viality is indeed
noticeable, and the tendency of the middle ages to perpetuate favourite
forms and models is by no means got rid of. But much that was useless
has been discarded, and of what is left a defter and more distinctly
literary use is made. Had French remained as Marot left it, it would
indeed have been unequal to the expression of the noblest thoughts, the
gravest subjects, to the treatment and exposition of intricate and
complicated problems of life and mind. But in his hands it attained
perhaps the perfection of usefulness as an exponent of the pure _esprit
gaulois_, to use a phrase which has been tediously abused by French
writers, but which is expressive of a real fact in French history and
French literature. It had been suppled and pointed: it remained for it
to be weighted, strengthened, and enriched. This was not the appointed
task of Marot and his contemporaries, but of the men who came after
them. But what they themselves had to do they did, and did it well. To
this day the lighter verse of France is more an echo of Clement Marot
than of any other man who lived before the seventeenth century, and,
with the exception of his greater follower, La Fontaine, of any man who
came after him at any time[177].

FOOTNOTES:

[165] _De_ Belges, though the less usual, is the more accurate form. We
are at length promised a complete edition of him in the admirable series
of the Belgian Academy, one of the best in appearance and editing, and
by far the cheapest of all such series. He was born in 1475, held posts
in the household of the Governors of the Netherlands, was
historiographer to Louis XII., and died either in 1524 or in 1548.

[166] See _Poetes Francais_, i. 532. It is perhaps well to say that M.
C. d'Hericault, though a very agreeable as well as a very learned
writer, is particularly open to the charge that his geese are swans.

[167] Ed. C. d'Hericault. Paris, 1855.

[168] See _Poetes Francais_, vol. i. _ad fin._, for the poets mentioned
in this paragraph and others of their kind.

[169] He was in his old age conspicuous among the enemies of Etienne
Dolet. See _Etienne Dolet_, by R. C. Christie. London, 1880.

[170] Ed Jannet et C. d'Hericault. 4 vols. Paris, 2nd ed. 1873. M.
d'Hericault has prefixed a much larger study of Marot than is to be
found here to his edition of the 'beauties' of the poet, published by
Messrs. Garnier. The late M. Guiffrey published two volumes of a costly
and splendid edi