kind of petted child of the Pleiade. His
_Amours_ are prefaced by commendatory verses, among which compositions
of four out of the seven--Ronsard, Baif, Belleau and Jodelle--figure,
and he was as strenuous in carrying out the recommendations of Du
Bellay's _Illustration_ as any of the seven themselves. His _Amours_
just mentioned, his _Odes_, his _Gayetes_ even, testify to the obedient
admiration which young verse-writers often show for the leading poets of
their day. But there is no servile imitation in Magny. His life was
short, and the dates of its beginning and ending are not exactly known,
though he died in 1560. He was a lover of Louise Labe, and was worthy
of her, poetically speaking. He was born, like Marot, at Cahors; he went
to Rome, like many other literary men of his time, on a diplomatic
errand; and his works were all published between 1553 and his death. The
_Odes_ are the best of them; the _Gayetes_ are light and lively enough;
and in both his volumes of sonnets, but especially in the _Soupirs_,
excellent examples of the form are to be found. Magny had a strong
feeling for the formal art of poetry, and it was thus natural that he
should eagerly embrace the gospel of Ronsard. But besides this, he had a
true poetical imagination, and a real command of poetical language. A
sonnet in dialogue, which greatly attracted the admiration of Colletet,
the historian of French poetry in the next age, is perhaps not much more
than a _tour de force_. But many of his other pieces show real feeling,
and have a certain youthfulness about them which suits well with the
sentiments they express, and the ardour of literary as well as amatory
devotion which the poet endeavours to convey.

[Sidenote: Tahureau.]

Still younger and probably still more short-lived, but superior as a
poet, was Jacques Tahureau[199]. He was born at Le Mans of a noble
family, and died at the age of twenty-eight. But his life, if short, was
a happy one, and, like most of his contemporaries, he published a volume
of amatory sonnets under the title, gracefully affected even for that
age of graceful affectation, of _Mignardises Amoureuses de l'Admiree_.
Unlike many of the heroines of the Pleiade and their satellites, who are
either known or shrewdly suspected to have been imaginary, the _Admiree_
of Tahureau was a real person. What is more, he married her, and they
lived together for three years before his early death. Before the
_Mignardises_, he had p