not long afterwards, he died
in 1544.

Marot's work is sufficiently diverse in form, but the classification of
it adopted in the convenient edition of Jannet is perhaps the best,
though it neglects chronology. There are some dozen pieces of more or
less considerable length, among which may specially be mentioned _Le
Temple de Cupido_, an early work of _rhetoriqueur_ character for the
most part, in dizains of ten and eight syllables alternately, a Dialogue
of two Lovers, an Eclogue to the King; _L'Enfer_, a vigorous and
picturesque description of his imprisonment in the Chatelet, and some
poems bearing a strong Huguenot impression. Then come sixty-five
epistles written in couplets for the most part decasyllabic. These
include the celebrated _Coq-a-l'Ane_, a sort of nonsense-verse, with a
satirical tendency, which derives from the mediaeval _fatrasie_, and was
very popular and much imitated. Another mediaeval restoration of
Marot's, also very popular and also much imitated, was the _blason_, a
description, in octosyllables. Twenty-six elegies likewise adopt the
couplet, and show, as do the epistles, remarkable power over that form.
Fifteen ballades, twenty-two songs in various metres, eighty-two
rondeaux, and forty-two songs for music, contain much of Marot's most
beautiful work. His easy graceful style escaped the chief danger of
these artificial forms, the danger of stiffness and monotony; while he
was able to get out of them as much pathos and melody as any other
French poet, except Charles d'Orleans and Villon. Numerous _etrennes_
recall the _Xenia_ of Martial, and funeral poems of various lengths and
styles follow. Then we have nearly three hundred epigrams, many of them
excellent in point and elegance, a certain number of translations, the
Psalms, fifty in number, certain prayers, and two versified renderings
of Erasmus' _Colloquies_.

It will be seen from this enumeration that the majority of Marot's work
is what is now called occasional. No single work of his of a greater
length than a few hundred lines exists; and, after his first attempts in
the allegorical kind, almost all his works were either addressed to
particular persons, or based upon some event in his life. Marot was
immensely popular in his lifetime; and though after his death a
formidable rival arose in Ronsard, the elder poet's fame was sustained
by eager disciples. With the discredit of the Pleiade, in consequence of
Malherbe's criticisms, Marot's