a famous name, was born about the same time as
Palissy, and died the year after him. A freethinker in his way, he
escaped all temptation to embrace the dangerous heresy which was so
fatal, or, at least, so inconvenient, to many other men of science and
letters, and for the last forty years of his life he was court-surgeon.
His literary work is not inconsiderable in amount, consisting, as might
be expected, chiefly of professional treatises. The most interesting of
his books, however, from a general point of view, and, as it happens,
also by far the best written, is his _Apologie et Voyages_, a kind of
autobiography which contains a large collection of anecdotes and
details, not unimportant for the history of the time, as well as of much
personal interest. The style of this book is often vivid and
picturesque, as well as clear and precise.

[Sidenote: Olivier de Serres.]

It was fitting that agriculture, which is the staple industry of France,
should contribute to her literature at this period--the most genuine and
exuberant period of its history, if not that which produced the most
minutely finished work. The _Theatre de l'Agriculture et du Menage des
Champs_ of Olivier de Serres was published in the last year of the
century. The author was a native of the town of Villeneuve du Berg, in
the present department of Ardeche. He was a Protestant and a great
favourite of Henri IV., to whom he was useful in developing Sully's
plans of internal economy. The _Theatre de l'Agriculture_ was long the
classic book on the subject, and the author has been honoured, in quite
recent times, by statues and other demonstrations. Like most books of
the kind, it is much overlaid with erudition, but this only adds to its
picturesqueness; and, as the author's precepts were founded on a life's
experience of his subject, it certainly cannot be reproached with a want
of practical knowledge and aim.

Not a few other authors would require notice, if space permitted, in
this class of scientific and erudite authors, particularly in the class
of linguistics and literature. Such is Geoffroy Tory, a printer,
grammarian, and prose-writer of merit in the early part of the century,
who anticipated Rabelais in his protest against the indiscriminate
Latinisation of the later Rhetoriqueurs. Not a few other writers, such
as Pelletier and Fontaine, busied themselves during the period with
grammar and prosody; while towards the close of it, the first French
b