e, when he is Bacchic for the vine, you will see
it still more.

_NOEL._

_Une pastourelle gentille
Et ung bergier en ung verger
L'autrhyer en jouant a la bille
S'entredisoient, pour abreger:
Roger
Bergier
Legiere
Bergiere,
C'est trop a la bille joue;
Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._

_Te souvient-il plus du prophete
Qui nous dit cas de si hault faict,
Que d'une pucelle parfaicte
Naistroit ung enfant tout parfaict?
L'effect
Est faict:
La belle
Pucelle
A eu ung filz du ciel voue:
Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._

TWO EPIGRAMS.
(_The 41st of the First Book and the 46th of the Second._)

These two epigrams are again but examples of the readiness, the wit, the
hard surface of Marot, and they needed no more poetry than was in
Voltaire or Swift, but they needed style. It was this absolute and
standard style which his contemporaries chiefly remarked in him: the
marvel was, that being mainly such an epigrammatist and scholar, and
praised and supported only in that guise, he should have carried in him
any, or rather so much, fire.

The first was his reply to a Dixaine the king's sister had sent him. The
second explains itself.

_TWO EPIGRAMS._

_Mes creanciers, qui de dixains n'ont cure,
Ont leu le vostre; et sur ce leur ay dict:
"Sire Michel, sire Bonaventure,
La soeur du Roy a pour moy faict ce dit."
Lors eulx cuydans que fusse en grand credict,
M'ont appele monsieur a cry et cor,
Et m'a valu vostre escript aultant qu'or;
Car promis m'ont non seulement d'attendre,
Mais d'en prester, foy de marchant, encor,
Et j'ay promis, foy de Clement, d'en prendre._

_Paris, tu m'as faict maints alarmes,
Jusque a me poursuivre a la mort:
Je n'ay que blasonne tes armes:
Un ver, quand on le presse, il mord!
Encor la coulpe m'en remord.
Ne scay de toy comment sera;
Mais de nous deux le diable emport
Celuy qui recommencera._

TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS.
(_The 16th Epistle._)

It is the way this is printed that makes some miss its value. It is,
like all the best he wrote, a song; it needs the varying time of human
expression, the effect of tone, the repose and the