ree years in advance of Du Bellay's manifesto, and
though not a few translations had already appeared, none had even
approached Amyot's in elegance. As usual at the time his literary
reputation was rewarded by Church preferment and employment in the
diplomatic service. He was also made tutor to Charles IX. and Henri of
Anjou. His elder pupil, when he came to the throne, made him, first,
Grand Almoner of France, and then Bishop of Auxerre, while Henri III.
added the honour of a commandership in the order of the Holy Ghost. For
a time, in the midst of the troubles of the League, Amyot was driven
from his palace, but he returned and died, at the full age of fourscore,
in 1594.

Besides the work of Heliodorus, Amyot translated Diodorus Siculus
(1554), _Daphnis and Chloe_, Plutarch's _Lives_ (1559), and Plutarch's
_Morals_ (1574). It may seem at first sight that his selection of
authors to translate was somewhat peculiar. It was however, either by
accident or design, singularly well suited to the age which he
addressed. The positive merit of Heliodorus, and still more of Longus,
is certainly greater than is usually admitted nowadays. But for that
time they were peculiarly suited (and especially Longus) by their
combination of romantic and adventurous description with graceful
pictures of nature and amatory interludes. Plutarch, on the other hand,
expressed, more than any other author, the practical and moralising
spirit which accompanied this taste for romance. Montaigne confessed
that he could not do without Plutarch, and it may be doubted whether any
other single author of antiquity, after the Ciceronian mania was over,
exercised such an influence as Plutarch, through Amyot, North, and
Shakespeare (a direct succession of channels), upon France and England.

The merit of the translator had not a little to do with the success of
the books. Here is the testimony of the greatest in a literary sense of
Amyot's readers. 'I give,' says Montaigne, 'and I think I am right in
doing so, the palm to Jacques Amyot over all French writers, not only
for the simplicity and purity of his vocabulary, in which he surpasses
all others, nor for his industry in so long a task, nor for the depth of
his learning which has enabled him to expound so happily a writer so
thorny and crabbed. I am above all grateful to him for having selected
and chosen a book so worthy and so suitable as a present to his country.
We dunces were lost had not this book