Villanelle 'J'ai
perdu ma Tourterelle' is probably the most elegant specimen of a
poetical trifle that the age produced, and has of late years attracted
great admiration. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, a lawyer, the author of an
Art of Poetry, and of the first satires, so called, in French, had a
good deal of poetical power, which he expended chiefly on pastoral
subjects; but unfortunately his command of language and style was by no
means always equal to his command of fresh and agreeable imagery and
sentiment.

[Sidenote: Du Bartas.]

Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas[200], the 'Protestant Ronsard,' was born
in 1544 at Montfort, near Auch, served Henry of Navarre in war and
diplomacy, was wounded at Ivry, and died of his wounds in 1590. His
first work was _Judith_; then followed _La Premiere Semaine_, and next
_Uranie_, _Le Triomphe de la Foi_, and the _Seconde Semaine_. He also
wrote numerous smaller poems, including one on the battle of Ivry. The
'First Week of Creation' is his greatest and most famous work. It went
through thirty editions in a few years; was translated into English by
Sylvester, gave not a little inspiration to Milton, and was warmly
admired by Goethe. Ronsard at first eagerly welcomed Du Bartas; but his
jealousy being aroused by the pretensions of the Calvinist party to set
up their poet as a rival to himself, he resented this in an indignant
and vigorous address to Daurat, which contains some very just criticisms
on Du Bartas. Nevertheless the merits of the latter are extremely great,
and his personage and work very interesting. It has been said of him
that he represents, in the first place, the extreme development of the
Ronsardising innovation; in the second place, the highest literary
culture attained by the French Calvinists. Inferior to D'Aubigne in
knowledge of the world, in the choice of subjects perennially
interesting, and in terse vigour of expression, Du Bartas was the
superior of the great Protestant satirist in picturesqueness, in
imagination, and in facility of descriptive power. The stately and
gorgeous abundance of the vocabulary with which the Hellenising and
Latinising innovations of the Pleiade enriched the French language
supplied him with colours and material to work with, and his own genius
did the rest. His attempt to naturalise Greek compounds, such as
'Aime-Lyre,' 'Donne-Ame,' and the rest, has done him more harm than
anything else; but his combination of classical learning, wit