at-elbows French Catholic gentleman of Henri IV's civil wars. Sir Walter Scott-who knew everything in French and English literature and history-has sketched a Scotch counterpart to Sigogne in the person of Sir Mungo Malagrowther Nigel started when he heard the high, sharp, and querulous tones of the knight's cracked voice, and was no less alarmed when he beheld his tall, thin figure hobbling towards him, wrapped in a threadbare cloak, on whose surface ten thousand varied stains eclipsed the original scarlet. Sigogne to the life! For, like Sir Mungo, this acid old French courtier loved to humiliate by his sarcasms young, self-satisfied, and less experienced men. We know very little really of Sigogne's life in spite of the thoroughness of recent researches, and the usual mass of "documents" collected give us the satirist's character far less vividly than the anecdote of Bassompierre preserved by Tallemant des Réaux in the "Historiettes " A son avenement à la Cour, c'estoit après le siège d'Amiens, il tomba par malheur entre les mains de Sigogne, celuy qui a esté si satyrique. C'estoit un vieux renard qui estoit escuyer d'escurie chez le Roy; il vit ce jeune homme qui faisoit l'entendu ; il luy voulut abattre le caquet, et, faisant le provincial nouveau venu, il le pria niaisement de le vouloir presenter au Roy. Bassompierre crut avoir trouvé un innocent, et s'en joüer; il entra, et dit au Roy, en riant: "Sire, voicy un gentil homme nouvellement arrivé de la province qui désire faire la reverence à Vostre Majesté." Tout le monde se mit à rire, et le jeune monsieur fut fort desferré. Sigogne was not unsuccessful in a worldly way, but he was very extravagant and died very much in debt. His full name was "Charles Timoléon de Beauxoncles, seigneur de Sigogne, Rocheux, Oucque, Saint-Simon et autres lieux." He held posts at Court, and was finally Vice-Admiral of Normandy and Governor of Dieppe. He was born about 1560 and died soon after the assassination of his master, on April 16, 1611. His tomb in the church of Saint-Rémy at Dieppe was mutilated in the Revolution (1791), repaired subsequently, and is now used by the verger to store his lamps. Sigogne's verse is typical minor Renaissance satire; that is to say, it is more gross than witty, has no moral objective, real or pretended, and is chiefly admirable for its variety and force of abusive and disgusting epithet. The greatest exponent of this satire in the satirical age of Henry IV was Régnier, to whom the better productions of these minor writers like Sigogne were often attributed. Régnier is far superior to his contemporaries; he has more invention, more wit, more restraint, more genius, and he has the literary discipline, the power to organize his verve, which the other satirists of the age so palpably lack. But Régnier already shows the kind of Latinized satire which culminated in Boileau. Sigogne is more directly in the medieval French tradition, that incomparably fertile school |