•! ,cA-^ /' ^ r.'>^* THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND BY THE SAME AUTHOR A LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. GREAT ENGLISHMEN OF THE SIX- TEENTH CENTURY. SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN STAGE. INTRODUCTION TO FACSIMILE Re- productions OF THE SHAKESPEARE FIRST FOLIO AND OF THE FIRST EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS AND OK PERICLES. INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION OF ELIZABETHAN SONNETS. INTRODUCTION TO THE CHRONICLE HISTORY OF KING LEIR. .THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND. AN ACCOUNT OF THE LITERARY RELATIONS OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY SIDNEY LEE TKU^. HON. D.LITT., OXFORD ; HON. LL.D., GLASGOW FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1910 "o ^J-l ,\»^'^ -von^'^'^ ^-^SloS- PREFACE This volume is based on a series of six lectures which I delivered, under the title of ' The Literary Relations of England and France during the Sixteenth Century', before the University of Oxford during the summer term of 1909. My thanks are due to the Delegates of the Common University Fund, on whose invitation the lectures were undertaken. In the course of preparation for the press, the lectures have been largely rewritten and expanded. The change in the main title is justified not merely by considerations of brevity, but also by the fact that the French Renaissance was know^n in England almost exclusively through its written word, and only slightly and subsidiarily through its art. Although I have not attempted to deal exhaustively with all the aspects of the theme, I hope that I have succeeded in bringing home to my readers not merely the extent of the debt which English literature, thought, and scholarship of the Tudor epoch owes to the French Renaissance, but also the interest attaching to that comparative study of European literature, on which I have sought to lift a corner of the curtain. It is as a tentative contribution to a comparative study of literature that I wish the work mainly to be judged. That study has been pursued in this country on a smaller scale and less systematically than abroad. Yet the comparative study of literature is to my thinking a needful complement of those philological and aesthetic studies which chiefly occupy the attention of English scholars. The serious student of literature can never safely ignore the suggestive phrases of Walter Pater : ' Producers of great literature do not live in isolation, but catch light and heat from each other's thought. A people without intellectual commerce with other peoples has never done anything conspicuous in literature.' Nor is it wise to vi PREFACE neglect the sagacious counsel of Matthew Arnold : ' The criticism which alone can much help us for the future is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result.' In other words, every great national literature is a fruit of much foreign sustenance and refreshment, however capable the national spirit may prove of mastering the foreign element. The comparative study should therefore form an integral part of any sound analysis of literary achievement. Students of literature who keep their sight fixed exclusively on a single nation's literary work run the risk of narrowing and distorting their critical judgement. No literature can be viewed in a just perspective until the comparative study has brought foreign literary effort within the range of vision. My purpose in this volume will have been fulfilled if I convince discerning stu- dents of English literature of the sixteenth century that know- ledge of the coeval literature of France is required to verify their estimates of the value and originality of wellnigh all the literary endeavour of Tudor England. My main results are due to a long-continued parallel study of the literary work of the two countries. At the same time a little complementary research which I have pursued in historic manuscripts has yielded some unexpected fruit. I cannot find, for example, that there has been printed before the letter in which Montaigne's intimate friend and neighbour, Pierre de Brach, announced, immediately after the event, the great essayist's death to Francis Bacon's brother, Anthony Bacon.^ But while I have done what I could to explore much of the field for myself, I have to acknowledge numerous obligations to earlier workers in very varied directions. The modern critical editions of the French and English writings of the epoch, and the many recent literary and biographical monographs which bear on them and their work, are my chief ' The original is at Lambeth : see p. 173. PREFACE vii authorities, and these I specify in detail in my notes.' General works, which I have found of constant service, are C. A. Sainte- Beuve's l^ableau historique et critique de la poesiefraiicaise an XVI' siede, 1893; Arsene Darmesteter and Adolphe Hatz- feld's Le XVF siecle en France : litteratiire et langne^ 1893 ; Louis Petit de JuUeville's Histoire de la langue et de la litter a- liire yrancaises, torn, iii, Seizieme siecle, 1897 ; M. Gustave Lanson's Manuel bibliogyaphique de la litteratnre fra7i- caise nioderne^ I. Seizieme siecle, 1909 ; together with the sug- gestive volumes of M.Emile Faguet,viz.: La Tragediefrancaise an XVI' siecle (1550- 1600), 1H97; \\\s Seizieme siecle: etudes litter aires^ 1898; and his Histoire de la litteratnre fran- caise, tom. i, Jusqu'a la fin du XVP siecle, 1900.^ Among English books which deal generally with the literary history of sixteenth-century France, by far the most useful and complete is Mr. Arthur Tilley's Literature of the French Renaissance (2 vols., 1904). I am grateful, too, for the help which I have derived from the writings of my friend of five-and-twenty years' standing, M. Jusserand, now French ambassador at Washington. It is barely possible to overpraise M. Jusserand's exhaustive contributions to the history of English literature. ^ The text of Ronsard's poetry, which I quote freely, presents some difficuhies. I have used Blanchemain's edition in the Bibliotlicque Elze- viricnne (8 vols., Paris, 1857-1867), which follows, for the early and most important work of the poet, the first collected edition of 1560 (4 vols.). Blanchemain depends for Ronsard's later poetry on the many succeeding collective editions, which Ronsard superintended in his declining years. The poet liberally corrected his text after its first publication. Marty- Laveaux's fine edition of Ronsard (6 vols., Paris, 1887) adopts the text of the collective edition of 1584, the last to be issued in Ronsard's lifetime. There are consequently several discrepancies between my citations of Ronsard and Marty-Laveaux's versions. Ronsard's early poetry was chiefly familiar to the Elizabethans, and they seem to have used the early editions. The textual variations are not material to my argument, but this word of warning is necessary. By far the best study of the compli- cated history of Ronsard's text is supplied by M. Hugues Vaganay's edition of the first book of Ronsard's Amours, based on the edition of 1578. This volume was published in 1 910, with a preface by Prof. Joseph Vianey, and an ample apparatus criiicus by the editor. No close student of Ronsard's poetry can dispense with this valuable work. Mr. St. John Lucas's interesting Selected Poems of Pierre de Ronsard {Oxioxd, 1908) follows Marty-Laveaux's text. ^ An English translation of the whole of this work entitled A Literary History 0/ France was published by Fisher Unvvin in 1907. viii PREFACE With some of his conclusions I disagree, but I am none the less certain that no critic of Tudor literature can hope for salva- tion if he fail to master M. Jusserand's English Novelin the Time of Shakespeare (1890), his Shakespeare in France under the Ancien Regime (1899), or his Literary History of the English People from the Origins to the Civil War ( 1 895-1906). The three books charm the reader almost equally in the original French and in the English translation. In subsidiary study of French political complications of the era, I have been aided by Henry Martyn Baird's History of the rise of the Huguenots (1880), and his Hngiienois and Henry of Navarre (1886), as well as by Mr. Edward Arm- strong's The French Wars of Religioji {i^<)2). It was only after my own labours were well advanced that I enjoyed the benefit of reading M. Louis Charlanne's Linflu- ence francaise en Angleterre an XVI I" siecle^ Paris, 1906, and Dr. Alfred Horatio Upham's The French Influence in English Literat2ire from the Accession of Elizabeth to the Restoration (New York, Columbia University Press, 1908). M. Charlanne's literary survey starts where I end. But his chapters on social life have given me useful suggestions. Dr. Upham begins his research at a somewhat later period than myself and continues his inquiry long after the close of the six- teenth century, beyond which I do not venture. But we cover in somewhat different fashion a substantial part of the same ground, and I have specified at various points my debt to Dr. Upham's researches. I have also benefited by Prof. L. E. Kastner's papers in the Modern Language Review (1907-10) on the heavy loans which Elizabethan poets levied on the verse of the Pleiade. I had previously treated this branch of the theme in my Introduction to Elizabethan Sonnets (in Constable's Eng- lish Garner^ 1904), and in a paper on Chapman's Amorous Zodiacke in Modern Philology (Chicago University Press, October, 1905). The latter essay I reprint in Appendix II of this volume, under the title George Chapman and Gilles Durante and I make in Appendix I some fresh additions to the PLlizabethan poems whose French originals I have iden- tified by my unaided effort. But Prof. Kastner's industry and PREFACE ix learning- have brought to h'ght numerous concrete examples of the Elizabethan poets' direct indebtedness which I had overlooked. The poetry and prose of the French Renaissance would seem to have attracted rather wider attention and a warmer appreciation among English writers of a past generation than among those of the present. Louisa Stuart Costello's Specimens of the Early Poetry of France (1835); Father Prout's Reliqties (1836) ; and Henry Francis Gary's Early French Poets {\'^\6), are all suggestive, if somewhat discursive and slender, memorials of early nineteenth-century enthu- siasm for French poetry of the sixteenth century. Prof. Henry iMorley's biographies of Palissy the Potter (1852) and of Clement Marot (187 1) are biased by Protestant feeling, but both are interesting efforts of a mid-Victorian student to deal with the literary and artistic influence of the Huguenots. More lively and enlightened are the studies of Sir Walter Besant in his Early French Poetry (i868). The French Humorists from the Tiuelfth to the Nineteenth Century (1873), and his brief monograph on Rabelais (1885). During the second half of the last century four members of the University of Oxford illustrated, to more scholarly and satisfying purpose, the great place that the French Renais- sance fdls in the history of modern scholarship and culture. The early volumes of Algernon Charles Swinburne testify to his wide and sympathetic reading in French poetry, chiefly of the era of the Renaissance. The Victorian poet did much to familiarize his o-eneration with the manner and sentiment of the sixteenth-century poetry of France. Mark Patti- son's essays on French scholars and scholarship {^Essays, collected in two vols., Oxford, 1889) which were crowned by his biography of Isaac Casaubon (1875), learnedly ex- pound the value of the contribution which P>ance of the Renaissance made to the elucidation of Greek language and literature. Walter Pater in his Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), and in his unfinished romance of Gaston de Latour (1896), defined with rare insight the aesthetic quality of French literature in the sixteenth X PREFACE century ; while Richard Copley Christie, in his elaborate biography of Etienne Dolet (i8(So), ably supplemented Mark Pattison's earlier exposition of the achievements of French humanism. With these four writers it is not unfitting to associate the name of the late Lady Dilke, whose i?^//rt?>>yrt'?/r^ of Art in France (1879) proved the first of an important series of volumes on French art and artists. Although the tradition of appreciative study of the French Renaissance has shown of late years in England signs of decay, it is incumbent on me to add to those books by living English writers which I have mentioned already as giving me assist- ance and suggestion, Mr. Andrew Lang's Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (new edition, 1907), Mr. George W'yndham's Ronsard and the Pleiade (1906), Prof. Dowden's Michel de Mo7itaigne{ic)0^)^Mr.]o\\i\C Bailey's The Claims of French Poetry (1907), and Mr. Rowland E. Prothero's The Pleasant Land of France (1908). In spite of my efforts to test my facts and dates, I cannot hope to have escaped error in handling a theme which demands an acquaintance with very varied topics in the literary history of two great peoples and a grasp of an infinitude of historical and bibliographical detail. Nor have I found it easy to avoid the occasional repetition of information which seemed to need examination from more points of view and under more headings than one. For sins of commission or omission I crave my readers' indulgence. I have to thank Mr. W. B. Owen, B,A., formerly scholar of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, for helping me to compile the comparative chronological table of the progress in culture and politics of the two countries, which will, I hope, be of some graphic service, Mr. Owen has also prepared the index, and given me much zealous aid in correcting the whole work for the press. S. L. August 31, 1910. CONTENTS Preface .... ... Chronological Table of Leading Events PAGE V XV BOOK I THE DEBT OF TUDOR CULTURE TO FRANCE L The Renaissance in Italy, France, and England IL England's Litellectual Commerce in. The Interpretative Faculty of France . IV. The Culture of the French Renaissance V. French Discipleship to Greece and Rome . VI. The Italian Element VII, The Diffusion of Renaissance Culture in France VIII. Tudor Politics : The Loss of Calais . IX. The Elizabethan Political Links . X. The Study of French in Tudor Society XI. French Dress, French Wines, and French Dances XII. England's Debt to the Art of Italy and Germany XIII. The French View of the English National Character 12 13 17 21 24 29 36 42 47 54 58 BOOK II FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LITERATURE 1500-1550 I. French Light and English Gloom . . . -65 II. First Gleams of Tudor Humanism .... 67 III. French Grammars from Tudor Pens .... 76 IV. The Renaissance Printers of France and England . 80 V. Early Tudor Translations from French Prose . . 90 VL Les Rhetoriqueurs ....... 96 VII. French influence on Skelton and Hawes . . .101 VIII. Marot and Alamanni : Wyatt and Surrey . . . 109 IX. The Interregnum in Tudor Poetry . . . .127 \\ xu CONTENTS BOOK III FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE PAGE I. Tendencies of F ■ench and English Prose . • U3 II. The Bible in French and EngHsh • 139 III. Calvin • M5 IV. Amyot ■ 151 V. Rabelais • 159 VI. Montaigne BOOK IV . 165 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON THE ELIZABETHAN LYRIC I. The Coming of Ronsard II. The Birth of the Pleiade . III. Ronsard .... IV. The Themes of the Pleiade V. The Manner of the Pleiade VI. The Heirs of the Pleiade . VII. The Pleiade in England . VIII. The Elizabethan rendering of French Lyric Themes IX. The Metrical Debt of the Elizabethan Lyric other than the Sonnet ...... X. The Pleiade Vocabulary in Elizabethan Poetry XL The Renaissance Theory of ' Imitation ' XII. The Assimilation of the French Sonnet XIII. Shakespeare and the French Sonnet . XIV. The Poetic Vaunt of Immortality 183 186 189 196 201 2c6 210 217 236 243 249 252 266 276 BOOK V THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS I. Characteristics of the Huguenot Movement . . 285 11. The Civil Wars in France 288 III. Huguenot Settlers and Visitors in England . . . 300 IV. The Devotional Literature of the Huguenots . -307 /i(, CONTENTS Xlll V. Huguenot Pleas for Political Liberty VI. Pierre de la Ramee VII. Huguenot Poetry^ — Aubigne VIII. Salluste du Bartas IX. Elizabethan Disciples of Du Bartas PAGE 313 328 333 340 BOOK VI FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN DRAMA I. The Foreign Sources of Elizabethan Drama II. The Beginnings of French Drama . III. The Growth of the Theatre in France and England IV. The Classical Drama of the French Renaissance . V. The Irregular Drama of the French Renaissance . VI. The Cognate Development of French and Elizabethan Drama ........ VII. Elizabethan Comedy and Franco-Italian Dialogue VIII. The Early Fortunes of Elizabethan Tragedy IX. Current French History on the Elizabethan Stage X. Romantic Tragedy, and other Irregular Dramatic De velopments in France and England XL The Classical Reaction in Elizabethan Tragedy . XII. Conclusion ....... 359 36s 376 381 400 416 419 427 433 438 442 450 APPENDIX I. Additional Specimens of Elizabethan Poetry WHICH are borrowed WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FROM CONTEMPORARY FRENCH SOURCES II. George Chapman and Gilles Durant 454 465 INDEX 479 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF LEADING EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH CULTURE AND POLITICS FROM THE BIRTH OF ERASMUS IN 1466 TILL THE DEATH OF SHAKE- SPEARE IN 16161 France. 1466 [Birth of Erasmus.] 1467 Birth of Bude, 1468 Death of Alain Chartier. 1470 First printing press in Paris. 1472 University of Bordeaux founded. 1477 1478 1479 Birth of Jean Grolier. 1483 Death of Louis XII. Accession of Charles VIII. Birth of Rabelais. [Birth of Luther.] 1484 Birth of Julius Caesar Scaliger (' the elder Scaliger'). 1485 Maistre Pierre Palhelin (written about 1469) first published. 1487 1489 1492 1494 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500 French paraphrase of the Bible published at Paris. Villon's Le Grand Testament et le Petit. Birth of Margaret of Angouleme (afterwards Queen Margaret of Navarre), Martial de Paris, Vigilles de . . . Charles VII. French invade Italy. [Sebastian Brant, Narrenschiff."\ Birth of Clement Marot. Chris- tine de Pisan, La Cite des Dames. La Nef des fota, verse translation of Brant's satire. Death of Charles VIII. Acces- sion of Louis XII. [Columbus discovers the American con- tinent.] Gringoire, Le C/idteaii de Labour. England. Caxton sets up printing press at West- minster; prints Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan. Birth of Sir Thomas More. Death of Edward IV. Richard III. Accession of Death of Richard III. Accession of Henry VII. Linacre goes to Italy. Malory's Le Morie Arthur, James IV becomes King of Scotland. Colet and Erasmus in Paris. [Birth of Holbein.] Erasmus first visits England ; resides at Oxford. Barclay's Castell of Labour from Grin- goire's French. 1 A few events (other than French) of European moment are inserted between square brackets. Where authors' names and titles of books are given without added word, the year to which the entry is attached is that of first publication of the cited works. XVI CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE France. 1501 Henri Etienne sets up press at Paris. 1502 1504 Lc Ma ire de Beiges, Le Temple (f Honncur et de Vcrtti. Grin- goirc, Les Abus dii Monde. 1508 1509 Birth of Calvin. 15 10 Le Maire de Beiges, L'Anmnt vert. 151 1 Gringoire's Lc Jen dit Prince des Sots played before Louis XI L 1513 \y[a.ch\a.ve[\\s, Prince composed.] Birth of Amyot. 1514 ~5^ 1515 Death of Louis XIL Accession of Francis L 1516 Bude writes Institution dii Prince, 1517 Bude, De Asse et partibus cins. 1518 1519 [Charles V elected Emperor of Germany.] Birth of Theodore Beza. 1520 1521 [Luther translates Bible inlo German.] 1522 Bude appointed librarian to Francis I ; begins royal collec- tion of Greek MSS. 1523 1524 Birth of Ronsard. Rabelais's Pauiagrucl possibly published. 1525 Battle of Pavia, defeat of French, and capture of Francis L End of the French invasion of Italy. 1527 Margaret of Angouleme marries as second husband Henry d'Albret, King of Navarre, and opens her literary court. Francis I's reconstruction and decoration of Fontainebleau and the Louvre begins. England. Lady Margaret Beaufort founds pro- fessorships of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge. Lady Margaret Beaufort endows St. John's College, Cambridge. Bar- clay's Ship of Fooles — translation of Brant's satire. Death of Henry Vll. Accession of Henry VIII. Death of Lady Mar- garet Beaufort. Colet founds St. Paul's School. Richard Pynson first royal printer. Erasmus's Encoiniiitn Moriae. Hawes's Passetyme ofPlca- James V becomes King of Scotland. Henry VIII's sister Mary marries Louis XII of France. More in Flanders. Mora's Utopia published at Antwerp. Erasmus finally leaves England. London riots against foreigners ('Evil May Day'). Linacre founds the College of Phy- sicians in London. Death of Colet. Erasmus's Colloqitia. Meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I at the ' Field of the Cloth of Gold '. Barclay's Introdnctorie to write and to pronounce French. Lord Berners" translation of Froissart's Chronicles, vol. i ^vol. ii, 1525). Death of Linacre and Stephen Hawcs. Skelton's Garlande of Laurell. Tyndale's New Testament in English. Holbein visits England. William Lily's Grauiinaticcs Rudinicnta. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xvii France. 1529 Treaty of Cambray between Francis I and the Emperor Charles V. Bude's Commen- tarii Linguae Graecae. Tory's Chanip-Flenry. Foundation of the College de France. 1530 Flight of Florentine scholars to France on fall of the republic. Le Fevre's French translation of the Bible. 1531 1532 Alamanni's Opire Toscane (Lyons). Machiavelli's II Prin- cipe. Rahelnis^s Pantagrttel, first extant edition. Birth of J. A. de Bai'f. First collection of _ . Marot's CEtivres. Margaret of Navarre, Le Miroir de Vditte pechercsse. 1533 Birth of Montaigne. Marot's edition of Villon's CEuvres. College de Guienne opened at Bordeaux. Catherine de' Me- dici marries the dauphin, after- wards Henry II. 1534 Rabelais's Gargaiilna. Death of Gringoire ,?). Franfois Clouet's portrait of Francis I, Protestants of Paris denounce the Mass. Cartier explores North America. 1535 Olivetan's French Bible. 1536 Ramus attacks Aristotelian logic at Paris. [Death of Erasmus at Basle.] Calvin's Christianae Religionis Institutio. 1537 1538 Marot's Poems collected. Dolet sets up press at Lyons. 1539 The acting brotherhood ' Les Confreres de la Passion ' in- stalled at the Hotel de Flandres. University of Nismes founded chiefly by Margaret of Navarre. 1540 Death of Bude. Birth of Joseph Justus Scaliger (the younger Scaliger . Dolet's La nianiere de bien tradmre. 154 1 Calvin's Institution de la religion Chresttennc (first French edi- tion). Calvin finally estab- lishes his religious autocracy at Geneva. Queen Margaret of Navarre begins the Hepta- tneron. England. Death of John Skelton. Palsgrave's L'Esclanisseinent de la langiie/ranfoyse. Death of Pynson. Sir Thomas Elyot's Goveriiour. Henry VIII, with Anne Boleyn, visits Francis I. Henry VIII divorces Queen Catherine of England and marries Anne Bo- leyn, Lord Berners'^s translation of Huon of Biirdeitx. Henry VIII declared supreme head of the Church in Eng- land. Execution of Sir Thomas More. Cover- dale's Bible vfirst complete English translation). Death of Tyndale. Matthew's English Bible. James V of Scotland marries Marie of Guise. The 'Great' Bible in English. Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, the first English comedy, acted at Eton. Nonesuch Palace nearCheam begun by Henry VIII. Regius professor- ships founded by Henry VIII at Oxford. XVIll CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE France. 1542 Antoine Heroet's La Parfaicte Atiiyc. Persecution of French Protestants begins. Bucha- nan's Jephthes acted by stu dents at Bordeaux. Ariosto's Gli SupposUi in French trans- lation. Dolet's translation of Cicero's Letters. 1543 Ramus's Aristotelicae Animad- versiones published and sup- pressed. 1544 Death of Marot. New edition of his CEuvres. [Birth of Tasso] Birth of Du Bartas. Sfeve's Delie. 1545 Le Ma9on's French translation of the Decameron. French translation of Ariosto's Gli , Suppositi. 1546 Etienne Dolet burnt. [Death of Luther.] Birth of Desportes. Bude's Iiistittition du Prince. Rabelais's Pantagruel (Book III). 1547 Death of Francis IL Accession of Henry II. Margaret of Navarre's Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses. Saint-Gelais's CEuvres. Amyot's V Histoire^thiopique. Ramus's Institutionum dialecticarutn libri tres. 1548 '6\\yA&\.^ % Art poetique. Rabelais's Pantagruel Book IV:. Reli- gious drama prohibited in Paris The actors ' Les Con- freres de la Passion ' occupy and rebuild the Hotel de Bour- gogne in Paris. 1549 Death of Queen Margaret of Navarre. Birth of Du Plessis. Formation of the Pleiade. Du Bella3''s Deffense et illustration de la langue fran^oise, Olive. and Recueil. 1550 M ore's Utopia in French transla- tion. Ronsard's Odes. Theo- dore de Bfeze's Abraham sa- crifiant. Birth of Aubigne. 1551 Jean Bretog's Tragedie franfotse produced in Paris. The Geneva Psalter. 1552 ^shoiaXs's Pantagruel [Book IV completed'. Ronsard's Amours. Bal'f's Amours. Jo- delle's Cleopdtre and Eugene first performed before Charles IX in Paris. Ambroise Pare appointed surgeon to the French King. England. Death of James V of Scotland. Acces- sion of Mary Queen of Scots. Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Death of Holbein in London. First Greek book printed in England by Reginald Wolf. Henry VIII invades France and takes Boulogne. Treaty of Ardres between England and France. Death of Henry VIII. Accession of Edward VI. Death of the Earl of Surrey. Foreign Protestants welcomed to Eng- land. Mary Queen of Scots sent to France. English Book of Common Prayer. More's Utopia translated into English. Shrewsbury School founded. Birth of Edmund Spenser and Sir Walter Raleigh. Death of Alexander Barclay. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE XIX Francf, '553 Birth of Henry of Navarre Henr3' IV of France). Birth of De Thou. Death of Rabe- lais. Magny's Amours. [Ser- vetus burnt at Geneva.] 1554 Magny's Gayetes. Henri Mix- enne's cditio princeps oi A)ia- creoit. 1555 Huguenot settlement in Brazil. The sculptor Goujon begins work at the Louvre. Ron- sard's llyinnes and Ainonrs de Marie. Louise Labd's (F.uvtes. Vauquelin de la Fresnaie's Foresknes (Books I and II \ Ramus's Dialectiqtte. 1557 Magny's Lea Soiipirs. La Pe- ruse's Mi'dee. 1558 Death of Julius Caesar Scaliger ( Scaliger the Elder). Death of Melin de Saint-Gelais. Queen Margaret's Histoire des Ainaiis Fortunes 'reissued next year as the L'Heptaineron^. Perlin's Description of England (^ Paris). Du Bellay's Regrets. Germain Pilon, the sculptor, begins work on royal tombs at St. Denis. 1559 Peace of Cateau Cambresis be- tween France, Spain, and England. Death of Henry II. Accession of Francis II. Ca- therine de' Medici, queen- mother. Amyot's translations of Plutarch's Lives and of Longus's Daphnis and Chloe. Magny's Odes. Du Bellay's Le pocte conrtisan. Bandello's Les Histoires tragiqites (trans- lated by Boaistuau and Belle- forest). 1560 Death of Francis II. Accession of Charles IX. L'Hopital be- comes Chancellor of France. Conspiracy of Amboise. Death of Du Bell ay. Pasquier's Re- cherches de la France (Book I). Ronsard's CEuvres (first col- lective edition). Hotman's Le Tigrc, an attack on Cardinal de Lorraine. 1561 Death of Magny. Scaliger's Poetics. Grevin's Tludtre in- cluding his Ctsar. England. Death of Edward VI. Accession of Mary. Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique. Birth of Sir Philip Sidney. Tottel's Miscellany. Nonesuch Palace completed. Incorporation of the Stationers' Company in London. Loss of Calais. Death of Queen Mary. Accession of Queen Elizabeth. Mary Queen of Scots marries Francis II of France. Mirror fo> Magistrates, first part. The 'Genevan' Bible in English. Westminster School founded. Birth of Bacon. Norton's translation of Calvin's Institution of Christian Religion. English version of the Genevan Psalter. XX CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE France. 1562 Outbreak of Religious War in France. Huguenots defeated at Dreux. Huguenot settle- ment in Florida. Ronsard's Discours des miseresde ce temps. 1563 Duke of Guise killed at siege of Orleans (18 Feb.'. Peace of Amboise (19 March). Death of La Boetie. 1564 Death of Calvin 27 May). Ra- belais' Paiitagniel (Book V). 1565 [Cinthio's Hecatommithi7\ Ron- sard's Abrige de I'art poetique franfois and Elegies. Pasquier's Reche)ches{Boo'k.sl~ll). Death of Grolier. 1566 Death of Louise Labe. Louis des Masures' David combai- iant, David fngitif, and David triomphant. 1567 Defeat of Huguenots at battle of St. Denis (10 Nov.). Ron- sard's (E/^f/rs (6 vols.). Baif's Le Brave performed. 1568 Garnier's Porcie. 1569 Huguenots defeated at Jarnac (March). Death of Conde. Defeat of Coligny at Moncon- tour (October). Du Bellay's CEiivres. Scevole de Saint- Marthe's Premieres (Envres. 1570 Peace of St. Germain (August). Death of Grevin. Ba'if opens his Academie de Poesie et de Musique. 1 57 1 De la Porte's Les Epithetes. Visit of ' I Gelosi ' (Italian actors) to Paris. [Battle of Lepanto.] 1572 The St. Bartholomew Massacre in Paris (24 Aug.) . M urder of Coligny and Ramus. Death of Goujon. Amyot translates Plutarch's Moralia. Ronsard's Fraiiciade. Belleau's Bergeries. Baif's Poems (collective edi- tion). Jean de la Taille's Saill le fitrieux. Henri Etienne's Thesaurus Graecae Linguae. 1573 Sieges of Rochelle and Sancerre. Death of Jodelle. Death of L'Hopital. Du Bartas's La Muse Clnesfiemic . Desportes' Les premieres ceuvrcs. Jean de la Taille's La Famine and LesCorrivaux. Garnier's Hip- polyic Belleau's La Rccomiue. Hotmail's Franco-Gallin. England. English army supports Huguenots in Normandy. Garbodtic acted at the Inner Temple. Ascham's Schoolmaster written. Ri- baut's Description of Florida from the French. Treaty of Troyes between France and England. Birth of Marlowe and Shakespeare. Mary Queen of Scots marries Henry Stewart, Earl of Darnley. Birth of James VI of Scotland. Udall's Ralph Roister Doister ^r'lnied. Paint- er's Palace of Pleasure. Gascoigne's Supposes acted at Gray's Inn. James VI becomes king of Scotland. Rugby School founded. Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. George Turberville's translation of Mantuanus' Eclogues. The ' Bishops ' Bible in English. Skelton's Poems (complete edition). A Theatre for Worldlings (containing Spenser's renderings of Du Bellay and Marot\ Heywood's Four Ps first printed. Ascham's Schoolmaster. Royal Ex- change opened in London (begun 1566). Birth of Inigo Jones and John Donne. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE XXI Franck. 1574 Death of Charles IX. Henry III becomes King of France. [Death of Cinthio.] Jodelle's CEuvres. Garnier's Cornclie. Discours nifivet'lleiix, an at- tack on Queen Catherine de' Medici. 1575 Pahssy's public lectures inaugu- rate the science of Geology. Jamyn's CEuvres pocliqucs. Vauquelin de la Fresnaie's UArt poetiqitc fran^ois begun. Duplessis-Mornay's Discours de la vie et de la mort. Birth of Montchretien. 1576 Henry of Navarre heads the Protestants in France. Pierre de Brach's Fo^w^5. Belleau's Pierrcs precieuses. Baif's Mimes (Book I). Bodin's Republique (six books). Boetie'sCo«/;''t/«. Gentillet's attack on Machia- velli's creed. 1577 Death of Belleau. ' I Gelosi ' (.Italian actors) again visit Paris. Aubigne's Les Tragi- queshegnn (published 1617). 1578 Du Bartas's La Seinaiiie. YLon- sard's (E/^i'ri's i5 vols).. Henri Etienne's Deux dialogues du Houveau fra)i^ois italianise. Garnier's Marc - Antoine. French translation of Monte- mayor's Diana. 1579 Larivey's Six premieres cowiedies. Garnier's La Troade. Du Plessis - Mornay's Vindiciae contra tyrannos, Henri Eti- enne's De la Precellence du Langage fratifois. Pontoux's L'Idee. 1580 Montaigne's Essais (two books). Garnier's Antigone. Bodin's Demonomanie des Sorciers. Beza's hones. 1581 Du Plessis's De la veritv de la religion chrestienne. 1582 Garnier's Bradaniante. Mon- taigne's Essais (2nd edition^. Belleforest's Histoires tragi- ques (from Bandello), new edition completed. Tessier's Premier Livre d'Airs. England. Negotiations begun for marriage of the Duke of Alen9on with Queen Eliza- beth. George Gascoigne's Posies. First public theatre in London. Kendall's Flowers oj Epigrammes. Golding's translation of Beza's \ Abraham sacrifiant. Patrick's Dis- \ course upon the nieanes of wel govern- ing, written (a translation of Gentil- let's tract against Machiavelli\ Mirror for Magistrates (complete edi- tion). Gosson's School of Abuse. North's translation of Plutarch's Lives (from Amyot's French). Spenser's 5/2^/>- heard's Calender. Gabriel Harvey, Sidney, and Spenser form society of the Areopagus. Lyly's Euphues, the Anatomy o/Wit. Birth of John Fletcher. First Scotch Bible. L3'ly's Euphues and his England. Francis, Duke of Anjou, in England to sue for hand in marriage of Queen Elizabeth. Sxdn&y^s Arcadia finished; Sonnets and Apologie for Poetrie begun. Thomas Watson's Hecatompathia or Passionate Centurie of Love. Per- manent printing press established at Cambridge University. Hakluyt's Divers Voyages. Beza's Christia)i Meditations. XXI 1 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE France. 1583 Garnier's Les Jitives. J. J. Sca- liger's De Emendatione Tem- po rum, 1584 Death of the Duke of Alenfon (June). The Holj' League formed. Du Bartas's La Se- conde Semaiiie. Ronsard's CEnvres (i vol. folio"). French translation of Tasso's Annnta. Death of Franfois Clouet the painter. T585 Death of Ronsard (27 Dec). Garnier's Tragedies. 1586 Pasquier's Letters ten books\ 1587 Henry of Navarre's victory at Coutras. La Noue's Discoitrs politiqttes et uiilitaires. Du Bartas visits James VI at Edinburgh, 1588 Murder of Henry of Guise and the Cardinal of Guise (De- cember). Montaigne's Essais (^Book Iin. 1589 Death of Catherine de' Medici (January). Henry HI assas- sinated (July 31). Henry IV claims French crown. Death of J. A. de Half. Pierre Matthieu's play of Zrt Guisiade popular in Paris. 1590 Henry IV's victory at Ivry (March i4\ Death of Charles X, claimant to the throne (May). Death of Pare, Palissy. Du Bartas, Cujas.and Hotman. 1 591 Death of La Noue. 1592 Death of Montaigne. Death of Alexander of Parma iDec. 8\ Le Gitysieit produced. 1593 Henry IV becomes a Catholic July 25). French translation of Guarini's // Pastor Fido. J. J. Scaliger appointed pro- fessor at Leyden. Death of Amyot. England. Birth of Francis Beaumont. John Soothern's Pandora (an imitation of Ronsard). Lyly's Campaspe pro- duced at Court. Munday's Tivo J Italian Gentieiiteii. Thomas Hud- J son's translation of Du Bartas's tf 'Judith. Scot's Discovcrie of Witch- "- craft. Temple's annotated edition of Ramus's Dialectica. Permanent printing press established at Oxford University. Raleigh's endeavours to colonize Virginia. English army supports Protestants of Low Countries. Death of Sir Philip Sidney. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity begun. Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Thomas Nashe's Unfortunate Tra- veller. Greene's Debate betiveen Follie and Lone, a rendering of Louise Labe's Dibat. Marlowe, Lodge, Greene, and Peele begin writing for the English stage. Mar- lowe's Tambcrlaine produced. Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Part of Du Plessis's Vindiciae, pub- lished in English. Yonge's Mitsica Transalpina. Greene's Pandosto. Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie. Arthur Golding completes and pub- lishes Sidney's translation of Du Plessis's ' Truth of Christianity '. Hakluyt's Principall Navigations. Sidney's Arcadia. Spenser's Faerie Queene (Books I-III). Lodge's Rosalynde. Countess of Pembroke f. translates Garnier's Marc-Aiitoine. Two English armies support Henry IV of France in Northern France, one under Earl of Essex. Sidney's As- trophcl and Stella. Spenser's Daph- naida and Complaints. Shake- speare's Love's Labour's Lost written. Shakespeare remodels Henry VL Constable's Diana and Daniel's Delia (first editions\ Death of Marlowe. Lodge's William Longbeaid and Phillis. Shake- speare's Venits and Adonis. Dray- ton's Idea. Watson's Tears of Fancie. Countess of Pembroke's translation of Du Plessis's Discourse of Life and Death. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLH XXlll Fkance. 1594 Henry IV enters Paris, and is crowned King i^Feb. 27\ La Saiyir Metiippcc. Jean Go- dard's Les Degnisis. Durant's CEuvres pot'tiqiics, including Lc Zodiac AMioureitx' PiYSi^vmiQd 1587). 1595 [Death of Tasso.] 1596 Death ol Bodin. 1597 Passerat's Poemes (Book I). 1598 Edict of Nantes. Henry IV grants toleration to the Pro- testants. Installation of pio- fessional actors at the Hotel de Bourgogne, with Alexandre Hardy as playright. Death of Henri Etienne. 1599 1600 Death of Garnier. 1601 Biron's conspiracy. tien's Tragedies. CEuvres poetiques. r6o2 Execution of Biron. Vers amoureux. Passerat. 1603 Montchre- Bertaut's Bertaut's Death of n. 1604 De Thou's History (Part Death of Beza at Geneva. 1605 [Cervantes' Don Quixote (Part I)."l Vauquelin de la Fres- naie's Diverses poesies. Hardy's Alpliee. 1606 Death of Desportes. Passerat's CEuvres Poeliques. Birth of Corneille. Engl.\nd. ^^ Shakespeare's Lucrece. Daniel's Cleo- patra. Marlowe's Dido and Ed- ward II. Kyd's version of Garnier'*^ Coriielie. Chapman's Shadotv of Night. Tasso'' s Melaiicliolv produced at the Rose Theatre. Death of Thomas Kyd. The Countess of Pembroke's version of Garnier's Marc-Aiitoiiic. English translation of La Satyre Minippte -A Pleasant Satyre — A Satyre Memppised\ Sid- ney's Apologiefor Poetrie. Spenser's Colin Clout., Antoretti, and Epitha- lamion. Chapman's Ovids Banquet of Sence (^including TJie Amorous Zodiacke). Spenser's View of the State of Ireland completed. Spenser's Faerie Queenc Books IV-VI) and Prothalaniion. Lodge's Margarite of America. Death of Sir Francis Drake. Bacon's Essays (1st edition). Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity (five books . Shakespeare writes i Henry IV. Globe Theatre built. Sidney's Arcadia in folio. Jonson's Every Man in his Humour acted. Chapman com- pletes Marlowe's Hero and Leandev. Love's Labour's Lost in quarto. Death of Edmund Spenser. Peele's David and Bethsabe. Earl of Essex's rebellion and execu- tion. Fairfax's translation of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Sir William Cornwallis's Essays. Marlowe's Massacre at Paris. Death of Hooker. Ttvo tragedies in one published. Web- ster's The Guise produced. Shakespeare's Hamlet produced. Da- vison's Poetical Rhapsody. Bodley's Library opened at Oxford. Death of Queen Elizabeth. Accession of James I. Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essais. Hamlet, the First Quar'-o. England makes peace with Spain. Handet, the Second Quarto. Bacon's Advancement of Learning. Ben Jonson's Volponc produced. English translation ol Bodin's Repu- bliquc by Richard Knolles. XXIV CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE France. 1607 Death of Vauquelin de la Frcs- naie. Hardy's Coriolaii. 1608 1609 Henry IV assassinated. Acces- sion of Louis Xni. Regnier's Satires (I-XH). Death of J. J. Scaliger. 161 1 Death of Bertaut. Larivey's Comedies (Part H). 1612 Regnier's Satires (revised edi- tion). 1613 [Death of Guarini.] 1614 1615 [Cervantes' Don Quixote (Part H).] Montchretien, Traite dc V (Economie politique. 1616 [Death of Cervantes.] Au- bigne's Les Tragiques pub- Hshed (written in 1577). England. Ben Jonson's Volpone. Alexander's Monarchicke Tragedies. Chapman's Bussy d^ Ainbois. Tomkis's Lingua . First collective edition of Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas's La Se- iiiaiiie complete. King Lear in quarto. Chapman's Byron's Conspiracy and Tragedy. Birth of Milton. Spenser's Works published in quarto. Shakespeare's Sonnets, Troilus and Cressida, and Pericles in quarto. An- tony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus probably produced. Cotgrave's French- English Dictionary. Coryat's Circdities. Shakespeare's Tempest written. The Authorised Version of the Bible. Bacon's Essays (and edition . Death of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Chapman's Revenge of Bussy d'Ani- bois. Raleigh's History of the World. Death of Hakluj't, Francis Beaumont, and Shakespeare. William Drum- mond of Hawthornden's Poems. BOOK I THE DEBT OF TUDOR CULTURE TO FRANCE I The Renaissance in Italy, France, and England English literature of the sixteenth century reached its uhimate triumph in the drama and poetry of vShakespeare. On this fact the historian and the critic dwell with a just persistence. Less attention is commonly bestow^ed on the equally instructive truth that English literature of the six- teenth century w^as no spontaneous, no merely local or isolated manifestation, but a late and slowly maturing fruit of the widespread European movement which is known as the Renaissance. Elizabethan literature has an unassailable line of foreign descent and kinship. Whatever justification historian or critic may allege for the prevalent disregard of the pedigree, there lurks in the apathy a risk of distorting the historical vision, of clouding the critical judgement. The Renaissance may be defined in its broadest aspect as a strenuous effort on the part of Western Europe to eliminate barbarism and rusticity from the field of man's thought, and to substitute humanism and liberal culture of infinite scope. The discov^ery of Greek literature and the renewed study of the Latin classics were the exciting causes of the movement. But the Renaissance was far more than a literary revival ; it was a regeneration of human sentiment, a new birth of intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual aspiration. Life throughout its sweep was invested w^ith a new signifi- cance and a new potentiality. While sympathy was awakening with the ideas and forms of Greek and Latin literature, other forces were helping to kindle a sense of joy, a love of beauty, a lively interest in animate and inanimate nature — of an unpre- cedented quality. The past fails to account for all the new growth of artistic sensibility, of intellectual and spiritual curio- sity. The present, with its discovery of the new western world B 2 4 .'. iFRANGE-; ANA, TUDOR CULTURE and the recasting of cosmography, bred a novel and an inde- pendent stimulus. Never before was seen so versatile an ingenuity in adapting old forms of expression to changed conceptions of mind and matter. The fertilizing forces of the Renaissance begot a new world of art and letters, which was fired by a double ardour of revolution and of restoration. It was in Italy that the stirring movement was born and nurtured. It crossed the Alps somewhat sluggishly. Thence it passed at varying intervals and at different rates of progress into France, Germany, Spain, and England. England was slow to enlist in this triumphant advance of humanism, in this mighty march of mind. The culture of the Renaissance blossomed late in the British isle, far later than in Italy, or indeed in France. Nor did the English soil prove equal to fostering the humanist development in all the fields of artistic endeavour which the new spirit fructified abroad. No original painting, no original music, no original archi- tecture of Renaissance inspiration was cradled in Tudor England. There the Renaissance sought distinctive expression ■ in literature and poetry alone. Near two hundred years separate the great first-fruits of the literary and artistic movement in Italy from the full English harvest of literary treasure. As early as the four- teenth century, Giotto in painting and Petrarch in poetry preached in Northern Italy the new doctrine of the Re- naissance, and inaugurated in their native country a humanist enthusiasm, which maintained its energy in the twin paths of art and letters till the sixteenth century closed. The opening scenes of the Italian Renaissance in the fourteenth century gave earnest of a glorious perfection, and the sixteenth century, to which the last episodes of the Itahan movement belong, is still familiarly known as ' the golden age ' of Italian literature as well as of Italian art. Through three centuries humanism animated the whole range of artistic effort in Italy. During the first quarter of the sixteenth century new paths of glory were conquered by Ariosto in Italian poetry, by Machiavelli and Guicciardini in Italian prose, by Raphael, Correggio, and Titian in Italian painting : THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY AND FRANCE 5 a generation later Italian art and letters acknowledged the sovereignty of Michelangelo, and Michelangelo's immediate successors on the thrones of his country's poetry and art were of the calibre of Guarini and Tasso, of Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese. The latest of the three centuries in the history of the Italian Renaissance was the era of Machiavelli and Tasso, no less than of Michelangelo and Tintoretto. The Renaissance in Italy shows a tenacity and an enduring breadth and brilliance which have no precise parallel elsewhere. It came into being earlier, and lived longer and in more versa- tile strength than in any other country of Europe. The French Renaissance is far younger than the Italian movement ; the scope of its triumph was narrower ; its career was briefer. But the French Renaissance was of older standing than the English ; it ranged over wider fields of art ; its history is longer ; it ran a more continuous and less fitful course ; it sprang into active life in the early years of the sixteenth century, and only lost its energy in the latest years. Though the zenith of Renaissance inspiration was reached by French poetry in the work of Ronsard during the sixth decade, the spirit glowed in Ronsard's senior, Rabelais, three decades earlier, and in his junior, Montaigne, three decades later. Meanwhile the French Renaissance yielded rich stores of art as well as literature. Places among the masterpieces of the world have been accorded portraits from the easels of the Clouets ; the French sculptors Pilon and Goujon rank with the heroes of Italy. In both artistic and literary branches of aesthetic effort the French no less than the Italian Renaissance won unfading laurels before the literature which was the sole fruit of the English Renaissance acquired genuine coherence of form or aim. In both France and Italy humanism reached its final stage of perfection in art and letters while Spenser and vShakespeare were very young men, before their spurs were fairly won. Ronsard died just before Shakespeare came of age. Tasso, though he was Spenser's senior by no more than eight years, enjoyed a universal fame long before the Faerie Queeiie was sent to press. The Italian Renaissance 6 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE and the French Renaissance put forth their finest flowers before the Elizabethan era was well in leaf At the outset there was promise in England of a different issue. At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century England saw bright flashes of humanist development. The scholarship and speculation of Thomas Linacre and of Sir Thomas More iflumined the darkness for a brief season. At no long interval the poets Wyatt and Surrey brought another touch of radiance into the scene. To sanguine observers of Henry VIII's reign exploits seemed at hand which might challenge comparison with those of their great European contemporaries, Ariosto and Machiavelli in Italy, Rabelais and Clement Marot in France. But the promise proved delusive. Attractive as were the first emana- tions of Tudor humanism and Tudor poetry, they were /gleams only, and quickly faded. When Surrey's muse was silenced, near half a century of darkness or hazy light intervened before the literary flame was to burn in England with ample or lasting glow. Only from the year j^529' when Spenser and vSir Philip Sidney first gave earnest of their genius, did the stream of great literature flow in Englandcontinuously or with sustained force. The impulse grew in strength for thirty years and then decayed. The flourishing period of English Renaissance literature was not only belated, but was of short duration compared with that of F" ranee or Italy. At the extreme end of the sixteenth century the drama of the Renaissance in England scaled through one generation heights of which the movement alike in Italy and in France fell short. It is no insularity on the part of the English critic, there is no proof that he is 'sick of self-love', in the acknowledgement that the best Elizabethan drama betrays a more affluent inspiration and a deeper emotion than any drama of French or Italian work- manship. Yet this glorious compensation does not obscure the comparatively restricted bounds of p:nglish artistic energy during the era, nor may the historian overlook the tardiness of the English Renaissance in proving its strength, or the brevity of the period of its prosperity. THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND 7 On the threshold of our prese.it study of literary history we must divest ourselves of many modern prepossessions. Not till the eighteenth century opened, can P^ngland be said to have marched in the European van of intellectual pro- gress. The supreme work of vSliakespeare and Bacon belongs for the most part to the seventeenth rather than to the sixteenth century, and their pre-eminence gives them perhaps a place apart, but on any showing they were the youngest heirs of the spirit of the continental Renaissance. They were giants in the rearguard of the advancing host. Through eight decades of the sixteenth century the in- tellectual activity of England lagged behind not only France and Italy, but even Germany and Spain, From Germany, Tudor England was content to borrow a reformed theology and much of her knowledge of art and science. The lessons that Spain had more especially to teach her seemed for near a century beyond her intellectual or political grasp. Spain's pioneer colonization of America implied a rare mental alertness. Whatever errors may be imputed to the Spanish occupation of the New World, the mighty exploit was born of a robust imagination and an intuitive command of the two complex sciences of navigation and government. England followed the guidance of vSpain in this colonizing sphere of activity with tardiness and reluctance. Richard Hakluyt and Sir Walter Raleigh, who preached to England in the epoch of Shakespeare's manhood the duty of sus- tained colonial endeavour, bear ample testimony to their country's failure to appreciate the meaning of the Spanish example. They are eloquent in regrets of English un- willingness to learn the lesson that Spain was teaching. The French mind seized the Spanish hint more quickly than the English. Though French experiments in American colo- nization and exploration lacked the steady persistence of Spain, Frenchmen none the less made resolute endeavours to plant the French flag in Brazil, in Florida, and in Canada. These French designs compare favourably in their aims and results with the bold but ineffectual expeditions of Martin Frobisher, of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and of Sir Walter 8 FRANCE \ND TUDOR CULTURE Raleigh's agents in Virginl-i. There is nothing, at any rate, in the colonial history of Tudor England quite analogous to the fruitful achievements of Jacques Cartier or of his younger disciple, Samuel Champlain, on the northern confines of the American continent.^ The backwardness of England in the exploration and settlement of the newly discovered hemisphere oddly con- trasts with the forwardness of Spain and even with the relatively modest activity of France. Such discrepancies point a comprehensive moral. Through all but the very close of the sixteenth century, the English mind proved less alert or less pliant than the continental mind, when con- fronted by the new conceptions of the era. In love of political independence, in physical bravery and endurance, in mercantile aptitude, Tudor England never feared rivalry with foreign nations. But slowness to appreciate nascent ideas and mistrust of artistic sentiment made it difficult for her during the epoch of the Renaissance to keep fully abreast of the intellectual culture of the other peoples of Western Europe. II England's Intellectual Commerce It is needless to repeat the warning against treating sixteenth-century English literature, and Elizabethan literature more especially, as an isolated growth, as a plant rooted in English soil and drawing its sustenance from English earth. No argument or evidence can gainsay the fact that Elizabethan, like all Tudor literature, was an organism of varied fibre, much of which was rooted in foreign mould. Although the spirit of the Renaissance came to fruition in England late, intellectual commerce with the Continent was active throughout the era, in varying degrees of intensity. Links to bind England to the great confederation of in- 1 Cf. 'The Call of the West'— four articles by the present writer in Scribner's Magazine for 1907. QUEEN ELIZABETH'S LINGUISTIC FACULTY 9 tellectual Europe were in existence from the outset, and, if often slender in texture, were never incapable, under due incitement, of increasing their strength. Through the eight decades of her quiescence, Tudor England was absorbing, however slackly, foreign sustenance ; she was garnering, however inertly, foreign stimulus to future exertion. No contemporary observer at any time underrated the debt that Tudor England owed to foreign culture. Queen Elizabeth was regarded at home as the standard type of England's intellectual development, and one of the many compliments on the width of her intellectual horizon well interprets the general situation. A poetic eulogist con- gratulated her on being not only in her mother-voice Rich in oration, but he pointed out that she with phrases choice So on the sudden can discourse in Greek, French, I>atin, Tuscan, Dutch, and Spanish, eke That Rome, Rhine, Rhone, Greece, Spain, and Italy Plead all for right in her nativity.^ Here we have a characteristically rough and irregular, but an almost exhaustive, enumeration of the foreign influences at work, not merely on the Queen, but on the best intellects among her subjects. All these six tongues and literatures — Greek, F"rench, Latin, Spanish, Dutch (i.e. German), and Tuscan — plead of right for recognition in casting the nativity of Tudor and, more especially, of Elizabethan literature. A doctrine of the universal brotherhood of literary effort ^ Joshua Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas's Secottd Week (4th edit. 1613, p. 333). Queen Elizabeth's varied linguistic faculty, which is well attested by Ascham {7'ke Sclwleiiiaster, ed. Mayor, p. 63), was noticed by many other French poets. Ronsard (Book IV, § ii infra) together with the Huguenot poets Aubigne (BookV^_i_v2r) and Grevin (Book VI, § iii) all write as admiringly on the subject as Uu Bartas. The great scholar, J. J. Scaliger, who visited England about 1590, wrote: 'Elisabeth Reyne sgavoit plus que tous les Cirands de son vivant, & parloit Italien, Francois, Alemand, Latin, Grec & Anglois ' {Sca/ti^eriana, Cologne, i695> P- 134). V lo FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE was vaguely formulated by the literary profession in Eliza- bethan England, The cosmopolitan tendencies of the Elizabethan world of letters were recognized by critics of the day with perfect equanimity. The poet, Samuel Daniel, who was under a large debt to the foreign muses, sought a more or less philosophic interpretation of the hydra-headed alien force which vitalized the Shakespearean era. Writing in 1603, Daniel warily argued that it was the proportion [i.e. property] of a happy pen. Not to b' invassalVl to one monarchy, But dwell with all the better world of men Whose spirits all are of one community. Culture, according to Daniel, declines to be hemmed in by the barriers of nationality. On the contrary. Genius vents her treasure in all lands And doth a most secure commercement find.^ Varied was the argument which affirmed the benefits deriv- able from commerce with foreign literature. Elizabethans of philological proclivities boasted of the readiness of their language to adapt foreign words to literary purposes. The learned antiquary, Richard Carew, attributed to foreign rein- forcements at the end of the sixteenth century ' the excellence of the English tongue '. ' Seeing then we borrow,' Carew wrote to his friend and fellow-archaeologist Camden, ' (and that not shamefully) from the Dutch, the Briton, the Roman, the Dane, the French, the Italian, and Spaniard, how can our stock be other than exceeding plentiful ? ' The dangers to be apprehended from a polyglot vocabulary were easily exag- gerated. ' It may be objected that such patching maketh Littleton's hotch-pot of our tongue, and in effect brings the same rather to a Babelish confusion than any one entire lan- guage.' - But the writer reaches the complacent conclusion of every able and impartial judgement that the English tongue owes to the foreign elements in its composition most of its significance, ease, copiousness, and melody. ^ Daniel's IVoiks, ed. Grosart, vol. i, p. 287. "^ Camden, Remains Concer7ii?ig Britain (1870 edition), p. 47. TASSO ON THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE 1 1 Ample evidence is available of the zeal with which l£liza- bethan men of letters scanned the achievements of the literary heroes of the European Renaissance for literary suggestion. A graphic illustration is worth offering here of the active interest which the English public showed, when the English Renaissance was flowering, in the personal experience of great contemporary leaders of continental literature. Much may be gauged from the fact that the melancholy fortunes of Tasso's concluding years were, while he was yet alive, the subject of a play, which was several times performed at the chief theatre in Elizabethan London. The piece called Tasso's Melancholy may well have had Ophelia's words for motto : O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! . . . The observed of all observers quite, quite down. Goethe unconsciously followed in the Elizabethan playwright's footsteps and proved a cognate breadth of interest by penning a play on the same theme. The text of the Elizabethan drama no longer survives, but there is an extant record of its first production by the theatrical manager Philip Henslowe at the Rose Theatre in London on August ii, 1594.^ The play proved exceptionally popular and profitable. It was repeated six times before the end of the year and at least four times next year. Tasso worked out his sad destiny while Shake- speare's genius was first proving its strength. On April 2^, 1595, the great Italian poet died, and within three weeks — on May 14, 1595 — the English piece of which he was the hero was acted in London for at least the tenth time. Nor did its theatrical life then cease. Six years later, early in i6oi ,\ Dekker, a writer of genuine Elizabethan vigour, was em- p^o^ied to revise^ this play of Tasso's Melancholy^ and it would seem to have been revived at the London playhouse while Shakespeare was planning his great \.r3.gQdy oi Hajnlet. ' Tasso's Robe ' and ' Tasso's Picture ' long figured among the \ properties of the Rose Theatre. The stir that the Italian/ master's personal tragedy roused in the sphere of Elizabethan drama near the heyday of its activity points to only one ' Henslowe's Diary, ed. Greg, vol. i, pp. 19-22. 12 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE conclusion. It is luminous proof of the briskness of the literary and intellectual commerce of lilizabethan England with the European continent at the end of the sixteenth century. Ill The Interpretative Faculty of France In estimating, with precision, the influence that France, our sole immediate concern, exerted on England in this era of intellectual stir, it is needful to define the part that France played in the mighty movement of the European Renaissance, and to apprehend the distinguishing features of the humanist development within the bounds of her own territory. It has to be remembered that France was only one of the countries whose influence helped to cast the nativity of Tudor culture. There were many other influences at work — classical influences, Italian and Spanish influences, and in the sphere of scholar- ship, art, and theology, German and Flemish influences. 'Rome, Rhine, Rhone, Greece, Spain, and Italy,' all plead for recognition. Yet I am prepared to defend the position that French culture has a bearing on the development of Tudor culture, which neither the classics nor Italian art and literature nor German art and literature can on a broad survey be said to equal. Two external kinds of considerations support this conclusion : firstly, the political, social, and geographical relations between the two countries, and secondly, the constitution or composition of French culture. Intercourse between England and P>ance was on the one hand closer than between England and any other foreign country, and on the other hand France's idiosyncrasy or individuality had unique qualification for quickening England's imitative and assimilative instinct, when the two were brought into conjunction. It was the mission of France to bring to England something more than the harvest of her own soil. Though France had not yet attained the military and political ascendancy over Europe which marked the era of Louis XIV, she first became \ CHARACTERISTICS OF FRENCH CULTURl^: 13 in the sixteenth century that home or storehouse of cuhure and ideas, she first aaiuired those powers of collecting- and transmitting- culture and ideas, which soon led Paris to be styled the artistic and intellectual capital, not alone of France, but of Europe. Lucidity, clarity, precision of statement, together with a notable measure of urbanity, blitheness, and gaiety, became commanding characteristics of the French intellect during the sixteenth century. Such traits fitted her for a role of interpreter and tutor to other nations, not merely of her own culture and ideas, but of the culture and ideas which she absorbed from others. She had, then and later, great moments of original inspiration. But in the history of modern European civilization her interpretative faculty, her capacity for teaching without preaching, have given her as high a title to external fame and gratitude as any of her original contributions to thought or art. Her expository power has constituted her for fully three centuries a universal court of taste, an apostolate of humanism tirbi et orbi\ the world's arbiter elegantiartim. Such ofiices she first filled with effect in the sixteenth century, and her prentice hand of civilizing missionary was con- spicuously exercised on Tudor England. IV The Culture of the French Renaissance The culture of the French Renaissance is like Jacques's melancholy, ' compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects.' It is an amalgam of Attic grace and simplicity, of Latin directness, of Itahan sensuousness, but it owes much of its colour to Gallic alertness and inventiveness of mind, to the Gallic spirit of airy mockery. The term which is often applied to the main idiosyncrasy of the French character, I'esprit gattlois, is a phrase which is difficult to translate. It is often confused unjustly with humorous obscenity. In its original manifestations, I' esprit gaiilois implies three enviable qualities : firstly, flexibility of thought ; secondly, gaiety, tend- ing at times to levity and coarseness, but readily yielding to 14 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE pathetic tenderness ; and thirdly, a melodious ease of frank land simple utterance. Its main power comes from the volatile wit, the good-natured raillery, of the native temperament, which is never readily repressed even in serious situations. The vj { religious drama of mediaeval France has its episodes of banter Vand laughter. There was no monotony about respyit i^au/oi's ; it was impatient of stagnation ; it was prone to favour change of form and hue. Greece and modern Italy are the main sources of inspiration for the French Renaissance. But the native French soil which Greece and modern Italy fertilized, contributed rich sustenance and fascinating iridescence of its own. There was no lack of literature in France of the fifteenth century. Lyric and allegory, history and epic, farce and religious drama flourished in France before the Renaissance dawned. The school of Gallic literature, which immediately preceded the Renaissance, was for the most part of a primitive allegorical, or chivalric type. It deserves the attention of English students because the pioneers of Tudor prose and poetry, and even of Tudor drama, eagerly gleaned some direc- tion and some energy from the literary harvest of late mediaeval France. Tudor pioneers were often uncritical and unadven- turous in their choice of French models. At the outset, at any rate, they overlooked the vigorous freshness of Villon or Comines, preferring the more torpid industry of Alan Chartier and Christine de Pisan, whose fame was fanned at home and abroad by royal and noble patronage. Better taste and judge- v ment prevailed with a later generation of Tudor England, which worshipped at the veteran shrine of Froissart and also paid tribute to the contemporary vogue of Clement iMarot. Yet, despite the fact that Villon and Comines lacked recognition across St. George's Channel, their achieve- ment illustrates the sort of literary influence which mediaeval France was capable of exerting. \''illon was mainly a national poet in whom racial or local sentiment was, perhaps, too strongly developed to gain easily the ear of foreign readers. Much of his verse is couched in a Parisian dialect, and is addressed to the populace of Paris. But his original poetic L'ESPRIT GAULOIS 15 insight enabled him to interpret the bhtheness, the frank- ness, the sensibihty of his country's genius. He described what he felt and saw without disguise or restraint, and gave expression to a full-blooded humanity, frequently in terms of a savage coarseness. At the same time his poems are occasionally woven of that golden texture which is destined to make a universal appeal. Delicate metre and language clothe genuine pathos. Very touchingly does the poet hymn the transience of fame and beauty. Rarely have the regrets of reminiscence been more artistically phrased than in Villon's 'Ballade des dames du temps jadis' (Ballade of old-time Ladies), or in his 'Ballade des seigneurs du temps jadis' (Ballade of old- time Lords), with the two tuneful refrains ' Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan .' ' and ' Mais ou est le preux Charlemaigne .'' ' Something of the French breadth of sentiment which inspired Villon appears in the almost contemporary chronicle of Philippe de Comines, who, although born on the Flemish border of France, was a thorough Frenchman by temperament and domicile. Comines's chronicle shows how the old French spirit fostered the gift of vivacious, fluent, picturesque narrative. Comines combines with his power of vivid description a piquant irony and a reflective energy, which enable him convincingly to depict character and suggest motive. If Comines's predecessor Froissart may be compared with Livy, to Comines may be assigned some affinity with Tacitus. The erudition of the Renaissance ultimately brought French verse and prose, under Greek and Latin influence, to rare perfection of point and ease. Verse and prose were largely purged of turbidity, from which no mediaeval effort was quite free ; they acquired a more uniform polish. Nevertheless, the faculty of lively and piquant narrative, which Comines possessed in abundance, echoed, like A'illon's poetic blitheness and sensi- bility, a veteran native note. The ancient literary dispensation was not peremptorily rejected when the fresh dispensation of the Renaissance first claimed French allegiance. In the exuberant genius of Rabe- ^ lais, the junior of Villon by fifty years, the tradition of A'^illon, in its unregeneracy and immodesty, joins hands for a season i6 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE with the alien learning and insight of Greece and Italy. The poet Clement Marot, a pious editor of Villon's work, made, too, a humbler effort to reconcile the old spirit with the new. The result of the compromise was something of a patchwork, which challenged many canons of art. But while the past poetry was not quickly dispossessed, it became plain, when the sixteenth century was nearing middle age, that the old Gallic taste and temper were to pass for the time under the sway of a new poetic inspiration, and were to adapt themselves to new poetic channels. When Rabelais and Marot laid down their pens, the old forces in the French literary arena showed exhaustion, and the literary activity of France ceased to pursue the ancient ways. The French Renaissance finally proclaimed drastic innovations and de- j creed divorce with the domestic tradition. Graeco- Italian \ influences took control of the literary and poetic stage. In \the work of Ronsard and his friends of the Pleiade, all the innovating temper of the French Renaissance came by its own. Ronsard and his friends deliberately rejected as vulgar and barbarous the old French idiom and the pre- scriptive usages of the Gallic spirit. They deliberately I grafted the nation's poetry on Greek and Italian stocks. I Pindar became a French hero. Anacreon, whom French scholars first discovered, and Petrarch, whom they naturalized, were gods of the new idolatry. Ronsard and his allies counted themselves reformers, and claimed to be moved by a patriotic ardour. Their pretensions were not ques- tioned. Gallic ' saltness ' often lent zest to their labours, but the old crudity was effaced. The silvery melodies and clas- sical refinement of the new lyric outburst won instant popularity and caught not merely their fellow countrymen's ear, but many a foreign ear as well. The Elizabethan poets admitted that they fetched a new elegance from France ; 'they quaffed, one said, copious draughts of the new French Helicon.^ With what measure of truth such words were spoken will presently appear. I * Cf. Ret iirtie from Parnassus, 1606, Act I. Sc. ii. 275 (ed. Macray, p. 86), |xnd Joseph Hall's Satires, Book VI, Sat. i, 1598 (ed. Singer, 1824, p. 159). 17 V ' \>»- French Discipleship to Greece and Rome The processes at work in the evolution of Ronsard and the Graeco-Italian school of the French Renaissance were perfectly- plain and natural. At the end of the fifteenth century the newly-discovered Greek literature gripped the finest French intellect with the hold of passion, nor was the grip relaxed through the sixteenth century. At the end of the fifteenth century there was inaugurated in France that golden age of pure scholarship which is identified with the names of j Budaeus, the Scaligers, and the Etiennes (or Stephenses). j A dozen others deserve mention in the same breath. Greek professorships were founded not in Paris alone, but in numerous provincial universities. Greek manuscripts were collected for Francis I's royal library. \ '> ^^ French classical scholarship, like all branches of modern culture, owed much to Italy, It was in Italy that almost all the great classical authors were printed for the first time. A few were first printed in Germany, and only four or five in France. But France vastly improved on the Italian type of classical scholarship. The Gallic spirit even there was active, and relieved learning of most of the burden of dullness. Although French original editions of the great classics are not numerous, France quickly excelled Italy in its faculty for ) textual criticism and interpretation, and above all for transla- | tion into the vernacular. Anacreon, Phaedrus, and Plutarch ^ in his role of philosopher, are the most notable authors which France first rescued from manuscripts. But the French recen- sions and annotations of the text of authors of the rank of Aeschylus and Plato first brought the Hellenic genius home td the intelligence of modern Europe. The first effectivex textual criticism of the Greek Testament came from French | pens. The earliest French printers were scholars of repute, and were themselves skilful editors. One practical service which i8 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE the French printers rendered European scholarship is especi- ally characteristic of the genius of the French Renaissance ; they refashioned with fine taste Greek typography. They set the European pattern of Greek print for two hundred years. As scholars, Tudor England fell lamentably behind their French neighbours. According to Sir Richard Jebb, Richard Bentley, the Greek scholar of the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, was the first Englishman who can be classed with the great scholars of the French Renaissance. Sixteenth-century English scholars were few, and their steps were halting. Nearly all their inspiration came from the energetic humanism of France. A larger benefit which the French humanists offered foreigners as well as their own countrymen was that of translating the great Latin and Greek classics into vernacular French. Not the most erudite professors of Greek or Latin disdained this work, with the result that wellnigh every great Latin or Greek author was, before the sixteenth century was very old, at the disposal of the French people in accurate and idiomatic French. An interesting and popular critical tract of the period by the classical scholar and printer of Lyons, fitienne Dolet, which was first published In 1540 and was many times reprinted, was entitled La inanieye de bien traduire ^d'lme laiigtie en autres (On the manner of translating well from one language into others). Dolet s laws of translation are wonderfully modern and illuminating. His sagacious Injunc- tions to the translator loyally to study the Idiom of the language from which, as well as the language Into which, he translates, may now sound obvious and commonplace, but they are not obsolete. They were obeyed wuth such skill by Dolet and his contemporaries that one or two Greek authors — notably Plutarch — became In the French translation of the sixteenth century, and have since remained, standard works of French literature. Plutarch's Lives also became in an English translation an Elizabethan classic. But it Is significant to remember that the Elizabethan translation of Plutarch was rendered not from the Greek original, but from the contemporary French. That fact, I think I shall be able to FRENCH STUDY Ol^^ ROMAN LAW 19 show, illustrates a widely-distributed feature of the literary- relations between the two countries in the sixteenth century. It was not only in scholarship or in pure literature that the classical studies of Renaissance France bore luxurious fruit. The intellectual energ-y of the nation was seeking a wider field of exercise. Roman history and Roman law stimulated and stirred the French intellect hardly less than Greek language and literature. Though Renaissance study of Roman law was begun in Italy, it was perfected in France. Andrea Alciati (1492-1550), a native of Milan, did his most notable work as professor of law at the universities of Avignon (from 1521) and of Bourges (from 1522 onwards). From him Europe is commonly credited with deriving a true apprehension of the significance of Roman law. He was the first to appraise the value of the legal system of Rome, and he first brought to the effort literary grace and perspicuity. Erasmus, most eminent and enlightened of critics, applied to Alciati the eulogy which Cicero passed on Q. Mutius Scaevola, the prince of jurists of ancient Rome, ' iurisperitorum eloquentissimus,' ^ Hardly less distinguished than Alciati was Jacques de Cujas (1522-90), professor of law at Bourges, a Frenchman who evolved modern juridical science out of his investigation into Roman codes. Cujas, the junior of Alciati by thirty years, survived him by more than forty, and the prolonged era of their joint labours identified the French Renaissance through nearly all its course with brilliant revelations of the significance of law in both principle and practice. A third French professor of the period, Jean Bodin (1530-96), was led by similar classical avenues to a new politi-\ cal philosophy, to a formal theory of government. Bodin's 1 ^ Alciati was also famous as the earliest and most popular of modern \ emblem writers, and as the inventor thereby of an ingenious literary 1 relaxation, which was characteristic of the Renaissance temper. Alciati's Emblems are proverbs in Italian verse symbolically illustrated. They were first published at Milan in 1522, and soon achieved a very large circulation in France, where a translation came out in 1536. The continental editions of the sixteenth century are said to have numbered more than fifty. Though no edition appeared in England, eighty-six of Alciati's emblems I are adopted by Geffrey Whitney in his Choice of Emblems, Leyden, 1586. ' (See reprint, edited by Henry Green, 1S66, pp. 245-6.) C 2 ( 20 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE systematic survey of political ideas was fresh and vigorous enough to give the cue to many of Montesquieu's generali- zations. Not until the extreme end of the sixteenth century, when Hooker made the attempt from an Anglican Church- man's point of view, did any Englishman venture to treat politics on such comprehensive lines. Elizabethan students were long content to make Bodin's exposition of political theory an academic text-book. The political literature of the Renaissance was, like almost all Renaissance effort, born in Italy. // Principe of Machia- velli was the earliest manifesto of Renaissance polity. A strenuous plea for autocracy, it long enjoyed a universal vogue ; in spite of obvious prejudice and partisanship, its authority was not readily effaced. Though Bodin and the French Renaissance school of political thought ranged beyond the limits of Machiavelli's masterly defence of despotism, Machiavelli's illiberal argument colours Bodin's theoretic dis- quisitions. But as the century waned, Machiavelli's credit in France dwindled. The Huguenots directly challenged the Machiavellian principle of politics. Concentrating their vision on the history of the Roman Republic, the Huguenot thinkers elaborated a practical scheme of constitutional government, which adapted to monarchical conditions the republican con- ception of liberty. Some of the Huguenot pamphleteers advocated incidentally tyrannicide as an instrument of political reform, but the main importance of the Huguenot political doctrine lay in a frank recognition of popular right and in an assumption of the reasonableness of democracy. English critics of the policy of the first two Stuart kings , found serviceable arguments in the Huguenot literature of sixteenth-century France. Yet broad and deep as was the debt of the French Renais- sance to classical teaching, the classical lesson was not always accepted quite submissively. Many a phase of classical specu- lation was exposed to censorious scrutiny. The Gallic spirit set up a barrier against philosophical servility, and guaranteed independence of thought. Revolution was always in process as well as restoration. THE ITALIAN ELEMENT 21 Numerous Frenchmen of the Renaissance in their philo- sophical, ethical, or logical inquiries, boldly questioned the classical tradition. Peter Ramus» or Pierre de la Ramee (1515-72), startled the University of Paris in 1536 with a thesis professing to demonstrate that whatever Aristotle had sought \ to establish was wrong. It was on what he viewed as the | ruins of Aristotelianism that Ramus laid the foundation of a | new system of logic which Bacon learned at Cambridge. The youngest hero of the French Renaissance, Michel de Mon-\ taigne (1 533-92 j, created a new type of literature and specula- i tion in those familiar essays which Bacon echoed with the zeal : of a disciple. Montaigne, who discussed in the Pagan spirit I ethics and religion, declined with a charming frankness to bow the head to any authority, ancient or modern. Inno- vators like Ramus and Montaigne were classicists by training. Latin was the language of their daily life. Yet their work proved that a revolutionary tendency coloured the intellectual enfranchisement which issued under the spell of the Gallic spirit from sympathetic study of Greek and Latin literature. VI The Italian Element The debt of the French Renaissance to modern Italy is hardly less conspicuous than its debt to Greece or Rome. The course of politics quickened those racial affinities which made France an easy prey to the sensuous charm of modern Italian art and poetry. It was a thirty years' war which France waged on Italy that brought French culture largely under Italian sway. The; military inyasion of Italy by France was inaugurated by the French king Charles VlII in 1494. Full thirty years i later it reached a close which wrought physical disaster on the invading host. Yet the French rout under the walls of Pavia in 1525 merely served to tighten the bonds which linked France to Italian culture. The last of the royal French invaders, Francis I, who was taken prisoner in the fatal >, 22 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE contest, was enslaved by Italian taste. The king loved the fanciful titles of ' le pere des Muses ' and ' le restaurateur des lettres '. Ronsard hailed him as ' Nourrisson de Phebus, des Muses le mignon '} The Phoebus who nurtured Francis I was of Roman lineage, and the Muses of whom he was the darling were denizens of Tuscany. During Francis I's long reign (1515-47), court and society in France fostered an extravagant adoration of Italian art as well as of Italian letters. Leonardo da Vinci, the most catholically endowed of Italian artists, Andrea del Sarto, one of the most skilful of Italian colourists, and Benvenuto Cellini, the greatest of Italian artificers, were among the French king's guests. At his bidding Italian architects converted the feudal castle of Fontainebleau into a sumptuous Italian palace, which became a paradise of Italian art. Francis I's son, Henry II ; his grandsons, Francis II, Henry III, and Charles IX ; and their successor, Henry IV, all vied with one another in embellishing that edifice with noble ornament of sculpture / and metal work, with parks and gardens, which enhanced the . beauty of Francis I's design, and strengthened its Italian spirit. When the Republic of Florence, the chief home of the Italian Renaissance, fell in 1530, and was finally merged in the Duchy of Tuscany, Florentine refugees found no warmer welcome than in Paris. Much Italian literature was penned in the French capital under the patronage of ' le monarque Fran9ois ', and was printed at French presses. The Italian conquest of French / taste was sealed in 1533 by the marriage of Francis I's son and '. successor, Henry II, with Catherine de' Medici. The Italian consort of the French prince was the daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, the last representative of the most cultured of Florentine families, whose features Michelangelo has immortalized in his famous statue of II Pensieroso. After ■Queen Catherine's husband died in 1539, her three sons filled in succession the French throne, and during those thirty years (1559-89), she found as Queen Mother full scope for her dominating temper. Her political ambition was nurtured by ' Ronsard, QLuvres, vii. 17S. THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 23 study of Machiavelli's Pj'ince — that stimulating Italian plea for \^^ despotism which its author had dedicated to her father. But, . in spite of political distraction, she never ceased to worship the muses of her native land. The Louvre under her sovereignty was illumined by foreign art and learning. Her fellow countrymen, Aretino and Tasso, greeted her as a queen of Parnassus ; Ronsard and his comrades saluted her as an Italian Pallas, a worthy scion of the Medicean race which had preserved Athens from oblivion.' The Queen Mother's two younger sons, Charles IX and Henry III, were carefully educated in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance under her \ direction, and they kept the Italian temper of the French 1 court well alive till near the end of the century. \ No unmixed good issued from the Italian predominance. Italian culture cherished classical scholarship and speculation. The classical sympathies of France were reinforced by Italian example. Italian predilections were not prejudicial to Frenchmen's enthusiasm for classical study. But there were elements of density and of preciosity in the Italian temper which tended to cloud the scholarly vision and to cloak the lucidity of the Greek or Latin. In the vernacular poetry of France Italian influence encroached on Hellenism as the century aged. Vicious affectation and confused pedantry threatened the well-being of poetic effort, and checked the native impulse, which made for clearer light. In 1589 the Italianate House of Valois fell with the assassination of Henry III. The kindred house of Bourbon filled the vacant throne in the person of Henry of Navarre. The new king owed his fame to his chieftainship of the Huguenots. The versatile culture which his grandmother, Margaret of Navarre, cherished, coloured his mind, but the aesthetic code of Italy which swayed the fashionable world of ' Cf. Ronsard's QLiivrcs, iii. 379 (Le Bocage Royal) : EUe, se souvenant des vertus de sa race . . . Laquelle a remis sus les lettres et Ics arts . . . Sans cette noble race en oubli fust Ath^nes. In Les Poesies inedites de Catherine de MMicis (Paris, 1884), M. Edouard Fremy gives a good sketch of Queen Catherine's varied accomplishments. 24 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE orthodox France made smaller appeal to him than to his predecessors. I A sense of nationality deepened in France with the peaceful \ solution of her internal strife. Henry of Navarre, who brought the century's civil and religious warfare to an end, invigorated the sense of patriotism and discouraged dependence on the I foreigner. The epoch closed amid cries of revolt against the I French poets' servitude to Italian conceits. Patriotic critics denounced as treason the literary habit of assimilating Italian forms of speech. There was a vigorous attempt to dethrone Petrarch and Tasso, acknowledged masters of the poetic realm in France as well as in Italy. But the raising of the standard of rebellion produced no sudden collapse of the old regime. The Italian tide ebbed slowly in French literature. It was flowing most strongly when Elizabethan literature was born, and the French poetry which flourished contemporaneously with the Elizabethan was deeply tinged with Italian hues. VII The Diffusion of Renaissance Culture in France The culture of the French Renaissance repays examination from many points of view. Not merely do its constituent elements and the manner of their intermingling offer much food for critical study, but the dissemination or geographical distribution of Renaissance refinement through the country contributed to its general effect, and invites inquiry. With almost magical celerity the culture of the Renaissance diffused itself through the length and breadth of France. The force and influence of the movement were thereby strengthened abroad as well as at home. Paris was the main focus of light in the glow of the French Renaissance. The great capital had rare powers of attraction for the rest of France and for the world. ^ None the less the country outside Paris fed the flame of culture with a signal ^ Cf. James Howell's Instructions for Forreine Travell, 1642 (ed. Arber, p. 28), ' Paris, that huge though dirty theatre of all nations.' Howell is writing of Paris as he knew it in 1618. FRENCH CENTRES OF CULTURE 25 efficiency. The provinces, with their local parliaments and local traditions, encouraged a sentiment of local independence and of neighbourly rivalry, without seriously imperilling the country's homogeneity. The political divisions gave cultured energ>^ a series of competing rallying-points. A small district of the south \ formed during most of the century the affiliated^Jdjigdgni^of 1 Nayarre, and that iinpcrimu in imperio played a noble part in I '^ the development of the new enlightenment. From 1527 to'' 1549 Margaret, Queen Consort of Navarre, Francis I's sister and Henry of Navarre's grandmother, made her palace at Nerac a nursery of art and letters, which was hardly second in brilliance to the Louvre or to Fontainebleau. The court of Navarre, whose accomplished and liberal-minded queen . divided her enthusiasm between light-hearted Boccaccio and austere Calvin, brought into the sphere of taste a genuinely} catholic tolerance. Nor did such a provincial centre as Neracj stand alone. France was honeycombed with citadels of culture,' which helped to broaden, fortify, and vivify national sympathy with art and literature. Well might Marot liken the cultured eminence of the town\ of Lyons, for example, to Troy or Mount Pelion. Froml the early days of the century many cities boasted annual poetic competitions — Grands Jours — which were seasons and' ceremonies of popular holiday. Ronsard, the kingly poet of the Renaissance, ranked above all his many honours the silver statuette of Minerv^a which the city of Toulouse awarded him in place of the customary sprig of eglantine at its annual literary tournament of Les Jeux Floraux '. Nearly three hundred years after Ronsard, Victor Hugo won the like prize at a subsequent celebration of the same festival of Toulouse ; so inveterate was the literary tradition of provincial France, and so deep w^ere its roots planted during the epoch of the Renaissance. Truth- fully Ronsard apostrophized ' toute la France ' as ' terre pleine de villes ' and ' d'hommes aux Muses accorts '. With his gaze fixed beyond Paris the national poet may win pardon for the exaggeration in his hymn to his fatherland {CEuvrcs, v. 287) : Dedans I'enclos de nos belles citez Mille et mille arts y sont exercitez. 26 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE I The activity of provincial universities made twenty towns Lrivals of Paris in the promotion of humanist education. Many provincial French universities enjoyed, indeed, in specialized lines of study a world-wide repute which Paris failed to reach. The religious wars threatened the prosperity of some of the southern seats of learning. The course of study was inter- rupted, and their pecuniary resources diminished. But reverses proved only temporary, and almost all the universities of France can boast a record of sixteenth-century achievement to which Oxford and Cambridge were during the period strangers. The medical school of Montpellier and the law school of Bourges drew its students from all Europe. Of Lyons and Bordeaux, Toulouse and Poitiers, Orleans and Caen, a like story can be told. Provincial professors often held the ear of the civilized world. No less worthy of commemoration is the fact that in some I forty French provincial towns printing presses were at work without intermission from the earliest years of the sixteenth ' century, and were in constant process of multiplication in the hundred years that followed. Scholars and men of letters invariably directed these typographic enterprises. vSuch a phase of the intellectual history of France strangely contrasts w^ith the circumstance that in England London alone can claim an uninterrupted succession of printers during the same era. Neither Oxford nor Cambridge, England's only two I / \ universities at the time, saw a printing press permanently ^ established within its boundaries till the eighth decade of the sixteenth century. Nor is it irrelevant to notice that itinerant sellers of printed leaflets, mainly popular songs or satires, made their first appearance in France at the end of the fifteenth century. ' Les bisouarts,' as these ballad-mongers and pedlars in printed wares were called, are of older standing in France than in any other country of Europe. Thus few French towns through the sixteenth century lacked their coteries of humanists, their poetic schools, their learned presses, or their colporteurs. There is nothing in the annals of the English Renaissance which can compare with this diffusion of intellectual energy and ambition. THE REFORM OF RELIGION 2^ The roots of Renaissance culture were planted deep in France and fertilized all the land. Therein probably lies the key to the mystery why the progress of the French Renais- sance was neither perceptibly retarded nor prejudiced by the rapid growth in France of the reformed religious doctrine or by the desperate and absorbing struggle for supremacy which was long waged between it and the old faith. The problem is puzzling. The tenacity of the Renaissance spirit which came of the dissemination of the movement through France may suggest a solution. The greatest Frenchman of the century, Calvin, invented an austere formula, which denied salvation to intellectual or artistic enthusiasm. Calvin's disciples in foreign lands anathematized profane art and letters unreservedly. Calvin himself, a humanist by education, liberally qualified in practice his philistine creed, even after his migration to Geneva. Huguenots, who remained in France, reconciled acceptance of his dogma with the pursuit of intellectual and artistic ideals. Much will be said of the contribution of the Huguenots to French literature at a later stage. Here I will only point out that humanism and the Reformed religion on French soil remained, in spite of the Calvinist s dismal inhibition, for the most part loyal allies. At the outset almost every humanist favoured the Reformed faith. At any rate, the humanist shared with the Reformer a common suspicion of mediaeval convention. The cultured court of Navarre was wholly identified with the religious Reformation. At the outset humanism found no such warm welcome in the orthodox circles of Paris as among the French Reformers. The Sorbonne in early days detected in the new Greek scholarship a menace of orthodoxy. But the anti-humanist prejudice soon decayed among French lovers of ancient dogma, and the progress of humanism enjoyed the sanction of Roman Cathohcism. Both French Protestant and French Catholic found indeed a practicable way of reconciling humanism with their religious convictions. Despite the patent fact that humanist principles of intellectual freedom were inimical to the rule alike of Rome and Geneva, neither religious party in France could resist the humanist fascination. Followers of both creeds found a means of J 28 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE accommodating their conceptions of religious truth with humanist ambitions. When civil war broke out between French Catholics and Huguenots, humanism continued to flourish in • both camps. If Ronsard and the leaders of the Pleiade were ; Catholic laymen loyal enough to the faith to fill abbacies } and other ecclesiastical benefices, — Palissy the potter, Goujon the sculptor, Goudimel the musician, R.amus the logician, the ! Etiennes the scholar- printers, Scaliger the Greek critic, were all frank in their avowal of Huguenot or Reformation sympathies. Calvin, the high-priest of the French Reformation, for all his own and his followers' perverse professions to the contrary, bore, to the last, traces of his humanist training and of his intel- lectual affinity with humanism. He rendered French human- I ism the immense service of first investing French prose with a definitely logical precision. Nor did Calvin's ingrained ■. sense of scholarship stop there. Under his auspices, Henri Etienne was suffered to pursue at Geneva those scholarly ; studies which conspicuously dignified the humanist cause, while there was devised in Geneva at Calvin's suggestion a system of education which owed its triumph to its humanist ' leaven. No fact bears more graphic testimony to the strength of the impression which Renaissance sentiment made on the . French mind, and no fact is of greater significance in the study of French influence on Elizabethan literature, than this liberal I identification of French humanism with French Protestantism. The pervasive influence of French humanism penetrated the dense walls of Calvin's theocratic state. French humanism ! derived a hallowing grace in the sight of English puritans from the sanction of the French Reformers. A kindred inference may be drawn from the respect for literature which the French Renaissance fostered among wealthy men of a middle station in life. Humanism moulded the lives and immortalized the names of many Frenchmen who made no bid for the professional credit of authorship and whose activities were largely absorbed by the practical pursuit of non-literary vocations. Jean Grolier and Jacques Auguste De Thou are still re- garded through the civilized world as emperors of taste GROLIER AND DE THOU 29 among lovers of books, and their careers help to indicate the alluring versatility of the culture of the French Renaissance. Book-collecting was the pursuit through which Grolier and De Thou reached their enviable eminence in the annals of French civilization. They are now perhaps best remembered by the artistic beauty of the bookbinding, which distinguished their private libraries. But both men were amateur critics of literature and admitted no volumes to their shelves that lacked intrinsic literary interest. Their ambitions were many- sided. The elder of the two, Grolier, a friend of Francis I, spent much time as a diplomatic agent in Rome and other cities of Italy. It was in Italy that he laid the foundations of his great collection. The younger of the two, De Thou, was a lawyer and the president of the Paris Parlement. A history of his own time, from his pen, is a sagacious contribution to historical and autobiographical literature, but he belongs professionally to men of affairs and not to men of letters. These two standard-bearers of culture in the citizen army of the Renaissance were not, strictly speaking, contem- poraries. Grolier was born in 1479 ^^^ ^i^*^ ^^ ^S^Si when he was in his eighty-sixth year. De Thou was born in 1553, and lived on till 161 7. Their two lives cov^er a con- secutive period of one hundred and thirty-eight years, and are conterminous with the course of the French Renaissance wellnigh from start to finish. From the opening to the closing of the sixteenth century the humanist spirit of the Renaissance continuously commended itself through its com- prehensiveness of aim to legal, oflScial, and mercantile society of France no less than to royalty, nobility, and academic or professedly literary circles. VIII Tudor Politics : the Loss of Calais In the comparative study of the literature of two countries it is especially necessary to take due note of the sort of intercourse, political and social, which was carried on be- tween the peoples, before the attempt be made to measure the 30 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE literary indebtedness of the one to the other. Literary ideas, poetic ideas, often circulate through the world in so mysteri- ously detached and isolated away that, when a definite process of transference is alleged, it is prudent to ascertain whether or no the hard material fact of historical intercommunications will support the allegation of borrowing. Certain historical conditions must accompany transference of literary example and suggestion. Avowed translation stands on an obvious footing of its own. No miscalculation of cause and effect is possible there. But imitation, adaptation, assimilation of suggestion, all of which mould literary composition, are more stealthy and more subtly penetrating agents than frankly direct translation. They are factors which call for circum- spect handling. It is not only avowed translation from the French which in my belief largely fashioned Tudor litera- ture, but adaptation, imitation, and assimilation of suggestion as well. Agents so insidious and elusive cannot be confi- dently analysed until we apprehend the political and social atmospheres which envelop their working. The political and diplomatic relations of France and Tudor England are pertinent topics of preliminary study. Through the middle ages England and France had waged almost constant battle. The conclusion of the loo years' war in 1453 ^^ ^^^ marked by much cordiality between the peoples. Yet even then something might have been said for Pope's epigram, which was suggested long afterwards by the dependence of England on French taste in Charles II's reign : M^ > ' J^^ W, We conquered France, but felt our captive's charms,^ "•" V^ Her arts victorious triumphed o'er our arms. In the course of the strife of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries England had claimed the whole and occupied much of French territory. The only French land which she held at the peace of 1453 ^^'^^ Calais and the adjoining Marches. This strip of France remained an English possession through /the first eight-and-fifty years of the sixteenth century. For two hundred and eleven years Calais was a material and substantial link between the two countries. It was fr-^ x/,/ THE BALANCE OF POWl^LR 31 a stronghold of English commerce, and a military fortress which was reckoned an impregnable protection of the English coast from invasion and a valuable starting-point for her own foreign aggressions. To it the city of Boulogne was tem- porarily added for nine middle years of the sixteenth cen- tury. For a season Tudor England fervently hugged the old national ambition of becoming a continental power. Tudor England was reluctant to acknowledge political advantage in her natural title to insularity. Political or diplomatic isolation was never indeed deemed either practicable or quite reputable by English statesmanship, and the changed aims and conceptions of international policy which gained strength through Europe in the sixteenth century shortened the dividing lines between England and the conti- nent. During the reign of Henry VII new diplomatic theories of the balance of power were inaugurated in Europe, and France and England, despite preliminary threatenings of war- fare, were, through the early years of the sixteenth century, brought into alliance, for the first of many times, against a common rival, the Emperor. The diplomatic turnings of the political wheel, which issued in the protracted duel between Elizabethan England and Spain, fostered a political under- standing between France and England during a great part of Henry VIIFs reign and during nearly the whole of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Henry VIII frankly acknowledged the principle of the balance of power when he devised, according to popular tradition, his bold motto, ciU adhaereo praeest, — ' the party to which I adhere getteth the upper hand.' There was a growing sentiment throughout the century that England was politically bound to the continent by a loose federal tie. An Elizabethan observer remarked, ' France and 1 Spain are, as it were, the scales in the balance of Europe, and England the tongue or holder of the balance.'^ The' English ' tongue ' habitually inclined to the French scale rather than to the Spanish. ' Such breaches of the peace as interrupted the flow of ^ Camden's Annals, edit. 1688, p. 223. * 32 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE diplomatic cordiality between France and Tudor England quickly led, like lovers' quarrels, to new assurances of political affection. When Henry VIH ascended the throne there was a general belief that an era of peace was securely installed. The millennium was confidently anticipated at no distant date. But the omens proved deceitful, and a new Anglo-French war belied peaceful anticipations. The brief struggle was not, however, reopened for some thirty years, and a marked avowal of friendliness filled that pacific interval. From 1 5 13 to 1543 the diplomatic atmosphere powerfully encouraged the passage of French culture into England. / A notable event opened the auspicious period. The marriage of the French king Louis XII to Henry VIII's sister, Mary, I made the French court, for the short season that the monarch / survived his marriage, a rendezvous of English nobility and I gentry. The English princess's chamberlain was Lord ; Berners, who proved his French sympathies by translating Froissart. Palsgrave^ the author of the first exhaustive French - English grammar, was her chaplain. Moreover, among the new French queen's personal attendants was Anne_ Boleyn, who prolonged her stay in the French Palace for seven years, and subsequently, as Henry VIII's second wife, infected the English court with markedly French predilections. IAnne Boleyn, who was Queen Elizabeth's mother, ranks high ^mong English apostles of French culture. 1 Meanwhile, the splendid meeting of Francis I, that mag- nifico of the Renaissance, with the English king near Calais, on the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 152 1, worthily inaugu- rated Henry VIII's loyal discipleship to the French king in matters of taste. Henry wrote French verse on the rather f limping model which was set by his French brother. With his eyes fixed on the recent building of Fontainebleau, he superintended the erection of his gorgeous palace of Nonsuch inear Cheam in Surrey, and like the French king, he brought architects and artificers from Italy. Henry VIII's endowment of regius professors in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew at both Cam- y bridge and Oxford in 1540 imitated in spirit and closely fol- ' lowed in point of timeT^ncis I's establishment of like chairs BOULOGNE AND CALAIS 33 in his new foundation of the College de France in 1530. Henry VIII sent his natural son, the Earl of Richmond, to Francis's court to share the education of the French king's sons, and the l^nglish youth's tutor and companion was that Earl of Surrey who, with Sir Thomas Wyatt, inaugurated Renais- sance poetry in England. The trend of diplomacy encouraged Henry VIII and his French court to accept French guidance in matters of culture. Towards the end of Henry VlII's reign the ancient military! strife between the two countries was resumed. Diplomatic pressure brought the English king into a fresh alliance with the Emperor, and France fomented Scottish enmity of England. The main result for the time was an extension ot\ English hold on French soil, France surrendered Boulogne, ) and for seven years the two seaports of Boulogne and Calais were both under English dominion. But the conquest was not maintained. France chafed under the indignity and recovered Boulogne of Henry VIIFs son and successor, Edward VI. 1 Within another eight years, at the close of the brief sue- 1 ceeding reign of Henry VIII's eldest daughter Mary, France/ 1 1^' and England were at war for a third time in the century.! The short campaign robbed England of Calais for ever. In J 1558, for the first time for two hundred years, England was/ deprived of all footing on the European continent. _j The unexpected humiliation was a source of deep grief to the English people, and overwhelmed the English sovereign, Que^n^lary, with a fatal melancholy. The^English crown, she sald^ had lost its^brightesLJewel. But the heavy cloud had for England a silver lining. Although Ehzabethan diplomacy long nursed the delusive hope that the lost de- pendency might be restored to England, the transference of the territory to France was in the interest of harmony. It cancelled a French grievance and removed an old source of international discord. The capture of Calais stirred the French muse, and the poetic celebrations of the event deserve a passing notice. It is the only military episode involving French and English interests jointly, which has left much impression on French LEE D 34 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE poetry of the era, and the chastened note was of happy- augury. The English defeat evoked from French poets a patriotic demonstration whose tone shows sober complacency and little vindictive vaunting. The most thoughtful of French poets of the age, Joachim Du Bellay, whose sentiment towards England was less charitable than that of his colleagues, went no further in his Hynine au roy stir la prinse de Calais than an assurance that the body of France, long mutilated by ' le furieux Anglois ', was now made whole.^ A popular French versifier of the Renaissance school, Olivier de Magny, gave, in an ode, gentler expression of the patriotic elation which ' la prise de Calais ' excited in France. The good news seemed to the poet almost too good to be true: Ce Calais inexpugnable, Ce vieil rampart des Angloys, Qu'on disoit tant imprenable, Est-il pris a ceste fois ? Through forty-six such stanzas the Frenchman modestly ex- patiated on the glorious miracle.^ French humanism of the strictest classical type shared the general jubilation, and Adrian Turnebus, the eminent Greek professor at Paris, voiced the national satisfaction at this dismissal of England from French soil in a voluble, but temperate, Panegyricus de Calisio capto : Nunc naufragus Anglus Electusque miserque suae est illisus arenae.^ The event left clearer trace on the popular chanson, and even on French drama. At least six popular songs on the triumph of France and sorrow of England were hawked about Paris and the provinces. Calais, ville imprenable, Recognois ton seigneur, ^ Du Bellay, CEuvres, 1597, ff. 170 et seq. ^ De Magny, Odes, 1876, ii. p. 24. ^ QxvX^x, Delitiae C. Poetarum Gallorwn (1619), pars iii, 1014. There was another Latin poem by a Frenchman, Guillaume Paradin, which bore the title : ' De Motibus Galliae et expugnato receptoque Itio Caletoruni, Anno MD.LVlil.' Leyden, 1558, 4to. FRENCH POETS ON CALAIS 35 was chanted in street and lane.^ A morality play, La Repyise de Calais^ mainly consisting of a placid conversation ' between an Englishman and a Frenchman, was popular on the Paris stage. There the Frenchman piously assigns the national victory to God : De ceste victoire Or doncques la gloire Fault a Dieu donner. Qui Calais nous donne. C'est I'antique bourne, Pour France bourner.^ In England the humiliation went unsung. A ballad in defence of Lord Wentworth, the English commander who was put on his trial for the loss of the French town, is the sole poetic record in English of the disaster, and that unique declaration is no longer extant/* The crisis of Calais left no lasting resentment on either English or French minds, in spite of the passing thrill in French poetry. None of the subtler ties of cultured senti- ment or diplomatic interest which bound England to her neighbour were effectively loosened by the shock. The French poets were content with the victory and cherished no animosity against the vanquished. Near the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign the English queen sent an army into France to support a domestic revolt of French Protestants against the established government. But this somewhat hesitating act of war was followed immediately by ' an , honourable and joyful peace betwixt the queen's majesty and / the French king, their realms dominions and subjects '. The treaty was signed at Troyes on April 12, 1564, eleven days before Shakespeare's birth, and on his birthday it was pro- claimed in P" ranee amid general rejoicings. Throughout the/ * Le Roux de Lincy, Reaceil ties Chants Hisioriqiies Fran^ais depuis le XIP jiisqu^au XVII 1^ siecle, ii. 211. M. de Lincy cites a Parisian publication of 1559, Recueil des plus belles Chansons de ce temps mis en trois parties, for the chief chansons on the capture of Calais. '■' L. Petit de Julleville, La Comedie et les ma'urs en France an may en age. Paris, 1886, p. 183. * A ballad called The Piirgacion of . . . Lord Wentworth was licensed for publication in April, 1559. See Arber's Registers, i. loi. D 2 J 36 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE dramatist's lifetime the political relations of England and France were mainly governed by this convention. In June, 1 1564, splendid fetes took place at Lyons, when the French king, Charles IX, received the Order of the Garter from the English queen's ambassadors. French poets greeted the union of French and English hearts. Within six years of the ! English loss of Calais the poetic leader of the French Renais- j'sance, Ronsard, was vowing to Sir William Cecil, the prime (minister of England, that the heavenly powers had long Wnce promised to . . . joindre un jour par fidelle alliance Vostre Angleterre avecques nostre France.^ IX The Elizabethan Political Links As soon as England's last territorial link with France was broken, there were framed fresh political attachments which notably facilitated the exertion on England of French intellectual influence. Religious sympathy combined with official diplomacy to forge new political bonds. The re- lligious reformers in France towards the end of Francis Is j reign became the organized community of Huguenots ; the French government endeavoured to suppress the Protestant organization by brute force, and the quarrel issued in civil war. The French kings and their advisers justly per- ceived in the Huguenot doctrine a menace not only to established religion, but to established political principles, and more especially to the pretensions of monarchical abso- I lutism. The P^nglish Lutherans from the first welcomed the spread of their faith in France. English Protestants claimed French Protestants as brothers in the divine spirit. The perse- cution of the Huguenots greatly stimulated English sympathy with their French neighbours. The cry of liberty never ^ Ronsard, GLuvres, iii. 395 (le Bocage Royal) ; cf. Paul Laumonier's Ronsard, Poete Lyrique, 1909, pp. 214-15. FRENCH REFUGEES IN ENGLAND 37 failed to awaken some echo in English hearts, luiglish Pro- testants came either tacitly or openly to applaud the political sentiment of the Huguenots as well as their spiritual dogma. When Edward VI's reign made England a distinctively \ Protestant country, the l^nglish people eagerly acknow- ' ledged a new fellow feeling with an energetic and alert- minded section of the P'rench people. Englishmen eagerly offered hospitality to French refugees from Catholic tyranny. Early in Edward VPs reign the door of England was opened to French Huguenots, and save for the short interval of Queen Mary's rule, it was not closed for the rest of the century. Persecuted Protestants from the Low Coun- tries, from Italy, and even from Spain, likewise sought an asylum in Elizabethan England. Plemings who spoke both French and Flemish were perhaps more numerous than natives of France or than Flemings who spoke both German and Flemish. Italians and Spaniards of the reformed faith were fewer. But the French-speaking Walloons showed so many of the characteristics of Frenchmen that such influence as they exerted may be accounted French. The Huguenots / who made their homes in sixteenth-century England were for 1 the most part skilled artisans or professional men, silk- weavers or practitioners in medicine. The refinements of life bene- fited in all directions by their presence. Tudor England was backward in manufacturing or scientific ingenuity, and the ahen Protestant invasion was well fitted to offer her useful instruction in science and manufacture. Religious sympathy checked effective jealousy in commercial circles, and restrained the mob's suspicion of foreign custom and speech. Scholar- ship, too, was well represented among Huguenot visitors. The French refugees who attended Edward VI's court included "Henri ^tienne^, the scholar xyi^ter, who did more than any | mail in Europe for the scholarly study of Greek and the J dissemination of scholarly culture. The greatest of French scholars, the younger Scaliger, was a later visitor. Tudor Englishmen who were conscious of intellectual aspirations fervently blessed the arrival of the Huguenots. With the ripening of the Huguenot alliance opportunities I 38 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE increased for English intercourse with all ranks of the French reforming party. As the civil and religious strife in France waxed more furious, the Huguenots repeatedly appealed for English intervention under arms. Twice in Elizabeth's reign, near the beginning and near the end, English armies joined Huguenot soldiers on the field of battle in France. A brilliant file of Huguenot leaders — Odet de Chatillon, Coligny s brother, whom Ronsard acclaimed as ' I'Hercule Chretien ', Fran9ois de la Noue, general and military writer, Du Plessis Mornay, apologist for Protestantism — came to the English court to petition the queen for military help. In all these men humanist sympathies enlivened religious zeal. Elizabethan courtiers delighted in personal friendship with the flower of T^the Huguenot fraternity. The chief Elizabethan champion of the Renaissance, Sir Philip Sidney, lived in closest intimacy with the most enlightened of French Protestants throughout uhis short career of manhood. The development of the French Reformation helped, some- what illogically, to ratify in public opinion political alliance with a Catholic power, as well as to confirm the hold of French culture on Elizabethan England, A diplomatic episode which supplemented the Protestant influence curiously illustrates the paradoxical workings of the international situation. An efficient factor in the promotion of the friendly intercourse betw^een the two countries, which the Huguenot movement encouraged, was the prolonged negotiation for the marriage of the English Protestant queen to a French Catholic prince. This strange scheme of diplomatic matrimony was pursued intermittently but without disruption for thirteen years. Reli- gious differences did not deter Queen Elizabeth from serious contemplation of a matrimonial union with a Catholic prince of France. Indeed, she encouraged the advances not of one heir of French royalty but of two in succession. Her first French wooer was Francis I's grandson, Henry, Duke of Anjou, and when he ascended the French throne as Henry III he yielded his place of Queen Elizabeth's suitor to his younger brother Francis, the Duke of Alen9on. Both princes were sons^-of Catherine de' Medici, and were in sympathy with the QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FRENCH SUITOR 39 Italian leanings of the French world of art and letters. Indulgent to every sensual vice they were neither physically nor morally deserving of respect, but their temperaments were responsive to the call of art and letters. Each was a writer of verse and a patron of painters and sculptors. Like her mother, Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth was/ "^ devoted to French literature. As a child she translated into/ English prose a French poem by Margaret, the cultivated Queen of Navarre, her suitor's great-aunt. It was a pious) lucubration of Huguenot tendency, ' Le miroir de Tame pecheresse ' (The mirror of the sinful soul). Ronsard was at\ one time the English sovereign's guest, and his poetic glori- / fication of her personal and intellectual charm ranks with ' the most adroit and graceful of poetic tributes to royalty. ' Royally/ ' douce,' ' courtoise,' 'honneste,' 'liberalle,' 'jeune de face,' and 'vieille de prudence,' are among the epithets which the French courtier-poet showered on Queen Elizabeth. His poetic adulation was wisely rewarded with a diamond jewel. With the French princes who paid their addresses to her\ Elizabeth professed herself in complete aesthetic sympathy, \ and for the Duke of Alenfon she soon pretended a consuming T passion. She charitably pardoned his ugliness, and her playful blandishments led him to accept with a cheerful acquiescence the appellation of ' litde frog ' which she bestowed on him. Twice he visited her court without modifying the royal enthusiasm, and in his brilliant retinue came many represen- tatives of current French thought and fashion, who helped to keep England loyal to French Renaissance culture, and to check any exclusive dependence on humanism of the Huguenot tinge. One of the French duke's companions was Pierre de Bourdeilles, titular Abbe de Brantome, the blithe biographer^ of contemporary French gallantry. Of another of the duke's ^ | attendants, Jean Bodin, the political philosopher of the ' Renaissance, an illustrative story is told. The learned visitor, after sojourning in the University of Cambridge, visited a nobleman's mansion in London, and he found in each place young English students reading his standard treatise De la Repiiblique in a Latin translation. On examining 40 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE the version, which he assigned to the pen of an incompetent French tutor in England, he judged it to be so inefficient that he hurried home to turn his work into scholarly Latin.^ The anecdote suggests how the presence in England of Bodin's master, the Duke of Alencon, served incidentally to quicken the development of English scholarship and learning. / The premature death of the dissipated hero of this royal romance brought it to an untimely end. But the general belief in England for so long a period as thirteen years that a Frenchman was to become King Consort of England, invigorated the GaUic enthusiasm of the English upper classes. In the straitest circles of Protestantism the expectation bred dismay and complaint which steadily grew. But the plan was credited with political advantage ; there were liberal- minded Protestants who acquiesced in it with missionary hope, and the bitter-tongued opposition was reduced to impotent clamour. The personal constitution of the duke's escort, while he was in England, lent the project a graceful note of culture. A third link between the English and French nations, although less direct, was hardly less efficient than the queen s matrimonial designs or the Huguenot intercourse. The strong political and social tie which bound France to Scotland, the independent northern half of the British island, stimulated the tendency to make English culture tributary to France. The political and social intimacy I of France and Scotland was long a supreme factor in Scottish history, and it worked as an active solvent of iBnglish insularity. Domestic bonds united the rulers of the French and Scottish nations. There were many inter- marriages between the royal houses of the two kingdoms, and the royal family of the Stuarts eagerly imbibed French culture, in both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Much French poetry bears witness to the intimacy of French and Scottish royal circles. James I's daughter, Margaret, who was wife of Louis XI while he was Dauphin, penned some touching French rondeaus, and was patron of French men of letters. ^ Preface to the English translation of Bodin's Com»io?rcc>ea/e, by Richard KnoUes, 1606. At ^\. .> V^.n^^ THE FRANCO-SCOTTISH ALLIANCE 41 James V, great-great-grandson of James I, married twice, and both his queens were French princesses. One, Madeleine, was Francis I's daughter, and moved the youthful adoration of Ronsard, who as a boy was page at her husband's Scottish court. The second of James V's two queens, Marie de Guise, was daughter of the great Catholic house, and was treated by Francis I as an adopted daughter ; she was the mother of Mary Stuart. Mary Queen of Scots was thus half a Frenchwoman French was practically her mother-tongue, and the French accent with which she spoke Scottish made the tongue, other- wise most cacophonous to French ears, graceful and har- monious. French poetry was Mary Stuart's chief reading, I Ronsard and Du Bellay devoted their finest powers to glowing! eulogies of her fascinating beauty, and the French verse which) she loved to pen on their pattern moved the hearts of her French admirers.^ Her son James, whom Henry of Navarre I called ' captain of arts and clerk of arms ', welcomed French / poets to his court with all his mother's ardour. ' The flame of French culture burnt very briskly at sixteenth- century Edinburgh, and French influence farther south was thereby quickened. The promising youth of Scotland wasy educated in France. Scottish students distinguished themselves I as professors at French Universities. Scottish hospitality was constantly offered to French guests, and England lay within the lines of communication.- The Gallic sentiment which was woven into the web of Scottish culture had opportunities of communicating itself to the English side of the Tweed. At the end of Elizabeth's reign political parties were vying with one another in advocacy of the Scottish king's claim to the Enghsh throne, and the strong Scottish party in England saw an advantage in championing French standards of taste. When the sixteenth century came to a close, French breezes played perceptibly on Elizabethan England from the Cheviot Hills ^ Cf. Brantome, V/es des Dai/ies Illustres, No. Ill, Marie Stuart, Reyne d'Escosse. ^ The first road-book for England was published at Paris in 1579, and was prepared by Jean Bernard chiefly for travellers from France to Scotland. The title ran: La Guide des Chemins d' Angleterre fort necessaire ct ceux qui y voyagent ou qui passent de France en Escosse. i 42 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE as well as from the English Channel. Politics in England, whether they be examined in their ecclesiastical, their diplo- matic, or their dynastic aspect, tended through the era of the French Renaissance to familiarize Englishmen with the culture of France. X The Study of French in Tudor Society The political conditions, which brought France and England in the sixteenth century into familiar intimacy, find a natural reflection in the social usages of Tudor England. English society had through mediaeval times cherished a predilection , for French modes and manners. In Tudor England know- i ledge of the French language and sympathy with French social habits finally became accepted badges of gentility. Taste in dress, in recreation, and in culinary matters, was dictated for the most part by French example. The insular prejudice against foreigners was not extinguished, and the notorious riot in London on 'Evil May-day' of 151 7, when the lives and property of foreign visitors were menaced with [destruction, proved the strength of the hate of foreigners ^among the trading and labouring classes of the capital. The antipathy was rarely shared by the upper classes, but it lingered on in the middle and the lower orders. The authori- ties found means of holding mob violence in check, but suspicion and dislike of the alien found constant voice in both literary satire and the illiterate scurrility of the street. The penetrating charm — ' le douceur ' — of French culture could, however, be relied on to quench the flames of merely insular jealousy. Throughout the century young Englishmen of good family invariably completed their education in foreign travel and by attendance at a foreign university. In many quarters the prac- tice was deemed to be perilous to the students' religion and morals. VThe foundation of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1592 ENGLISHMEN S STUDY OF FRENCH 43 was justified on the jrround ' that many of our people have usually heretofore used to travel into France, Italy, and vSpain, to get learning in such foreign universities, whereby they have been infected with popery and other ill qualities '} But the usage of youthful peregrination was barely affected by such suspicions. The young Englishman's educational tour often extended to Italy and Germany as well as to France, but France was rarely omitted, and many youths confined their excursions to French territory. Neither PVancis Bacon nor his brother Anthony passed in their Wanderjahre beyond French bounds. As far as we know, Francis went no further afield than Paris. Anthony chiefly spent his time in the south of France, and while sojourning at Bordeaux he became the intimate friend of Montaigne. Almost every French university had some English students. The main aim of these visitors to France was to acquire a good French accent, always a matter of difficulty with Englishmen, and to learn manners, of which Tudor Englishmen were commonly held to be congenitally innocent, ' The first country,' wrote James Howell, who had a keen eye for deportment, ' that it is requisite for the English to know is France.' Nor was provision of a very adequate kind for acquiring the French language wanting at home. The tradition of French study was of old standing in England. But never before the Tudor epoch did the French teacher fill a com- manding place in English society. From early days of the French Renaissance French philo- logists prophesied that the French tongue would become the universal language of culture. Many Frenchmen proudly claimed, while the century was yet young, that, as far as Eng- land was concerned, that consummation was already reached. ' In England French is spoken,' writes a French grammarian about 1550, 'at any rate among the princes and their courts in all their talk.'^ In 1552, Etienne Fasquier, a poe^and * J. W. Stubbs's History of the University 0/ Ditblin, 1889, p. 354. ^ Jacques Peletier du Mans, Dialogues de rOrtografe, p. 60 (1550): * En Angleterre, amoins entre les Princes e en leurs cours, iz parle[n]t Francois en tous leurs propos.' Of the distribution of * la tres-noble et 44 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE critic who lived on friendly terras with Montaigne and other princes of French literature and confidently foretold a world- wide adoption of the French language, wrote to Adrian Turnebus, the Greek scholar of Paris, that 'there is no nobleman's house in England, Scotland, or Germany without a tutor to teach the children French '.^ Through the early part of the century Tudor England was peculiarly distinguished by the number of French humanists — Frenchmen of literary distinction — who faced the task L of teaching French to English boys and girls of royal or gentle birth. These visitors played a prominent part on the social stage. At the very opening of the epoch ! Henry VII appointed Bernard Andre, a native of Toulouse, I tutor to his sons, Arthur and Henry. Andre was so facile a writer of French and Latin verse that by a paradoxical freak of fortune he became Poet Laureate at the E:nglish \ court. Among other French tutors in Tudor England was Nicolas Bourbon, a protege of Queen Anne Boleyn. He was a humanist of wide repute, whose friends included Rabelais and Marot. From Bourbon, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with his brothers and their kinsfolk learnt French as children. Bourbon mingled with leaders of the reforming party while in England during Henry VIII's reign, and eulogized in facile epigrams Cromwell and Cranmer, while he discourteously taunted Sir Thomas More with his lowly origin and the resemblance of his surname to the Greek word for ' fool '. On re-settling in France, Bourbon abandoned the church of the Reformers and re-entered the orthodox fold, but his humanist sympathy and reputation knew no decay, and distinguished him in both camps. tres-parfaite langue Fran^aise', Mellema,authorof aDictionnaire flamand- fran^ais, 1591, writes somewhat later: ' Puis grande partie d'Alemaigne, du pays de Levant, de Muscovie, de Pologne, iVAngletene et d'Ecosse usent de ladite langue.' 1 Les Lettres d'Estienne Pasquier, Amsterdam, 1723, Liv. i, p. 5 : ' Presque en toute I'AUemagne (que dy-je, I'Allemagne, si I'Angleterre et I'Escosse y sont comprises) il ne se trouve maison noble qui n'ait pre- cepteur pour instruire ses enfans en nostre langue Francjoise. Uonques I'Allemand, I'Anglois et rp:cossois se paissent de la douceur de nostre vuleaire.' NICOLAS DENISOT IN ENGLAND 45 Of a third French tutor in luigland an even more interesting story may be told. A French poet of modest attainments, with an equal capacity for art and poetry, Nicolas Denisot (1515-59) was French tutor of the three daughters of Protector Somerset, the Protestant statesman. Under Denisot's guidance the young English ladies wrote Latin elegies on the queen of contemporary French literature, Margaret of Navarre. The labour of love was welcomed with enthusiasm in Paris. The Latin verses — one hundred quatrains — were published in Paris in 1550 under Denisot's editorship. The poetic essay moved the sympathy of Denisot's poetic friends — phisietirs des excellentz poetes de la France. A volume of translations from French pens in Greek and Italian as well as in French was issued by Denisot next year.^ Denisot's triumph in bringing his English pupils under the banner of French humanism deeply impressed Frenchmen. Ronsard was then approaching the throne of French poetry, and in one of the great poet's earliest odes he salutes the ladies Seymour with charming buoyancy. If Orpheus had heard . , . . le luth des Sirenes Qui Sonne aux bords escumeux Des Albionnes arenes, the Greek lyrist would have forsaken his own pagan key and learned of the Englishwomen their Christian note. Ronsard exuberantly credits Denisot with drawing England into alliance with France in the war which the Renaissance waged on barbarism. Denisot se vante heure [i.e. heureux] D 'avoir oublie sa terre Ft passager demeure Trois ans en vostre Angleterre ... . . . . les esprits D'Angleterre et de la France, Bandez d'une ligue, ont pris Le fer contre I'ignorance. ^ The rare volume is entitled Le tombeau de Marguerite de Valois royne de Naiuirre faict pretnierement en distiques Latins par les trois saeurs A tine. Marguerite et Jeantie de Sey/nour, princesses en Angleterre (Paris, 1551). 46 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE All that was needed to seal the union, in Ronsard's gallant fancy, was for one of Denisot's English scholars to cross the sea and find a French husband. Lors vos escrits avancez Se verront recompensez D'une chanson mieux sonnee Qui crira vostre hymenee.^ The missionaries of French humanism among the Tudor nobility did not live without honour in their own country. Bernard Andre, Nicolas Bourbon, and Nicolas Denisot were all faithful servants in the temple of French scholarship, if they did not pass beyond the outer courts. Their presence in England is a notable episode in the international story. Nor was the teaching of French confined to the children of the nobility. At the Grammar School of Southampton a refugee from French Flanders was appointed head master early in Elizabeth s reign. There all the boys had to speak French during school-time, under pain of wearing a fool's cap at meals. Professional teachers of French for the middle classes abounded in London at the end of the century. One Claude De -saint -liens, a Bourbon gentleman who anglicized his French name into the English word Holy-band, had his class-rooms at the sign of the Lucrece in St. Paul's Churchyard, above the shop of a leading printer, publisher, and bookseller of the day, Thomas Purfoot. The literary 1 profession in Elizabethan England was disposed to cultivate Triendly intercourse with the French tutor. Many of these French teachers in London were voluminous authors of educational manuals. French grammars, helps to pronunciation, conversation -books for the fit education of young English gentlemen and gentlewomen, flowed from 1 Ronsard, Odes, Livre V, No. III. Ronsard addresses Ode X in the same book to Denisot as ' peintre et poete'. Remi Belleau, Ronsard's colleague of the Pleiade, paid Denisot in a sonnet a naive compliment on his industrious pursuit of the two arts [CEuvres, ed. Gouverneur, Paris, 1867, t. i, p. 202): Ce double trait, dont I'un industrieux Ravit notre oeil, I'autre doux notre oreille ; De ta main docte annonce la merveille, Et de tes vers Taccent laborieux. LEXICOGRAPHY AND GRAMMAR 47 their pens in profusion. On the foundation of French-English vocabularies of recent compilation was based one of the best early efforts in lexicography which Elizabethan England produced — Randle C otgrav e's well-known French-English 1 Dictionary (161 1). This masterly effort to make the French! language accessible to Elizabethan Englishmen renders modern students the lasting service, hardly designed by its author, of determining the precise meaning of many an obsolete Elizabethan word. Of early French grammars produced in England, the fullest and best came from the pen of an Englishman, John\ Palsgrave, who acted as chaplain to Henry VII I's sister while she was Queen of France. Later Palsgrave became tutor of Henry VIII's natural son, the Earl of Richmond. His voluminous L' Esclarcisse}ne7it de la langue FraJigoyse^ which was published in London in 1530, is a philological monument and the acknowledged parent of all French grammars of France. It had no French predecessor. The path to a knowledge of French was never easier for English- men than in Tudor times, and the Tudor text-books of the French teachers were nobly crowned by the domestic labours of Palsgrave and Cotgrave. XI French Dress, French Wines, and French Dances There was no phase of social life in which French taste failed to exercise authority in Tudor England. Very widespread was French influence on English costume in the sixteenth century. From a far earlier period French fashions in dress won in England the admiration of the rich. Chaucer in the four- teenth century bears witness to his countrymen's love of the refinements of French garments. From end to end of the sixteenth century the French tailor was the acknowledged arbiter of English fashions in clothes for both men and women. 48 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE Of the English gallant, Sir Thomas More wrote, in words often repeated by his successors : He struts about In cloaks of fashion French. His girdle, purse. And sword are French. His hat is French. His nether limbs are cased in French costume. His shoes are French. In short, from top to toe He stands the Frenchman.^ The English gallant w^as not averse to modifying French schemes of apparel by adapting features from Italy and Spain. According to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (I. ii. 79-81) the young baron of England buys only his round hose in France ; he obtains his doublet from Italy, his bonnet from Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. Similarly Dekker remarks that an Englishman's suit of clothes steals patches from every nation 'to piece out his pride'. But French tailors controlled the Tudor scheme of dress. The Porter in Macbeth (ll. iii. 15) attests that the English tailor's habitual offence was that of ' stealing out of a French hose ' (i. e. of slavishly copying French fashions). ' Bonjour, there 's a French salutation to your French slop,' is one of Mercutio's quips at Romeo's expense. Camden's friend, Richard Carew, may be trusted when at the end of the century he remarks that English fashions, despite their mixed quality, came in substance from our neighbours the French; that every change in the French vogue was faithfully reflected in England, and that the store of French patterns was daily renewed .2 The best judges in such matters shared Polonius's opinion {Hamlet, I. iii. 70-4), when he advised his son — 1 I quote the efificient English rendering by John Howard Marsden in his Philomorus : notes o?t Latin poems of Thomas More, 2nd edition, 1878, p. 223. In More's Epigrammata the satiric poem is headed ' In Anglum Gallicae linguae affectatorem '. The opening verses run : Amicus et sodalis est Lalus mihi, Britanniaque natus altusque insula. At cum Britannos Galliae cultoribus Oceanus ingens, lingua, mores dirimant, Spernit tamen Lalus Britannica omnia, Miratur expetitque cuncta Gallica. 2 Camden, Remains (1870 edition), p.47 : ' Our neighbours the French have been likewise contented we should take up by retail their fashions : or rather we retain yet but some remnant of that which once here bare all the sway, and daily renew the store.' J ENGLISH SATIRE OF FRENCH FASHIONS 49 Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy : rich not gaudy . . . And they in France of the best rank and station Are most select and generous, chief in that. Tudor costume found in France the surest type of elegance. Patriotic sentiment exposed the passion for F>ench finery, like all French social usages, to frequent ridicule. Insular moralists detected in the ' viperous ' fascination of the French refinements incentive to every sin. Voluble was the satiric scorn of all foreign affectations in manner and speech, and especially of the homage paid to the French standards of taste. Insular sentiment tended to impute to the Anglo- French vogue a habit of ludicrous braggadocio. When a number of young English noblemen and gentlemen returned home from a visit to the French court in 15 18, the chronicler Hall declares that ' they were all French in eating, drinking, and apparel, yea in French vices and brags, so that all estates of England were by them laughed at '. Sir Thomas More in his epigrams, the Puritan divines during the reign of Edward VI, the dramatists and pamphleteers at the extreme end of the century, all vie with one another in quips at the expense of the ' giddy-pated English ', who were always on the watch for ' new French cuts ', and whose doublet, slops, and gloves, were designed on French models. However small was the gallant's knowledge of the French language, it was his habit, according to patriotic censure, to boast familiarity with it. Of the English man of fashion More again writes in language which was often repeated : If he speak f Though but three little words in French, he swells . And plumes himself on his proficiency, And his French failing, then he utters words Coined by himself, with widely gaping mouth ' And sound acute, thinking to make at least The accent French. More insists that whatever language the Englishman essays to speak, his bad French controls his tongue and accentuates 50 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE the absurdity of his bastard cosmopolitanism. ' With accent French ', More's Englishman speaks the Latin tongue, With accent French the tongue of Lombardy, To vSpanish words he gives an accent French, German he speaks with the same accent French. In truth he seems to speak with accent French, I All but the French itself. The French he speaks With accent British. More's sarcasm plainly credits France with the function of missionary of all foreign culture. The satirist Nashe broadly insinuated that the 1^2nglishman who travelled in France gained no profit save the habit of loose living and of speaking Eng- .^ lish strangely and insolently.^ In no branch of fashionable life was Tudor custom free from French influence. Ladies of rank who devoted their leisure to lacemaking and embroidery sought their patterns in French manuals of needlework, some of which w'ere re- published in England. France enjoyed in the sixteenth century a supreme repute for culinary skill, for fantastical meats and salads, for sumptuous confectionery. The Eng- lish nobility invariably employed French cooks, who were reckoned ' to have the best invention of any in Europe ', and their epicurean ingenuity was denounced as unrighteous alchemy.-^ Of extravagant entertainments among the English nobility, the gossiping letter-writer. Chamberlain, bitterly complains early in the seventeenth century, and he lays the / ' Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Tfavctler, 1587 (Works, ed, <' McKerrow, ii. 300) : ' What is there in France to be learned more than in England, but falsehood in fellowship, perfect slovenry, to love no man but for my pleasure, to swear ' Ah par la mort Dieu', when a man's hams are scabbed. For the idle traveller (I mean not for the soldier) I have known some that have continued there by the space of half a dozen years, and when they come home, they have hid a little weerish lean face under a broad hat, kept a terrible coil with the dust in the street in their long cloaks of gray paper, and spoke English strangely. Noug'ht else have they profited by their travel, save learned to distinguish between the true Bordeaux grape, and know a cup of neat Gascoigne wine from wine of Orleans.' ^ Moryson's Itinerary, 1617, Part III, p. 135; y{a.n\sovLS Description (1577), i. 144 (New Shakspere vSoc). ; Overbury's Characters, 1614, * A French Cook.' I FRENCH WINES 51 fault at French doors. After describing- a series of rich banquets in London he remarks : ' But, pour retourney a nos uiOiUoiis^ this feasting- begins to grow at an exces- sive rate. The very provisions of cates for this supper, rising to more than ;^6oo ; ivherein we are too apish to imitate the French monkeys in such monstrous zuaste." ^ French wines seem also to have been reckoned enviable luxuries for which high prices were paid. The taste for foreign wines steadily grew through the sixteenth century, and was gratified by importations from Spain and Germany, and even from Italy and Greece, as well as from France. But France easily maintained her supremacy as wine-purveyor for the English market. In Shakespeare's youth it was stated that as many as lifty-six sorts of French wine were known in England, whereas no more than thirty kinds came from the rest of the Continent.^ Nashe credits the travelled Englishman with a capacity to distinguish between the true and false Bordeaux grape, or at least to know a cup of neat Gascon from wine of,Orleans. French wines were regarded as lighter than any other. English travellers noticed with surprise the French habit of mixing water with wine.^ Rarely could they be induced to imitate so fantastic a weakness. The influence which the drinking customs of French society exerted on the Elizabethans tended to sobriety. Despite the satirists' shots, which they fired at random \ over the whole field of French usage, the embellishments which France contributed to Tudor life bear unvarying testimony to the superior artistic sentiment and skill of our neighbours. It was not solely devices of French birth which France intro- duced into England. Many Italian and some Spanish accom- plishments reached England through France. The Italians perfected the art of fencing, and several eminent Eliza- bethan fencing-masters were Italian. Yet the accomplish- ment in England owed much to French tutors. Shakespeare in Hamlet (IV. vii. 100) mentions Frenchmen as champions ^ Court of James /, i. 459. "^ William Harrison's Description 0/ England {i^jy), i. 149. ' Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, 1617, Part III, p. 135. E 2 52 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE of the exercise, and calls fencing experts ' scrimers '. The term is a colloquial Anglicism of the pure French word ' escrimeurs ', and its employment points to the nationality of many instructors in Shakespeare's England. Of the equestrian art of the manege in Elizabethan England— the exercise of ' riding the Great Horse ',— much the same story has to be told. The chief riding-masters in London were Frenchmen. Shakespeare grows eloquent over the equestrian feats of ' the French ', who ' can well on horseback ' {Hamlet, IV. vii. 84). French manuals on the equestrian exercise were prized by Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, and the technical terms were French words. ^ To the French manner of dancing Elizabethan England stands deeply indebted for the chief development of a popular form of recreation, and a valued aid to deportment. One of the earliest Tudor translations from the French was a book on French dancing. To a treatise, which was publshed in London in 1521, on the writing and speaking of French by Alexander Barclay, an indefatigable translator of con- temporary foreign literature, there was appended a short pamphlet on French dancing, which was translated by the printer, Robert Copland.^ The encyclopaedic writer on education, Sir Thomas Elyot, in his Gmi£J^K>iir (1531)1 devotes as many as four chapters (xix-xxii) to the his- tory and practice of dancing. ~He specifies as popular dances of his own day burgenettes and pavanes, tour- dions, galliards, rounds and brawls, all of which are either directly or indirectly of French origin. Often a popular Elizabethan dance reached England through France from more distant lands. Many dances familiar to Elizabethan students, like the pavane, the galliard, and the coranto, have ' See Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Aiitohiflgrafhy, ed. Lee, 2nd edition, pp. 39 scq. ^ The treatise on dancing is thus introduced :—' Here foloweth the maner of dauncynge of bace daunces after the use of fraunce and other places translated out of frenche in englysshe by Robert coplande.' Most of the dances are clearly French. Copland's translation was reprinted with Robert Laneham's letter (ed. Furnivall), by the New Shakspere Society in 1890 (pp. clx-clxii). FRKNCH DANCEvS 53 been traced to Italy or Spain, but France borrowed them from those countries, and in her famih'ar role imported them into England, The names of some very new and fashionable dances of vShakespeare's day betray a pure French origin. ' The French brawL' a kind of cotillon, and the 'cincjue pace ' or 'cinq pas' (i. e. five paces), an anticipation of the minuet, were wholly of Gallic invention. ' A newe ballade, intytuled " Good Fellowes must go learne to daunce ",' which was published in 1569, salutes the 'brail' as just 'come out of Fraunce ', and dubs it the ' trickiest ' invention of the year.^ The Shakespearean student is equally familiar with ' the high lavolt ', a somewhat violent dance, facility in which was reckoned a mark of refinement, although the steps approxi- mated to leaps. Troilus complains that he ' cannot heel the high lavoll or sweeten talk or play at subtle games '.^ ' Lavolte ', or ' la volta ', was, in spite of its Italian name, of French, or at any rate of Proven9al origin. It achieved a vast popularity in Parisian society late in the sixteenth century, just before it reached Elizabethan England.'' Save the ' lavolte ', these foreign dances are all slow and stately measures, and strike a suggestive contrast with the boisterous 1 ^ Lilly's Ancient Ballads and Broadsides^ p. 22 1. The name of the dance, ' brawl,' comes from the Old French word hransle, and is altogether distinct from 'brawl' in the sense of 'quarrel'. The likeness between the two words encouraged an obvious pun. Cf. Shakespeare's Lovers Labour ^s Lost, III. i. 9-10: ' Moth. Master, will you win your love in a French brawl? Armad. How meanest thou ? braivling in French .?' "^ Troilus and Cressida, iv. iv. 88 ; see also Shakespeare's Henry V, ill. V. 33. Other Elizabethan dramatists attest the vogue of this new dance. * Ronsard,in his poem called Za)tsalphia (1588), preface. \ MUSIC AND ARCHITECTURE vIO books are laruely of Italian parentage, and most of the musicians whom Queen Elizabeth and her father took into their service were Italians, The early date, at which Tudor interest manifested itself in Italian music of the Renaissance, may be gauged by the fact that the organist of St. Mark's, Venice, Fra Dionysius Memo, was brought to England by Henr)- Ylll soon after his accession, Rassano, Lupo, Ferrabosco, are the names of the chief musicians in Queen Elizabeth's service. French musicians were not wholly unknown to Elizabethan England, and French song-books or books of ' airs ' were not ignored by Elizabethan devisers of musical anthologies. The French family of Lanier, which was famous in the seven- teenth century for its mingled devotion to music and painting, first settled in England during Elizabeth's reign. The earliest member who is known to have reached England was Jean Lanier of Rouen, a musician who died in London in 1572.* But, despite a few French traces, Itah'ans dominated the musical world of Tudor England. The French influence on Elizabethan music is, on the whole, insignificant compared with the Italian, Building was pursued in Tudor England on a liberal scale, but Renaissance influences were slow to draw English architecture out of its mediaeval mould. A style, which remained Gothic in spite of some skilful qualification, per- sisted in England long after the forces of the Renaissance had re-created the Gothic vogue abroad or replaced it by another manner. Native architecture was not eager to assimilate ' The most distinguished member of this family, Nicolas Lanier (1588- 1686), whose portrait was painted by Vandyke, was not appointed master of the King's music before 1626. It is possible that G. Tessier, an Italo- French musician who, although he describes himself as a Breton, had learned his art in Italy, was also at one time in Elizabeth's service. In 1582 he published in Paris a book of airs [Proincr LiTre d'Airs) prefaced by an Italian letter addressed to the King of France, Henry III. The opening piece is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth : ' alia serenissima ct sacratissima regina d' Inghilterra.' Fifteen years later a book of French airs {Le Premier Lh're de Chansons et Airs) published in London was described as by Carle Tessier, ' musitien de la chambre du Roy' (i.e. Henry IV). Carle Tessier was possibly a son of G. Tessier, and was likewise apparently an occasional visitor at Queen Elizabeth's court. (Cf. Picot, Les Fran^iiis Italianisants, •907> ^'ol- •'; PP- 205-7.) 56 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE foreign example. St. George's chapel at Windsor and Henry VII's chapel at Westminster, despite a few Italianate details, bear witness in early Tudor England to the con- servative tendency. Hampton Court Palace, in which a modified Gothic scheme is applied to domestic purposes, pays small tribute to the classical spirit of the new enlighten- ment. In houses of moderate size the late mediaeval combina- tion of brick and timber long continued, and the development of fresh artistfc feeling was discouraged. But while the sixteenth century was still young, some architectural innovations of the Renaissance reached Eng- land from Italy. Ultimately the Italian Renaissance found luxurious expression in the royal palace of Nonesuch and in a score of noblemen's mansions. Much fine decorative work in Henry \Tirs later years was designed and executed by Italian craftsmen or by Englishmen who had studied in Italy. With the progress of the century, German or Flemish influence, which Holbein inaugurated, gained on Italian influence in the architecture of Tudor England. The greatest public building which was erected In Elizabethan England, Sir Thomas Gresham's Royal Exchange in London, repro- duced by aid of Flemish workmen the design of the Hotel des Villes Hanseatlques at Antwerp. France meanwhile made slender contribution to the archi- tectural activity of her neighbour.^ Only a little minor ornamentation in Tudor churches or houses Is attributable ^ Cf. Reginald Blomfield's History of Renaissance Architecture in Ettgland, 1897, i. In Braiin's Urbiuvi Praecipua7-iim Mundi Theatrum (1582) there is an engraving of Nonesuch Palace, with the comment that the architects and artificers employed on it included Frenchmen as well as Dutchmen, Italians, and Englishmen. Mr. Blomfield's remark on this statement runs thus (i. 18):— 'The mention of Frenchmen is also remarkable. The names of French artists or workmen scarcely ever occur in the State Papers, and there are few instances of Renaissance work in England which can be attributed to them. The capitals to the arch between the More chantry and the chancel of old Chelsea Church are an unusual instance. They closely resemble P^rench work of the early sixteenth century such as is found along the banks of the Seine between Paris and Rouen. The monument in the Oxenbrigge Chapel in Brede Church, Sussex, dated 1537, is another rare example. It is of Caen stone, admirably carved, and was probably made in France and shipped to the port of Rye, some nine miles distant from Brede.' TUDOR ART 57 to French hands. The master-mason or chief architect of James V of Scotland came from France, and Stirhng Castle and Falkland Palace bear traces of French ingenuity, but in Scotland, too, the Italian or German vogue prevailed. In the result, Tudor I^^ngland remained poorer in speci- mens of Renaissance architecture than Italy or France. Of one type of domestic building, which lent a peculiar charm to sixteenth-century France, Tudor England knew barely any- thing. There is nothing in Tudor England to compare ini beauty or originality with the wealth of chateaus which/ sprang up in the valley of the Loire in the early days of the\ French Renaissance. Although Tudor architecture has a serious and solid attraction of its own, it lacks the buoyant freedom of French enterprise and invention. England gave birth to no architect of genius before the) rise of Inigojones, the designer of the banqueting- hall of I Whitehall. Jones, born in 1573, was a pupil of a sixteenth- 1 century Italian master, Falladio. No Englishman before him grasped the full significance of the art of the Italian Re- naissance, which finally established its prestige in England in James I's reign. The consummate technical skill and expansiveness of the French Renaissance architecture never knew an English exponent. To Germany Tudor England is mainly indebted for its pictorial art. Though Henry VIII, in loyal discipleship to Francis I, invited to England a few Italian painters, as well as Italian architects and musicians, the chief painters of Tudor England came, like her tutors in theology and her experts in metallurgy and mechanics, from Germany or the Low Countries, The greatest painter of Tudor England, Holbein, was a native of Augsburg. His chief successor here. Sir Antonio More, was a native of Utrecht. Of the best known Elizabethan artists, Lucas de Heere came from Ghent, Mark Gerrard from Bruges, and Zuccharo from the duchy of Urbino. The French Renaissance school of painting was even less familiar to Tudor England than its school of architecture. In 1 571 an ambitious art-dealer of Paris wrote entreating Sir William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth's prime 58 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE minister, to submit proposals to his royal mistress for the purchase of his magnificent collection of masterpieces by French as well as by Italian and German artists, but the offer was apparently rejected.^ In engraving-, Tudor England was very far behind the Continent. The art flourished in Germany for near a cen- tury before any effort was made to practise it on English soil. Not until the art of engraving was perfected in Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries were any specimens attempted in England. Copperplate engravers grew numer- ous in Elizabeth's reign, but they were, for the most part, Flemings or Germans of secondary repute in the world at large. English pupils occasionally did their Teutonic masters' instruction much credit, but Tudor England produced no master capable of emulating the smallest of the achievements ^i" >' of Albrecht Durer, the German, or of Marcantonio Raimondi, ^ .^.^-^^ v\ the Italian — the two artists who early in the sixteenth century * first set engraving securely among the fine arts.- XIII The French View of the English National Character However uncongenial may be the conclusion, we must face with what cheerfulness we may, the historic fact that Tudor England owed the graces of life to foreign influence, and chiefly to the influence of France. After making allowance for inevitable tendencies to national assertiveness and national jealousy, it is to be feared that the French critics who credited Tudor England with barbarism had some justifi- cation for their comment. The charge abounds, and is * Le XVr siccle et les Valois, par le Comte de la Ferricre, Paris, i879» PP- 3oo~i- , ^ ^ See Sidney Colvin's Early E7is;ravers ami Eng)aviiio m England, 1545-1695: A Historical and Critical Essay. (Printed by order of the Trustees of the British Museum, 1905.) The useful and beautiful art of making ' mill-money' (i.e. coins struck from dies by machinery) was first introduced into the Mint in England by a French immigrant in 1561. The art, which both Da Vinci and Cellini developed, reached France from Italy in 155 1 (see W. j. Hocking's Some Notes on I he Early History of Coifuige by Miu/iiiiery, 1909). ENGLISH ' BARBARIvSM' 59 a commonplace in forelon literature. It finds echo in Shakespeare's Henry \ \ where the French officers taunt the English, not only with excessive devotion to great meals of beef, but with deficiency in intellectual armour.^ Courage and tenacity are the only virtues these censors put to the credit of English nationality. Foreign visitors, even scholars like Scaliger, dwell regretfully on the English people's want of courtesy, and accept the mysterious tradition that the county of Kent, on whose coast foreign travellers landed, was in- habited by men trailing tails behind them. The tradition of Kentish men's tails was widespread^among continental authors. The fable seems to have been first formulated in print by the Italian historian of England, Polydore Vergil. The EHza- bethan topographer of Kent, \\'illiam Lambarde, reproaches Polydore with having led foreign nations to ' believe as verely that [Kentishmen] have long tailes ^nd be monsters by nature '.- The English people repaid such insults w^ith liberal interest. If the civility of the English court and nobility was often handsomely acknowledged by French visitors, their patience was tried by the rhetoric of the street-corner, which habitually greeted the stranger as a ' French dog '. Estienne Perlin, a French priest who was a student of Paris University, has left an account of a two-years' visit which he paid England and Scotland at the end of Edward VI's reign." Perlin speaks bitterly of the manners of the English people, and of the superior treatment which English visitors received in France. ' Les gens de ceste nation hayent a mort les Francoys, comme leurs vielz ennemis, et du tout nous ap- pellent France chenesve, France dogiie, qui est a dire "maraultz Francois ", "chiens Francois", et autrement nous ap- pellent oj'Son [whoreson], " villains ", " filz de putaing" .... II 1 He?iry V, ill. iv. 158-62. "^ Perambulation of Kent, 1 587, p. 315. Cf. Fynes Moryson, Itinerary, 1617, Part III, p. 53 : 'The Kentish men of old were said to have tayles, because trafficking in the Low Countries, they never paid full payments of what they did owe, but still left some part unpaid.' Moryson's hardly satisfactory explanation does not seem to be found elsewhere. ^ Description des royaulntes iPAngleterre et d'Escosse, Paris, 1 5 58; reprinted, London, 1775, pp. II-12. 6o FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE me desplait que ces vilalns, estans en leur pays, nous crachent a la face, et eulx, estans a la France, on les honore et revere comme petis dieux ; en ce, les Francois se monstrent francs de ccEur et noble d'esperit.' Another French view of Tudor Englishmen deserves cita- tion. In De la Porte's standard thesaurus called Les ^pithetes (Paris, 157 1), more generous terms are employed in an esti- mate of P^nglish character and physiognomy. The following is the curious list of epithets which the French writer de- clares to be applicable to 'Les Anglois' : ' Blonds, outrecudiz, ennemis des francois, archers, mutins, coues (i. e. tailed), belliqueus, anglo-saxons, superbes, rouges, furieus, hardis, audacieus.' The legend of the ' tails ' is not ignored, but to his list De la Porte appends the charitable note : ' Les Anglois sont beaux et bien proportionnez, hardis a la guerre, et fort bons archers. Le peuple n'aime point les estrangers, et est autant incivil et malgracieus que la noblesse est cour- toise et affable.' ^ Popular ignorance is always the prey of a false patriotism. It was impossible that the temper of the Tudor mob should be completely purged of hostility to foreign customs and to foreign ideas. Travelled Englishmen of cultivation were themselves known frankly to admit that their country was barbarous, its manners rude, and its people uncivil. But however deeply the insular prejudice was rooted in the heart of the common people, there is consolation in the reflection that the Tudor mind at its best was singularly free from the narrowness of national separatism. The Tudor mind at its best had in it a power of re- ceptivity, an assimilative capacity which ultimately purified it of much of its native grossness and adapted its native robustness to great artistic purpose. Tudor literature ' Page 1 7. To the Scotch, De la Porte apphes the following list of descrip- tive epithets (p. 92b): 'Nobles, vaillans, fiers, blonds, hautains, septen- trionaus, prompts, guerriers, enuieus, brusques, farouches, beaux, actifs.' There is added the note : ' Ce peuple est beau de visage et bien fait de corps, mais malpropre et peu soigneus de se vestir et parer honneste- ment, soudain en ses actions, farouche et vindicatif, puissant, robuste, et courageus en guerre, faisant grande parade de sa noblesse.' SHAKESPEARE AND FOREIGN INFLUENCi: 6i caught light and heat from France, or, through France, from Athens and Rome and modern Italy. Sixteenth- century France interpreted to sixteenth-century England Greek and Italian culture and ideas in much the same way as in the eighteenth century France interpreted Eng- land's ideas to Germany. France was the chief refining agent in Tudor society. She did much to liberalize Tudor thought. Some contemporary English observers whose temperament, In spite of education, exposed them to gusts of insular jealousy of the foreigner, expressed a fear that subservience to French or Italian example might hamper the evolution of the national genius. The typical Elizabethan scholar^" Gabriel Harvey, when he noticed Cambridge undergraduates steeping their minds, contrary to academic regulations, in current literature of France and Italy, was impulsively moved to the harsh hexameter : O times, O manners, O French, O Italish England.^ The lament was short-sighted. The national genius was absorbing the most healthful sustenance. All that w^as best in foreign literature was needed to create the new national expression on which Shakespeare set the final seal. The spirit of imitation and adaptation was well alive in Shake- speare, his mind was wTOught upon by endless modes of thought and style, but his creative genius refashioned all in a new mould, and his achievement must needs be called national, because it has no parallel in foreign countries. ^ Letterbook of Gabriel Harvey, 1573-80, f. 52 (Camden Soc, 1884, P- 97). BOOK II FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LITERATURE 1500-1550 French Light and English Gloom French literature of the first half of the sixteenth century has an abidinor interest in the way alike of performance and promise. Contemporary English literature makes no pre- tension to equal vitality. Humanism was advancing with sure step through the length and breadth of France. A golden age of scholarship was inaugurated there. In vernacular literature the influence of the past was still powerful, even if the archaic tendencies were scoring their final victories. In poetry the old Gallic tradition, which Villon had lately glorified, acquired a fresh charm at the hand of Clement Alarot, whose buoyancy and versatility were but lightly tinged by classical and Italian colour. The Graeco -Italian spirit was on the point of refashioning French poetry, but it had not yet acquired strength or fervour. The mediaeval temper was not yet exorcised. In prose, forces of the past were also assertive. Rabelais, who was endowed with the most liberal intellio-ence of the epoch, sought to fuse the unregenerate turbidity of a former era with the best enlightenment of the present and future. But, outside the bounds of poetry, a new dispensation was already in being. \\'hile Rabelais was still jovially blending simples 1 old and new, Calvin was austerely purging French prose of the old-fashioned cloudiness of thought and phraseology, and was steadily seeking a logical precision of utterance, which should initiate a style of vernacular writing new not only to France but to Europe. Just as the half-century closed, Ronsard and his friends of the Pleiade judicially pronounced the GaUic tradition of th^ past to be a relic of barbarism. The year 1550 just stopj short of the finest development, the greatest triumph, of the 66 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500-1550 French literature of the Renaissance. At the moment Ronsard (1524-85) had just committed himself to the cause of drastic reform. He had offered no proof of power to give the new plea effect, but he was on the eve of his conquest of the French Parnassus. Montaigne (1533-92) plays a part no less heroic than that of Ronsard on the stage of the French Renaissance ; he was a boy of seventeen in the sixteenth century's midmost year. The new light had dawned, and the noontide was quickly approaching. In England there was no such sustained intellectual or literary activity, no such imminent capture of the final goal. The flashes of scholarship in early Tudor England kindled no achievement of the first rank. There was a fleeting radiance in the poetry of Wyatt and Surrey, in which Itahan inspiration mingled with French, but the glow of Marot's poetic versatility was not matched in England. The ingenious graces and finished harmonies of the school of Ronsard when it was leaving its state of pupilage in France, had no contemporary counterpart across the channel. Nor was there in English prose any blustering championship of humanism to challenge comparison with Rabelais's chronicle of Pantagruel. Translation of more conventional specimens of French mediaeval literature constitutes the chief exploits in 1 English prose of Rabelais's era. An Englishman, Sir Thomas More, made one prose endeavour of supreme originality in his Utopia. But in a comparative survey of literature More's masterpiece prompts a paradoxical reflection. The work was written not in English, but m Latin , and England showed no sign of appreciating its imaginative and speculative virtues at their true rate until she slowly learnt their value from con- / tinental criticism. More's political and social essay is the only fruit of an English pen, which during the sixteenth century left its impress on the contemporary thought of Europe. But neither the English language nor English appreciation helped the venture to its influence. Its recognition was due to foreign scholarship and foreign insight. More's Utopia fanned no flame of culture in the country of its author until at least two younger generations had run their course. THE OXFORD HUMANISTS 67 In the ye^ir 1550, when France was bright with literary- fire, vernacular literature in England was suffering- eclipse. Such literary energy as flung a tempered or a muffled light on the previous half-century appeared to be exhausted. The middle years of the century form in l{nglish literary annals a period of melancholy gloom which looked incapable of dispersal. Verse sank to the level of doggerel. Prose rarely rose above pedestrian dullness. The literary voice seemed to be dumb. The literary atmosphere appeared to be a smoky and sterilized ' congregation of vapours '. The only hopeful sign was an unqualified acknowledgement, in circles where literary and scholarly ambition still breathed, that foreign example was pointing the way to better things. II First Gleams of Tudor Humanism There is ground for treating the literary stagnation of mid- sixteenth-century England as an abnormal instance of arrested development. The course of events pointed at one moment to a different and more exhilarating issue. At the end of the fifteenth century there was sign in England of a national humanist revival. In that movement, which promised better than it performed, three Oxford men, Colet, Linacre, and More, took the lead. Before the sixteenth century opened, Linacre and Colet, with half a dozen other Oxford scholars, visited Italy and F'rance. They eagerly studied Greek, and awoke some enthusiasm for the new learning in England. England seemed actively to be seeking affiliation with the European confederacy of humanism. Indeed, Linacre and More personally played distinguishable parts in the European drama of culture. But there were limitations in these Oxford scholars' intellectual affinities and ambitions. The merely aesthetic side of literature or scholarship scarcely moved them. They were no apostles of the Muses, who sought to dispel intellectual darkness with F 2 68 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 the torch of poetry and imaginative enthusiasm. More was better endowed with the Hterary instinct than his associates ; he dehghted in the Greek anthology, and brought a literary I touch to illumine social speculation ; yet his main interests were absorbed by political economy and theology. Linacre was fascinated by the inquiries of Aristotle and other Greek investigators into natural science ; he finally concentrated his attention on the study of Greek medicine, and gained continental fame by a translation into Latin of the work of Galen, the Greek medical writer. At home he is chiefly remembered as the founder of the English College of Physicians. His friend Colet's zeal for educational reform Was more vividly coloured by the genuine spirit of the Renaissance. Under the spell of the new learning, Colet founded St. Paul's School in London for the study of Greek as well as of Latin, but his intellectual affinity was mainly with scholastic philosophy and with Neo- Platonic mysticism. These Oxford pioneers won noble personal triumphs in special fields of culture. Yet none of their eminent individual achievements stimulated a national striving after literary per- fection, or a national outburst of poetic sentiment. They set flowing no irresistible tide of intellectual or literary energj"-. They failed to sweep the country into the broad continental flood of liberal culture, even if they deserve the credit of building on English soil one or two outworks of that intel- lectual empire which ruled beyond the seas. Foreign impulses moved these early Tudor scholars. Italian influence wrought primarily on them. Most of them sojourned in youth in Plorence and Venice. France, however, chiefly gave their aspirations coherent shape and substance. On their way home from Italy, Colet and Linacre paused at Paris, and there they came into touch with the two men who set the seal on the humanist development of Europe. Linked together by ties of close friendship, these two men, whose names are familiar in the classicized forms of Budaeus aruUErasmus, exercised a sovereignty in European scholarship which was unquestioned through the first half of the sixteenth century. The first runnings of the Renaissance stream in BUDAEUS 69 England were mainly tributary to the work of these two foreign masters. The chief fact in the history of humanism in the early part of the century is that Erance became the European centre of scholarship. Italy, which first introduced modern liurope to Greek literature, yielded to Erance her place as apostle of classical and notably of Greek culture. Primarily associated with the triumph of Erance is Guillaume Bude, or Budaeus (1467-1540), who from his twenty-fourth year devoted himself with an absorbing passion to the cause of the new learning. As a teacher in the University of Paris he founded Greek scholarship for modern Europe in the early days of the sixteenth century, and subsequently acquired European fame as an author, not merely on Greek philology, but on Roman law, numismatics, and education. While librarian to Erancis I, he formed a noble collection of Greek manuscripts, and, after long years of controversy, he induced the king to establish the College de Erance for the promotion of the scholarly study of Greek, Hebrew^ and Latin, by way of a liberalizing counterpoise to the conservative Sorbonne. Eud^eus-wrote as ably in Erench as in the learned tongues. In his own language he penned his Institution du PHiice, which he dedicated to his royal patron, while King Erancis I was a youth of two-and-twenty.^ There the scholar preaches the enlightened doctrine that a king should be a philosopher and a man of learning ; he asserts the superiority of Greek over Latin as a means of culture, and insists on the importance of the study of history as well as of philology. Budaeus 's repute finally rested on his discursive Commentaru linguae Graecae, a commentary on the Greek language which is a standard contribution to classical literature. It first interpreted the Greek language systematically and on scholarly lines. According to Sir Richard Jebb, Budaeus, however inferior in literary genius to Erasmus, his intimate friend and only rival, w^as a greater scholar and more learned man. The highest testimony to Budaeus's eminence^ ^ Though written in 15 16, Budaeus's Instituiion was not pubhshed till 1546. 70 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1 500-1 550 was given by his younger contemporary, Calvin , who / saluted him as ' the foremost glory and support of litera- / ture, by whose service our France claims for itself to-day ( the palm of erudition '. French poets paid in their native tongue no less enthusiastic tributes to the man whom they reckoned the greatest in reputation for learning of every kind.^ This verdict was accepted with acclamation in England by the pioneers of the Renaissance. Only one of Linacre's letters survives, and that, half in Greek and half in Latin, is a tribute of admiration addressed by him to Budaeus. More was an unswerving worshipper, and he owed to Budaeus the most encouraging appreciation which his Utopia received in its j early days. More s contemporary, Sir Thomas Elyot, was one I of the earliest English disciples of Budaeus's Greek scholar- " ship, and he declared that the Frenchman's commentaries ' first offered an exact trial [i. e. elucidation] of the native sense of [Greek] words '. From the hand of Budaeus English scholars, like continental scholars, received the key which opened the treasury of Greek letters. More direct and obvious than the influence of Budaeus on the transient dawn of English humanism was that of Erasmus I (1466-1536), who, although a Dutchman, mainly developed in Paris his scholarly genius. His alert and inspiring personality is chiefly responsible for the best fruit of the humanist enlighten- ment all over Europe. With the Oxford pioneers of Renais- ^ Some of the Latin elegies on the great man's death (in 1540) were rendered into EngHsh by poetasters, whose veneration was character- istically masked by a barbaric uncouthness of utterance. Compare, for example : All men bewailed Budaeus death ; the air did also moan ; The brawling brooks eke wept, because Budaeus good was gone. So men did wail, that everywhere were papers printed seen Of verses, threnes, and epitaphs, full fraught with tears of teen. Flowers of Epigra)>imes, by Timothe Kendall, 1577 (Spenser Society, 1874, pp. 70-1). Kendall here translates one of the many elegies on Budaeus by the humanist disciple of Calvin, Theodore Beza. Cf. Beza's Juvenilia, ed. Machard, 1879, P- 60. ERASMUS 71 sance culture, his relations were continuous and close, and their \ debt to him scarcely admits of exaggeration. Colet first met Erasmus at Paris at the end of the fifteenth century, when the Dutch scholar was acting as tutor to a young English nobleman, William Rlount, Lord Mountjoy. Erasmus was staying in an English boarding-house in the French capital. It was after Colet's introduction to him in Paris that Erasmus first visited England, at the invitation of his noble English pupil. Henceforth P^ngland was his frequent home, and he I amply rewarded her hospitality by the intellectual impulse [ which he exerted on his hosts. Erasmus was a brilliant critic of life as well as of letters, and he caught from his Parisian experience a Gallic blitheness, some touch of which he communicated to Sir Thomas More, the most warmly ' attached of all his English disciples. To Erasmus's eager i*'^'^ enthusiasm and social charm, and to the solid virtues of Budaeus's learning, is due most of the fruitfulness which can be allowed early Tudor humanism. Probably the greatest service that Erasmus rendered to the intellectual renown of England was the stimulus that his friend- ship offered the genius of Colet's Oxford friend, Sir Thomas More. More is by far the greatest figure in the intellectual history of early Tudor England. But his association with the vernacular literature of the secular kind is too small to give him prominence in the history of the written language. The secular verse and the polemical theology which he penned in his native tongue have claims to the attention of students of popular speech and of popular taste, but they have not the supreme touch of style and inventiveness, which makes for vital or permanent influence. More s political and social romance of Utopia stands on a different footing. It does not strictly belong to English literature, for it was written in Latin. Although its topics lie outside the aesthetic field, it interprets with such imaginative faculty most of the social and political ideals of the European Renaissance, that only a thin line separates it from pure literature. A destructive criticism of the social abuses of the | old regime prefaces illuminating proposals for the regeneration 2 FRENCH INFLUENCE ir^oo-1550 , and reconstruction of society. Cultivation of the intellect, religious toleration, civil liberty, high levels of physical well- being, are the watchwords of More's social reformation. Mores work has varied foreign affinities. The speculative temper is coloured alike by Plato's Republic^ and by vague I reports of aboriginal polity which had reached the writer from the discoverers of the New World. France can only claim in- direct influence in its composition. Yet it was while More was engaged on diplomatic business at Antwerp, where French was the language of official circles, it was while he was talking in French with a Portuguese sailor who had voyaged to America, that More's alert imagination conceived his new ideal of society. More's Utopia came into being as a contribution to European rather than to English literature. The greater part was penned in a foreign country. It was developed after the great Dutch apostle of humanism had delivered his message to its author. In no other work from an English pen is the effect of Erasmus's airy insight, playful sarcasm, and en- lightened humanity more clearly visible. It was, too, on the Continent and not in England that the Utopia found its welcome. Renaissance teaching had not yet permeated English sentiment, despite the efforts of Linacre and Colet. The fortunes of More's Utopia show that England, despite the endeavours of the Oxford pioneers, set small store by the stirring humanist revelation which her own son offered her. [ The first edition of the romance was printed at Lou vain with I \ the commendations of foreign, but of no English, scholars. It was quickly re-issued at Paris with an attractive epistle of kindly appreciation from the scholar Budaeus, which was addressed to a young English pupil, a graduate of the University of Paris, Thomas Lupset.^ To Budaeus's gene- rous preface the work chiefly owed its continental vogue. Edition after edition in the original Latin came from the Continental presses. No English printer handled the Latin ' The young Englishman, a protege of Colet and an enthusiastic student of the New Learning, supervised the proofs. MORE'S UTOPIA IN FRANCE 73 text till the Oxford Press produced an edition in 1663, nearly 1 150 years after its first publication. Nor was ]^2nglish, the native languao-e of the author, the \ first vernacular into which the work was translated. It was l a French version which first popularized More's speculations. The F>ench rendering- preceded any l^nglish rendering- by at least a year. The priority of F>ance in this regard needs no recondite explanation. The Utopia had a closer affinity with F^rench intellectual progress than with English. In her association with More's Utopia France, too, was true to her role of agent-general for European culture. The great FVench scholar Budaeus may be said to have rendered England as well as F^urope the serv^ice of interpreting the significance of More's philosophy. The anonymous F'rench translator of 1549, and the Parisian bookseller, Charles Angelier, who in 1550 circulated More's Latin in modern speech, may be credited with giving the unscholarly world the first opportunity of studying at first hand More's social and political gospel.^ France efficiently relieved More's Utopia of the risk of oblivion to which F^nglish blindness exposed it. The paradoxical features which attach to the early fate of More's Utopia pass beyond the confines of bibliography. The cold neglect of the book at home, and the magnetic force which it exerted abroad, receive graphic illustration in the most characteristic literature of the early days of the French Renaissance. Not only was More's Utopia printed in Paris in the original Latin; not only was it eulogized by foreign scholars ; not only was it translated into FVench before England gave any sign of recognition, it was also read and ' The terms of the title of the French translation are interesting : ' La-. Description de I'isle d'Vtopie ou est comprins le miroer des republicques du monde, et I'exemplaire de vie heureuse redige par escript en stille tres elegant de grand'haultesse et maieste par illustre bon»et scaieaf^* per- sonnage Thomas Moms citoycn de Londre ik. chancelier d'Angleterre. Avec I'Epistre liminaire composee par Monsieur Bude maistre des requestes du feu Roy Frangoys premier de ce nom. . . . Les semblables sont \ vendre au Palais ;\ Paris au premier pillier de la grand'Salle en la Bouticque de Charles Angelier devant la Chapelle de Messieurs les Presidens.' 1550. The volume opens with a publishing licence of the Parlement of Paris dated 14 Nov. 1549. I 74 " FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500- 1550 7r.^rM^ assimilated by the most notable prose-writer and most advanced thinker of the early days of the French Renaissance — by Rabelais. And that at an hour when More was barely known """to his own countrymen save in his secondary and conflicting- role of an heroic martyr of reaction. Special attention is due to the evidence of familiarity with More's book which Rabelais offers in his buoyant story of Gargantua and of Gargantua's son Pantagruel, because it is a new fact in the comparative study of French and English literature, and one without precise parallel in the period which we are surveying. I Readers of Rabelais may remember how the giant Pantagruel learns that the decadent nation of the Dipsodes had invaded a country of enlightenment, which bore the name Utopia, _and that the chief city of Utopia, which is called by Rabelais ' the city of the Amaurots ', was threatened by the Dipsodes with assault. According to the story, the giant straightway undertakes the defence of the Utopians. Rabelais's island of Utopia^mth ' the great_city of the Amaurots ', comes straight from More s romance. The names are of More's invention.^ Rabelais devotes four chapters to Pantagruel's warfare with the nation of the Dipsodes in behalf of Utopia and its inhabitants. We learn that the giant, after taking prisoner Anarchus, the rebel king of the Dipsodes, transports into the conquered land of Dipsody a colony of Utopians to the number of 9,876,543,210 men, women, and children, 'besides artificers of all trades and professors of all sciences, in order to people, cultivate, and improve ' the degenerate country. Utopia stands in the sight of Rabelais for the perfect state. There the golden age was renewed as it was in the time of Saturn ; and with some wise remarks on the problems of colonization, which oddly contrast with many grotesque and offensive details of the near context, Rabelais brings to a close the account of the colonization of Dipsody by the Utopians.^ ' Prof. Abel Lefranc, in Les Navigatiotis de Patifas^rucl : etude siir la geograpliie rabelaisienne (Paris, 1905), while pursuing a different line of inquiry, was the first to call attention to Rabelais's mdebtedness to More's Utopia. ^ The story of Pantagruel's relations with Utopia and the city of the Amaurots begins in Chapter 23 of Rabelais's second book, and is con- RARRLAIS'S DEBT TO MORE 75 Rabelais makes a serious appeal to the colonists of a new country to abandon the erroneous opinion of ' some tyrannical spirits ' that the natives should be plundered and ' kept in awe Avith rods of iron '. For the force of arms Rabelais would substitute ' affability, courtesy, gentleness, and liberality ', so that the conquered people may learn to live well under good laws. ' Nor can a conqueror,' argues Rabelais in the precise vein of vSir Thomas More, ' reign more happily, whether he be a monarch, emperor, king, prince, or philosopher, than by making his justice to second his valour. His valour shows itself in victory and conquest ; his justice will appear in the goodwill and affection of the people when he maketh laws, publisheth ordinances, establisheth religion, and doth what is right to every one.' Rabelais is at one with More at many other points of his humane polity. Their views in matters of education and of toleration for the most part coincide. The grafting of the English humanist's far-sighted speculation on the French humanist's disordered and farcical comedy of life is something of a literary curiosity. The isolated episode in our com- parative study clearly invests More with the proud title of tinued in Chapters 28 and 31, closing in the first chapter of the third book with Rabelais's benevolent remarks on the duties of the conquering colonist. It was not as a contribution to English literature, but to the continental literature of the Renaissance, that Rabelais knew the Utopia. Rabelais shows small knowledge of, or interest in, England. Two refe- rences, however, suggest that English and Scottish students were familiar figures in the academic society in France which Rabelais frequented. In Book II, Chapter 9, Pantagruel's companion, Panurge, cites a barely intelligible sentence on the inequality of the rewards of virtue, which he pretends to be in English. It is clearly Lowland Scotch derived from some Scotch student in Paris. (See Prof. Ker on ' Panurge's English' in Aji English Miscellany, presented to Dr. Furnivall, Oxford, 1901, pp. 196-8.) In succeeding chapters of Rabelais's second book (chaps. 18-20) there is a farcical account of a disputation conducted by means of pantomimic signs between Panurge and a vainglorious English scholar called Thaumast. The latter had come out of 'the very heart of England' to learn in France the secrets of philosophy. Thaumast finally admits that the French disputant has discovered to him ' the very true well, fountain, and abyss of the encyclopedia of learning', and promises to reduce to writing and to print the story of his experience. That promise was, according to Rabelais, duly fulfilled in a 'great book' ' imprinted at London '. 76 :■ / FRENCH INFLUP:NCE 1500-1550 tthe only Jinglishman who made in his day a substantial contribution to the broad stream of European thought. More's work was done before the tide of European en- lightenment had effectively stirred the intellectual waters of England. Of all the great French writers of the epoch Rabelais was least known in Tudor England. Although there was much in his boisterous frankness and intoxicated fooling which adumbrated the Elizabethan spirit, he for a long period escaped the observation of Englishmen. The ex- uberant sarcasm of some late Elizabethans, like Nashe, may owe something to him. But there was none in the England of his own day to appreciate the meaning of his deliverance as he appreciated the meaning of Sir Thomas More's message, Elizabethans made a tardy and imperfect acknowledgement of kinship with Rabelais. Their fathers were too backward in their study of humanism to spell out his alphabet. Ill French Grammars from Tudor Pens The French mind under the early impulse of the Re- naissance was sensitive to new intellectual or imaginative suggestion and impression. But in the seed-time of the French Renaissance, in the epoch of Rabelais, England had no fuel outside More's Latin prose wherewith to feed her neighbour's literary ardour. France was seeking foreign sustenance elsewhere. Writers in English lacked original inspiration, and literary drudgery satisfied most of their ambitions. Translation from the French mainly occupied their pens ; such industry could be no more than a domestic concern. There was a scanty poetry, which was, for the most part, the child of foreign parents ; to foreign observers its dialect seemed inarticulate. As the century aged, and when the impulse of the Renaissance dwindled in France, the spirit of nationalism grew in French literature, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, assimilation of foreign ideas suffered THE ENGLISH GRAMMARIANS 77 discouragement. When Elizabethan poetry reached its full flood, French literature was passing through a phase of spent glory, which fostered a spirit of exclusiveness. As a conse- quence Elizabethan poetry won no recognition in France. Had the literary genius of the English Renaissance blossomed half a century earlier, England might have turned the tables on France in the way of literary indebtedness. In early Tudor days the humble labours of translation and homely verse, which mainly absorbed English literary energy, were occasionally supplemented by experiments in grammar and lexicography. More especially did Tudor study of the French tongue issue in such practical exercises. French receptivity showed here no unreadiness to accept help from English hands. Tudor guidance in French grammar was welcomed in France. But when we close the page of Mores Utopia^ we find English authorship of the sixteenth century offering French students nothing besides the Gibeon- Itlsh service of hewer of grammatical wood or drawer of lexicographic water. In all other fields throughout the period, England was the borrower and France the lender. The story of the French grammars of Tudor England Is a somewhat depressing pendant to the episode of the ad- ventures in France of More's Utopia. But the two Incidents have the common characteristic that they reverse the pre- vailing tendency of the Anglo-French literary Intercourse and put England In the place of creditor instead of debtor. Grammar was an honoured study In the circle of Colet and his friends. Latin grammars of Linacre and of William Lily, who was the first master of Colet's foundation of wSt. Paul's school, acquired a foreign as well as a domestic vogue. If they are elementary and not wholly original efforts, Linacre 's and Lily's grammars displayed a methodical simplicity which recommended them to teacher and pupil at home and abroad. Long afterwards — In the last quarter of the sixteenth century • — an Englishman, Edward Grant, head master of ^^'estmInster School, first tried his hand at a Greek grammar for Enghsh boys (1575), and this endeavour In a revised version by Grant's successor at Westminster, William Camden (1597), achieved 78 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500-1550 a wide popularity. But the most remarkable grammatical energy of Tudor England was bestowed on the French lan- guage, and it was there that English energy mainly won recog- nition in France. The rooted conviction among the cultivated classes of Tudor England that a familiar knowledge of French was essential to refinement found emphatic expression in a series of grammatical compilations. Caxton published some French- English dialogues. Alexander Barcla y, a literary journeyman whose industry was mainly displayed in translation, compiled a Fjrencli^English grammar as early as 152 1. Barclay's efforts to reproduce phonetically French pronunciation is of im- portance to the study of English and French phonetics alike. For our present purpose the value of Barclay's Introductorie to Write and Pronotmce French lies in the testimony that it offers to the Englishman's reverence for French speech. The Englishman seems doubtful of his competence to practise original composition in his native language, and seeks to com- pensate his defect by close study of a foreign tongue.^ f The two names which are to be mainly associated with the /Tudor devotion to French grammar are Giles Devves and (John Palsgrave. Palsgrave's achievement entitles him to the respect of all philologists, and confers distinction on the slavish toil of all grammarians. Dewes seems to have been a Frenchman who came here to teach French to Henry Mil, and then transferred his services to Henry VIII's daughter, Mary Tudor. For the princess Mary he wrote A n hitroduciorie for to learne to rede, to projwnnce, and to speake French trewly\ which was first published about 1528. The work is short. It opens with rules of pronunciation. A grammatical section follows with tables of conjugation. The last part con- sists of letters and conversations between master and pupil, and between the princess Mary and members of her household. These French and English dialogues occasionally touch on public affairs, and although they are sparing of concrete ^ It is curious to note that Robert Copland, the printer and publisher, appended to Barclay's French grammar that translation from his own pen of a treatise on F^rench dances to which reference has been made above : see p. 52. PALSGRAVE'S MAGNUM OPUS 79 information, sug-i^est by way of compensation tlie formal quaint- ness of contemporary conversational style in both languages. Palsgrave's work is iar more impressive. An Englishman, educated at Paris, he went to the French court as chaplain of Henry Vlll's sister Mary, when she married the French king Louis XII. But his life was mainly spent in England as tutor to pupils of good birth, among whom was Henry VIII's natural son, the Earl of Richmond. Humanism sheds some brightness on his career. He was a familiar figure in learned society, and claimed friendly intimacy with More and Erasmus. His magJiiDii opus^ which he entitled L' Esclarcisseineiit de la langiie fraii^oyse, was prepared by him for the exclusive use of his pupils, and he deprecated its sale to any one else. The volume, the first sheets of which were printed in 1530 by the Norman immigrant Pynson, startles us by its enormous size. It reaches a total of 1 1 10 large quarto pages. But its system- atized and exhaustive design almost justifies the remarkable bulk. Palsgrave makes a sustained endeavour to compare the idiom and grammatic structure of the two languages. Elabo- rate rules are devised to govern every French inflection. The conjugation of all French verbs, according to their several types, is set out in full. The purposes of lexi- cography are served hardly less effectively than those of grammar. There is an elaborate French vocabulary with interpretations in English. Great stress is laid on the correct pronunciation and the correct spelling of French. Above all is it to be noticed that illustrations of verbal usage are liberally supplied from past and present French writers, whose repute stood high in Palsgrave's own day. His survey of French literature is wide. Citations are frequent from the Roman de la Rose^ the ample fountain of almost all mediaeval allegory ; from Alain Chartier, the laureate of French poetry and prose of the first half of the fifteenth century ; and from Le Maire des Beiges, the popular leader of that prolific school of French poetry which endeavoured, early in the sixteenth century-, to bind the new spirit of the Renaissance in mediaeval fetters. Palsgrave, by way of epilogue, expresses the wish that ' the nobility of this realm and all other persons, 8o FRENCH INFLUENCE 1 500-1 550 of whatever estate or condition soever they be, may by the means hereof in their tender age the sooner attain unto a knowledge of the French tongue '. The point best worth remembering about Palsgrave's massive venture is that nothing quite resembling it had been undertaken in France. He, an Englishman, practically gave the French people rules for their own language. Palsgrave's originality has been fully recognized in France. Tudor England set up one monument of literary drudgery w^iich warrants some patriotic exultation. Not only can it claim a genuinely solid merit, but it drew from France the paradoxical acknowledgement that a ' barbarous ' neigh- bour first taught her the grammatical principles of her own tongue.' IV The Renaissance Printers of France and England The foremost contribution which was made outside Italy or France to the development of the Renaissance was the German invention of printing. From central Europe came, too, rare^manifesTatTons oT artistic genius as well as a reforma- tion of theological principle and practice. But the art of typography was the most momentous gift that Germany made to the new culture of Europe. No feature in the intellectual history of this period can compare in practical interest with the progress of the new mechanical contrivance, which stimulated literary effort, and provided means of distribut- ing literary culture. Far-reaching differences marked the early growth of printing in the two countries of France and England, and much significance attaches to the contrast. A suggestive light is thrown on the intellectual qualities and tendencies of the two peoples in the days of Colet and More, of Budaeus and Rabelais, by a summary comparison of the ' Aj^eprint in 889 quarto pages which was undertaken in J852 by the government of Napoleon III does ample justice to Palsgrave's ingenuity. The editor salutes Palsgrave's volume as the only complete and authentic inventory of the French language of the compiler's day. 1 THi": FIRST i'ri\ti:ks in 1-RANCK 8i character, work, alms, and number of the early printers of England and France. In France printing- was introduced and was developed artistically and mechanically by men of learning. The pro- cess was deliberately fostered as an instrument of scholarly culture. The distinction to be drawn between the history of the infant presses of England and France may be inferred from such primary facts. In Paris the first French press was\ set up by two professors at the vSorbonne, who brought from Germany experts in the newly discovered art early in 1470. The craft was first practised within the precincts of the University. The Parisian professors' original object was to reproduce Latin educational manuals for their pupils. But the elementary bounds of the academic curriculum were quickly passed, and in less than two years twenty-two more or less substantial volumes had been issued, including (besides school- books) separate works of Vergil, Cicero, and Plato (in Latin), all the known writings of Terence, vSallust, Juvenal, and Persius, and two contemporary contributions to literature from the accomplished pen of Aeneas Sylvius, who was a pioneer of learning in the fifteenth century, and ended his career as Pope Pius 11.^ The invention of printing instantly fascinated the cultivated intelligence of F>ance. Within thirty years of its introduction a mass of printed literature in French and Latin was generally/ accessible, and the observer is amazed by its vastness and variety.' Religious service-books and educational manuals were hardly more abundant in the closing years of the fifteenth century than Latin classics, both in the original and in translations, and vernacular prose and poetr}'. Presses multiplied with bewilder- ing rapidity, not only in Paris, but in the provinces. At the opening of the sixteenth century eighty-five presses were at work in the capital city, and thirty-eight in the countiy outside. The owners and workers of these numerous presses were nearly all scholars and men of letters. Printing was formally admitted ' The First Paris Press. An account of the books printed for G. Fichet and J. Heynlin in the Sorbonne, 1470-2, by A. Claudin (BibHographical Society's Publications, 1S98). LEE G 82 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500-1550 at the dawn of the French Renaissance into the circle of the learned professions, if not of the fine arts. Throughout the sixteenth century French typography retained its scholarly and lettered associations. The demi- gods of the golden age of French scholarship in the sixteenth century were printers. Henri Etienne the first, Robert Etienne his son, and Henri Titienne the second his grandson, whose sur- name took on English lips the form vStephens, have many titles to fame. Their careers cover the whole of the sixteenth century. The eldest of the three set up a press at Paris in 1501. The son and grandson edited with rare acumen the chief Greek and Latin texts ; they compiled Latin and Greek dictionaries with heroic industry ; they criticized current literary effort in admirable French prose ; they urged, in the national interest, high ideals and ambitions on those who wrote in the native tongue of France. At the same time they actively shared the labour of putting manuscript into type at the presses which they owned, and energetically endeavoured to improve the mechanical details and artistic temper of their craft. The Renaissance fostered the association of typography wath literature, learning, and art throughout the European con- tinent. Nowhere was the link from the outset so tenacious as in France, and there are no more brilliant examples of the alliance than the three generations of ^tiennes supply ; yet the ;^tiennes are stars in a French galaxy of cultured typographers. The lieutenants need fear no comparisons with the captains in this field. The eminent bookseller and publisher of Paris, Geoffroy Tory, to whose artistic skill the 6tiennes' press owed many of its aesthetic improvements, held his own in an almost wider region of culture. Born at Bourges about 1480, and educated in Italy, he was professor of philosophy at Bordeaux and other flourishing universities before he turned to the business of bookselling, printing, and publishing in Paris, where Francis I rewarded his efiiciency by conferring on him the title of royal printer. At Paris he not only showed a fine taste in the choice of books for publication and in the superintendence of the typography, but he cut woodblocks with his own hand and devised illuminated miniatures. As an THl^: KTIlvNNKS ANIJ JJOLKT 83 engraver and miniaturist he won a universal repute. Nor do such achievements exhaust Tory's characteristic record. Tory- wrote in French, and illustrated with engravings by himself, an encyclopaedic volume fancifully entitled ChaJtip-FIeiiry, in which, besides expounding- the principles and practice of typography, grammar, and punctuation, he adjured his fellow countrymen to eschew foreign fashions and to develop national taste and habit on independent lines.^ Again, l^tien ne Dolet , the scjiolarj^rinter of Lyons, com- bined, in only a degree less than Tory or the Etiennes, literary skill and enthusiasm with mechanical and mercantile aptitude. His scholarly love for the style of Cicero led him to trans-l late^Cicero's works into French, and he was a voluminous original writer alike in his own language and in Latin. Both Rabelais and Clement Marot honoured him with their friend- ship. Yet the most effective service which Dolet rendered to humanism was his work_Qf,jjrinte r at Lyo jis in the genera-' tion succeeding that of Tory, and he sealed his renown as aj humanist by suffering martyrdom in the Place Maubert at /S44> Paris in the cause of freedom of opinion and of the press.^l The French Renaissance printer was no servant nor hireling of current culture, literature, and opinion. He took his place among the leaders and masters of scholarship and thought. His workshop was an intellectual arsenal where he forged with his own hand weapons of light. Very different and far less glorious is the early story of printing in England. The contrast illustrates how far Tudor England loitered behind France in her intellectual progress and in her encouragement of culture. William Caxton was an I Intelligent silk-mercer of London, whose business took him to ' the Low Countries before the middle of the fifteenth century. During some thirty consecutive years he traded at Bruges. There he learnt French and took pleasure in reading French ' Tory's Cltamp-F/eury, which does not compete with Palsgrave's treatment of French grammar, was published at I'aris in 1529— a year before Palsgrave's book. The author died in 1533, aged 53. ^ R. C. Christie's masterly biography of Dolet (2nd edition, 1899) supplies a graphic detailed picture of the character and achievements of this representative scholar-printer of the French Renaissance. G 2 ^ 84 FRENCH INFLUENCP: 1500- 1550 books in manuscript. By way of recreation he translated with his own pen a French mediaeval chronicle concerning the siege of Troy. This literary labour he began at Bruges on March i, 1468, and he completed it on September 19, 1471, while he was staying on mercantile business at Cologne. That city had become a year or two earlier a centre of typographic activity, and there the art, which was of German origin, came for the first time under English notice. When the mercer returned to Bruges, he and a friendly Fleming amused their leisure by putting the translation into type, and it was published at Bruges in 1476. Thus the first English book to appear in print was written and published abroad, and was a rendering from the French. The title lays \ stress on its French origin.^ Caxton soon repeated his experiment on English soil. He brought from the continent the needful apparatus in 1477, and opened a press in Westminster in 1478, The interval between the beginnings of French and English printing is thus in point of time only eight years. But the circumstances attend- ing the birth of the art in the two countries and the rates of its early progress lie very far asunder. In France printing was deliberately imported from Germany with a view to facilitating the growth of culture, and scholarship took control of its opera- tions from the first. For England it came into being as the pas- time of an English trader who was domiciled abroad, and the seed which he sowed and watered in his own country developed slowly and inertly. It is noticeable that Caxton supplied his press with much 'copy' from his own pen, and that his example was followed by one or two of his early successors, but the English printers' literary handiwork was confined to trans- lation from French prose in print or manuscript, and was ' The title runs to this effect : — ' The volume, entitled and named the Recueil of the histories of Troy, [was] composed and drawn out of divers books of Latin into French by the right venerable person and worshipful man Raoul le Fevre . . . which said translation and work was begun in Bruges in the county of Flanders the first day of March the year of the Incarnation of our Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and eight, and ended and finished in the holy city of Cologne the nineteenth day of September the year of our Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and eleven.' CAXTON 85 designed for popular recreation or edification. Scholarship had smalMiand in superintending- the choice. ~There was in the early diffusion of English typography, too, a constraint to which France offers small parallel. By the end of the fifteenth century only three or four presses had been set up in London, and all save Caxton's were small ventures of half-educated foreign mechanics. A German, independently of Caxton, printed a [ew books at Oxford in Caxton's day, but this enterprise came to an early end and found for near a century no assured successor. The history of the Oxford University Press cannot be traced further back than the year 1585.^ Of Cambridge University a very similar story has to be told ; there a visitor from Cologne first printed nine or ten books in 1521 and 1522, but no attempt was made to inaugurate a permanent press till 1582. An English schoolmaster made a few typographic experiments at St. Albans in the early days. It was only in London that the art was practised from the fifteenth century without interruption. Even in the English metropolis, the scope of the operations was modest when they are compared with those of foreign centres. Foreign hands guided the English enterprise. Caxton's chief assistant, Wynkyn de Worde, who came from Alsace, succeeded to his master's position of wellnigh solitary eminence. The thin ranks of London printers were gradually reinforced early in the sixteenth century by further recruits from Germany and the Low Countries. Meanwhile English typography contracted an immense debt to the superior mechanical and literary energy of the French, It is clear thati in one or two cases Caxton had his books set up in Paris, and was the importer, and not the manufacturer, of volumes bearing his trade-mark. Of like significance is the fact that the ' copy ' with which he largely fed his press was translations by him- self or by his patrons which were mainly from recently printed, ^ Cf. F. iMadan's A Chart of Oxford Printing (Bibliographical Society's Monographs, No. XII), 1904, and his Early Oxford Press, 1468-1640 (Oxford Historical Society, 1895); and Robert Kowes and (I. J. Cray, J. Siberch (the fust Cambridge printer), Cambridge, 1906. 86 FRl^NCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 / French literature. It is not therefore surprising to learn ( that, after Wynkyn de Worde's brief reign, the successor to Caxton as chief London printer was a French immigrant into \^ England, Richard Pynson. The name of Pynson looms large in the annals of early English typography. He was a Norman, who learnt the art at Rouen, his native city. Caxton ignored the texts of the classics. In i^;^j_ Pynson gave the English press its first tinge of scholarship by pr inting for the first time in England a Latin classic.^ He chose the six plays of Terence. The first Paris press, a quarter of a century before, had rendered France the identical service. The classical tradition which distinguished the continental press since the discovery of the art was thus leisurely inaugurated in England by a Frenchman. But Pynson failed to graft a distinctive note of scholarship on the English efifort in typography. To the Frenchman, English typo- graphy, however, lies under a substantial obligation. He was the first royal printer in England, receiving the appoint- ment from Henry VIII on his accession in 1509. Thus in his person the new art first received official recognition. Pynson introduced- the Roman letter ' in place of the ancient Gothic or t ' black letter ', beyond which Caxton had not ventured. But in spite of Pynson's skilful embellishments of his craft, which were generally accepted by the country of his adoption, the superior cunning and activity of French typographers were freely ac- knowledged in England during his lifetime and long afterwards. French collaboration was very slowly driven from the field of Tudor typography. In 1538, under the auspices of the minister Cromwell, a complete translation of the Bible, which was known as the Grea t Bible , was prepared for authorized use in English churches. The manuscript seems to have dismayed the London printers by its bulk, and the ' copy ' was sent to Paris to be set up in a printing office there. Though the French government intervened and hindered the completion of the undertaking, the French type and presses were trans- ferred to London. The finished volume — the greatest monu- ment of early printing in England — remains a tribute to ' A Cicero, Pro Milone, is doubtfully assigned to O.xford, 1480. FRENCH TYPOGRAPHY IN ENGLAND 87 PVench typographical craftsmanship and energy. The subsi- diary nicchaniail appliances of the art long continued to be supplied by aliens. Not for some seventy years after the printing-press was introduced into this country does type seem to have been cast here. For the best part of a century type was imported from the continent. The earliest manu- facturer of type in r^ngland was a French settler, Hubert Danvillier or Donviley, who received a grant of denization as ' fondeur de lettres ' at the end of Edward VI's reign.^ French and other foreign printers had their agents in London throughout the early years of the sixteenth century, and French editions not only of the classics but of religious service-books abounded in the English market. The classical texts which were studied by Tudor scholars were invariably foreign im- portations, and largely came from France, although Germany and Italy were also prolific sources of supply. The French printers gave English scholarship especially valuable and practical aid in a direction of the highest moment. Greek . typography was not practised at all in England for many/ a long year. It was at first a practical monopoly of Italy, and,' was somewhat slow in reaching France. Not till 1 507 , when! some of Theocritus's poem s wer e^-^pfoduced in Paris, was\ Greek printing associaled with the French press. Soon after i that date the French scholar-printers became Greek printers 1 on a great scale and brought Greek typography to perfection. ] A standard Greek type was invented by Claude Garamond, the royal printer of Francis I, about 1541 , and ' French Royal ' type long held sway throughout Europe. No Greek book was printed in England before 1543, when Reginald Wolf, a German immigrant, set up an extract from Chrysostom in Greek type of French design.'- Wolf's volume had few and ^ Alie7i Members of the Book Trade during the Tudor Period, edited by E. J. Worman (Bibliographical Society, 1906), pp. 13-14- The French denizen, Hubert Danvillier, had a kinsman, Antonius Danvillier, also a French subject, who was naturalized in 1567, after having practised, at least since 1562, as a ' fusor typorum' in Blackfriars. ^ See Robert Proctor's Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century (Illustrated Monographs, Bibliographical Society, No. VlII, 1900). A few words in Greek type were introduced into Latin texts by Siberch, the printer at Cambridge in 1522, and that example was followed several 88 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500-1550 undistinguished successors. Tudor England can claim no monument of Greek printing to set beside the scores of great contemporary examples of France. To the artistic ingenuity of French printers the circulation and perusal of Greek litera- ture, a chief source of the new enlightenment, owed almost everything in Tudor England.^ The varied advantages which the typographic art derived from foreign guidance and example, never succeeded in investing the profession of printer in England with those noble literary and scholarly traditions which attached to it from the first in France as well as in Italy, Germany, and Holland. John Rastell, a literary lawyer, who was the friend and brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, set up a press of his own under Wynkyn de Worde's tuition ; but Rastell remains an unique instance of a member of a learned profession engaging under a Tudor sovereign in the printing trade, and his career quickly ended in disaster. Probably the nearest approach to a learned printer that Tudor England knew was Reginald Wolf, a native of Strasburg, who came to England in adult years, and was appointed royal printer to King Edward VI. We have just seen that he enjoys the distinction of printing in England the first Greek book. It was he, too, who originally devised and planned the great chronicle of English history which is identified with the name of Holinshed, its chief compiler. Yet Wolf hardly reached the standard of typographic culture with which the literary history of the Continent makes us familiar. The religious element in the English atmosphere seems to have impaired the printers' enthusiasm for pure scholarship and learning. Foreign printers on settling in England tended to set the sectarian interests of religion above the broader interests times before 1543, but no complete Greek text appeared in England earlier. * The first great monument of Greek printing in England falls outside the sixteenth century ; that was the edition of Chrysostom printed at Eton early in the seventeenth century from Greek type of the French pattern (c. 1610), by Sir Henry Savile, who had studied abroad under the best continental scholars. The French model was followed too in the beautiful Greek type presented to Oxford University by Dr. Fell at the end of the seventeenth century. ICNGLISH FRINTKRS AND PURITANISM 89 of culture. Many French printers, including the I^tiennes, were of the Reformed faith, but the Huguenot sentiment worked otherwise than English Puritanism. Wolf came to identify himself wholly with P^nglish Protestantism, and his press ultimately served the cause of religious dogma almost to the exclusion of profane letters. There were examples ot a like degeneracy on the part of a few printers of English birth, who shared Wolf's literary instinct, Grafton, a Tudor printer of English race, prepared for the press some compila- tions of English history from his own pen, but his literary activity was afterwards restricted to paths of Puritan theolog)'. John Day, the printer-friend of John Foxe, the martyrologist, controlled a press of high mechanical repute, for which he wrote much ; but all his writing was designed to champion the cause of Puritanism and to refute the pretensions of Rome. Thus a religious rather than a scholarly ideal dominated such Tudor printers as cherished any literary ambition through the middle years of the century. Here and there an English printer claimed responsibility for a translation of a popular profane pamphlet from a foreign tongue, but the episode w^as infrequent and rarely bore witness to a pronounced literary feeling. The choice of text showed indeed less taste than was exhibited by Caxton, the father of English typography, who made small pretension to aesthetic or scholarly aim. Nor did any of Caxton's successors approach him in his translating industry or versatility. P>om whatever point of view we examine the literary effort of Tudor printers, there emerges the plain fact that the French type of.scholarj)rinter, whose literary skill and sympathy ranked him with the great con- temporary men of letters, was unknowii t& Tudor Englaad. The contrast between the positions assigned by the two countries to the printer and his art in the society of culture was sharply defined by the Stationers' Company of London in the seventeenth century, when Parliament threatened to abolish some mercantile privileges of the trade : France especially is famous for the value she sets upon that profession and trade of men, whom we in P2ngland incorporate by the name of vStationers ; for there they are privileged above 90 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 mere mechanics, and honoured wilh a habitation, as it were, in the suburbs of literature itself.' V Early Tudor Translations from French Prose Although printers in England of the early sixteenth century were comparatively few and uncultivated, they were not idle. Much literature came quickly from their presses. Caxton's activities marked out the road which most of his early disciples followed. Apart from service-books or missals, which were in Latin, their work was mainly confined to the English language. They ignored the texts of the classics. j Mediaeval literature in England was scanty. Caxton put into I type the poetry of Chaucer and Lydgate, but most of his I abundant energy was absorbed by translation from the French, \ much of which came from his own pen. Caxton's translations \ were invariably in pro se. A little French poetry was rendered Ifor him by others into English verse. From the date of 'the introduction of printing into England down to 1550, the bulk of the literature offered by the. -printers to^the I English^ reading public was in prose, and for the most part [J^n prose which was translated from the French. The French source was not always itself an original work ; it was often a translation from the classical tongues, or from the Italian or the ^Spanish, Cicero, ^'^erg^l, Seneca, Thucydldes were soon printed in English, but the printed text was derived from contemporary French versions. French was the key with which Caxton and his early successors sought to unlock for their clients such literature of the world as seemed deserving of notice. Caxton vv^as pursuing a veteran tradition in offering English readers a recreative literature from French pens. The taste for French verse and prose was already well alive. The authors of mediaeval France were already vaguely acknow- ledged In England to be apostles of culture. Caxton's printing press conspicuously reinforced the conservative pre- * Arber, Shiiiofurs' Cimipany Registers, i. 584. 1 \ CAXTON'S TRANSLATIONS 91 dilection. French literature of the Renaissance type was unborn in the season of Caxlon's activity. The first English printers were bound to have recourse to the expiring- literary efforts of mediaeval France. There were voluminous stores in both manuscript and print from which Caxton could glean. The fame of the later mediaeval authors was still strong in France, and the early French presses increased the circulation of their work. The books belonged to a school which the Renaissance was on the point of dismissing to oblivion. The tone of thought was languid, and lacked the stimulus of the new era. The early Tudor press gave its readers in full measure English versions of French romances of chivalry, of romantic allegories with ethical intention, and of picturesque historical narratives. Many had just been printed in France for the first time. No ampler proof of the readiness and eagerness of the average English mind to assimilate French literature is needed than the mere catalogue of books to which the early English printers devoted their labours. In the more ancient literary fields Caxton found the richest fuel for his press in translations by his own pen of such French tales of chivalry as The four Sons of Aymon^ The Life of Charlemagne^ and the romantic History of B Ian char din and Eglantine. Of all Caxton's publications none in tlie" category of French chivalric romance claims a higher interest than his Mort e d'Arthnr^ a cycle of Arthurian legend. vSir Thomas Malory"had adapted the work from the French some "Seven years before Caxton set up his press at Westminster. Malory's manuscript was completed before Caxton had learned the printing art at Bruges or Cologne. In publishing it Caxton illustrated his sympathy with a pre-existent vogue. It was in France that the Arthurian tradition, which English literature was to assimilate, had long since received its literary baptism. Such English romances of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere as circulated in mediaeval manuscripts, acknow- ledged French inspiration. Malory worked almost exclusively on old French versions of the Arthurian story. Fifty-six times does he warn his reader that ' the French book ' is his guide 92 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1550- 1550 and tutor. Malory is a compiler on a liberal scale, and brings together scattered stories, but he offers his readers little that l^^ 'cannot be traced to a comparatively early French original. _ , To Caxton's typographic labours on Malory's Morte cT Arthur \,^^ 1^^ is mainly due the fruitful career which Arthurian romance has since run in English poetry. There is no more striking . J testimony either to the continuity of French influence on ^^^'^'^ English literature or to the stimulus which that influence derived from the printing press, Caxton found other literary material in French com- position of more recent date. Through the early years of Caxton's own fifteenth century a French writer who enjoyed wide vogue was Alain Chartier (1390 -1458), whose literary industry is attested by massive memorials both in print and manuscript. He was a voluble philo- sopher in prose and a fluent poet, delighting in ballades and rondeaus, in melancholy strains of ethical allegory, and in prose disquisitions on the philosophy of life. For a time he was French ambassador in Scotland, and Margaret of Scotland, the wife of Louis XI while Dauphin, adored him and his work. Alfred de Musset has written a charming poem on the old anecdote, now unhappily refuted as apocryphal, that the princess publicly in the French court kissed the sleeping philosopher and poet, who was notorious for his ugliness, and excused herself for the breach of etiquette by the remark that she kissed the golden wisdom which issued from the ugly lips.^ Chartier died in old age in 1458 after a life spent in the service of Church and State. But his name had lost ' The story was first printed by Etienne Pasquier, the poet-historian, in 1560, who ilkistrates Chartier's 'mots dorez et belles sentences ' by a long quotation from his Ciirial (see Lcs Rec/ierc/ics dc la France, Livre VI, ch. xvi, in Pasquier's G^uvres, Amsterdam, 1723, i. 584-5). The story was well known to the Elizabethans. Puttenham relates it somewhat inaccurately in his A?-te of E/tgiis/i Poesii\ 1589 (ed. Arber, 1869, p. 35). The English critic assigns the adventure to * that noble woman twice French queen, Lady Anne of Britain, wife first to King Charles the \'III, and after to Louis the XII, who passing one day from her lodging toward the king's side, saw in a gallery Master Alain Chartier, the king's secretary, an excellent maker or poet, leaning on a table's end asleep, and stooped down to kiss him, saying thus in all their hearings, " we may not of princely courtesy pass by and not honour with our kiss the mouth from whence so many sweet ditties and golden poems have issued.'' ' CHRISTIM-: DI-: IMSAX 93 none of its repute in the France of Caxton's time. A French contemporary of the English printer hailed Chartier as Un Poete hault et scientific . . . Doux en ses faicts, et plein de rhetorique. Clerc excellent, orateur magnifique. Caxton mainly turned his attention to Chartier's prose, to his Curial, a gently pathetic description of the trials of a courtier's life.^ English readers welcomed the book with something of the Scottish princess's ardour. Another French writer, whose fame in England Caxton rather extended than inaugurated, was CJiristine dej^isan, wife of Etienne Castel ( 1 363- 1 430 ?). She may almost be regarded) as the earliest of professional authors amongst women, and \% certainly worthy to rank with literary heroines of a later age. Prose and poetry came with equal fluency from her pen, and her voluble expositions of mediaeval ethics and ideals gave her a repute which her contemporary Joan of Arc alone excelled among the women of her time, A lyric in praise of the Maid of Orleans was one of the latest of Christine's songs. Christine had declined the invitation of Henry IV of England to visit his court, but her only son, Jean Castel, learned knightly exercises from an English master. In the household of the Earl of Salisbury Jean Castel was serving when Caxton was a young man. The teaching which Christine devised for her son in her versified Moral Proverbs was turned into English by Earl Rivers, brother of Edward IV's queen Elizabeth, and was circulated by Caxton in print. To Christine is ascribed, moreover, the original P>ench of the chivalric handbook, Fayts of Arms and Chivalry^ which also came in English from Caxton's press, and enjoyed a wide popularity in social circles during the early years of Sir Thomas More. The cult of old French chivalry was endowed with a new lease of life by Caxton's typographic energy, and Christine de Pisan enjoyed in England the honours of its chief priestess. ^ To Caxton's volume there was prefixed a translation of a ballade of unexceptionable moral intention with a clumsy burden ('Ne chyer but of a man Joyous '). The poem, though assigned to Chartier, is from another pen. See M. Paul Meyer's note in reprint of Caxton's volume by the Early English Text .Society. 94 FRENCH INFLUENCl*: 1500-1550 A popular venture of Henry Pepwell, one of Caxton's youngest professional pupils, was The Cyte of Ladyes, an English rendering of one of Christine's spacious allegories in prose. The original, Le iycsor de la cite des dames, was first printed in the fifteenth century at the great Paris press of Antoine Verard.^ When the sixteenth century opened, Tudor England, at the bidding of Caxton and his disciples, continued to seek sober recreation in French literature of a dead or dying generation. fThe toil of translation was treated by the first English printers [as a normal part of their office-work. They were self- educated, and wrote with rough and ready pen. It was inevitable that their voluminous energy should leave its mark on the style of early Tudor prose. Their syntax was often faulty. They were no grammatical purists. They liberally and literally transferred to their pages French idiom and French vocabulary. But they tended under French sway to fluency. Although they linked their sentences with one another by no more subtle ties than disjointed particles, they helped to make English prose lithe and flexible. Above all, th£y_,3tim.ula]£d^jhe Jhabit of vernacular^_comppsition. The late mediaeval French prose, which Caxton and his immediate successors so freely anglicized, lacked that lucidity and logical precision which the French Renaissance was to generate, but it had for the most part a simplicity which often bred a languid charm. English prose of the fifteenth century was, when compared with its French prototype, as small in quantity as in literary quality, but the English printers' energy in translation fitfully brightened the literary prospects of the domestic language, and there was for the time no other clear source of illumination. Caxton's example was fruitful, and proved a stepping- stone to better achievement. In the generation which embraces the fkst^-tliirty^^ears^of the sixteenth century one English writer pursued Caxton's metho3s~with enhanced ability and pronounced literary effect. Lord Berners has 1 Cf. Robert La}tehavi's Letter, ed. Fiirnivall (New Shakspere Soc), 1890, pp. clxxvii et seq. LORD liKRNl'RS 95 higher claims than Caxton to the literary historian's atten- tion. He betrays qualifications for the literary craft to which Caxton was a stranger, but he can plead no greater independence of French inspiration. Lord Berners worked even more exclusively than Caxton under French influence. Like Palsgrave^ he was one of the English courtiers who ' accompanied Henry Mil's sister Mary to the brilliant Parisian court when she married Louis XIL His later life too, was closely connected with France. It was wholly passed at Calais, then an English possession. Of Calais and its / marches he was governor. His work brings England's French outpost into prominence as a hterary as well as a territorial link with France. At Calais Berners first turned to literature, devoting voluminous industry to rendering French books . into English. Some of the authors whom he introduced to 1 his own country were Spanish. But he worked not on the \ original text, but on French versions. Lord Berners 's translating zeal achieved two triumphs, which notably helped to maintain English literary effort in its French mould. He rendered into English two French books of great length and of surpassing interest in different ways. His first undertaking was Froissart's Chronicle {i ^i-^-^) . A subsequent venture was one of the best of the French romances of chivalry, Huoii of Bordeaux. Both works were of veteran standing in Lord Berners 's time. Froi^art \yas a contemporary of Chaucer. He was a mediaeval poet as well as a mediaeval chronicler, and his poetry shows that the lyric sense was strong in him. He was well endowed with the joy of life, with gaiety of heart, with gifts of observation and an eye for picturesque incident. All these qualities colour his story of the four- teenth-century war between France and England, and give his chronicle the temper of a prose epic and the variety of a chivalric romance. Lord Berners's literary touch was heavier than that of his original author. His style caught less of the Gallic blitheness than could be wished. FJut his English version of Froissart opened to the English people a new vein of historical literature, which was unknown in England before. Froissart had his precursors in Villehardouin 96 FRENCH INFLUKNCE 1500-1550 and Joinville. Mediaeval England was innocent of such masters of historic sensibility. The romance of Htion of Bordeaux, which Berners also communicated to his fellow countrymen in their own tongue about 1530, belongs to another literary category. Its pre- tences to historic truth are empty flourishes. It is a curious medley of French charm and na'ivete and of Gothic and grotesque legend. With a welcome inconsistency it imports into feudal scenery the airy figure of Oberon^_Jance at the opening of the sixteenth century, gained much fame from a playful piece called l L'Antaiit vert. There 'the green lover ', i. e. a parrot, recites \ two lively addresses or coiites in verse to the bird's mistress, a patroness of the poet, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. Skelton^edicated to Queen Catherine of Arragon, Henry VlII's first queen, two rambling satires called Speke^ Parrot, which he also placed in a parrot's lips. It is clear whence came the suggestion. Skelton's voluble bird is no less polyglot than the pet of the Burgundian duchess in Le Maire 's narration, ' Dowse (i. e. douce) French of Paris Parrot can cerne (i. e. • discern, understand) ' is one of Skelton's Anglo-French testi- monies to his parrot's accomplishments, and many a descrip- tive note appended by Skelton to his poem is in ill-printed French. The English parrot has a far more strident note than the French bird, but the kinship is not in doubt. Yet Skelton's chief debt to French influence only becomes visible when we compare with French verse the English poet's * This achievement illustrates the persistent popularity in England of comparatively valueless French mediaeval literature. Skelton here anglicized part of I.e Roman des Trois Pelerhiages, a long moralizing paraphrase of /w Roman dc la Rose (the old French allegory), which was composed in the fourteenth century and was already popular in Chaucer's England. Skelton's translation is lost, but he mentions it in the list of works which he supplies in A Garland of Laurel. Lydgate had already translated the same work. A translation of another portion of Guilleville's gigantic work Caxton printed in 1483 as The Pilgrimage of the Sonde. I04 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 characteristic metre of short lines which vary in number of syllables from four to six, and rhyme usually by couplets, but at times four, five, or six times over. This metre, which is known in England by the specific epithet Skeltonian, may be originally a Low Latin invention. Something very like it reached France in the early middle ages, but vSkel ton's French contemporaries gave it a new life, and they may well be regarded as its parents. No English poet of any earlier epoch had ventured systematically on lines of fewer syllables than eight ; alternations of lines of seven syllables were occa- sional but rare. Of Skelton's abbreviated scheme he wrote : (Though my rime be ragged Tattered and jagged. Rudely rainbeaten. Rusty and motheaten. If ye take well therewith [It hath in it some pith. 'It is not difficult to show that the ' pith ' of Skeltonian verse — its short, jolting gallop— is of recent French breeding, or to ^how that its most telling features, which have no English precedents of earlier dates, are matched in popular French verse of vSkelton's own generation. Probably the most popular French poem which was written and published in Skelton's early manhood was a spacious epic on the reign of Charles VII (who died in 1461), Les Vigiles de la mort de Charles VII. The author was Martial de Paris, who is often called Martial d'Auvergne (i 440-1 508). His spirited verse is said to have been sung by French peasants while they laboured in the field. Martial specially loved the jog-trot melody of five- and six-syllable lines, with an ingenious rhyming scheme which pleasingly relieves the monotony of the brief line : Mieux vaut la liesse, L'amour et simplesse De bergiers pasteurs, Qu'avoir a largesse Or, argent, richesse, Ni la gentilesse De ces grans seigneurs : THE vSKlCLTONIAN METRE 105 Car ils ont douleurs Et dcs maux crreigneurs ; Mais pour nos labeurs Nous avons sans cesse Les beaux pres et fleurs, Fruitaiges, odeurs, Et joye a nos coeurs, Sans mal qui nous blesse. Vivent pastoureaux, Brebis et agneaux ! Cornez, chalumelles : Filles et pucelles, Prenez vos chappeaux De roses vermeilles, Et dansez sous treilles, Au chant des oyseaux.^ Skelton emulated such experiments with slight variations. He never reached the French level of grace or gaiety ; yet in salutations to his lady patronesses in his Garland of Laurel^ he essays many a pleasing innovation in English prosody on the French pattern. Here is an example of Martial de Paris's five- and six-syllable hues in Skeltonian English, which the English poet addressed to a well-wisher : vSterre of the morow gray, The blossom on the spray, The freshest flowre of May, Maydenly demure, Of womanhode the lure. Whereof I make you sure, It were an hevenly helthe. It were an endless welth, A lyfe for God himselfe. To here this nightingale Amonge the byrdes smale Warbelying in the vale. In a cognate strain Skelton apostrophizes ' Maystres Margaret Hussey ' : Mirry Margaret, As mydsomer flowre, Jentill as fawcon Or hawke of the tovvre : ^ Les Poeies fran^ots JusquW Malherbe (Paris, 1824, t. II, pp. 282-3). io6 FRENCH INMAJl'.NCK 1500 1550 With solace and g-ladnes, Moche mirthe and no madnes, All good and no badnes. But vSkelton mainly devoted his short rhyming lines to satiric raillery. Again he echoes the metre, phrase, and senti- ment of the brief French verse. Here is an example of ' Skel- tonese ' from the poet's abusive censures of Sir Thomas More But this bawcock doctor, And purgatory proctor, Waketh now for wages ; And, as a man that rages, Or overcome with ages, Disputeth per ambages^ To help these parasites, And naughty hypocrites, With legends of lies, Feigned fantasies, And very vanities, Called verities. Unwritten and unknown, But as they be blown From liar to liar ; Invented by a frier. / In France such irregular truncations of metre were chiefly, /although not exclusively, consecrated at the beginning of the [Uixteenth century to the purposes of the scurrilous drama. In a French morality penned in Skelton's early life, a character personating a discontented monk attacked the superiors of his monastery in a metrical key which adumbrates Skelton's _manner. The general effect is almost identical : Nostre baillif superieur, Nostre prieur, et souprieur, Nous deffendent de nous galer, De rien voir, d'ouir, de parler, De manger ne chair, ne pouesson, De boy re de nulle bouesson, Sur paines de leurs disciplines ; Mais eux avant dire matines, Leurs lessons et leurs oresmus, lis faisaient tous gaudcainus} ' Petit de Julleville, La Comedie et les nuvitrs en France au tnoyen age (Paris, 1886, pp. 222-3). 1 THE ENGLISH VOGUR OF SHORT M1':TR1:s 107 vSkelton's rough tongue was clearly practising a French [ tune. The macaronic tags of Latin in l^oth the French and EngHsh lines tell their own tale. Short-syllabled metres were familiar to later generations of Tudor England. .Skelton's example was largely responsible for the vogue. Yet the fashion was also maintained for a time in \ France after Skelton's day, especially by satiric writers for the French stage. Alarot, likewise, practised it, with an improved urbanity. There were curious adaptations of it, too, in the supreme developments of French Renaissance poetry. Later French practitioners must share with Skelton whatever credit attaches to the subsequent dissemination of the metre in England. Wyatt's experiments with it are doubtless due to 1 his study of Marot. The uses to which John Heywood and / other embryonic dramatists put it were the fruit of his acquain- tance with contemporary F'rench drama. In Elizabethan days, when this metrical mode was reckoned grotesque and out of date, it was currently cited among eccentricities that were peculiar to French poetry. An Elizabethan parodist of French verse was guilty of this inanity : Down I sat, I sat down, Where Flora has bestowed her graces ; Green it was, It was green. Far passing other places.^ The author unjustifiably assigned his imaginary French original to Ronsard, The insolent attribution is merely of interest as evidence that the short trotting verse was recognized to be a French importation. Skelton's contemporary and chief poetic rival, Stephen tjawes, pursued a more conventional aim. His topics bring him into almost closer association with the expiring efforts of French mediaevalism. There are indications that he closely studied the poetry of his English predecessors, Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate. But it was in no spirit of disloyalty to the poetic practices of those masters that he supplemented ' 'YzxXiorC?, News out of Purgatory, I590- io8 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1 500-1 550 /their tuition by French instruction. He mainly devoted his pen to allegorical romance on the old French pattern, which the Roman de la Rose had created for Europe as well as for France, and to which the ' rh-etoriqueurs ' were giving in his time a new popularity. Hawes's seven -lined stanza is of stubborn antiquity, but his allegorical machinery closely reflects the current French standards. Hawes's Example of Virtice shows Youth's adventure in pursuit of Wisdom, much as Le Maire portrays the like struggle in Le Teniple d' Hon- iietLr et de Vertu. Hawes's chief work, The Pastime of Pleasure^ or the History of Graicnd Amour and La Bel Pncel^ although it expounds minutely the academic curriculum of the day and personifies the topics of academic study as well as virtues and vices, has very few features to distinguish it from the rhetorical type of French allegory. Hawes's hero and heroine, Graund Amour and La Bel Pucel, bear French names, and that circumstance goes far to support a theory which Warton advanced on wide grounds of style and senti- ment, that the allegory has a French original which lies con- cealed in manuscript.^ The whole title and treatment have the ring of the long-lived French convention to which even Alarot as a youth subsequently paid court in his Temple de Cupidou. Alexander Barclay was translating Pierre Gringoire's Chdteatc de Labour near the same date as Hawes was engaged on his Pastime. Hawes marches in Gringoire's regiment. His alle- gorical figures of Correction, Falsehood, Perseverance, are of near kin to Gringoire's Chastisement, Tricherie (i.e. Trea- chery), or Talent de bien falre. It is easy to perceive how I busily French allegorical ingenuity was fertilizing the English jsoil whence vSpenser's Faerie Qnecne was in due time to spring. * Very early in the sixteenth century numerous editions appeared in Paris of a French didactic poem called Le Passc-tcnipsde tout hoDiinc et de toute femnie^ by Guillaume Alexis, prieur de Buzy, a voluminous poet, who died in i486. The word ' pastime' of Hawes's title seems to have been one of Caxton's many anglicizations of the French. It reproduces the French * passe-temps '. MAROT AND ALAMANNI 109 VIII MAROT and AlAMANNI : WVATT AND vSURREY Twenty years may be reckoned as the interval of time which separates the flourishing day of Skelton and Hawes from the epoch of Wyatt's and Surrey's poetic activity. The later scene differs much from the earlier. In the work of the younger Tudor poets w^e are in the presence of a new element of which their precursors knew little or nothing. French influence is by no means absent, and new harmonies were sounding in France, yet a virgin impulse coming from Italy gives an unprecedented colour to the younger Tudor poetry. The precise force which the new foreign element acquired in Tudor England and the avenues of its entry give room for discussion, but the Italian note is not to be mistaken in the work of Wyatt and Surrey. Elizabethan critics claimed that the poetic labour of Wyatt and Surrey began a new era in English literature, and that their innovating tendency ow^ed its virtue solely to liberal draughts of the poetic inspiration of Italy. The Elizabethan critic, Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie^ penned these familiar sentences in 1 589 : In the latter end of the same king's [Henry VIII's] reign sprung up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder and Henry Earl of Surrey were the two chieftains, who having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newly crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude aiid homely manner of vulgar Poesy, from that it had been before, and for that cause may justly be said to be the first reformers of our English metre and style. -~J There is obvious evidence of Wyatt's and Surrey's indebted- ness to Italian effort, notably to the muse of Petrarch. The influence of Dante and Ariosto is not apparent. The sonnet,\ to which Petrarch's endeavours first lent popular favour, was\ introduced by Wyatt and Surrey into England. They/ translated or paraphrased many of Petrarch's quatorzains. no FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 No poetic instrument was subsequently to achieve greater glory at English hands than the sonnet, and the pioneers are not to be denied their meed of honour, if their experiments are for the most part crudely and harshly modulated. Surrey was also the first English writer of blank verse. That form of poetic endeavour has played in English literature an even nobler part than the sonnet, and the debt to Surrey is enhanced proportionately. But Surrey has no better claim to the invention of blank verse than to that of the sonnet. Blank verse was. another Italian invention. The invasion of France by Italian culture began under Francis I but bore its ripened literary fruit in the reigns of his son and grandsons. Not until the reign of the French king Henry II, the contemporary of the English sovereigns Ed- w^ard VI and Mary Tudor, did either the sonnet or blank verse become familiar to France. Yet Italian culture made its primary assault on French taste in the generation of Wyatt and Surrey, even if it was during the succeeding epoch that the Italian spirit helped to refashion French poetry. The signs of Wyatt's and Surrey's Italian inspiration are not to be mistaken, but there are subsidiary aspects of the Italian influence which link Wyatt's and Surrey's work with contem- porary France more closely than Puttenham perceived. They learned much of the poetic art of Italy from an Italian poet who was domiciled in their day in Paris and was bringing to 1 French notice the new modes of poetic satire, of blank verse land the sonnet ; while the English poets' debt to the indi- genous poetry of France calls for a fuller acknowledgement than has yet been rendered. Both English poets had intimate personal acquaintance j with France. Wyatt alone of the pair went to Italy, and his /sojourn was not prolonged. Surrey never passed the Alps, / save in the fictions of the critics. Surrey and Wyatt alike spent much time at the French court. The former as tut or [ol^Henry VIII's natural son, the Earl of Richmond, lived for 1 nearly a year at Paris or Fontainebleau with Trancis I and ]his family. Wyatt was repeatedly in the French capital on [diplomatic missions, and he mixed in cultivated French society. SURREY AND WYATT IN FRANCl- iii The ambitious luiglisli votaries of the muse were not Hkely to resist the allurino appeals which contemporary literature in France made to their allegiance. 1 It was in France rather than in Italy that both Wyatt and Surrey acquired a substantial measure of the Italian taste and sympathy which were reflected in the manner and matter of their poetry. The two luiglishmen occasionally translated or paraphrased sonnets and odes direct from Petrarch or from his Italian disciples. Yet, while Wyatt and Surrey sojourned in F'rench territory they had opportunities of studying- current Italian literature which was in course of publication in France at the time. Thus in all probability were Wyatt and Surrey/ most effectually brought in Paris under the Italian literary yoke.) At every turn in our story, Paris presents itself as the chiefl mission-station of Renaissance culture. The voice of the native muse of France also gained the i two F2nglish poets' ear, while they were at the French court. I ^^\ Clemenl_Marot was the king of F>ench poets in the epoch | of Wyatt and Surrey, and comparison of them with him is inevitable. In his own country Marot's fame largely suffered eclipse with his death in 1544. The Ronsardian dynasty of the ripened Renaissance was inclined to identify him with mediaeval barbarism. In England his original reputation lingered longer. It began at the call of Wyatt and Surrey, 1' and expanded later. Wyatt caught inspiration from the! versatility of Marot, and Spenser echoed some of his strains. I His father, Jean_Marot^.a .poetaster of the rhetorical school, edited the work of the mediaeval master, Alain Chartier, whose name Caxton had made familiar to English ears. Clement's boyish breeding roused in him lasting affection for the past or the passing literature of his country. Beginning life as a nobleman's page, and accompanying his master to the wars in Italy, he enjoyed in youth a fleeting glimpse of Italian culture, but the foreign influence left small impress on his staunch Gallic spirit. Some sparse translations from Petrarch are almost all that his muse owed to Italy. He drank deeper of the classical learning of the Renaissance, and paid tribute to the apostle of Renaissance scholarship by 3 112 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 N turning into French verse two of Erasmus's colloquies. He knew no Greek, but his study of Latin coloured his imagery. He interpreted in Frexich translations a portion of Ovid's MetamorpJioses, and, through the Latin, the Greek Musaeus's poetic fable of Hero and Leander. Marot's modernization of Musaeus's beautiful idyll had a numerous progeny, and included, half a century afterwards, the English version which Marlowe began and Chapman completed. Marot translated, too, an eclogue of Vergil, but his native ' vivacity is seen to better advantage in original eclogues from his pen. There he followed in Vergil's path, but classical (poetry only lightly moulded his fancy. The original notes of his eclogues were robust enough to lend inspiration to Spenser's Shepheards Calender^ the earliest flower of great Elizabethan poetry. Marot wrote epigrams in which at times there is an echo of Martial, but far more often the sting is the Frenchman's own inspiration. Marot's Muse in her most characteristic phase was nurtured at home. She was steeped in the Gallic spirit of blitheness and of banter. With much of his wonted airiness Marot in early days paid tribute to the exigent convention of mediaeval France by penning a pleasant allegory of love's supremacy over life, called Le Temple de Cupidon. There the poet, in the vein of the old Romati de la Rose, makes adventurous search for Jeune Amour, whom he finally meets in Cupid's temple amid flowers and birds which gaily haunt the adorable shrine. In less ambitious efforts, however, he achieved his chief ! triumphs. Marot worshipped at \'illon's shrine and edited his poetry. Many of Marot's rondeaus, ballades, and chansons might have been written by Villon in his more refined mood. The ballade of the selfish reprobate. Friar Lupin, rings with that tranquil sort of laughter which is rarely heard outside / France. The fableof the Zzi?;/ rt;/<^ the Rai breathes a buoyant Vsimplicity and a rhythmical ease, which are thoroughly French and gave La Fontaine a model. A martial note of patriotism also sounds at times in Marot's lyric verse, and the stirring ballade which he addressed in 1521 to the Duke d'Alen^on when leading the armies of France against the Low German CLKMENT MAROT 113 troops of the empire is in a dithyrambic strain which adumbrates the animated chant of the Marseillaise.^ Marot's poetry in its normal guise has the charm of good conversation. He does not strain the note. He is spontaneous, [ intelligible, and melodious. He gossips fluently in poetical i epistles to patrons and friends over his servant's pilferings oif his creditors' importunities. An unpretentious grace and aj cheerfulness which mocks at sorrow rarely forsake him amid his voluble confessions of pov'erty and misfortune. Grief was indeed familiar to the Gallic bard, and it mainly came from a cause which could but evoke sympathy in England. The Reformed faith appealed to his idiosyncrasy. Although he denied that he was a ' Lutheriste ', he openly censured Papal doctrine, and his patron, Francis I, could not protect him from persecution in Paris at the hands of the guardians of the Catholic creed. The French king's sister, the cultured Queen of Navarre, offered him an asylum in that court of arts and letters at Nerac over which she presided for some two and twenty years (1527- 1549). Marot requited the hospitality of his royal mistress in charming eulogies, but even his patroness could not give him lasting security, and he left P"rance to become the guest in Italy of Queen Margaret's sister, the Duchess of Ferrara, who reflected her kinswoman's curious union of evangelical piety and liberal humanism. But Marot was a Parisian whose spirit drooped when he w^as absent from his beloved city. He obtained permission to return home on condition that he abjured his heterodoxy. Before long, however, he involuntarily renewed his old offence by the bold innovation of versifying in French some fifty of the Psalms. Marot's P'rench render- ings of the Psalms are not great poems, although they rank with the best vernacular versions in any language. In poetic temper they are far superior to the famous English version of Hopkins and Sternhold, which was undertaken six or seven years after. Marot's phraseology is not defaced by the homely tameness of the English. His metre is perhaps too jocund, ' Marot, CEuvres, ii, 71-c. LEE I TI4 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 too merry for the solemnity of the theme ; but therein Marot was loyal to his native temperament. Like many of his countrymen, he could reconcile piety with cheerfulness. In any case Marot's version of the Psalms won him notoriety which brought him unlooked for rewards and penalties. Set to popular tunes, the French verses became almost national anthems. Frenchmen of every religious belief got them by heart. Even Francis I hummed them in the galleries of Fon- tainebleau. But the doctors of the Sorbonne were suspicious of their fascination. The sour dogmatists deemed Marot's versification of the scriptural poems an incitement to heresy, and their threats of vengeance exiled Marot once again from his native country. This time he was not to return. For / a short while he took refuge in Geneva. There the austere atmosphere proved uncongenial. He was guilty of the sin of i playing the game of backgammon, and retreated before the ■ scandal to Turin, where he died at the age of 47, in 1544. He was a late survival of old France, and one of the greatest of the old French poets. Death silenced his lyre just before French poetry openly gloried in the yoke of ancient Greece and modern Italy. Half a dozen years later the tide of Renaissance sentiment reached its flood, and Marot was driven from his place of pre-eminence in the French j Parnassus. But his influence continued to work in Tudor \ England after it was stilled in France. Marot was the chief French poet with whom W^yatt and Surrey were contemporary, but his labour was not done in isolation. Poetasters of the period were legion, and despite their crabbed power often engaged in more or less friendly rivalry with Marot. Occasionally a promising experiment was made by a contemporary in fields into which Marot did not venture. Such a one was Antfiine Heroet, a protege of Queen Margaret of Navarre, Xi'hose chiefpoem was a philo- sophic disquisition on Plato's conceptk)n_of love, which was entitled La Par/aide Ainye (^The Perfect Mistress). This was publisHe^cTby tHe scholar printer, Dolet,at Lyons in 1542.^ ' Heroet became Bishop of Digne in 1552, and died in 1568, ayed about seventy-six. An admirable edition of his LEiivres I'oi'tiijues, edited SAINT-GEL AIS AND ALAMANNI 115 The tone is for the most part prosaic ; but there are oases / of ethereal fancy and refinement, which anticipate by half a ' century Spenser's fervid portrayals of heavenly love. Heroet's motto might well be Spenser's lines : Such high conceit of that celestial fire, The base-born brood of blindness cannot guess. Nor ever dare their dunghill thoughts aspire Unto so lofty pitch of perfectness. But Heroet's pure aspirations passed for the time unnoticed in England. Marot easily ruled the E"rench Parnassus in the era of vSpenser's predecessors, and by them his supremacy went unquestioned. Only one writer was reckoned even among his own countrymen to approach his 1 ' i U throne— Melin de_ Saint-Gelais (1491-1559). a fashionable I ''^V^^^ courtier and ecclesiastic of the orthodox type, who acknow- ' I^^^-vm^^^ ledged less grudgingly than Marot the seduction of Italy. His early biographer indulgently credited the sweet Italian air with conveying a rare refinement and a classical purity to the crudity of Melin's native temperament. Melin seems responsible for the earliest E'rench experiment in Italian sojineteering, and he has the distinction of adapting his words to lute accompaniments of his own composition. But he 1 hardly merited his temporary vogue. His verse is, for the most part, pedantic artifice, and his obscenity passes permis- sible bounds. He lacks Marot's fresh wit and airy fluency. Wyatt gives occasional signs of acquaintance with his work; but Melin had little stimulus to offer foreign students.^ A living figure of an alien race, an Italian poet, loomed larger than Melin in the literary world of France, as Wyatt and Surrey knew it. Although xMarot preserved a patriotic independence, Italian sentiment was freely sown in his day in Parisian fields. Italian authors were esteemed there, and to by Ferdinand Gohin, was published by the Societe des Textes Frangais IVIodernes in 1909. ^ Melin de Saint-Gelais is rarely mentioned in Tudor literature. 1 Puttenham, in his Arte 0/ English Pocsie (1589), notes that ]\Ielin, like / Marot and ' Salmonius Macrinus', was rewarded by Francis 1 with / office at court on account of his poetic excellence. Salmonius Macrinus or Jean Salmon Macrinus (1490-1557) was a Latin poet, and a friend of Rabelais and Marot. I a ii6 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500-1550 one of them, Luigi Alamanni, Francis I offered an asylum when a political revolution drove the Italian poet from his .Florentine home. Alamanni published at LyoiLS, under the French king's patronage and at his expense, a mass of Italian poetry, which caught the ear of France. Every form of poetry which the Italian Renaissance encouraged — sonnets, didactic poems, satires, eclogues, romantic tales in blank verse, and plays — engaged Alamanni's pen. No strong poetic feeling stirred his muse, but versatihty and ingenuity lent some distinction to his irrepressible industry. Alamanni's perseverance and ingenuity lacked no honour in his land of exile. Francis I not only proved a munificent patron, but the king's daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, made him her maiti^e cVhotel. His work attracted attention in England as well as in France by its metrical deftness and variety of topic. With Alamanni's activity Surrey's and Wyatt's efforts alike have undoubted affinity.^ Some of Surrey's and Wyatt's poetic experiments were immediately suggested by the Parisian Florentine. Surrey was perhaps in warmest and closest sympathy with the Italian's zeal for innovation in a direction which has singular importance in English literary history, ^^larnaniii -W,^_the^rst modern writer to employ bla nk verse ^in ^nar- rative poetry.'^ It has been claimed for him somewhat doubtfully that he was the inventor of that metre. Two Italian / dramatists, Giovanni Trissino and Giovanni Rucellai, tried ex- periments with versi sci'olti (\.Q. blank verse) either just after or just before him. The chronology is not certain, but Alamanni is more likely to have followed than to have preceded them. Yet Trissino and Rucellai only used blank verse in tragic drama. Wliile the likelihood may be admitted that one or other of these two Italians was Alamanni's inspirer, his pretension to originality is far from cancelled. There is no ' For an estimate of Alamanni's place in French literature see Francesco Flamini's admirable essay ' Le Lettere Italiane alia Corte di Francesco I re di Francia ' in his ^tiedi di Sto/ia Lettfraria lialiana e Straniera, Livorno, 1 895, pp. 270 seq. "^ A/a//iii»fii, sa vie et son a'uvre, par H. Hauvette, Paris, 1903, pp. 215 seq. BLANK \'I:RS1<: 117 precedent for the employment of blank verse in narration, as Alamanni habitually employed it. He proved his command of it to signal effect in his Eclogues, in his tales of Atlas and Phaethon, and in his curious poetic description of the inunda- tion of Rome by an overflow of the Tiber in 1530 (// Diluvio Romano). Alamanni was conscious of the novelty of his usage, and feared that it might rouse conservative censure. When dedicating to his patron, Francis I, in 1532, his Opcre Toscane~the standard collection of his works — most of which were written in Florence many years earlier, he modestly defends himself against the charge of defying the accepted law by employing ' verse without rhyme '. He justifies his novel endeavour largely on the ground that rhyme lacks classical sanction. There is an originality about Alamanni s theory and practice in regard to blank verse that was well calculated to attract a poetic aspirant of Surrey's eager temperament. Francis I, a recognized arbiter on points of literary taste, approved Alamanni's experiment. Alamanni's royal patron was also personally acquainted with the English poet. The Italian's appeal to the French king for a sympathetic judgement on his metrical innovation attracted Surrey's notice. Alamanni's original experiment in blank verse as a vehicle of poetic narrative was accessible to Surrey some years be- fore the English poet first showed in his translation of the second and fourth books of Vergil's Aeneid how the English language adapted itself to unrhymed verse. Italian authors other than Alamanni were at the time applying the new metrical device to Vergil's epic. But they frankly acknow- ledged their discipleship to Alamanni. In France his repute as the inventor of unrhymed verse was never doubted. When the poetic masters of the French Renaissance were subsequently discussing crucial laws of metre, they cited 'Seigneur Loys Aleman ' as the sole champion, de nostre tens., of the free \ rhymeless line, and if they questioned the fitness of his vers 1 litres for general use, they commended his bold originality.* \ ' Du Bellay's Dcffense ct illusiration de la lam^ue fram^oyse, 1549) ^ p. 132. iiX FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 There are many grounds for ranking Surrey among Alamanni's pupils.^ Blank verse never flourished on French soil, although it engaged in the next era the platonic affection of Ronsard and some of his friends. A different fortune awaited in Elizabethan England Alamanni's metrical innova- tion of which Surrey was the first Englishman to make trial. Surrey's literary ally, vSir Thomas Wyatt, acknowledged more openly Alamanni's tuition. \\'yatt followed the Floren- tine's guidance in two most characteristic performances — in his satires and in his poetic rendering of the Peni- tential Psalms. Wyatt's three satires on a courtier's life, which recall the gentle vein of Horace, are often reckoned the first examples of poetic satire in P^ngland. They are to a large extent paraphrases of Alamanni's satires. Here and there they sink to literal translation. When Wyatt is explain- ing to ' mine own John Poins ' why he flies ' the press of courts ' and ' cannot honour them that set their part with Venus and Bacchus all their life long', he is repeating verbally the assurances that Alamanni gave his familiar friend ' Thommaso mio gentir in the satires which he published in Paris under Francis Ps auspices very few^years earlier. Nor does Wyatt's assimilation of Alamanni's unexceptionable sentiment exhaust the debt. He borrowe^i^Alanianni's satiric metre, which, al- though the English adapter did not know It Tislh distinguish- able from Qante^ terza rima^ and was already applied to satire by the earliest of Italian satirists, Antonio A^inciguerra, and by his more famous successor, Ariosto." \\'yatt's rhymes ^ The famous Italian author Aretino, writing to Alamanni June 10, 1542, mentions a translation of Vergil by one of Aretino's friends secondo r iiso iW vosiri versi sciolti. Surrey's blank verse translation of \'ergirs ylefieid, Books II and IV, was not published until 1557, ten years after his death. It was probably written about 1538. The second book of the Aeneid in Italian blank verse was first published at Castello in 1539, and the first six books in the same metre at Venice in 1540. ' Flamini, // Cinqiiecetifo, pp. 206-7 (in Storia Lctteraria d' lialici). Le Maire de Beiges claimed to have first used in France (about 1503) this metre, which he calls vers ticrcets a la fd^on Italiennc on Toscane. Hut the terza ?i)ua, although the poets of the Pleiade made some experi- ments with it, did not become common in France ; cf. Prof. L. F. Kastner, French Versification, pp. 167 scq. Prof. Saintsbury calls Wyatt's satiric verse ' intertwined decasyllables ', and seems puzzled to account for their intricacy {Hist. 0/ Prosody, i. 311-12). ALAMANNI'S SA7VRES 119 in his decasyllabic satires look to the I'jiglish eye curiously intertwisted. The first and third lines rhyme tog^ether ; then the second, fourth, and sixth; then the fifth, seventh, and ninth ; then the eig-hth, tenth, and twelfth, and so on : 1 cannot honour them that set their pari With Venus and Bacchus, all their life /ong ; Nor hold my peace of them, although I smart. I cannot crouch nor yield to such a rurong^ To worship them like God on earth a/ojie. That are as wolves these sely lambs ai7tong. I cannot with my words complain and moan. And suffer nought ; nor smart without complaint ; Nor turn the word that from my mouth is gone. The following quotation shows how precisely Wyatt follows here Alamanni's metrical as well as his verbal guidance : Non saprei reuerir chi soli adora Venere & Bacco, ne tacer saprei Di quei che '1 uulgo falsamente honora. Non saprei piu ch' a gli immortali Dei Rendere honor con le ginocchia inchine A piu ingiusti che sian, fallaci, & rei. Non saprei nel parlar courir le spine Con simulati fior, nell' opre hanendo Mele al principio, & tristo assentio 2XJinc} Nor, again, is it likely to be an accidental coincidence that Wyatt should be the first to versify in English the Penitential Psalms, and that Alamanni while at the French court should render the Salmi Penitentiali a like service in Italian just before. The choice of the same sacred topic by the two secular pens has corroborative value in the argument. Little doubt remains that France in her wonted role of missionary introduced to Wyatt's and Surrey's notice that mass of Italian poetry which the Florentine Alamanni penned, or at any rate piiblished, while he was domiciled in Paris. Alamanni included in his work centuries of Italian son- nets. As soon as Alamanni's sonnets, which are themselves ^ Alamanni, Satira X, Opere Toscane, 1532, p. 401. Wyatt's debt to Alamanni is well estimated in Carlo Segre's ' Due Petrarchisti inglesi del secolo xvi ' in his Siiidi Pctrarchesi hi^ J903) PP- 335 seq. I20 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500-1550 largely echoes of I^ctrarch and his early disciples, are closely compared with the Englishmen's small harvest, they suggest a partial source of Itnglish inspiration. ' The living Alamanni at any rate stood beside their desks to in- terpret the sonneteering practice of Petrarch, Ariosto, and Sannazzaro, France could not otherwise give them much help there. Ronsard and his disciples were to convert the Italian fashion of sonneteering into a French vogue. But French literature in the pre-Ronsardian era caught only a first fleet- ing glimpse of the Italian sonnet. At most a dozen French sonnets were in circulation while Wyatt and Surrey were active. Clement Marot and his contemporary Melin de Saint- Gelais tentatively translated or adapted a few Italian examples in the third decade of the century. It was a few years after Wyatt's and Surrey's effort that France completely naturalized the Italian sonnet. When the English Muse awoke at the end of Elizabeth's reign from that slumber vp^hich befell her on Wyatt's and Surrey's death, she discerned in the sonneteering activities of France an almost keener stimulus than in those of Italy. Wyatt and Surrey found as sonneteers little assis- tance in French poetry. It may even be doubted if the English pioneers owed any thing to this sparse effort of the first French sonneteers. Both Englishmen and Frenchmen often had independent recourse to the same Italian originals. It is curious to note that one of Wyatt's sonnets, in which a lover's life is some- what clumsily compared to the Alps — Like unto these immeasurable mountains Is my painful life the burden of ire — nearly resembles that French sonnet by Melin de wSaint-Gelais which is often reckoned the first sonnet to be penned in France : ' Both Surrey and Wyatt variously modify the Petrarchan scheme, and invariably employ the terminal couplet, which was rare in Italy. The metrical characteristics of the English sonnet of the sixteenth century arc discussed at p. 264 infra. Alamanni prefers a somewhat original form of tercet, cde^ cde. TUl-: I'IRST I^NGLISH S0NX1:TS izi \'oyant ces monts de veuc ainsi lointainc, Jc les compare a mon long- dcplaisir. Hut It is unquestionable that both Wyatt and the French poet had here independent recourse to an original Italian sonnet by Jacopo vSannazarro, a Neapolitan sonneteer of a little earlier date, who is best known as author of the pastoral romance of the Arcadia and was one of Alamanni's masters, vSannazarro's sonnet opens with the lines : Simile a questi smisurati monti K I'aspra vita mia colma di doglie. Wyatt's rendering of the Italian is more literal than the Frenchman's version.^ In other branches of Wyatt's verse an Influence of pure French stamp can be traced. The clues graphically illustrate English receptivity to current tendencies of the French muse. Wyatt's varied lyric experiments passed far beyond the scope of the sonnet or the fcrza riiua of Italian satire. At times he affects a simple stanza of six octosyllabic lines of which the first four rhyme alternately and the last two form a couplet ; this stave was already familiar in linglish verse, and although it is also frequent In French chansons, no immediate foreign source is to be suspected. But often Wyatt's lines vary from four to eight syllables In length, and are combined In quite new Intricacies. The diversity is suggestive of con- temporary France rather than of contemporary Italy. Many of Wyatt's lyric measures clearly reflect the rhythms of Clement Marot and his school, and the points of iden- tity leave no doubt that the Englishman was often a direct borrower from Marot.- Both poets occasionally ' Cf. 67' imitatori strmiicri di Jacopo Sannaaai'o, Riccrche di Fran- cesco Torraca, Rome, 1882, pp. 31-2. - There are extant in the Harington MSS. of Wyatt's work twelve French poems in his own handwriting. (See Nott's edition of Wyatt's Foetus, p. 589.) The first lines are: 1. Si la botitc se vouloii esniander 2. Ma inaitresse a je ne scat qiioi de bon 3. Dames! a qiti de ces eaiix crysfallhies 4. Si par mcnwire atnoier, et le devoir 5 . Phime qui /us die del prcdestijice 6. Extreme mal qui le desir rc?iforce 122 FRl^NCH INFLUENCE 1500 1550 employ a stanza eight lines long, and although there arc slight variations in the length of line, the rhymes are in both French and English cast in an identical mould of unusual type— ababbcbc.^ Wyatt's little six-line and eight-line poems repeatedly catch the note of the sixains or hiiitains of Marot or of his rival, Melin de Saint-Gelais. The scstinas and ottavas of the Italians are in a somewhat different key. By Tudor F^nglishmen such fragmentary verse was in- variably associated with France. In the opening days of PQueen Elizabeth, George Gascoigne, „ the author of the \ earliest English treatise on prosody, employed the French terms dixains and sixains to designate poems of ten and six , lines long, of which he knew little save that they were ' com- [_ monly used by the French '.^ Again, Wyatt's fondness for irregular lines of Skeltonian brevity echo a French predilection to which Marot was no 7. Si voiis pe/ises ue ina mie Jieust que faife 8. Frere Thibaud scjournc gros et gras 9. Un jour ma mie etoit toute seulette 10. Je ne veux rien qu'uii baiser dc la boucJic 11. Une belle jeune epoiisce 12. J\ii vu le corps qui honore no/re age The first is Melin de Saint-Gelais's poem, ' Au Roy Francois ' {GLuvres, ii. 144), and the eighth is an epigram of Clement Marot (No. XLIV). The sources of the others have not been traced, but all are probably tran- scripts by Wyatt of contemporary French poetry. ^ Si au monde ne fussiez point, IJelle, jamais je ffaymerois ; Vous seule avez gaign^ le poinct Que si bien garder fesperois ; Mais quand a mon gr(; vous aurois En ma chambre seu/ef/e. Pour me venger, je vous ferois La couleur 7>eri)ieiUettc. (Marot, Chanson XVI II, in CEuvies, ii. 185.) I shall assay by secret suit To show the mind of mine intent; And my deserts shall give such fruit As with my heart my words be meant ; So by the proof of this consent Soon out of doubt I shall be sure, For to rejoice or to repent, In joy or pain for to endure. (Wyatt, Works, p. 160.) - Certayne Notes of Instruction in Gascoigne's Posies (Cambridge, 1907, p. 472). WVATTS RONDEAUS 123 stranger.' The light French note seems also struck by W'yatt in both the metre and the sentiment of such a familiar poem as ' The Careful Lover Complaineth and the Happy Lover Coun- selleth ','- More significant is the fact that Wyatt's muse loved that form of lyric known as the rondeau, which was a petted child not only of the mediaeval muse of France, but ^ of her latest disciples of the early sixteenth century. Occasion- ally the rondeau had been tried in England by Chaucer and Lydgate, but old English experiments were rare and crude. The metre of the French rondeau was only brought to per- fection in the epoch of Marot, and mainly by Marot himself. Marot, following a hint offered by his father, first purged the rondeau of older irregularities and, by making the refrain the central feature, invested the poem with a new and stimulating charm. The length was sternly reduced to fifteen lines, and the refrain became the keynote of the melody. The rondeau on Marot s delightful plan invariably consists of two stanzas, \ ' Compare Such fire and such heat Did never make ye sweat; For without pain You best obtain Too good speed and too great. Whoso doeth plain You best do feign Such fire and such heat, Who now doth slander Love. (Wyatt, IVor^s, p. 139.) J 'ay grand desir D'avoir plaisir D'amour mondaine ; Mais c'est grand' peine, Car chascun loyal amoureux Au temps present est malheureux; Et le plus fin (iaigne k la fin La grace pleine, (Marot, Chanson XXVIII, in LEuvrcs, ii. 1S9.) ^ This song, which Shakespeare parodies {Twelfth Night, IV. ii. 79-80), begins Ah! Robin! Jolly Robin! Tell me how thy Leman doth. Marot in his Eclogues calls himself 'Robin', a common appellation of French pastoral poetry, and applies the name to licentious shepherds in two epigrams (cf. Nos. CCLXXXIV and CCLXXXV). Wyatt's brief poem in its later stanzas takes the form of a dialogue in which the alternate speeches are headed by the French words n'ponse and le plaintif. 124 fr]^:nch influence 1500-1550 one of eight lines with a marked pause after the fifth h'ne, and the other of five lines, while each stanza closes with a refrain formed of the three or four opening- words of the poem.^ W^yatt's rondeaus invariably respect that reformed scheme which enjoyed Marot's peculiar sanction. Though there is nothing in Wyatt's bathetic cadences to recall the felicities of Marot s best harmonies, the resemblance between Marot's and Wyatt's rondeaus is too close in shape and often in topic to be fortuitous. Wyatt's refrains are clearly of Marot's invention.'- ^ Marot's notable triumph in the refrain of the 7-ondenii is especially commended by Boileau, the poetic censor of early French poetry, when he mentions Marot's metrical inventiveness : Marot bientot aprcs fit fleurir les ballades, Tourna les triolets, rima les mascarades, Et des refi-ains reglez asscfvit les rondeau.v Et montra pour rimer des chemins tout nouveaux. "^ It is interesting to compare from the metrical point of view two rondeaus respectively by Wyatt {Works, p. 8i) and .\larot {(Ein'tes, ii. 157), in both of which the fortunes of a lover's heart form the main topic. The rhyming schemes compare thus : aabba aabc aabbac (Marot) ; aabba bbac bbaabc (Wyatt). The specimen of Marot's art is a poor one, but \\'yatt is at his normal level : Marot. Tan I setilcinent ton amour te de- mande, Te suppliant que ta beaute com- mande Au cueur de moy comme a ton serviteur, Ouoyque jamais il ne desservit heur Qui procedast d'une grace si grande. Croy que ce cueur de te congnoistre amande, Et vouluntiers se reudroit de ta bande, S'il te plaisoit luy faire cest honneur Tant seulanciit. Si tu le veulx, metz le soubz ta commande ; Si tu le prens, las ! je te recom- mande Le triste corps : ne le laisse sans cueur, Mais loges y le tien, cjui est vain- queur De I'humble serf qui son vouloir te mande Tunt sciilc»icnt. WVATT. Help me to seek! for I lost it there ; And if that ye have found it, ye that be here, And seek to convey it secretly. Handle it soft and treat it tenderly, Or else it will plain, and then appair. But pray restore it mannerly, Since that I do ask it thus honestly, For to lese it, it sitteth me near ; Help vie to seek J Alas ! and is there no remedy : But have I thus lost it wilfully. I wis it was a thing all too dear To be bestowed, and wist not where. It was mine heart ! I pray you heartily Help me to seek I MAROT'S INFLUKNCi: IN ENGLAND 125 With the close of Surrey's and W'yatt's poetic careers, poetic ambition in Entjland subsided for a generation. In France, too, ' le style Marotique ' was soon to be dethroned. Ronsard, a far nobler genius than Marot, was ready to scale the French Parnassus by a new Graeco-Italian path. The French Muses under Ronsard's rule redoubled their energy and gathered without pause new strength and fame. In F.ngland there was no contemporary of Ronsard's royal calibre to tread in W'yatt s and Surrey's somewhat faltering steps. Their ventures were not pursued. They had no genuine disciples, and poetry was for the moment silenced in England. Yet Wyatt and Surrey do not lack all links with the F^lizabethans, and it is curious to observe that the links are largely of French texture. When the poetic spirit of Eliza- bethan England first grew articulate in Spenser's early verse, it re-echoed for a short season the old-fashioned key of Marot which Wyatt had emulated. Only later did English poetry aspire to borrow notes from Ronsard's more accomplished lyre. Spenser's boyish endeavour of The Visions of Petrarch^ comes straight, not from an Italian source, but from Marot's Les Visions de Petrarque. Two of the eclogues or pas- torals in Spenser's The Shepheards Calender paraphrase with literalness poems by Marot. Spenser's friendly con- ^ CLMc*^ temporary and commentator, 'E. K.', tells how the English 0^^^ poet called himself Colin because Marot had assumed the like pastoral name. Spenser's poetic shepherd, Thenot, is drawn, too, from Marot's tuneful page. Marot, in another of his pastoral names, that of Robin, makes confession to the shepherd-god, Pan, of the poetic aspirations of his innocent childhood : Sur le printemps de ma jeunesse folle Je ressemblais I'hirondelle qui vole Puis ^^a, puis la, L'age me conduisait Sans peur ni soin ou mon coeur me disait. En la foret, sans la crainte des loups. Spenser, under the pastoral name of Colin, echoed the strains 126 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500 -1550 of the French Robin and paid his addresses to Pan in Marot's accents. {Shepheards Calender, xii, 11. 19-24.) Whilome in youth, when flowered my joyful spring, Like swallow swift, I wandered here and there. For heat of heedless lust me so did sting. That I of doubted danger had no fear. I went the wasteful woods and forest wide, Withouten dread of wolves to be espied. ALarot's appeal — Escoute un peu, de ton vert cabinet, Le chant rural du petit Robinet — sounds oddly in Spenser's rendering: Hearken awhile from thy green cabinet, The rural song of careful Colinet. Thus Elizabethan poetry betrayed no reluctance to exercise its prentice hand in ' le style Marotique ' after that vogue in France was dead. The Elizabethan muse while approaching maturity cast many a backward glance on old French litera- ture, as if to seek counsel there for future progress. Marlowe followed Marot in versifying in his own tongue Alusaeus's poetic tale of Hero and Leander. Adaptation of Marot's fancy was indeed pursued on occasion throughout the Ehzabethan era. More than one instance is found in so representative a miscellany of the epoch's verse as Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, which was first published in 1602. The English adapter was prone to amplify his French original, but the source of his inspiration cannot be ignored by any student of Marot's work.^ 1 The following typical specimen of the turning of a dixain by Marot into a sonnet of Davison's Poetical Rhapsody may be examined with advantage. The four italicized English lines are original interpolations by the English versifier : ^ ^. ., . , .. Davison. Ed. A. H. Bullen, 1891, Marot. De Dtane, Epigram Ixii, j ^ ^ ^' To Mistress Diana. EstrePhebusbiensouventje desire, Phoebus of all the Gods, 1 wish to Non pour cognoistre herbes divine- be ; ment, Not of the world to have the over- seeing ; For of all t/iings in the luorld's circuit I'eifii;; One only thing- I aluuiys wish to see. QUi^EN MARGARirr (W NAVARRl- 127 IX The IxTERRErxNUiM IX TuDOK Poetry Between the ending of the first half of the sixteenth century and the opening of the Elizabethan period of English poetry there lies a dreary interregnum, on which Erance still shed light, although the glow was intermittent. Marot's influence, which was not yet exhausted, was supplemented by that of Marot's patroness, the Queen of Navarre (1492- 1549). The ' tombeau ' or elegiac tribute which the daughters of the Pro- tector Somerset paid her memory on herdeath,^ illustrates the impression which her literary activity left on the England of j Queen Elizabeth's youth. No Englishman who took note of literary progress across the Channel failed to observe the noble service rendered to humanism by Marot's mistress, whom Michelet has called ' the beloved mother of the French Renaissance'. If, in the day' of Wyatt and Surrey, Marot was the Apollo of the French poetic firmament. Queen Margaret was its Pallas Athene. Although EngUsh poets paid her less notice than they paid Alarot and some of his predecessors, although the versatility Car la douleur qui mon cccur veut Not of all herbs the hidden force to occire know, Ne se guerist par herbe aucune- For ah ! my wound by herbs cannot ment ; be cured ; Non pour avoir ma place au tirma- Not in the sky to have a place as- ment, sured ; Car en la terre habite mon plaisir : For my ambition lies on earth be- low ; lYo/ to be prince of the celestial quire, For I one nymph prize more than all the Muses ; Xon pour son arc encontre Amour Not with his bow to offer love saisir, abuses, Car a mon Roy ne veulx estre For I love's vassal am, and dread rebelle : his ire, Estre Phebus seulement j'ay desir. But that thy light from mine, might Pour estre ayme de Dia-ne la belle. borrowed be, And fair Diana might shine under me. ' .See p. 45, supra. 128 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1500-1550 of her pen was imperfectly recognized by Tudor Englishmen, she was reckoned by students the sole example in the century of a truly literary queen. ' Queens,' wrote Puttenham in his work on poetry, ' have been known studious and to write large volumes.' But the only name he can call to mind ' in our time ' is that of ' Lady Margaret, Queen of Navarre '. A''ery surprising was her industry in authorship. Verse and prose constantly occupied her graceful and thoughtful pen. Her col- / lected poetry, entitled Les Margiteyites de la Alargiierite la Princesse (i^4y), gave her a title only below that of Marot among the best poets of her day. She excelled in epigram, mad- jrigal, and elegy. Nor did she eschew morality plays or farces. Many of her poetic themes were pious and scriptural, but her evangelical sentiment did not narrow the range of her literary sympathies. A mysticism, which owed much to study of paraphrases of Plato, often coloured her speculations on spiritual and emotional questions, on the nature of perfect love. She was no prude, and among prose authors the Italian Boccaccio chiefly appealed to her. She not only caused Boccaccio's Decameron to be translated into French, but composed a work herself on the same model, which she christened the Heptameron. There she narrated seventy-two stories or anecdotes, all of which she claimed to be true. They were not always free of the taint of lubricity. But perhaps more notable than the Queen of Navarre's literary activity, with her varied leanings to Platonism, piety, and profanity, is the record of her patronage of literature. Every scheme for the promotion of learning received her sym- pathy and active support. Not only did she extend a generous hospitality to every scholar or man of letters who visited her court, but she was an energetic supporter of Universities in the south of France, The University_of_Nini£S was founded by her, and that of Bourges, which gained immense repute in the days of the Renaissance, was largely expanded by her munificence. In Tudor England no woman proved quite so versatile a benefactress of culture. The only Tudor Eng- lishwoman with whom comparison is possible belongs to that earlier generation which saw a first delusive ray of humanism QUEEN JVIARGARl^yr OF NAVARRE 129 on the nation's horizon. Henry VIl's mother and Henry Yllls grandmother, the Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443- 1509), tbunded Lady Margaret Professorships of Divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities (in 1502), besides endow- ing two colleges at Cambridge — Christ's and St. John's. Her piety was cast in a sternly orthodox mould, but she sedulously encouraged the new art of printing. Her own contributions to literature were limited to the translation of portions of the Imitaiiu CIiris/i\ and of other works of devotion from the Erench. In the annals of humanism the English Lady Mar- garet is a slender prototype of her Erench namesake, and save possibly in the person of Queen Elizabeth herself, the English Renaissance presented no other patroness of culture who could compare with the Erench queen in versatile accomplish- ment and active benevolence in the humanist cause. Adored by cultured ladies of Tudor England, the Queen of Navarre owed something of her English reputation to the infant zeal of Queen Elizabeth while she was princess. At^ the age of eleven the English princess translated a pious poem from Queen Margaret's pen.^ On the Erench queen's ; death, in 1549, the daughters of Protector Somerset penned those elegies which won Ronsard's admiration.'^ But it was the Italian affinities of the literary queen which chiefly took the fancy of the Elizabethan pioneers. Queen Margaret's great / endeavour to continue Boccaccio's work in her Heptaineron was more loudly applauded by early lilizabethan authors than her Erench verse. Eiftee n of _t he queen's tales figure iq_Pamter's Palaxe o£_Plm^Mre\x^^^ the first collection of short stories which came from the English press. Painter's Palace formed the favourite reading of English ladies in the first decades of Elizabeth's reign, and the Erench queen of culture found ardent worshippers in Elizabethan boudoirs. But in spite of such foreign stimulus and example as Queen Margaret and Marot offered, the Elizabethan awakening was slow in coming. Torpor lay heavy on the English mind in the generation which succeeded the poetic lispings of Henry VI IPs * See p. 39. '■' See p. 45. LEE K I30 FRENCH INFLUl^NCK i5( .0-1550 courtiers. In the dark days which inter\'ened before the true ilhimination, voices of lament were heard that England lacked the enlightened ardour of France. \\'hile Henry VIII was yet alive, Sir Thomas Elyot, the industrious author of The Governojir^ a treatise on higher education (1531), imputed to, his fellow countrymen negligence and sloth in comparison not only with Frenchmen but with Italians and Germans, all of whom were bringing the learning and wisdom of Greece and Rome into their countries by way of translation. Early in Queen Elizabeth's reign Roger Ascham, in his School- i^^tcr which he began in 1563, complains of the neglect of literature and learning among the English gentry, and warmly denied them the consolation that gentry in France shared their own disdain of things of the mind. Such acknowledge- ment of the active spirit of the French Renaissance was faint and imperfect. Yet few other rays of hope for the future were discernible in the mid-century gloom of Tudor England, BOOK III FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE K 2 Trndrnciks of Frf.xch and English Prose EXGLISII critics have often confessed themselves innppre- ciative of French poetry and have pronounced the French genius to be better adapted to prose. The Rnghsh ear is wont to miss the rhythmical cadences of the French measures and to impute to the melody a ring- of monotone. English critics often complain that sonorousness is lacking and that the tonic effect rarely rises above that of a pleasant jingle. Insular prejudice or ignorance seems largely responsible for this grudging verdict. There is a mass of French poetry of which the rich harmony or the profound thought could only be questioned by deafness or dullness. The lyric versatility and the imaginative range of Ronsard, who was born within a generation of Villon's death and was followed in due season by Racine, Chenier, and \^ictor Hugo, prove that France has yielded song which belongs to the world s poetic wealth. The harmonies of French metre are not those of English or Italian metre, but they are often equal to either in beauty and originality, if not in volume of sound. The Ronsardian lute was strung with Apollo's hair as surely as the lute of vShakespeare and the lute of Tasso. ' One star differeth from another star ' only in the kind of ' glory '. Yet that active and living ' faith in light and motion ' which animated the French Renaissance was ambitious of perfection in prose no less than in poetry. France owed the vast scope of her foreign influence to her interpretative faculty, and that idiosyncrasy often found in prose its fittest agency. Eliza- bethan England eagerly absorbed the teaching which lay at her disposal in the prose-writing of contemporary France, some time before she exacted tribute of the ripest fruit of French poetry. 134 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE The service that France rendered Elizabethan prose requires care in definition. Other influences besides the French were actively at work and claim due acknowledgement. But French example was probably more pervasive than any other, and was earlier in the field. France led the way in the general applica- tion of the vernacular to serious literature, and Tudor Eng- -land recognized there the force of French instruction. The character and scope of the literary labours of Caxton, and of his successor Lord Berners, illustrate how large was the part that French influence played in the early process of substituting English prose for Latin in ordinary exposition. Caxton and Berners, and other prose-writers of their generations, looked almost exclusively to France for their literary provender. Not that they confined their attention to original French literature. Early Tudor workers studied French translations from Latin or Greek, Italian or Spanish, with little less zeal than original French writing. The first vague gleams of genuine style came to English prose through English translation of French ver- sions of the classics. Yet the early Tudor enthusiasm for French prose left its English counterpart a partially developed instrument. The literary savour was faint. Sentences were disjointed. The literary use of the vernacular, although widely spreading, was, too, far from universal. It was not quite habitual through the half-century following the introduction of printing. The tide which Caxton set flowing owed most of its impetus to fifteenth-century France, but it needed the deliberate enlistment of other sources of energy before it attained full flood. Direct study of Latin and Greek, of Italian and Spanish, grew in England as the century aged, and reinforced the foreign notes which early Tudor translators caught from the French. French influence was not exorcized, but formidable competitors were at hand to challenge any French monopoly. Elizabethan prose, of which the main aim was recreation, proved more catholic in its affinities and affiliations than the prose of serious exposition. Serious prose remained more or less loyal to French example, even if the French influence was materially modified by growth of Latin erudition ; but recreative ITALIAN AND SPANISH ROMANCE 135 prose soiioht much nurture in fields outside F^rance or classical Rome— notably in Italy and Spain. The habit of Caxton and': Berners in relying on French romances of chivalry for literary amusement was discountenanced by the Elizabethans. Italian influence predominated in their recreative prose. Italy was tlie original home of the short story, of the little novel, of the art of fiction in any modern sense. The ¥ rench. J a bUa 71 or cou/e did not pass beyond the primitive stage of the anecdote, and the French tale of knightly adventure, while it made small attempt to respect methodical principles of construction, transgressed the limits of length which the art of story- telling required for its full effect. Boccaccio was the founder of the novel in the fourteenth century, but his sixteenth- century disciple Bandello greatly extended the vogue and range of fiction. Renaissance France energetically imitated Boccaccio and translated Bandello, but she did not obliterate the Italian hall - mark from the imported wares. Many Elizabethan loans were levied on Italian fiction through the French, but the transaction was at times effected with- out an intermediary. In any case the Italian flavour retained much of its zest. vSpanish literature also exerted subsidiary | influence on the lighter forms of Elizabethan prose literature. The affectation of Lyly's Eitphues, the earliest specimen of original recreative work in a distinctive literary cast of prose, was coloured by Spanish pomposity and pedantry, Nashe's \ novel, of Jack^Wilton re flected the staggering tone of th e Spanish _storyof roguish adventure, which Nashe may have read at first hand. Some popular Elizabethan experi- ments in romantic fiction mingled numerous simples in varied proportions, but the French element was usually less perceptible than other ingredients. Sidney's Arcadia owed most of Its diffuse matter and manner to the late Greek rKXvel, andjo^the current pastoral romance of both Italy and Spain. The Greek novel probably reached the English author in French translation or In English translation from the French. The Italian and .Spanish pastoral romance was doubtless intelligible to Sidney In the original texts. Williatn Painter's Palace of Pleasure is the earliest collec- 136 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE tion of short stories which an Enghshman compiled. It was published in London early in 1566. The book makes no pretension to originality, and a summary analysis of its sources well illustrates the general distribution of the foreign influences on the Elizabethan prose of recreation. Of Painter's hundred and one little novels, fiijty_ are drawn from the tales_iif Boccaccio or from those of his sixteenth - century Italian disciples Bandello or Cinthio. More than thirty come direct from the Latin or Greek historians. Fifteen of the remainder are translated from the French of Queen Margaret of Navarre's Heptanieron^ and one is described as being drawn ' out of a little Frenche booke called Compfe du ]\Ionde Avantureiix \ Queen Margaret's volume is itself an imitation or development of Boccaccio's Decaineron\ but in any case France holds among Painter'sauthorities a place far less conspicuous than that of Italy or even of Greece and Rome. It should be acknowledged that the Italian novelist Bandello, on whom Painter levied liberal loans, was known to the English collector only in a French translation. Painter, in a preliminary list of French ' authours out of whom these nouelles be selected ', specifies the F'rench translators of Bandello — ' Fran9ois Belleforest ' and ' Pierre Boaistuau, surnamed Launay '. Yet when all allow- ance is made for French aid, the French influence which Painter acknowledged is impregnated with a pronounced ^ Italianate ' sentiment. On almost all the recreative prose of Elizabethan England the like judgement may be passed. The Elizabethan romance, in the final form which Greene and Lodge favoured, is marked by a diffuse floridity of style, while the theme is presented with an artificial sensuousness which has little relation to life or nature. The mode is of Italian lineage, with an occasional infusion of the artificial solemnity of Spain and a slender tincture of P"rench clarity. ' Outside the bounds of P^lizabethan fiction, Latin influence came to compete with P>ench in moulding Elizabethan prose literature. A reviving zest for Latin scholarship stimulated the progress of English composition during the middle years of the sixteenth century. Latin influence helped to quicken the development of English prose. THE INFLUENCi: OF LATIN 137 But Latin tuition, while it gnve a more businesslike regularity to syntactical structure, was touched by no warmth of feeling, by no artistic expansiveness, by small originality or exuberance of thought. vSir Thomas Klyot's Governour (153 1)> Thomas Wilson's Arte of RhetoHque (1553), and Ascham's Sc/ioo/masfei'- (1570) are substantial experiments in serious prose, l^^lyot and Ascham's books are technical treatises on education. Wilson's volume is a practical manual of composition. On each of the three works much reading of Latin authors has left a deep impress. Personal sentiment is for the most part lacking ; the argument is largely derivative. The practical ends of instruction are sought too coldly and too dispassionately to bring the volumes within the literary arena, Elyot, Wilson, and Ascham, who were all efficient classical scholars, bear cumulative testimony to the spreading habit of making English instead of Latin prose the expository implement of educated Englishmen. Wilson deprecated the employment of French or Italian words in place of English, and betrayed a certain insularity of sentiment, although he borrowed freely from Quintilian and Cicero, Elyot and Ascham were closer observers of the progress of humanism in France, and w^ere conscious of its breadth of spirit and of its hostility to scholasticism. Scholars of the French Renaissance were among their heroes. If Tudor scholars did less in the middle years of the century for the ductility of English prose than contemporary French masters for French prose, their immediate resort to Latin fostered new virtues of cohesiveness and solidity. But, in the heyday of the Elizabethan era, serious prose writers freely acknowledged the claims of French models to allegiance or to respectful study. Most of the Elizabethan works which dealt with philosophy, theology, and biography pay more generous tribute to French than to Latin culture. Contemporary French authors were the efficient tutors of serious writers of Elizabethan prose in its last and best phases. The French masters were worthy of their Elizabethan pupils. Jn the course of the century serious French prose acquired a new directness and dignity, a grace and facility, which may p-i-S FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABF:THAN PROSE be traced in the first place to the French scholar's persistent habit of translating Latin and Greek classics into his own tongue, and in the second place to the breadth of his interest in the world outside scholarship. Scholarship and liberality of outlook absorbed the old F'rench instinct for vivacious narra- tive, purged it of incoherence or abruptness, and expanded its range of theme. A small but quite distinct and fruitful influence on the F"rench development of literary form and subject is traceable to French translations of the Bible. England sought to adapt to her earnest purposes all these clarifying, liberalizing, and fertilizing strains of F'rench in- fluence. The balanced rhythm of serious Elizabethan prose in its final manifestations, its fervour and its argumentative versatility, owe much to the modulating tendencies newly at work in prose across St. George's Channel. The directness and dignity of Sir Thomas North, and even of Hooker and Bacon may, together with the orderly pre- sentment of their copious thought, be largely set to the credit of F>ance. Classical suggestion was still operative with- out immediate F"rench agency, while the F^nglish version of the Scriptures lent an independent measure of warmth and intensity. But even in these collateral directions France gave much helpjErench zeal for the vernacular translation of the Bible as well as for classical study communicated itself to Kngland, and stimulated the Hebraic as well as the classical affinities of English writing. As for the special forms of prose literature — biography and the essay — in which North and Bacon won respectively their chief laurels, they are of purely French parentage. Biography of the intelligent vivid type first came to Elizabethan England through the French version of Plutarch. The essay was a form of literary effort directly imported from France. The mingling of theology, and political philosophy, which gave Hooker his fame, is of more complex origin. The imion has precedents in mediaeval scholasticism. But the Frenchman Calyjn may well claim the main credit of^laying the foundation on which Hooker built. While every allowance should be made for the progress of Latin scholarship in Tudor England, it is clear that the Elizabethan THI<: l-RENCH HIHLIC 139 essay and the biograpliic and speculative triumphs of h^hza- bethan prose are either of French descent or of French kinship. The missionary energy of France explains much of the lucidity of manner in serious Elizabethan prose, as well as its catholicity of matter. To four writers the development of French prose of the ^ sixteenth century is mainly due, — to Rabelais and Calvin whose chief work was done in the first half of the century, and to Amyotand Montaigne whose chief work was done in the second half. Ehzabethan England will be found to be under oblioration in different deg-rees to all these authors. Rabelais, Calvin, Amyot, and Montaigne are the dominant figures in the history of sixteenth-century French prose. But the writings of these literary heroes do not quite exhaust the scope of the present inquiry. The FrenchBible_ calls for complementary recognition. II The Bible in French and English Ardent study of the Bible in the vernacular began, more or less under the stimulus of Germany, in both France and England at much the same time. The enthusiasm of English students, despite the primal debt to Germany, was soon whetted by the French piety which, born in Paris, developed in Antwerp, and ultimately found a permanent abode in Geneva. The biblical influences on English prose w^ere fostered by personal and literary intercourse between the religious leaders of London and those of Paris, Antwerp, and Geneva. From Germany there reached Tudor England the first' effective spur to the study of the Scriptures in English. Wiclif, who translated much of the Bible into an artless prose in the fourteenth century, was wellnigh forgotten. The German chieftain of Protestantism, Luther, brought home to Tudor Englishmen, by his precept and practice, the obligation of making the Old and New Testaments accessible to the people in the people's language. But to the development of the I40 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE j vernacular study of the Bible in England, France of the I Renaissance lent active help. France was very early in the field of biblical translation. A-mediaeval French version — in part a paraphrase and in part an epitome — belonged to the thirteenth century. Based on the Vulgate, it was a hundred years older than the endeavour of WicHf Of this French rendering the New Testament alone came from a Lyons press as early as 1477 5 both Old and New Testaments were printed in Paris in_i.i87. Nearly two generations passed away before any endeavour of a like kind was made in England. Not only the French and the German, but the Italian and ^Spanish presses also issued vernacular translations of the Scriptures half a century before the English press approached this sphere of activity. The story of the original editions of the French Bible provides suggestive comment on the first English efforts. The mediaeval paraphrase, although constantly reprinted, was soon discountenanced by scholars. The first translator on (scholarly lines of the whole Bible 4fltQ-JErench^ was Jacques Lefevre d'EtapTes,' an "accomplished humanist, who began theological research long before the Huguenot Church was organized, before indeed Luther, his junior by twenty-eight years, had formulated his doctrine. As early as l,5j_2 Lefevre d'Etaples published a statement of his religious opinion which anticipates at rnany points the principles of the coming Reformation. In a Latin commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, he claimed the right of freely interpreting the scriptural text by /the aid of unfettered reason. The royal humanist F'rancis I was at this period so unsuspicious of heterodoxy, or so fascinated by speculative originality, that he made Lefevre tutor to a younger son. Only towards the close of his long life, which was mainly devoted to a French translation of the Bible, did Lefevre rouse orthodox hostility. The first instalment of Lefevre s Biblical enterprise, which, like the mediaeval para- ' Hallam, in his History oj Litcraiu7-e, confusingly calls Lefevre d'Ktaplcs by his Latinized name Faber Stapulensis. Born at Etaples (Pas-de-Calais) in 1455, "f parents named Lefc'vre, the French translator died in 1537. Li:i ]:\'RH D'ETAPLES AND OLIVETAN 141 phrase, was largely based on the text of the Vulgate, appeared in Paris in 1523. Two years later the Parlement of Paris, at the bidding of the obscurantist Sorbonne, condemned the liberal tendency of the design. Hut Queen Margaret of Navarre encouraged the translator to continue his labour, and other portions followed, Lefevrc s whole Bible in P'rench was finally printed in a single \olume at Antwerp in i^^^o by Martin de Keyser (or Martin I'Empereur), a Pleming, whose press enjoyed a cosmopolitan repute. Lefevre's perseverance was ultimately well rewarded. French Catholics, despite the misgivings of the weaker brethren, were indisposed to reject permanently the fruits of his industry. After undergoing- some revision, Lefevre's translation became the authorized^ P^'rench Bible of the Catholic Church, and enjoyed a wide I esteem. Meanwhile Lefevre's work underwent correction at Huguenot hands of a thorough and scholarly kind. The Huguenot recension was undertaken by Pierre Robert Olivetan, under the auspices of Calyin, who w^as a near kinsman of the editor. Both Were natives of Noyon in Picardy. Olivetan's version was published in Neufchatel in Sr.-.^^' 1535, the expenses being defrayed by a subscription of the \''audois of Piedmont. It became the Authorized \''ersion of the_J^>eni±_._Protestant_-Cli^ and the foundation of Authorized Versions of Protestant churches elsewhere. Thus by 1535 two adequate P^rench translations of the Bible were in general circulation among P'renchmen, while the mediaeval paraphrase, although its credit was fast fading, then reached the dignity of a sixteenth edition. In no other vernacular did the Bible enjoy at the moment quite the same advantage. Englishmen trod the path of Lefevre and Olivetan at a slower pace. In her biblical as in almost all other enter- prises England long leaned heavily on foreign props. Tyndaje ., the first of the Tudor translators of the Bible, began his pioneer labours almost at the same time as Lefevre. Coverdale, the second of the Tudor translators of the Bible, was at work siinultanepusly with Olivetan. The P>ench and English undertakings were bound together by stronger links 142 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE than (^^onolo^icaljie^ but the chronological association is worth emphasizing. It was not at home, it was on the continent of Europe, that the first Tudor translators of the Bible found the means of putting their work into type. / Henry VIII's government shared the antipathy of the Sor- ( bonne to a vernacular version of the Scriptures. It was at German or Flemish presses that Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch and New Testament— the parent contributions to the Tudor Bible — were first printed. Two years after Lefevre's New Testament in French was issued at Paris, Tyndale's New Testament in English came out at Cologne (1525). Tyndale subsequently, in 1530, published his anglicized Pentateuch with a German printer, apparently of Wittenberg ; that event synchronized with the issue at Antwerp of the whole Bible in Lefevre's French. In the German edition of his English Pentateuch Tyndale nearly reached the limit of his labour. He did not, like Lefevre, complete his task, but in his remaining effort he came into more intimate relation with his P"rench competitor. At the idonticaL Antwerp press of Martin rEmpereur, which gave Lefevre.'s finished venture to the world, Tyndale printed in 1 53 1 a rendering of the Book of Jonah. This was the last contribution to his unfinished Old Testament which the Englishman sent to press. His association with Lefevre's Antwerp printer continued longer. Under the same auspices there came forth two years later a second improved edition of Tyndale's New Testament. The Antwerp printer, Martin. I'Empereur, forms a personal bond between the first com- plete French Bible of the P^rench Renaissance and the first English Bible which Tyndale began and failed to finish. ^y Tyndale's successor, Miles Coverdale, retrieved his defeat. I Coverdale compiled the first English translation of the whole L Bible. It appeared in i^35^ga[n_at- Antwerp, although at Jacob van Meteren's and not at Martin I'Empereur's press. Lefevre had brought his gi-eat task to an end five years before, andOlivetan's second French enterprise belonged to Coverdale's year. Two years later there was a reprint of Coverdale's Bible in Southwark. No English translation of the Bible was ]^:ARLY TUDOR VKRSIONS 14^^*^ / printed in linglancl earlier. In 1537, sixty years after the work of publishing the wScriptures in the vernacular had been successfully inaugurated in Paris, England made a first entry into the field. It is abundantly clear that the early English translators of the Bible were cognizant of the contemporary French efforts, and owed them an appreciable stimulus. That the same printer at Antwerp should be simultaneously engaged on the two biblical manuscripts of Lefevre and Tyndale does not exhaust the evidence of association. The second complete version of the English Bible, which was known as Matthew's Bible, was a composite compilation of both Tyndale and Coverdale's work. This was again published at Antwerp by van Meteren, and appeared in 1537. The Apocrypha was now first included, and that section of the volume offered signal proof of English knowledge of the French activity. A part of the Apocrypha was avowedly translated from Olivetan's Protestant version of the French Scriptures, the Neufchatel revision of Lefevre 's great work. Matthew's Bible, which was the first Bible to be fully legalized for sale in England, was under a direct obligation to France. Nor was it only as far afield as Antwerp that the biblical trans- lators of the French Renaissance and of Tudor England formed personal alliances. In Paris itself the partnership was pursued. Coyerdale was a frequent visitor to Paris, and there, at the well-equipped press of Fran9ois Regnault, he superintended ,in 1539-40 the printing of the Great Bible— th^^ third complete English version — which was constructed of earlier English translations. The process was interrupted by the French government, which scented heresy in the growing enthusiasm for the vernacular Scriptures, but Regnault's French types and presses were transported to England, and the work was completed in London. The Great Bible, which is virtually a specimen of fine Parisian typography, was the earliest jversipn of the Bible to receive in England official ecclesiastical recognition. Nor does the account of the debt of the English Bible to French exertion by any means end here. When, during Queen J44 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE Mary's reign, English Protestants sought an asylum in Geneva, they came directly under the personal influence of Calvin. The Frenchman then ruled the vSwiss city with despotic Q>^ /rigour. His chief lieutenant, another Frenchman, Theodore ^ V^*^ Beza, was, despite his stern Puritanism, the most cultured \ humanist among French religious reformers. The English exiles at Geneva devoted their energies to a new recension of the English Bible, and Calvin and Beza both encouraged them in the work. On this version the English Puritans grafted in both notes and text the theological doctrine and exegesis of the F'^rench chieftains of their city of refuge. Olivetan was a chief authority for the English scribes. Calvin and Beza were their trusted guides. The Genevan Bible, which was compiled under French auspices, was ikst printed in 1560 in the French atmosphere of Geneva. / Elizabethan Puritans treated the book for half a century with V superstitious reverence. Tvv^o hundred early reissues of the Genevan Bible attest its popularity in England. Nor did vScotland escape the contagion. The first Bible to be printed in the vernacular in Scotland followed the Gene\'an >:ersion. It was issued in Edinburgh in 1579. The influence of the Genevan ^version is hardly capable of exaggeration. Its pronounced pietistic sentiment gave the cue to many d£.vo- tional idiosyncrasies of Puritan prose, and riveted Hebraic fervour on the style of much profane writing. The French energy of Geneva greatly stimulated F^nglish love of the Bible. The connexion of the Genevan version of the Bible with its place of origin and with the French ruler of the Swiss city, was kept well in mind by successive English editors. Into the preliminary almanac there was introduced at an early date and there was retained in permanence the entry under the day May 27, 'Master John Calvin, (jod's servant, died 1 1564.' Shakespeare was a month old at the moment of VCalvin's death. A few years later the Genevan version gaxe him his first knowledge of the .Scriptures. The dramatist on one occasion in adult life acknowledged the pertinacity of the F>ench in translating the Bible by quoting a verse in CALVIN'S FRENCH PROSE 145 its French g-arb. In Henry V (ill. vii. 70) the Dauphin cites 2 Peter ii. 22^ in an early French version : ' Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et la truie lavee au bourbier.' The dramatist's compliment was well deserved. France is well entitled to share with Germany the honour of promoting in England biblical study and knowledge. The influence of the Genevan version was especially long-lived. The English Bishops' Bible of 1568 and King James's Authorized Version of 161 1 betray at many points the French influence of Geneva. Ill Calvin Huguenot writers claim for Olivetan, the translator of the Bible, a great advance on the efforts of his precursor Lefevre, and credit him with an influence on French prose which out- distances that of all other writers of the epoch. But it is doubtful if such pretensions can be justified. Olivetan's merits consist of literal and simple accuracy, which, while it well served the cause of piety, exerted small effect on the artistic development of literature. As a writer of French prose, Calvin \ (1509-1564), Olivetan's cousin and leader, has an insistent indi- viduality which gives him a commanding place in the history I of style to which the French translators of the Bible can sub- stantiate no claim. Calvin was far more than a translator. He was an original thinker of the highest power, and a man of immense learning. There is little of the exuberance of Hebraism in Calvin's French temperament. The influence which he exerted on the literary development of French writing comes from the majestic sobriety of his original thought. His greatest work in French prose, his Institution I Chrctien7ie, was first written in Latin, and then translated by ' himself into French. Constantly revised in many successive editions, the book circulated far and wide in the two languages with ever-growing authority. Calvin's Institution opens I with a manly dedication to the royal apostle of French I humanism, Francis I. Calvin tells his sovereign that he writes 1 146 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE for Frenchmen, for his fellow countrymen. It was in their interest that he compiled his encyclopaedic plea for the philosophic and practical recognition of God's will as the sole director and controller of man's life. Calvin's influence owes as much to his literary temper as to his doctrine. Trained in ^uth in the classics, and studying law under Alciati ^ Bourges, he inaugurated his literary career with an edition of Seneca's ethical tract 'On Mercy' {De Clemeniia). Until death Calvin cherished a deep rever- ence for the achievements and tradition of classical literature which he credits with bringing varied light to the intellect of man. In a noble passage in his Iiistitiiiion CJu'ctieiine he applauds the pagan writers' ' admirable lumiere de verite '. In the Roman jurisconsults he detects ' grande clarte de prudence en constituant un si bon ordre et une police si equitable '. To Latin literature he traces the invention of the art of logical debate — ' I'art de disputer, qui est la maniere de parler avec raison.' Calvin treats the endowments of his Latin heroes as manifestations of God's will and power, and declares neglect or contempt of the benefits which their writings offer to be worthy of condign punishment. An almost legal precision and lucidity are Calvin's supreme literary virtues. The Latin source of the fine qualities of his French style is never obscured. Much of his work was indeed penned in crisp, clear Latin. It has been said of him that he thought in Latin when he wrote in French. Yet his French writing gives him his literary fame. His fluent ease in vernacular composition, the copious yet pertinent flow of his dialectic, invested the French language under his hand with a suppleness and tractability which were almost new to it. His tone ranges over many keys. At times he rises to a chastened eloquence ; at times he sinks to a dry sarcasm which is coloured by a Gallic turn of wit. His attacks on ' the sophisters of the Sorbonne ', on the champions of what he regards as Roman superstition, are alive with Gallic raillery and badinage. In the result he gave French prose a versatility and facility the merit of which can hardly be over-estimated. His vocabulary and the turn of his CALMN'S ENGLISH l^UPILS 147 sentences have a modern ring- which no other of the great practitioners of his century rivalled. Compared with Calvin's general manner of writing, even Montaigne's style is archaic and unfamiliar, Calvin's doctrinal influence on the religious reform of England is an immense tribute to the fascination of his dialectical energy. It was the fruit of his literary power no less than of his theological ardour. Much personal intercourse took place between the master and his English disciples, and greatly increased his authority. When, on' Henry VIII's death and Edward M's accession, ecclesiastical; reform was carried to its completion in England, the chiet \ organizers of the Protestant movement, Protector Somerset^J and Archbishop Cranmer, were in repeated correspondence! with Calvin. They urged him to visit England for the! purpose of healing differences of opinion among English reformers, and of removing the last obstacles to the national acceptance of his teaching. The Frenchman declined the invitation on the score of failing health, but his refusal was followed by a gift to the boy-king of copies of his books. Nor during a great part of Elizabeth's reign was Calvin's reputation and authority seriously questioned by the leaders of the English Church. Regard for him and his writings \ was a link binding together mutually hostile parties of English Protestants. Archbishop Grindal and Archbishop / Whitgift both respected his spiritual theory and the clarity of his reasoning, if they disagreed with one another in their atti- tude to his ritual. Calvin was to a large degree the doctrinal oracle of the Elizabethan people, and the technical language / of his creed^predestination, election, reprobation, grace, faith 1 without works — was absorbed by popular English speech./ Archbishop Cranmer and Archbishop Whitgift were both writers of pithy and forcible English, and they were more deeply versed in Calvin's vocabulary than any other Church- men of their day. They came under the irresistible influence of his direct and dignified diction, and spread respect for it among their fellow countrymen. ' The reverend fathers of our Church call M. Calvin one of ^/te best writers^' wrote L 2 148 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE approvingly some Protestant clerg-ymen of the Church of England in a manifesto on Anglican dogma in 1599.^ AH Calvin's writings, whether in Latin or French, were translated into English. Some of his French sermons were published in London as early as 1560. Between that year and 1610— a period of fifty years— there came out in England at least seventy-five editions of English translations of various French or Latin works of Calvin. Calvin's standard treatise. The Insiittition of Christian Religion, which his admirers reckoned the chief jewel in his literary crown, originally appeared in England in 1561, and before the end of the century the English version went through at least five editions, which embodied its author's successive revisions and bulky amplifications. Thomas Norton, the Elizabethan translator, well typified in his varied activities the temper of the epoch. A successful barrister and an energetic member of the House of Commons, Norton sought sober recreation in secular literature as well as in theological debate. He lacked any gift of brilliance. Three of the five acts of Gorbodtic^ the first regular tragedy which the English language knew, are from his leaden pen, and he contributed to the clumsy metrical version of the psalms by Sternhold and Hopkins. Strong puritan sympathies led him to set immense store by the doctrine of Calvin's InstiiiLtioii of Christian Religion. At the same time the merits of the Frenchman's exact style made a strong appeal to his intellectual temper. Calvin's habit ot ; packing ' great plenty of matter in small room of w^ords ' rendered the sentences ', according to Norton, ' so full as nothing might well be added without idle superfluity and again so nighly pared that nothing could be minished without taking away some necessary substance of matter therein expressed.' Norton lacked Calvin's command of the literary arts, and his effort runs lamely after the original. It is unfortunate that Norton should have preferred Calvin's Latin I to his French text. But Norton's opaque leaves fail to exclude Calvin's luminosity altogether. Here is the guise (in modern ' Cf. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, the Fifth Hook, ed. Ronald Bayne, 1902, p. 621. CALVIN IN ENGLISH 149 spelling^) in which Norton presented to Ehzabethan readers Calvin's rational plea for the study by Christians of pagan classical literature. The rhetorical flow has, however faintly, the right current. So oft therefore as we light upon profane writers, let us be put in mind by that marvellous light of truth that shineth in them, that the wit of man, howmuchsoever it be perverted and fallen from the first integrity, is yet still clothed and garnished with excellent gifts of God. If we consider that the spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will neither refuse nor despise the truth itself wheresoever it shall appear, except we will dishonourably use the spirit of God. . . . vShall we deny that the truth shined to the old lawyers which have set forth civil order and discipline with so great equity } Shall we say that the philosophers were blind both in that exquisite contemplation and cunning description of nature } vShall we say that they had no wit, which by setting in order the art of speech have taught us to speak with reason ? Shall we say that they were mad which in setting forth Physic have employed their diligence for us } What of all the mathematical sciences ? Shall we think them doting errors of madmen ? No, rather we cannot read the writing of the old men con- cerning these things without great admiration of their wit. But shall we think anything praiseworthy or excellent, which we do not reknowledge to come of God } Let us be ashamed of so great unthankfulness, into which the heathen poets fell not, which confessed that both philosophy and laws and all good arts were the inventions of Gods.^ Despite its debt to Latin, Norton's great volume is associated with France beyond risk of forgetfulness. Norton's labour begins with Calvin's long preliminary address to Francis I, so that in the English book the headline of the first seventeen pages bears the suggestive legend 'The preface to the French King '. Another imposing venture of like kind may be cited by way of illustrating how, in the dark years preceding the dawn of the Elizabethan era, the nascent literary taste joined hands with religious zeal in paying honour to Calvin. Arthur Golding, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and himself a leading ' Calvin's IfistUHiion, London, 1582, f. Si. I50 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE 1 figure in the first generation of literary Elizabethans, made his earliest fame by versifying in English Ovid's Metamorphoses. He fully sustained his reputation in later years by his industry in translating direct from the French many hundreds of Calvin's sermons. Golding's giant volumes found ready purchasers. Typographical skill was freely lavished on them. There are few finer folios of the period than Golding's rendering from the French of two hundred ' Sermons of M. John Calvin upon the fifth book of Moses called Deuteronomie '. Nashe, the Elizabethan satirist and critic, enters Golding's name on a ' page of praise ', not merely for his toil on Ovid, but for ' many exquisite editions of divinity turned by him out of the French tongiie into our own '} Nashe, who was more addicted to blame than praise of dogmatic theology, only bestowed the complimentary epithet of ' exquisite ' on volumes of divinity which were of French parentage. Calvin's lieutenant and successor, Theodore Beza, and his pamphleteering aide-de-camp Pierre Viret were equally familiar names on the title-pages of Elizabethan translations. The style of clerical authors in England as a result caught much dominant colour from the abounding Calvinist literature. The greatest of all Elizabethan theologians, Richard Hooker, despite his antagonism to the Calvinist polity and to much of Calvin's doctrinal theory, proved in his Ecclesiastical Polity that he closely studied the works of Calvin and of Calvin's friend Beza. More direct and obvious was Hooker's dependence on the patristic researches of Beza's disciple Simon Goulart, a native of Senlis, who became pastor of the Genevan church in Hooker's youth (1572) and was, after Hooker's death, ruler of the Genevan state in succession to Beza from 1605 to 1628.2 Yet to Calvin himself Hooker owed more than lies on the surface. His English style is far more cumbrous, com- plicated, and resonant than Calvin's French. He absorbed ^ Nashe's preface to Greene's Menaphon, 1589, in Nashe's Works, ed. McKerrow, iii. 319. ^ Goulart, the third occupant of the Genevan throne, survived Hooker, who was some nine years his junior, by twenty-eight years. AMYOT'S ACHIEVEMENT 151 much of the sonorous grandeur of the English version of the Bible and was greatly influenced by his reading in St. Augus- tine and the early fathers, and in the masters of Latin prose. His massiveness and ampleness are more imposing than Calvin's simplicity. But the ceaseless flow of the sentences, high sounding and rhythmical, with the uniformly logical arrangement of argument, absorbs something of the facility and clarity of Calvin's measured tones. At any rate, in regard alike to matter and method, Calvin's Iiisiittitio7t Chreiieime is the French book which best deserves a place beside Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. IV Amyot Whatever the potency of the French influence on Elizabethan theology, French prose of the Renaissance worked with even more stirring effect on the secular stream of serious Elizabethan literature. From this point of view no Frenchman deserves a larger measure of attention from Elizabethan students than Jacques Amyot (1513-1593)- Junior by some four years to Calvin and surviving him by as many as twenty-nine, Amyot was an ecclesiastic of a very different theological school. He was a Catholic of unquestioned orthodoxy, if of a wide tolerance. His religious opinions are, however, imma- terial to the present issue. Here he comes into the arena as a Hberal^hurnanist, a typical scholar of the French Re- naissance. A competent Greek scholar, he recovered much Greek literature from manuscript sources and cherished a passion for literary research. His main energies were devoted to translating Greek literature into French, to disseminating Greek literature among his fellow countrymen who were no scholars. French Renaissance scholars deemed it incumbent on them to share their knowledge with the French people, and they placed the art of accurate translation from the classics high among branches of literary endeavour. Amyot brought the art of translating Greek prose into French near the pitch 152 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE of perfection. His efforts rendered his unlearned countrymen two services. On the one hand he famih'arized them with new and stimulating Greek ideas. On the other hand, French prose style was brought by his pen many steps nearer the neatness, the briskness, and suppleness of the Greek idiom, with which it always had general affinity. Amyot's largest labour, his translation of Plutarch's Lives, was rendered into English, and thereby English minds and English prose were made sharers in Amyot's intellectual gifts to France. Amyot's career is worthy of attention. He came of the humblest parentage, of poor working-class people. His native place, Melun, lay within thirty miles of Paris. As a poor student he studied Greek at Paris University and then obtained an appointment as private tutor. In that employment he came under the notice of Queen Margaret of Navarre, the motherly patroness of humanism. She appointed him teacher of Greek in the University of Bourges, a university of fifteenth-century foundation, which was famous for its devotion to law and to the classics. The young teacher's first literary undertaking, which he completed at Bourges, was a transla- tion of the JLethiopica of the Greek novelist Heliodorus. Already in holy orders, he received from Francis I, when the king was nearing death, useful preferment to an ecclesiastical sinecure, to the abbacy of Bellozane. The emoluments of the benefice he spent on a four years' tour in Italy in search of Greek manuscripts. He worked in the library of St. Mark's, Venice, and in the Vatican Library at Rome. At A^enice he discovered manuscripts of as many as five hitherto unknown books of Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian. Charac- teristically he translated these books into his own tongue, before publishing the recovered text. On returning to France he was made tutor to Francis I's grandsons, two sons of the new king, Henry II. His pupils afterwards succeeded in turn to the throne of France as Charles IX and Henry III, and their names loom large in the literary annals of the French Renaissance. While engaged at court Amyot completed the work by which he gained his fame, his French translation of Plutarch's AMYOT'S CAREER 153 Lives (1 559M His French rendering of a second (}reck novel, Daphn is diid Chloc, by LongiLs^also gained much popularity, and for his royal pupils he prepared a treatise on rhetoric, which gives evidence of educational sagacity. When his elder pupil ascended the throne as Charles IX, Amyot in 1 560 obtained the high office of Grand Almoner to the king, and ten years later he owed to the same patron the bishopric of Auxerre. The see lay amid vineyards some 109 miles south- east of Paris. He lived on as bishop for twenty-three years from 1570 to 1593. The days of his episcopate were troubled by the religious wars, which he deplored, and by litigation with his chapter. Yet one literary labour of no mean value or extent belongs to the closing epoch of his life : it is a trans- lation into French of Plutarch's philosophical works. Amyot's career covered the best part of the sixteenth century. He died at the ripe age of eighty in 1593, when Shakespeare was twenty-nine years old. Save for his work on Diodorus, the Greek historian, which attracted small notice, Amyot's literary efforts in translation enjoyed an immense reputation and influence. He trans- formed the Greek novels of Heliodorus and Longus into living and lasting French fiction. Beneath his wand Plutarch the biographer and the moralist became indistinguishable, with the mass of French readers, from an original French author. Plutarch's Lives had attracted little attention fromj the humanists before Amyot turned the book into French.! The skill with which the conversion was effected awoke a responsive chord in the French mind which has never ceased to vibrate. Plutarch the biographer owes his modern fame chiefly to Amyot.^ Amyot has himself described his method as a translator an his aim as a writer. ' Take heed,' he bids us, ' and find the words that are fittest to signify the thing of w^hich we mean to ^ A minute critical analysis of Amyot's method as translator of Plutarch's Lh'cs will be found in a recent monograph by M. Rene Sturel, entitled y«^//i?i- Amyot, t7-aducteur dcs Vies paralleles de Plutarqiie^ Paris, 1908. M. Sturel's learned study is issued in the Bibliotheqtie Litteraire de la Refjaissance, dirigee par M. P. de Nolhac et M. Dorez. (Premiere serie. Tome huiti^me.) 154 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE yspeak. Choose words which seem the pleasantest, which / sound best in our ears, which are customary in the mouths of / good talkers, which are honest natives and no foreigners.' ^ The conditions of first-rate prose are hardly capable of more satisfactory definition. Amyot practised as he preached, and Amyot's Plutarch remains one of the best renderings of the Greek into a modern language. Plutarch's style was a good model. He is clear, simple, and concise. Amyot's translation largely respects Plutarch's tone. The period is of moderate length, and when the sentence is prolonged there is an adequate balance in the sequence of i the clauses. There are no awkward inversions nor elisions of articles and prepositions which were frequent blemishes of mediaeval French prose. His vocabulary too is peculiarly French, and it presents the language of cultured circles, stripped of Italianisms. Nor did Amyot favour latinized or archaic terminology. He is said to have spoken his own language with singular polish and purity, and to have written as he spoke. At the same time Amyot although a sound scholar was not impeccable. He travels occasionally from his text. He is less severe than the Greek, somewhat more redundant in his epithets and adverbs. But his amplifications tend to picturesqueness. In the result Amyot was accepted by the I French Academy of the seventeenth century as the first French writer of prose who deserved academic recognition. Amyot's choice of theme merits no less applause than his style. In lifting the curtain on the ancient experience gar- nered in Plutarch's Lives and in his Morals^ he rendered vast service not to P'rance alone but to the world at large. Plutarch's Morals consists of miscellaneous ethical essays which display a broad-minded sagacity and charity. But it is the chief glory of Amyot's Greek master to have placed biography, in the 1^ category of the literary arts. Plutarch's method may not at the first glance promise any very pregnant result. He is in essence an anecdotal gossip. He loves to accumulate microscopic particulars of men's lives, the smallest traits of character, the least apparently impressive habits. But he arranged his ample and seemingly trivial details with so magical a skill as PLUTARCH IN FRANCE 155 to evolve a speaking likeness of his chosen heroes, all of whom were ot dignified stature. The sentiment which Amyot's labour on Plutarch's Lives evoked among his countrymen is well expressed by his most eminent disciple in France, by Montaigne. 'I do with some reason, as me seemeth,' wrote Montaigne, 'give prick and praise unto Jaques Amyot above all our French writers, not only for his natural purity and pure elegancy of the tongue . . . but above all, I con him thanks that he hath had the hap to choose, and knowledge to cull-out so worthy a work [as Plutarch's Lives] and a book so fit to the purpose, therewith I to make so invaluable a present unto his country. W^e thatj are in the number of the ignorant had been utterly confounded, had not his book raised us from out the dust of ignorance ... It is our breviary.' Montaigne's enthusiasm for Amyot's labours as Plutarch's interpreter was undying in France. Madame Roland re-embodied it in her famous salutation of Plutarch's work as ' la pature des grandes ames '. Through Amyot's exertion Plutarch's Lives made a wide and an endur- ing appeal, and the unlettered reader proved as enthusiastic an admirer of their worth as the scholar. Religious differences barely touched the attitude of French- men to classical revelation. Catholic and Protestant wor- shipped side by side at Plutarch's shrine. The French apostle of Plutarch's art of life was an orthodox Catholic bishop. Yet Plutarch's vogue was never confined to Catholic circles. The Huguenots absorbed the story and teaching of Plutarch's Lives with a vehement avidity. There is hardly a Huguenot general or statesman (whose memoirs are extant) who does not pay tribute to the moral stimulus he derived in youth from reading Amyot. In a well-known letter which Henry IV of Navarre wrote to his cjueen from the field of battle during his fiercest struggle with the league, he addressed her in terms like these : ' Living God, you could have an- nounced to me nothing which was more agreeable than the news of the pleasure which you have derived from reading Plutarch. Plutarch always offers me a fresh novelty. To love him is to love me, because he has been for long, from 156 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE my infancy, my tutor. My good mother, to whom I owe everything, put this book into my hands when I was hardly more than a sucking babe.' The influence of Amyot's achievement illustrates better than any other the moral and intellectual elevation which the humanists of the French Renaissance fostered by their study of the classics. The scholars and men of letters not merely appre- ciated the aesthetic quality of Greek and Latin literature, but they were led and they led their students instinctively to apply to current purposes of life the wisdom of the golden past. Elizabethan men of letters quickly yielded to the fascination of Plutarch's Lives. But they owed the introduction to Amyot, the excellence of whose style ranked him, in the opinion of Elizabethan critics, with the Renaissance masters of prose throughout Europe. Gabriel Harvey, the Cambridge scholar, declared him to be as fine a writer in "French, as Bembo was in Latin, Machiavelli in Italian, or Guevara in Spanish,^ Sir Thomas North's English translation of Plutarch's Lives wholly came from the French version. It produced on England something of the effect which Amyot produced in France. North was a country gentleman whose only public service, apart from local county administration, was to accom- pany his elder brother. Lord North, on a special embassy to Paris to congratulate Amyot's pupil, Henry III, on his acces- sion to the French throne in 1574. It was four years after this visit to France that North published in a massive folio his Plutarch's Lives in English. North's dependence on Amyot is undisguised. On the threshold of his book he sets a translation of Amyot's address to the reader, in which the Frenchman expounds the value of Plutarch's biographies. A comparison of North's rendering with the French version shows an admirable fidelity. There is hardly an epithet or adverb of Amyot's invention which North omits. Amyot's redundant embellishments or expansions of his Greek text are all re- produced in the English. In the two sentences, for example, in which Amyot describes the heroic efforts of Cleopatra and ' Gabriel Harvey, Pierces Supererogation, 1593, quoted in Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, vol. ii, p. 276. SIR THOMAS NORTH 157 her women to drag the dying and helpless Antony into their' secret place of refuge, the Frenchman introduces thirty- two words which the Greek text fails to authorize. Thirty of these superfluities are duly reproduced by North.^ In the result, North is a step further removed than Amyot from the simple directness of the Greek. Occasionally he misunder- stands Amyot and makes complete havoc of Plutarch's meaning. Rut North reproduces the French, if not the Greek, style as closely as the English idiom allows. Amyot's picturesqueness of expression gains rather than loses in the English version. North's work fills a most important place in the develop- ment of English prose. It is the largest piece that had yet been contributed to our secular literature ; it is the primordial monument of ripe literary composition, and one of the richest sources of our literary language. For the unaffected vivacity which is its most salient feature, Amyot must be allowed the main responsibility. Of the influence exerted by North's work on Elizabethan development of style and thought, no apology is needed for quoting the instance that is most familiar to students. * The passages referred to are here quoted in parallel columns. The italicized words in each quotation are those for which the Greek gives no authority. The words between square brackets in North's sentences are additions of his own. Amyot. North. * Car on tiroit ce pauvre hoiinne ' For they plucked up poore An- tout souille de sang tirant aux tonius all bloody [as he was], and traicts de la mort, et qui tendoit drawing on with pangs of death, les deux mains i Cleopatra, et se who holding up his hands to Cleo- soublevoit le mieulx qiiil poiivoit. patra, raised up him selfe as well C'estoit une chose bien malaisee as he could. It was a hard thing que de le monler, mesmement a for these women to do, to lift him des femmes, toutefois Cleopatra en up ; but Cleopatra stowping downe grande peine s'effofceaut de toute with her head, putting to all her sa puissance., la teste courbee centre strength to the uttermost power., bas sans jamais lascher les cordes, did lift him up with much adoe, feit tant ix la Jin qu'elle le monta and never let go her hold, with the et lira ii soy, <\ I'aide de ceulx helpe of the women beneath that d'abas qui luy donnoient courage, bad her be of good corage, and et tiroyent autant de peine a. la were as sorie to see her labor so, voir ainsi travailler, comme elle as she her selfe.' (North's /V«/art7«, mesme.' (Amyot, ch. Ixxvii.) Tudor translations, vol. vi, p. 80.) i5 176 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE Shakespeare, Some critics have strained to breaking-point the iih'al theory of hterary parallels, by adducing numerous passages from Shakespeare and Montaigne in which the general identity of sentiment is not to be questioned. Hut many of these parallels bear witness to an intellectual sympathy or to an affinity between the two writers which may well have come independently from the temper of the times— from the all-pervading spirit of the Renaissance, and no debt on Shakespeare's part to Montaigne can be often safely pleaded. When Shakespeare calls ' modest doubt the beacon of the wise ', or when he pleads for the free use of ' godlike reason ', or when he expatiates on ' what a piece of work is man ', he is giving voice to sentiments which Montaigne, like all the great prophets of the epoch, fully shared and effectively {'expressed. But it is hazardous to conclude from such general resemblances that Shakespeare was Montaigne's personal disciple. The language as well as the thought must come within measure of identity before our road is absolutely clear. There are instances in which a prima facie case for borrowing may possibly be made out, but where it is unsafe to dogmatize.^ Very characteristic of Montaigne is the observation, ' feasts, banquets, revels, dancings, masks and tourneys rejoice them that but seldom see them, and that have much desired to see them : the taste of which becomes cloysome and unpleasing to those that daily see, and ordinarily have them.' Shakespeare twice makes the like reflection in terms that seem to reflect Montaigne's words. No monopoly may be claimed for the opinion that feasts and holidays to be enjoyed must be rare. Yet the circumstance that Shake- speare more than once lays a curious emphasis on the fact in something like Montaigne's language is consistent with a reminiscence of his reading. In the First Part of Henry IV, I, ii. 226-8, says Prince Hal : If all the year were playing holidays. To sport would be as tedious as to work ; But when they seldom come, they wished for come. ' Many passages of this kind are collected by Mr, J. M, Robertson in his interesting volume Montaigne cmd Shakspere (new ed., 1909). SHAKESPEARE AND MONTAIGNE 177 So again in the Sojinc/s (lii. ^-"j) .Shakespeare talks of the danger of blunting the fine point of ' seldom pleasure ' : Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, Since, seldom coming, in the long year set, Like stones of worth they thinly placed are. Another parallel between Montaigne and Shakespeare may be set in the same category. Cowards, says Julius Caesar (II. ii. 32-7): Cowards die many times before their deaths : The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear ; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come, wSo Montaigne (i. 19) : Since we are threatened by so many kinds of death, there is no more inconvenience to fear them all than to endure one : what matter when it cometh, since it is unavoidable. ^ It is possible that such parallels may mean nothing more than the accidental community of independent thought. Yet analogous passages are numerous enough to give, when they are examined collectively, a prima facie justification to the theory of direct indebtedness. The inference is corroborated by the presence of a few passages in Shakespeare which literally echo Montaigne's deliverance, and leave no doubt of the Enghsh dramatist's im- mediate dependence. In The Tempest (\\. i, i54seq,), Gonzalo, the honest old counsellor of Naples, indulges his fancy after the / shipwreck, and sketches the mode in which he would govern ; the desert island, if the plantation were left in his hands. He '\ would establish a reign of nature, a socialistic community, in I which all things should obey nature, all things should be in '> common : r the commonwealth I would b)' contraries Execute all things ; for no kind of traffic Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty. And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none ; > 178 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE No use of metal, corn, or wine or oil, No occupation ;— all men idle, all. And women too, but innocent and pure ; No sovereig-nty All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour : treason, felony. Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine. Would I not have; but nature should bring forth, Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance. To feed my innocent people. Montaigne, in a rambling essay on cannibals (bk. ii. chap. 30), had already described an island where the inhabi- tants, unsophisticated by civilization, lived according to nature. Montaigne's cannibals are not eaters of human flesh, but savages who obey instinctive feeling and are innocent alike of the vices or the virtues of civilization, Montaigne describes this Utopian people thus (I quote Florio's version) : It is a nation that hath no kind of traiEc, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate nor of politic superiority ; no use of service, of riches or of poverty ; no contracts, no successions, no partitions of property ; no occupation, but idle ; no respect of kindred, but common ; no apparel, but natural ; no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corn, and metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulations, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were never heard amongst them. Shakespeare transfers much of Montaigne's vocabulary and assimilates the abrupt turn of the language. There is no room for doubt that Gonzalo is citing Florio at first hand. Thus we reach the conclusion that French prose exerted no small influence on both the form and substance of Elizabethan literature. Elizabethans knew least of Rabelais, the earliest master in prose of the French Renaissance. Yet I to him the pamphleteers of Shakespeare's day owed some 1 suggestions for their swaggering satire. From Calvin the Elizabethans drew precision in expounding theological doc- trine, and the habit of discussing the dark mysteries of the faith in the domestic language. From Amyot came the briskly balanced period, and the enthusiasm for biographic GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 179 detail. From Montaigne came pointed fluency and a cheerful habit of reflecting detachedly on life. The matter and manner of French prose helped to mould Elizabethan thought and expression. There were other threads in the skein— classical, Italian, and Spanish threads — but many of these were dyed in French colours before they were put to l^^nglish uses. France, whether as principal or agent, was the predominant element in the serious branches of the literary art. If Elizabethan fiction sought sustenance further afield in Italy or Spain, France taught Elizabethan prose most of that bold vivacity and freedom which Elizabethans acknowledged to be a distinguishing trait of the French language. Familiarity^ with the themes of French prose — with the theology of Calvin, the ribald sagacity of Rabelais, the classical idealism of Amyot, the worldly ethics of Montaigne — signally helped to draw Elizabethan minds into the main currents of European thought and culture. N 2 BOOK IV FRENCH INFLUENCE IN THE ELIZABETHAN LYRIC The Coming of Ronsard The general course that English poetry followed in the sixteenth century has been described already. The main historical or chronological fact is that there was no flow of true poetry through the first eighty years of the century. French and Italian influence wrought together on the wellnigh iso- lated ebullition of Wyatt and Surrey in the early years with evanescent effect. The lyrists of Henry VIIFs court created no school of English poetry. The period of helpless dog- gerel which followed gave no hint of the future. Between the death of Surrey in 1547 and the poetic birth of Spenser in 1579, only one poetic endeavour deserves attention from the artistic point of view— Sackyille's ' In- duction Llo The Jlirror- of Magistrates. In that poetic allegory, published in 1563, the poet, guided by the per-^ sonification of sorrow, visits, after the manner of \'ergil or Dante, the abodes of the great dead. Sackville's faculty is impressive, but it is doubtful if his small and isolated output does more than attest a craving for a heightened standard of poetic art. It is a ray of light which failed to disperse the prevailing gloom.^ 1 Although Sackville's verse betrays little sign of French influence, the poet, like most cultured Englishmen of his day, was well acquainted with France and Frenchmen. Just before the publication of his ' Induction ' he was making a tour of the continent, and soon after his return he was twice in Paris on diplomatic business. In 156S he was much in the society of Queen Catherine de' Medici, and sought to overcome her objections to the proposal that her son the Due d'Anjou should marry Queen Elizabeth. Early in 1572 he revisited France to convey the con- gratulations of the English court to the French king, Charles IX, on his marriage, and he performed the duty with ceremonial magnificence, giving and receiving lavish entertainments in Paris (Stow's Chronicle, p. 668). He wrote to Queen Elizabeth of the Italian comedies which^ he wit- nessed at the French court (Baschet, Les Comcdiens Italieus a la Coiir de France, 1S82, pp. 15, 16). Four years later Sackville hospitably re- ceived the Huguenot envoy, Cardinal Chatillon, at his palace at Sheen. i84 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Spenser's Shepheards Calender^, published in 1579, must for aesthetic purposes be viewed as the starting-point of the Elizabethan tide. Spenser lived on till 1 599, steadily develop- ing in poetic genius for the best part of twenty years. With Spenser's early work was associated in point of time that of Sir Philip Sidney and Thomas Watson. The trio, in the order in which their names are mentioned, presents a descend- ing scale of merit. Sidney was no match for Spenser. Watson was very inferior in power to Sidney, but he deserves to be greeted as a modest herald of the coming summer, for he laboured in new lyric fields with Sidney's industry, if with little of his poetic feeling. He survived Sidney by some six years, dying in 1592. It was not, however, until these two pioneer-companions of Spenser had left the scene that the lyric inspiration gained its full fervour or strength in Elizabethan England. The highest lyric triumphs are identified with such names as Lyly and Daniel, Lodge and Drayton, and>.high above the rest with Shake- speare ; all flourished in the last decade of the century. In that darkest age of poetic effort which followed the burial of Wyatt and Surrey, Tudor England vainly turned anew for tuition to Clement Marot, the master of French poetry in the first half of the sixteenth century. Wyatt, who had adapted Marot's characteristic rondeaus, had acknowledged Marot's sway. The crew of doggerel poetasters, who ambled across the English stage between the exit of Wyatt and the entry of Spenser— men like Turberville and Gascoigne— are stated by : a contemporary critic to have ' come near unto Marot, whom they did imitate'. Fresh scraps of Marot's verse were trans- lated into halting English. Gascoigne in the preliminary verses before his 'Posies' (1575) excuses himself for occa- sional impropriety by the example of Marot's ' Alyx ', an epitaph of brutal grossness on an unchaste woman. ^ The ^ Marot, CEuvi'cs, ii. 219. Gascoigne's lines run : Read Faustoes filthy tale, in Ariosioes ryme, And let not Marots Alyx pass, without impeach of crime. These things considered well, I trust they will excuse This muse of mine, although she seem such toys sometimes to use. MAROT DETHRONED IN ERANCE 185 Marotic tradition was still flickering- in England in the anims mirabUis 1579. Spenser paid tribute to Marot's vogue in his earliest poetic endeavours. Of his Shepheards Calender^ the title translates the name of a popular Erench tract Le j Kalendricr des Bergiep-s, and two sections of the English j ^ poem paraphrase Marot's old-fashioned eclogues. That in-.i teres ting act of homage was a belated courtesy and it was occasionally repeated. But it was on Erench poetry of more modern fibre and more nearly contemporary date that Spenser and the adult Elizabethans fixed their steadiest gaze. In the gloomy interval between Wyatt and Spenser, Marot was himself dethroned in France. A new king of poetry arose. Erance came under a new poetic dispensation, of which the chief apostle was Ronsard. Ronsard was, if not the inaugurator, the acknowledged master of a new poetic school in Erance, a school of unprecedented wealth in melody and fancy. The temple of Erench poetry was crowded with a new generation of worshippers of Apollo who eagerly accepted Ronsard's priesthood. There is justification for the contemporary vaunt that the Muses from 1550 to 1580 treated France as their consecrated home. ' Never before,' truthfully writes the literary chronicler of the era, ' had France such a plenitude of poets {telle fo'ison de poetes). Every province, every city, sent its poets to enrol themselves under the standard of the new chieftain, Ronsard.' ^ It is for us to study the impression which this re-birth of the poetic art in France left on English poetry, to estimate how far the Elizabethan lyric was coloured by the ideals and modes of the French poetry, which came to birth with the second half of the century. The sonnets and all short lyric poems lie within the scope of this survey. The English poetic development was too tardy to offer any strictly contemporary outburst with which to compare the great Erench uprising. It was a generation of a date later than that of Ronsard which first saw the lyric sentiment of Elizabethan England acquire genuine force. The new French spirit was active 1 Etienne Pasquier's Lettrcs, 1555, in LEtcvrcs, Amsterdam, 1723, ii, p. II. 1 86 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC in France long before the Elizabethans were garnering their first poetic sheaves. But the French inspiration was slow to lose its vigour. It had not lost all its freshness in the halcyon days of Elizabethan energy. The Elizabethan song and sonnet are reckoned among the fairest flowers of Ehza- bethan literature. There is nothing depreciatory in the admission, if facts warrant it, that much of their fragrance breathes the freshly scented air of France, or that, to use a robuster metaphor which has Elizabethan sanction, Elizabethans quaffed copious draughts of the new French Helicon. II The Birth of the Pleiade In 1549, five years after Marot's death, five young men of literary ambition and of high classical attainments, were attending at a college — le College de Coqueret — in Paris the classes of an eminent humanist, Jean Dorat. He inspired his pupils with a fiery enthusiasm for the great writers of Greece, especially for Homer and Pindar, Aeschylus and Sophocles. The young men, all of good family and from cultured homes, also read for themselves much recent Italian literature. When, in the confidence of ambitious youth, they compared the literary masterpieces of Greece and modern Italy with the efforts of Marot and of Marot's precursors which still enjoyed a vogue, they boldly pronounced the poetic literature of their own tongue to be clumsy, insipid, thin, inartistic, bucolic. There- upon they deliberately set themselves to reform or re-create the literature of their country. They would assimilate in fullest measure the artistic refinement and restraint of Greek literary art on the one hand, and the warm sensuous melody of modern Italian poetry on the other. There was in the resolve a note of insolence which only success could excuse. Viewed in all its aspects, the episode is a singular pas- sage in literary history. These young men, with the serene arrogance of budding manhood, said in so many w^ords, ' French poetry is spiritless and crude ; it is no credit to DU BELL AY'S MANIFESTO 187 our nation. We intend to clean the slate and start afresh.' The young men deliberately formed themselves into a society to refashion the poetry of their country, and, contrary to expectation, they succeeded in giving triumphant effect to their conscious aim. Change in the temper and tone of poetry has been in this country an unconscious development, notwithstanding Wordsworth's preface of 1798, when he announced a design to bring poetry down from the heights of pomposity to the plains of simplicity. Very rarely has the development of poetry been in other countries than France a consistently conscious movement. But the new school of French poetry in the middle of the sixteenth century was consistently and consciously planned in minute detail. The victory has led to experiments of similar calibre in France at a later date. The romantic movement— / prosody were averted by force of ridicule. / Apart from metrical innovation the Pleiade sought to realize ' For a good summary of the history of Ba'if's experiments see Kastner's Histo7-y of French Versijicatuvt, Oxford, 1903, pp. 295-30S, and Poesies choisies de J.-A. de Baif, ed. L. Becq. de Fouqui^res, 1S74, pp. xv sq. THE CLASSICIZED VOCABULARY 205 its reforming aim by differentiating the ph raseolog y of French poetry from that of French prose. With that end in view- new words were invented or were imported from foreign languages. From Greek they freely borrowed a large voca- bulary. Some pure Greek words took permanent root in France, e.g. utathcuiatiqiie^ sympathies and pairic. Others which were as deliberately imported were wisely given short shrift, e.g. entdt^chie — the Aristotelian word for 'innate perfec- tion '} Later, Ronsard and his disciples grew sensible of the need of restricting the employment by French poets of Greek words, and w^ere sparing of the practice. A second mode of creating a distinctly poetic vocabulary was to naturalize the terminology of Greek and Latin myth. With hands of unprecedented liberality the poets of the Pleiade scattered over the poetic page names of heroes, heroines, and places of classical mythology or mythical history and freely derived epithets from them. Natural phenomena were described as the actions of god or goddess. The rising and setting of the sun was associated with fifty adventures of Phoebus or Phaeton. Seas and rivers, woods and gardens, hills and fountains were presented as the abodes of nymphs. The titles of Homeric warriors were cited as synonyms of manly virtue. The French poets' earth, heaven, and hell were peopled with great Greeks or Latins, human or divine, and were credited with the mythic attributes of classical tradition. In original method of word-composition the Pleiade under Ronsard's leadership distinguished itself mainly by its fertility ^ It is usual to cite as an example of Ronsard's extravagant employ- ment of Cireek words his lines embodying the strange expressions ' ocymore ', ' dispotme', ' oligochronien ', &c. In his famous elegy on Queen Margaret of Navarre {Lc toinbeau de Marguerite de Frafice), which belongs to the poet's early years, he wrote — Ah ! que je suis marry [grieved] que la Muse Francjoise Ne pent dire ces mots comme fait la Gregeoise : Ocymore, dispotme, oligochronien ; Certes je les dirois du sang Valesien, C2ui de beaute, de grace et de lustre ressemble Au lys qui naist, fleurit et se meurt tout ensemble. Ronsard cites these three words as examples of Greek which are beyond his skill to Gallicize {CEuvres, vii. 178). 2o6 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC lin inventint^ diminutives, and by its creation of compound epi- jthets. The plenteous employment of diminutives reinforced the impression of delicacy, which the French reformers of poetry highly valued, but diminutives had been used already, if in modest measure, by Ronsard's precursors. Their employ- I ment by the Pleiade was largely a revival or an expansion of a pre-existing habit. The second device of compound epithets was new to modern poetry and exerted a worldwide influence. There is nothing in old French poetry with which compari- son is possible. Ronsard personally claimed the sole glory of the innovation which his disciples developed with grotesque extravagance. Ronsard's [vocables comgosez ', by which he set infinite store, were only remoleTy framed on the Homeric pattern. This final embellishment of poetic speech he vaunted as a triumph, which entitled him to no ordinary gratitude from his country.^ It is capable of proof that Elizabethan poetry is hardly less indebted to him for this usage than the poetry of sixteenth-century France. VI The Hp:irs of the Pleiade The six active members of the Pleiade — Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baif, Tyard, Jodelle, and Belleau — were not only most prolific poets, but all quickly gathered about them a host of disciples who shared in varying degrees their qualities, and made all France, to the end of the century, a nest of singing-birds. The note of melody grew thinner with the advancing years. But the music did not altogether fail. Italian influences tended as the years sped to rival and outstrip the Greek ; pedan- tic conceits and affectations grew. Yet the lyric charm died ^ Cf. LEu7')-es,\\\. 127 : Indonte du labeur, je travaillay pour elle [i.e. France], Je fis des mots nouveaux, je r'appelay les vieux, Si bien que son renom je poussay jusq'aux cieux. Je fis, d'autre fagon que n'avoient les antiques, Vocables coniposez., et phrases poiitiques, Et mis la poesie en tel ordre, qu'apres Le Francois fut egal aux Romains et aux Grecs. RONSARirS PUPILS 207 hard. The generation of French poets who were busiest in the first working- days of Daniel and Drayton, of Chapman and Shakespeare, included in the rank and file men like Vauquelin de la Fresnaie, Jean Passerat, and Gilles Durant. ) It was Vauquelin who invoked Phillis, in an almost endless flow of tuneful song on such a pattern as this : I'jitre les fleurs, entre les lis, Doucement dormoit ma Philis. Gilles Durant struck many a simple note in the melodious key of his address to the souci, or marigold, which he prefers to violet, pink, pansy, or rose : Jaime la belle violette, L'oeillet et la pensee aussi, J'aime la rose vermeillette, Mais surtout j'aime la souci. Few poets counselled youth more musically to snatch the pleasures of the hour than Jean Passerat in his ode to May Day — ' du Premier Jour de May ' : Laissons ce regret et ce pleur A la vieillesse ; Jeunes, il faut cueillir la fleur De lajeunesse. Or que le ciel est le plus gay En ce gracieux mois de May, Aimons, Mignonne ; Contentons nostre ardent desir ; En ce monde n'a du plaisir Qui ne sen donne. It is not easy to match in lightness of touch Jean de la Taille's reproach of the damsel who scorns love : Elle est comme la rose franche Qu'un jeune pasteur, par oubly Laisse flestrir dessus la branche Sans se parer d'elle au dimanche. Sans jouir du bouton cueilly. The Pleiade movement only drew its last melodious breath on crossing the threshold of the seventeenth century. Ronsard's 2o8 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC mantle of chieftain was worn on his death by a fashionable ecclesiastic, a wealthy pluralist, a kindly patron of poor men of letters, Philippe Desportes, who was born in 1545. His life ended in 1606, a year which Drayton, Chapman, and Dekker made memorable in England by exceptional activity. He echoed Ronsard's voice in a somewhat halting key, and was ^teeped in contemporary Italian influences. His abundant lyrics, elegies, satires, and pious verse all stood high in /public esteem. To the vogue of the sonnet he paid con- spicuous tribute ; four hundred and forty-three of his seven hundred and eighty-one poems are quatorzains. He caught the sonneteering note of the bastard followers of Petrarch while on a visit to Italy in youth, and he never freed himself of the genre s debased affectations. He often relied on a silent process of direct translation from his Italian masters, and sincerity is usually lacking to his sentiment. His ceaseless pro- testations of all-absorbing love—' Douce est la mort qui vient en bien amant ' — are apt to weary. But he was a good crafts- man, and could, in his love-songs, mingle on occasion a light touch of pathos, with a little piquant raillery. The faithless Rozette, in spite of vows renewed amid tears at every leave-taking, has yielded to a new admirer. The jilted poet tells her that he has consoled himself with a new mis- tress, but he ends each of the valedictory verses with the half-jesting, half-tearful refrain — Nous verrons, volage Bergere, Qui premier sen repentira. Towards the close of Desportes' career, the tradition of the Pleiade was maintained by another clerical poet, Jean Bertaut, who ended his career as bishop of Seez at the age of597in^ 161 1. In Bertaut the lyric fervour of song and sonnet is colder than in Desportes ; his vows of gallantry and his regrets foi youth's passage tend to more conventional conceits, and the sacred topics, to which he devoted his later years, are treated on lines which sacrifice charm to orthodoxy. Yet his metrical dexterity is great ; he handles the /// Memoriaiii stanza with exceptional effect : DESPORTES AND BERTAUT 20c; Pourqiioy voudroy-je encor d'lin idolatrc homniage Sacrificr ma vie aux rigueurs de son ceil, Et par un lache espoir de flechir son orgueil, Perdant la liberie, perdre aussi le courage ? ^ There are, too, touches of feeling in the more familiar poem beginning — Eelicite passee Qui ne peux revenir In lines like these there is ethical insight — La crainte de perdre une chose si chere Fait que je ne sens point I'heur de la posseder. But the inspiration seems more often on the point of exhaus- tion. With Bertaut's death, in 161 1, the era of the Renaissance lyric may be said to terminate in France. In the same year Shakespeare retired from the active exercise of his profession. Bertaut, like Desportes, boasted of discipleship to Ronsard and the Pleiade, and both lived long enough to witness signs of reaction against the leading principles of that great school. The idolatry of Greece and Italy, which was a main creed of the I Pleiade faith, awoke in due time a patriotic revulsion of feeling. ' The great scholar, Henri Etienne, in La Preccllcjice du laiigage fyaiicois^ first raised the banner of revolt with a declaration that the French language was rich enough to pass current without foreign alloy. The cry against alien influences gathered force early in the seventeenth century, and the Pleiade was at length convicted by public opinion of worshipping false gods. But the school had done its work ; it had cradled a new conception of lyric theme ; it had created a new standard of poetic vocabulary and, above all, a new temper of poetic melody. Malherbe, the next ruler of the French Parnassus, repudiated^^lvlthr~vehemence the authority of the Pleiade and'^j heaped impatient scorn on its mythological imagery and its | classical terminology. Yet the new master, in his search ' after a greater simplicity and regularity, was largely influ- enced by the aesthetic ideals and ambitions of those whose fame he sought to displace. Much truth lurks, too, in the * (Euvres poetiqiies, Paris, i8gi, p. 326. LEE P 2 10 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC epigram entitled (in Boileau s phrase) ' Enfin Malherbe vint ', by Banville, the romantic leader of the nineteenth century : Les bons rythmeurs pris d'une frenesie, Comme des Dieux gaspillaient I'ambroisie Si bien qu'enfin, pour mettre le hola, Malherbe vint, et que la Poesie, FvH le voyant arriver, s'en alia. VII The Pleiade in England Long before the day of Malherbe, the voice of the Pleiade in all its variety — in the note of Desportes and Bertaut as well as in that of Ronsard and Du Bellay— had caught the Elizabethan ear. As soon as a careful inquiry is instituted, there is no mistaking the amplitude of the debt which Elizabethan England owed to French poetry of the second fifty years of the sixteenth century. The Pleiade influence is visible in Elizabethan metre, in turns of phraseology, in sentiment, in idea. In some instances the influence works through a process of adaptation which leaves ample room for the independent activity of EHzabethan individuality or idiosyncrasy. In other instances it works through a process of translation which is for the most part unavowed and is a mysterious feature of the inquiry. In estimating the force of the French influence on the Elizabethan lyric, due allowance must be made for the strength of other streams which fed the tide of song. Elizabethan poets often studied Greek, Latin, and Italian verse at first hand, and the debts directly due to Anacreon and Horace, to Petrarch and Ariosto, to Guarini and Tasso are not safely neglected. But these writers were not invariably known to Ehzabethans in their original language. Much classical and Italian poetry circu- lated in England more freely in a French dress than in its native garb. Doubt is at times inevitable whether Elizabe- than lyrics which assimilate classical or Italian fancy are to be reckoned among vicarious gifts of French writers or among the direct donations of poets of more distant lands. It should ( ELIZABETHAN TRIBUTES TO THE PLl^IADl!: 211 be admitted that the Elizabethan lyric acquired and pre- served an indigenous flavour, despite its eager absorption of foreign sustenance by way alike of adaptation and translation. The harmony lias often, at any rate to English ears, a richer melody ; the fancy presents a more pointed significance, and the thought is of a robuster substance than the foreign masters seem to command. Yet a comparative study pro- claims a foreign cue for a vast deal of the blitheness, music, and fragrance of the Elizabethan lyric, and proves the foreign suggestion to be more often of French than of classical or Italian origin. The inspiration of the Pleiade was more penetrating than that of any other school, and it left on English song a mark which was more lasting. It would be easy to trace the Influence of the Pleiade far beyond the Elizabethan era. The French airs are echoed in the poetry of Wither and Herrick ; even the lyres of Charles IPs day were attuned to them. Here we do not carry our inquiry beyond the close of the sonneteer- ing vogue in Elizabethan England, which synchronizes with the publication of Shakespeare's sonnets in 1609. On the Elizabethan sonnet French influence wrought with exceptional energy and a very evenly sustained strength. The evidence within the Ehzabethan field Is voluminous, and can only be indicated in outline. It is the internal proof which comes of setting Elizabethan poems at the side of earlier French examples, that throws full light on the situation. Less can be gleaned from the external evidence which is sup- plied by Elizabethan writers' familiar mention of the work of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Desportes, and other ' brave wits ' of the Pleiade army. The outward marks of recognition are important, but they fail to indicate the completeness of the Elizabethan discipleship. Ronsard and Du Bellay were popular names in England in Shakespeare's youth. At the very outset of the Eliza- bethan activity the earliest leader of the great poetic movement, Edmund Spenser, hailed Du Bellay as \ First garland of free Poesie That France brought forth, though fruitful of brave wits, Well worthy thou of immortalitie. P 2 212 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC /Thomas Watson, the second writer of verse to enter the { true EHzabethan fold, was adjured by an admirer to note .' how the French tongue was garnering the wealth of Par- L nassus and luxuriating in the new achievements of Ronsard.^ There was no obscurity in the hint as to the quarter whence enlightenment was coming. Popular literature of the day paid its tribute to the French Apollo. In 1590, in a satiric tract, Tar Ito it's Nezvs out of P7irga/ory\ a large company of poets is described as assembled in Purgatory to hear ' old Ronsard ', who died five years before, recite a description of his mistress, Cassandra, one of the heroines of his sonnets. The verses which are set on the French poet's lips are intended for sarcasm. But they ridicule Ronsard's English imitators rather than the French poet. In 1594 / Michael ^Drayton deplored that it was ' aJauk too eominon in t this latter time' tCLiiilGh ' from the page of Desportes, Ron- sard's successor on the throne of French poetry. In 1595 a patriotic critic who was desirous of protecting his own countrymen's poetic efforts from disparagement argued that ' France-remarked Bellay ' and ' court-like amorous Ronsard ' were currently overpraised. But this note was not repeated. A year later Thomas Lodge , one of the most popular of / Elizabethan lyrists and one of the heaviest debtors to the I Pleiade, penned a notable tribute to Desportes, Ronsard's ^ heir. Lodge used words, of which the full significance will appear later : ' Few men (he wrote) are able to second the sweet conceits of Philip Desportes, whose poetical writings [are] for the most part Englished, and ordinarily in everybody's hands.' ^ At the extreme end of the century, in the Cambridge University play, the Rctuniejram_^r- nasstis (c. 1600), an amorous youth employs a friend to write sonnets for his lady-love, and he suggests to his poetic aide- j de-camp as an acceptable pattern, not merely the verse of ', Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, but lines from Ronsard, of which he offers an English parody. ^ Gallica Parnasso coepit ditescere lingua Ronsardique operis luxuriare nouis. (Watson's Hecatompathia, 15S2, ed. Arber, p. 34.) ^ Margivitc of America, 1 596. EARLY TRANSLATIONS OF RONSARD 213 Hut suggestive as are the notices of the work of Ronsard and his friends in Elizabethan books, no adequate testimony is furnished there to the extent of the French influence on the lyric fertility of Elizabethan England. The relations between the two schools of poetry are not fully discernible until the work of both is studied word by word in conjunction. Clearly inscribed sign-posts on the long road are few. Eliza- bethans rarely made open confession of translation from the Pleiade. Only one work by Ronsard seems to have been pub-, lished in his lifetime in an English version with a quite plain and{ unequivocal acknowledgement that it was a translation. Ron-| sard's Discours des Aliseres de ce temps a la Royjie mere du Roy was issued in Paris in 1562. It is the poet's fervid denun- ciation of Calvin. It is his refutation of Huguenot slanders, and a valuable piece of autobiography ; although penned with a convincing eagerness and brilliant volubility, it has indeed more personal than aesthetic value. Thomas Jenye, a Yorkshireman, who was in the service of vSir Henry Norris, the English ambassador in Paris from 1567 to 1 569, turned Ronsard's controversial poem into English verse while he was at the Paris embassy. The effort was published at Antwerp in 1568, with a dedication to the translator's diplomatic chief.^ Equally halting were other undisguised tributes of the kind which were paid to Ronsard. Thomas Watson, the popular contemporary of Spenser, whose muse was overweighted by his learning, publicly stated that four of his hundred poems of passion — his Hecatoiupathia — which appeared in 1582, adapted specified poems of Ronsard. Two years later a veryj clumsy practitioner in verse, 'John Soothern, Gentleman,' in a volume which he christened Pandora : the Miisiqne of the BeazUie of his Mistresse Diana, gave in discordant doggerel, and in a vocabulary freely strewn with French words and idioms, ^ Jenye's book bears this title : 'A Discours of the Present Troobles in Fraunce, and Miseries of this Tyme, compyled by Peter Ronsard Gentihiian of Vandome, and dedicated unto the Quene Mother. Trans- lated into English by Thomas Jeney, Gentilman. Printed at Andwerpc. 1568, 4to.' Only one copy seems to have been identified in modern times. It belonged to the great collector, Richard Heber, and its present where- abouts seem unknown. 214 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC a series of sonnets, odes and ' odelettes ' which crudely adapt Ronsard's lyrics. The source, though imperfectly admitted by vSoothern, was generally recognized by English readers. None could doubt that Soothern's clumsy boast, Never man before Now in England knew Pindar's string, was a mere anglicization of Ronsard's repeated vaunt, Le premier de France J'ai Pindarise,' Z' Ronsard's chief lieutenant, Du Bellay, enjoyed a somewhat \ fuller measure of open acknowledgement. In 1569, a year after Jenye's rendering of Ronsard appeared, Edmund Spenser, while little more than a schoolboy, issued byway of a first poetic ex- periment a literal translation into ugrhymed jEnglish verse of some fifteen of Du Bellay 's French sonnets. Du Bellay called these sonnets, which freely paraphrased_the ^ Apocaly pse. Songes on Visions snr Rome. The English youtli entitled his rendering T/ieLisions of Bellay. Du Bellay remained one of Spenser's acknowledged poetic heroes. Twenty- two (years later the English poet reissued his Visions of Bellay in a rhymed revision, and added to them a sequence of thirty- two soli hetswhicH were drawn from the same French treasury. The Riiines of Rome, by Bellay, are a literal rendering by Spenser of Du Bellay 's characteristically pathetic Antiqiiites y'^^'^ Piittenham, in The Arte of English Prvj/V (1589), writes of Soothern's j effort to naturalize Ronsard's work in England : ' Another [writer] of ■ reasonable good facilitie in translation finding certaine of the hymnes of Pvjidarus and of Anacfeons odes, and other Lirickes among the Greekes very well translated by Roiinsard, the French poel, and applied to the honour of a great Prince in France, comes our minion and translates the same out of French into English, and applieth them to the honour of a great noble man in England (wherein 1 commend his reuerent minde and duetie) but doth so impudently robbe the French Poet both of his prayse and also of his French termes, that I cannot so much pitie him as be angry with him for his iniurious dealing, our sayd maker not being ashamed to use these French wordes freddon, egar-, siiperboits. Jilanding, celest, calabrois, tliebaiiois and a numlaer of others, for English wordes, which haue no manor of conformitie with our language either by custome or deriuation which may make them tollerable. And in the end (which is worst of all) makes his vaunt that neuer English singer but his hath toucht Phida?s string which was neuerthelesse word by word as Kounsard had said before by like braggery.' (Puttenham, ed. Arbcr, 1869, pp. 259-60.) The words which follow in Puttenham's text are quoted itifra on page 249. FORTUITOUS COINCIDENCES 215 de Rome. Spenser's sole original embellishment here is his ' envoy ' saluting Bellay as the earliest of the new wits of France, whose glory it was to have summoned ' old Rome out of her ashes ', and to have earned for himself never-dying fame'. Ronsard excited no such overt demonstration of respect. Among his disciples, only the Huguenot poet Du Bartas, who soon seceded from the Pleiade ranks, was honoured by Elizabethan translators with a frank avowal of their j obligation to his work. The sole English volume which bore, Desportes' name on its tide-page during Shakespeare's life- 1 time was an uncouth English translation of the Frenchman's I free rendering into his own tongue of a poem by Ariosto.^ The genuine influence of the Pleiade operated more subtly. Ehzabethan poets in the heyday of their energy rarely declared in the market-place their debts to foreign masters. The main obligations of Elizabethan poets are to be traced in poetry which they offered the world without any hint of dependence on foreign tuition. The fact that poets of two countries write at much the same time in the like strain, must be examined in many lights be- fore an inference of affiliation can be safely deduced from it. Coincidence in the expression of vague universal sentiments is often fortuitous. Everybody is familiar with such lines as these from Horace : Omnes eodem cogimur : omnium \'^ersatur urna serius ocius Sors exitura, et nos in aeternum Exsilium impositura cymbae. {Odes. ii. 3. 25-8.) or his Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres. [Odes., i. 4. 14-15.) It may be that Horace suggested to Ronsard the stanzas which he playfully addressed to a dead lap-dog named Courte : ' The English translator was Clervase Markham. His volume Rodo- )/io?if/is In/enia//, licensed for the press in 1598, was published in 1606. Desportes' version of Ariosto, which Markham ' paraphrastically trans- lated', is entitled La Mori de Rodomont et sa descenie aux enfers. f 2i6 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Par la vallee Oil tu es, Courte, devalee, L'Empereur, le Pape et le Roy, Marcheront aussi bien que toy. Car telle voye, froide et brune, A tous les peuples est couwnine^ D'ou plus jamais on ne revient, Car le long oubly les retient. (Ronsard, Qiiivres^ ed. Blanchemain, vii. 252.) Aoain Ronsard wrote in much the same vein : o La Mort, frappant de son dard, N'a egard A la majeste royale ; Les empereurs aux bouviers, Aux leviers Les grands sceptres elle egale. {ibid.y ii. 192.) And again : Celuy qui est mort aujourd'huy Est aussi bien mort que celuy Qui mourut au jour du deluge. Autant vaut aller le premier Que de sejourner le dernier Devant le parquet du grand juge. {Odes^ iii. 22 ; CEuvi^es, ii, p. 2-x,6.) At many turns Shakespeare recalls the language of both Horace and Ronsard : Thou know'st 'tis coniiuon ; all that live must die, Passing through nature to eternity. {Hamlet^ I. ii. 72-3.) The sceptre^ learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. {Cynibeline^ IV. ii. 268-9.} It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come, when it will come. (////. Caes. II. ii. 35-7.) Yet the English poet may well have reached these general assurances, for all their kinship to those of Horace and Ronsard, by way of his own intuition. There must be a more definite measure of identity between languageand sentiment, there must be coincidence of more pecu- liarly distinctive thought, before any conclusion of indebted- EXTENT OF THl^. ELIZABETHAN DEBT 217 ness on the part of one writer of genius to another could win acceptance. But the bonds of thought and style which link numerous lyricsof the IHizabethans with those of the Pleiade and its disciples are positive and unquestionable. The lilizabethans' proved familiarity with the French language, and their acquisi- tive tendencies, constantly proclaim coincidences between dis- tinctive idea and expression in ]{lizabethan and contemporary F'rench poetry to be direct debts on the part of F^lizabethans to the FVench poets. VIII The Elizabethan Rendering of French Lyric Themes The Pleiade influence on Elizabethan metre and vocabulary will demand close study, but the coincidence of theme and sentiment is the most fascinating feature of the story and claims preliminary notice.' The evidence is of embarrassing wealth, and clearly establishes the substantial measure of the debt which the lilizabethans incurred to the poetry of the French Renaissance. The degrees of kinship which link the Elizabethan lyric with preceding efforts of France are varied. They will be seen to range from acceptance of suggestion to literal trans- lation. Each degree of relationship is capable of liberal illus- tration. The claims of Elizabethan originality are not seriously in question. The process of borrowing went hand in hand with abundant exercise of creative power, and the borrowed thought or phrase sometimes underwent a subtle mutation which bore witness to independent inventiveness and ingenuity. But no F^lizabethan poet seems to have altogether escaped the contagion of F^rench influence. Little doubt is possible that Shakespeare himself at times accepted the suggestion of the French lyric, while Elizabethan stars of less magnitude drew floods of light from the French constellation of the Pleiade. The songs of Anacreon and the Greek anthologists, the idylls of Theocritus and his school, supplied the threads of * Consideration of the relation of the French and English sonnet is postponed to section XII of this Book. 21 8 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC which many Elizabethan lyrics were woven. Conceits of the Greek lyric streaked Elizabethan poetry almost as richly as the verse of the French Renaissance. But the Greek imagery is very often a direct reflection of the Pleiade temper. FVench adaptation of Greek lyric or idyll is frequently the imme- diate source of the Elizabethan inspiration. The Greek sentiment is not seldom expanded or diversified by the Elizabethan adapter. Yet signs of dependence on F" ranee lie as a rule near the surface. Hellenist fancies which find a place in Elizabethan lyrics are usually more closely allied with the F"rench texts than with the original Greek. Lyly may be reckoned the earUest and one of the most original of English workers in Anacreontics. His musical songs celebrate Daphne's brow, Pan's pipe, Apollo's lyre, Bacchus 's revels, or Cupid's tricks. In his adaptations of the Greek conceits Lyly preserved his independence. He manipulated with freedom the classical themes. No precise Greek original can be assigned to his song of Cupid and Cavipaspe^ in w^hich Cupid makes a wager with Campaspe and loses to her all his weapons of offence. It is significant that the main topic was very recently anticipated in a sonnet of Desportes {Diane^ I. XV), where Cupid bets away his bow in a contest with ' Diane et ma maitresse '. Although the fancy is developed differently in the FYench and is less epigrammatic, Desportes' words, ' Amour gaigea son arc . . . Las ! ma dame gaigne,' adumbrate Lyly's words (of Cupid) : ' He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows . . . She won.' Again, Lyly's baccha- nalian chants although they may owe something to Horace, fuse, with admirable spirit, Elizabethan feeling and the Greek sentiment of the Pleiade. Lyly's 16 Bacchus ! To thy table Thou callest every drunken rabble . . . \\'ine, O wine ! O juice divine ! . . . O the dear blood of grapes Turns us to antic shapes. was tlie oft-heard cry of Ronsards frolic muse when apo- strophizing the god of wine in his Chan/ de folie : LYLY'S ANACREONTICS 219 Ta furcLir me jette Hors de moy. Je te voy, je te voy, \^oy-te-cy, Romp-soucy ! Mon coeur, bouillonnant dune rag"e, En-vole vers toy mon coura5j;-e. Je forcene, je demoniacle ; L'horrihle vent de ton oracle J'entens ; Tesprit de ce bon vin nouveau Me tempeste le cerveau, lach, lach, Evoe, Evoe, lach, Tach ! ^ Again, Moschus's famous idyll of ' The Hue and Cry after Cupid ' was turned into French many times l^efore Lyly's era of activity. Amour Fiiitif\'s> the title of two most popular French adaptations of the Greek idyll (by Baif and Amadis Jamyn respectively). The French I'enderings gave the Greek poem its Elizabethan vogue. Lyly's song of Cupid Bound wears much new raiment, in which French tones mingle with Greek. Here and elsewhere Lyly foreshadows future Eliza- ^ bethan developments. A few years later Ben Jonson re- handled Moschus's theme to splendid effect in his beautiful lyric of Venus' s Runaway. There Ben finally naturalized the French poets' AniouJ'' Ftiitif among Shakespeare's contemporaries. Spenser shows like signs of sympathy with that Greek lyric vein which French poetry absorbed. There is a charming trifle by him in six ten-lined stanzas which under the generic designation of ' epigram ' amplifies the Anacreontic fable of Cupid and the bee. The boy-god, according to the Greek poem, is stung by the bee, and in tears complains to his mother. A^enus, while curing the wound, draws the moral ' Ronsard's CEuvrcs, vi, p. 380. Cf. QLir,'>rs, ii, p. 471 — Voy-le-ci, je le sen venir, Et mon cocur estonne ne pent Sa grand' divinite tenir, Tant elle I'agite et I'esmeut. Lyly's 'Cupid, monarch over kings' opens with Anacreontic blitheness on the note of Desportes' chanson {Qiicvres, ed. Michiels, p. 107) — Amour, grand vainqueur des vainqueurs, Et la Beaute, royne des cacurs. 2 20 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC that the pain is small compared with the griefs habitually caused the human heart by the infant god of love. At least six French renderings of the slight theme, more or less paraphrastic, were published in France before 1573. The most graceful rendering is by Ronsard. Spenser, while he adds touches of his own, accepts some developments of French ingenuity. His version approaches far more closely to that of Ronsard or Ba'if than to Anacreon's original Greek. There is little doubt that he wrote under French rather than Greek inspiration. There is nothing in Anacreon to suggest Spenser's laughter of \''enus, ' who could not choose but laugh at his [i. e. her son's] fond game.' That is one of the trifles in which Baif and Ronsard anticipated vSpenser. When, too, Spenser makes Cupid call the bee a ' fly ' he doubtless has in mind the French poet's expression, ' moiiche amiel,' i.e. the honey-bee. Of Shakespeare's Anacreontic adaptations probably the most striking example is met with in Tiinon of At hois (IV. iii. 442-8), where the dramatist wrote : The sun 's a thief, and with his great attraction Robs the vast sea ; the moon 's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun : The sea 's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves The moon into salt tears : the earth 's a thief. That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n From general excrement : each thing "s a thief. Here Shakespeare handled in his own manner a famous Anacreontic ode in its French form. The Greek verse draws a natural justification for drinking from the fact that heavenly and earthly bodies reciprocally seek liquid sustenance. The fancy was thoroughly acclimatized by the Renaissance in France, and the Anacreontic poem was popular in independent versions of Ronsard and Remy Belleau. Ronsard's version opens thus : La terre les eaux va boivant, L'arbre la boit par sa racine, La mer eparse boit le vent, Ft le soleil boit la marine; Le soleil est beu de la lune : Tout boit, soit en haut ou en bas.' ' (Eiivres, ed. Blanchemain, ii. 286. RONSARD'S VENUS AND ADONIS 221 Shakespeare invests the suq;g-cstion of the reciprocal relations of sun, moon, and ocean with a poetic luxuriance which was peculiar to his genius. There is a new purpose in Shakespeare's use of the imagery. But as soon as the French and h^nglish lines are studied side by side their kinship becomes unmistakable. The study of Ovid, chiefly in Golding's translation, is a main source of Elizabethan knowledge of classical mythology. But contemporary French feeling would seem to have largely stimulated the classical sympathies of the Elizabethan lyrists, and their mythological touches constantly pursue distinctive hints of the Pleiade. It does not seem to have been noticed that, in the year of Shakespeare's birth, Ronsard anticipated Shakespeare's poetic version of the Ovidian story of Venus and Adonis. The evidence of literal borrowing on Shake- speare's part from Ronsards poem on the subject may not go far. Ronsard's Verms and Adonis has a more pro- nounced mythological setting than Shakespeare's work.^ Yet Shakespeare's descriptive imagery is often of Ronsardian temper. When Shakespeare's goddess tells how she con- quered the god of war, ' leading him prisoner in a red rose chain,' the F^nglish poet echoes a familiar line in one of Ronsard's Anacreontics." In the pathetic appeal to Adonis's hounds and to Echo, which Shakespeare sets on Venus's lips, he seems to follow Ronsards guidance. The fact at any rate that the ' first heir ' of Shakespeare's invention should concern itself with one of Ronsard's themes, and should bear resemblance to Ronsard's treatment, suggests an imaginative bond which might well develop closer relationship later.-^ ' There are signs that both the French and English poet had made some independent study of eadier poetic versions of the fable in Italian. ^ Cf. Ronsard's Q£uvrcs (ed. Blanchemain, ii. 285) — Les Muses licrent un jour De chaines de roses Amour. Ronsard's poem was universally popular, and had already been cited (in 1582) by Watson as the source of his ' Passion ', Lxxxill. * In Ronsard's poem Mars's jealous anger leads the God of War to seek Diana's aid, and it is the divine huntress who contrives Adonis's death by means of the boar. With beautiful etitect Ronsard again and again repeats with slight modification this refrain : 222 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Perhaps the most remarkable of all instances of identity of flincy between Ronsard and the great English dramatist finds illustration in a classical outburst of wonderful energy in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (iv. xii. 50-4). In that great tragedy, which shows vShakespeare's power at its zenith, Antony, on hearing the false report of Cleopatra's /death, exclaims in an ecstasy of poetry, of which Plutarch gives no hint, that he will be her companion in Hades : I come, my queen ! Stay for me ; Where souls do conch on floivers, we'll hand in hand, And w^ith our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze: Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops, And all the haunt be ours. Nowhere does Shakespeare strike quite so vividly Ronsard's precise note. In his impassioned Chanson III the French poet had already greeted his mistress Helene in the identical key. Together he and his beloved Helene, Ronsard declares, will pass to the Elysian fields : La, morts de trop aimer, sous les branches myrtines Nous verrons tous les jours Les anciens Heros aupres des Hero'ines Ne parler que d'amours.^ All the divine ' troop ' of past lovers (' la troupe sainte autre- fois amoureuse') will come to offer greeting, and none will refuse to quit their seats for the new comers, who will ' couch on flowers ' in midst of all : Ny celles qui s'en vont toutes tristes ensemble, Artemise et Dido7i: Ny ceste belle Grecque a qui ta beaute semble, Comme tu fais de nom.- Helas, pauvre Adonis, tous les Amours te pleurent, Toi mourant par ta mort, toutes deliccs meurent. Ronsard's poem closes in a key which echoes, with a delightful freshness, Pespritgaulois. He slyly mentions at the end that the goddess of love, despite her wailing, soon set her heart on the Phrygian shepherd Anchises. The French poet takes leave of the theme with a reflection that women's love, like April flowers, only lives a day. Shakespeare is more loyal to the sentiment of the myth. 1 QLiivres, ed. lilanchemain, i. 383. - Konsard is addressmg a lady named after Helen, the fair Greek. THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS 223 Puis, nous fais ant asseoir dessns r/icrbe flciirie, De toutes au milieu, Nulle en se retirant ne sera point marrie^ De nous (juitter son lieu. Shakespeare in his maturity was at any rate faithful to the classical sentiment which animated the poetry of the French Renaissance. No comparative student can ignore the resemblance, what- ever the precise deduction to be drawn from it, between the buoyant notes with which both Pleiade and Elizabethan schools of lyric poetry greeted the months of April and May and the floral pageantry of spring and summer. Chaucer had caught something of the same exuberance, in part at least from French lyres, more than two centuries before. But the fresh delight of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the painted meadows and in the brilliant colours of bud and blossom seems to proclaim another mark of afFmity with Ronsard and his disciples. A hundred lines or stanzas could be quoted from the French poets in terms such as these : Avril, I'honneur des pres verts, Jaunes, pers (/. e. aznre)^ Qui d'une humeur bigarree Emaillent de mille fleurs De couleurs Leur parure diapree.- It was of ' ce mois Avril ' that Ronsard wrote — • II peint les bois, les forets et les plaines ^ with rainbow hues — le bel esmail qui varie L'honneur gemme d'une prairie En mille lustres s'esclatant.'* Shakespeare also likened ' flowers purple, blue, and white ' 1 This is Ronsard's final reading. The line read originally 'Nulle, et fi'it-cc Pfocris, ne sera point marrie' [i.e. grieved or offended]. '•^ Belleau, CEuvics, ed. Gouverneur, ii. 43. ^ Ronsard, CEuvns^ i. 132. ■* ibid., ii. 342. 224 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC to ' sapphires, pearls, and rich embroidery ' {Merry Wives, V. V. 75), and graphically presented spring as the season- When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue ^ Do paint the meadows with delight. Loves Labour's Lost, V. ii. 902-5. There is moreover no spring flower to which the two schools denied much the same poetic honours. Not only the rose, the lily, and the daisy {de Mars la blanche fleurette), but the violet, the pansy, the gilliflower, hawthorn, eglantine, thyme, and above all the marigold repeatedly receive the poets' joint homage. The language of flowers which was current in the Pleiade school closely resembles that of the Elizabethans. At the very opening of the Elizabethan movement Spenser developed to pleasant effect a floral inventory which is distinctly of Ronsardian affinity. In a ditty in his Shepheards Calender ( Aegloga IV, April), where he adapts both the style and metre of the Pleiade, vSpenser wrote — Bring hither the pink and purple columbine With gelliflowers : Bring coronations (i. e. carnations) and sops-in-wine. Worn of paramours : Strew me the ground with daffadowndillies. With cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies. \ The pretty paunce ^ And the chevisaunce Shall watch with the fair fleur de lice.^ With Spenser's catalogue it is worth comparing the following strophes, which pay tribute in the like strain to most of vSpenser's flowers : — Les uns chanteront les ceillets Vermeillets, Ou du lis la fleur argentee Ou celle qui s'est par les prez Diaprez Du sang des princes enfantee.^ ^ Cowslips were known in France as ' brayes de cocii '. "^ Spenser has no warrant for using the old French word ' chevisaunce ' to designate a flower. In French it means ' a mercantile transaction '. ^ Ronsard, CEiivres^ ed. Blancheniain, ii, 430. RONSARD AND THE MARIGOLD 22s L'aubepin et I'eglantin ]{t le thym, L'ceillet, le lis et les roses, En cette belle saison, A foison, Montrent leiirs robes ecloses.^ Many of the specific fancies with which the Elizabethans played in their allusions to particular flowers belong- to domestic folklore. But others are drawn from the classical imagery which was more efficiently naturalized in France than anywhere else. Some of the most delicate songs of the French' Renaissance celebrate the charm of the marigold. Ronsard in an Ovidian strain depicted the flower as a tearful lover of the sun, which drooped its head in pallor and dismay at sunset, and opened its eyes to welcome sunrise. In one long poem which he wrote in 1573 and called by the flower's name (Le Souci du jardin) Ronsard develops the conceit, addressing the marigold thus (CEuz'res, vi, p. 1 11) : Quand le soleil, ton amoureux, s'abaisse Dedans le sein de Tethys son hostesse, Allant revoir le pere de la mer, On voit ton chef se clorre et se fermer Palle, defait ; mais quand sa tresse blonde De longs cheveux s'esparpille sur I'onde Se reveillant, tu t eveilles joyeux, Et pour le voir tu dessiles tes yeux, Et sa clarte est seule ton envie, Un seul soleil te donnant mort et vie."- 1 Belleau, (Eicvres, ed. Gouverneur, ii. 44. Cf. Shakespeare's Mid- sitDinier Night's Dream, 11. i. 249-52 : I know a bank whereon the wild ihyjiie blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-;-^j-^j, and with eglantine. - Cf. Ronsard's Amours, I. cciv, and also CEuvres, vi, p. 2,2,2,, where the poet likens himself to a marigold : En mesme temps me fust avis aussi Que j'estois tleur qu'on nomme du soucy, Qui meurt et pend sa teste languissante Quand elle n'est plus du soleil jouissante ; Alais aussi tost que I'Aurore vermeille Hors de la mer la lumiere reveille, Elle renaist, sa vie mesurant Au seul regard d'un beau soleil durant. LEE Q 226 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN FXIZABETHAN LYRIC A very modest follower of the French master, Gilles Durant, expressed the same fancy in an apostrophe to the marigold of more touching simplicity : Toujours ta face languissante Aux raiz de son oeil s'epanit, Et, des que sa clairte s'absente, Soudain ta beaute se fanit.^ In similar strain Shakespeare wrote of — The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun, And with him rises weeping. [JVint. Ta/e^\N.m. 105-6.) and how at dawn — winking mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes. {Cymb. ^ll. \n. i6-'j.) The turns of phrase differ in France and England, but the conceits are almost identical. The lyric play of amorous fancy constantly runs in a mould which, whatever its ultimate origin, was reckoned by Eliza- bethans among French types. Elizabethan poets were wont to speculate interrogatively on the origin of love, and all seem to ring variations on a famous sonnet of Desportes {Diane^ I. xxxvii, ed. Michiels, p. 28) : Amour, quand fus-tu ne .'' Ce fut lors que la terre S'emaille de couleurs et les bois de verdeur. De qui fus-tu con9eu .'* D'une puissante ardeur Qu'oisivete lascive en soy-mesmes enserre. . . . De qui fus-tu nourry ? D'une douce beaute, Qui eut pour la servir jeunesse et vanite. De quoy te repais-tu } Dune belle lumiere.^ ^ Desportes adapts an Italian sonnet by Pamphilo Sasso, which was pubhshed as early as 1 5 19 at Venice. Sasso's sonnet opens : ' Quando nascesti, amor ? qiiando la terra Si reuesti de uerde : e bel colore Dhe che sei generato ? dun ardore Che occio lasciuo in se rachiuda : ' iSic. Before Desportes' time Sasso's poem was independently turned into Latin by the Scotsman, George Buchanan, while domiciled in France. Ouis puer ales? Amor. Genitor quis? Blandus ocelli Ardor. Quo natus tempore? Vere novo. Quis locus excepit ? Generosi pectoris aula. Quae nutrix ? Primo flore iuventa decens. (Cf. Un mfldt'le de Dcspoytes non sij^nale ejuore : Pamphilo Sasso, par MM. \'aganay, et Vianey, Paris, 1903.) 'ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE' 227 To like effect runs the Ivirl of Oxford's popular ditty : When wert thou born, Desire ? In pomp and prime of May. By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot ? By fond Conceit, men say. Shakespeare's Tell me, where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head ? is in a kindred key. Shakespeare's ' fancy ' is ' love'. There are indeed few lyrical topics to which the French and English writers failed to apply on some occasion or other much the same language. Juliet admonishes Romeo not to swear by the moon : O ! swear not by the moon, the iiiconsiaiit inoon^ Swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, (11. ii. 109 sq.) Some twenty years before, Ronsard had given a like warning to his mistress Helene (Livre II, vSonnet xv) : Je ne veux comparer tes beautes a la lune. La lime est incojistante^ et ton vouloir n'est qu'un ; . . . Tu es toute ton Dieu, ton astre et ta fortune. In a detached poem w^hich Ronsard wrote before 1567 as epilogue of a dramatic performance at the royal palace of Fontainebleau, he played effectively on a classical figure, and gave it a new vogue {CEzivres, iv. 184) : Le Monde est le theatre, et les hommes acteurs ; La Fortune, qui est maistresse de la Sceine, Appreste les habits, et de la vie humaine Les Cieux et les Destins en sont les spectateurs. En gestes differens, en differens langages, Roy, Princes et Bergers jouent leurs personnages Devant les yeux de tous, sur I'eschafaut commun. The famous dialogue on the like theme in which the banished Duke and the melancholy Jaques engage in Shakespeare's As You Like Lt, 11. vii. 137 segf.^ opens on Ronsard's note : Dtike. This wide and universal theatre Presents more woful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in. faq. All the world 's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. 228 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Jean Bertaut, one of the youngest of Ronsard's disciples, penned at the extreme end of the sixteenth century a poem of which the first stanza runs thus : — On ne se souvient que du mal, L'ingratitude regne au monde : / 'injure se grave en metal, Et le bieji-faii s'escrit en fonde. Bertaut, CEtivres^ ed, Cheneviere, Paris, 1 89 1, p. 365. The last two lines are barely distinguishable from the familiar words in Henry VIII (IV. ii. 45-6) : Men's evil manners live in brass ; their virtues We write in water. / Rather more characteristic of the temper of the Pleiade is Lorenzo's beautiful eulogy of music \n\}\Q. Merchant of Venice^ V. i. 70 seq. All the French poets paid similar tribute to the power of music. Ronsard more than once, alike in prose and in verse, affirmed that a fit appreciation of music was the true test of a good character, while want of appreciation was proof of vicious feeling. ' Celuy,' Ronsard wrote, ' lequel oyant un doux accord d'instrumens ou la douceur de la voyx naturelle, ne s'en resjouist point, ne s'en esmeut point, et de teste en pieds n'en tressault point, comme doucement ravy, et si ne S9ay comment derobe hors de soy ; c'est signe qu'il a I'ame tortue, vicieuse, et depravee, et du quel il se faut donner garde, comme de celuy qui n'est point heureusement ne,' ^ ^ The passage continues thus; — 'Comment se pourroit-on accorder avec un homme qui de son naturel hayt les accords ? Celuy n'est digne de voyr la douce lumiere du soleil, qui ne fait honneur a la Musique, comme petite partie de celle, qui si armonieusement (comme dit Platon) agitte tout ce grand univers. Au contraire celuy qui lui porta honneur et reverence est ordinairement homme de bien, il a Tame saine et gaillarde, et de son naturel ayme les choses haultes, la phi- losophic, le maniment des affaires politicques, le travail des guerres, et bref en tous offices honorables il fait tousjours apparoistre les estincelles de sa vertu.' {CEuvres, ed. Blanchemain, 1866, vii, pp. 337-8.) The passage comes from a 'Preface sur la Musique' by Ronsard to a book called ' Melanges de cent quarante-huit Chansons tant de vieux auteurs que demodernes, k cinq, six, sept et huit parties, avec une preface de P. de Ronsard' (Paris, Ad. Leroy et Rob. Ballard, 1572, 4to). It is worth noting that the modern French writer Romain Rolland in Jean POETIC GREETING vS OE THE DAWN 229 Shakespeare only slightly varies the language when he repeats the Ronsardian sentiment in the familiar lines — The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Merck, of Venice, V. i. 83-7. vShakespeare's ' concord of sweet sounds ' is Ronsard's ' accord de doux sons '. Ronsard's ' L ame tortue, vicieuse, et depravee ' adumbrates Shakespeare's ' motions ' of ' spirit ', ' which is fit for treasons.' Aubades were peculiarly characteristic of Erench lyric effort. Hundreds of French songs ring variations on Ronsard's lines {(EiLvres, i. 164) : Mignonne, levez vous, vous estes paresseuse ; Ja la gaye alouette au ciel a fredonne, . . . Sus! debout! allons voir I'herbelette perleuse, Et votre beau rosier de boutons couronne, Et vos oeillets mignons ausquels aviez donne Hier au soir de Teau d'une main si soigneuse. Almost daily was the dawn saluted thus (Ronsard, CEtivres., vi.364): . lo, que je voy de roses Ja decloses Par rOrient flamboyant : A voir des nlies diverses 1 Les traverses Voicy le jour ondoyant. \''oicy TAube safranee Qui ja nee Couvre d 'oeillets et de fleurs Le Ciel qui le jour desserre, Et la terre De rosees et de pleurs. Debout doncq', Aube sacree. . . . Christophe a Paris, Dans la Maison, 1909, p. 179, makes a character (Arnaud) quote the sentences of Ronsard i^iven in our text. The quotation is followed by this conversation: 'Je connais cela, dit Christophe : c'est de nion ami Shakespeare. — Non, dit Arnaud doucement, c'est d"un Fran- (^ais qui vivait avant lui, c'est de notre Ronsard.' 230 FRb:NCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Shakespeare seems to have subtihzed the essence — melody and sentiment together— of this bhthe form of French song with its Anacreontic lilt, in such a glorified ebullition as this : Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise His steeds to water at those springs On chalic'd flowers that lies ; And winking mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes : With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise ; Arise, arise ! Shakespeare's original genius worked here in all its fresh- ness. Yet there is hardly a syllable in Shakespeare's far-famed greeting of the dawn which cannot be independently matched in the verse of the Pleiade. The song of the lark at heaven's gate, the mythological touch about the watering of Phoebus's steeds, the marigold's or mary-buds' welcome of the sun, the drops of dew in the cups of flowers, the enveloping air of sweetness and light, all breathes a note more charac- teristic of a French than of an English atmosphere. Differences of expression might be consistent with accidental coincidences, were the poem considered in isolation. Rut the circumstances of environment offer powerful hint of nearer kinship. Thus far, I have dealt with assimilation of French suggestion in I^lizabethan lyric verse (outside the scope of the sonnet). But the situation cannot be fully appreciated without some examination of the many short poems of lyric character, which, in spite of tacit avowals of originality, belong to the category of literal translation from the French, The Elizabethan sonnet offers a rich harvest in this branch of comparative study ; it is other forms of verse which are at present under survey. The poet Lodge is the chief worker in the literal manner of conveyance. But he does not stand alone. Samuel Daniel laboured in the same medium, and a writer of the learning of George Chapman is a third conspicuous practitioner in this misty field of literary labour, while Drummond of Hawthornden, whose l^lizabethan affinities are unquestioned, is a brilliant member of the plagiarizing brother- CHAPMAN S RENDERING OF DURANT 231 hood. The serious Chapman's activity in this branch of effort is as notable as any. In one of Chapman's earliest volumes entitled Ovid" s Banquet of Scnce there figures a poem in thirty six-line stanzas entitled The Aviorous Zodiacke. It is a pedantic love-poem portraying celestial influences on phases of the poet's passion. Although Chapman gives no hint of his indebtedness, no word of his text is original. Throughout, he is anglicizing a French poem with the same title and in the same metre by Gilles Durant. Durant calls his mistress Charlotte ; Chapman preserves her anonymity by calling her ' gracious Love '. There is hardly any other change. Durant, a lyrist who showed elsewhere no mean grace or facility, published this rather clumsy piece in Paris in 1588, only seven years before Chapman printed his version in London in 1595. The latters method may be gauged by citation of the concluding stanza in the two languages ^ : GiLLES Durant. Chapman. Charlote, si le del ialoux de mon But, gracious Love, if jealous heaven enuie deny Par si beau changement ne veut INIy life this truly-blest variety, heurer ma vie, Yet will 1 thee through all the Tu ne lairras pourtant de luyre world disperse ; h I'univers ; If not in heaven, amongst those Sinon dedans le Ciel entre les braving tires, feux celestes. Yet here thy beauties (which the Pour le moins icy bas tes beautez world admires) manifestes Bright as those flames shall Comme les feux du Ciel luiront glister in my verse, dedans mes vers. Lodge's activities in the like direction are, as far as his French debt is concerned, more varied. D^sportes is his chief 1 quarry.'- But Ronsard and Baif lie within the scope of his raids. At times he puts his lyric gifts to effective purpose, even in the process of transference. The following English stanza is a manifest improvement on Desportes' original : — ^ Both poems are printed at length in Appendix II. 2 In his Romattce of Rosalvnd, Lodge places a song in the French language in the mouth of his shepherd Montanus, and gives no hint that it is other than his own composition. It is a 'chanson' literally tran- scribed from the first book of Desportes' Amours de Diane (ed. Michiels, p. 30) : ' Helas ! tyran plein de rigueur ', (X:c. 232 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Desportes. Diane, II. xviii (ed. Michiels, p. no). On verra defaillir tous les astrcs aux cieux, Les poissons ^ la mer, le sable k son rivage, All soleil des rayons bannisseurs de I'ombrage, La verdure et les fleurs au prin- temps gracieux : Plutot que la fureur des rapports envieux Efface en mon esprit un trait de votre image. L0D(;e, Verses from Rosalynde, 1590 (1819 ed., p. 80). First shall the heavens want starry light, The seas be robbed of their waves ; The day want sun, and sun want bright, The night want shade, the dead men graves ; The April flowers and leaf and tree, Before I false my faith to thee.' Yet often Lodge refrains from adding anything to his French ybriginal. Thus, he turns two famous sonnets by Desportes — (one on a hermit's life and the other of Love's shipwreck — into Enghsh songs without substantial change of thought or word.^ Desportes, Diane, II. viii (ed. Michiels, p. 71). Je me veux rendre hermite et faire penitence De I'erreur de mes yeux pleins de temeriie, Dressant mon hermitage en un lieu deserte, Dont nul autre qu'amour n'aura la connaissance. Lodge, Scillaes Metamorphosis, 1589 (i8l9ed., p. 59). I will become a hermit now, And do my penance straight For all the errors of mine eyes With foolish rashness filled. My hermitage shall placed be Where melancholy's weight And none but love alone shall know The bower I mean to build. Diane I. xviii (ed. Michiels, p. 40). Ma nef passe au destroit d'une mer courrouc^e, Toute comble d'oubly, I'hiver k la minuict ; Un aveugle, un enfant, sans souci la conduit, Desireux de la voir sous les eaux renversee. Verses from Rosalynde, 1590 (181 9 ed., pT'102). My boat doth pass the straits Of seas incensed with fire, Filled with forgetfulness, Amid the winter's night ; A blind and careless boy, Brought up by fond desire. Doth guide me in the sea Of sorrow and despite. Again, Desportes' greeting of Spring is handled by Lodge after the same fashion : ' Only the first stanzas of the poems are given here. The whole appears in P'rench and English in Appendix 1. LODGE'S UNAVOWED TRANSLATIONS 233 Desportes (ed. Micliiels, p. 84). La terre, nagiieres glacee, Est ores do vert tapissee, Son sein est embelly de fieurs, L'air est cncor amoureux d'elle, Le ciel rit de la voir si belle, Et moy j'en augmente mes pleiirs. Loi OE, 1589 (181 9 cd., p. 63). The earth late choked with showers, Is now arrayed in green: Her bosom springs with flowers; The air dissolves her teen ; The heavens laugh at her glory, Yet bide I sad and sorry.' ^ Probably the most notable of Lodge's work in this branch of effort is a long poem in fifteen stanzas on the joys of a simple life. Here Desportes' original is far more deftly turned than Lodge's barefaced plagiarism. The following stanza in the two versions is characteristic of the whole: — Desportes (ed. Michiels, p. 432). Dans les palais enflez de vaine pompe L'ambition, la faveur qui nous trompe, Et les soucys logent commune- ment ; Dedans nos champs se retirent les fees, Koines des bois a tresses decoif- i6es, Les jeux, I'amour et le contente- ment. Lodge (1819 ed., p. 44). Amidst the palace brave pufYed up with wanton shows Ambitions dwell, and there false favours find disguise, There lodge consuming cares that hatch our common woes; Amidst our painted fields the pleasant Fairy lies, And all those powers divine, that with untrussed tresses, Contentment, happy love, and perfect sport professes. ' Untrussed tresses ' is hardly a felicitous version of ' tresses decoiffees '. No variation of Lodge's dependent method is discernible in his treatment of Ronsard's shorter poems. Ronsard's song of the swallow is rendered with very inadequate acknow- ledgement by Lodge thus : RoNSARD, Odt's, V. XX (1553J ; CEuvfrs, ii, p. 358. Si tost que tu sens arriver La froide saison de I'hyver, En septembre, chere arondelle, Tu t'en-voles bien loin de nous ; Puis tu reviens, quand le temps doux Au mois d'Avril se renouvellc. Lodge, WilUam Longbcard, 1 593. ' Imitation of a Sonnet in an ancient French poet' (i8i9ed.,p. 114). As soon as thou dost see the winter clad in cold. Within September on the eaves in sundry forms to fold, Sweet swallow, far thou fliest, till to our native clime In pleasant April Phoebus' rays return the sweeter time. ' See A. H. Bullen, Lyrics from EUz.ibcthan Romance's, 1890, pp. vii-ix. 234 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC The precise extent to which Lodg^e's and Chapman's mode of literal transference spread in Elizabethan literature cannot be determined till all the voluminous poetry of Italy as well as of France has been thoroughly ransacked. Almost infinite time must be devoted to a searching comparison before the full truth will be known. The vogue which the practice enjoyed among the Eliza- bethans stoutly maintained its hold in the next generation. Early in the seventeenth century, Wilham Drummond of Hawthornden, the Scottish poet whose lyric genius seems steeped in Elizabethan tradition, bore exceptionally convincing testimony to the persistence of the Elizabethan habit of secret borrowing from contemporary French verse. Very often do Drummond's lyrics appear to echo the genuine Elizabethan strain, and very curious is it to learn that the affinity usually comes of almost direct translation from the French. Drum- mond's debts to the poets of the Pleiade and to Desportes are conspicuous ; but more worthy of notice is his dependence on less famous French poets whose activities were strictly con- temporary with his own. Of these Jean Passerat has habitu- ally perhaps the lightest touch and best lyric faculty. A chanson by him in the form of a dialogue between La Pastourelle and Le Pastoureau was turned by Drummond into a lyric idyll which seems to present almost all the essential features of Elizabethan song. The two poems should be closely compared. The opening and closing lines run thus in French and Enoflish ; r,,c-c-^r..^ r D ■ zr ■ DRUMMOND OF HaWTHORNDEN, Passerat LesPoes,es Franqaises p^^ ^^-^ ^^^^^^ j^^^^^^^^^^ (ed. Blanchemain, i. 141). (p^^.^g^ /d. W. C. Ward, ii. 159). La Pastoitrelle. Pastoureau, m'ai- rhyllis. Shepherd, dost thou love mes-tu bien ? me well ? Le Pastoureau. Je t'aime, Dieu Damon. Better than weak words sgait combien. can tell. La P. Comme quoi .' Ph. Like to what, good shepherd, say Le P. Comme toi, Da. Like to thee, fair, cruel may, Ma rebel le Pastourelle. PASSERAT AND DRUMMOND 235 /'//. O liow strange these words I find! Yet, to satisfy my mind, Shepherdjwithout mocking me, Have I any love for thee, Like to what, good shepherd, say ? Dn. Like to thee, fair, cruel may. Ph. Iktter answer had it been To say thou lov'd me as thine eyne. Da. Woe is me, these I love not, For by them love entrance got, At that time they did behold Thy sweet face and locks of gold . . . Ph. Like to what, good shepherd, say ? Da. Like to thee, fair, cruel may. Ph. Leave, I pray, this ' Like to thee ', And say, 1 love as I do me. Da. Alas ! I do not love myself, For I'm split on beauty's shelf. Ph. Like to what, good shepherd, say ? Da. Like to thee, fair, cruel may.^ La P. En rien no m'a contcnlc Ce propos trop affcttc, Pastoureau, sans moqucrie M'aimes-tu? di, jc tc pric. Comme quoi ? Lc P. Comme toi, Ma rebelle Pastourelle. La P. Tu m'eusses repondu mieus, Je t'aime comme mes yeux. L.e P. Trop de haine je leur portc : Car ils ont ouvert la porte Aus peines que j'ay receu, Des lors que je t'appcr9eu : Ouand ma liberte fut prise De ton ceil qui me mais- trise . . . La P. Comme quoi ? Lc P. Comme toi. Ma rebelle Pastourelle. La P. Laisse la ce ' Comme toi ' : Di, jc t'aime comme moi. Le P. Je ne m'aime pas moy- mesmes. Di moi doncques, si tu m'aimes L^a P. Comme quoi ? Le P. Comme toi. Ma rebelle Pastourelle. In all probability French poetry was put by the Elizabethan lyrists under heavier contribution than the Italian, but the exact ratio is yet to be ascertained. The poet Daiiiel laid impartial hands on contemporary verse of both countries. Drummond was no less liberal or catholic in his concealed / translation of foreign verse. By way of evidence that the/ contemporary mode of appropriating Italian poetry was| indistinguishable from that which was applied to French; poetry, extracts may be cited from Daniel's melodious odej 1 This discovery of Drummond's indebtedness is one of the many debts that students owe to Prof. Kastncr. (See his ' Drummond of Hawthorn- den and the French Poets of the Sixteenth Century' in The Modern La7igtiage Revieiv^ vol. v, No. i, January, 1910, p. 49.) 236 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC (on the Golden Age) which hterally translates without any acknowledgement the metre and words of a lyric chorus in y Tasso's pastoral play oi A mint a. Tasso, Aminta, Atto I. Sc, 2 (last chorus). O bella et<\ de I'oro, Non gik perch^ di latte Sen' corse il fiume, e stillo mele il bosco, Non perch e i frutti loro Dier da 1' aratro intatte Le terre, e gli angui errar senz' ira, o tosco, Non perche nuuol fosco Non spiego allhor suo velo, Ma, in Primavera eterna C hora s'accende, e verna, Rise di luce, e di sereno il Cielo Ne porto peregrino O guerra, o merce, a gli altrui Jidi il pino. Amiam, che '1 Sol si muove, et poi renasce. A noi sua breve luce S'asconde, e '1 sonno etei'na notte adduce. DANIEL,^D^//a. O happy golden age ! Not for that Rivers ran With streams of milk, and Honey dropt from Trees ; Not that the earth did gage Unto the Husbandman Her voluntary fruits, free without Fees, Not for no cold did freeze, Nor any cloud beguile The eternal flowering Spring, Wherein lived every thing ; And whereon th' heavens petually did smile ; Not for no ship had brought From foreign shores or wars or wares ill sought. Let's love— the sua doth set and rise again, But when as our short Light Comes once to set, it makes Eternal night. per- IX The Metrical Debt of the Elizabethan Lyric other than the soxnet In an inquiry into the relation of the Elizabethan lyric or short poem with the work of the Pleiade, form and sentiment, thought and style, metre and vocabulary, all come within the limits of the survey.^ The significance of the metrical debt may be at the outset inferred from the circumstance that the technical terms of the lyric art, although of Greek origin, reached the Elizabethans directly from France. The word ' lyric ' itself, like ' ode ' and ' hymn ' (in its original secular sense), is an Fllizabethan loan from the French, and was unknown to England at any Detailed notice of the sonnet is postponed to section XII infra. THE ENGLISH RATTLE OF THE METRES 237 earlier epoch. The same story is to be told of the word ' sonnet ', Althouoh of Italian oriench onomatopoeic rendering of the lark's note, to which Ronsard first gave a general vogue in his splendid ode, UAloueite : Tu dis en I'air de si doux sons Composez de ta tirelirc^ Qu'il n'est amant qui ne desire, \ T'oyant chatiter au renouveau, Comme toy devenir oyseau.' But the vocabulary of the F^lizabethan poets owes to the Pleiade a more impressive debt than scattered words and phrases. A novel principle of word-composition was bor- rowed from France. Of none of his innovations was Ronsard prouder than of his introduction into French poetry of compound words or double epithets. His fancy was caught in youth by the compound epithets of Homer, and he framed ! the rule that a poet should freely invent and employ such formations provided that they could be made graceful and pleasant to the ear. Ronsard quickly learnt the trick ^ QLuvrcs, ed. Blanchemain, vi. 348. Du Bartas, after his wont, , bombastically exaggerated Ronsard's identification of the word ' tire-lire ' ! with the lark : cf. La gentille Alouette avec son tire-lire \ Tire I'ire a Tire ; et tire-lirant tire Vers la voute du ciel ; puis son vol vers ce lieu Vire, et desire dire, 'adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu.' Semaifie I—Cinquiesvie jour {^^. 1615),. p. 1 24. 'Tire-lire' is rarely found in English, although Thomas Mufifet in his Silkworms and their flies (1599) absurdly calls larks, after Du Bartas's manner, ' tyry-tyry-leerers.' In the lines — the lark whose notes do beat The 7'aulty heaven so high above our heads. {Romeo and Juliet, III. v. 21-2.) Shakespeare comes near Du Bartas's ' L'alouette tirelirant vers la voute du ciel\ but here the English poet ignores the bird's 'tire-lire'. 246 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC and taught it far and wide. Occasionally but rarely in old French, double words were used figuratively as proper nouns, chiefly in comic verse or in satiric prose, like our own ' Chicken-heart ' or ' Hot-spur '. But the practice was rare, and was unrecognized in serious literature. Ronsard pro- ceeded on different lines. He was the first modern European writer to create adjectives and epithets out of combinations of two separate words which were often different parts of .speech, and he claimed that his 'vocables composez' sufficiently differed from any antique pattern to secure for them the credit of originality. Examples abound : To gold he applies such epithets as chasse-peine (trouble-chasing), donne-vie (life- giving), osic-soiii (care dispersing). The sea he describes as einbrace-teri-e (earth -embracing), A mistress is distinguished j as aiine-joie(jpy-\m\x\^ ; or humble-Jiere (humble in pride) ; Jove 2iS darde-toimerre (thunder-darting); Love as doux-auier (bitter-sweet). Ronsard's ' vocables composez ' are to be reckoned by hundreds, and follow any number of systems. Now he joins together two nouns, now two adjectives, elsewhere a verb and a noun or a noun and an adjective. He is extremely fond of prefacing substantives with the verbs aiine-^porte-^ and garde-. As many as 125 of the second formation and 50 of the first and third have been catalogued. Adverbial prefixes, bieii-^ iiial-^ iion-^ deini-^ or toiit-y are even more common. The practice was accepted loyally and eagerly by Ronsard's disciples, and some greatly extended its use. In Du Bartas's religious poem oi La Seniaine these compound epithets are to be counted l)y the gross, and descend to grotesque extravagances. The compound epithet came to be recognized in France as a peculiar badge of the Fleiade and a chief element in its reform of poetic speech, but there were early signs that the method of word- formation was capable of abuse. When in 1579 jthe affectations of the school were submitted to fierce criticism on patriotic grounds by Henri Etienne, in La j Precellence du laiigage _fraiicois, he bitterly complains of 1 the excess to which the new process of epithet-making had THE COMPOUND EPITHET 247 been carried. Etienne regarded the practice, when worked with discretion and moderation, as an ornament to the lan- guage. ' Hut,' said I'.tienne, quoting an old Greek proverb, ' Ronsard and his friends had sown with the sack and not with the hand.' ^ The vogue soon spread to England, The compound epithet is one of the most conspicuous gifts which the lyric effort of the Pleiade made to the vocabulary of Elizabethan poetry. Nothing resembling it is found in l^^nglish literature of an earlier date, and on its arrival in Elizabethan England it was greeted as a stranger from Erance. The satirist Joseph Hall noticed how vSir Philip Sidney, who liberally assimilated Ronsardian as well as Petrarchan thought and expression, 'drew new elegance from France.' Hall specified the English poet's habit ' in epithets to join two words in one ' as the chief French de- vice of his adoption. Hall sagaciously deprecates exaggera- tion of the habit, which is readily marred by excess of liberty '.- Nashe similarly made it a chief reproach against the English tongue that of all languages it most ' swarmeth with the single money of monosyllables '. Nashe argued that the ■ defect could only be remedied by the admission of ' com- | pound words ' from abroad. The Pleiade furnished Shake- ' speare's contemporaries with the chief remedy for cure of monosyllabic tendencies, and they availed themselves freely of the French corrective. Sidney may claim the honour of first introducing the English reader to Ronsard's ' vocables composez '. In his ' La Prccellcnce, ed. Edmond Huguet, 1896, p. 163. •^ Hall's Satires, vi. 255 (of the modish Elizabethan poet). He knows the grace of that new elegance Which sweet Philisidcs fetch'd of late from France, That well beseem'd his high- styled Arcady, Though others mar it with much liberty, j In epithets to join two words in one Forsooth, for adjectives cannot stand alone : As a great poet could of Bacchus say That he was Semele-femori-gena. The double epithet was unknown to Lyly, whose Euphues introduced many other affectations into English, and, although he is sometimes loosely credited with the innovation of the compound epithet, he shows no knowledge of it. Sidney is the pioneer without question. 248 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC sonnets to vStella many epithets are found on such models as : love-acquainted (eyes) ; sour-breathed (mate) ; past - praise (hue) ; and rose-enamelled (skies). The Arcadia is only a little less liberally sprinkled with like ornaments. In his Apologie for Poetrie, Sidney strongly urged ' compositions of two or three words together ', and described the fashion as ' one of the greatest beauties there can be in a language '. At his bidding the French practice rapidly spread in Elizabethan poetry. It is met with in vSpenser' s sonnets, and in the Faerie Queeiie. ' Storm-beaten ' and ' heart-piercing ' are two of many compounds of Spenser's invention which have passed into common speech. Among the poet Daniel's contri- butions to the long list of Elizabethan ' vocables composez ' is the far-famed epithet ' care-charmer ', which he first applied to sleep. There the English poet directly translates the French ' chasse-soin ' or ' chasse-souci ' — epithets which Pleiade sonne- teers repeatedly linked with ' sommeil '. The like use by Greek poets of the word Xvainopos suggests the ultimate source of French inspiration, but Daniel, loyal to the custom of his age, was content to take the gift direct from his French neighbours. The highest historic interest which attaches to this Ron- (' sardian device lies in Shakespeare's liberal adaptation of it to purposes of both lyric and dramatic verse. Every reader of Shakespeare's text will recall the frequency of double epithets which, in the best original editions, are, as in the French books, carefully hyphened by the printer, ^^ery familiar are such examples as (our) past-cure (malady) ; (my) furnace-burning (heart) ; honey-heavy (dew^) ; giant-rude ; fancy-free ; marble- constant. These compounds are typical of a hundred others. Occasionally Shakespeare somewhat betters Ronsard's instruc- / tion, and constructs an epithet out of three w^ords instead of '. two, as in 'a wor/d-Tu/^/io n^- end bargain' , 'the a Iw ays -ivii id- obeying deep '. But the scheme never far departs from the lines laid down by the Pleiade. Like Henri Etienne, Shake- - speare perceived the vice of excess in the usage, and \n Love's Labour 's Lost he ridicules its exaggeration.^ But his practical ' Arinado's stilted letter to the king (I. i. 219 seq.) contains the ten fol- lowing compound epithets: sable-coloured, black-oppressing, health-giving, THE THEORY OE PLAGIARISM 249 recognition of value in the discreet application of the process is a notable tribute to the influence wrought by Erance on the vocabulary of Elizabethan poetry. XI The Renaissance Theory of 'Imitation' A large harvest of Elizabethan poetry is clearly seen to assimilate Erench sentiment, language, and metre. Even more notable is the circumstance that many leaders of the literary profession in Elizabethan England should have put forward as original compositions and as declarations of personal feeling, \ a number of poems which prove on examination to be literal translations from the Erench or Italian. Before we extend our comparative inquiry to the Elizabethan sonnet, which will accentuate the borrowing tendencies of the Elizabethan muse, it may be prudent to estimate the ethical significance which attached at the time to unavowed practices of plagiarism. Unacknowledged borrowing, in the shape of literal transla- tion either of complete poems or of substantial extracts, stands j on a footing very different from that of assimilation, which is a • universal law of poetry, and though it invites study, requires ;' no excuse. Plagiarism of foreign authors has been shown \ to be common enough among Elizabethan lyrists to call for judicial inquiry. Contemporary critics recognized that the habit was widespread, and at times condemned it with little reservation. Of Soothern, the clumsy but tacit translator of Ronsard's Odes in 1584, the author of The Arte of English Poesie (1589) wrote : — ' This man deserues to be endited of pety larce7iy for pilfering other men's deuises from them and conuerting them to his owne use.' ^ Other offenders on the like snow-white, ebon-coloured, curious-knotted, low-spirited, small-knowing, ever-esteemed, heart-burning. Although Shakespeare was gently satirizing the process here, it is curious to note that three of these invented com- pounds, viz. health-giving, snow-white, and low-spirited, found a permanent place in the language. ^ Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie, ed. .Arber, 1869, p. 260 ; passages which precede these words are quoted on page 214, note. A FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC \ lines, including men of the calibre of Daniel, were charged with ' filching ' or with ' theft '. The like habit was well known abroad. French poets borrowed from classical and Italian work as unceremo- niously as the F21izabethans borrowed from French and Italian poetry. Montaigne is severe on authors who endeavoured to misrepresent as their own what they stole from others. The French essayist imputed to such procedure not merely injustice but cowardice. Yet Montaigne admitted that personally he could never resist the temptation of pillaging a favourite author. Of Plutarch he wrote : — ' He can no sooner come in my sight, or if I cast but a glance upon him, but I pull some leg or wing from him.' The plagiaristic tendency both in F^ngland and France, when it was detected, was condoned in literary circles as often as it was denounced. It was held capable of defence. There was frequently urged in mitigation of censure, if not in justification, an excuse which, while it savours of special pleading, cannot be refused weight. Ben Jonson, who ranked high among the Elizabethan giants, borrowed whole- sale without specific acknowledgement. Dryden called him ' a learned plagiary ' of all other authors. ' You track him everywhere in their snow.' ' But ' (Dryden adds elsewhere) ' one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch.' ^ In general terms Jonson denied offence in the habit. With frank self-complacency he explained : ' Whatsoever I pawned with my memory while I was young and a boy, it offers me readily and without stops [in my old age].'^ But the process of uncon- scious cerebration hardly accounts for the details of the practice in the case either of Ben Jonson or of his comrades. More illuminating is Jonson's further argument that it was an essential requisite in a poet to be able consciously to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use, even to the extent of a literal adoption of the foreign poet's language. This second plea offers a practicable key to the problem. ' Essays of John Uryden, ed. W. P. Ker, i. 43, 82. '^ Ben Jonson, Discoveries, ed. Schelling, p. 18. I THE INTERPRETATION OI< 'IMITATIO' i.^)i There was abroad a scholastic conception of the art of poetry which minimized, if it (h'd not cancel, the apparent reproach of the plagiarizing tendency. The truth of the familiar late Latin adage, ' orator fit, poeta nascitur,' was not questioned. The great poet was held to be divinely inspired. But something more was expected of him than to be, with the lunatic and the lover, ' of imagination all compact.' A current gloss on the proverb presumed (in Ben Jonson's words) that ' the good poet 's made as well as born '. The Renaissance critics reached their conclusion that good poetry was, in part an article of manufacture, through a somewhat 1 perverted interpretation of the classical doctrine of fMLfiTja-i^Ji or ijiiiiatio^ as applied to literary composition. The term was | assumed to connote not merely imitation of life or nature, but j also and often primarily imitation of pre-existing literature. J Renaissance critics in all countries acknowledged without much demur that in Greek literature human genius reached its zenith, and that Latin literature owed its value to habitual imitation of the Greek. There followed, not quite logically, the scholastic inference that the merit of literature grew in proportion to its dependence on what went before. In most authoritative handbooks on literary composition a section on ' imitation ' filled a chief place, and pressed this assumption to the uttermost.^ It was never denied that other elements went to the making of poetry. Ben Jonson defined poetry as a compound mingled of four simples : first a goodness of natural wit {iiigeniwn) ; second, exercise of native powers [exerciiaiio) ; thirdly, imitation {ivtitatio) ; fourthly, an exactness of study and multiplicity of reading {lectio). But his comment on the fourth element {lectio) brings it near the third element {imitatio) ; and when he warns the poet against thinking ' he can leap forth suddenly a poet by dreaming he hath been in Parnassus, or having ^ Roger Ascham in his Schoolmastcy^ 1570, devotes many pages (ed. Mayor, pp. 135-9) to the discussion of ' Imitation '. Ascham mainly embodies the instruction of the Strasburg humanist Johann Sturm in his De Imitatione. Ascham argues that perfect style is the exclusive pro- perty of Greek and Latin, and must be sought there by writers in all other tongues. {Schoolmaster, ed. Mayor, p. 167.) 252 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC washed his lips as they say in Helicon ', he implies that poetic inspiration is of small service without both erudition and imitation. 1 The authority of the Frenchman vScaliger, the greatest critic of the Renaissance, was well recognized in Elizabethan England. It was he who summed up the dominant conception of poetic imitation in the maxim that ' every poet is something of an echo ', ' nemo est qui non aliquid de Echo.' From such a premise there not unnaturally followed the deduction that copying was not necessarily inconsistent with the fundamental elements of poetic art or the essential conditions of poetic success.^ Translation was invariably / regarded in continental Europe as one of the worthiest forms of scholarship, and it was generally accounted no less glorious adequately to turn foreign verse or prose into one's native tongue, than to write anything new.'^ ' Imitation ' was capable of many gradations in the judgement of the critics, but no form need on principle be other than an honourable handmaid of genius. However perilous or sophistical the argument, it is needful to bear it in mind when we detect F^lizabethan lyrists of repute circulating as of their own invention poems which they had translated with fidelity from the work of Ronsard, his friends or his disciples. XII The Assimilation of the French Sonnet An examination of the Elizabethan sonnet-sequence shows the assimilative and imitative processes to which all Elizabethan lyric was more or less subject, in an activity that is more penetrating and comprehensive than elsewhere. The English sonnet, which came to birth in Henry VIII's reign, was * Jonson, Discoveries, ed. Schclling, pp. 75-8. - A good summary account of the doctrine of imitation is given by Prof. J. E. Spingarn in A History of Literary Criticism in the Renais- sance, New York, 1899, pp. 130 seq. ' Vida, the leading critical authority of the Italian Renaissance in his De Arte Poetica (1527), well sums up the situation thus : Haud minor est adeo virtus, si te audit Apollo, Inventa Argivum in patriam convertere vocem, Ouam si tute aliquid intactum inveneris ante. THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 253 born of Italian effort, l^ut the sparse sonneteering experi- ment of W'yatt and vSiurey was an isolated episode in our literary history. The Elizabethan sonnet was no mere fruit of the early Tudor stock, although in course of later develop- ment it borrowed thence a metrical suggestion of im- portance. The Elizabethan sonnet was practically a fresh development in Elizabethan England. At the outset it was independently imported not from Italy but from Erance. Edmund Spenser, the father of the Elizabethan cjuatorzain, introduced in boyhood the sonnet into Elizabethan England with a translation of sonnets by Du Bellay. The seed was slow to fructify. At first the Elizabethan growth was scanty and occasional. Not until Queen Elizabeth s reign was nearing its last decade did it acquire luxuriance. Then the scene changed, and sonneteering became an imperious vogue, a fashionable recreation, a modish artifice of gallantry and com- pliment. No poetic aspirant between 1590 and 1610 failed to try his skill on this poetic instrument. During those twenty years probably more sonnets were penned in England than in all the ages that followed. The harvest of Elizabethan sonneteering is a strange medley of sublimity and pathos. The workers in the field included Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, who, in varying degrees, invested this poetic form with charm and beauty. Shake- speare, above all, breathed into the sonnet a lyric melody and a meditative energy which no writer of any country has sur- passed. It is the value attaching to the sonneteering efforts of this great trio of Elizabethan poets, and to some rare and isolated triumphs of their contemporaries, Daniel, Drayton, and Constable, which lends the Elizabethan sonnet its aesthetic interest. The profuse experiments of other Elizabethan sonneteers rarely touched high levels of poetic performance. Very few were capable of any sustained flight in the lofty regions of the imagination. The most prolific pens betrayed indeed a normal crudeness and a clumsiness of thought and language which invited and justified ridicule. Despite the miraculous masterpieces of Shakespeare and the occasional successes of other English pens which were 254 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC rarely matched abroad, the general standard of performance in points of grace and melody was higher in France, if not in Italy, than in h^ngland. The grotesque aicophonies which characterized much Elizabethan effort were unheard across the Channel. Vast, too, as was the output of Elizabethan son- neteers, they produced far less than their French or Italian / neighbours. Probably ten times as many sonnets were penned \ by the chieftains of the-Eleiadg and their follow^ers, or by the 1 masters of the Italian school of the sixteenth century, as by LShakespeare and his contemporaries. The sonnet in Elizabethan England of all degrees of merit or demerit never lost altogether the savour of a foreign origin. In the sentiment and imagery no less than in the metrical \ shape a foreign parentage is commonly traceable. France and Italy are the joint progenitors. vSoon after Spenser had inaugurated the sonneteering vogue on a French model, Italian influence came afresh upon the English stage. The revived Italian influence proved a formidable rival to the French, but it never extinguished the French sway. Elizabethan sonneteers came to absorb at first hand much of the poetry of Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso ; yet they were never neglectful of Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Desportes. Some of the Italian inspiration was drawn indirectly from French adaptation or translation of the Italian. The Ehza- bethan sonneteers threw their nets widely in both French and Italian waters. The sonneteering rank and fde in France and Italy fell within range of the Elizabethan aim, and many obscure disciples of Ronsard or Tasso became as large creditors of the Elizabethans as those masters themselves. The debt of the Elizabethan sonnet to Italian poetry cannot be debated here. But the omission does not seriously diminish the efficiency of the present argument. Frequently as was the work of Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso, and of smaller Italian poets pressed into the Elizabethan service, the Elizabethan sonneteers more often and more freely took their cue from the work of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Desportes, and other Frenchmen. vShakespeare ow^ed more to French than to Italian tuition. His lyric poetry lay under far THE TRANSLATION OF FRENCH SONNETS 255 smaller obligation than that of his fellows to foreign masters. His indebtedness is slight when it is contrasted with the repeated dependence of his fellows on the precise phraseology as well as on the precise ideas of the Pleiade. But thought and expression in Shakespeare's sonnets reflect too often and too closely a French strain to justify the theory of fortuitous coinci- dence. In many other lili/.abethan sonnet-sequences there figure not merely separate quatrains, but whole sonnets which are silently and unblushingly translated from foreign, and more especially from French collections. When some Elizabethan sonnet-sequences are fully analysed, they are found to be haphazard mosaics of French or Italian originals. Constable, \ , Daniel, and Lodge, who all enjoyed high repute as Elizabethan sonneteers, were the most conspicuous offenders. Even Spenser falls at times under the same indictment. The habit of literal transference without acknowledgement spread further in the sonneteering work of the Elizabethans than in any other direction. There are occasional deviations from the French text in the borrowed poems ; but the alterations often merely suggest a temporary failure of ingenuity on the part of the Elizabethan translator in anghcizing the French language. It was w^hen the sonneteering rage was at its full height in^ England, between 1591 and 1597, that the indebtedness to the Pleiade is most apparent. After Spenser's boyish translations from Du Bellay's sonnets, which came out in 1569, thirteen years intervened before a further attempt w^as made to popu- larize the sonnet in England. Then there appeared Watson's Hecato7upathia, oi' Passiona/e Ceiiturie of Love, a volume which, although it is introduced by a few regular quatorzains, mainly present as ' sonnets ' short poems of eighteen in- stead of fourteen lines each. Lyric pieces of this pattern constantly interrupt, under the Italian name of madrigal, the continuity of contemporary sonnet collections of France as well as Italy. Watson in a prefatory note to each of his poems quotes Latin, Italian, or French sources for them all. Ronsard is duly named among his authorities. Watson's dependence on foreign effort is too widely distributed ; he 256 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC is too negligent of the metrical rules of the sonnet, and the quality of his work is too halting to claim much notice. Watson's successor as poet and sonneteer was of far higher calibre. Sir Philip Sidney's collection of sonnets called Asiro- phel and Stella gives the first sign of the English sonnet's poetic capacity. Sidney's sonnets were composed in the last years of vSidney's life, which ended in 1586, and after circulating widely in manuscript were first published in 1^91. It was with their publication that the rage for sonneteering in Elizabethan England caught fire, and the flame burned briskly till near the close of the century.^ None who is widely read in the sonnets of Ronsard or ' It is necessary to bear in mind some dates in the history of the Elizabethan sonnet. The chronology of the Elizabethan sonnet-seqaence opens with the publication of Spenser's sonnet-renderings of poems by Du Bellay and Marot in A Tlieatre for Worldlings^ 1569. Thomas Watson's Hecatompathia, or Passionate Centiirie of Love, a collection of irregular 'sonnets', came out in 1582, Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella in 1 591, and Spenser's rendering of Du Bellay's sonnet- sequence called TJie Ruins of Ronie, with a revised version of his earlier rendering from Du Bellay, in ComplaiJits in the same year. Samuel Daniel's Z^<2//tz and Henry Constable's Diana first appeared in 1592, both to be revised and enlarged two years later. Three ample collections followed in 1593; they came from the pens respectively of Barnabe Barnes {Par f/ienophil and Par t/ienophe), Thorns.?, Lodge (P/iillis), and Giles Fletcher {Lieia}, while Watson's second venture (T/ie Tears of Fancy) was then published posthumously and for the first time. Three more volumes, in adtiition to the revised editions of Daniel's Delia and Constable's Diana, appeared in 1594, viz. William Percy's Coelia, an anonymous writer's Zepheria, and Michael Drayton's Ideas Mirrotir (in its first shape). Y.. C.'s Eniaricdiclfe, Edmund Spenser's y^;;/^';r/'// and K. Barn- field's Cynthia with certaine sonnets, came out in 1595, and Grififin's Fidessa, Linche's Diella, and William Smith's Chloris in 1596. Finally, in 1597, the procession was joined by Robert Tofte's Laura, a pale re- flection of Petrarch's eftbrt (as the name implied), travelling far from the metrical principles of the genuine form of sonnet. To the same period belongs the composition, although the pubiicatii n was long delayed, of the Scottish poet Sir William Alexander's Aurora, and of the Coelica of Sidney's friend, Sir Fulke Greville, besides the sonnets of William Drummond of Hawthornden and Alexander Montgomerie. Various dates have been assigned by the critics to Shakespeare's sonnets, which were not published till 1609. The majority of them, in the present writer's opinion, were written well before 1600 (see his Life of Shakespeare, 6th ed., 1908, and the Introduction to the Oxford facsimile of the first edition, 1905). In addition to these secular, and, for the most part, amorous sonnet-sequences, there were published during the same period large collections of devotional or spiritual sonnets, as well as an immense number of detached commendatory sonnets, addressed by poets to their patrons. THE MISTRESSKS OF THE SONNETEERS 257 Du Bellay fails to perceive the foreign echoes in Sidney's sonnets. The appeals to sleep, to the nightingale, to the moon, to his bed, to his mistress's dog, resemble the apo- strophes of the foreign sonneteers too closely to make their I foreign inspiration doubtful. Echoing Persius, Sidney protests, ' I am no pickpurse of another's wit.' Yet the spirit no less than the form of his sonnets attests his foreign discipleship. But on the whole, Sidney's work is more reminiscent oi Petrarch than of the Pleiade, and his indebtedness to both stimulated rather than dulled the vivacity of his poetic powers.^ It is in the sonnet collections that follow the publication of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella that the French influence becomes full-fledged. But the bond of union between the French ' amours ' and the later Elizabethan sonnet-sequences is not announced on English title-pages. No debt is acknow- ledged in English prefaces. The Elizabethans usually gave the fictitious mistresses after whom their volumes of amorous sonnets were called the names that had recendy served the like purpose in France, but they silendy adopted the nomen- clature. Daniel followed a somewhat early French versifier, Maurice Sceve, in christening his coUecdon Delia; Constable followed Despbrtes in designating his collection Diana ; while Drayton, who applied to his sonnets on his title-page, in 1594, the French term ' amours ', bestowed on his imaginary heroine the title of Idea, which seems to have been the invention of Claude de Pontoux, although it was employed by other French \ contemporaries. Pontoux, a poet -physician of Chalons, pub- ' lished in 1579 an ample collection of sonnets under the title L'ldee, and Drayton's ' Divine Idea', his 'Fair Idea', is nearly akin to Pontoux's ' Celeste Idee fiUe de Dieu' (Sonnet X).^ Again, Pkillis, the rustic heroine of Lodge's sonnets and lyrics, had already received the airy addresses of much ^ The general history of the Elizabethan sonnet has already been treated by the present writer in his Introduction to Elizabethan Sonnets (Constable's English Garner, 1904) and in the chapter on the Elizabethan Sonnet in the Cambridge History of Literature, vol. iii, pp. 247 sq. 2 The name of Pontoux and Drayton's heroine symbolizes the Platonic lUa of beauty, which was often apostrophized in the sonnets of Du Bellay and Pontus de Tyard, two leaders of the Pleiade. LEE t) 258 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC French verse, notably from the tuneful pastoral muse of Vauquelin de la Fresnaie. The ultimate classical source of all these appellations of poetic mistresses does not weaken the evidence that they entered English poetry through French avenues. In all the sonnet collections of the professional men of letters of Elizabethan England not only do proofs of assimilation abound, but the instances of literal transference and of paraphrase without acknowledgement are embarrassingly numerous.^ A few illustrations of the process of direct ' imitation ' are all that can be cited here. I give first five examples of how the work of Du Bellay, Ronsard, and Desportes was directly rendered into English by men of the literary reputation of Daniel, Lodge, and Constable, all of whom enjoyed in their day a high repute as original writers of sonnets. Du Bellay, Olive, x. Daniel, Delia, xiv. Ces cheveux d'or sont les liens, These amber- locks are those same Madame, nets, my Dear! Dont fut premier ma liberie sur- Wherewith my liberty thou didst prise, surprise ! Amour, la flamme autour du Love was the flame that fired me coeur eprise, so near: Ces yeux, le traict qui me trans- The dart transpiercing were those perce Tame. crystal eyes. Forts sont les nceuds, aspre et vive Strong is the net, and fervent is the la flamme, flame ; Le coup, de main a tirer bien Deep is the stroke,^ my sighs do apprise, well report. Et toutcsfois i'ayme, i'adore, et Yet I do love, adore, and praise prise the same Ce qui m'estraint, qui me brusle, That holds, that burns, that et entame. wounds in this sort ; ^ The reader should study the evidence of Elizabethan indebtedness to the French which Prof. L. E. Kastner has brought together in five valuable papers which he contributed to the Modern Language Review. The papers are entitled respectively ' The Scottish Sonneteers and the French poets' (October, 1907), 'The Elizabethan Sonneteers and the French poets' (April, 1908), ' Spenser's Amoretti and Desportes ' (January, 1909), 'Drummond of Hawthornden and the poets of the Pleiade' (April, 1909), and ' Drummond of Hawthornden and the French Poets of the Sixteenth Century' (Jan. 1910). '^ The original reading, which Daniel afterwards altered to 'snary'. ' The original reading, which Daniel afterwards altered to ' wound '. IMITATION OF FRENCH SONNETS 259 Pour briser doncq', pour esteindre et giierir Ce dur lien, ceste ardeur, ceste playe, le ne quiers fer, liqueur, ny mede- cine : L'heur et plaisir que ce m'est de pe'rir De telle main, ne pernict que i'essaye Glaive trenchant, ny froideur, ny racine. And list not seek to break, to quench, to heal The bond, the flame, the wound that festereth so, 15y knife, by liquor, or by sahe to deal : So much I please to perish in my woe. Yet, lest long travails be above my strength, Good Delia ! loose, quench, heal me, now at length ! DesPORTES, Cleonicc, Ixii. Je verray par les ans, vengeurs de mon martire, Que I'or de vos cheveux argente deviendra, Que de vos deux soleils la splen- deur s'esteindra, Et qu'il faudra qu'Amour tout confus s'en retire. La beaute qui, si douce, a pre'sent vous inspire, Cedant aux lois du temps, ses faveurs reprendra ; L'hiver de vostre teint les fleu- rettes perdra, Et ne laissera rien des thresors que j'admire. Get orgueil desdaigneux qui vous fait ne m'aimer, En regret et chagrin se verra transformer, Avec le changement d'une image si belle, Et peutestre cju'alors vous n'aurez deplaisir De revivre en mes vers, chauds d'amoureux desir, Ainsi que le phenix au feu se renouvelle. Daniel, Delia, xxxiii. I once may see, when years may wreak my wrong. And golden hairs may change to silver wire : And those bright rays (that kindle all this fire) Shall fail in force, their power not so strong. Her beauty now the burden of my song. Whose glorious blaze the world's eye doth admire, Must yield her praise to tyrant Time's desire ; Then fades the flower, which fed her pride so long. When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass. Which then presents her winter- withered hue. Go you my verse ? go tell her what she was ! For what she was, she best may find in you. Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass, But Phoenix-like to make her live anew. S 2 26o FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC RONSARD, Amours, I. xxxii. (Hiand au premier la dame que j'adorc De ses beautez \m\. embellir les cieux, Le fils de Rhee appela tons les dieux Pour faire encor d'elle une autre Pandore. Lors ApoUon richement la decore, Or' de ses rais luy fa9onnant les yeux, Or' luy dormant son chant melo- dieux, Or' son oracle et ses beaux vers encore. Mars luy donna sa fiere cruaute, Venus son ris, Diane sa beaute, Pithon sa voix, Ceres son abon- dance, L'Aube ses doigts et ses crins delies, Amour son arc, Thetis donna ses pies, Clion sa gloire, et Pallas sa prudence. RONSARD, Amours, I. cxix. Franc de raison, esclave de fureur, Je vay chassant une fere sauvage, Or' sur un mont. or' le long d'un rivage, Or' dans le bois de jeunesse et d'erreur. J 'ay pour ma laisse un long trait de malheur, J 'ay pour limier un trop ardent courage, J'ay pour mes chiens I'ardeur et le jeune age, J'ay pour piqueurs I'espoir et la douleur. Mais eux, voyans que plus elle est chassee, Loin, loin, devant plus s'enfuit elancee, Tournant sur moi leur rigoureux effort, Comme mastins affames de re- paistre, A longs morceaux se paissent de leur maistre, Et sans mercy me trainent a la mort. Lodge, Phillis, xxxiii. When first sweet Phillis, whom I most adore, "Gan with her beauties bless our wond'ring sky. The son of Rhea, from their fatal store Made all the gods to grace her majesty. Apollo first his golden rays among. Did form the beauty of her boun- teous eyes ; He graced her with his sweet melodious song, And made her subject of his poesies. The warrior Mars bequeathed her fierce disdain, Venus her smile, and Phoebe all her fair, Python his voice, and Ceres all her grain. The morn her locks and fingers did repair. Young Love his bow, and Thetis gave her feet ; Clio her praise, Pallas her science sweet. Lodge, Phillis, xxxi. Devoid of reason, thrall to foolish ire, I walk and chase a savage fairy still. Now near the flood, straight on the mounting hill. Now midst the woods of youth, and vain desire. For leash I bear a cord of careful grief; For brach I lead an overforward mind ; My hounds are thoughts, and rage despairing blind. Pain, cruelty, and care without relief. Put they, perceiving that my swift pursuit My flying fairy cannot overtake, With open mouths their prey on me do make, Like hungry hounds that lately lost their suit, .A.nd full of fury on their master feed, To hasten on my hapless death with speed. IMITATION OF FRENCH SONNETS 261 Desportks, Ih'ii/h-, I. xxvi. Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! que j'aime ma deesse Et de son chef les tre'sors pre- cieux ! Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! que j'aime ses beaux yeux, Dont I'un m'est doux, Tautre plein de rudesse ! Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! que j'aime la sagesse De ses discours, qui laviroient les Dieux, Et la douceur de son ris gracieux, Et de son port la royale hautesse ! CONSlAliLE, Diana, Decade VI, Sonnet x. My (]od, my (Tod, how much 1 love my goddess ! Whose virtues rare, unto the heavens arise. My (iod, my Cod, how much I love her eyes ! One shining bright, the other full of hardness. My (iod, my God, how much I love her wisdom ! Whose words may ravish heaven's richest 'maker' ; Of whose eyes' joys, if I might be partaker. Then to my soul, a holy rest would come. My God, how much I love to hear her speak ! Whose hands 1 kiss, and ravished oft rekisseth ; When she stands wotless, whom so much she blesseth. Say then, what mind this honest love would break; Since her perfections pure, with- outen blot, Makes her beloved of them, she knoweth not ? Mon Dieu ! que j'aime ^i me res- souvenir Du tans qu'Amour me fist serf devenir ! Toujours depuis j'adore mon servage. Mon mal me plaist plus il est vio- lant ; Un feu si beau m'egaye en me brulant, Et la rigueur est douce en son visage. In none of these examples is there genuine originality in diction or sentiment on the part of the Elizabethan sonneteer. Constable's final sestet here strays somewhat from the original. But he atones for any freedom at the close by his servility at the opening. Lodge is probably most loyal to his original, but Daniel runs him hard. Hardly a sonnet that Lodge published cannot be traced to a foreign source.^ This literal method is often exchanged for imitative paraphrase which improves on the original. In Spenser's case no imputation of slavish borrowing can be sustained. But Desportes was clearly a dominant master of Spenser's sonneteering muse, and the relationship between the French tutor and his English pupil may be deduced from a careful comparison of the two sonnets which follow: 1 Besides Ronsard and Desportes, Lodge pillaged with equal freedom sonnets by Ariosto, Petrarch, Sannazaro, and Bembo, as well as by a very little-known Italian sonneteer Lodovico Paschale. 262 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Desportes, Diunc, I. xxxii. SPENSER, Ai/iorcffi, xv. Marc/uuuh, qui reclicrches tout Ye tradeful i/ierc/idfi/s, that 7iffiiC, chaste desire : Puis, espanchant mes pleurs et The which vouchsafe, O goddess, coupant mes cheveux, to accept, J'yferay tous les jours rt'^ WfW w//r Amongst thy dearest relics to be sacrifice. kept.^ Not merely is the thought the same in these two pairs of efforts, but vSpenser draws many of his phrases from the French. So general was the resort of Elizabethan sonneteers to French verse that, in some instances, we find two English poets making independent raid on the same French sonnet, and producing two different English versions. Both Daniel and vSpenser worked about the same time on the eighteenth sonnet in Desportes' Amours (t Hippolyie, which begins — Pourquoy si folement croyez-vous a un verre, Voulant voir les beautez que vous avez des cieux ? Mirez-vous dessus moy pour les connoistre mieux, Et voyez de quels traits vostre bel ceil m'enferre. Daniel rendered the passage thus {Delia, xxxii) : Why doth my mistress credit so her glass, Gazing her beauty, deigned her by the skies ? And doth not rather look on him, alas! Whose state best shows the force of murdering eyes ? Spenser's version is freer and runs thus {Amoretti, xlv) • ^ y / Leave, lady, in your glass of crystal clean, '^ Your goodly self for evermore to view : And in myself, my inward self, I mean, Most lively like behold your semblance true. ^ The cognate words are italicized throughout. Spenser's opening quatrain (No. xxii) suggests a reminiscence of another of Desportes' sonnets in Diajie (II, No. xlvi), beginning 'Je m'estoy dans le temple un dimanche rendu '. The poet describes how he saw his mistress at prayer in church on Easter Day. Spenser, in Avioretti (No. Ixviii), also treats of Easter Day, with an eye apparently both on the sonnet of Desportes and on four on the same theme by Du Pellay [Olive, cviii-cxi). 264 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC In their metrical scheme the Elizabethan sonneteers played variations on their foreign models. They sought to lighten their task by relaxing the continental laws of rhyme. Some discretion was permitted abroad. But a standard type was formally adopted at Italian suggestion by the Pleiade, and departures from it did not travel very far. The fourteen lines of the French, like the Italian, sonnet were invariably distri- buted into two more or less independent sections. An octave formed of two quatrains was separated by a marked pause from a succeeding sestet or sixain consisting of two tercets. The quatrains of the octave usually followed the rhyming arrange- ment of abba^ abba, which were technically known as ' vers embrasses'. Alternate or cross rhymes in the octave abab, abab, grew common early in the seventeenth century, but were rare at earlier dates. The sestet was less uniform, A new set of rhyming syllables always found a place in the two tercets of the sestet. Usually the rhymes were three in number. But two were at times found adequate. \^'hether there were three or two rhymes, several permutations were sanctioned in their sequence. A common type of tercet in Pleiade sonnets presented four lines alternately rhymed and a closing couplet with a third rhyme cdc, dee. Or there might be six alter- nately rhymed lines with only two rhymes cdc^ dcd. The favourite pattern of Ronsard and his chief allies was, however, three rhymes thus arranged, ccd, eed. In the majority of French sonnets the octave and sestet were thus constructed in combination on the model abba, abba, ccd, eed. The metrical systems which were practised in Elizabethan England also fluctuated. That which was accepted by Shake- speare and enjoyed the widest vogue was less intricate than r anything known in France, and may have been a legacy from Surrey's primitive experiments. The strict division into octave and sestet was often neglected. In contemporary language the fourteen lines of the Elizabethan sonnet were distributed thus : — ' The firste twelve do ryme in staves of foure lines by crosse nieetre, and the last two ryming togither do conclude the whole.' ^ In other words the first twelve lines ^ Gascoigne, Certayne Notes of Insiructiou, ed. Arber, 1868, p. 39. THE METRE OF THE SONNET 265 rhymed altcrnatt-ly on six different syllables, ahah^ cdcd^ ^/^ and these lines were followed by a couplet with a seventh and new rhyme gg} A main difference between the French and English normal types lay in the increase in the number of rhyming syllables from four or five to seven. The four alternate rhymes of the English octave were not found outside England. Hut the cross rhymes and the terminal couplet ot the English sestet, though not encouraged in France, were known there. One of the most familiar of Ronsard's sonnets, although its octave observes the normal formula abba abba^ has a sestet fashioned on Shakespeare's in\ariable pattern [QiiLvres^ i, 397) : Le temps s en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame ; Las ! le temps non, mais nous nous en-al/<'>';/>r, Ft tost serons estendus sous la lame. Ft des amours desquelles nous par/.c/^.y, Quand serons morts, n'en sera plus nowvelle. Pour ce aimez-moy cependant qu'estes belle. With this rhyming scheme may well be compared that of the sestet of Shakespeare's first sonnet : Thou that art now the world's fresh oxw^ntent And only herald to the gaudy s\)}^nig. Within thine own bud buriest thy content., And, tender churl, mak'st waste in x\\^g?ixding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and Ihee. Other Elizabethan sonneteers kept closer than Shakespeare to the normal foreign lines. Sir Philip Sidney showed a higher respect that any of his English contemporaries for the foreign canon. As a rule he observed the orthodox scheme of the octave or double quatrain abba, abba. In the first eight lines of vSidney's sonnets only two interlaced rhymes were per- mitted. In the sestet he usually presents four lines alternately ^ Surrey anticipated the Shakespearean arrangement with its six cross rhymes and the terminal couplets, and he must be regarded as the English inventor of this system. Wyatt's rhyming scheme, on the other hand, is usually loyal to the Italian vogue in the octave, abba, abba, though new rhymes occasionally make their appearance in the second quatrain abba, cddc. The sestet has invariably a terminal couplet. But in the preceding four lines Wyatt usually prefers the principle of ' vers embrasses ' cddc to that of cross rhyming. 266 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC rhymed and a concluding couplet {cdc, dec). Yet in more than twenty of his sonnets the sestet is faithful to Ronsardian ortho- doxy ccd, eed. Sidney's sonneteering work is thus metrically in closer harmony with continental prosody than that of Shake- speare or any other Elizabethan. vSome of Sidney's successors, while adhering as a rule to the loose English model, at times pursued the strict lines of foreign orthodoxy. Daniel on one occasion adopted so stern a foreign model as this : abba, abba, cdcdcd, where the rhymes did not exceed four. vSpenser was less adventurous, but he often subtly developed the foreign principle. While his sestets are on the Shakespearean pattern, the rhymes of the octave are disposed thus : abab, bcbc, and the first rhyme of the sestet repeats the last rhyme of the octave cdc.^ dee. vSpenser never exceeds the five rhymes of / the foreign canon. XIII Shakespeare and the French Sonnet Most of the topics of vShakespeare's sonnets had been handled by the Pleiade before him, and though his original development of their poetic and emotional capacities is not in question, the parallelisms between his sonnets and those of Ronsard's school have a higher critical interest than other branches of such comparative study. In Shakespeare's sonnets no instances of exact translation or direct imitation appear. But thought and expression occasionally resemble French effort closely enough to suggest that the processes ot assimilation wrought at times on Shakespeare's triumphant achievement in much the same way as on the mass of the sonneteering efforts of his day. Constantly Shakespeare seems to develop with magnificent power and melody a familiar theme of foreign suggestion. Like Spenser, Shakespeare makes oft-repeated play in his FRENCH ECHOES IN SHAKESPEARE 267 early sonnets with the thou^r^ht which he turned thus in his earliest poem V^einis and . / dojiis ( 1 3 1 -2) : Fair flowers that are not gathered in their prime, Rot and consume tJicniselves in little time} This is here a plain reflection of the words as well as the vein of Ronsard, who never tires of warning his mistress — Que vos beautez, bien qu'elles soient fleuries, En pen de temps c her rant tontes /laitries, Et, comme fleurs, periront tout soudain.- When Shakespeare reminds his lover (Sonnet civ. 3-8) - Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride . . . Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. — the words resemble those of a minor sonneteer of contem- porary France, Vauquelin de la Fresnaie : La terre ia trois fois s'est desaisie De sa verdure, et ia de leurs vertus Se sont trois fois les arbres devetus, Depuis qu'a toi s'est mon ame asservie."' But more important than similarity of detached passages is the broader adumbrations in French sonnets of Shake- speare's leading themes. The English poet's warning that youthful beauty will utterly perish unless it propagate itself, 1 Spenser rhymed on the same words when he treated the common theme {Aifio7-etti, Ixx) : Make haste, therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime; For none can call again the passed time. 2 Ronsard, (Euvres, ed. Blanchemain, i. 397 : ' Cherront' in the second line, for which ' seront ' is often substituted, is the future of 'cheoir', to fall, to tumble. ' Dechoir ' is the modern French form of the verb. ^ Les Foresteries (1869 ed., p. 137). Three years is the conventional period of a sonneteer's love-suit both in France and England. Cf. Desportes {Cleonice, Ivii ' Du premier jour d'Octobre ') : Amour, s'il t'en souvient, c'est la iroisieme anne'e, Le jour mesme est le point qu'a toy je fus souniis. So Ronsard, Sonnets poin- Helhie (No. .xiv) : — Trois ans sont ja passez que ton ceil me tient pres. x/ 268 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC and his impassioned appeals to a hig-hborn patron in the name of friendship, strike a note that is heard in the inner circle of the Pleiade, Shakespeare's denunciations of a false mistress of black complexion were, too, already very familiar to 1 French sonneteers. 1_ It is the less known French poets who approximate most closely to vShakespeare's manner when he dwells on the duty of fair youth to continue its succession. With great delicacy Amadis Jamyn, a favourite disciple of Ronsard, presents his argument of ' unthrifty loveliness ', and counsels his mistress to transmit the light of her beauty : vSi la beaute perist, ne I'espargne, maistresse, Tandis qu'elle fleurist en sa jeune vigueur : Crois moi, je te supply, devant que la vieillesse Te sillonne le front, fais plaisir de ta fleur. On voit tomber un fruit quand il est plus que meur. Ay ant en vain passe la saison de jeunesse : La feuille tombe apres, jaunissant sa verdeur, Et I'hiver sans cheveux tous les arbres delaisse. Ainsi ta grand' beaute trop meure deviendra. La ride sur ta face en sillon s'etendra, Et soudain ce beau feu ne sera plus que cendre. N'espargne done la fleur qui n'a que son printemps: La donnant tu n"y perds, mais tu jouis des ans : C'est une autre lumiere une lumiere prendre.^ ^ Amadis Jamyn, in Fouqui^re's Poctes Franqais dii XVT Sit\ie, p. 133. To much the same effect runs a sonnet by Jean de la Taille : Veux-tu doncques laisser en sa fleur la plus verte Ton bel age flestrir par une nonchallance ? Ne veux-tu point gouster au fruict de la Jouvence, Qui, perdue, jamais ne sera recouverte ? Veux-tu done espargner ce dont on n'a point perte Ouand encor tout le monde en auroit jouissance ? Pourquoy n'acceptes-tu ceste tant bonne chance, Puisque Toccasion nous a sa porte ouverte ? Crois-tu tousjours fleurir en beaute desiree ? Ne crains-tu point qu'Amour avec deue vangeance Ne punisse ta mine tS: ton orgueil farouche ? Mais comme les grisons du mont Hyperborce Veux-tu garder soingneuse un thresor d'exceilence, Dont tu ne jouis point & ne veux qu'autre y touche ! CEuvres de Jean de la Taille, ed. Maulde, 1880, vol. iii, p. clxxix. 'UNTHRIFTY LOVELINESS' 269 The French Hnes will recall such verses as these from Shakespeare's sonnets : Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the (>;audy spring", Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, niak'st waste in nig-garding. i. 9-12. Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another. . . . Hut if thou live, rememb'r'd not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee. iii. 1-2, 13-14. Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy ? . . . Thy unus'd beauty must be tonib'd with thee, Which used, lives the executor to be.^ iv. 1-2, 13-14. The ecstatic praise of friendship, which fills so many of Shakespeare's sonnets, only finds occasional and detached ex- pression in the poetry of Ronsard and his friends. Yet in one series of sonnets, which a leader of the Pleiade addressed to a noble patron, there is concentrated a depth of feeling which anticipates Shakespeare's language of devotion. The poetic vivacity and emotional subtlety of the English poetry are wanting- to the French verse. But little distinction can be drawn between the general sentiment of the French and the English poet. Etienne Jodelle, one of the seven poetic stars of the French Pleiade, whose unhappy career w^as likened by Elizabethan critics to that of Marlowe, addressed a sequence of eight sonnets to a noble patron, M. le Comte de F\auquemberge et de Courtenay. These were first published with a long collection of ' amours ' chiefly in sonnet form in 1574. In the opening address to the nobleman Jodelle speaks ^ The argument was common in Renaissance literature from the days when Erasmus presented it in his colloquy Froci et Puellae. Shakespeare's modification of the plea by making the poet address it to a patron instead of to a mistress was anticipated by Sir Philip Sidney in Mxs Arcadia (bk. iii) in the address of the dependant Geron to his master^Prince Histor, and by Guarini in his Pastor Fido in the addresses of the old dependant Linco to his master the hero Silvio. ^ 2 70 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC of his desolation in his patron's absence which no crowded company can alleviate^ Quand seul sans toy je suis, car rien que ton absence Ne me fait trouver seul, tant que quand je serois Avecq' tous les humains seul je me jugerois, Car plus que tous humains m'est ta seule presence.^ Yet when his friend is absent, the French poet in the intensity of his soul's yearning fancies him present — Present, absent, je pais Tame a toy toute deue.- Some twenty years later Shakespeare was writing to the beloved 'subject of his sonnets— Thyself away art present still with me ; For thou not farther than my thoughts can move. xlvii. lo-i I. Jodelle, as he developes his argument, anticipates at almost every turn the tenor of Shakespeare's sonnets. Jodelle's patron, whose genius puts labour and art to shame, is endowed by Nature with virtue and wealth and all sources of happi- ness. None the less the greatest joy in the Count's life is — the poet asserts — the completeness of the sympathy be- tween the patron and his poetic admirer, which guarantees them both immortality. True and perfect friendship is the solvent of all human ills, and two friends who are joined to- gether in real bonds of friendship acquire godlike attributes, after the manner of the union of Castor and Pollux. The poet hotly protests the eternal constancy of his affection. His spirit droops when the noble lord leaves him to engage in the sports of hunting or shooting, and he then finds his only solace in writing sonnets in the truant's honour to while away the heavy time. vShakespeare in his sonnets, it will be remembered, did no less — ^ Jodelle, CEuvres, 1S70 ed., ii, p. 174. "^ Throughout these sonnets Jodelle addresses his lord in the second person singular, as Shakespeare does in all but thirty-four of his one hundred and fifty-four sonnets. THE POET'S LOVE OF HLS PATRON 271 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour \\'hen you have bid your servant once adieu. Sonnet Ivii. 5-8. O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove. Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave To entertain the time with thoughts of love. Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, And that thou teachest how to make one twain, By praising him here who doth hence remain. Sonnet xxxix. 9-14. Elsewhere the poet declares that he, a mere servant, has passed into the relation of a beloved and loving friend. The master's high birth, high rank, great wealth, and intellectual endowments, interpose no bar to the force of the friendship. The virtues of friendship and servitude rest alike on loving obedience. The great friends of classical antiquity, Py lades / and Orestes, Scipio and Laelius, and the rest, lived with one I another on terms of perfect equality. The rigorous tests of \ adversity, which strengthened ties of friendship in the old days, are not needed to confirm the love which binds to his high- born lord the poet-servant who has become the master's friend.^ ^ Cf. Etienne Jodelle's Sonnet iv to his patron {CEuvres, ii. 176) : Combien que veu ton sang, ton rang, ton abondance, Seruiteur ie te sois : i'ose prendre enuers toy Vn nom plus haul, plus digne, & plus grand, puis qu'a moy Tu daignes t'abaissant en donner la puissance. Ie suis done ton ami, mais tel que I'excellence Du beau mot n'orgueillit mon deuoir ny ma foy : Car plus que mille serfs ie puis ce que ie doy Payer, & croy qu'amour doit toute obeissance. Thesee «& Perithoe, Pylade & Oreste, Scipion & Lelie, & si quelque autre reste Ues couples des amis furent, ce croy-ie, esgaux : Mais ralliance ainsi d'hommes pareils vnie Ne pourroit rien gaigner en I'espreuue des maux Sur mon amitie serue & seruitude amie. A literal translation in English prose might run thus : ' However much thy birth, thy rank, thy wealth show me to be servant to thee, 1 dare to take in relation to thee a name loftier, worthier and greater, since thou deignest to humble thyself and give me that power. I am then thy friend, but in such fashion that the excellence of the beautiful word induces no insolent neglect of my duty or my loyalty, because I 272 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC He credits the patron in his fifth sonnet with every intellectual grace as well as with — Une bonte qui point ne change ou s'espouante. Jodelle's words recall vShakespeare's commemoration of his patron's ' birth, or wealth, or wit ' (vSonnet xxxvii. 5), as well as his ' bounty ' (Sonnet liii. 1 1), and his ' abundance ' (xxxvii. 1 1). One is reminded, too, how vShakespeare was his patron's ' slave ' — Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire ? Sonnet Ivii. 1-2. Jodelle's sentiment is again recalled in such lines ot Shakespeare as — That god forbid that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure. Sonnet Iviii. 1-2. Jodelle wrote of his patron : Et si Ion dit que trop par ces vers je me vante, C'est qu'estant tien je veux ie vanter en mes heurs.^ Similarly Shakespeare greeted his ' lord of love ' with the words — 'Tis thee, myself,— that for myself I praise. Sonnet Ixii. 13. Jodelle confesses much of Shakespeare's experience of suffering and, like the English sonneteer, grieves that he was the victim of slander. Although Shakespeare's note of yearning pathos and self-torture is beyond Jodelle's range,-^ yet the emotional phase which is revealed in these French sonnets clearly adumbrated that of Shakespeare's sonneteering triumph. better than a thousand slaves can pay what I owe, and what love owes in my belief is all obedience. Theseus and Pirithous, Pylades and Orestes, Scipio and Laelius, and whatever other pair of friends there be, they were, I am sure, on a perfect equality. But no alliance of such united men shows under the trial of adversity superiority to my serf-like friendship and my friend-like servitude.' ^ CEuvrcs. ii. 176. - Sonnet xxxvii should be compared with Jodelle's sonnets v and vi. THE PRAISE OF BLACKNESS 273 Even closer resemblances with dominant features of the French vogue appear in those sonnets, which Shakespeare addressed to a woman. His praise and dispraise of his ' dark lady ' for her black complexion reflects a very distinctive French note. Here is Amadis Jamyn s sonnet in eulogy of his ' dark lady ' : La modeste Venus, la honteuse et la sage, Estoit par les anciens toute peinte de noir, Et pour veuuage, dueil, loyaute faire voir La tourtre ^ aussi fut faitte aveq vn noir plumage. La sommeilleuze nuit qui noz peines soulage. Qui donne bon conseil, se fait noire aparoir ; Les mysteres sont noirs, profonds a conceuoir, Noire est la verite cachee en vn nuage. Mille corps et non corps dVn excellent effet Ont ce teint, et sans luy nul portrait n'est bien fait : Chacune autre couleur I'vne en I'autre se change. Luy seul est sans changer, signe de fermete, j De regret, de sagesse: aussi je I'ay chante Pour une qui sur toute en merite louange.^ To like effect wrote Shakespeare : Then will I swear beauty herself is black. And all they foul that thy complexion lack. Sonnet cxxxii. 13-14. There was earlier employment in Elizabethan sonnets of this new conceit which identified blackness with ' beauty's name '. Sir Philip vSidney in Sonnet vii of his Asirophel and Stella noted how the ' beams ' of the eyes of his mistress were ' wrapt in colour black ' and wore ' this mourning weed ', so That whereas black seems beauty's contrary, She even in black doth make all beauties flow. Shakespeare, too, had employed the fancy himself in his early comedy, Love's Labour's Lost {\N. iii. 247-53), where the heroine Rosaline is described as 'black as ebony' with' ' brows decked in black ', while her lover exclaims admiringly : ' No face is fair that is not full so black.' This judgement was in full accord with that of the FVench sonneteer. ' i. e. tourterelle, turtle. '^ Jamyn, CEuvres, i, p. 129, No. xcv. LEE T r 274 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC There may be an original touch in Shakespeare's note of regret that blackness should lose its traditional association of ugliness : In the old age black was not counted fair, Or, if it were, it bore not beauty's name. vSonnet cxxvii. 1-2. But when Shakespeare turns to denounce his ' dark ' mistress's disloyalty, and substitutes for his praises of his mistress's complexion vituperative abuse, he plainly re-echoes the voice of the French sonneteer. Jodelle feigns remorse for having lauded the black hair and complexion of his mistress : Combien de fois mes vers ont-ils dore Ces cheveux noirs dignes d'une Meduse ? Combien de fois ce teint noir qui m'amuse Ay-je de lis et roses colore ? Combien ce front de rides laboure Ay-je applani ? et quel a fait ma Muse Ce gros sourcil, ou folle elle s'abuse, Ayant sur luy Tare d' Amour figure ? Quel ay-je fait son ceil se renfon9ant ? Quel ay-je fait son grand nez rougissant ? Quelle sa bouche, et ses noires dents quelles ? Quel ay-je fait le reste de ce corps ? Qui, me sentant endurer mille morts, Vivoit heureux de mes peines mortelles.' The self-reproach, which Shakespeare feels or affects, for having borne false witness to the beauties and virtues of his mistress, is a constant burden of the sonnet of the French Renaissance. Desportes is very prone to blame himself for over-praising his love, and on occasion denounces her as a bundle of deceptions. Her complexion is the fruit of a Spanish cosmetic, and her hair is false : Ceste vIve couleur, qui ravit et qui blesse Les esprits des amans, de la feinte abusez, Ce n'est que blanc d'Espagne, et ces cheveux frisez Ne sont pas ses cheveux : c'est une fausse tresse.- ' Jodelle, ' Contr'Aniours,' vii, in CEuvres, ii, p. 94. ^ Desportes, ' Di verses Amours,' Sonnet xxix, in QLuvres, ed. Michiels, P- 398. THE VITUPERATIVE NOTE 275 Again Desportes writes : Le bruit de ses beautez, volant par Tunivers, Nest quun conte a plaisir (^ue j"ay feint en mes vers, Pour voir si je pourroy bien chanter une fable ; Bref, je n'y reconnois un mot de verite, Sinon quand j'ay parle de sa legerete, Car lors ce n est plus conte, ains discours veritable. Sonnet xxxvlii, ib. p. 404. Shakespeare echoes the note when in vSonnet clii. 13-14 he tells his ' dark lady ' : For I have sworn thee fair ; more perjur'd I,,' To swear against the truth so foul a lie ! / as well as in Sonnet cxxxvii, 13-14 : In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd, J And to this false plague are they now transferr'd. / Nor is there need to illustrate here the invective w^hich Shakespeare and his fellows in both plays and poems often launched like Desportes against the artificial disguises of ladies' toilettes. ' These bastard signs of fair,' ' the living brow ' decorated with ' the golden tresses of the dead ', con- stantly moved Shakespeare's indignation (cf. Sonnet Ixviii. 3-7).^ ' The curld-worne tresses of dead-borrowd haire ' ^ Two other expressions of the same category in Shakespeare's vitupe- rative sonnets have French parallels. In No. vi of his Contr'Amours Jodelle, after reproaching his ' traitres vers' with having untruthfully described his siren as a beauty, concludes : Ja si long temps faisant cV un Diable tin Ange, Vous m'ouvrez Tceil en I'iniuste louange, Et m'aveuglez en I'iniuste tourment. With this should be compared Shakespeare's sonnet cxliv. 9-10: And whether that my angel be turn\l fiend Suspect I may, but not directly tell. Again Desportes summons to repentance abandoned women who sin for money : Qui avez preferee A la sainte amitie la richesse doree, Le vice k la vertu, Tignorance au s(javoir, Et I'orde convoitise au fidelle devoir, Et n'avez estimee estre chose vilaine — Du revenu du lict accroistre son domaine. Elegies, I. ix, in (Eiivres, ed. Michiels, Paris, 1858, p. 258. The phrase in this context ' Du revenu du lict ' seems echoed in Daniel's T 2 276 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC formed the text ot many a biting Elizabethan satire.^ Desportes' words — ces cheveux frisez Ne sont pas ses cheveux: c'est une fausse iresse —were almost as good English as they were good French. More than one view is held as to the precise significance of Shakespeare's sonnets. But those who deem them auto- biographic confessions can hardly deny that Shakespeare at times took his cue from contemporary French literature. XIV The Poetic Vaunt of Immortality The dissemination through Elizabethan verse of the poetic vaunt of immortality may serve as a final illustration of the general influence which was exerted by the Pleiade on the idea or sentiment of the Elizabethan lyric— both song and sonnet. Very much of the work of the Pleiade is infected by that tone of arrogance which Ronsard exemplified in his boast — Je suis, dis je, Ronsard, et cela te suflace, Ce Ronsard, que la France honore, chante et prise, Des Muses le mignon ; et de qui les escrits N'ont crainte de se voir par les ages surpris. 1 With a superb confidence Ronsard and his friends and I disciples repeatedly claimed immortality for their names, for ' their poetry, and for all whom they celebrated in verse. The pretension was a classical legacy. The veteran pleas j of Pindar, Horace, and Ovid nurtured the longing for eternal / renown in the hearts of the P'rench poets. But the Pleiade revived the classical aspiration with an assurance which ex- ceeded that of their Greek and Latin masters. Ronsard's Complaint of Rosamond {\^<^A^, 755-6, where it is said of vicious women that they In uncleanness ever have been fed By the revenue of a luanion bed. Shakespeare employs the same expression when he denounced his false mistress for having Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents. (Sonnet cxlii, line 8.) ^ Cf. Goddard's Satyricall Dialogue, i6i5,sig. Bb. THE EGOISM OF THE FRENCH POETS 2-,^ spirited rendering of Horace's familiar ode (III. xxx) seems to accentuate the egoism of the Latin original : Plus dur que fer j'ay fini mon ouvrage, Que Tan, dispos a demener les pas, Que I'eau, le vent ou le brulant orage, L'injuriant, ne ruVont point a bas. Quand ce viendra que le dernier trespas M'assoupira d'un somme dur, a Iheure Sous le tombeau tout Ronsard n'ira pas, _^^ Restant de luy la part qui est meilleure. ^ Tousjours, tousjours sans que jamais je meure, Je voleray tout vif par I'univers, Eternisant les champs ou je demeure, De mes lauriers fatalement couvers, Pour avoir joint les deux harpeurs ^ divers Au doux babil de ma lyre d'yvoire, Que j'ay rendus A^audomois par mes vers. Sus donque. Muse, emporte au ciel la gloire Que jay gaignee, annon9ant la victoire Dont a bon droit je me voy jouissant, Et de son fils consacre la memoire, Serrant son front d'un laurier verdissant.^ In the same vein Du Bellay turned into his own tongue the famous vaunt with which Ovid brings \sSs> Metamorphoses to a close. Du Bellay's version runs thus : Un oeuvre jay parfait, que le feu ni la foudre, Ni le fer ni le temps ne pourront mettre en poudre. Cestuy-la qui sera le dernier de mes jours De mon age incertain vienne borner le cours Quand bon luy semblera; sans plus il a puissance Dessus ce corps qui est mortel de sa naissance. Ce qui est meilleur de moi me portera Sur les astres bien haut, et mon nom ne pourra Jamais estre efface ; quelque part ou se nomme Le nom victorieux de I'empire de Rome Je seray leu du peuple. Et s'il faut donner foy Aux poetes devins, qui predisent de soy, A jamais je vivray et la durable gloire \ De mes oeuvres sera d'eternelle memoire.'' ; 1 Pindar and Horace. 2 Ronsard, ' A sa muse,' Bk. v, Ode xxxii. ^ Du Bellay, CEiivres Choisies^ ed. Fouquieres, pp. 162-3. 2;8 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC The French poets clothed their passionate desire for eternal fame in a rich variety of tones, which has no precise parallel elsewhere. vSometimes they are calmly precatory; sometimes they are aggressively or defiantly confident; at other times their self-assurance is almost regal in its com- plaisance. In one very beautiful ode Ronsard invokes all the gods of Greece and Rome, and entreats them to help him to realize his immortal longings. In the last verse he addresses himself to the Dryads, meek recluses of the forests : Ornez ce livre de lierre, Ou de myrte, et loin de la terre vSil vous plaist enlevez ma vois ; Et faites que tousjours ma lyre D'age en age s'entende bruire Du More jusques a TAnglois.^ It is no mere recognition by his own people that satisfies the French poet's aspiration : Mon nom, des I'onde atlantique Jusqu'au dos du More antique, Soit immortel tesmoigne, Et depuis I'isle erratique Jusqu'au Breton esloigne, A fin que mon labeur croisse Et sonoreux apparoisse Lyrique par dessus tous, Et que Thebes se cognoisse Faite Fran9oise par nous.^ Elsewhere the master of the Pleiade (in a sonnet) bids his page bring him a hundred leaves of paper on which to write words which are to last like diamonds and to be studied deeply by all future ages. Ronsard's colleagues betray no greater moderation. Per- haps the most buoyant expression of the valorous theme is (that of Du Bellay in his lyric on the immortality of poets (' De ^rimmortalite des Poetes '). The animated melody of the verse no less than its imperial vanity renders the poem hard to match, despite its Horatian affinities : ' Ronsard, Odes, IV. xv, in GLtivrcs, ii, p. 272. ^ ibid., Odes Retranchees, CEuvres, ii, pp. 443-4. THE ETERNIZING FACULTY OF VERSE 279 Arriere tout funebre chant, Arriere tout marbre et peinture, Mes cendres ne vont point cherchant Les vains honneurs de sepulture, Pour n'estre errant cent ans a I'environ Des tristes bords de I'avare Acheron. Mon nom du vil peuple incognu N'ira sous terre inhonore ; Les Soeurs du mont deux fois cornu Mont de sepulchre decore Qui ne craint point les Aquilons puissans, Ni le long cours des siecles renaissans.^ With these professions go oft-repeated assurances to patrons that the poet's praises can alone make their reputations enduring : C'est un travail de bonheur Chanter les hommes louables, Et leur bastir un honneur Seul vainqueur des ans muables. Le marbre ou I'airain vestu Dun labeur vif par I'enclume N'animent tant la vertu Que les Muses par la plume.^ In the heyday of the Elizabethan outburst the identical \ vaunts were naturalized in Elizabethan poetry. The proofs/ are overwhelming that here, if anywhere, the Elizabethan employed the language of the Pleiade. The note was of classical strain, but the English writers echoed it in a distinctively French key. Sir Philip Sidney in his Apologie for Poetrie (1595) wrote that it was the common habit of poets ' to tell you that they will make you immortal by their verses '. ' Men of great calling,' asserted Nashe in his Pierce Pemiilesse (1598), 'take it of merit to have their names eternized by poets '. In the hands of Elizabethan sonneteers the ' eternizing ' faculty^ of their verse became a staple topic. Spenser wrote in his Anioretti (1595, Sonnet Ixxv) : My verse your virtues rare shall eternize. And in the heavens write your glorious name. ^ Du Bellay, CEitvres choisies, ed. Fouqui^res, p. 118. Ronsard, Odes I. vii, CEuz'res, ed. Blanchemain, ii, p. 58. -5-^ u 280 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC Again, when commemorating' the death of the Earl of Warwick in the Rtiines of Time (c. 1591), the same poet assured the Earl's widowed countess Thy Lord shall never die the whiles this verse Shall live, and surely it shall live for ever ; For ever it shall live, and shall rehearse His worthy praise, and virtues dying never. Though death his soul do from his body sever ; And thou thyself herein shalt also live ; Such grace the heavens do to my verses give. Drayton and Daniel developed the conceit with unblushing iteration. Drayton, who spoke of his efforts as ' my im- mortal song' (Idea, vi. 14) and 'my world-out- wearing rhymes' (xliv. 7), embodied the vaunt in such lines as: While thus my pen strives to eternize thee (Idea, xliv. i). Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish [td. xliv. 11). My name shall mount unto eternity (/d. xliv. 14). All that I seek is to eternize thee (z'^.'xlvii. 14J. Daniel was no less explicit : This [sc. verse] may remain thy lasting monument {Delia ^ xxxvii. 9}. Thou mayst in after ages live esteemed, Unburied in these lines {ib. xxxix. 9-10). These \sc. my verses] are the arks, the trophies I erect That fortify thy name against old age ; And these \_sc. verses] thy sacred virtues must protect Against the dark and time's consuming rage (?<^. 1. 9-12). Shakespeare, in his references to his ' eternal lines ' (xviii. 12) and in the assurances that he gives the subject of his addresses that the sonnets are the young man's ' monument ' (Ixxxi. 9, cvii. 13), boldly accommodated himself to the French canon of taste. Characteristically he more than once invested the topic with a splendour that was not approached by any other poet (Iv. 1-2): Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. I SHAKESPEARE'S 'ETERNAL LINES' 281 Elsewhere Shakespeare more conventionally foretells that his friend amid the oblivion of the day of doom shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green.^ Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read . . . You still shall live,— such virtue hath my pen.'-^ Here we have Ronsard very slenderly qualified : Donne moy I'encre et le papier aussi, En cent papiers tesmoins de mon souci Je veux tracer la peine que j'endure : En cent papiers plus durs que diamant, \ A fin qu'un jour nostre race future Juge du mal que je souffre en aimant.^ Vous vivrez et croistrez comme Laure en grandeur Au moins tant que vivront les plumes et le livre."* Ronsard and his friends never tired of the text that their pens, their papers, and their tablets were the base implements of a poetic spirit which through such poor agencies was winging its way to eternity. The lyric expression of this boast in Elizabethan England was the most persistent of all the clear echoes of the Pleiade's phrase and aspiration. y ^ Shakespeare, Sonnet Ixiii. 13-14. 2 ibid. Ixxxi. 9-10, 13. ' Ronsard, Amours, I. cxciii {(Euvres, I. 109). * ibid., Sonnets pour Ht'lene, II. ii. BOOK V THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS I Characteristics of the Huguenot Movement French Humanism in its early days set out in quest of a mildly rationalized theolog-y. It approved of biblical study ; efforts to strip the Church worship of what looked" like superstitious ceremonies were encouraged ; there was hope of diminishing ecclesiastical interference in the affairs of the laity. But those who directed the main movements of the French humanist army left Christian dogma much as they found it. Liberty of belief or of unbelief satisfied the intellec- tual ambitions of the centre of the humanist forces. A left wing, however, discerned elemental defects in the Roman theory of religion. Under the leadership of Calvin a new theological' and ethical creed was evolved, and open war was declared oA the established Catholic codes. The Calvinist organization J though it ver>' slowly lost its humanist tinge, travelled far fromj the humanist ideals. Expelled from France by the govern-! ing power, the Calvinist theocracy exercised from Geneva a | spiritual tyranny far more rigorous than anything it displaced./ In set terms it ultimately pronounced liberty of conscience a diabolical dogma, and purely aesthetic or intellectual en- deavour ungodly impropriety. Calvinist literature of the sixteenth century, whether it were produced in France or Switzerland, helped to endow Uterary prose with logical pre-i cision ; but the doctrine checked among the faithful imaginative activity or originality ; poetry was banished to the outer court^ of the temple, and only there admitted, if heavily laden withl piety. In France the humanist enthusiasm was too strong to com- mend Calvinism to the bulk of those who cherished early hopes of religious reform. Most of the humanist reformers resented Calvin's drastic revolution and his antagonism to secular culture. Dread of the chilling atmosphere of Calvin's demesne tended 286 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS ^ to draw moderate men of literary feeling back to the more genial air of the old Catholic fold. Under Calvinist pressure, humanism in its main line of development more or less per- functorily reconciled itself with Catholicism. Profane French Ifterature of the lighter kind in the middle of the sixteenth I century was chiefly the work of professedly Catholic and anti- t^Calvinist pens. The greatest writers in sixteenth-century prose and poetry— men like Rabelais, Montaigne, and Amyot among prose writers, or like Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Desportes among poets — were in name loyal Catholics, and in act and deed foes of Calvinist theory and practice. Yet at the side of the poetic Pleiade and of the great Catholic artists in prose, there flourished within France a notable band of humanists who, calling themselves Huguenots, remained faithful to the early hopes of religious reform, but did not abandon liberal culture while they accepted Calvinist teach- ing. Some French poets, some dramatists, some writers of eloquent prose succeeded in reconciling a substantial measure of Calvinist belief with aesthetic and intellectual aspirations. Their allegiance was divided between the Hebrew scriptures and the profane classics, and drawing mental and spiritual sustenance from both, they won distinction in many intellectual fields. Among these enlightened Protestants were the poets Du Bartas and Aubigne, the scholars Etienne and Scaliger, the dramatists Grevin and Montchretien, and the philosopher Ramus. Huguenot soldiers and statesmen, under the leader- ship of Gaspard de Coligny and Henry of Navarre, cultivated literary enthusiasms, which did the spirit of the Renaissance no discredit ; they acknowledged discipleship to Plutarch and Seneca, as well as to Homer and Vergil, the Hebrew prophets and Christ's Apostles. From this broad-minded Huguenot school there issued influences which powerfully helped to mould the course of English thought and culture. The Huguenot movement at its maturity played many unexpected and hardly consistent parts in the history of France. Its spirit took the Protean shapes which were bred of the mingling, on a generous scale, of Hebraic and classical, of sacred and profane conceptions of human life and endeavour. HUGURNOT ASPIRATIONS 287 The movement boasted at once of relig-ious, intellectual, political, military, philosophic, and poetic achievement. Althoug-h the org-anization of Church consistories and synods, and the new theology of election and predestination exhausted the interests of the orthodox Calvinist, yet the Huguenot of the broad school watched with keen attention secular developments of philosophy and learning. He loved to debate first principles of logic and ethics ; he was fascinated by the study of law and history ; he cherished conceptions of political regeneration ; he advocated with an emphasis which none had anticipated the rights of the people to control government ; he pleaded for the sanctity of liberty in matters of conscience, and for the virtue of toleration. While the Huguenot of every type was in theory a votary of peace, he always cherished a firm faith in war as the last resort of those who suffered for conscience' sake, and the more enlightened section of the fraternity was prepared to fight for principles of philosophy and politics as well as of religion. The ripened creed of Huguenot France was thus composed of simples culled as liberally from philosophy, literature, and political theory as from theology. Its piety was deep and lasting. The literary and philosophic activity of the move- ment rarely cooled its religious ardour. Love of poetry or art, enthusiasm for liberty of conscience, failed to breed in the Huguenot fold religious indifferentism. Literature and philosophy from Huguenot pens accepted, without demur, the main tenets of the faith. The stress of political or military conflict exposed Huguenot convictions to greater dangers. At the Huguenot head -quarters political exigencies often menaced principle, and there were among the practical strategists of the party backsliders who finally sacrificed their creed to political ambition. The Huguenot movement, when it is viewed in its full scope, I is consequently seen to split as it grew into three main divi- sions. Something of a centrifugal tendency was inevitable in a busy school of thought and activity, which drew much of its first strength from a predilection for dissent and contro- versy. On the left flank lay the zealots for Calvin's spirituaj/ 288 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS bondage, whose literary labour was confined to dogmatic themes. In the centre stood the enlightened champions of liberty of conscience, who contrived to harmonize love of their creed and courage on the battle-field with wide literary sym- pathy and philosophic originality. On the right flank there gathered a company of ambitious advocates of political ascen- dancy, who were prepared to go further than the centre in the name of expediency, and at times succumbed to the temptation of purchasing peace or profit by surrender of the spiritual citadel. In the moderate centre are to be found the great Huguenot authors, and their attractiveness resides as much in their fine traits of character and temperament as in their written word. The twofold devotion to the Bible and the classics seemed to generate in this middle party a noble type of integrity which was incapable of corruption, and while it was prepared to sacrifice non-essentials in the cause of toleration and liberty was stedfast in all else. Nor did this idiosyncrasy of the golden mean fail in a whole- hearted worship of the Muses. II The Civil Wars in France Civil war was the most conspicuous and engrossing of the practical issues of the Huguenot movement. Some study of the politico-military annals of the French civil wars is needed to an appreciation of the influence of the movement abroad as well as at home. It is not only the literary and philosophic achievement of France that riveted the attention of England, when Elizabethan poetry and drama were coming of age at the end of the sixteenth century. There were in less ethereal spheres of activity events which stirred powerful emotion through two generations. Elizabethan Englishmen of all ranks and capacity were deeply moved by the religious and political conflicts which for nearly fifty years kept France in turmoil. While Ronsard and his friends were busily effecting their reformation of French poetry, France was in the early throes of that intestine strife which continued intermittently for great part of a century, though it only blazed in full THE COUNSEL OF COERCION 289 ferocity at intervals, and was punctuated by prolonged truces. The warfare was pursued in its most brutal rigour while the Elizabethan poets were in early manhood. Pitched battles and sieges formed only one feature of the furious struggle. When the armies returned to their tents there were alarums and excursions in the shape of massacres or assassinations which caused in England hardly less horror than in France herself The domestic dissensions of our neighbours found expression in deeds of violence, so cruel and startling as to shake the nerve of Europe. Owing to the volatility of the national genius, the politico- military convulsions of France affected the tone of general literature less powerfully than might have been anticipated. The main lyric stream of poetic energy was rarely ruffled by the ferment. A man of Montaigne's literary genius could survey the scene of tumult without prejudice to his philosophic temper of detachment. French thought calmly evolved much political theory which bore no obvious trace of the storms of violence. Yet the civil warfare was bound on occasion to dis- turb the current of literary effort. Political and religious argument was often charged with revolutionary passion and a new strength of invective. Huguenot poetry, too, caught at times the menacing tone of Hebraic prophecy and roared im- precations on the heads of the Catholic foe. Satire in verse was driven by political and ecclesiastical rancour to scurrilous excesses. The atmosphere of literature could not always escape the vibrations of the world outside. The questions at issue between Protestant and Catholic were submitted comparatively early to the arbitrament of force. If the ruling powders of France allowed in the dawn of the Renaissance freedom of religious thought, they only countenanced criticism which touched more or less academic theories of theology. As soon as Protestant disaffection questioned ecclesiastical practice and polity, the active leaders of the Church replied to the challenge in terms of persecution or decrees of exile. The secular govern- ment quickly accepted the sacerdotal counsel of coercion ; Protestant resistance proved stubborn ; the result was frank 290 THE MF.SSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS rebellion, political as well as religious. The ground of quarrel often tended to shift from a difference between Romanism and Calvinism to one between unlimited^SLOnarchy inclining to absolutism and constitutional monarchy inclining to Republicanism. But the controversy, whatever its imme- diate colour, was waged with assured reliance on the persua- sive power of sword and cannon. (' The persecution of French Protestants as heretics began in 1535. A year before a fanatical body of Reformers had . challenged the indulgence of the State by placarding Paris with a broadside abusijig^hc Mass and its celebrants. Paris and the chief cities of central France soon witnessed many Huguenot martyrdoms. Seeking encouragement in such French poetry as was available, the martyrs went to the stake chanting Marot's tuneful version of the Psalms. The__Psalms were thenceforth the battle-songs of the Huguenots. The persecution was pursued until 1560. Then the stalwart Pro- testants were strong enough to organize military resistance. The strength of the Huguenots first lay in the small-Gities among the small tradesmen and artisans of the lower middle v^-. ' classes, who had at the bidding of Calvin formed themselves into ' , M congregations, consistories, and synods. Towns like Caen, 6^ y^ Meaux, Poictiers, and the prosperous port of La Rochelle \^^ eagerly accepted the new faith at the outset. But the infec- tion steadily spread in many districts of France from the lower to the upper ranks of society. The sou th-west,, reaching from the river Loire to the Pyrenees, soon became the most compact of Huguenot strongholds, and there the rich bour- geoisie grew more ardent in the cause than the poor. In Normandy, in Dauphine, in Lower Languedoc, and in many scattered districts of Anjou, Maine, Champagne, and Bur- gundy Protestantism spread evenly through every class. In Brittany the nobility alone encouraged religious reform, which the people at large stoutly opposed. The city of Meaux, in the neighbourhood of Paris, where the flag had been raised in early days, was always faithful to the cause through all ranks. Paris had a resolute but comparatively small Huguenot con- vtingent. With such notable exceptions, the centre and north- MICHEL DE L'H6pITAL 291 east of France, which were more densely populated than the/ rest of the country, showed only sparse signs of wavering inj devotion to the old religion. The Huguenot cause attracted men who loved fighting and adventure. It was reckoned that, out of every three members of the lower nobility who were capable of bearing arms, one was pledged to the new religion and served as an 1 officer in the Huguenot armies. The rank and fde werej recruited from the trading and artisan classes, who cherished a spirtual earnestness which it was difficult to daunt on the field of battle. Huguenot officers and private soldiers 1 reached a total exceeding 100,000. The Catholics claimed a force ten times as large. But superiority of zeal and/ generalship on the part of the Huguenots proved an effective) compensation for inferiority of numbers. When war grew imminent. Huguenot aspirations for political liberty and freedom of conscience won powerful adherents within the kings council, and schemes of toleration which were promulgated in the king's name, postponed for a season the outbreak of hostilities. There seemed a likelihood that the destinies of France would be guided by statesmanship, which had caught something of the magnanimity that gave the Huguenot centre its best title to respect. Hopes of conciliation on lines of comprehension conquered the mind and heart of an adviser of the crown. Although his efforts at an accommodation failed, they drew tributes of admiration from Englishmen no less than from enlightened Frenchmen. In 1560 Michel de THopital became chancellor of France. He' was no avowed Huguenot ; he seems to have attended mass ; but his wife and children accepted the proscribed creed, he acknowledged the reasonableness of the Huguenot plea, and Protestants often reckoned him one of themselves. He stood, indeed outside the range of religious or political party, and his religion was of that indefinable quality which is proverbially allotted to the faith of all sensible men. His philosophic calm and humane temper gave him his fame. It was said that his countenance resembled that of Aristotle on Greek medals, and his tone of mind that of Cato the U 2 \ 292 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS Censor. A skilful orator and a fine scholar, he enjoyed the affectionate regard of all men of culture. L'Hopital was a writer of admirable Latin verse, and Ronsard greeted him as — Ce divin THospital En moeurs et en s^avoir, qui si doctement touche La lyre et qui le miel fait couler de sa bouche. To him Ronsard dedicated the greatest and the longest of his Pindaric odes. There the poet describes how the chan- cellor's virtues and accompHshments have fitted France for the Muses' lasting home. But it is his moral excellence which, in the opinion of the poet, chiefly glorifies his country : Mais veritable il me plaist De chanter bien haut, qu'il est L'ornement de nostre France, Et qu'en fidele equite, En justice et verite, Les vieux siecles il devance.^ L'Hopital figures in an even more heroic light in Brantome's gallery where he is likened to Sir Thomas .More, chancellor of England, despite the obvious discrepancy between their religious sympathies. At the turning-point in his country's fortunes, L'Hopital's magnanimity seemed well fitted to mediate between the rival hosts into which his fellow countrymen were divided. Tran- quilly and sanguinely he set forth to heal dissensions. ' Patience, patience, tout ira bien,' were words often on his lips, but his eloquent appeal for mutual tolerance succeeded only in delay- ing the final breach. When he saw how his manful strivings 1 Ronsard, Odes, Bk. I, Ode x (CEicvres, ed. Blanchemain, ii. 95). Some of Ronsard's friends were irritated by L'Hopital's exemplary fair- ness of mind and his obvious sympathy with the Huguenots. Jodelle in r3. bitter satire denounced in a very characteristic vein of controversy the j ambiguities of his opinions : V- Sa vertu est d'estre un Prothee, Sa neutralitc d'estre Athee, Sa paix deux lignes maintenir : Changer les loix, c'est sa pratique, Sa court les pedants soustenir, Et son s^avoir d'estre heretique. {CEuvres, ed. Marty-Laveaux, Paris, 1870, ii. 349.) THE FIRST CIVIL WAR 293 lor peace were of no avail against the dominant forces of big-otry and unreason, he with cahn dignity resigned the seals of office. In words that have become classic, he declared that he had followed the ' great royal road ' which turns neither to the right hand nor the left, and had given himself to no faction. Amid all the evils of the time the up- right statesman preserved, in the contemporary phraseology, 'the lilies of France in his heart,' but the crushing blow which the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day soon dealt to his last hopes of pacification cost him his life (March 13, 1573). Of the impression which such a type of culture and integrity left on the Elizabethan mind, noble testimony is borne by Sir Philip Sidney, the knightly champion of the Huguenot cause in England. In his Apology for Poetry Sidney numbers L'Hopital among statesmen to whom the cause of sweet poesy was dear, and who made it prevail. Sidney credits the French chancellor with a ' more accomplished judgement more firmly builded upon virtue, than had yet come to birth '} It was the noble family of the Guises, who controlled the most bigoted wing of absolutist Catholicism. Their astuteness was mainly responsible for the impotency of L'Hopital's great endeavour. The Guises gained control of the action of the queen-mother, Catherine de' Medici, who as regent for her young son Charles IX dominated affairs of state. Their influl^Tce made a stern and unflinching policy of repression finally to prevail. The hope of compromise or conciliation was extinguished by the flame of brutal fanaticism, which the Guises fanned. The Huguenots eagerly accepted the challenge, and in 1562 there was fought at Dreux, on the borders of Normandy, the first pitched battle between French Catholics and Huguenots. Elizabethan England sent men, money, and guns to the aid of her French co-religionists. Although Huguenots cherished misgivings of foreign inter- 1 Sidney's Apology, ed. Shuckburgh, p. 48. Sidney is here inquiring into the causes of the low repute of poetry in PIngland, and attributes the foreign superiority to the practice habitual to men in high position abroad ^f not only of befriending poets, but also of writing poetry for themselves. Among such foreign champions of the poetic art he reckons ' before all, ' that Hospitall of Fraunce. ' 294 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS ference in the field and showed some suspicion of their English allies, the fortunes of the war were scanned almost as anxiously in England as in France. There was no lack of sensation. The assassination by a Huguenot of the head of the Guise family, F'rancis, the second duke, while the Catholics were besieging Orleans, gave a foretaste of the weapon which was to be freely used in future frays (Feb. i8, 1563). A hollow peace between the combatants then gave them a brief breath- ing space. But campaign was to follow campaign in quick succession. In 1567 there broke out the second war, during which the great battle of St. Denis was fought under the walls of Paris. In these early encounters the Catholics were victorious, but the undismayed Huguenots sanguinely began a third war in 1569 and lost no ground during its progress. At the well-contested fight of Jarnac in the western province of Saintonge, the Huguenot general, the Prince of Conde, Henry of Navarre's uncle, was captured and shot. The supreme I command devolved on an officer of even larger skill and ; experience, and one whose character was as lofty, — Gaspard de Coligny. Coligny's first batde of Moncontour failed to retrieve the neighbouring disaster of Jarnac. But there fol- lowed in 1570 a third peace— that of St. Germain — which offered the Huguenots comparatively easy terms and greatly stimulated their hope of ultimate success. It was in 1572, two years after the conclusion of the third war and the third peace, that Queen Catherine and the Guises, despairing of other means of crushing their enemies, planned and executed the ghastly massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. Thirty thousand Huguenots in Paris and the provinces were put to the sword, and the victims included Coligny, the noble- hearted commander of the Huguenot forces, and Ramus, the intellectual chieftain of the movement. The barbarity out- raged English feeling beyond all precedent. Loud and deep were the English curses of French Catholic cruelty. The fevered wrath of Queen Elizabeth's subjects was echoed on the Elizabethan stage, and Marlowe's lurid pageant of tragedy, which was entitled The Massacre of THE DYNASTIC DISPUTE 295 Paris, was one of many testimonies to the unquenchable I anger of Shakespeare's generation against the St. Bartholo- / mew assassins of 1572. The murderous manoeuvre failed in attaining the object of its perpetrators. Surviving Protestants flew to arms with renewed spirit, and for the eight following years France had little respite from the wearing strife. At the outset of this period the Huguenot strongholds of La Rochelle and Sancerre were subjected to the tortures of desperate sieges. The chance of any early abatement of the vindictive stress seemed small. None the less a sense of impatience with extremists on both sides was steadily developing among the calmer sections of the people. Though compromise proved / as yet impracticable the wish for it was growing articulate. It was from the momentous year £58^ that there dated the latest and the longest campaign, or series of campaigns in the religious war of sixteenth-century France. Four years of\ delusive quiet preluded the final conflict. In that interval Queen Ehzabeth encouraged, more actively than before, the addresses of a French suitor, the Duke d'Alen9on, the French king's heir and brother, and her apparent earnestness in the matrimonial negotiation fostered a fallacious hope, both in England and France, of a religious and political settlement without further recourse to the sword. The death of Queen Elizabeth's French lover in 1584 abruptly revived the struggle in its fiercest shape. The French king, Henry III, was now brotherless as well as childless. The throne of France had/ lost its heir, and the process of choosing a successor brought I into the struggle a new element of schism. Dynastic rivalry thenceforth embittered religious dissent. Henrj'^ of Navarre, who, despite his disposition to gallantry, was now the accepted leader of the Huguenot forces, was lineal heir of the childless king, and he fought henceforth for his crown as well as for his faith. Under such stimulus the passion for political ascen- dancy grew strong in the right wing of the Huguenot ranks. Navarre's uncle, Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, whose Catholic fervour was unquestioned, was promptly put for- ward by the Guises as the royal Catholic heir. Catholics were 296 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS adjured to acknowledge no title but his, A Catholic associa- tion was reorganized under the name of the Holy League to resist Navarre's claim to the French crown. The Holy League's appeal to vSpanish support ostensibly ruined the Huguenot chances of military success. But the foreign alHance had an effect opposite to that which was I designed. Moderate Catholics and moderate Huguenots were / drawn together by a patriotic sentiment which dreaded foreign ( dominion, and thus there was cradled the formidable party of ' LesJPpliticjues ', whose most effective bond of union was hos- tility to the Guises. The French king, who chafed against the Hispaniolized sway of the Guises, bid boldly for the aid of the liberal Catholics, from whom ' Les Politiques ' were largely recruited. Thus the Catholics soon split into two militant factions. While the extremists raUied round the Guises, moderate men were inclined to support the reigning sovereign against all comers, and to leave the succession for time to settle. Huguenots of various complexions at the same time marched together in effectual harmony under the banner of the king of Navarre. The moderate Catholic forces of the king opened the strife anew by rashly joining the advanced party of the Guises in an endeavour to drive Navarre from the field. The result was a surprise for Navarre's allied foe. He and the Huguenots won at Coutras, in Guienne, their first decisive victory- in battle (October, 1587), Thenceforth the star of Navarre was in the ascendant. Murderous acts of private vengeance combined with natural processes of death to remove from his path his most formidable rivals, and to clear the road for his final triumph. In December, 1588, the French king contrived the assassination of the Duke of Guise and of his brother the Cardinal of Guise. Next month (on January 5, 1589) died i Catherine de' Medici, the queen-mother, the inveterate foe of the Huguenots, and there followed at St. Cloud in the sum- mer the murder, by the fanatic Dominican, Jacques Clement, : of the French king (Henry III) (July 31). Henry of Navarre thus advanced to the centre of the French political stage. The Elizabethan public had lately watched THE ACCESSION OF HENRY IV 297 his fortunes with intense sympath\ and he was now their iclol.i The I^^arl of Essex \vas_an eager worshipper. Enghshl volunteers crowded to Henry's camp. Shakespeare, in one of his earliest comedies [Comedy 0/ Ef^rors, III. ii. 128), reflected the popular interest when he wrote of ' France armed and reverted, making war against her heir '. Henry's valour and luck proved irresistible. He won the brilliant victory of Ivry (March 14, 1590), and the Holy League could no longer bar his passage to the French throne. Fate continued to fight for him. His uncle, the Cardinal de Bourbon, who was Catholic rival to the crown, and was know^n to his supporters as King Charles X,was removed by death within two months of the triumph of Ivry, and the royal pretender was soon followed to the grave (December 8, 1592) by the great Spanish general, Alexander of Parma, whose co-operation was all-important to the League. That association was thenceforth rent by internal jealousies. The moderate men among Catholics and Huguenots preached peace with a new energy. The cry of ' Les Politiques ' for compromise rang with the note of both reason and expediency, and finally grew irresistible. But the Protestants were still a minority of the people, and a nominal Catholic could alone win the allegiance of the nation at large. Henry's religious convictions were not deep, and he did not hesitate to cut the Gordian knot by choosing the path of least resistance. He came to the conclusion that a cro\vn was worth a Mass. He was received into the bosom of the Catholic Church at St. Denis on July 2^, 1593, when he solemnly abjured all protestant heresies, and was panegy- rized by the preacher Du_Eerron, who had lately celebrated Ronsard's funeral obsequies. Henry was anointed king of France at Chartres on February 27, 1594, and Paris opened her gates to him. Never was new-crowned monarch more heartily greeted by his subjects. ' Les Politiques,' who were responsible for this happy issue, found at the height of the crisis their most effective weapon in literary satire. The dominion of the Catholic League received its final blow^ from the pen and not from the sword. During 298 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS 1593 there were put into circulation some flysheets of a journal- istic pattern which effectively imputed to the enemies of Henry of Navarre the meanest motives and a total want of patriotism. The chieftains of the League were represented as cunning- charlatans who gloried in a cynical contempt for the fortunes of their country. Part of the satire was cast in dramatic form. There were placed in the mouths of the Leaguers and of their satellites comically frank confessions of sordid principles. These ironies were followed by eloquent and serious state- ments of the case of ' Les Politiques '. The work was chiefly written in vigorous prose. But there were interludes of gro- tesque or flamboyant verse. The original flysheets were first collected and published with amplifications in the summer of 1594, under the title of La Satire Menippee} Additions ^ were made in subsequent issues, which were numerous. The authorship was anonymous ; but at least eight of the writers have been identified. Among them were the poets Jean Pas- secat and Gilles Durant, who were tuneful disciples of Ron- sard, and the dramaFi'st Florent Chretien, who was at one time a convinced Huguenot. Few political pamphlets proved of greater effect. Elizabethan England welcomed with cha- racteristic promptitude this sturdy assault on Catholic bigotry. La Satire Menippee helped to guide public opinion in Eng- j land. Within a few months of the publication of the work I in French an English translation was licensed by the Sta- Uioners' Company in London (September 28, 1594). The English version, which retained little of the polish of the original, duly appeared next year under the title, ' A Pleasant Satyre or Poesie. Wherein is discovered the Catholicon [i. e. the quack medicine] of Spayne, and the chiefe leaders of the League finelie fetcht over and laide open in their colours.' The French text greeted the accession of Henry of Navarre to the throne of France with a spirited enthusiasm which, despite the uncouthness of the English rendering, braced • The name was suggested by the Saturae Menippeae of Varro, a volu- minous Latin author of Cicero's epoch. Only fragments survive of Varro's work. It was an imitation of a lost treatise by the cynic philosopher Menippus of Gadara. See Teuffel and Schwabe, History of Roman Literature, 1891, i. 255-6. 1 THE EDICT OE NANTES 299 Elizabethan sympathy. vSomc lines by Passerat, which were addressed to the new king, ran in the I^nglish volume thus : Unconciuered prince, and of thine age the glorie eke alone, Euen God himselfe doth set thee up upon thy grand - sire's throne ; And with a happy hand doth reach to thee two scep- ters braue. Which, taken from the Spanish foe, thou shalt uphold and haue.^ With Henry IV's coronation the politico-religious struggle' in France w-as over for the century. The old religion then came to terms with the new. Spain made a strenuous effort to hamper the settlement, and war with her quickly broke out; afresh. But Spanish aggression failed to restore the supre-' macy of extreme Catholicism. The French Church had always claimed much independence of the Papacy, and the recent 1 progress of events intensified a desire for the conservation of Galhcan liberties. Tiie_jLntij}atioiial^ Jesuits were expelledj from the country. The invasion of the Spaniards was arrested. Internal and external developments facilitated the emancipa- tion of the Huguenots. The new king w^as able to secure, by the edi ct of Nant es,, a practical measure of toleration for the, French. Protestants, at whose head he had fought. That edict w^as promulgated on April 13, 1598?) Three weeks later peace was signed with Spain, and all clouds for the time vanished from the French sky. By the edict of Nantes, the principle of liberty of conscience was secured to the Huguenots. Religious tests in the public service were abolished, and if restrictive clauses narrowed the practical scope of the enfranchisement, none could question that Protestantism had won a substantial triumph, Protestant Eng- land, which had been shocked by Henry IV's apostasy, was reconciled to him partly by his difficulties with Spain, her own inveterate foe, and wholly by his tolerant policy. ^ A Pleasant Satyre, 1595, p. 196. The volume has the sub-title, A Satyre Menippized. The ' two sceptres ' in the quotation are those of France and Navarre. ' Grandsire' is the English translator's inaccurate attempt to reproduce the French poet's allusion in a later line to Henry IV's distant descent from Saint Louis, who reigned in the thirteenth century. 300 THE MESSAGE OI^^ THE HUGUENOTS / The edict of Nantes was hailed on both sides of the Channel as a Mag-na Charta of Protestantism. Not that suspicion of the Reformed creed was extinguished in Catholic France by the great compromise. In the next century a strong Catholic reaction opened anew the sectarian controversy in its acutest /form. The old faith regained its strength and the edict [was revoked in 1685. Proof was then conclusive that, what- ever the French affinity with the intellectual side of Huguenot enlightenment, something in the doctrine of Luther or Calvin was alien to the French national spirit. But though the Huguenot triumph of the sixteenth century proved in the end to be transitory, Elizabethan England reckoned it for the time a final miracle of God's grace. Sympathy with France deepened. At the end of Elizabeth's reign the governments of the two countries cherished in their diplomatic relations an unprecedented amity. There was a widening of the scope of French influence on English thought and literature. Ill Huguenot Settlers and Visitors in England ^ One effect of the vain effort of the French Catholic govern- ment to curb Huguenot dissent by persecution was to drive ' many French Protestants from their native land. Some found asylum in the Low Countries and some in Germany. But England was the land of promise which attracted the greater number of these Huguenot emigres. The peaceful invasion of Britain began ia^the. reign of^EdwardVL^a few years after the policy of coercion was openly proclaimed by the ministers of Francis I. The stream of immigration flowed continuously throughout the young kings reign. There was naturally a cessation during the Catholic reaction of Queen Mary's sovereignty, and the Protestant aliens retreated to kindlier havens in Holland or Switzerland. But Huguenot incursions were renewed in larger volume at the opening of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and were gready encouraged by Archbishop Parker, who declared it a cardinal point of piety to befriend THE HUGUENOT REFUGEES 301 ' these g-entle and profitable strangers '.^ Till the end of the century F.no-Hsh ports were freely opened to French refugees. FZvery critical disaster which befell the Huguenot communities at home quickened the tide of immigration into England. The massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in i =^'J2, and the temporary triumph of the Catholic League in 1585, sent ships crowded with Huguenot families to the coasts of Kent, Sussex, or Hamp- shire. The Huguenots well deserved a greeting of tolerance and charity. But the insular prejudice against aliens was never wholly silenced in Britain. In 1593, when a bill was introduced into the House of Commons prohibiting aliens from selling by retail any foreign commodity, the ancient cry against foreigners was raised at Westminster. Sir Robert Cecil, the Queen's Secretary, attacked the illiberal sentiment with fine spirit. In the name of the Queen's government he resisted any restriction on foreign traders, and gave voice to a feeling of rare enlighten- ment when he asserted that the relief afforded by England to strangers ' hath brought great honour to our Kingdom ; for it is accounted a refuge for distressed nations, for our arms have been opened unto them to cast themselves into our bosoms '.^ The aliens of Elizabethan England were in constant pro- cess of reinforcement by visitors not only from France, but from Flanders, Germany, and even Italy and Spain. All these - countries drove forth Protestant exiles for conscience' sake. But the F'rench community in England remained more nume- rous and influential than the settlement of any other foreign nation. On Elizabeth's accession the French immigrants were presented by the sovereign with a church of their own, and the edifice, which was in Threadneedle Street, soon became a Huguenot cathedral of England, with daughter-churches scat- tered through the land, London was only one of the British ^ Strype s Life of Archbishop Parker, 1821, i. 276. References to the French Protestant refugees in Elizabethan England abound in Strype's Annals. The subject is fully treated in Smiles, The Huguenots . . . itt England and Ireland, 1 880, and in Baron F. De Schickler's Les cglises du refuge en Angieterre, 1 547-1685, 3 torn., Paris, 1892. See also the publications of the Huguenot Society,— especially Registers of the French Church, Threadneedle Street, 1896- 1906; Returns of Aliens in London, Henry VII I-James I, ed. R. E.G. and E. F. Kirk, 1900 ; Letters of Deniza- tioti . . .for aliens in England, 1 509-1603, ed. \V. Page, 1893. ■^ D&wts' Journals, pp. 508-9. 3()2 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS cities of refuge. Huguenots abounded in the villages near the metropolis. Arras works at Mortlake, tapestry works at Ful- ham, bore witness to the presence of French-speaking residents. Tottenham was reported to have become a French settlement. Further afield, Huguenots were prominent at Southampton, Canterbury, in all the Cinque ports, and at Norwich. Every- where they had their churches and schools, and at Canterbury they were suffered by Archbishop Parker to worship, from 1564 onwards, in the crypt or undercroft of the Cathedral. There is no ineans of ascertaining the precise numbers of the Huguenot population in the whole country during the sixteenth ; century, but it could hardly have fallen below the total of 10,000. At the end of the sixteenth century the baptisms in the chief French church of London —that in Threadneedle vStreet — averaged annually at least 100. The settlers, who were invariably of small means, chiefly comprised skilled artisan s — silkweavers, tapestry workers, printers, bookbinders — or doctors of medicine, and ministers ot the faith. Normans were largely represented amongst them, but numbers came from Orleans, Poitiers, and the cities of the south. Many mechanical arts were greatly improved by these humble emigres} Their pastors often showed scholarly attainments, and their medical practitioners gave proof of unusual skill. It was no mere literary influence which the presence of these French sojourners exerted on the land of their adoption. They tended to raise the standard of intel- lectual efficiency and of material comfort in their English environment. International sympathy was stimulated by the Huguenot invasion of England, and on occasion Huguenots were in a position to return in their own country the services of hospi- tality which their fellows received from English hosts. From an early date the port of ^LaRochelle, a chief stronghold of the Huguenots, was in close touch with the advanced ^ Shakespeare was acquainted with a ftimily of Huguenot refugees. In 1604 he was lodging in the house, in Silver Street, Cripplegate, of one Christopher Montjoy, a Huguenot tiremaker or wigmaker, and took part in a family quarrel. See ' New Shakespeare Discoveries ' by Dr. C. W. Wallace in Harper'' s Magazine, March, 1910. AN ENGLISH PRESS AT LA ROCHELLE 303 section of Elizabethan Puritans, and the printing presses of the French city were at times placed at the disposal of Elizabethan controversialists, to whose extreme opinions the English authorities refused the liberty of publication. The manuscripts of many Puritan theologians of the strictest type were sent across the sea to be printed. As early as 1574 Walter Travers, one of the most eminent of the school of English Calvinists, wrote his famous Ecclcsiasticae Disciplinae ct Aiiglicaiiae Ecdcsiae ad ilia Abei^j^ationis plena c verbo Dei et diliicida explication and caused it to be printed anonymously at La Rochelle. The same Huguenot citadel was at times the asylum of English publishers and authors who had incurred the wrath of the rulers of the Angli- can Church. In 1589 90 the city was the home of a Puritan\ printer, Robert Waldegrave, who had been exiled from Lon- j don for issuing attacks on the English bishops. After^ printing K in 1588-9 some of the MartixL Marprelate tracts, in which the endeavour was made to undermine episcopacy_Jby:_fQrjce--of ridicule, \\'aldegrave escaped late in 1589 from the fury of the bishops in London to La Rochelle. Subsequently he found a safe haven at Edinburgh, but he followed his trade during 1590 in the great Huguenot seaport. At least t ^vo o f. the Martin Alarprelate pamphlets, which excelled in scurrility any of theircompanions, — Penry's Appellation in March, 1590, and Job Throckmorton's M\asfer Robert^ Sojne laid open in his Colonics in April, — came under Waldegrave 's auspices from a_La_JRochelle press. \'efy^ close was'^he intimacy bet\\'een the active pamphleteers of the ultra- Puritan Revolution in London and the Huguenot leaders in the South of France. Few Huguenot scholars settled permanently in Eliza- bethan England, but many figured prominently as occasional visitors. One of these, Antony Rudolf Chevallier, a Norman, was a temporary guest of Archbishop Cranmer in Edward Ms reign, and in the early years of Eliza- beth's reign he returned to serve as Hebrew professor at Cambridge. Pierre du Moulin, the learned son of the Huguenot pastor of Orleans, fled before the Catholic League's predominance to study at Cambridge, earning his livelihood 304 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS by instructing the boy-earl of Rutland and his brother. Of far greater note was Henri Etienne, the Huguenot scholar- f printer and a chief apostle oF Renaissance culture, who wandered about England during the middle years of the \ century. Toward the end of the period there came Joseph Scalio-er— the younger Scaliger— a Huguenot scholar of supreme genius, who not only edited with infinite skill many classical texts, but with wonderful ingenuity determined the chronology of Greek and Roman history. According to Mark Pattison, Scaliger possessed ' the most richly stored intellect which ev^er spent itself in acquiring knowledge '. It is to be regretted that so eminent a guest formed a goor I opinion of both the scholarship and the manners of his English ' hosts. He imputed indolence to the fellows at Cambridge ; he detected a narrow sectarianism in English churchmen, and deemed the disposition of the lower orders inhuman. But he admired the wealth of Church foundations despite diminution through Henry VIII's spoliation ; he studied with interest border-ballads, and opened a correspondence with Camden, the great Elizabethan antiquary, and with Richard Thomson, a Cambridge scholar who greatly benefited by his erudition.^ Scaliger's intimate friend and co-religionist, Isaac Casaubon, ■ whose Greek culture was cast in his own mould, settled in England in James Is reign, and kept alive there Elizabethan memories of Huguenot scholarship. Some Huguenot visitors to Elizabethan England suggest yet another sort of influence which came from Protestant France to colour English aspiration. In spite of the welcome offered by Elizabethan England to Huguenot refugees, the (exiles rarely lost the sense that they were living under a foreign law and dispensation. Many times there flashed across the Huguenot mind, when the fortunes of the party sank low in P~rance, the idea of a settlement across the Atlantic, where not only would threats of persecution be silenced, but where God's saints might reign in a peaceful autonomy free of all taint of foreign subservience. Twice a vigorous effort was made to give effect to this mirage of ^ Mark Pattison's Essays, New Universal Library, i. 1 16-17. THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA 305 an inclepetKl£ilt_tiuguenQt_proyince in America, and though the endeavours had no permanent result, they fostered, in England as well as in France, hopes of a colonial empire, which should be purged of all the political corruptions of the Old \\'orld and give liberty a fresh scope. The Elizabethan design of Virginia and the Puritan foundation of New England were ventures of Englishmen who more or less consciously followed in Huguenot footsteps. The first Huguenot scheme of American colonization was tried in Brazil in 1555. The Huguenot leader, Nicholas Durand, Sieur de Villegaghon, had been one of Calvin's fellow students at the University of Paris. The expedition enjoyed the benediction of Calvin, and French pastors from Geneva were among the settlers. But Villegagnon's adventure came to early grief, amid discouraging omens. The second enter- prise, which had a different destination in the vaguely defined district of Florida (in the northern continent) more forcibly impressed Elizabethan thought and aspiration. Jean Ribaut, a Dieppe captain of good family and strong Calvinist feeling, was its chief organizer, and he was for a time a refugee in Elizabethan England. It was at the request of Coligny, the Huguenot chieftain, who was an active patron of the Florida scheme of occupation, that Ribaut undertook his task in 1562. Ribaut quickly formed a miniature Huguenot plantation on Floridan shores, and, leaving his fellow settlers there, he returned to Europe to consult the Huguenot leaders at home. But his native land was torn by civil war on his arrival, and his patrons were in no mood to give him a hearing. Retiring to England to formulate plans for the future, he remained there for two years. In London he wrote out in French his story of the Huguenot discovery and settlement of ' Terra Florida '. The book, which was a stimulating contribution to the literature of American exploration, had the fortune to be published in London in 1563 in an English translation. That rendering is the only form in which Ribaut's work has sur- vived, for no copy of his original French is extant. While Ribaut lingered in England, his French settlement in Florida received notable reinforcements under Rene de Laudonniere, LEE X 3o6 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS a Huguenot nobleman of sternest Calvlnist convictions. Finally in 1564 Ribaut re-crossed the Atlantic ocean, but only to play on the other side the part of protagonist in a ghastly tragedy. W^ithin five days of his arrival in Florida, he was slain by Spanish buccaneers, who massacred all but a handful of the Huguenot colonists. News of Ribaut's tragic fate spread rapidly through Eliza- bethan England and moved anger and dismay. The Huguenot invasion of Florida riveted itself on Elizabethan attention. A few Frenchmen had under the leadership of Laudonniere evaded Spanish vengeance. These survivors landed, by an accident of navigation, after their hairbreadth escape, at Swansea, and travelled to London for the most part on foot. Most of them managed to return to France. But their mis- fortunes excited infinite pity in England. A vivacious report of Ribaut's massacre was quickly published in Paris by one of his surviving companions, Nicholas le Challeux, a car- penter, who, on his journey out to Florida, had spent nearly three weeks in the Isle of Wight. Le Challeux's statement achieved instant popularity in an English translation. In- deed, all the French literature concerning the Huguenot I attempt on Florida enjoyed a general vogue in English Vversions. The colonial ambitions of Elizabethans were thereby quickened. Richard Haklu^'t began his great career of literary advocate of Elizabethan colonization of America by publishing, in 1582, a volume oi Diners voyages touching the discover ie of America^ in which Ribaut's early treatise filled the_chie£space. Hakluyt spent the next five years in Paris as chaplain to the English Embassy there, and before he came home he published in an English rendering another elaborate account of the Florida expedition, by one who played almost as prominent a part in its fortunes as Ribaut himself, — by Rene de Laudonniere. Laudonniere 's work had just issued for the first time from the press at Paris when Hakluyt turned it into his own language. Of the most cultured of Laudonniere's companions in Plorida, an interesting story remains to tell. The artist of the expedition, Jacques Le Moine, made his permanent home THK COLONIAL ASPIRATION 307 in England, and the i^ketchcs of^FJoiida, which he preserved, sowed seeds of colomafambition in many English minds. Le Moine settled in Blackfriars, and vSir Walter Raleigh was among his patrons. Raleigh's effort of 1584 to people with luiglishmen the American region which he christened Virginia owed much to the suggestion of the Huguenot experience. X'^irginia was a part of the district which Ribaut and his com- panions knew as Terra Florida. At Raleigh's expense Le Moine developed in colours his pictorial notes of his American observations. Sir Philip Sidney, the Paladin of Elizabethan ( benefactors of the Huguenot cause, likewise acquired from j Le Moine some of his colonial aspiration. To Sidney's wife 1 the Huguenot artist dedicated a published collection of draw- ings of birds, beasts, flowers, and fruits. The artist's fame, fanned by such patronage, spread far and wide, De Bry, the great Frankfort publisher and engraver, came to London to bargain with him for the purchase of his rich portfolio of sketches of Floridan Hfe and nature. But the refugee declined to entertain the offer from a sense of loyalty to his English friends. After his death, his widow ignoring his scruples, made over his work to the German dealer, who at once gave engravings of it to the admiring world of Europe. Though Elizabethan England was slow^er than western countries on the continent to grasp new ideas and opportunities, the Huguenot zeal for colonial enterprise provoked a response in the Eliza- bethan mind. The presence of Huguenots on English soil proved an invigorating spur to action as well as to thought.^ IV The Devotional Literature of the Huguenots The Huguenots, despite their activity in other spheres of labour, were always energetic waelders of the pen. Little of their literary activity escaped Elizabethan notice. Their * The connexion of the Huguenot Settlements with English endeavours of later date is treated by the present writer in the second article ('The Teaching of the Huguenots ') of a series, called ' America and Elizabethan England ', in Scribner''s Magazine, 1907. Hakluyt's translation of Ribaut and Laudonnicre's narratives is a main authority. X 2 3oS THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS relig-ious poetr)' evoked a paean of welcome. Nor were the political and theological views of the Huguenots less admiringly studied by Elizabethan Englishmen, and Huguenot prose played no inconspicuous part in the literary history of England through the eras alike of Queen Elizabeth and of her two immediate successors. The Huguenots' mingled hopes of theological and political reform led to a rich and varied harvest of both theological and political treatises and pam- phlets. The Huguenot prose writers treated the theory and practice of politics with an originality and a disrespect for conservative convention, which especially attracted the atten- tion of Shakespeare's fellow countrymen. French Protestant theology for the most part, as far as style went, aimed at Calvin's lucid precision. Latin was its frequent vehicle of expression, but the French language was in common use, and lent many a touch of vivid colour to the arid wastes of religious controversy. Pierre \"iret, one of Calvin's most active lieutenants, was a lively pamphleteer despite his dogmatic earnestness, and his works circulated in English translations among the faithful in Edward \Ts and in Queen Elizabeth's reign quite as briskly as the more authoritative performances of his master. Of Calvin's leading disciples the name most familiar to Shakespeare's generation was that of Theodore Beza, who filled after Calvin's death his place as chieftain of the Genevan state, holding office from 1564 until his death in 1607. Beza's prolonged career of eighty-seven years, his versatile accomplishments as humanist and theologian, and his personal relations with Englishmen, gave his name and work an especial prominence in English life. P'or half a century he was in constant correspondence with English churchmen and puritan laymen, urging on both from the days of Edward VI the settlement of those religious differences which split Protestant P^ngland asunder. He declined a pressing invitation to settle in the country soon after Queen Elizabeth's accession, when France was no longer a safe abode. But he acknowledged the courtesy of the hospitable offer by presenting to Cambridge University one of the earliest extant codices of the Greek Testament, BEZA AND FRENCH PSALMODY 309 which still enjoys universal repute as the Codex Bezac. Zest for biblical scholarship was one of Beza's foremost interests, and he pressed its claim to public endowment on Queen Elizabeth's prime minister, Lord l^urghley.^ Beza's house at Geneva was always open to English and to Scottish travellers through the last four decades of the sixteenth century. Among his guests midway through that epoch was Francis Bacon's brother Antony, to whose mother, ' in testimonie of the honour and reverence I beare to the vertue of you and yours,' he dedicated on Nov. i, 1581, his Christian Medita- tions upon Eight Fsaims^ In 1588 he sent a congratulatory , message to Queen Elizabeth on the defeat of the Spanish Armada, in the form of a Latin epigram, and it was published as a popular broadside, not only in Latin, but with translations into ^ English, Dutch, Spanish, Hebrew, Greek, Italian, and French. \ Probably Beza w^on his chief popularity in England and 1 exerted his widest influence as a translator into verse ol the Psalms. He was a chief promoter of psalmody in Pro- ( testant w^orship, which may be claimed as an invention of the French Reformers. Luther based on a German translation of certain psalms a few hymns wdiich enjoyed a wide vogue. But the general habit of psalm-singing did not come from' Germany to either France or England. It was the poet Clement Marot who first stirred the Huguenot passion for psalmody. Marot addressed the ladies of France in a poetic preface to his translation of fifty psalms into French verse. He foretold a golden age, when psalmody would deprive toil of all its pain. The labourer would sing psalms beside his plough, the carmen would chant them on the high roads, and 1 Strype's Annals (Oxford, 1S28), III. i. no, 197-8- 2 lieza's Christian Meditations were published in English in 1582. In the dedication to Lady Bacon, Beza is made by the translator to state that the manuscripts had long lain unused, ' where they had lyen still, had not bene the comming of master Anthony Bacon your sonne, into these partes : whom when I saw to take pleasure in this little piece of woorke, and again knowing by the latin letters wherewith it hath liked you to honour me, the great and singular, yea extraordinarie graces wherwith God hath indewed you, and whereof I acknowledge a very paterne in your said sonne : I perswaded my selfe that it should not be displeasing to you, if this small volume carying your name upon the browe, were offered to you.' Beza dedicated his Icones (1580) to James V'l of Scotland, and mentions the interest he felt in the Scottish students at Geneva. 3IO THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS the shopkeeper would hum them over his counter. Marot's prophecy almost came true in sixteenth -century France and vSwitzerland, not so much through his own effort as through eza's energetic intervention. Marot's fragmentary work as French psalmist was completed by Beza. All the psalms, save those with which Marot had dealt, were turned by him into French verse. The tameness of his muse when compared with the vigour of that of his predecessor excited the ridicule of the critics,^ but Beza's pious rhymes were welcomed with enthusiasm by the Calvinist rank and file. Popular French tunes were adapted to the completed French psalter under the sanction of Beza and the rulers of Geneva. They decreed I that literal renderings of the Psalms were, with the biblical \ canticles, the only words fit for singing in divine worship. iMany of Beza's and Marot's French renderings, set to brisk i music, became not only the battle-songs of the Huguenot 'army, but the recreation of Huguenot households at work and play. Psalmody became as popular outside the Protestant temples as inside. The psalmody of the Huguenots awoke the sympathy of English Protestants. The musical notation of the Geneva Psalter of 1551, to which Beza was the largest contributor of words, may be almost said to have called into being the psalm - singing proclivities of the Elizabethan Puritan. The psalm- tunes which enjoyed the widest popularity in Elizabethan England were for the most part of French invention. The ' Old Hundredth ', which develops the harmony of an early French ballad, figured first in the French Psalter of 1551, and was transferred with many companion melodies of like origin to an P2nglish rendering of the Psalms Vv^hich was published ' A contemporary epigram contrasted Beza's and Marot's psalms thus : Ceux de Marot, c'est d'Amphion la lyre, Ou du dieu Pan le flageol gracieux ; Mais ceux de Beze un frangois vicieux, Rude et contraint, et fascheux a merveilles. Donne k Marot le laurier gracieux, A Beze, quoi ? de Midas les oreilles. Beza in a clumsy answer retorted that he would borrow his ass's ears of his critic. {La Bibliothcque (TAnkuuc du Verdier, si'igncur dc Vattprivas, Lyons, 1585, p. 1172.) DU PLESSIS 311 ten years later. Psalm-singing failed to become quite so in- sistent a feature of life in Elizabethan England as in Huguenot France, yet it largely owed to French example such scope as it enjoyed among Shakespeare's fellow countrymen. When Shakespeare imputed to Puritans as a distinctive mark the habit of 'singing psalms to hornpipes', he obviously had in J mind some of the lively measures which Protestant Frenchmen had adapted to purposes of religious exercise. Beza, when his name loomed largest in England, was a French pastor who was domiciled at Geneva, and was far removed from the peril of current tumults in France. The Huguenot layman who doggedly defended his creed with both pen and sword near his own hearthstone through all the storms of the civil war was a type of religious champion which more nearly touched the Elizabethan heart. The heir of the Huguenot fervour who stirred through Shakespeare's life- time a vital sympathy was a cultured French nobleman, Philippe de Mornay, Seigneur Du ^lessis- Marly (1549-1623). Du Plessis was a highly cultured human ist, who, if he accepted without misgiving the Calvinist dogma, justified his con- victions on liberally rational lines. He loved his country too well to quit her soil, save on short visits to England, where he sought practical and active aid for the Huguenot cause. The political basis of the movement appealed to him as power- fully as the religious claim, and he was well equipped for the vindication of both the theological and political sides of the Huguenot position. He had at command an easy French style and a fund of enlightened argument. The highest circles of society welcomed him to England, whither he came for the first time amid the crisis of St. Bartholomew's Day with introductions from Sir Francis Walsingham, the English ) ambassador in Paris. ' II fut bien receu et embrasse de toutes personnes de qualite et doctrine,' wrote his accomplished wife of his first visit to England, ' et y fit des amys qui, depuis lors, luy ont servi beaucoup en diverses negociations.' ^ Sir Philip Sidney — ' le plus accomply gentilhomme d'Angleterre ' in ^ Mcinoires de Charlotte de Mornay, Madame Du Plessis-Marly, edited by Madame de Witt (Societe de I'Histoire de France), 1868-9, i, 71. 312 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS Cv^ K A) j^ X^^^^ fe' Madame de Mornay's phrase — soon numbered Du Plessis among his closest friends. vSidney's friend, Sir Fulke Greville, ^bore testimony, just after Sidney's death, to ' the respect of love between Du Plessis and him besides other affinities in their courses '. When the noble Huguenot and his wife were sojourning In London in the summer of 157H, a daughter was born to them. Sir Philip Sidney acted as a godfather and gave the infant the English queen's name of Ehzabeth. It was Sid- ney's ambition to introduce to his fellow countrymen in their own language Du Plessis 's authoritative and animated statement of the Huguenot beliefs. The design was not completed at the date of Sidney's premature death, but it was carried out, by way of tribute to his memory, by two near friends and fellow workers. They succeeded in placing at the disposal of the / Elizabethan public admirable English renderings ot Du / Plessis's chief endeavours In Protestant theology. His main i contribution to Calvlnist apologetics, De la verite de la \ religion clLrefienne^ was an endeavour to justify Christianity I of a Calvlnist type on philosophic grounds and to confute the objections of all manner of Infidels. A small part only was L translated by Sidney. Nearly the whole came In 1587 after his death from the pen of Arthur Golding, a writer not un- known to Elizabethan students in other departments of litera- ture ; he won his chief fame as author of the standard translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Sir Philip's sister, the cultivated Coiiniess-of-Pembrpke, did complementary honour to her brother's name and to her brother's Huguenot hero. She devoted herself In her brother's spirit to translating into Eng- / Hsh from the French the second of Du Plessis's memorable ( religious treatises, Excellent Discours De La Vie et De La Mort. It Is a pathetic meditation on the mysteries of existence which is almost worthy of Thomas a Kempls. The Countess's English version was published In 1600. Huguenots ranked Du Plessis by virtue of his literary 1 accomplishments along with Amyot, the Renaissance master of French prose, and with Ronsard, the Renaissance master ,of French poetry. The chief poet of the Huguenot camp, Du Bartas, described him as one — UU PLESSIS'S WORK IN ENGLISH 313 qui combat rAtheismc, Le Paganisme vain, Tobstine Judaisme, Avec leur propre glaive : & presse, grave, saint, Roidit si bien son style ensemble simple et peint, Que les vives raisons de beaux mots empennces S'enfoncent comme traicts dans les ames bien-nees.^ These praises of Du Plessis were rendered into Elizabethan I'^nglish thus : And this Du Plessis, beating Atheism, Vain Paganism, and stubborn Judaism, With their own arms : and sacred-grave, and short, His plain-pranked style he strengthens in such sort. That his quick reasons winged with grace and art. Pierce like keen arrows, every gentle heart.- Du Plessis's literary piety was long remembered in England. James Howell in his Instructions for Forrcine Travcll reminded the English tourist that the ' pathetical ejacula- tions and heavenly raptures ' which distinguished Du Plessis's devotional treatises well fitted them for Sunday reading. The authority attaching among French Protestants to all Du Plessis's arguments and opinions won him the sobriquet of ' The j Pope of the Huguenots ', Huguenot Pleas for Political Liberty The notion that personal liberty was a natural heritage of humanity and that evil rulers might be justly deposed flitted vaguely across many French brains before the Huguenot movement was fully organized. Classical study bred sym- pathy with the theoretic basis of republicanism, and there was formed a conception of constitutional monarchy which owes its sanction to, and is guided by, the people's will. Machiavelli's widely-disseminated plea in behalf of absolutism roused misgiving in many French minds, when the sceptre fell after Francis Ps death into weak and unclean hands, 1 Du Bartas, La Sci/iaine, 1615 ed., p. 2S5. 2 Sylvester's translation, 1613 cd., p. 332. 314 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS and the persecution of opinion became a normal weapon of sovereignty. The divine right of kings was freely questioned. As early as 1548 the new note of political liberalism was sounded in France by a young law student of Orleans, Etienne De La Boetie. The youth wrote an eloquent dissertation entitled Discoiirs de la Servitude volontiere, oil Conir'Un, It is a scholar's denunciation of despotism penned in the old Roman spirit. The work, which is better known by its shorter alternative name of Cojiir'Un , long circulated in manuscript; it was first published in 1576. The argument adumbrates that of Shakespeare's Pompey in Antony and Cleopatra (ll. vi. 14-19): r- What was't ' That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire ? and what Made the all-honour'd, honest Roman, Brutus, With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom, To drench the Capitol, but that they would f Have one man but a man ? BuT Contr'Un is an isolated effort, and was somewhat too academic in temper to generate practical attempts at revolution. The author, Etienne De La Boetie, who was a Catholic, became a lawyer and a poet, but died prematurely in 1563, at ^the age of three-and-thirty. He is chiefly remembered as the close friend of Montaigne's youth, and as the inspirer of Montaigne's notable essay on ' Friendship '. The classical conception of liberty which De La Boetie first expounded in France, appealed to Huguenot sentiment, and, becoming a watchword among them, helped them in due time to justify their resort to arms.^ The personal abuse of the Catholic leaders, which found free vent among Huguenot pamphleteers when the religious dissensions threatened war, was coloured by study of Roman history and politics. In the impassioned tract called Le Tigre^ which flamed through France in 1560, and denounced with fury the Cardinal of Lorraine, the virtual head of the Guise family, the writer ' A useful summary of Huguenot opinion is given lay Mr. E. Armstrong in The Political Theory of the Huguenots in English Historical Review, vol. iv (18S9). / ATTACKS ON THE QUEEN-MOTHER 315 clearly emulated Cicero's denunciation of Catiline.^ There is \ litde doubt that the anonymous author of this lurid piece of invective was Francis Hotman (1524-90), a Hug^uenot jurist who succeeded Cujas as professor of law at Bourges and reached the highest eminence in his profession. The most accomplished Huguenot pens eagerly engaged in the task of denunciation, Hotman was soon to develop the theory of political liberalism on broadest lines, and to win a hearing among Elizabethan thinkers. It was not until the massacre of St. Bartholomew^ hurled its desperate challenge against the stalwart minorityi that the Huguenot party-leaders openly advocated political; doctrines of revolution, or sought to carry liberal arguments to all their logical consequences. The king who misgoverned his people was now declared in no veiled terms to have for- feited his right to reign, and the people were affirmed to be under a solemn obligation to deprive him of his throne. The matured liberalism of the Huguenots sounded many keys. Invective lost nothing of its initial virulence. But the calm- ness of philosophic inquiry was also fostered with a deadly earnestness, while irony, of a Gallic blitheness, was sometimes enlisted in the cause of political enlightenment. After the massacre, Catherine de' Medici, who was held to , be chiefly responsible for the crime, was the foremost target of Protestant philippics. No quarter was allowed her. Every | weapon of literary abuse was reckoned legitimate, and volleys of undiluted scurrility w^ere aimed at her. The Discoitrs mer- veilleux de la vie ct actions et deportemens de Catherine de Media's was an unsparing exposure of what was alleged to be her vSatanic villany. The blow clearly came from a trained hand, but the authorship is uncertain. The Huguenot scholar, Henri l^tienne, has been groundlessly suspected, and the claim of Hotman has been also urged on doubtful grounds. An English-t^sion, A marvaylous discourse upon the life, deedes and behaviours of Katherine de Midicis, 1 H. AI. 15aird in The Rise of the Hugiiefiots (1880), i. 444-8, gives a full summary of this powerful piece of invective. 3i6 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS was at once in circulation/ and the Italian queen-mother 1 of France was set in Elizabethan calendars of infamy beside \Messalina or Queen Mary Tudor. Whether or no Hotman be responsible for the biting Discoiirs inerveille7tx^ his pen derived a new impetus from the hateful massacre, which all but claimed him as a victim at Bourges, and drove him thence for safety to Geneva. Something more than a pamphleteering sensation was now his object. He designed a formidable assault on the funda- mental principles, as well as on the practices, of absolutism. He reasoned effectively from a review of the early history of (France. His Franco- Ga/h'a, which came out at Geneva in 1573, is an historical plea — sound in design if at times fan- tastic in its interpretation of events — for the recognition of popular right and for the establishment of constitutional checks on monarchy. The work was translated from Latin . i*t J into French, under the title of La France Gauloise^ by f^t'^**^^^^ \ Simon Goulart, a Huguenot scholar and pastor who busied ^ himself with theological as well as political study, and be- came a pillar of Calvinism at Geneva. Hotman 's work was justly regarded as a new development of historical inquiry. Elizabethan scholars and antiquarians entered into corre- spondence with him, and they honoured his name. It was Hotman's example which drew into the arena of political debate his intimate associate Du Plessis, whose religious writing and whose friendship with Sir Philip Sidney awoke among Shakespeare's contemporaries a widespread interest in his personality. Du Plessis made his political decla- Iration soon after Hotman's serious appeal, in a Latin treatise, f Vindiciae contra Tyrannos^ which seems to have been written I in 1574, although it was not published till 1,579. ^^ proved a masterly contribution to the politico-historical discussion which Hotman inaugurated. Du Plessis stated the case against despotism with characteristic sobriety and modera- tion. He neither championed republicanism nor tyran- nicide. The royal title, he argued, can only come from ' Tlie English version was prudently published first at Heidelberg in 1575 and was reprinted at Cracow in 1576. VINDICIAE COX TEA TYRANNOS 317 the people's sanction. Kings who lay waste the Church of God, who worship idolatrously, who defy their subjects' rights, forfeit their crowns. Deposition of the sovereign in such circumstances is the duty which the people owes to itself. But the people can only act through organized representatives, through parliaments or councils of state. Private persons are not justified in taking action on their own account. Though Du Plessis spoke respectfully of Brutus and Cassius, he seems to have held in abhorrence anything like assassination. He pleaded with dignity for popular liberties, and for the secure adaptation of monarchy to the purposes of freedom. Du Plessis's manifesto was issued under the suggestive pseudonym of Stephanus Junius Brutus. Others were long suspected of the authorship, and consequently Du Plessis's responsibility for it was imperfectly recognized in his own day. The Vindiciae contra Tyrannos of Stephanus Junius Brutus enjoyed a European vogue. It circulated outside France, and nowhere more freely than in England and Scotland. The title-page of the first edition of 1579 gives the city of Edinburgh as its place of origin, but there is little doubt that thouo-h intended for circulation in Scotland it was printed at Basle. On the eve of the Spanish Armada — in the early summer of 1588 — one section of the work appeared at London in an English translation. It bore the title, ' A short Apologie for Christian Souldiours : w^herein is contained how that we ought both to propagate and also ... to defende by force of amies, the Catholike Church of Christ.' In this section of his treatise Du Plessis more especially declared for organized resistance to monarchs who ignored the true principles of Christianity. His ' Catholike Church ' was, of course, the church of the reformed dispensation. The monarch whom the English translator designed to hold up to English obloquy was Philip of Spain. The authority of Machiavelli, the foremost advocate of absolute monarchy in Renaissance Europe, remained the chief obstacle with which champions of constitutionalism had to contend. Hotman and Du Plessis onlv inferentiallv sought si \ 31 8 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS to confute Machiavellian doctrine. Other Huguenots challenged it more directly ; they denounced // Prmcipe as the political Bible of the hated queen-mother. The most famous of the challenges of Machiavelli's creed came in 1576 from the pen of another Huguenot lawyer, Innocent Gentillet, and his powerful indictment at once attracted English attention. A Cambridge student, Simon Patrick, who was travelling in France, soon turned the work into English under the title, ' A discourse upon the meanes of wel-governing and maintaining in good peace, a kingdome, or other principalitie . . . Against Nicholas Machiavell the Florentine.' ^ / Gentillet is mainly responsible for the notion, which rooted 1 itself in the Elizabethan mind, that the great Florentine states- iman was an embodiment of every public and private vice. Shakespeare's contemporaries knew little of Machiavelli's exposition of his political creed at first hand. The text of The Prince only circulated among them in-£rench versions. There was no Elizabethan translation. The cult of Machiavellianism was invariably reckoned a French gift to Tudor England. ' Satan,' wrote Gentillet's translator, ' useth strangers of France as his fittest instruments to infect us still with this deadly poison sent out of Italy.' But by way of compensation France through the Huguenot pen of Gentillet helped to supply the antidote. It was Gentillet's * Patrick's translation, though written in 1577, was not published till 1602. Another edition appeared in. 1608. No English translation of // Principe came out before 1640. For Gentillet's influence on Eliza- bethan literature see Edward Meyer's Madiiavelli and the Elisabetlian Drama, Weimar, 1897. Marlowe, who makes 'Machiavel' speak the prologue of his tragedy of The Jew of Malta^ well attests English indebted- ness to France for the popular conception of Machiavellianism. Marlowe's ' Machiavel' exclaims : Albeit the world think Machiavel is dead, Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps ; And, now the Guise is dead, is come from France To view this land, and frolic with his friends . . . I [i. e. Machiavel] count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance. Birds of the air will tell of murders past ! I am asham'd to hear such fooleries. Many will talk of title to a crown : What right had Caesar to the Empery ? Might Hrst made kings, and laws were then most sure When, like the Draco's, they were writ in blood. THE CATHOLIC RETORT 319 attempted confutation which turned Machlavelll's name among Elizabethan poets and dramatists Into a synonym for a devil In human shape. The Enq^Hsh people loyally accepted almost every vagary of Huguenot argument In favour of political liberalism. Some luigllshmen of vShakespeare's day intervened in the controversy over the right of rebellion with an Ingenious perversity which clouded the Issue. The cry against the divine right of kings was not confined to the Huguenots at the end of the sixteenth century. Devout Catholics, | w^hen they saw^ royal powder securely held by Protestant \ heretics like Queen Elizabeth, by qualified supporters of| the Papal authority like Henry III of P^rance, or by Huguenots , of the temporizing habit of mind of Henry of Navarre, criticized the monarchical pretensions no less eagerly than the Huguenots, although from an opposite point of view^ Dui Plessis's popular theory of constitutional government and of the right of rebellion was easily manipulated by astute controver- sialists, so as to serve the Catholic Interest. Montaigne noted | wath characteristic impartiality how a general plea, which justi- / fied civil war In defence of religion, was capable of use by anyi dissentient from the religious views of a reigning sovereign, whether the monarch be Protestant or Catholic. The most daring endeavour to apply the argument of resistance to a support of the Catholic cause was made by an Englishman — a convert to Catholicism, one William Rainolds, whose brother, John Rainolds, was a well-known figure in Oxford society as president of Corpus Christi College. William Rainolds pub- lished at Antwerp, in 1592, under the pseudonym of G. Gullelmus Rossaeus, a tract in Latin entitled. Be iusta reipu- blicae Chrisiianae in reges impios et haereiicos aiUhoritate} Here the tables w^ere mercilessly turned on Protestant sovereigns and political liberals. Heretical kings and queens, all rulers who cherished heterodoxy, were declared to be fit objects of vengeance on the part of orthodox disaffection among their peoples. 1 See J. N. Figgis's Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Crotius, pp. 159 seq. 320 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS Such bold and uncongenial developments of the plea of political liberalism for a moment confused English opinion, and at the close of Elizabeth's reign national feeling in l-^ngland was thereby excited against all censure of monar- chical rights. Loyal sentiment was for the time alienated from advanced jjolitical theories of France. The theoretical attacks on absolutism could count on little English sympathy when they were found capable of employment by English Catholics who were plotting the assassination of Queen Eliza- beth. To James I the liberalism of the Huguenot appeared to be too ambiguous to be tolerated. A stroke of irony condemned Du Plessis's Viiidiciae after the Scottish king's accession to be burned at Cambridge as seditious heresy. The king had no hesitation in assigning the authorship of the Huguenot manifesto to the Jesuit Parsons, the chief plotter on the continent against the English crown. Elizabethan Puritanism was indeed slow to drift into that aggressive propaganda of political revolution which the Huguenot doctrine easily ripened in France. The political pamphlets of Hotman, Du Plessis, and Gentillet struck a sympathetic chord in the Puritan mind, but they bred in England no active policy. The retort in kind of the English champions of the Catholic reaction awoke suspicion of the soundness of liberal argument. But under the Stuarts the Huguenot plea for popular right operated with practical effect. The process of assimilation worked somewhat slug- gishly, but the Puritan revolution of seventeenth-century England owed much of its intellectual stimulus to the Huguenot assertion of political liberalism. Political thought was active in France in other than pro- fessedly Huguenot circles, and bore outside their limits lasting philosophic fruit. At the very moment when Du Plessis and Hotman were, with an eye on passing events, seeking to justify Huguenot liberalism, a French professor of law, who was a stranger to the Huguenot camp, was surveying political problems with far greater thorough- ness and detachment of mind. The religious opinions of Jean Bodin are undetermined. He has been credited with BODIN'S SCIKNCI^. OF POLITICS 321 affinity with every relig-ious creed, Jewish and Mohammedan as well as Protestant and Catholic. But his writings give little clue to his private convictions. His liberality of view links him with the advanced guard of the Huguenots, though he was free of any doctrinal prejudice, and cherished fewer personal animosities. Ro^ixL made the ambitious attempt to trace the origin and growth of Government in civilized states, from the point of view of the sociologist rather than of the politician. Far more dispassionate and exhaustive than any of the Huguenot theorists In his treatment of political phenomena, he deduces monarchical rule from an implied primordial contract between^ sovereign and people. Monarchy In a limited form he regards as superior to republicanism, but in the Internal regulation of states he asserts the need, above all else, of principles of toleration. History meant even more to BodIn than to Hotman, and he gave Its teaching a wider scope. For the first time among modern European writers he assigned political phenomena and developments to climatic influences, a fruitful theory which Montesquieu restated and elaborated, j BodIn s chief work, De la RepiMiqiLe (' Concerning the State'), which appeared In 1 576, was written In French, and was soon familiar In England. There it was read for some years in a Latin translation of local authorship. Ultimately It was translated Into English (In 1606) by Richard Knolles, the Elizabethan historian of the Turks, who claimed that Bodln's political philosophy was to be ' preferred before any of them that have as yet taken so great an argument upon them'. Bodln's work w^as long a text-book for English students alike In Its French, Latin, and EngHsh dress, and It guided the study of political theory for many a term In Cambridge Univer- sity, as well as in the English realm of thought outside.^ It can 1 Gabriel Harvey, the Cambridge tutor, who carefully observed current academic feeling, wrote about 1579 of the general interest excited among Cambridge students by the political speculation of Bodin, and by French comment upon Aristotle's Politics : ' You can not stepp into a schollars studye but (ten to one) you shall likely tinde open ether Bodin de Republica or Le Royes Exposition uppon Aristolles Politiques or sum other like French or Italian Politique Discourses.' {Letterbool; of Gabriel Han from infancy with a passion for reading-, and he attained a great position in the realms of thought by his bold origin- ality and intellectual versatility. He was credited by an impartial critic of the century with ' a universal mind ', His fame was made in i_^6, while he was a student at Paris University, by a thesis in which he professed to establish that I Aristotle's views and conclusions on every topic were wrong. Aristotle had come to be treated by orthodox Catholic churchmen as one of themselves. By a confusion of thought, which is rather difficult to explain, Aristotelian philosophy enjoyed ecclesiastical sanction, Ramus's challenge of Aristotle s authority consequently exposed him to the suspicion of scepti- cism. In 1543 he published the treatise on logic {Iiistitutiones Dialccticae) which obtained worldwide repute. There he aimed an almost fatal blow at the scholastic method of the syllogism. He sought to convert logic, not perhaps with entire success, into an instrument of lucid thought. The Sorbonne retorted by causing his book for the time to be suppressed. But in spite of persecution Ramus adhered to the road on which he had set his foot. Although he avowed himself a Protestant, his gifts as a teacher secured for him even from those w^ho disliked his views educational posts of dignity and emolu- ment. He became president of the College de Presles in Paris and reglus professor of rhetoric and philosophy at the College de France. But his colleagues, who resented his intellectual energy, made his life burdensome, and during the Civil wars he was expelled from all his offices. After a tour through the German universities, where he was received with royal honours, he dechned invitations to settle abroad and faced the risk of a retired life of study in his beloved Paris. It was not only as a logician that Ramus proved his origin- ality of mind. Scarcely any subject of study failed to benefit by his alertness and industry. He devised a mode of phonetic jspelling, while his writings on grammar quickly acquired a puropean vogue. His grammars, which became European text-books, dealt with the French, Greek, and Latin languages, and aimed at simplifying the rules and reducing their number. It was indeed as a grammarian no less than as a logician that RAMUS'S 'UNIVERSAL MIND' 325 the learned world acktiowledued his pre-eminence. With characteristic versatility he also interested himself in mathe- matics and theology. He wrote a useful book on geometry, and greatly improved the place of mathematics in the educa- tional curriculum. In theology he was a rationalizing Hugue- not. He defined theology as doctriua bene Vivendi and laid great stress on the Bible as the foundation of religion. One of his plans was a new translation of the whole Bible into French from the original languages. His religious aim was to restore Christianity to its primitive simplicity, and he condemned the refinements of Calvin's doctrine no less than the dogmatic pretensions of Rome. To the despotic power vested in the synod of the Protestant organization he raised objection on the ground that it menaced individual liberty. In the days of Ramus 's misfortunes, Beza consequently dis- couraged him from seeking an asylum at Geneva. There was indeed no direction of intellectual endeavour in which Ramus failed to show^ lively and practical interest. He sketched out an elaborate scheme of university reform at Paris in which he recommended the abolition of clerical qualifications for college offices, and the application of many cathedral endowments to the gratuitous education of poor scholars. It was a scandalous thing, he wrote, that the road to knowledge should be closed and barred against poverty. He had as a poor boy burned with eager desire of knowledge and always recalled with frankness his early struggles. By his will he founded with his scanty savings a mathematical lectureship at the College de France at Paris. The post was filled by men of distinction In later years, and greatly benefited mathematical study.^ Learning has to reckon Ramus among its leading martyrs. Superstition and Intolerance prepared for him a violent end. Unhappily he was in Paris during the St. Bartholomew's mas- sacre. His foes suffered him to lodge In the College de Presles, long after he had been deprived of professorial func- ' The chief authority is lui/niis {Pierre de la Ramce) : sa vie, ses ecrits et ses ofiiniofis, par C. Waddington, Paris, 18S5. See also John Owen's The Skeptics of the French Kenaissatice, 1893, pp. 493 seq. 326 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS tions. On the third clay of the massacre, August 26, 1572, assassins, hired by ' the blockish vSorbonnists ', burst into his study in the Colleg-e and slew him with hateful barbarities. He was shot, stabbed, flung out of the window five stories high ; then his lifeless body tied with cords was dragged through the streets and flung into the river Seine. There is no more ghastly episode in the records of fanaticism than Ramus's murder. The brutal outrage was represented on the I Elizabethan stage in one of the crude scenes of Marlowe's i Massacre at Paris} Ramus's courage and noble temper from beginning to end of his chequered career may be gauged by one of the latest sentences from his pen : ' Je supporte (he wrote amid his distresses) sans peine et meme avec joie ces orages, quand je contemple dans un palsible avenir sous I'influence d'une philosophic plus humaine les hommes devenus mellleurs, plus polls et plus eclalres.' Ramus might have said with Heine : ' I know not If I de- serve that a laurel wreath should be laid on my tomb . . . But lay on my coffin a sword ; for I was a brave soldier in the liberation war of humanity.' Ramus, although his writings became themes of fierce con- troversy, exerted a vast influence on Elizabethan thought. His Greek grammar and his elements of geometry were in general use in Elizabethan schools and colleges, and an English rendering of his manual of logic was Issued In London within two years of his death. Roger Aschamvalued Ramus as a great educational reformer, and corresponded with him on educational methods. Gabriel Harvey , the Cambridge tutor of Edmund Spenser, boasted of his worship of Ramus's genius. ' Act I, Sc.VIII : Enter Ramus in his study. Ra»iHs. What fearful cries come from the river Seine That fright poor Ramus sitting at his book ! . . . Entc?- Guise. Anjou, and tJie rest. Guise. Was it not thou that scoff'dst the Organon And said it was a heap of vanities ? . . . Rannis. I knew the Organon to be confused And I reduced it into better form . . . Guise. Why suffer you that peasant to dechiim ? . . . Anjou. Ne'er was there colUer's son so full of pride. [Stabs him. ELIZABETHAN RAMISTS 327 In the University of Cambridge, which was then far more sensitive to new ideas than Oxford, Ramus 's system of logic ancT philosophy dethroned Aristotelianism. His philoso- phical treatises became the authorized academic text-books at Cambridge as at almost all the universities of Europe sa\e Oxford. When a press was for the first time perma- nently established at Cambridge in 1584, the first book to be printed was an annotated edition of Ramus's Dialectica in the original Latin. The edito r was William Temple, a young fellow of King's College. The volume was dj^di-- cated to Sir Philip Sidney. With characteristic enthusiasm for Huguenot theory and practice Sidney had already declared himself a Ramist, and now proved his faith in Ramism by inviting the French philosopher's English editor to become his private secretary. Subsequently young Temple became an early provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and spread in Ireland his enthusiasm for the new Hugue- not logic. But Ramus's philosophical and logical theories were closely studied by greater English thinkers than Sir Philip Sidney or his secretary. Ramus's work was familiar to Bacon from his Cambridge days. None can doubt, al- though the point Is often overlooked or minimized, the suggestive Impetus given by Ramus to Bacon's exposition of the defects ofjVristotelian logic. Bacon's speculative origin- ality engendered doubts of Ramus's efficiency at many points, but Bacon admits that the Frenchman's intention was excel- lent.^ Hooker, who resented Ramus's religious scepticism, deemed his services to philosophy overrated, but at the end of the sixteenth century, the Puritan writers proclaimed their faith in him both as logician and educational reformer.^ It Is worth adding that among other Englishmen whose minds ^ Cf. Bacon's Valerius Terminus in Spedding's edition of Works, iii. 203-5, "i'^*^ '""'s De Augine}itis, Hk, iv. 453. ^ A long story is told by Samuel Clark in his Lives of Thirty-two Divines, 1677, p. 235, of how the well-known Puritan writer William Gouge, when an undergraduate of King's College, Cambridge, at the first entrance into his studies, in 1595, 'applied himself to Peter Ramus, his Logick, and grew so expert therein ' that he was able to defend him in public argument from all assault. Clark names Richard Mather, the famous New England Puritan, as an ardent worshipper of Ramus. 328 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS were fascinated by Ramus's liberal temper was Richard Hak- luyt, the Elizabethan apostle of American colonization, who was long chaplain at the English Embassy at Paris. Hakluyt was then first urging on his countrymen the need of a more scientific study of navigation and mathematics in order to enable Englishmen the better to compete with French and .Spaniards in the exploration and colonization of the new world of America. His argument sought sustenance in the example of Ramus. In the interest of his cause he implored vSir Francis Walsingham, the Secretary of .State, to found two public lectureships — one in mathematics at Oxford and the other in the art of navigation in London. Hakluyt suggested as a model for the endowment the mathematical lectureship at Paris, which was founded by ' the worthy scholar, Petrus Ramus . . . one of the most famous clerks of Europe '.^ VII Huguenot Poetry— Aubigne The Huguenot thinkers covered a wide range of philosophy and theology. Their ordinary' weapon was French prose, which they wielded with vigour and lucidit}'. To many Huguenot philosophers besides Du Plessis might be applied Du Bartas's description of that writer's leading characteristics — ' Vives raisons, de beaux mots empennees '. Ethical, political, theological topics engaged the pens of Huguenot writers in prose. The influence of the Huguenot philosophy on English thought chiefly worked through the direct process of literal translation. But there was at the ^ Hakluyt's letter to Walsingham, dated April i, 1584, which is in the Public Record Office, is printed with a focsimile in Hakluyt's A\i7'/jfa//o?is, 1905 ed., vol. xii, pp. vii-x. Hakluyt says he encloses a printed copy of Ramus's will, which shows how ' the exceeding zeale that man had to benefit his country ' led him to bestow ' 500 livres ' on his lectureship, a sum more than twice as great as the rest of his estate which he divided among his kindred and friends. AUBIGNK'S TRAINING 329 same time a mass of Huguenot poetry of more general scope which excited sympathy and attention on the part of Ehzabethan readers. There was much adaptation of Hugue- not poetry as well as translation at English hands. Huguenot poetry is a scion of the true Renaissance stock. Ronsard was its acknowledged master, and many of its peculiarities of style were learned in the school of the Pleiade. Hut the Huguenot poet gave a new turn to the main principles of the Ronsardian system. Ronsard and his brotherhood endeavoured to breathe the classical form and spirit into vernacular poetry. The Huguenot poets, while they respected \ Ronsard's classical form, sought to imbue it with the spirit / of the Bible. The Huguenot poets sought to spiritualize / the classical temper of poetry, to make classical metre and phrase handmaids of Protestant piety. The effort was an J innovation in modern European literature. Two men are chiefly identified with this Huguenot en- deavour, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne (1550- 1630) and f Guillaume de Salluste, Seigneur du Bartas (1544-90). Both, I like Montaigne, belonged to the lesser gentry of Gascony, both were 'Classical scholars, and both fought valiantly] in the Huguenot army. Of the two, Aubigne must be credited with the larger measure of poetic genius. His literary range was excep- tionally wide, and his work is memorable in prose as well as in poetry. In lyric and epic, in satire and fable, in memoir and history, he gave signal proof of an impetuous strength and fire. From childhood Aubigne served the two causes of the classical Renaissance and of the religious Reformation. His father made him when a boy swear that he would avenge the martyrdoms of his Huguenot co-rehgionists, and he was faith- ful throughout his long career to the oath of his youth. At the same time he imbibed almost in his cradle the culture of the Renaissance, translating Plato's Cri'/o from the Greek before '\^ he was eight. When he was of age he served in the Huguenot army, and came into close personal relations with the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre. His adolescence was spent in camps and in hairbreadth escapes from death 330 THE iMESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS in war. The story of his military Hfe reads like a chivalric romance. Yet in middle age, Aubigne was no less respected in the council chamber than on the field of battle. He became a diplomatist as well as a warrior, but he remained the while a sturdy fanatic. His leisure was devoted to theology, history, and poetry, which came to acquire the defiant note of his soldiership. Compromise of principle was impossible for him, and the middle party of ' Les Politiques ', which brought about the I religious peace at the end of the sixteenth century, moved I Aubigne's scorn. He likened the ' third party ' to Purgatory, \ which hes between Heaven and Hell. Loyal to his faith to the end, he long survived the cruel grief of the conversion of his old master, Henry IV, which he never ceased to deplore. He grieved over the perversities of public life far away from the court. His old age was spent in Geneva, where he died in 1 630, at the age of eighty. Aubigne was born in 1 550, a year after the new era of Renais- sance poetry opened in France. The poetry of his early days, which was collected under the general title Le Prmienips, closely pursues the new tradition of the Pleiade school. He wrote sonnets In honour oFa mistress whom he called by the common title of Diane, in a style which has the merits and defects of Ronsard's disciple, Desportes. To the memory of the member of the Pleiade group who was not merely the most heterodox, but also the most hostile to the I Huguenots, Etienne Jodelle, Aubigne a little paradoxically \ addressed a poetic tribute of sympathy. His lighter verse is more notable for its vigour than its grace ; his imagery constantly reflects his military temper. None the less his ' literary sentiment at the outset betrays close affinity with the Renaissance. A change came later. Under the stress of religious warfare his poetry acquired in his maturity a passionate rancour and a self-assurance which almost place it in a category of its own. His Les Tragiqiies, the poetic work which gives him his fame, was begun when he was stricken down by wounds in 1577, and was continued at inter- vals for thirty years, but it was not published for yet another LES TRAGIQUES 331 ten years, — until 1617. Les Tragiques is a Covenanter's prolonged dirge over the sufferings of the faithful. His verses, he declares, Ne sont rien que de meurtre et de sang etoffes. I To the sweet delights of love and joy, his muse bids a stern farewell : Ce siecle, autre en ses moeurs, demande un autre style, Cueillons des fruits amers desquels il est fertile.' In seven books, respectively entitled Miseres, Princes^ La Chanibre Doree, Les Fetix, Lcs Fej^s, J 'engeancesjtigement^ he reviews the griefs of the age, the dissoluteness of the court, the cowardice of the Parlement, the tortures of the stake, the massacres of the sword, the vengeance of heaven on the persecutors of God's saints, and the final judgement passed by Almighty God on the sinners in authority. Traces of the! author's classical training are not obliterated by his piety, ^ but there is little coherence in the mingling of Greek mytho- logy, moral allegory, and Scriptural theology. There are crudities and incongruities in the linking of sarcasms in the style of Juvenal or Horace, with reminiscences of Hebrew/ prophecy and of the Apocalypse. The tone varies from' wrathful invective to calm trust in the divine will. The stream of inspiration often runs turbidly. Yet many passages reflect the sombre gravity of Dante and adumbrate the majesty of Milton. J\L Faguet averred that the lyrical note of execra- tion in Aubigne's Les Tragiqiies was an original experiment which has been only once attempted again with any success — in the well-known Les Chdiiinenis of \^ictor Hugo. Aubigne's prose work is less notable than his poetry. His Histoire Universelle and his Memoires abound in curious details of his experience. The narrative never fails in nervous energy nor blunt sincerity. His descriptive power and insight into character are at times penetrating enough to recall the vivid pencil of St. Simon. But his record of personal reminiscence too often fails in the equability which is essential to artistic balance. Two ironical tracts. La Confession Catho- ' Aubigne, Les Tragtques, ed. LaLinne, 1857, p. 77. 332 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS liqtie dii sieur de Sancy and Les A ventures du bai^on de FcBueste, are romances in the style of Rabelais ; they deal shrewd blows at Catholic pretensions. Much of Aubigne's literary work was penned in the six- teenth century, but until the death of Henry I\^ it circulated exclusively in manuscript. Little of it was published until after the king's death. Consequently Aubigne enjoyed a restricted reputation as a man of letters among his own countrymen during the early or middle periods of his long career. The eagerness with which Elizabethan writers studied printed Huguenot literature and poetry of inferior temper suggests how great would have been their debt to Aubigne had he proved less shy of publicity. Such literary influence as he exerted on England belongs to the epoch of the Stuarts rather than to that of the Tudors. / Early in the seventeenth century his energy and faculty as ' an historian were acknowledged by James Howell. One curious proof, too, is worth citing of the appreciative study which was given to Aubigne's poetry and prose by English- men who played in their country in the seventeenth century parts comparable to those fdled by Huguenots in France half a century earlier. The great Lord Fairfax, the parlia- mentary general, who, like Aubigne, divided his allegiance between war and the muses, was a close reader of Aubigne's Wistoi're Universelle, and he rendered into English verse (without acknowledgement) the elegy on the death of Henry IV, which is one of several poetic interludes enlivening pathetically the progress of the grim prose chronicle.^ ' I give by way of specimen two stanzas in both French and English : Aubigne. Fairfax. Ouoi? faut-il que Henri, ce re- Ah! is it then great Henry so doute monarque, famed Ce dompteur des humains, soit For taming men, himself by death dompte par la Parque ? is tamed ! Cue I'oeil qui vit sa gloire ores \ oye What eye his glory saw, now his sa fin ? sad doom. Que le-nostre pour lui incessam- But must dissolve in tears, sigh out ment dcgoutle ? his soul, 333 VIII Salluste du Bartas (niillaume Salluste du Bartas was the Huguenot poet who was identified beyond all risk of neglect with the cause of French Protestantism at home and abroad in Shakespeare's era. I)Orn in 1544, Du Bartas was Aubigne's senior by six years, but predeceased him by forty. Like Aubigne, he was a squire of Gascony, and was amply endowed with the Gascon exuberance of speech and thought. A Huguenot warrior of soldierly instincts, he was at once a scriptural pietist and a classical scholar. Nor did his religious ardour damp his ' enthusiasm for the work of the Pleiade, to which he professed discipleship. Of Ronsard he wrote : Ce grand Ronsard, qui pour orner sa France, Le Grec et le Latin despouille d eloquence ; Et d'un esprit hardi manie heureusement Toute sorte de vers, de style, et d'argument.^ Et que si peu de terre enferme So small a shred of earth should dans son sein him entomb Celui qui meritoit de la possedcr Whose acts deserved possession of toute ? the whole. II le faut, on le doit. Et que Yes, it is fit; what else can we pouvons-nous rendre return Que des pleurs assidus, a cette But tears as offerings to his sacred auguste cendre 1 urn ? Arrousons h. jamais son marbre With them his sable marble tomb triste blanc. bedew ; Non, non, plutost quittons ces No, no such arms too weak, since inutiles armes ! it appears Mais puisqu'il fut pour nous pro- For us he of his blood too careless digue de son sang, grew Serions-nous bien pour lui avares Have we naught else for him but de nos larmes ? a few tears .' The indebtedness of Lord Fairfax to Aubigne was first pointed out by Mr. Edward Bliss Reed, whose valuable ' Poems of Thomas third Lord Fairfax from MS. Fairfax 40 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford ' was published in the Tra7isactio7is of tlie Cofinecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences (July, 1909). It is curious to note that Lord Fairfax's Recrea- tiotts of my Solitude in the same collection is a literal metrical rendering of a famous contemporary French poem La Solitude (1650) by Marc Antoine de St. Amant (1594-1661), a popular member of Malherbe's school. Fairfax was also an unavowed translator of a poem of Malherbe. ^ Du Bartas, Les CEuvres Poet iq ties, ed. 161 5, p. 284. 334 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS But Du Bartas's strong Huguenot enthusiasm led him to modify his master's instructions in matters of moment. Du Bellay, in his manifesto of the new poetic movement in France, had urged Frenchmen to cultivate the epic. Du Bartas eagerly accepted the advice. He deliberately attempted a series of long epic poems ; but, contrary to the expectation of his mentor, he sought his themes, not in Greek or Latin history or mythology, but in the Bible. He was a preco- cious writer, and his earliest work was produced at the age of twenty-one. It was an_ejoic_caUed_y>/^///^. Here Du \ Bartas offered a poetic paraphrase of the book of the j Apocrypha which tells how the fair Hebrew heroine murdered ' Nebuchadnezzar's general Holofernes in order to save from destruction her native town of Bethulia. Du Bartas, loyal to the Huguenot ambition of reconciling Hebraism with classicism, deliberately planned his Judith^ he tells us, on the model of Homer and \^ergil. From every point of view Du Bartas's first effort in poetry reflected the Huguenot temper. The cultured mother of his leader and master, Henrj^ of Navarre, suggested the subject, which was suspected of a veiled intention of supporting the Huguenot plea of tyrannicide. This first-fruit of Du Bartas's pious fancy was published in 1573, together with a second poem called after one of the muses, L'Uraiiie. There the poet versified his favourite argument for the regeneration of poetiy by scriptural stud}-. The volume containing the two poems was significantly and appro- ^priately entitled La Ahise Chretienne. But Du Bartas's full fame was won with a later performance of more imposing dimensions. His uiaginim opus is an elabo- rate description in verse of the creation of the world. This epic poem was called La Semaine^ and was divided into seven books, or days. Each book, or day, described events of a I day in creation. The work came from the press in 1578. A \ sequel, called La Scconde Seiuaine (' The Second Week '), \ was left unfinished by the author at his death in 1590. He intended to divide this second part also into seven days, in which he should describe the fortunes of mankind from Adam down to the end of the world. But only four days were TH]^: 1':pic of thi: creation 335 completed. Again, all the topics bclonoed to Old Testament history, and ranged from the felicity of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden to the fall of Jerusalem before the hosts of Nebuchadnezzar. L^ach day in the ' Second \A\"ek ' is divided into four books, so that the unfinished sequel reaches sixteen books, and is nearly three times as long as the completed ' First \\'eek '.^ In point of size La Sc}Jiaine^ with La Secoude Scmaiiie^ is a formidable contribution to poetic literature. Ronsard, Avhom Du Bartas to the end claimed as master, enigmatically remarked of his disciple's masterpiece, that Du Bartas did in ' a week ' what it took him his whole life to accomplish. Du Bartas's epic is only a little less volu- minous than the complete works of Ronsard. Despite his pious aim, Du Bartasjs affinities with the Pleiade remained to the end unmistakable. Most of the characteristic marks of the Pleiade style were assimilated by Du Bartas, although he distorted recklessly some peculiarities of the school. \\\\\\ a zeal unknown to the fathers of the Pleiade, Du Bartas, for example, pursued Ronsard's inven- tion of the compound epithet. The Huguenot poet employed ' The titles of the separate poems in La Seconde Sciiumic run as follows : — Le premier Jour I. Ede7i (Story of Adam and Eve). 2. V Imposture (Eve's temptations). 3. Les Fiifies (The expulsion from Paradise). 4. Les Artifces (The later history of Adam and Eve). Le second Jour i. LArche (Noah and the Ark). 2. Babylone (The tower of Babel). 3. Les Colonies (The dispersion). 4. Les Colonnes (A treatise on mathematics and astronomy). Le troisiesme Jour i. La Vocatio7i (The story of Abraham). 2. Les Peres (The story of Isaac). 3. La Lay (The story of Moses and the lawgivers). 4. Les Capitaiiics (The early history of the Jewish state). Le cjuatriesme Jour i. Les Trophces (The story of King David). 2. La Mag/!tjice7ice (The story of King Solomon). 3. Le Schisme (The story of the kings of Judah and Israel). 4. La Decadence (The story of the fall of Jerusalem). An Appendix deals with the story of the prophet Jonah. 336 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS the device untiringly, sometimes pleasingly, but more often clumsily and cacophonously. Elemental fire he describes thus : Le feu doiine-clarte^ poi'tc-chaiid, jcite-flauime^ vSource de mouvement, chasse-ordurc^ doniie-dme. Again, with more than Ronsardian licence he creates a number of words, mostly onomatopoeic. He has a habit, too, of duplicating the first syllable of common verbs, ^.^. floflotiant (waving) and babaffant (beating), to emphasize a suggestion of movement. He is prolific in far-fetched and strange similes, often drawn from common objects which lie outside the ordinary range of poetry. The practice was not unknown to Ronsard, who is the inventor of Du Bartas's oft-repeated comparison of new-fallen snow on leafless trees to a periwig or covering of false hair. But Ronsard is sparing of eccen- tricities in which Du Bartas's muse revelled. In his choice of metre Du Bartas works within narrower bounds than those in which Ronsard and his friends exercise their powers. Du Bartas restricted himself with rarest excep- tions to Alexandrine rhyming couplets. The Alexandrine is an old French metre. But the Pleiade, w^hen it condemned to limbo almost all the metrical forms of mediaeval France, reserved the Alexandrine for future use, and gave it a new and an improved lease of life. Du Bartas pursued the reformation of the ancient metre. He varied and multiplied the pauses, at times with rugged and abrupt effect, but often with a triumphant challenge of monotony. Not all his metrical innovations are commendable ; he has a liking for tricks of rhyme, some of which were revivals of discredited fashions of an earlier epoch. After the manner of old vers rapp07'tes, he has an odd habit of repeating at the opening of the second line of his couplet the last two syllables or words of the first line. His fluency of utterance was irrepressible and ill-regulated. Yet one cannot deny him a measure of the metrical ingenuity which is a constant characteristic of Ronsard's school. In artistic presentation of his theme Du Bartas falls below the standard of his tutors. No nice faculty of selection or arrange- CHARACTERISTICS OF LA SEMAINE 337 nient can be put to I)u Hartas's credit in elaborating his sacred story. He sows his furrows with the sack, emptying into them a heterogeneous and multifarious mass of observation and information. His epic of the creation has points of resemblance to a crude encyclopaedia of scientific phenomena as well as of dogmatic theology. After describing in the first book the emergence of elemental light out of chaos, he pours into the second book a flood of ill-digested meteorological notes. In the third he pays like court to geology, mineralogy, andj botany ; in the fourth to astronomy of an anti-Copernicar/ pattern ; in the fifth to zoolog}' and human physiology. In : the last book, after a quaint picture of a very anthropomorphic ' Deity resting from his works and complacently contemplating them as a whole, the poet becomes doctrinal on the orthodox Huguenot lines. Yet Du Bartas mingles with his scientific and theological reflections, which are often grotesque, descriptions of both animate and inanimate nature, which betray the vigour of poetic insight and a pictorial command of detail. He is catholic in his outlook on natural phenomena. A spring morning is portrayed with no less realistic energy^ than a storm at sea. Despite his warlike instincts, he was almost as sympathetic as Ronsard in his study of rural life, where sleep was undis- turbed by drum, fife, or trumpet, and was soothed by the gentle murmuring of streams. He could define the points of a horse with an enthusiasm and an accuracy which seem to anticipate Shakespeare's treatment of the same theme.^ The ^ With Sylvester's faithful translation (1613 ed., pp. 286-8) of Du Bartas's account of ' a goodly jennet ' (ce beau letiet) may well be com- pared Shakespeare's animated description of a ' courser' catching sight of a 'jennet ' in Venus and Adonis (lines 271-4, 295-8, 301-4J. Shakespeare probably consulted the French text. Sylvester's Translation. Venus and Adonis. With r<>«;/^/, high, hollow, smooth, His ears Jip-prick'd ; his braided brown, jetty hoof, hanging jnane With pasterns short, upright, but Upon his compass'dcrest now stands yet in mean ; on end ; Dry sinewy shanks ; strong, flesh- His nostrils drink the air, and forth less knees, and lean ; again, With hartlike legs, broad breast, As from a furnace, vapours doth and large behind, he send : . . . 338 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS movements of a spicier were shown to the life, and his ear was so keenly attuned to the harmonies of nature that he could analyse the song of lark and nightingale with an admirable veracity. Even when he writes of the roaring of a lion, he gives his reader the impression that he has heard the note. His minute description of spacious landscapes shows that he possessed the eye of a painter for perspective. He presents mountains, meadow, sea, and streams in combina- tion, and out of them constructs a background in lines like these : Un fleuve coule ici ; la naist une fontaine ; Ici s'esleve un mont ; la s'abbaisse une plaine ; Ici fume un chasteau ; la fume une cite, Et la flotte une nef sur Neptune irrite.^ The forefront and the middle distance of the scene are skil- fully broken by charming vignettes of sportsmen aiming their guns at flying birds, of striplings wrestling on village greens, and of shepherdesses tending their flocks. In the two decades following the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, 'ith body large, smooth flanks, Round Jioofd, sJiort-jointed, fet- and double chined : locks shag and long, A crested neck bowed like a half- Broad breast, full eye, small head, bent bow, and nostril wide, Whereon a long, tJiin, curled mane High crest, short ears, straight legs doth flow ; and passing strong, Kfirmful tail, touching the lowly Thin tnane, thick tail, broad buttock, ground, tender hide ; . . . With dock between two fair fat buttocks drowned ; A pricked ear, that rests as little space, As his light foot, a lean, bare bony Sometimes he scuds far ofif , . . face, 1h\niovi\,2ind head but o/amiddli?tg To bid the ivind a base he now size, prepares, Fidl, lively flaming, quickly rolling And ^vheV he run or fly they know eyes, not whether. Great foaming mouth, hot-fjtming jiostril wide. Of chestnut hair, his forehead starri fied . . . As this light horse scuds, . . . Flying the earth, the flying air he catches, Borne 7vhirlwindlike. * La Premihc Semaine : le septiesme jour, 1615 ed., p. 164. DU RARTAS'S FAME IN FRANCE 339 Du Hartas's sacred poetry was warnily wclcomccl in iMance by the growing- band of sympathizers with the Huguenot cause. Thirty editions of La Seuiaiiic are said to have been issued within six years of its final completion in 1584. vSimon Goulart^the successor of Calvin and Beza as ruler of Geneva, who had already offered his fellow countrymen a French version of one of Hotman s great political treatises, prepared early in the seventeenth century an elaborate com- mentary on 1 )u Bartas's epic. But, save in the straitest coteries, Du Bartas's triumph In his own country was short-lived. Cul- I tured taste quickly came to scorn his work. Modern French \ critics have concentrated their attention on his many faults, and have condemned the incorrectness of his style, and the irregularities of his imagery. He has been ridiculed as the enfant terrible of the Pleiade school, while a juster and more ^^^^„^ charitable verdict sneers at him as ' un Milton manque \ 2>«. (jlff^^ Greater indulgence has been exten3ed~~lo Da Bartas in i<>jv-^ recent years by both English and German critics, who detect ^}J>^^^£^ both dignity and vivacity at many turns of his work. Goethe saluted him as the king of French poets, and never ceased to emphasize the grandeur of his conceptions. The truth seems to be that Du Bartas's obtrusive defects — his unmanageable erudition, his lack of artistic restraint, his ungenial pietism— were aUIed w4th an Imaginative capacity which was too robust to sink under their weight. His strenuous copiousness and his exalted faith In himself have suggested to an English critic a comparison between him and Victor Hugo, some touch of whose poetic fury a French critic quite independently detected In Du Bartas's Huguenot contemporary, Aublgne. Undoubtedly both Du Bartas and Aubigne were capable of fusing Huguenot zeal and poetic ardour. Nor did they lack intellectual energy. Their tem- peraments begot, too, a power of flowing declamation which Is rarely found in poetry outside the scope of drama. Z 2 340 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS IX Elizabethan Disciples of Du Bartas ' Du Rartas was the poet whom the EHzabethans mainly identified with the Huguenot movement. The honours which Shakespeare's generation paid him excelled those which were ^ bestowed on any other foreign contemporary, and Ronsard's 1 popularity waned in his presence. His fame passed like a comet over the literary firmament of France. In that ot England it remained for near a century a fixed star. Du Bartas's ardent piety accounts for the fervour of applause, for the flood of eulog}'. His critical shortcomings passed almost unrecognized. A rugged English translation to which he mainly owed his vogue across the Channel accentuated his tendencies to grotesque bombast. Justness of critical perception was sacrificed by Du Bartas's English admirers. Their estimates placed him above even Shakespeare and Spenser. The eager greeting of Du Bartas by the Elizabe- ' thans is a curiosity in the history of literary criticism. The generous tributes pointedly illustrate the occasional tendency of contemporary opinion to set what is second or third-rate in literature above what is first-rate. Owing largely to a widespread error of judgement, Du Bartas exerted a peculiar influence, which no other foreign writer quite equalled, on English poetic developments. Sacred poetry in our language has some title to be reckoned an offspring of his Huguenot muse. The discoverer in Britain of this new constellation in the French sky of poetry was no other than Jarne^ VI of .Scotland. The reading of Du Bartas's early work UUranie filTed the Scottish king with unbounded enthusiasm, and he turned it with his own pen into English or Scottish verse. A like ^ service was rendered at King James's suggestion to Du Bartas's "^ first &pic,j7tdjf/i, by one of the royal attendants at the Edin- burgh court, Thomas Hudson. Hudson's translation oijjidith appeared in 1584. Meanwhile Du Bartas had scaled the highest flight of his invention by the issue of his La Semaine. KING JAiMP:S'S admiration 341 James VI of Scotland, in perusing- that poem, was moved to ecstasy, and to a passionate yearning to make the poet's per- sonal acquaintance. He addressed urgent letters to Henry of Navarre and to the poet himself begging that Du Hartas should visit Scotland. James described himself as torn be- tween sentiments of grief and desire, between grief that his own country had produced no such triumphal pyramid of literature, and desire to fix his gaze on the person of this new poetic Colossus.^ Du Bartas yielded to the flattery, ^ The letter of invitation which James VI addressed to Du Bartas, 'His Majesties letter unto Mr. du Bartas' (MS. Bodl. 165, fol. 75), was printed by Mr. Rait for the first time in his Liisus Regius, 1901, pp. 60 I. It ran as follows : — • 'Alexandre le grand ayant este informe de la grande iiertu & sagesse de Diogenes philosophe cinique en fut tellement rauy qu'il ne sceut contenter iusques tant qu'il eut communiqque auec lui, estimant d'aquerir non la moindre partie de contentement & renommee en se faisant oculatus testis des singulieres uertus de ce susdit personnage. La pareille occasion de rauissement, 6 tres illustre poete, m'estant ministre'e par la lecture de mon Homere (car de mesme facon ie me sers des menus-fruicts de nostre admirable muse comme ce susdit conquereur des Iliades) que jay este agite de deux fortes passions dun mesme instant, a scauoir, iuste Douleur & insatiable Desir : Douleur que ce pais n'a este si heureusement fertile que d'auoir produit un tell' colosse ou piramide triomfale triomfant uraye- ment sur le monde d'un triomfe eternell, pour auoir le premier mis en ceuure, & le seul puise profondement iusques au fonds ce diuin subiect, chantant poetiquement la creation & conseruation aussi bien du grand monde que du microcosme par la sage puissance & soigneuse prouidence du tout puissant Createur, mais quant a I'extresme Desir, il me pousse sans cesse a I'imitation de ce Douleur du monde que comme iournelle- ment i'oy le chant de I'Uranie ie puisse une fois obtenir la ueue de son fidelle secretaire. N'estimes, 6 Saluste, qu'en usant ces epithetes enuers uous ie me ueuille seruir de la faulse flatterie ains du deu & uray louange de la uertu, le hault louange de laquelle ne doyt estre passee en silence habitante en personne queiquonque : & comme chacuns desireux de uoir la pourtraict de ceux qui ont surpasse le monde en quelque insigne vertu, d'autant qu'ill le remett en memoire des uertus si louables de mesme, ayie un ardant desir de ueoir le palais de la Muse vrayement celeste, puis que null mortell ne pent veoir I'host, pour ceste cause ie uous escrips cest present. Ie uous prie donques tres affectueusement de prendre tant de peine que de uenir icy au commencement de 1' este prochain, & mesme en may, sil est possible ; le uoyage n'est point long, uous pouues passer par terre, demeurer icy aussi peu de temps que uous uoudres, nonobstant les troubles, ie m'asseure que le roy de Nauar le trouuerra bon pour si peu de temps car ie luy ay aussi escriput pour ce mesme effect, & ie m'asseure que uous uiendres le plus uolontiers puis que nous auons conwmnes decs : puis donques que iay tant uctu uostre ombre en uos oeuures une fois t/a dextrae iungere dextram ie uous prie de rechef de uenir, m'asseurant donques que puisque ma demande est si iuste ex ora/ore cxorator Jieri ie uous commets & uos estudes a la sainte tuition & inspiration du bon & uray dieu.' 342 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS and spent many weeks with the court at Edinburgh in the year 1587. He acknowledged King James's hospitahty by translating into French a small original piece by his royal host — a poem on the great naval battle of Lepanto of Octo- ber, 1 57 1, when the Cross triumphed over the Crescent, and the Turks were routed by Spanish and Venetian fleets. On the journey to and from Scotland Du Bartas paused in England, and the welcome of Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers was hardly less enthusiastic than that which was accorded him north of the Tweed. The fame of the great queen had already moved him to a panegyric. In his sacred J epic he had expressed a hope that his writings might be read by 'la grand' Ehzabeth, la prudente Pallas'. He had addressed her in strains which were well calculated to appeal to her idiosyncrasy : Claire perle du Nord, guerriere, domte-Mars, Continue a cherir les Muses et les Arts, Et si iamais ces vers peuvent d'une aile agile, Franchissant TOcean, voler iusqu'a ton Isle, Et tomber, fortunes, entre ces blanches mains, Qui sous un iuste frein regissent tant d'humains, Yoy les d'un ceil benin, et favorable pense Qu'il faut pour te louer, avoir ton eloquence.^ Of English literature Du Bartas had formed no clear con- ception before his visit. He had saluted Sir Thomas More and Sir Nicholas Bacon as pillars of English eloquence, and had paid a compHment to the sweet song of Sir Philip Sidney, I whom he hailed as a unique swan adorning the current of the river Thames.^ The Frenchman gave no proof that he ' La Seconde Semainc : le secofid join; pt. ii, 1615 ed., p. 284. 2 Le parler des Anglois a pour fermes piliers Thomas More, et Baccon, tous deux grands Chancelliers, Qui seurant leur langage, et le tirant d'enfance, Au sgavoir politique ont conioint I'eloquence. Et le Milor Cydne qui, Cygne doux-chantant, Va les flots orgueilleux de Tamise flatant, Ce fleuve gros d'honneur emporte la faconde Dans le sein de Thetis, et Thetis par le Monde. {La Scconde Setnaine : le secotid jour, pt. ii, 161 5 ed., p. 283.) As early as 1592 Tom Nashe in his Pierce Pemiilesse cited this passage as a notable praise of 'immortal Sir P. Sidney' whom, Nashe tells his l^ DU BARTAS'S VISIT TO ENGLAND 343 extended while in England his acquaintance with l^nglish literature. There was nothing reciprocal about the influence that he exerted on his hosts ; he derived no help from them. Unluckily, Du Bartas's visit could not be repeated, for he returned to Erance to wield his sword anew against the Catholics, with results fatal to himself. He fought bravely at the side of Henry of Navarre at the great battle of Ivry (March 14, 1590) , and he celebrated the great victory in a spirited hymn or cantique. But in the engagement he re- ceived many wounds which within four months caused his death. Shortly before Du Bartas arrived in England, vSidney, the gentle friend of all Huguenot activity, had acknowledged the high compliment which Du Bartas paid him, by embarking on a first translation into English of Du Bartas's verse.^ Some portion of Sidney's tribute was completed before Sidney's death in 1586. It was admired in manuscript, but nothing of it has survived. As in the case of Du Plessis, Du Bartas's presence in Great Britain greatly stimulated his literary reputation among Queen Elizabeth's subjects. Cultivated society in London was hardly slower than the Scottish monarch to acknowledge the fascina- tion of the Huguenot epic. But it was not until its author had passed away that La Seinaine^ with some minor works of the author, which had not previously been translated, wxre offered in an English printed book to an eager and expectant public. reader, ' noble Salustius (that thrice singular French poet) hath famoused, together with Sir Nicholas Bacon and merry Sir Thomas Moore, for the chief pillars of our English speech' (Nashe, Works, ed. McKerrow, i, pp. 193-4)- ^ William Ponsonby, the London publisher, obtained a licence for the publication of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia on August 23, 1588; at the same time he secured permission to print ' A translation of Salust de Bartas done by ye same Sir P. in the Englishe' (Arber's Statiotiers' Register, W. 496). Sir Fulke Greville, writing to Sir Francis Walsinghani in 1587, soon after Sidney's death, eulogizes his rendering of Du Bartas into English metre (State Papers Dom.). Florio in dedicating his Montaigne (Bk. ii, 1603) to Sidney's daughter, the Countess of Rutland, . and to Sidney's friend, Lady Rich, notes that he had seen Sidney's^ rendering of ' the first septmane of that arch-poet Du Bartas ', and entreats the ladies to publish it. Nothing further is known of Sidney's effort. 344 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS WK The chief, Elizabethan translator of Du Rartas, Joshua Sylvester , was well versed in JFrench. Born in 1563, a year before Shakespeare, he was educated at the Grammar School of Southampton, of which the headmaster was a French- speaking Flemish refugee. As a schoolboy he talked nothing but French. In early manhood he went into business as a clothier, joining a London corporation of merchants trading with Germany. His leisure was devoted to literature, and as /early as 1592 he first declared his discipleship to Du Bartas by [ publishing an English version of the ' third day ' of Du Bartas's I 'second week ' — (the story of Isaac) — together with the frag- ment of the story of Jonah and the song of triumph over the victory of Ivry. Other portions of Du Bartas's work followed rapidly, and in i6o5._there appeared a comp lete collection of 'Du Bartas His Devine Weekes and Workes translated'. Many reprints were issued between that date and 1641. Sylvester's literary services were rewarded by a pension and an honorary office in the household of Prince Henr>-, James I's elder son. But he never abandoned his association with trade, and his last five years were spent abroad— at Middelburg — where he died in 1618, two years later than Shakespeare, Sylvester's version of Du Bartas, each instalment of which was welcomed by Elizabethans with shouts of applause, is in '^-'^ decasyllabic couplets. The Englishman is loyal to all the eccentficitTes^fhis French master's style, to the onomatopoeic duplication of syllables, to the tricks of jingling rhyme, to the abrupt pauses. The English poetaster is, above all, a slave to the compound epithet, which Sir Philip Sidney had first intro- ' duced from Ronsard's French. Sylvester's combinations of ■ words were so clumsy as to lead sagacious critics to the opinion that the device was in conflict with the English ^ idiom. ^ Sylvester, exaggerates, too, the grotesque surprises of the French imagery. On occasion, however, he inter- ^ Dryden in his Aj)ology fo?- Heroic Poetry artd Poetic License altogether - condemns in EngHsh ' connection of epithets or the conjunction of two ^- words in one'. He praises the habit as frequent and elegant in the jGreek but blames ' Sir Philip Sidney and the translator of Du Bartas ' for having ' unluckily attempted [it] ' in the English (Dryden's Essays, ed. \V. P. Ker, i. 187). SYLVESTER'S TRANSLATION 345 polatcs on'oinal lines. He adapts to an Eng-Iisli environment ^ Du Hartas's references to French personages and affairs, and appeals to his master for permission to weave into the rich garland flowers of his own growing. He shows to advantage in some of these developments. Now and then he even invents a compound epithet of peculiar charm, which there is nothing in Du Hartas to suggest. His ' opal-colour' d morn ' is a fine rendering of ' I'Aurore dun clair grivolement '} But in spite of oases of picturesqueness or felicity Sylvester's massive volume is a desert waste of cacophony and uncouth expression. Here is a characteristic extract describing the end of the world, which reproduces the French with fair accuracy, and shows Du Bartas and Sylvester at their mean level : One day the rocks from top to toe shall quiver, The mountains melt and all in sunder shiver : The heavens shall rent for fear; the lowly fields, Puffed up, shall swell to huge and mighty hills : Rivers shall dry ; or if in any flood Rest any liquor, it shall all be blood : The sea shall all be fire, and on the shore The thirsty whales with horrid noise shall roar : The sun shall seize the black coach of the moon. And make it midnight when it should be noon : With rusty mask the heavens shall hide their face, The stars shall fall, and all away shall pass : Disorder, dread, horror and death shall come. Noise, storms, and darkness shall usurp the room. And then the chief- chief-justice, venging wrath (Which here already often threatened hath) Shall make a bonfire of this mighty ball. As once he made it a vast ocean all.^ 1 Cf. La Seconde Se/naitte : le second jot(r, 1615 ed.,p. 273. 'Grivole- ment ' is defined by Cotgrave as ' pecklenesse, or a speckled colour '. ^ Sylvester's translation, 161 3 ed., pp. 11-12. Du Bartas's French original runs thus : Un jour de comble en fond les rochers crouleront ; Les monts plus sourcilleux de peur se dissoudront ; Le ciel se crevera ; les plus basses campagnes Boursoufflees croistront en supcrbes montagnes : Les fleuves tariront, &; si dans quelque estang Keste encor quelque llot, ce ne sera que sang. La mer deviendra flamme ; & les seches balenes, Horribles, mugleront sur les cuites arenes : En son midi plus clair le iour s'espaissira : Le ciel d'un fer rouille sa face voilera : ^ 346 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS Perhaps Sylvester shows to better advantage in such a passage as this on the plurality of worlds : — I'll ne'er believe that the arch-architect With all these fires the heavenly arches decked Only for show, and with these glistering shields T' amaze poor shepherds watching in the fields. I'll ne'er believe that the least flower that pranks Our garden borders, or the common banks, And the least stone that in her warming lap, Our kind nurse earth doth covetously wrap, Hath some peculiar virtue of its own ; And that the glorious stars of heaven have none. Sylvester is seen at his worst in the following passage, which startled Drjden as a boy into a spurious admiration :— But when the winter's keener breath began To crystallise the Baltic Ocean, To glaze the lakes, and bridle-up the floods. And periwig with wool the baldpate woods. Our grandsire shrinking, gan to shake and shiver. His teeth to chatter, and his beard to quiver.^ Sylvester shared the poetic adulation which was from the first showered in England on Du Bartas. The efforts of both Frenchman and Englishman were praised wath the like \ solemn and sublime extravagance. Gabriel Harvey was early in the field with an ecstatic tribute of bombastic laudation. Sur les astres plus clairs courra le bleu Neptune : Phoebus s'emparera du noir char de la Lune : Les estoilles cherront. Le desordre, la nuict, La frayeur, le trespas, la tempeste, le bruit Entreront en quartier, & Tire vengeresse Du juge criniinel, qui ia desja nous presse, Ne fera de ce Tout qu'un bucher flamboyant, Comme il n'en fit jadis qu'un marest ondoyant. {Seniaine i •.Jour i, 161 5 ed., p. 20.) * Dryden quotes the first four lines in a dedication of his Spanish Friar, 1681, and adds the comment : ' I am much deceived if this be not abominable fustian, that is, thoughts and words ill-sorted' (Dryden's Essays, ed. Ker, i, p. 247). The French runs — Mais soudain que I'Hyver donne un froide bride Aux fleuves desbordez ; que, colere, il solide Le Baltique Neptun ; qu'il vitre les guerets, Kt que de floes de laine il orne les forets : Nostre ayeul se fait moindre ; il fremit, il frissonne, II fait craquer ses dents, sa barbe il herissonne. Du Bartas, Semaine ii '.Jour i, 1615 ed., pp. 238-9. ELIZABETHAN EULOGY 347 For elevation of subject and majesty of verse Harvey gave Du Bartas a place beside Dante. His wisdom excelled that of the seven sages of Greece. Euripides was his inferior. Only ' the sacred and reverend stile of heavenly divinity itself could claim inspiration superior to that of this new ' French Solomon '.^ But Harvey's standard of appreciation was nearly approached by abler pens. Poets of the highest standing, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Lodge, and Ben Jonson joined at the outset in the eulogistic hue and cry after both the Huguenot inventor of sacred poetry and his English satellite. Spenser, who wrote while Du Bartas was yet alive, was 1 comparatively restrained in associating Du Bartas with Du Bellay, and in noting that the Huguenot poet was beginning high to raise His heavenly muse, the Almighty to adore. Drayton declared that — Time could work no injury on the hallowed labours of the divine song in courtly French, Thomas Lodge, w^hose last literary labour was to render into English Goulart's prose commentary on Du Bartas 's epic, offers the opinion : I protest that Du Bartas is as much delightful as any Greek, Latin, or French author that we can light upon, who ever hath bestowed his style and study to speak of God and his works. Moreover, I avow him in the first rank of writers either ancient or modern that ever intermixed profit with pleasure, and whose everlasting Genius discourseth itself to all posterity.^ More tuneful is William Browne's greeting : Delightful Saluste, whose all-blessed lays The shepherds make their hymns on holy-days, And truly say thou in one week hast penn'd What time may ever study, ne'er amend.^ On the appearance of Sylvester's version, Ben Jonson greeted A the reverend shade of Du Bartas in as respectful a key, but he ' ' Gabriel Harvey's Works, ed. Grosart, ii. 103. ^ Lodge published in 162 1 A Leat'iied SitJ/ii/iarie upoji i/ie favioiis Pooiie of]Villia)>i of Salustt\loid of Bartas. Translated out of [Goulart's] French by T. L., D[octor] l\I[edicus] P[hysician] 1621, fol. The volume was licensed for the press March 8, 1620. It was reissued in 163S. ' Browne's Poems, ed. G. Goodwin (Muses' Library), i. 223. 348 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS sounded subsequently the only note of adverse criticism which J seems to have been heard in Shakespeare's generation. Ken Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden, when he visited him at Edinburgh, that he thought Du Bartas was ' not a poet, but a verser, because he wrote not fiction '.^ Jonson doubtless meant that the French Huguenot borrowed his subject-matter from the Bible, and did not invent it. French poetry, which was 'so generally applauded even of the greatest and gravest of this kingdom ', might well stir pens of smaller eminence to salute — These glorious works and grateful monuments Built by Du Bartas on the Pyrenees. The more habitual note of pedestrian admiration may be gleaned from this sonnet of an Elizabethan poetaster : — Had golden Homer and great Maro kept In envious silence their admired measures, A thousand worthies' worthy deeds had slept, They reft of praise, and we of learned pleasures. But O ! what rich incomparable treasures Had the world wanted, had this modern glory, Divine Du Bartas, hid his heavenly ceasures, vSinging the mighty world's immortal story ? O then how deeply is our isle beholding To Chapman, and to Phaer, but yet much more To thee, dear Sylvester, for thus unfolding These holy wonders, hid from us before. Those works profound are yet profane ; but thine Grave, learned, deep, delightful and divine.^ / Nearly a century passed away before the trumpets of praise ' ceased to sound. Dry den in boyhood deemed Du Bartas and Sylvester far greater poets than Spenser, but at a maturer age he denounced them both for ' abominable fustian ', as ^ ' injudicious poets, who aiming at loftiness ran easily into the sweUing puffy style because it looked like greatness.' ^ The ^ Drummond of Hawthornden's Notes on Ben Jonson's Co?n'ersations, Edinburgh, 1831-2, p. 82. ^ This sonnet is one of many such prefixed to the collected edition of Sylvester's J)u luirtas, 1605. It is signed R. N., doubtless Richard Niccols, who brought out a revised version of The Minor for Magistrates in 1610. Chapman and Phaer are mentioned in the sonnet as the chief Elizabethan translators of Homer and \'ergil respectively. ^ Cf. note on p. 344, supra. nil HARTAS AND SPENSER 349 poet Wordsworth echoed a still more recent verdict. ' Who is there that now reads the Creation of Du Hartas ? Yet all Europe once resounded with his praise ; he was caressed by ^ kings ; and when his poem was translated into our language the Faery Queene faded before it.' ^ More important than the mighty eruption of panegyric are the traces which the worship of Du Rartas has left on the style and theme of Elizabethan poetry.^ Occasional signs are not wanting that Shakespeare came under his spell. ^ vSpenser, who was often compared to his disadvantage with Du Rartas, lightly echoes many of his phrases and his double epithets. ^ The pseudo-scientific illustration is often the same in both poets. In Du Rartas's curious physiological notes Spenser clearly sought hints of his allegorical description of the human body, the lodging of the soul Alma, which appears in the Faerie Queene (Rook II). Nor is some of his description of natural scenery easily freed of the imputation of indebted- ness. Du Bartas showed especial sensitiveness to the song of birds, and in this regard there is a curious adumbration of the Spenserian temper. A note which is habitual to Du Rartas distinguishes the lines, which Sylvester renders thus : Arise betimes, while th' opal-coloured Morn In golden pomp doth May-day's door adorn. And patient hear the all-differing voices sweet Of painted singers, that in groves do greet Their love Bon-jours, each in his phrase and fashion From trembling perch uttering his earnest passion.'* ^ Wordsworth's Poetry as a Study, 181 5, in Prose Works, ed. Grosart, 1876, ii, pp. 111-12. " The fullest estimate of Du Bartas's influence on seventeenth-century English poetry will be found in 7'he French Influence in English Litera-"^ ture, by Alfred H. Upham, Ph.D., New York, 1908, pp. 145 seq. Mr. H. Ashton in Dtt Bartas e?i Attgieterre, Paris, 1908, also gives quite inde- pendently a full critical estimate of Du Bartas's work, and describes the place that the French poet filled in Elizabethan literary annals. ^ See note on p. 337, supra. * The French of Du Bartas runs — Leue-toy de matin, & tandis que I'Aurore D'un clair grivolement I'huis d'un beau jour decore Escoute patient les discordantes voix De tant de chantres peints, qui donnent dans un bois L'aubade a leurs amours, & chacun en sa langue Perche sur un rameau, prononce sa harangue. (Semaine ii '.Jour ii, pt. ii, ' Babylone'; QLuvres, 1615 ed., p. 273.) 350 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS Spenser aims at the same effect with far greater splendour and success in the Faerie Queciie (Bk. II, Canto xii. Ixx-i), yet the sentiment of the Elizabethan poet is nearly anticipated by that of his Huguenot predecessor : Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a dainty ear, Such as at once might not on living ground, Save in this Paradise, be heard elsewhere: . . . The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade Their notes unto the voice attempted sweet ; Th' angelical soft trembling voices made To th' instruments divine respondence meet. There is no possibility of mistaking the incitement w'hich Du Bartas offered English poets to deal with sacred topics. It may be fairly said that almost all the sacred poetry of the last years of Elizabeth and the early days of James took its cue from La Semaine. The satirist. Hall, at the extreme end of the century described Du Bartas as ' a French angel girt with bays ', whose divine strain was a holy message to Englishmen. Hall soon saw reason for lamenting that Parnassus should be transformed into a hill of Zion. The allegation was held by some of Hall's readers to reflect unfairly on ' Bartas's sweet Semaines ' and on the current efforts to bring the French poet's ' stranger language to our vulgar tongue '. But the new vogue of religious rhyming readily lent itself to extravagance, and Hall was only warning the Huguenot poet's admirers against excesses. Many of those, too, who owed the inspiration of their sacred verse to the French muse carried into secular verse marks of their study of the French epic. Such a comment especially applies to two poets of the first order, Drayton and Donne, and to three voluminous poets of a secondary rank, Nicholas Breton, Sir John Davies, and John Davies of Hereford. P'rom Spenser to Milton proofs are abundant of the Im- pression which the Huguenot's amplitude of topic, and his curious striving after sublimity no less than his religious fervour left on serious English minds which fostered poetic ambitions. The Huguenot's matter and manner find faithful reflection in a mass of late Elizabethan and early Stuart verse. DU BARTAS AND DRAYTON 351 \\'hcn Drayton in 1604 published his paraphrase of scrip- tural story called Moyses in a Map 0/ Miracles, he dedicated it to Du Hartas and his iMiglish translator, and he frankly admitted that the Divine Week was the source of his inspi- ration. Subsequendy Drayton revised this poem and added two others, one entitled Noa/is Flood, the other David and Goliah. In all the French influence is strong-. The topics are identical with those of Du Bartas, and if Drayton adapts and imitates rather than translates Du Bartas's words, his decasyllabic couplets ring with Sylvester's cadence, while they loyally expound Du Bartas's cosmic theories. Truthfully did Drayton avow that his ' higher ' poems of the divine grace came ' humbly ' to attend ' the hallowed labours of that faithful muse ' who ' divinely ' sang ' this All's creation ' in ' courtly French '. Similar relations are traceable in a pious poem, The Soul's Immortal Croiun, by a facile lyrist, Nicholas Breton ; in the metaphysical musings of Sir John Davies in his Immortality of the Soul, and throughout the voluble religious tracts of didactic John Davies of Hereford. To these men Du Bartas proved a false guide. John Davies of Hereford enjoys an unenviable notoriety by his clumsy copying of the least admirable tricks of Du Bartas or his translator. He duplicates prefixes to words, e. g. ' the super- supererogatory works '. He freely introduces compound epithets of singular aw^kwardness, and he falls into the grotesque habit of tame verbal jingles. Thy blissful-blissless blessed body O is one of Davies's pious ejaculations. For many of his humbler English worshippers 'divine Du Bartas' proved an ignis fatuus. Small profit did they derive from his ' blessed brains ', in spite of their ecstatic acknowledgement that thence Such works of grace or graceful works did stream, that ' wit ' could discover no more authentic ' celestial strains '. Virile Donne's debt to Du Bartas is the most interesting fact about the French poet in the history of English poetry. Donne makes no avowal of dependence on Du Bartas. He pays him no hackneyed compliments. The only contem- porary French book which Donne familiarly mentions in his 352 THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS letters in early life is a vefy. different example of French poetry. He commends to a friend a book of satires, the popular work of Regnier, which came out in Paris in 1612, when Donne was a visitor to that city.^ Regnier, a nephew of Desportes, and a champion of Ronsard's falling reputation, made his fame just after the Elizabethan period closed. As a moral satirist in the manner of Juvenai and Horace, he showed a keen insight into human vanities, adumbrating something of the power of Moliere. Satire on the Horatian pattern had been recommended to French poets by the masters of the Pleiade, and many efforts in that direction were made In France from 1560 onwards.^ Vauquelin de la Fresnaie circulated much satiric verse in manuscript during the last thirty years of the century. But he delayed publica- tion of his endeavours till 1605. The authors of La Satire Meiiippee developed in 1593 a peculiar vein of irony, which illustrated the national faculty for sarcasm. But Regnier's pen first lent French satire poetic force. Donne is the only Englishman who betrayed interest in Regnier's effort, and EngUsh satire in Donne's hand owed something to the French suggestion. Herein Donne was loyal to precedent. His English predecessor in the satiric field, Joseph Hall, who claimed, despite Wyatt's earlier experiment, to be the first English satirist, acknowledged obligations to an anonymous ' base French satire ', to whose identity there are several claimants, as well as to Persius and Ariosto. But whatever the measure of French influence which is to be imputed to Donne's satires, it is other parts of his work which bear conspicuous mark of French inspiration. Huguenot sufferings left a deep impression on Donne's mind. Once he constructs a most repulsive simile out of reports of the tortures which Huguenots endured in the course of their war ^ Writing from Paris in 1612 to his friend George Gerrard, Donne wrote : ' I make shift to think that I promised you this book of French satires. If I did not, yet it may have the grace of acceptation, both as it is a very forward and early fruit, since it comes before it was looked for, and as it comes from a good root, which is an importune desire to serve you.' (Gosse's Life and Letters of Donne, 1^599, ii. 10.) - See Viollet-Le- Due's L' Hist aire de la Satite en France prefixed to Regnier's CEuvres Completes, 1853. v/ DU BARTAS AND DONNE 353 with the Catholics. The town of vSancerre, in the province of Berry, not far from Bourges, in the very centre of France, was a permanent city of refuge for Huguenots. The city won a terrible renown by its heroic defence when it was besieged by French Catholics in 1573. The extraordinary ingenuity with which the inhabitants reduced the pangs of famine by turning to culinary uses not merely horses, dogs, and cats, but cattle hide, old parchment, and all kinds of old leather, is described in minutest detail by one of the besieged, Jean de Lery.^ No besieged city of anticjuity was reckoned to have passed through a comparable ordeal. Donne graphically recalls the episode when he brutally compares ' the sweaty froth ' on the brow of his enemy's mistress to The scum, which, by need's lawless law Enforced, Sanserra's starved men did draw From parboiled shoes and boots, and all the rest Which were with any sovereign fatness blest.'- The cited lines do far more than suggest that Donne closely studied Huguenot fortunes. They are in Du Bartas's least attractive vein, and they strike a note which is habitual to Donne's verse. The Huguenot poet or his English trans- lator was clearly one of the influences at work on Donne's somewhat crabbed muse. The uncouth metaphor, the harsh | epithet, the varying pause in the line, which are characteristic of Donne's rhyming decasyllabics, all seem to mirror irregularities 1 J which dominate Du Bartas's or Sylvester's achievement. In '' his early work Donne frequently touches in Du Bartas's vein on episodes of the story of Creation. The metre is always that of Sylvester, Du Bartas's English translator. When nature was most busy, the first week, Swaddling the new-born Earth, God seemed to like That she should sport herself sometimes, and play. To mingle and vary colours every day ; ^ ' Discours de I'extreme famine, cherte de vivre, chairs, et autres choses non accoustumees pour la nourriture de I'homme, dont les assiegez dans la ville de Sancerre ont ete affligez,' 1574. ^ Donne's Poems, ed. E. K. Chambers (Muses' Library), i. 114. LEE A a 354 THE MESSAGE OE THE HUGUENOTS And then, as though she could not make enow, Himself his various rainbow did allow.^ As some days are, at the creation, named Before the sun, the which framed days, was framed, vSo after this sun's set, some show appears, And orderly vicissitude of years.^ As all things were one nothing, dull and weak, Until this raw disorder'd heap did break, And several desires led parts away. Water declined with earth, the air did stay, Fire rose, and each from other but untied. Themselves unprison'd were and purified ; So was love, first in vast confusion hid, An unripe willingness which nothing did, A thirst, an appetite which had no ease. That found a want, but knew not what would please.^ Donne clothed elegies, eclogues, divine poems, epicedes, obsequies, satires in a garb barely distinguishable from this style of Du Kartas and Sylvester. The intellectual texture of Donne's verse is usually stiffer and subtler than that of Huguenot poetry. Yet the so-called metaphysical vein, which is usually said to have been inaugurated in English poetry by Donne, is entided to rank with Du Bartas's legacies to this country. Donne's ' concordia discors ', his ' combination of dissimilar images or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike ', is anticipated by Du Bartas. In both poets ' the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together ; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions ; their learning instructs and their subtility surprises '.* Donne long survived the Elizabethan era, and he helped to extend Du Bartas's influence to the generation beyond. The proof of such extended influence abounds. One later tribute to Du Bartas's ' eagle eye and wing ' came from ' Poems, ed. E. K. Chambers, Muses' Library, ii. ii6. 'An Anatomy of the World. The First Anniversary.' ^ ibid., ii, p. 127. 'The Second Anniversary.' ■' il)id., ii, p. 49. 'Letter to the Countess of Huntingdon.' * Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets (Life of Cowley), ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 20. DU BARTAS AND IMILTON 355 Spenser's disciple, Pliineas Fletcher, in his Purple Island (1633), and is an acknowledgement of an important source of inspiration. Nor was a greater poet than Fletcher free from the infatuation to which the Elizabethans succumbed. There seems no reason to question the tradition that the boy Milton, when living with his father in Bread Street, received in 1618 from a neighbour, Humphrey Lownes, who was Sylvester's publisher, a new edition of tlie English version of Du Bartas, and that the future poet read it with avidity while a boy of ten. Milton's juvenile paraphrase of the Psalms abounds in verbal and metrical coinage of Du Bartas 's mint. Sylvester could hardly have improved on the boy poet's compound epithet, ' froth -becurled (head),' or on such a couplet with its disyllabic weak endings as Why fled the Ocean ? And why skipt the mountains ? A\'hy turned Jordan from his crystal fountains ? Paradise Lost has been claimed as one of the many offsprings of La Seinaine. There is an undoubted kinship between the great Puritan epic and the great Huguenot epic, and although the degree of relationship is open to doubt and discussion, the fact that marks of affinity are recognizable lends a singular brightness to the poetic reputation of the Huguenot Homer.^ ^ The chief work on Milton's debt to Du Bartas is Charles Dunster's Coisidcrations on Miltofis Early Reading and the Prima Stamina of his 'Paradise Lost\ London, 1800. Cf. Masson's Life of Milton, i. 89 seq. - A a 2 BOOK VI FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN DRAMA The Foreign Sources of Elizabethan Drama The poetic and literary aspiration of Elizabethan England found its final triumph in drama. It is questionable if, apart from its drama, the Elizabethan era, despite its debt to Spenser, would rank with the supreme epochs of the world's literary or poetic activity — with the epochs of Sophocles or \^ergil or Tasso or Wordsworth or Victor Hugo. With its drama the Elizabethan era has some title to rank above all the world's epochs of literary or poetic eminence. The claim to precedence is mainly due to the giant genius of Shakespeare, but dramatic faculty of exceptional intensity, however inferior to Shakespeare's, is visible in Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, and other of Shakespeare's contemporaries. The spirit of the age at its zenith was magically endowed with the power of interpreting passion and humour in terms of drama. Dramatic endeavour flourished from an earlier date in Italy and France, and was active in both countries through the age of Elizabeth, but the ultimate level of both tragic and comic energy in Elizabethan England was never reached in sixteenth-century Italy or France. In Spain dramatic ambition ran high while the Elizabethan fire was dying, and there drama breathed something of the versatile vigour and flexibility of the Elizabethan outburst, but even the Spanish drama at its apogee— \\\^ drama of Lope de Vega and Calderon — lacked the combined measure of poetry and passion, humour and intellectual strength, which glorified the work of Shakespeare. Yet in spite of the pre-eminence of Elizabethan drama, which the world's parliament of critics now acknowledges, its debt to foreign influence and foreign suggestion was hardly less than the debt of Elizabethan prose or Elizabethan Ivric. 2,6o FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Elizabethan drama was no spontaneous emanation in the literary firmament. Neither its tragic, nor its comic, nor even its romantic manifestations were of native parentage. The whole / conception of tragedy was a foreign gift— the gift to modern (Europe of classical literature. Italy and France accepted the revelation long before it reached England, and England learned from early Italian or French experiments in tragic drama many of the practical aptitudes of the classical A-creed. Italian and French comedy was of less pure origin. ^ While it traced its descent in part to the Latin plays of '\ Plautus and Terence, it absorbed in both countries native \ elements of comic insight and satiric faculty. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, French comedy developed a peculiar briskness, breadth, and pliancy of original texture. The alertness of wit in French comic drama of this period owed little to classical influence and was superior in volatility to anything of previous date. As the sixteenth century advanced, the pure classical example fused itself with the indigenous gaiety of the nation, and there emerged a new and permanent standard of French comedy. Before the classical spirit had thoroughly mingled with the Gallic, France gave Tudor England early lessons in farcical comedy. The experience left traces on the perfected type of Elizabethan comedy, which also stood indebted to the growth in France of classical tendencies. Other foreign influences wrought on the final comic form of Elizabethan drama. There is no ground to question the substantial accuracy of the observation of a critic of Elizabethan drama in its early days : ' Comedies I in Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish have been thoroughly ransacked to furnish the playhouses in London.' ^ Yet among these foreign stores the French tragedies and comedies, or French versions of classical and Italian comedies and tragedies were always the most abundant and accessible. A notable modification of ancient orthodoxy in the sphere of tragedy and comedy is often reckoned peculiarly character- istic of the Elizabethan and notably of the Shakespearean 1 Gosson's r/aj's confiiied in Five Aciions, 1 579. FOREIGN FORM AND TOPIC 361 drama. Happy endings were allotted to dramatic renderings of poignantly pathetic romances, while comic episodes were introduced into tragedies. These amorphous develop- ments gjiined admission early to the Elizabethan theatre, to the scandal of orthodox critics. Sir Phihp Sidney, a cham- pion of classical law, was especially scornful of his fellow countrymen's first attempts to ' match funerals with hornpipes '. Magnificently typical of the blending of tragedy with comedy is the irruption of the Porter after Duncan's murder into the tragedy of Macbeth. The romantic plot of Shakespeare's comedy oi Mitch Ado hovers on the brink of tragedy. This fusion of type is an important feature of English drama and plays a larger part there than in any foreign literature. Yet such ambiguous broadenings of the bases of drama are no English innovations. However superior Shakespeare's per- formances in tragicomedy were to anything that preceded, or indeed succeeded them, Italians and Frenchmen and Spaniards were active in that field before him or at the same time as he. Endeavours of France and Italy in the field of dramatic romance lay well within Shakespeare's and his fellow country- men's range of vision, and there again P^lizabethan footsteps found guidance. There is indeed no form of dramatic effort of which Elizabethan England, despite her triumphant handling of all, can claim the honours of the inventor. Her heavy debts to normal types of classical tragedy and Gallic or Italo-Gallic farce or romance do not exhaust her dramatic obligations to the foreigner. The pastoral and masque, with its mytho- logical machinery, were importations from Italy, and the masque, as the French form of the word shows, grew up under French stimulus, 1 It was not merely the dramatic form which came to England from abroad. From foreign sources the plot or subject-matter of tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy alike was widely drawn. Foreign novels were the richest mines of fable for Elizabethan drama, A foreign atmosphere often clung irremovably to the foreign story, and the foreign spirit of romantic intrigue coloured the foreign fiction in the Elizabethan theatre. The I 362 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA harvest of novels was in Renaissance days most abundant in Italy, and there the Elizabethan playwrights gleaned their (fullest sheaves. Handello told the stories of Romeo and Juliet and l\velfth Nighty Cinthio those oi Measiu^e for Measure and Othello. But France, true to her role of purveyor of culture, offered ample stores of ' histoires tragiques ', of ' plaisantes nouvelles ', of ' contes facecieux ' ; of these a few^ only were homegrown, the majority being culled from Italian or classical authors or even from writers of less familiar / race. From a French cyclopaedia of fiction which em- bodied a chronicle of Danish history, England drew her first 1 knowledge of Hamlet's perplexed career. France rivalled Italy in the quantity and the quality of the raw material of tragedy, comedy, and romance w^hich she provided for the Elizabethan stage. The Elizabethan dramatist sought his theme not only in foreign fiction but also in foreign history, past and present. Historical tradition of Greece and Rome, of the empires of the East, of mediaeval and contemporary Europe, readily served as the plots of drama in all countries which came under the sway of the Renaissance. In providing Eng- land with historical topics France again proved a more valu- able ally than Italy. Far earlier than Elizabethan dramatists, French dramatists found themes for drama in Plutarch's Lives w^iich offered an exhaustive panorama of the whole ^ range of classical activity. France set England the fashion of / dramatizing Plutarch's histories of heroes of classical antiquity. The English playwrights bettered the French instruction. They handled Plutarch's narrative in the English version with intensely dramatic vigour, but the Elizabethan translation on which the English dramatists worked was wholly made from a masterly French rendering of Plutarch's Greek. The Roman plays of Elizabethan England rank with her best. Yet they came to birth at French prompting. Nor was it merely episode of classical history which French example commended to the Elizabethan stage. Recent or contemporary political conflict in France was also eagerly scanned by Elizabethan playwrights and was adapted MARLO^^'E^S reform of tragedy 363 by them to theatrical uses. Huguenot and iMench Cathohc leaders were accepted heroes of l^lizabethan drama. Neither Marlowe nor Shakespeare disdained suggestion from the pending warfare of religious and political factions in France, while dramatists of the rank and file drew thence a long series of dramatic incident. Of many of these topical efforts only the name survives ; the text has vanished. The loss deserves mild regrets. For topical reviews of passing crises, whether in tragic or comic vein, rarely reach high levels of dramatic art. vSuch examples of the topical Elizabethan drama as have escaped destruction deal, however, with persons and places of contemporary France quite amply enough to attest a widespread tendency and habit among both the great and the small Elizabethan dramatists. The heights, as well as the plains, of Elizabethan drama are marked by many French features. France was generous in her supply of the threads of form and topic from which the many -coloured coat was woven. For near a century France was in the van of the dramatic movement of the Renaissance, and England for the time was content to follow sluggishly behind her neighbour. Yet there was promise of originality in the Elizabethan disciples of con- tinental drama. He who studies Elizabethan drama in its relation with French dramatic endeavour finds his chief profit in examining the early stages of the English movement. The first steps of the ascent have most in common in the two countries. The English road is paved at the outset with many French conceptions and French artifices from which the region of the summit is free. Towards the end of the eighth decade of the sixteenth century, Christopher Marlowe framed what, in spite of. signs of French afiSnity, was largely a new conception of tragedy. He imbued tragic diction with a new breadth and warmth which gave Shakespearean tragedy an immediate cue. Until the date of Marlowe's advent the growth of drama in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century France steadily antici- pated the development of drama in England. Subsequently Elizabethan England broke away from leading - strings and passed unaccompanied ahead of her guides. When 364 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA at a later epoch the consummated type of Elizabethan drama caught foreign attention it was condemned by foreign observers as barbarism. Even at home her final activity excited some critical misgivings, by reason of its defiance of pre-existing canons. A very deliberate effort was made in the heyday of the Elizabethan movement, by Elizabethan students of French drama, to recall Elizabethan drama to the classical paths on which Renaissance France ultimately con- centrated her best energies. But the warning had small effect, and the Elizabethan drama refused to abandon its own independent lines. The links which bind Elizabethan drama with the dramatic efforts of the French Renaissance never altogether disappear, but they dwindle in significance and substance as Elizabethan drama approaches the final goal. In a more marked degree than other forms of Eliza- bethan literature, the Elizabethan drama acquired in its progress to maturity a spirit of its own. A fire, which was undreamt of abroad, flamed into life on the Elizabethan stage, and soared into regions beyond continental bounds. France offered no parallel to the wealth of poetic colour and the breadth of dramatic sentiment Avhich marked Shakespeare's final contribution to the dramatic achievement of Elizabethan England. Neither the previous nor the con- temporary generation of French dramatists or of French actors can be credited with giving Shakespeare's genius any of its versatile touches of sublimity. Shakespeare's main elements of greatness — his insight into character, his width of outlook, his magical power of speech — owe little to French inspiration. None the less, vShakespeare like his fellows stands indebted to French instruction for much of his raw material, for much of the humble scaffolding of his art. Many of his ambitions were stimulated by French precedent. He learnt in French schools juvenile lessons in plot and dialogue. Italy was also among his tutors, but there, too, France lent him aid. Italian dramatists rank high among French masters, and the French were always ready to com- municate teaching which they themselves derived from others as well as that of their own invention. French imitations of RELIGIOUS DRAMA IN FRANCE 365 Italian and classical plays joined original French comedy and tragedy in moulding some contours of Shakespearean drama. II The Beginnings of French Drama Drama of the popular kind is of greater antiquity in France than in England. The drama of Christian Europe was origin- ally designed as a complement of divine worship, as a popular comment on the liturgy of the Church. Latin was the first vehicle of dramatic expression. It seems doubtful if the vernacular languages were deemed capable of dramatic usage before the twelfth century. France was the first to enter the field by at least two centuries before England. To the beginning of the twelfth century belong two extant French dramas of a primitive type, on the subjects respectively of/ Adam's fall and the Resurrection. To the thirteenth century i are assigned some French specimens of dramatized hagio- graphy as well as a primitive pastoral called Robin et Marion^ \ which seems to challenge the claim of religion to mono-" polize the theme of drama. In the (ourteenth century the miracle play in the vernacular was full-fledged and prolific in France. As many as forty pieces portraying miracles per- formed by the Virgin Mary are among surviving compositions of that era. There is no proof that England attempted to follow the French example at any earlier date, and sparse are the extant examples which can be dated with confidence before the fifteenth century. Through the fifteenth century there was an active develop- ment of the religious drama in the two countries concurrently. On both sides of the Channel there was an abundant harvest of mystery and miracle plays which dealt in long cycles with Old and New Testament history and more detachedly with careers of popular saints. The English ventures betray frequent signs of indebtedness to French effort. 366 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA The primitive stream of sacred drama flowed with almost un- abated energy alike in France and England down to the middle of the sixteenth century. The popular religious play bore only rare and occasional traces in either land of the new influences of the Renaissance. But in sixteenth-century France the old sacred drama was accorded in literary circles a recognition which was denied it in sixteenth-century England. In Eng- land of both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the miracle or mystery play was cultivated by unprofessional pens of anony- mous scribes, and was ignored as a fit theme of work by professed labourers in literary fields. The labour was accorded a higher dignity in France. Queen Margaret of Navarre, in spite of her devotion to the New Learning, eagerly courted the popular dramatic tradition of the middle ages by penning new mysteries on such topics as the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, and the flight of 1 the Holy Family into Egypt. The religious play of mediaeval France was not only of earlier birth than that of mediaeval England, but literary ability was moved in the early days of the French Renaissance to make the endeavour to prolong its life. As late as 1575 a French poet, who had drunk deep of the classical scholarship of the Renaissance, was urging on proficient dramatists, in a treatise on the art of poetry, the propriety of finding their tragic plots in the Old Testament or in hagiography which — ' montre de Dieu les faits admirables au monde '.^ In both France and England the morality play sprang immediately out of the miracle or myster)^ and the new type, which was elder-born on French than on English soil, rid the popular drama to a large extent of religious fetters. The morality at first dealt with ethical problems on secular lines of allegory or symbolism. The characters were personifica- tions of virtues or vices. Surely and steadily, however, the morality loosened its allegorical bonds and escaped into the ampler air of personal action and experience. The moral or edificatory aim proved indeed readier of attainment in the 1 ^ Vauquelin de la Fresnaie, V Art poctiqice fratiqois, livre iii, S81-904. THE FRENCH ' MORALITY ' 367 presentation of Individual men and women than in a procession of allegorical abstractions. The allegorical scheme of the morality easily gave way to mobile conventions of per- sonality. Many experiences of everyday life were seen to be capable of pointing a moral quite as effectively as allegorical pantomime. The French morality flourished in one shape or another from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Seeking at an early date material in the comic anecdote or fabliati^ it (juickly absorbed the comic spirit which was always indi genous to France, and had manifested itself from time immemorial in more or less ribald exhibitions of buffoonery by way of public pastime. Gaiety coloured the development of the native drama. The farc ^ or soth'e y the dramatic satire ovjyevue^ was a fruit of an alliance between the moral play and the irresponsible merriment of French bourgeois recrea- tions. The term ' morale comedie ', which was widely applied to specimens of the popular French drama early in the sixteenth century, marks a tendency of the nation's dramatic temper.^ The serious note was not rejected, but jest became a need- ful environment and condiment. The precocity, the vivacity, the versatility, which attach to the manifold phases of the French ' morality ', bear witness to a dramatic instinct in late mediaeval and early sixteenth-century France, to which England of the same period offers no parallel.^ ^ Rabelais describes a typical 'morale comedie' which he says that he and his friends acted about 1530, when students at the University of Montpellier. The piece was called 'La morale comedie de celuy qui avoit espouse une femme mute'. The husband wished his dumb wife to speak. A physician and a surgeon are summoned, and by a simple operation give the woman the power of speech. The cure proves so efficient and the wife grows so garrulous that the husband seeks medical advice for the purpose of restraining her volubility. But here medicine and surgery are baffled. The only palliation they can furnish is to render the husband deaf. The wife's irritation with a husband who cannot hear her voice causes her to go frantically mad, while the doctor who applies to the deaf man for his fee cannot make him understand his purpose. The doctor thereupon gives him a drug which renders him imbecile. At the end the insane couple set upon the doctor and surgeon, and nearly kill them. (Rabelais, bk- iii, ch. 34.) ^ M. Petit de JuUeville, in a series of volumes entitled generally Histoire dii Tlicdtre en France au inoyeti age, gives an admirable description of the 368 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA It is easy to illustrate the varied forms of the French ' morality ' from infancy to maturity. To the fourteenth century beloncrs a dramatic rendering- of Boccaccio's tale of Griselda, the patient but ill-used wife. Allegorical abstractions are absent. Although the sole aim is to teach the lesson of patience, the result is a dramatic romance in embryo. Dramatic presentations in the fifteenth century of the fall of ' Troie le grant ' and of a recent ' vSiege of Orleans ' illustrate the expansiveness of the dramatic topic of the age. But the growth of the morality on its comic side was chiefly of significance for the future. Comedy in France was finally to win with Moliere a renown which Shakespeare only just outstrips. The blitheness of Gallic wit was ultimately to give French comedy a w^orld-wide empire. The seeds of the comic triumph were sown by the morality. r^ During the fifteenth century the ' morality ' engendered an almost full-fledged example of the comic art in Malire \Paihelin. Although the Latin comedy of Plautus was known to French mediaeval scholars, it was not thence, it was from suggestion nearer home, that the author of Maltre Pathelin drew his inspiration. The familiar plot is an anecdote of a briefless village lawyer who is duped of his fees by a trick that he himself teaches a simple rustic client — (the device of bleating like a sheep whenever an inconvenient question is put to him. On that slight foundation is reared a little study of character and manners which has no shadow of counterpart in England for some one hundred and twenty years. (The middle-sixteenth century Gammer Gnrtoiis N^eedle is the earliest English example of a comparable dramatic experiment, but the English farce has little of the comic gusto and insight of its veteran French precursor. Nor has the English piece the clear-cut moral which the old French early history of French drama. The individual titles of the separate volumes run : Les Mysferes, 2 vols., Paris, 1880 ; Les Comcdicns en France an moyen Age, Paris, 1885 ; La Coi/ic'die et les /nauos en France au moyen Age, V^.t\%, 1886; Repertoire du Theatre comique en France an inoyen age, Paris, 1 886. The same author's Le TheAtre en France : Histoire de la littera- tiire drainatiqice depuis ses origines jusqttW fios jours, Paris, 1889, is a useful summary. MA tTRE PA THELIN 369 farce had the faculty of emphasizing without prejudice to its humorous vivacity. Maitre Pathelin graphically illustrates ,JxJ the popular maxim of 'the biter bit'. The popularity which the piece acquired during the fifteenth century never deserted it • in France. The phrase of the judge ' revenons a ses moutons ' obtained at once proverbial currency. Rabelais echoed the language of ' noble Pathelin '. Pasquier, the far-famed critic of the French Renaissance, denied that Greece, Rome, or Italy had produced anything superior to it in the comic vein.^^ Maitye Pat/ielin, despite its exceptional fame, is no isolated phenomenon in the history of French mediaeval drama. French mediaeval drama owed most of its future influence to similar experiments in farce or satiric comedy. At the end of the fifteenth and opening of the sixteenth century the miracle and morality play were still pursuing active careers, but the most popular form of dramatic entertainment was the farcical type known as /a sotiie. The true subject- matter of the farce or sottye francoyse, was, according to an early sixteenth-century French writer, ' badinage, foolery, and everything that moves laughter and amusement.' ^ The sotiie burlesqued the opinions or conduct of prominent living persons in church or state. Yet serious reflection and imaginative fancy- occasionally diversify the theme. Sometimes the sottie touched the confines of social comedy and anticipated traits of Beau- marchais's Le Mariage de Figaro. The form varied. Not infrequently monologue sufficed. ' Un sermon joyeux ' inso- lently parodied the pious discourse of a popular preacher, or a braggart soldier made bombastic professions of courage with a humour of almost Falstaffian breadth. Dialogue wasl employed in energetic debate in which sharply contrasted/ opinions w^ere presented with much point and adroitness. The chief author of popular drama in the early sixteenth century w^as the actor and manager, Pierre Gringoire. His ^ The farce oi Maistre Pierre Pathelin was printed for the first time at Lyons in 14S5. There were at least five editions before 1 500 and more than twenty reprints in the sixteenth century. - "EiWixXoX, Art poctique (Paris, 1555), Livre II, ch. viii, p. 60 : ' le vray subject de la farce ou sottye frani^oyse sent badineries, nigauderies, et toutes sorties esmouvantes a ris et plaisir.' LEE B D 370 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA facility and fertility knew no diminution through the first three decades of the epoch. His efforts took varied shapes. He was an adept at allegory in narrative poetry as well as in the morality play of the regular pattern. A mystery play on the royal saint of France, Louis IX, came from his versatile pen and enjoyed a wide vogue. But he won his chief fame by his insolent criticism of current life in sottie or debat. On the stages both of Paris and of the provinces Gringoire and his allies discussed in dramatic form pressing questions of politics, religion, and ethics. Social topics, especially the disadvantages of marriage or the foibles of the fair sex, were always welcome to author and audience. Personages of classical mythology were introduced at times, and there were occasional snatches of Latin. But the pieces had nothing in common with the method of classical drama. The text was / continuous. There were no divisions into acts or scenes, \ and no limit w^as placed to the number of speaking parts. Liberty of speech was in the sixteenth century a privilege of popular drama in France, and royal authority long forbore / efiective restraint. Louis XII found it useful in his struggle with Pope Julius II to patronize, if not to sanction, dramatic satire of the papacy. For a time Francis I raised no obstacle to the frank and impartial treatment on the stage of religious controversy. About 1523, in a farce called Les Theologastres^ the orthodox doctors of the Sorbonne were mercilessly ridiculed and were represented as finally seeking the aid of ' Mercure d'Allemagne', a leader of the Lutheran Reformation, in an endeavour to rehabilitate their worn-out views. Shortly after- ! wards Queen Margaret of Navarre was herself brought on the , stage as a Fury bearing a torch wherewith to set the kingdom I on fire. Foreign sovereigns, including Henry VIII and Queen ! Elizabeth, w^ere the more or less comic heroes and heroines of the dramatic entertainments of the French people. As the years went on, both central and municipal authorities i found it necessary, on moral and political grounds, to curb the \ growing licence of the popular stage. Danger was detected \m the scurrilous tendency of the sottie or debate w^hile the \sacred mjstery to which popular esteem obstinately clung THb: INTERLUDE IN ENGLAND 371 was held to incline to blasphemy. A decree prohibiting the religious drama in Paris was promulgated in 1548. Public or private performances of farces, comedies, songs, or other writings, which should in any way deal with sacred topics or ecclesiastical personages, were repeatedly forbidden by local magistracies through the middle years of the sixteenth century, while moralities and other pieces which were performed either for rehgious purposes or for honest popular recreation were proclaimed to be unlawful unless they were licensed by cure or magistrate. But these edicts were evaded. Religious \ themes were not banished. Mysteries as well as moralities | still claimed a share of public favour. The sottie and | satiric revues flourished in spite of censorship through all the period of the warfare of Huguenot and Catholic, and blows were aimed from the stage impartially at all the factions. The steady growth of the regular classical drama under the influence of the Pleiade failed to change the taste of the general public. ' In England the progress of the popular drama was very sluggish in comparison with the activity of P>ance. The English morality was far more reluctant than the French morality to transgress its original law of allegory. A personal element was by degrees grafted on the symbolic machinery, but the personifications of vice and virtue were not displaced. The English stage in the pre-Shakespearean era seemed likely to stagnate in crude conventions of ethical symbohsm, when French example openly worked some tangible reform. The English morality of the fifteenth century- often depended on French suggestion, but French influence directed almost singlehanded a fresh development of popular English drama. The Tudor invention of the interlude was no domestic evolu-\ tion. It was an undisguised loan on the comic activity of the I contemporary P>ench theatre. J^ At the opening of the sixteenth century, English drama left contemporary life and society out of account. Moral allegory lacked genuine dramatic promise. John Heywood, a primitive Elizabethan, whose patriarchal length of life 1 covers eighty-three years of the Tudor epoch, deserves B b 2 372 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA the credit of having brought a ray of hght into the dismal scene. He may be reckoned the creator of the interlude in England, the English writer who struck the first clear note of comedy. According to Warton he was the earliest English dramatist who ' introduced representations of familiar life and popular manners '. Recent research leaves no doubt that Heywood deliberately sought inspiration in the sottie and debat of contemporary France.^ The comic trend of the French stage had previously caught attention in England. The story of Maitre Paihelin was narrated in a popular English jest-book of Henry VIII's reign. '-^ French players had performed at the court of Henry VII, as well as at that of King James IV of Scotland.^ I But Hey wood's interludes are far more substantial links. They 1 are liberal adaptations of recent dramatic essays in France. Hey wood's chief works were satiric discussions or debates among humble ecclesiastics and humble laymen on the pattern of the sottie. The best known is, perhaps, that entitled Fotir P's^ from the initials of the four interlocutors, a Palmer (or pilgrim), a Pothecary (or apothecary), a Pardoner, and a Pedlar. The efficacy of the various processes of salvation in which they each have a professional interest, is debated by the Palmer, the Pardoner, and the Pothecary, and the Pedlar is summoned to decide which of the three is the most extravagant liar. Again, in Heywood's Merrie Play betiueeii the Pardonner and the Frere, the Curate ajid Neybour Pratte^ the Friar preaches salvation in front of a church, and is interrupted by the Pardoner, who displays ^ ' The Influence of French farce upon the plays of John Heywood,' by Karl Young, in Modern Philology^ vol. ii, pp. 97-124, Chicago, 1904. * * Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Ouicke Answeres,' first printed by Thomas Berthelet about 1535, narrates Maitre Pathelin's experience under the heading ' Of hym that payde his dette with crienge bea '. See Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-books., 1864, p. 60. ^ The account books of Henry Vll's household show payments to 'the Frenche pleyers' of i/. on January 6, 1494, and of 2/. on January 4, 1495. The Scottish Exchequer Rolls note that on July 23, 1494, the king enter- \ tained French players at Dundee. Sir David Lyndsay's dramatic ' Satyfe of the three estaitis', which was performed in the open air at Cupar in I535> 'irid at Edinburgh in 1540, betrays the influence of contemporary French drama. Cf. Petit de Julleville's La CoDiedie et les Ma-itrs de France ait Moyen Age (1866), Chap, v, .' Satire des Divers Etats.' HEYWOOD'S FRENCH ADAPTATIONS 373 his relics. After rallying each other with much briskness, they fight, until they are separated by the curate and a neighbouring villager, named Pratt. Both these interludes are cast in the French mould, and clearly borrow much from a popular French sottie^ Farce iionvelle d'lin Pardonneiw, d'lni Triadeur, et d'nne Taver- iiiere. The French Pardoner, laden with relics, orates bombastically in a market-place on the spiritual efficacy of his wares. The Tn'ackiir, or travelling apothecary, commends his drugs with like assurance. They abuse and ridicule each other, but are reconciled by the suggestion that they should visit a fair tavern-keeper in company. A French source, is, too, responsible for Heywood's dramatization of a homely anecdote or fable in the Merry Play betiveen Johan the Hiisbande, Tyb the zuife, and Sir Jhaii the Priest. This endeavour, which was new to England, reproduces a contemporary P>ench interlude of domestic life, the popular farce .Z?^ Pernet qui va au vin. In both EngHsh and French works a sharp-watted farmer's wife contrives to invite a secret lover to dinner and to keep her dense-witted husband from the dinner table by sending him on a derisive errand. The French husband is bidden fetch some wine and also melt a piece of wax before joining the feast. The Enghsh husband is bidden fetch water in a leaky pail and is given wax wherewith to patch the leak. In both cases a meat-pie, or pdtc, forms the meal, and is eaten by the wife and her paramour before the husband completes his task. The identity of temper may be gauged by a com- parison of the husband's complaint of the business with the wax in the two versions : John. Pernet. Mary, I chafe the waxe here, Me faut-il done chauffer le cire And I ymagyn to make you good Tandisque vous banqueterez .' chere Corbieu, j'en suis marry : That a vengaunce take you both as Je crois ce paste est bon. ye sit, For I know well I shall not ete a byt. But yet in feyth yf I might ete one morsell I wolde thynk the matter went very well. 374 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Again, Heywood's dialogue, Of ivit and folly^ a quasi- dramatic dialogue or debat between the wise man and the fool as to which lives the better lifC; resembles a French Dialogue dnfol ci dn sage. The French ' Dialogue ', which is a typical example of the debat, is believed to have been performed at the court of King Louis XII, who was hus- band of Henry VIII's sister, Mary. At the close Heywood's adaptation travels somewhat beyond the French text. The English writer is faithful to French guidance in allowing the victory to the fool through the chief bouts of the encounter, but Heywood diverges from the French path in an original peroration which finally establishes the wise man's pre- dominance. Heywood's metre and sentiment are loyal to the sottie. The octosyllabic couplets which Heywood chiefly, but not invariably, uses is the habitual metre of the French. The cut and thrust of the burlesque dialectic is almost identical in temper, and at times in phrase, in English and French. Heywood's chop- logic adumbrates that rough and tumble interchange of wit ^ which is echoed by the clowns and serving-men of the perfected ^Elizabethan drama. Autolycus, the cheapjack pedlar, is in the line of succession. The stock comes of the sottie or debat. Heywood's crude efforts were popular and exerted much influence on one side of the coming dramatic development, r'^'^^ey wood's introduction of the French debat into English I literature was bearing English fruit when Shakespeare was beginning his professional career. The dramatist and ro- mance writer, Robert Greene, Shakespeare's early foe of the theatre, took the trouble to translate as late as 1587 one of the most finished specimens of this rudimentary manner of drama. At the end of Greene's romance, called TJ ie C azdc-of Faiicie, figures a prose piece entitled ' The debate between Follie and Loue. Translated out of French '. This is a (literal rendering, with abbreviations, of a quasi-dramatic, half- comic, half-pathetic dialogue by Louise Lahe, in which the mediaeval form and naivete are touched, with an exceptional deftness, by the classical erudition of the Renaissance. The authoress was the most gifted and impassioned of all poetesses I ROBERT GREENE'S Z>/i^^/ r 375 of the early French Renaissance. She was a native and resident of Lyons, and, being the daughter and wife of rope-makers, is known to Hterary history as La Helle Cordiere. Her name has never lacked honour in her birthplace. There has always been a street in Lyons known as La rue de la Belle Cordiere. Louise Labe's sonnets strike a curiously poignant note of despairing love. In her Dcbat de Folie et cV Amour ^ she treats the passion more lightly. There are six interlocutors, Folly, Love, Venus, Apollo, Jupiter, and Mercury. The argument runs thus :— Jupiter is giving a great feast to the gods. Folly and Love are among the invited guests, and dispute as to their precedence. Folly pushes Love aside and claims the first place, whereupon 'they enter into disputation of their power, dignity, and superiority '. The dispute waxes amusingly warm, when Love shoots an arrow at Folly. Love's rival avoids the aim by becoming invisible, but manages to deprive his enemy of his eyes, an action of which Love's mother, Venus, complains to Jupiter. There- upon the royal god appoints Apollo and Mercury to plead before him the causes of the two combatants, and after hearing the long arguments he postpones his deci- sion until ' 3 times 7 and nine ages be passed '. Meanwhile the disputants are to live in friendship together. Folly is to act as guide to blind Love, and Jupiter undertakes to invite the Fates to restore Love's sight. Greene reduces the five ' discours ', or scenes, of Labe's original to three ; he omits some of the French speeches and shortens others. But the dialectical fancy of the French authoress is unimpaired. Heywood was hardly quite so loyal to his French tutors' ingenious turns of thought. The tribute paid by Shakespeare's contemporary, Greene, to La Belle Cordiere's experiment in the old dramatic genre of the debat is a curious illustration of the wide and active sympathy between French and English dramatic endeavour at the date of Shakespeare's entry into the literary arena. 376 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA III The Growth of the Theatre in France and England There is another feature in the dramatic history of France which bears witness to the precocity of the nation's sym- pathy with drama. The French theatre was formally organized in the Middle Ages, and the organization, though it underwent development with the rise of new conditions, knew no disrup- tion between its birth and our own time. The stage of the French Renaissance was a mediaeval institution. The play- house of sixteenth-century Paris was no innovation ; it was a survival of mediaeval dramatic ambition. No contrast tis of greater significance than the differences in date and circumstance between the first establishment of a theatre in the French capital and in London, From the fourteenth century there flourished in Paris as many as three guilds or brotherhoods whose aim was the organization of dramatic performances for purposes of either edification or amusement. These dramatic societies enjoyed the dignity of legal incorporation. The earliest and most important, Les Confreres de la Passion., was formed of laymen of all classes, more especially of the working classes. Their original function was to perform religious drama, but v! they soon conquered wider dramatic fields. Les Confreres ' boasted a fixed habitation or theatre in Paris as early as 1402, when they settled in the Hospital of St. Trinite, near the gate of St. Denis. There they remained for 137 years. In 1539 they removed to the Hotel de Flandres, in the Rue des Vieux Augustins. Some nine years later, when the Hotel de Flandres was demolished, they purchased the disused Hotel de Bourgogne, in the Rue Mauconseil, in the quartier St. Denis, and built anew a rudimentary theatre on its site. This barn-like edifice, which continued to be known as the Hotel de Bourgogne, remained the head-quarters of Z^v9 Confreres till the old fraternity was dissolved by royal edict in \6if)} ^ M. Eugene Rigal's Le Theatre fraiK^ais avant la Periode Classiqtie, 1901, is the chief authority ; his bibliography is very useful. ACTORS' CORPORATIONS IN FRANCE 377 Through the middle years of the sixteenth century acting rapidly developed into a profession, and the constitution of the amateur fraternity was modified. After 1598 the brother- hood merely fulfilled the passive functions of proprietors of their theatre, which they leased out to well-organized pro- fessional companies of actors. Yet the Hotel de Bourgogne, for all the changes in its control, is a sturdy material link between the old and the new drama of France, and symbolizes its con- tinuity of life. The influence of Les Confreres de la Passio7i spread beyond Paris. Provincial imitators formed themselves into local corporations, and at Angers, Bourges, Metz, Orleans, Poitiers, Rouen, Saumur, Tours, and Troyes there flourished similar dramatic organizations before, during and after the period of the French Renaissance. The machinery of the theatre was from the first elaborate among Les Confreres. Scenery and costume were invariable features of the organized presentations of mysteries. The stage was long, deep, and high and capable of divisions into compartments. In the early days the various scenes were set up in three tiers or platforms which were known as ' mansions '. The actors passed from ' mansion ' to ' mansion ', from scene to scene, as the evolution of the drama required. This scenic device out- lived the mediaeval era. In the sixteenth century it developecf | into the system of ' le decor simultane '. There two or three ! different scenes — for example, a palace, a prison, a landscape! or a seascape — were painted side by side on the same canvas which hung round the stage semicircularly. The actors took their stand in front of one scenic background after another in accordance with the progress of the dramatic action Scenery in one crude shape or other was aUvays a character istic of the French stage. The second mediaeval amateur dramatic society of Paris which received legal recognition was drawn originally from the upper classes, but soon attached to itself a full- fledged band of professional supporters. This society was called Les Enfants sans Soucj\ or Les Sots. Its role was frankly secular f it devotedTts'energies to farce — , to the sottie^ the reviie^ and the debat. Les Enfanis in early 378 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA days performed in the market halls and squares of Paris, at times under royal patronage. Ultimately Les Enfanis entered into a working partnership with Les Confreres de la Passion^ ^ and were often to be seen at first at the Hotel de la Trinite and later at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Early in the sixteenth century the dramatist and poet Gringoire became manager and leading actor of Les Enfanis^ and under his command rthe fraternity perfected its professional organization. A third /mediaeval dramatic corporation was formed of amateurs who 1 were invariably lawyers. Les Clercs de la Basoche, as this legal-dramatic society was called, was formally authorized to produce moralities, and gave their chief dramatic performances in the hall of the Palais de Justice but occasionally acted in private houses. This legal brotherhood of the theatre lasted in name till the French Revolution, but its histrionic activity ceased early in the sixteenth century. Thenceforth, for the best part of a hundred years, Paris mainly depended for its public theatrical recreation on Les Confreres and Les Eiifants^^ ^ who lost by degrees all relics of their amateur origin, and \ grew indistinguishable from companies of professional actors. The professional tendency of the old theatrical organization expanded steadily. Independent companies of professional players, which emerged from the ranks of the mediaeval dra- matic corporations, wandered about the country, performing in municipal halls or in noblemen's mansions. The masters of the Hotel de Bourgogne regarded the strolling actors as trespassers on their rights, and sought to shut the gates of Paris upon them. But the strollers flourished in the provinces, and in spite of the official opposition secured some foothold even in the metropolis. Travelling companies seem from the first to have been formed in Paris; they invariably started their provincial tours from the capital city, and journeyed back by well-marked circuits. In the middle of the sixteenth century the official prejudice against the wandering troops was powerful everywhere. But their popularity at large was increasing, and the official hostility lost its practical effect. Every town of importance came to be visited in a more or less regular sequence, and the tours not infrequently extended THE RISli OF THE PROFIiSSIONAL ACTOR 379 I beyond France. French companies made their way into Holland, Germany, Piedmont, and even vSpain, Denmark, and Sweden. At the close of the sixteenth century performances by French players were regular features of the great annual fair at Frankfort-on-Main, On occasion they were welcomed to the Imperial court at Ratisbon. The development of the touring companies in sixteenth-century France, in the face of oflScial prohibition, was fruit of the fascination which the drama exerted on the people. The hold of the stage on public taste was never destined to lose its strength. Cultured influences supported the dramatic advance, working through somewhat different agencies. In the early! days of the Renaissance a predilection for amateur acting was encouraged at court, at the universities, colleges, and schools. Many subsidiary centres of histrionic activity thus came into being. At all the great educational establishments of France, notably at the College de Guienne in Bordeaux, and at the College de Boncourt, the College de Navarre and the College d'Harcourt in Paris, plays were regularly per- formed in halls fitted up for the purpose. Especially was the new classical drama of the Renaissance welcomed there. Scholars often gave dramatic performances in royal palaces or noblemen's ' hotels '. The Hotel de Reims, the residence of the Cardinal of Lorraine, was frequently put to such uses. Servants in the royal households at times took part in these entertainments. The growth of professional companies in Paris and the country, the academic organization of amateur acting, and the patronage of kings and noblemen, whose ser- vants were suffered to practise the histrionic art, — all helped to extend general interest in the drama, and to hasten the recon- struction of the mediaeval theatre of France on modern lines. In 1598, when the Hotel de Bourgogne was permanently leased to a professional company whose experience had been gained in provincial tours, the dying tradition of me- diaeval amateurism was banished for ever from the national theatre. Contrary to expectation, the complete installation of the professional actor on the national stage gave the death-blow-^ the mediaeval spirit of drama which the old 380 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA fraternities had fostered. The new control reinforced the dra- matic influences of the Renaissance, which had for a generation dominated academic circles and the higher social ranks. The classical drama enjoyed a freer scope for development and acquired a larger popularity after the French theatre was permanently organized on wholly professional lines. ^ The organization of the Elizabethan theatre and of the acting profession in Elizabethan England was no less mo- mentous a factor in the development of Elizabethan drama, but the Elizabethan theatre was late-born as compared with France, and had fewer hnks with the past. The art of acting was far better and more widely organized in France during the Middle Ages than in mediaeval England. There were no actors' guilds in England during the fifteenth century of the organized strength or national authority of Les Confyeres, Les Eiifants, or Les Clercs. The histrionic art spread more readily in noble, academic, and legal circles under French than under English skies. Only during Shake- speare's boyhood did the tide of histrionic activity flow strongly enough in I^ngland to draw Elizabethan noblemen, lawyers, and university tutors into its current. That flood was anticipated in France by more than a generation. The ' profession ' of actor was born in France under the auspices of the ancient brotherhoods at least half a century before anything was heard of the acting vocation in England. The constant intercourse between French and English society suggests that the veteran histrionic traditions of France offered their stimulus to the Elizabethan innovation. ^ The assignment of a special building to theatrical purposes \ preceded in France the evolution of the professional actor. The distinctive theatrical edifice was a fruit in that country of mediaeval amateur effort, of amateur effort of the four- teenth century, which only acquired a professional status in the sixteenth century. The English theatre was in- augurated later and under different auspices. It was only I during the last quarter of the sixteenth century that a theatre was first built in England, and the step was I taken at the instance of her earliest professional actors. THE BIRTH OF FRENCH TRAGEDY 381 The sequence in which the profession of acting and the theatre came into being in England reversed the order of the older experience of France. But such a discrepancy is im- material to the main issues of English indebtedness. James' Burbage, the promoter of the first regular acting company in England, built, in 1576, the first English playhouse in the Finsbury fields to the north-east of London. He was thus creating very modestly and tentatively an institution, which an amateur society had not only inaugurated on a far more imposing scale at the Hospital de la Trinite in Paris nearly two centuries before, but had throughout that long period maintained with a steadily increasing vogue. The seed sown by Burbage's theatre rapidly fructified in the English metropolis, and before the end of the sixteenth century there were in or near London six definitely organized theatres. But to none of the London buildings attached the venerable traditions which clung to the Parisian theatre of the Hotel de Bourgogne. IV The Classical Drama of the French Renaissance If the comic spirit in a primitive stage of strength was well f alive in France in the first half of the sixteenth century, the tragic spirit was still unborn, nor had comedy of intrigue or romance given coherent signs of life. French tragedy, which _ blossomed in the last epoch of the P'rench Renaissance, was the child of Greek and Latin parents, and grew up under the tutelage of classical scholarship. In Italy the development of dramatic art in all directions anticipated that in France by many years, and Italian example played an important part in exciting French interest in the classical conceptions which dominated the new birth of PVench drama,^ ^ As early as the fourteenth century classical drama was studied and imitated in Italy. To that era belong two original Latin tragedies on the Senecan model, Ecerinis and Achilleis, by Albertino Mussato of Padua. In the fifteenth century Seneca's tragedies and some contem- porary imitations were frequently acted. Italian visitors to France early in the sixteenth century continued to press the classical drama on French notice. The elder Scaliger translated Sophocles' Oedipus Rex into Latin, 382 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA From the fifteenth century onwards, there was much study by Frenchmen of Seneca's Latin adaptation of Greek drama, which exaggerated the declamatory temper of the Greek and favoured sensational situations. Early in the sixteenth cen- tury Greek tragedy was disclosed in its original purity to scholars throughout France, and direct translations into French were among the first-fruits of the revival of classical learning, Lazare de Baif, the father of Ronsard's ally, Jean Antoine de Baif, rendered from the Greek Sophocles' Electra and Euripides' Hecuba line by line, in 1537 and 1544 respec- tively. Before the half century closed Hecuba was retrans- lated by another pen, and Euripides' Iphigeneia was added to the list of French versions of Greek tragedy. Academic energy largely stimulated the new dramatic development. In French universities Greek drama awoke vast enthusiasm. Plays were often acted by the students in the original tongue. One or two college professors went a step beyond translating the Greek. From adapting the Greek texts to their pupils' histrionic capacities, they easily passed to writing original Latin tragedies on the classical pattern for their students to act. In this important develop- ment professors at the College de Guienne at Bordeaux bore a distinguished part. Latin tragedies were penned there by a Scottish teacher, George Buchanan, and by a colleague, Marc Antoine Muret, the professor of Latin, who subsequently wrote in French a commentary on Ronsard's Amours. \ Buchanan achieved great fame by a Latin drama on the \ biblical subject of Jephthah. Muret won only a little less I renown by a Latin tragedy on the secular subject of Julius I Caesar's assassination. Montaigne was a pupil of these ; scholars of Bordeaux, and he always recalled with pride how he had played leading roles in their tragic work. Alamanni, while at the Court of Francis I, rendered the Antigone into Italian. The Italian writer Trissino was the first to pen an original regular tragedy in any vernacular language of Europe. His Italian play of Sofonisba was written in 1515. It is in blank verse^ and is the archetype of modern European tragedy. His comedy, 5/w//////// (a very liberal adaptation of Plautus's Mcnaechmi), which was written about the same time, is a notable landmark in the modern development of vernacular comedy. Shakespeare's Comedy 0/ Efrors is of its lineage. THE WAR ON THE POPULAR DRAMA 3S3 Meanwhile classical comedy advanced along the same lines. Not only the Latin comedy of Plautus and Terence, but the Greek comedy of Aristophanes, received academic notice. While a schoolboy at the College de Coqueret in Paris Ronsard turned into French the Aristophanic comedy of Phiiiis^ and his version was acted by himself and his com- panions under the auspices of the Greek professor Dorat. The chief hero of the Pleiade thus began his career with a precocious act of homage to Attic comedy. Important as these first steps were, they ignored the living language of the country. It was not till the brotherhood of the^ Pleiade had formulated their national plea for a literary reformation that there arose in P^rance the novel and revolutionary conception of original tragedy and original comedy in the French language, on a regular classical pattern. That conception was first defined by Du Bellay's manifesto of 1549. Du Bellay peremptorily bade Frenchmen banish farces and moralities and put in their place true tragedies and comedies which should re-create in the native tongue the archetypes of Greece.^ It was at that call that French tragedy, which owed nothing to pre-existing French endeavour, was born, and that French comedy, in spite of its absorption of a measure of the old Gallic sentiment, came to acquire its modern shape. A spirit of hostility to the old popular drama marked the new dramatic aims of France. Workers in the new field of tragedy lost no opportunity of denouncing the mediaeval aspiration. The classical drama was wel- comed not merely as an innovation, but as an agent destined to destroy the indigenous mystery or morality. The old popular drama was not, however, easy to kill. It not merely survived the classicists' threats of extinction, but deve- loped in presence of the enemy a new vitality and versatility. ^ Cf. Du Bellay's La deffetise et illustration de la langite franqoyse, Ek. II, ch. iv, ad /in. : ' Quant aux Comedies et Tragedies, si les Roys et les republiques les vouloient restituer en leur ancienne dignite qu'ont usurpee les P'arces et Moralitez, je seroy' bien d'opinion que tu t'y employ- asses, et si tu le veux faire pour I'ornement de ta langue, tu sgais ou tu en dois trouver les Archetypes.' 384 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA A desperate strife long waged between the new dramatic development in France and the old theatrical organization. The new school regarded the Hotel de Bourgogne with its enthusiasm for moralities and farces as a discredit to the V national reputation. The actor of the Hotel retaliated by imputations of dullness on the classical innovations, and the , strolling companies fully shared the prejudice, which was rife at head- quarters. The new school had small hope of attracting the ordinary theatre-goer, and deemed the old theatrical organizations and their unlicensed touring offspring ill- qualified to present the classical drama.^ Perhaps the grapes I were sour. At any rate the party of progress appealed exclusively to cultured actors and auditors. They professed to be content if their pieces were performed by students in their college-halls or by personal friends in private mansions jof patrons. The court showed much interest in the new 'development, and Ronsard's patron, King Charles IX, like 1 his two successors on the French throne, Henry III and Henry IV, reckoned plays of the classical type among the pastimes of royalty. The kings encouraged members of the royal household to take part in dramatic performances. Queen Elizabeth and James I subsequently fdled the Hke role of ^ There has been much controversy as to the relations subsisting in the sixteenth century between regular classical tragedy and the actors of the public theatres. Le Journal du Theatre fratigais, a manuscript his- tory of the French stage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which was drawn up in the eighteenth century and is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale (Nos. 9229-9235), represents the classical drama as entering into the public programmes day by day at the Hotel de Bourgogne along with melodrama, farce, morality, mystery, and other kinds of popular drama. There seems, however, little doubt that Le Journal is an un- authentic compilation, and deserves no confidence. Le Journal is attributed to the Chevalier de Mouhy, and seems to form the materials from which he compiled Un abrcge de Phistoire du theatre frangais,\\\\\ch was first published in 1752 and reissued, in an expanded shape, in 1780. Le Journal supplies the sole evidence that the sixteenth-century writers of classical French tragedy were habitual clients of the public theatre, and wrote their plays with a view to performance by the professional actors. Classical tragedies were, in all probability, produced only in the royal palaces, noblemen's houses, and college halls, where they were acted^ by amateurs. M. Faguet in his La Tragedie Frangaise au XVI"' Steele, 1897, accepts with reservations the guidance oiLe Journal. It would seem safer with M. Petit de JuUeville to ignore it altogether. See E. Rigal's Hardy et le theatre Jraniais, p. 688. JODELLE'S PIONEER DRAMA 385 sponsors of a new drama across the channel. In both countries royal favour did much to encourage the dramatic advance in literary and artistic directions. The Erench hero of the new dramatic development, Etienne "^ Jodelle, came from the ranks of the Pleiade. Although Jodclle 1 wrote much lyric verse, he alone of Ronsard s active lieutenants devoted his main energies to drama. His dramatic achieve- ments were equally notable in both tragedy and comedy. He 1 may be reckoned the father alike of French tragedy and of/ regular French comedy. j Jodelle s first dramatic essay was a tragedy on the subject of Cleopatra, Queen of Egy^pt, Antony's paramour.^ The piece was performed, in the presence of Henry II and his court, at the College de Boncour in Paris in 1553, and was follow^ed immediately before the same assembly by a comedy, . Etigene^ also from Jodelle s pen. The author and his literary 1 Iriends were the actors. The enthusiasm with which the two ), pieces were received was celebrated in triumphal odes by Baif and Ronsard. Ronsard greeted Jodelle as the inventor of French tragedy in the Greek manner as well as of the new style of French comedy [CEuvres, vi, 314) : Le premier d'une plainte hardie Fran9oisement chanta la grecque tragedie, Puys, en changeant de ton, chanta devant nos rois La jeune comedie en langage fran^ois. After the performance the author with other members of the Pleiade, made a far-famed excursion to the rural retreat ' of Arcueil, and there amid Bacchanalian revelry pretended i in mockery of Pagan rites to sacrifice a goat, garlanded with / roses and ivy, to the god Bacchus. This celebration of the \ birth of classical drama on French soil is an event of supreme interest in the annals of both French and English literary history. It inaugurated a new era. But the ceremony of Arcueil excited bitterness in the hearts ofthe conductors of the old theatre at the Hotel de Bourgogne as well as among the Huguenots. The dramatic revolution was credited with immoral tendencv. Imputation of blasphemy menaced Jodelle and his ^ The topic had already been dramatized in Italy. LEE C C 386 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA friends. Against Jodelle especially there were levelled charges of atheism which clung to him during the rest of his unhappy life. His chequered experiences anticipated with singular closeness the ill-omened career of Marlowe in England during the next generation, and Elizabethan critics were quick to urge the parallel. Certainly Jodelle was of as impetuous a tempera- ment as any Elizabethan. It was claimed for all his works that they were improvisations. He wrote according to his friends' account with the utmost rapidity, ' sans etude et sans labeur ' — with the haste which Ben Jonson assigned to Shakespeare. The agility of Jodelle's pen was currently reckoned without example in the past or present. Jodelle's Cleopdtre^ the first French tragedy, is loyal to classical lines, but it is no translation nor adaptation of any pre-existing classical drama, and betrays signs of original interpretation and modification of the classical canons. The author dramatizes passages from Plutarch's Life of Mark \ Antotiy^ and thus sets an effective example to those who '■■ sought afterwards tragic themes in Roman history. The dependence on Plutarch is a prominent feature of the theatre of the French Renaissance. There is little doubt that it was from France that the habit spread to Elizabethan England in the succeeding era. It is worth noting how the French pioneer of tragedy handles the historical story of the Queen of Eg\'pt half a centuny" before Shakespeare approached the theme. Like the Englishman's, the Frenchman's debt to Plutarch is great, yet the biographical material is manipulated by him with a dramatic ingenuity. In the opening scene of Jodelle's tragedy the ghost of Antony — he is already dead — laments the ruin in which Cleopatra has involved him. The presence of the ghost betrays the influence of Seneca. In the next scene Cleopatra is dissuaded by her handmaidens from com- mitting suicide ; and a chorus of Alexandrian women chant of the instability of human happiness. When the heroine first appears she is engaged in conversatio nwhich she has begun with her handmaidens before her entrance. This vivid device was familiar to Shakespeare. But before he made JODELLE'S CLAOPATRE 387 trial of it, it had lost the air of novelty which it enjoyed at'^ Jodelle's hand. In the second act Octavian Caesar (Au- gustus), the conqueror of Antony, discusses with his council- lors the sad fate of the hero, and the future of Cleopatra ; I a chorus of men moralize on the emptiness of human pride. In the third act Octavian has a pathetic Interview with Cleopatra. She begs for mercy for herself and for her children. One of her followers, Seleucus, has reported to j Octavian that Cleopatra has made an imperfect disclosure of her wealth — has hidden some of her jewellery. Seleucus s revelation is communicated to Cleopatra ; she straightway sum- mons him to her presence and, as he enters, she denounces his baseness to Octavian. Here the dramatic emotion rises to its full height. Although Cleopatra's angry remonstrance \ closely follows Plutarch's words, there are changes which are finely touched by Jodelle's dramatic instinct. The speech, which is iQj'hymed decasyllabics, runs thus : Cleopdtre. Mais quoy, mais quoy ? Mon Empereur, est-il vn tel esmoy Au monde encor que ce paillard me donne ? vSa lachete ton esprit mesme estonne, Comme ie croy, quand moy Roine d'ici, De mon vassal suis accusee ainsi, Que toy, Cesar, as daigne visiter, Et par ta voix a repos inciter. He si i'auois retenu des joyaux, Et quelque part de mes habits royaux, L'aurois-ie fait pour moy, las, malheureuse! Moy, qui de moy ne suis plus curieuse .'' Mais telle estoit ceste esperance mienne, Qu'a ta Livie et ton Octauienne De ces joyaux le present ie feroy, Et leurs pitiez ainsi pourchasseroy. Pour (n'estant point de mes presens ingrates) Envers Cesar estre mes advocates.^ 1 Jodelle's Cleopdtre, Act ill. Shakespeare's version of the same speech of the Egyptian queen may profitably be compared with the French : Cleopatra, O Caesar ! what a wounding shame is this, That thou, vouchsafing here to visit me. Doing the honour of thy lordliness To one so meet, that mine own servant should Parcel the sum of my disgraces by Addition of his envy. Say, good Caesar, C C 2 388 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Cleopatra's outburst of rage and her characteristic excuse of her disingenuousness run in the same mould in the French and the English play. In both tragedies Octavian shows himself magnanimous, and promises to spare Cleopatra's life. In Jodelle's fourth act Cleopatra explains that she longs for death, and has dissembled with Octavian in order to protect her children. vShe quits the stage with her weeping hand- maidens to kill herself on Antony's tomb. In the fifth and last act Octavian's attendant, Proculeius, informs the people of Alexandria how Cleopatra died. The chorus of soldiers impartially applauds her heroism and the foTIy'or^ontestijig Octavian's supremacy. Jodelle's scenes are for the most part a series of long decla- mations interspersed with choruses. There is The orthodox absence of action, but there is passion in the dramatic rhetoric and a lyric fervour in the choruses. The general effect is one of pathetic dignity although the dramatic vivacity is hampered by the choric interpositions. The choric functions are dis- charged not by one band of actors but byJ:^^; by Cleopatra's waiting-women as well as by Octavian Caesar's soldiers. Feeling and insight are brought to the portrayal of the heroine, and of her conqueror, Octavian Caesar. Truthfully, Jodelle wrote in the prologue which he addressed to King Henry II : Ici les desirs & les flammes Des deux amans ; d'Octavian aussi L'orgueil, I'audace & le journel souci. In some regards Jodelle aimed at a stricter adherence to ' classical ' method than Greek drama enjoined. French \ critics of the Renaissance, following in Italian footsteps, expanded Aristotle's law^ of unity of action or interest so as to cover in addition unities of time and place. This law That I some lady trifles have reserved, Immoment toys, things of such dignity As we greet modern friends withal ; and say, Some nobler token I have kept apart For Livia and Octavia, to induce Their mediation ; must I be unfolded With one that I have bred ? Antony and Cleopatra, Act v, Sc. ii, 1 58 seq. JODELLE'S COMEDY OF EUGENE 389 of a triple unity was a gloss of Italian ingenuity on Aristotle's j original canon, and was with modification accepted by the French writers of classical tragedy. In 1572 the new creed was embodied by the French dramatist, Jean de la Taille, one of Jodelle's disciples, in the critical edict : ' II faut tousjours representer I'histoire ou le jeu en un mesme jour, en un mesme temps, et en un mesme lieu.' The context makes it clear that De la Taille's 'I'histoire' and ' le jeu'/ embraced both tragedy and comedy, in neither of which was \ the scene to change nor the time of the mimic action appre- 1 ciably to exceed the hours of the theatrical performance. I Jodelle, like many of his successors, transgressed the new law of unity of place by an occasional transference of the scene. Rut in Cleopdtre and in most of the French tragedies of which that piece was the progenitor, unity of time was acknowledged to be as binding an obligation asunity of action. Jodelle contrived to develop his tragic episode within the time \ which was occupied in the presentation of the drama. -J The versification of Jodelle's first French tragedy is as sig- nificant of the future as its loyalty to the unities. The second, third, and fifth acts are in ten-syllable rhyming lines, but the first and fourth are in Alexandrines. The verse of six feet which closely resembled the "Greek iambic line of Attic tragedy became the national type of dramatic metre in France. Jodelle approached comedy in much the same spirit as tragedy. Classical correctness of form is, he declares, the primary aim of genuine comedy. But for the complete suc- cess of comedy elements of modernity, incidents of familiar fife must be embroidered on the classical canvas. Jodelle's comic play, which is called ^//^^;/^, after its hero, tells a story of a rich abbe's disreputable intrigue with the wife of a foolish friend. In sentiment it is far less closely identified with the claisical revival than the tragedy of Cleopdtre, but it is loyal to the classical form and its octosyllabic rhyming couplets are not out of harmony with classical metre. But the old French spirit of comedy, the temper of the old French fabliau, the love of broadly humorous anecdote, leavens in Jodelle's page the Roman w'it of Terence. The Frenchman's intrigue is, 390 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA moreover, coloured by Italian insolence. The first formal comedy in France, Jodelle's Eugene, is thus a cross between Terence's method of comedy and that of the author of Maitre Pathelin, while there is at the same time a liberal infusion of Italian lubricity. It is a manner of composition which fore- shadows much in the future development of French dramatic literature. It was in comedy that France was to produce in the seventeenth century her greatest literature of genius. French tragedy was never to scale the heights of French comedy, despite its majesty of diction and gesture. The comparative inferiority of French tragedy, with all its fine literary flavour, may be due to its failure to seek any sustenance in idiosyncrasies of national sentiment. A passion for classical feeling and for classical correctness dominated the tragic muse of France, and she pressed some classical canons to extremities of which Aristotle had not dreamed. In comedy, however, as Jodelle's pioneer effort showed, the 'esprit gaulois' claimed a control, and despite the critics' frown, successfully resisted eviction in the future. Jodelle made only one other contribution to the drama. He was author of a second tragedy — on the subject o£JDido. The plot was drawn from the fourth book of the Aeneld of Vergil. If in Cleopatra he anticipated a theme of Shakespeare, in Dido he anticipated a theme of Marlowe, who made Dido's misfortunes the subject of a tragedy. Jodelle's piece opens with the preparations for Aeneas's departure, and faithful to the unity of time, the fable is wholly confined to Dido's grief and , suicide a few hours later. The speeches defy Seneca's generous standard of length, but Dido's expansive lamentations sound many a pathetic and piteous note. Again there are two choruses (one of Aeneas's companions and another of Phoenician women). Didon is the first French tragedy written (apart from the choruses) wholly In Alexandrines. In metrical facility Jodelle's second tragedy marks an advance ' on his first. Throughout his later Alexandrines, feminine rhymes alternate with the masculine on the approved modern V pattern. The mellifluous utterances of the double chorus lend, too, lyric freshness to the scene. JACQUES GRl^VIN 391 Jodelle's example produced almost immediately a rich harvest of plays, both comedies and tragedies, on classical subjects and models. Jodelle's colleagues of the Pleiade gave him not only encouragement but the practical support of imitation. Baif produced a comedy called Braice ou Taille- hras at the palace of the Duke of Guise in 1567. This was a spirited adaptation of Plautus's Allies g/oriosns, to which Ronsard, Belleau, and Desportes added original choruses on classical lines, although the Latin text did not authorize them. Baif^ was also responsible for quite literal renderings of/ Sophocle s' A ntigoiie _ and Terence's Eiumclnts. His col- league, Remy Belleau, who died prematurely in 1577, showed greater inventiveness in a specimen of comedy which he called La RscoiuuLe ; ^ it is a sketch of contemporary society in Jodelle's classical manner with little of Jodelle's animation. Imitations of Seneca's Medea and Agatnemnon^ and two tragedies on the deaths respectively of Darius and Alexander the Great came likewise from pens of less eminent disciples of Jodelle. It was in tragedy that Jodelle's influence proved most fruitful. His effort in comedy bore comparatively small / fruit. In that field his influence was soon eclipsed. But a long line of dramatists loyally took up his tragic parable. Within a generation the new tragic art was set under Jodelle's guidance upon sure foundations throughout France. His capacities were soon surpassed, and two writers, Jacques Greyin and Robert Garnier, won superior tragic triumphs. Garnier's work helped more directly than Jodelle's to mould dramatic endeavour in England. If Jodelle deserve the honour of inventor of the classical type of modern drama Garnier j should be credited with lifting it to a higher plane of art. Grevin stands midway betw;een Jodelle and Garnier. He is an interesting figure. A young French Huguenot, he twice visited England, and was well received by Queen Elizabeth. He addressed to her in 1560 a poetic epistle, entitled ' Le Chant du Cigne ' (' The Song of the Swan '), in which, like ^ The plot dealt with the Civil War of 1562 and showed how a young woman of Poitiers, after being rescued from death, defeated an uncon- genial matrimonial plot to which her benefactor exposed her. 392 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA / ' Ronsard, Du Bartas, and Aubigne, he grows dithyrambic over her linguistic facuky, which included Spanish, Tuscan, Latin, and (Jreek, in addition to French : Vous parlez promptement nostre langue fran9oise, L'espagnoUe, et thuscane, et latine, et gregeoyse, Vous S9avez la vulgaire, et si avez cest heur D'entendre et de respondre a tout ambassadeur.^ I Two comedies in verse and a tragedy in Jodelle 's manner form Grevin's contribution to the regular dramatic movement. One of his comedies merely adapts Jodelle's E^igene, the other comes from the Italian throuofh an earlier French \ version.^ His tragedy in French, which deals with the death of Julius Caesar, is alone memorable. He wrote it while at the College de Guienne at Bordeaux for his fellow students to act. His tutor, Muret, had already penned a Latin tragedy on the subject, but Grevin passed beyond his tutor's scope. Muret found his material solely in Plutarch's life of Caesar. Grevin enlarged the theme by borrowing hints from Plutarch's lives of Brutus and Mark Antony in addition to the life of Caesar. Therein Grevin notably anticipated Shakespeare. Nor does Grevin's dramatic feeling and insight into character discredit Shakespeare's splendid sequel. Calpur- nia's fears and her appeal to Caesar to absent himself from the Senate on the fateful Ides of March are invested by Grevin with an air of mystery which adumbrates Shake- speare's tone. The emotional and choleric temperament of Cassius is forcibly contrasted with the equable tenor of I Brutus's disposition. Most remarkable is GrevtnVTast act, which presents with spirit the harangues of Brutus and ' Antony to the fickle mob. Here Grevin shows a peculiar adroitness in handling Plutarch's narrative. The justifica- tory harangues of the assassins, Brutus, Cassius, and Decimus ^ Le Chant du Cigne. A la majeste de la Royne dangleterre, 1560, lines 169-76; quoted in Appendix to Lucien Pinvert's 'Jacques Grevin (1538-70)'. Paris, 1899, p. 356. ^ Grevin's La Trcsorih-e or La Maubertine (15 58) in verse is an imita- tion of Jodelle's Eit^i^hh'. His Les Eslui/iis is very freely adapted from Les Abuscz, Charles l^tienne's earlier French version of the Italian GH Ifioannati. CAESAR'S DEATH IN FRENCH DRAMA 393 Brutus, arc heard by the soldiers in silence, liut Mark Antony's address from the tribune (luickly excites threats of vengeance. The orator holds up the blood-stained garment of the slaughtered dictator — Et vous, braves soldats, voyez, voyez quel tort On vous a faict, voyez ceste robbc sanglante, C'est celle de Cesar, qu'ores je vous presente : C'est celle de Cesar, magnanime empereur, Vray guerrier entre tous, Cesar qui d un grand coeur S'acquit avecque nous I'entiere jouissance, Du monde maintenant a perdu sa puissance, Et gist mort, estendu, massacre pauvrement Par I'homicide Brute. The leader of the soldiers responds— Armons-nous sur ce traistre, Amies, armes, soldats, mourons pour nostre maistre. Antony resumes his speech by bidding his hearers follow I him, and warns them against the fear of death in performing their vow to avenge their murdered leader.^ Shakespeare touched with a pen of fire Plutarch's bare reports of the speeches in the forum at Caesar's funeral, and brought the events down to the disasters of Philippi. Grevin's work is a mere daub of drama compared with vShakespeare's living dramatic picture. Nevertheless Grevin's version, how- ever bald, is an important anticipation of Shakespeare's masterpiece. Grevin's tragedy acquired a wide reputation, and it is significant that Shakespeare should have consciously or unconsciously developed the dramatic tradition of the oratory at Caesar's funeral which Grevin inaugurated. Very notable developments of French Renaissance drama are associated with the name of Robert Gamier, whose power was recognized in Elizabethan England with greater eager- 1 The first soldier thereupon recalls an augury of their beloved general's murder. The second soldier brings the play to a somewhat abrupt end with the somewhat enigmatic speech, which was a bold comment on the political philosophy of the Huguenots— Ceste morte est fatale Aux nouveaux inventeurs de puissance royale. The rest is silence. But there is artistic finish in the slender indication of the issue. 394 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA ness than that of any other French writer for the stage. Garnier loyally obeys the rules of classical tragedy of the Senecan pattern. Monologues abound. Declamation is his chief weapon. Yet he brought to his work a larger measure of poetic sentiment and a greater command of tragic pathos than any predecessor. He showed too how classical sympa- thies could reconcile themselves with a new type of romantic drama. Garnier finally riveted on French tragedy the yoke of the Alexandrine, which he handled more skilfully than Jodelle. He was indeed a poet of no mean order, and the lyric note of his choruses has something of the grace and vivacity of his contemporary Ronsard. None of the Pleiade school save Ronsard were superior to him in variety of metre and imagery. He is equally at home in plaintive and merry keys. Nor does his charm lie merely in verbal harmonies. His graphic touches of description are equally attractive. In a chorus of huntsmen, in his tragedy of Htppolyte, he pictures all the incidents of the chase with a skill which gives the poetry the novel character of lyrical narrative. The stanza,^ which portrays the crafty efforts of the hunted animal to escape the pursuing dogs, is worthy of comparison with Shakespeare's painting in Venus and Adonis of ' poor Wat ', ' the purblind hare ' tacking ' with a thousand doubles ', Born in 1545 Garnier lived on till 1600, well into Shake- speare's middle life. He was a la\VYer by profession, and no professional writer for the stage. Cultured society of Paris ' Cf. Garnier's Tragedies, Paris, 1582, p. 92 b: Lances par les piqueurs ils rusent Ores changeant, ores croisant, Ore k I'ecart se forpaisant D'entre les meutes qu'ils abusent. Ore ils cherchent de fort en fort Les autres betes qui les doutent, Et de force en leur lieu les boutent, Pour se garantir de la mort. Lk se tapissant contre terre, Les pieds, le nez, le ventre bas, Moquent les chiens qui vont grand erre Dependant vainement leurs pas. The next stanza pictures the encounter with both boar and hare. ROBERT GARNIER 39.", hailed him as the master-dramatist of the era. Ronsard echoed the prevaihng opinion when he wrote {Qiuvres, v. 353) — Par toy, Garnier, la scene des Francois \ vSe change en or, qui n'estoit que de bois. ) In the topics of his tragedies, he respected the classical tra- dition. Three of his ^X^ys—Hippo/yte, La Troade, and Antigone— -Ax^ to a large extent recensions of Seneca. His capacity may be better appraised in three tragedies drawn from Plutarch's biographies and developed on original lines. All three deal with the same historical epoch— the fall of the Roman Republic. Of one the heroine is Cornelie, the \ndow of Pompey, Caesar's rival ; the second revolves about the fortunes of Porcie (Portia), the wife of Brutus ; the third has Marc Antoine (Mark Antony) for its hero. No dramatist before Garnier had brought the moving figure of Brutus's wife, Portia, on the stage. Baif, a leader of the Pleiade, wrote — Au theatre Fran9ois, gentil Garnier, tu as Fait marcher grauement Force a I'ame indomtee. The story of Garnier's Porcie treats of the events after the \ death at Philippi of Brutus.^ The dramatist warns the reader ] in his ' argument ' that he supplements Plutarch's information by that of Dion Cassius and Appian, besides introducing episodes of his own invention. The heroine has no competitor to share the dramatic interest, although herjuijse has a pro- minence of which history knows nothing. The triumvirs Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus appear as Portia's jailers. All Garnier's tragic power is concentrated on the character and suicide of Brutus's noble-hearted wife and widow. In his two other great tragedies, Cornelie and Marc Antoine, Garnier deals with Roman characters who had already figured in French tragedy. In his tragedy of Cor- nelie (the widow of Pompey) Garnier pursued much of the path which Grevin had trodden in his Cesar, but the later dramatist invested with more dramatic significance ^ Shakespeare errs historically in Julius Caesar in making Portia's death precede that of Brutus. 396 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA the characters not only of Julius Caesar, but those of Cicero, Mark Antony, Decimus Brutus, and Cassius. Cassius's speech glows throughout Garnier's drama of Cornelie with revolutionary ardour. Caesar is presented, at the zenith of his power, with a full consciousness of the revolutionary forces which his arrogance has brought into being to imperil his life. In essaying in Marc Antoine the stirring theme of Antony and Cleopatra, Garnier followed in Jodelle's footsteps. But Jodelle had only dramatized the second half of the tragic tale. I Garnier now tells the first half. His tragedy ends with the death of Antony. Through the first four acts he brings his energy to bear on the Roman hero, and the Queen of Egypt ifills a subsidiary place. But in the last act Cleopatra becomes (the protagonist with most pathetic effect. There is intensity pf passion, there is the ecstasy of grief, in the long lamentations -bf Cleopatra over Antony's lifeless corpse. Antoine, 6 pauvre Antoine, Antoine ma chere ame, Tu n'es plus rien qu'un tronc, le butin d'une lame. Sans vie et sans chaleur, ton beau front est desteint, Et la palle hideur s'empare de ton teint. Tes y^eux, deux clairs soleils, ou se voyoit empreinte, Luisant diuersement, et I'amour et la crainte, De paupieres converts, vont noiiant en la nuict, Comme un beau iour cache, qui les tenebres fuit. Antoine, ie vous pry' par nos amours fidelles, Par nos ccEurs allumez de douces estincelles, Par nostre sainct hymen, et la tendre pitie De nos petits enfans, nceud de nostre amitie. Que ma dolente voix a ton oreille arrive, Et que ie t'accompagne en Tinfernale rive, Ta femme, ton amie : entens, Antoine, entens, Quelque part que tu sois, mes soupirs sanglotans. . . . Que dis-ie ? ou suis-ie .'' 6 pauvre, 6 pauvre Cleopatre ! O que I'aspre douleur vient ma raison abatre ! Non, non, ie suis heureuse en mon mal deuorant De mourir auec toy, de t'embrasser mourant, Mon corps contre le tien, ma bouche desseichee De soupirs embrasez, a la tienne attachee, Et d'estre en mesme tombe et en mesme cercueil, Tous deux enuelopez en un mesme linceuil.' ' Gamier, 7>-a^vv//Vjr, Paris, 1582, pp. 201-2. GARNIHRS CLEOPATRA 397 Compared with Cleopatra's magical words in the same situation in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra Garnier may be judged turgid and strained : Clcop. Noblest of men, woo 't die ? Hast thou no care of me ? shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is No better than a sty ? O, see, my women. \Antony dies. The crown o' the earth doth melt. My lord ! O ! wither'd is the garland of the war, The soldier's pole is fall'n : young boys and girls Are level now^ with men ; the odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon. (IV. xiii. 59-68.) But Garnier, however faindy, adumbrates Shakespeare's inspired interpretation of the terrible scene. Both dramatists alike sought suggestion in Plutarch, and Jodelle had already marked out their road. Not once, but twice Cleopatra claimed rich toll of French drama before Elizabethan tragedy offered her its supreme tribute. The two remaining dramatic works of Garnier, called re-\ spectively Sedecie, on Les Juives, and Bradamante, diverge \ from the strict classical path. In Sedecie, the divergence 1 touches not the form but the theme and sentiment, which have affinities with the middle ages. In Bradamante there is Innovation in all directions ; its affinities are with the future. Sedecie (the French name of Zedekiah) is a scriptural tragedy and has a backward link with the mediaeval drama. Garnier was not the first Frenchman to pen on the classical pattern a biblical tragedy which recalled the temper of the mystery-play. The ambition of clothing biblical history in ^ classical form invaded the sphere of drama as well as that of epic. During the years Immediately preceding the rise of the , Pleiade, some scriptural dramas had been cast in either the Sophoclean or Senecan mould. But Latin and not French was then the vehicle of expression. The first author In France of a classical tragedy on a scriptural story was the Scotsmaa»_GreorgeBuchanan, who was professor at the 39^ FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA College de Guienne at Bordeaux. His academic position and the excellence of his Latinity gave his Latin tragedies of Jep hikes and Baptistes a wide vogue in both scholarly and religious circles. Translations of Buchanan's Latin plays into French stimulated the production of scriptural drama on the classical pattern in the French tongue. vSaul and David were welcomed as heroes of French classical tragedy long after the Pleiade had anathematized the mediaeval mystery. Jean de la Taille, a disciple of Ronsard, contributed to the dramatic harvest of Renaissance France two sacred tragedies of strict classical orthodoxy, Les Gabaoniies (1571) and Sai'il ftirietLX {c. 1572). It was to this series of dramatic endeavour, which tried to reconcile the old religious aim of French drama with the new classical form, that Garnier's Sedecie^ ou Les Jnives^ is a notable addition. It tells, with devotional fervour, the story of Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Zedekiah, king of Judah. Although the mediaeval method is rejected, the piece illustrates how the new school, despite its scorn of mediaeval influences, found it impossible to withstand all their assaults. Garnier's fame and abilities strengthened anew the hold of scriptural themes on French drama and gave the sway permanence. The tragic capacities of the story of Queen Esther were repeatedly proved by classical dramatists in the later part of the sixteenth century, and were finally developed by the master hand of Racine. Garnier's seventh piece, Bradaniante^ marks a more original development in the history of French drama. It is a first experiment in quite a new dramatic type, and plainly indicates that whatever fetters the classical scholars were forging, the dramatic movement in France cherished hopes of expansion beyond classical bounds. Bradafnaiiie is described on the title-page as ' tragecomedle '. It Is a play of romantic love and chivalry, with a happy ending. The chorus has disappeared, and there is n o prologue. The story comes from Ariosto's Orlando Fui^ioso. Gar- nier's tragl-comic plot runs in outline thus : Bradamante, sister of Rinaldo, the cousin and rival of Ariosto's hero Orlando, Is a Christian Amazon, wielding a spear with irre- GARNIER'S TRAGI-COMEDY 399 sistible might. Two friends, both knights of high repute, Roger, a converted Saracen, and Leon, a son of the Greek Emperor, sue for her hand, neither knowing the other's intention. The lady favours the Saracen, but her parents,! whose betrayal of worldly motives is in the comic vein, decide in favour of the Greek Leon. There is, however, no escape; for Leon from the immovable condition that the successful aspirant to the lady -warrior's hand must first disarm her in fair fight. Leon, an ineffective fighter, recognizes the hope- lessness of the attempt, and appeals to his friend Roger, an invincible swordsman, to help him out. Roger is under obliga- tions to Leon, while Leon is quite ignorant that his friend's heart is engaged in the same quarter as his own. Roger complacently accepts Leon's invitation to personate his friend in the combat, and in his disguise he disarms the fair duellist. Thereupon, after much involved incident, the visitor's earlier passion for the lady comes to light. Leon magnanimously yields to his friend his claim on Bradamante, almost as suddenly as \"alentine surrenders his claim on Julia 10 his friend Proteus in the Two Gentleiiien of Verona. In Garnier's romantic drama, Leon at once matches elsewhere, and as he leaves the scene for his friend Roger's hymeneal festivities with Brada- mante, his own first love, he closes the play with the lines (i582ed., p. 42<$)— Quel heur le Dieu du ciel insperement me donne! Oncq, ie croy, sa bonte n'en feit tant a personne. O que ie suis heureux ! ie uaincray desormais L'heur des mieux fortunez qui n'esquirent iamais. The ending is unqualified happiness all round. The un- reality of the theme is relieved by many natural touches of character. The dramatic tenor is new to France, and although the note had been struck in Italy, Gamier sounded it with a fresh vigour, which was soon to be echoed in England in yet fuller tones. 400 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA V Irregular Drama of the French Renaissance Garnier's occasional deviations from the straight path of classical orthodoxy indicate that French national sentiment still craved a greater elasticity of dramatic method than the classical tradition provided or sanctioned. Not merely had the threat of the Pleiade to banish for ever from the French realm of drama the shapeless survivals of the past failed to take effect, but the irregular tendencies of popular taste were infecting the classical workshops. When one turns from the scholarly circles to the popular stage outside their bounds, one finds all manner of transgressions of classical law in unchecked operation. Religious feeling demanded the con- tinuance of sacred drama in its old mould of mystery and not merely in Garnier's new shape of classical tragedy. Political feeling and interests of the moment claimed expres- sion in tragedy and questioned the right of tragic writers to confine their topics to mythic history, which lacked relevance to current life. There was a yearning for ' les nouveaux argu- ments ' which classical theorists scorned. Drama had entered into the life of the French nation to an extent quite unknown at the moment in England. In one of its unregenerate phases it had become an engine of public criticism and a disse- j minator of public intelligence. The classical reformers in seeking to restrict it to new channels of poetry and formal art, had misapprehended the force of popular opinion. A greater flexibility of form, too, than was reconcilable with the classical canons was required of drama which should serve purposes of general entertainment. As a consequence, through the second half of the sixteenth century, while classical tragedy and classical comedy were winning notable triumphs in cultured ranks, flagrant breaches of the classical traditions were enjoying the nation's whole- ■ hearted suffrages. Popular applause was evoked in the public theatres not only by new experiments in the mediaeval \ mystery or the soU/e, but by amorphous species of drama ! answering such lawless descriptions as these: — 'tragedies REVIVAL OF SACRED DRAMA 401 morales, tragedies allegoritiues, tragi-comedies pastorales ^_f tragl-pastorales, fal)lesbocageres, bergerlcs, histoires tragiciucs, journees en tragcdie, tragedies sans distinction d'actcs ni de scenes, martyres de saints et saintes.' Polonius's creator might well have been studying theatrical programmes of contemporary Paris when he asserted that actors of the day were equally efficient in such miscellaneous diversions as 'pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical- historical, tragi- cal-comical, historical -pastoral, scene - indivisible, or poem unlimited'. {Hamlet, II. ii. 426-7.) Shakespeare's 'scene indivisible ' sounds like a literal reminiscence of the current kind of French tragedy which was repeatedly described on title-pages as ' sans distinction d'actes ni de scenes '. The later history of the mystery is characteristic of the o-eneral trend of events. The mediaeval form of the sacred play was often reproduced even by those who were well versed in classical drama. The law of 1 548 which prohibited the dramatization of scriptural topics was never strictly enforced and by the end of the century had fallen into desuetude. Such recognition of a past vogue made a forcible appeal to the Huguenots, and Protestant scholars encouraged the tendency, despite their classical training. They knew that the scriptural tale was adaptable to the\ classical shape of tragedy, but many deemed the mediaeval j mould freer of the suspicion of profanity. A pathetic piece ' of drama Q,n\\\\e.^ Abraham sacrifiaiit, by Theodore de Beze (or Beza), the Calvinist scholar, is mainly a dialogue between Abraham and Isaac on wholly antiquated lines. It was acted at the University of Lausanne in 1551, just before classical tragedy had been turned to French uses. But even after the advent of the classical drama in France and the production of sacred five-act tragedies in Alexandrines and with choruses, the method of the mystery still lived on. David combat/anty \ David fiigitif, David triomphant (published in 1566), are three notable pieces of literary merit, which form a trilogy of mysteries; they are so loyal to conservative principles that their scenic arrangement conforms to the mediaeval stage-method of fixed * mansions ' or unchange- LEE D d 402 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA able tiers of set scenes. The author Lq uIs d es Masure s was a H^-iguenot pastor at Metz and vStrasburg successively, and his sole innovation on the mediaeval scheme was to graft on his dramatic endeavour the simple and joyous note of French Protestant psalmody. A lyric in his David trioniphaiit^ in which each stanza ends with the burden, Israel ramene en joie David triomphant ! is a fine contribution to Huguenot psalmody and as spirited a reveil 2iS, any that the poets of the Pleiade devised.^ Not that Huguenots monopolized the surviving mystery. In 1580 there was produced a new piece from a Catholic pen on the time-worn topic of Abel's murder by Cain, which, with much literary faculty preserves intact the mediaeval senti- ment. A ' tragedie sainte, extraite de I'histoire de Judith ', was published in Paris in the same year under the title of Holopherne^ and was equally loyal to the old pattern. Its author, Adrien d'Amboise, was no Huguenot, but an eccle- siastic of the court. As late as 1601 there was produced in Paris a sacred play called Joseph le Chaste^ which has all the irregular features of the old-fashioned mystery and was addressed to a Catholic audience. r But it w^as not only sacred topics that claimed free entry I into the popular theatre. Outside the classical sanctuaries the dramatic prohibition of ' les nouveaux arguments ' car- ried no weight, and war was declared on the canon which would limit drama to themes of classical history or mythology. Many waiters, who were by no means destitute of classical learning, denounced the prejudice which cut off tragedy from national politics and affairs. On the threshold of the classical citadels there consequently ' One of the three stanzas runs thus ; Reveillez-vous, reveillez, Reveillez vous tous ; Ne gisez plus travailles Sous le sommeil doux. Le jour chasse la nuit coie, Sorti du levant. Israel ramene en joie David triomphant. THE HISTORY PLAY IN FRANCE 403 arose a spacious French drama, for the most part in verse and embellished by choruses, which topically showed ' the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure ', Nowiiere is the resemblance between the PVench and English dramatic developments of the sixteenth century closer than in the growing reliance of dramatists in both countries on varied themes of national history and current political or social episode. National history of the past and j present, tragic and comic incidents of current domestic life, I contemporary crises in the affairs of foreign countries, were] as freely turned to dramatic purposes by French as by Eliza- bethan authors in the last decades of the Renaissance era. Melodramatic crudities thereby came to permeate the French as completely as the English theatre. Scenes__pf violence were often admitted to the stage. There vanished the~Teticence~of the classical drama, which relegated deeds of blood to the narratives of messengers. At the same time a rouo-h form of tragi -comedy— a drama of romance, which lacked the literary quality of Garnier's prototype of Brada- maiite, grew rapidly in public favour. French drama of popular acceptance thus claimed a liberty of scope almost as versatile as the drama of Elizabethan England. A com- parative survey indicates that French popular drama stimulated some measure of the Elizabethan licence, however the outcome of the two movements differed in artistic or poetic value. Difference in quality was quite compatible with identity of theme. No magic pen of genius was at work in France to invest the dramatic lawlessness with the vitality of great poetry or art. Therein England enjoyed a better fortune. It is only possible here to select a few illustrations of the breadth of topic which, in defiance of the classical interdict against ' les nouveaux arguments ', characterize French drama of the epoch synchronizing with the dawn of Elizabethan drama. The national history was ransacked for plots. The titles of such popular French tragedies :is ZjiMr^L Rcmd e (a tale of the alleged Trojan invasion of France), Meyouee (son of King Chilperic and his wife Fredegonde), Gaston de Foi'x, La Piicelle de Dom Reiiiy, autreinent d' Orleans (Joan of Arc), adequately suggest D d 2 404 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA the type of historical theme. Contemporary politics were even more prominent in the French theatre of the period. ^ Recent events were loosely strung together to the neglect of all the unities save that of political feeling. In 1575 a crude " tragic piece presented the assassination of the Huguenot leader, Coligny, which was one of the most revolting incidents of the massacre of St. Bartholomew three years before. During the final struggle in which the Holy Leaguers engaged from 1 589 onwards with Henry of Navarre, leading members of the Guise family figured repeatedly as heroes on the French stage. Much popularity was accorded to a piece called La Guisiade^ which dealt with the murder in 1588 of the Duke of Guise by the hirelings of King Henry III. The author, Pierre Matthieu, a political pamphleteer of repute, inclined to the via media of ' Les Politiques ', and affects a very qualified sympathy with the murdered duke. But the house of Lorraine had its theatrical vindicators against both the house of A^alois and the house of Navarre. Le Gttysieii^ on Perjidie tyyan- iiiqiie comniise par Henry de Valois^ in 1592 in five acts (' en vers avec des choeurs '), betrayed open hostility to the royal house. A somewhat similar production of a little later date, called Le triomphe de la Ligite, a five -act tragedy, again dealt, but in a more neutral vein, with the assassination of the Duke de Guise, slightly disguising his name and those of his fellows. A wide survey of current affairs here includes scenic presentments of Jesuit intrigues in England, of the fate of Mary Stuart, and of Henry of Navarre's victory at the battle of Coutras. A point of view which was more favourable to the house of \'^alois was taken in a tragedy called Chilperic le Second^ which satirized the subservience of King Henry III to the Due de Guise, who figured in the play as Chilperic's mayor of the Palace. Nor did the topical dramatists confine their attention to / current history of their own country. La Soliane^ which was acted with popular success as early as 1560, dealt with a very recent event in Turkish history, the execution by the Sultan Soliman the Magnificent of his son Mustapha in 1553. The fame of modern oriental heroes was soon to be no less securely VESCOSSAISE 405 enshrined in the Elizabethan drama. A ' tragedie nouvelle' of 1588 by a Franciscan of Mons is a dramatic version of the Duke of Parma's military campaigns against the Protestants in the Low Countries, The piece, although it is in five acts, borrows many of the features of the mystery. The Spanish general shares his prominent place in the draj/ia/is persoiiae with the three persons of the Trinity and the Virgin Mary, and there is a large crowd of Dutch ' heretics ' in attendance. After the manner of mystery-plays, Christ, at the end of the last act, (juits the stage with a rather ironical intimation that, disgusted with the wickedness of the faithful. He will no longer protect them from the ravages of the heretics. The most striking and by far the most literary of all French tragedies of the age on contemporary foreign history closely- touched English affairs. A tragedy, entitled JJEscossaise^ portrayed the trial and execution at Fotheringay of Mary Queen of Scots. It was published in 1601, and loyally j5nfsued"Tfie sixteenth-century habit of bringing politics on the popular stage. The author, Antoine de Montchretien (1575-1621), was a believer in classical principles, and only deviated from the classical tradition in point of topic and sentiment. Of the school of Garnier, he was loyal toi all the ancient canons of unity, of declamation, of choric] interlude. Chorus and monologue are indeed developed beyond the common limit, and the interest attaching to the effort is mainly due to the author's bold endeavour to adapt to the classic mould the versatile demands of public taste. Mont- chretien had literary and poetic gifts which give him a place beside his master. If Garnier may be regarded as the Corneille of the drama of the French Renaissance, Mont- chretien deserves to be entitled its Racine. His lyric feeling sets him in the same category as the leaders of the Pleiade, In many choruses he sounds such delicate notes as this : Apres la feuille, la fleur ; Apres I'espine, la rose ; Va I'heur apres le mal-heur : Le jour on est en labeur Et la nuit on se repose.^ ^ Sophonisbe, Act II, last chorus. 4o6 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Montchretien's dramatic labours began with Sophon isbe^ a regular tragedy on the Senecan model, the subject of which had already attracted classical dramatists of France as well as of Italy. There followed a like piece of work wrought out of Plutarch's life of Cleomenes of Sparta, entitled Les Lachies, (i.e. TheSpai^ian Women). Again turning to paths which had already been trodden by the classicists, Montchretien next produced tragedies in classical form on the scriptural subjects of David and Haman, the prime minister of King Ahasuerus, respectively. V Escossaise was Montchretien's last and best contribution to the drama. It is, despite its orthodox construc- tion, a moving dramatic picture of the almost contemporaneous sufferings of Mary Queen of Scots. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth are the protagonists. There are choruses of members of the English House of Commons as well as of Queen Mary's ladies in waiting. Between them they tell the story of Queen Mary's last days wath pathetic accuracy. The play is a notable tribute to the modernizing influences which were working on the French drama when the English theatre was reaching its full splendour. There was much, too, in Mont- chretien's career to enhance for English students the interest of his work. As a fugitive homicide, he, a Norman of humble Huguenot parentage, sought an asylum in England early in James I's reign. The English king was grateful to him for his portrayal of his royal mother's fate and successfully pleaded with Henry IV of France for the dramatist's pardon. After leaving England Montchretien speculated on political problems in a liberal spirit, and invented the term ' Political P^conomy' {econoniie poHtiqiie) to describe the purpose of his inquiries. But Montchretien soon engaged in fresh exploits of violence in the Huguenot cause and was shot as a rebel, his body being torn on the wheel and then burnt. Mont- chretien's stormy career and his crowning achievement in tragedy, in spite of its fidelity to the ancient tragic form, signally illustrate the yearning which was moving P^rench sentiment to reconcile dramatic art with current life. In every direction, if usually to crude effect, this tendency to imbue drama with topical interest was active. The TOPICAL CRIME IN FRENCH DRAMA 407 dramatization of reports of current murders in domestic life was another popular feature of the topical tragedy of middle and late sixteenth-century France. As early as 1551, there was produced in Paris a 'tragedie francoise a huit person- nages ', by one Jean l^retog, who dramatized a recent sordid episode of a manservant's adultery with his mistress. The offender's trial and execution and the injured husband's death of grief came within the dramatist's canvas. Alle- gorical figures of Venus and Jealousy figure among the dramatis personac. The author in a prologue lays stress on the truth of the incidents ; he asserts that he witnessed the adultererVpunishment, and that the whole is depicted ' sans nuUe fiction '. Here the anticipation of a certain class of P^lizabethan plays is singularly clear. Pieces like Arden of Faversham^ A Warning for Fair Woinen^ and Two Tragedies in One, which, towards the end of the six- teenth century, presented in London dramatic versions of recent stories of murder and adultery, follow the precise lines of this ' tragedie fran9aise ' of 1 55 1 . Allegorical figures in two of the English pieces, History, Murder, Lust, give, as in the French play, positive assurances that the stories are true and of recent date. Jean Bretog,in the Prologue oi\\\^Tragedie francoise a ///^/■//^ri-c;/;/^^^^' (i 551), describes the events as — Depuis trois ans une histoire advenue Dedans Paris. He writes of the punishment of the offenders as an eye- witness — Je le dis d'assurance. Ft avoir vu faire punition, Comme il est dit sans nuUe fiction. In the TiL'o Tragedies in One, which anglicized a similar theme in the Elizabethan theatre in 1601, Truth as prologue says of the husband's murder by the wife and a servant- paramour, that it — was done in famous London late Within that street whose side the river Thames Doth strive to wash from all impurity,— The most here present know this to be true. 4o8 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Later, just before the g-uilty persons are hanged in sight of the audience, Truth again enters and tells the spectators — Your eyes shall witness of the shaded types Which many here did see performed indeed. A second French piece, which ostensibly belongs to the same category of sensational veracity, is of more ambitious /design. It is called Philonaire^ feiiiine d' Hippolyte^ was first published in Latin, and after being translated into French, was publicly acted In Paris in 1560. The tragedy professes to dramatize a recent ghastly incident Avhich took place in Pied- mont, The repulsive motive adumbrates that of Shakespeare's \Measnrefor Measure. H ippoly te, the husband of the heroine /Philonaire, is in prison under sentence of death. In grief and / despair, the wife seeks an interview with the provost of the \ town, and petitions him to release the prisoner. The provost I assents on the disgraceful condition that the petitioner shall yield herself to his lust. > Horror-stricken by the villany, but unable to obtain any modification of the conditions, the woman assents to the provost's proposal. But the provost plays his victim false. Failing to cancel the husband's sen- tence of death, he sends in the morning the man's headless body to the outraged wife. Nothing would seem capable of surpassing the horror of the scene in which Philonaire learns the grossness of the provost's treachery. But worse follows, 1 The governor of the province, hearing of the provost's offences, insists that he shall at once marry Philonaire, Yet no sooner is the marriage consummated than the governor condemns the provost to death, and the play ends with Philonaire's lamentations over her double widowhood. Prob- ably no piece mingles in more revolting proportions intense tragic sentiment with extravagant obscenity. Certainly P/nlonaiVe had no sort of companion until John Webster wrote T/ie White Devil. Meanwhile the progress of romantic tragi-comedy attracts the attention of the student of French Renaissance drama. Very significant is the appearance in 157^ of a rQmantic comedy entitled Liicelle by one Louis le Jars, It was publicly performed, apparently with success, and has more than one THE FRENCH ROMANTIC DRAMA 409 new feature of moment. It is - written in prose , and the author in the introduction to the published text defends this innova- tion on the ground that prose alone can make drama real.' He especially emphasizes the absurdity of putting verse into the mouths of servants and persons of humble rank. He insists that to such characters, at any rate, prose is alone appropriate. Shakespeare's practice proves that he shared Le Jars's conviction. Moreover, the serving-men in this romantic ^""rcnch play freely indulge in a chop-logic, a loqua- cious buffoonery, and a pedantry which anticipates the cut and thrust of much Elizabethan comic dialogue. The story of Lucelle is simple, and one or two of its incidents curiously anticipate that of Romeo and Juliet. Lucelle is the daughter of a banker, and is sought in marriage by the Baron de Saint-Amour, a suitor who is accepted with eagerness by the father. But the young lady is already secretly betrothed to Ascagne, a clerk in her father's office. Distressed by her father's bestowal of her hand on the baron, she seeks consolation from her secret lover, and is surprised in his company by her kindred. The banker, roused to fury by the discovery, forces the clerk to drink poison. Death to all appearance ensues, and the heroine is copious in her lamentations over the supposed corpse. A messenger arrives to announce that the clerk is really the Prince of Wallachia in disguise. A quarrel with his father had driven him to seek his fortunes abroad. The father's death has just taken place, and the road to his ancestral throne is now open to him. The astonished banker appeals to the apothecary, who had supplied him with the poison, for an antidote. The apothecary admits that the drug is only a sleeping draught ; the clerk c|uickly returns to consciousness, and weds Lucelle. Save the Baron de\ vSaint- Amour, everybody is satisfied. The production of such \ ' In 1562 Jean de la Taille had written a comedy on the Latin model I which he called Les Cotrkuiiix. It was in prose, in imitation of the Italian. I De la Taille's comedy was first published in 1573, but in spite of the \ innovation of prose, it adhered so closely to classical form and sentiment \ as to rank it with the classical school of French drama rather than with \ the irregular popular school to which Lucelle clearly belongs. > 4IO FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA a play adds one more plain proof that the French popular drama in vShakespeare's boyhood was capable of offering- the Elizabethan theatre very valuable hints. Meanwhile the farce or so/tie renewed its life in the public theatres. Even when the main features of the programme were serious romance or history or melodrama or tragedy of the sanguinary pattern, the performance at the Hotel de Bourgogne included ' un prologue drolatique ' or ' un discours facetieux ', or ' un avant-jeu recreatif of which the coarseness was of more than mediaeval breadth. Actors in these buffooneries obtained popular honours which were rarely bestowed on performers in serious pieces. Early in the seventeenth century the chief heroes in the theatrical world of Paris were comedians, whose burlesque pseudonyms, Turlupin, Brus- cambille, Gros-Guillaume, Gaultier-Garguille, Guillot-Gorju echoed their professional idiosyncrasies. The anti-classical revolt which popular taste fomented and directed was, meanwhile, reinforced by a foreign agency, by the spread of Italian influence. Troops of Italian actors paid France frequent visits during the last half of the century, and under the patronage of the court obtained immense popularity in Paris. The theatre-going public was thus thoroughly familiarized with comic developments of Italian drama, and there was a cry for imitations of current Italian comedy in French. The pastoral drama and the , masque were among dramatic inventions of Italy, which [ France also adopted late in the sixteenth century. She handled these delicate plants rather timidly, and made no sustained endeavour to modify the foreign type. Italy is mainly responsible for importing the masque and pastoral — ench rendering of the second book of Straparola's Nights, a popular collection of Italian romances. 412 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA comedy received its final sanction. In Elizabethan England the employment of prose in the comic scene is partly due to Italian tuition. But France must be credited with taking through Larivey's agency a direct hand in the instruction. Larivey's best comedy, called Les Esprits (Ghosts), comes from an Italian comedy by Lorenzino de' Medici, entitled Ari- dosio^ which itself borrows much from Latin comic writers for the stage. The leading characters are two old men, one genial and generous, the other gruff- tempered and avaricious, and the central episode is a trick played on the old miser, in the interest of an ill-used son and daughter, by an insolent valet who frightens the old man out of his house and out of his treasure by manufacturing a ghost. Character-studies of the two old men abound in the French in humorous flashes which made the French dramatist's influence world-wide. Ben Jonson, among Elizabethans, most closely caught Larivey's ambition to depict men's and women's humours. Moliere's L'Ecole des Maris is a descendant of Larivey's Les Esprits. Larivey's conception of comedy was a liberal and expan- sive adaptation of the spirit of Latin comedy to the needs of popular French taste. In his own field of drama, he went some way towards effecting a reconciliation between the aims of the two rival dramatic schools in France — between the aims of the champions of classic conformity, and of popular licence. With an insolent disdain of each other's pretensions the rivals had been fighting for pre- dominance through a generation, and Larivey's compromise pointed, in the sphere of comedy, the road to peace. At the very end of the sixteenth and at the opening of the seven- teenth century, there seemed a likelihood of a similar accom- modation in other regions of drama. A formal fusion was attempted between the classical form of tragedy and the popular conceptions of romance and melodrama. The en- deavour was far more thoroughgoing than anything at which Montchretien aimed. During the last half of Shakespeare's career, and for twenty years afterwards, France seemed to be pursuing the same dramatic ideal of romanticism and emanci- >pated classicism which prevailed in England. The French V ALEXANDRE HARDY'S INNOVATIONS 413 drania of the new type of tolerance was uninspired by poetic and lyric fervour. No l-Vench tragedy, no romantic comedy of the epoch can be justly mentioned in the same breath as any work of vShakespeare. But there was alive in France for a generation, which covered Shakespeare's middle and later years, a theatrical instinct w^hich appeared to be driving drama towards the same goal as that which the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights reached. This newest dramatic"^ development of the French Renaissance proved transitory ; the classical laws soon reasserted their control of tragedy,/ and ultimately refused all recognition to romance. But the' passing effect on the French stage of the endeavour to fuse the two divergent dramatic forms is well worthy of study. It was from the independent ranks of (professional actors in France that the new movement of compromise sprang. In 1598 there was installed ^t the Hotel de Bourgogne a profes- 'sional company of actors, which had gained experience in provincial tours. The newcomers developed the theatrical machinery in many directions. Scenerxjje3V daborate and Ayomen were soon suffered to take part in the perform- ances. The company conferred on one of their number, Alexandre Hardy, the post of playwright.^ Hardy repeated in some degree the exploits of the actor- . author Gringoire half a century before. An even closer parallel might be drawn between the outward facts, the mere external / circumstance, of Hardy's career and those of Shakespeare. ^ Born in obscurity and comparative poverty about ^ five ^ears later_than jhe_great English dramatist, Hardy enjoyed little education. Like Shakespeare in England, he in France joined while very young a company of professional actors, attending on them at the outset in a servile capacity. He accompanied them on provincial tours, and finally settled with them permanently in Paris. Before he was twenty-four he had developed an ambition to write for the stage. Encouraged by the manager he began pouring out, at an unexampled pace, tragedies, tragi-comedies, masques, and pastorals. It was in tragedies and tragi-comedies that he made his | ^ See Eugene Rigal, Alexa/id/c Hardy et le tlu'dtrefranqais, Paris, 18S9. 414 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA greatest fame. Comedy lay outside his scope. His masques and pastorals are lifeless echoes of Italy. Althoug-h he never rose far above the status of hack-writer, Hardy had original conceptions of drama. He had watched the recent classical development of French tragedy, and he knew that it defied current conditions of theatrical success. Destitute of literary grace or poetic fertility, stiff and bombastic in expression, Hardy sought to remodel French drama in the light of his theatrical experience. He did not disdain classical themes, which had been employed before. Dido, Meleager, Alcestis, Darius, Alexander, are among his heroes or heroines. He depended on Plutarch's Lives for many tragic plots. But Hardy sought to set tragedy adrift from the tram- mels of the unities and the chorus. He increased the number of actors ; he deprived monologue of its old predominance ; he put action and movement in its place. Classical fables re- mained, as in classical drama, favoured topics, but he sought to endow them with a ruder life and fresher colour than of old. At times he attempts psychological study in his characterization. In his best tragic drama Ma7^taiu7ie^ the husband Herod's jealousy of his wife Mariamne is analysed with something of Shakespeare's penetration in Othello^ and Herod's sister Salome fans the jealous flame in her brother's heart with something of the Machiavellian craft of lago. But it was on romance or tragi-comedy that Hardy be- stowed his best energies. He eagerly raided novels of Italy and Spain, which he read in French translations. In his choice of tale, he and Shakespeare often by chance co- incidence trod on one another's heels. Hardy's romantic 1 comedy of FelisiJteue tells a part of the story sti-Xhe Two I Geiiileiiieii of Verona ; the two plays both owed some- \ thing to a translation of Montemayor's Spanish romance of y Diana. A tragi-comic story, of a better sustained pathos, more powerfully appealed to Hardy's mature taste. He wrote a tragi-comedy, called Pandoste^ on the same subject as Shakespeare's filter's Ta/e—the most perfect tragi-comedy in the range of the Elizabethan drama. Like Shakespeare, •*'- Hardy had recourse to Greene 's romance of Paiidosto^ HARDY'S CORIOLAN 415 which was popular in a French translation. Hardy's text of this piece is lost, but we know its character not only from the descriptive title which survives, but from an extant scenario which was prepared for the scene-painter of Hardy's company. These two romantic plays — Felismene and Paiidos/e— were probably penned by Hardy after Shake- speare's cognate efforts had seen the light, and the identity of effort merely illustrates the parallelism of aim in the dramatic activity of the two countries, when the Renaissance was reaching its close on both sides of the channel. Worthier of attention is Hardy's dramatization of Plutarch's, story of Corio- lanus, w^hich he completed in 1607, just a year before Shake- spearedealt with the theme. Hardy stated in his preface that ' few subjects will be found in Roman history worthier of the stage'. None had tried to adapt the life of Coriolanus to dramatic uses before. Here Hardy adhered more closely than was his wont to classical canons of unity and monologue and chorus. His play of CoHolan opens with the banishment of the hero, Coriolanus's speeches, those of his mother, and the comment of a band of Roman citizens, practically constitute the whole dramatic theme. Yet the declamatory seed that Hardy sowed in Coriolan may have borne fruit in Shake- speare's Coyiolaiius^ a tragedy of passion and action which was produced in London a year after its French prototype. Hardy's play caught firm hold of French taste ; Coriolanus's relations with his mother strongly appealed to French domestic sentiment, and there have been at least, tw^enty-three later adaptations of CoHolan on the French stage. Hardy wrote his plays for the actors, and did not care that \ they should be published. There is evide txce to show that L^ before he died in 1632 he had produced as many as 700 /O pieces — a prodigious output. Of these only thirty-four sur- vive. As Hardy's career was closing, he permitted, with hesitation and reluctance, the collective publication in six volumes of thirteen tragi-comedies, eleven tragedies, five pastorals, and five mythological masques. For the task of permanently reforming the French drama, of modifying its classical tendency by mingling it with roman- 4i6 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA ticism, Hardy was too weak. He lacked poetic strength or lyric power. Theatrical faculty and immense industry were his main assets. Although he had a few disciples, of larger literary capacity than his, his effort bore no permanent fruit. In spite of his example, French drama soon returned to the .old classical road, with its strict observance of the unities and Imuch choric elaboration. The genius of Racine and Cor- neille in the next generation finally gave the classical principle of tragedy a universal vogue in France, and deprived the reformers of their hold on public favour. Yet Hardy's energy, although fruitless, claims attention as the latest emanation of the versatile spirit of the Renaissance in the development of French drama. VI The Cognate Development of French and Elizabethan Drama No one who scans the development of drama in sixteenth- century France can fail to be impressed by the points of resemblance with the dramatic progress of Elizabethan Eng- land. In both countries two mutually hostile forces were at work together. Reverence for the austere classical tra- dition was actively challenged in both countries by a craving i for an ampler romanticism and realism. The relative strength of the two forces differed on the two sides of the Channel. , The classical temper dominated the struggle in France and * ultimately won the victory. The romantic temper finally gained an undisputed ascendancy in England. The fortunes of the warfare consequently varied in the two lands. But the same seed of strife was sown in the two countries, and bore abundant fruit in each. The true relation which subsists between the dramatic movements of France and England in the Renaissance era can only be diagnosed when due recognition is made of two features of the situation which are often ignored — namely, the classical influences which were operative in Elizabethan drama, and the romantic and realistic influences which were operative in the French drama of the sixteenth century. VICISSITUDES OF CLASSICAL LAW 417 Although the classical proclivities of tragedy and comedy were from the first more pronounced in France than in England, yet it was from classical soil that the Elizabethan drama also sprang. However boldly, too, Elizabethan drama defied in its maturity classical rule it continued to cherish pride in its early classical associations. The voice of scholarship never com- manded in England the attention which was accorded it in France, but the scholars' cry for classical form and classical topic in drama was never silent among Shakespeare's country- men. Scholarly critics of drama in both countries were at one in deploring the popular divergences from the classical paths. The alienation was condemned as a concession to barbarism by the critical schools of both nations. inizabethan culture endeavoured for a season to stem the rising tide of non-classical dramatic licence by a direct appeal to French classical example. Garnier's guidance seemed to offer Elizabethan lawlessness a means of regeneration. There were circulated English translations of Garnier's orthodox tragedies, and the translations were followed by independent imitation. But Garnier's authority only carried conviction to the critical clique of Elizabethan England. Professional play- wrights'^t the Elizabethan era acknowledged, often with a show of regret, that public appetite demanded the less regular fare of romanticism or realism. Classical themes still found a home on the popular stage. Roman history provided the heroes of numerous Elizabethan tragedies. Even after the banishment of the classical formulae from the popular play- house, the classical device of the Chorus survived in modified shapes. But the austere classical spirit was declared by the popular voice to be tame and lifeless beyond redemption. There was much in the contemporary fortunes of the French theatre to stimulate and to justify the Elizabethan repudiation of classical law. The classical canons of unity, the prominence of the Chorus, the presence of declamation or narration in place of action, conflicted on both sides of the Channel in the last half of the sixteenth century wath most of the conditions of popular taste. In French drama the classical ideal was often boldly challenged, and the struggle of the Li-.E E e 41 8 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA French theatre for a larger liberty and complexity adumbrated many of the Elizabethan experiences. France, in the closing- years of the Renaissance, showed much of England's impatience of the classical bonds ; tragi-comedy, in which romance defied the law of classical sublimity, was riveting its hold on the French stage. The influence of French drama on Elizabethan England was by no means limited to propagating the orthodox classical creed. French drama of both classical and popular kinds presented many topics and situations which gave Elizabethan dramatists of the free romantic school serviceable hints. Some coincidences in the subject-matter of Elizabethan and contempo- rary French drama may be accidental. It is imprudent to assume invariably a direct indebtedness. Elizabethan and French dramatists occasionally sought their plots independently in the same Greek, Latin, or Italian sources. Euripides and Plutarch, Plautus and Seneca, Boccaccio and Bandello all fathered plays in both France and England. Cognate pieces abound, and the family resemblances often come from acommunity of ancestors ; rather than from any immediate lineal tie. France, however, long anticipated England in drawing on the old classical and Italian stock. The French precedent frequently proved the efficient cause of an Elizabethan tragedy or comedy on a Greek, Latin, or Italian topic which was previously naturalized in France. Like the French writers of irregular drama, the Elizabethans were especially attracted by the Italian romances of Boccaccio and of Bandello, his sixteenth-century successor. French renderings of Italian tales were more accessible to the Elizabethans than the original versions. It was either the French translations, or the French dramatizations, of Italian romance which repeatedly gave the Elizabethan playwrights their cues. Each case of coincident plot must be judged on its merits, and it is not always easy to pronounce a decisive verdict, but the probabilities are constantly in favour of French suggestion. In regard to one category of dramatic topics which won popularity on both sides of the Channel, Elizabethan drama was obviously subject to the direct influence of France. Almost as THE BIRTH OF ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 419 free use was made, in the Elizabethan theatre as in the popular French theatre, of political and polemical incident of recent French history. French affairs were closely watched by those who provided the Elizabethan public with realistic or topical drama ; hVench statesmen and generals who enjoyed con- temporary fame were heroes of the realistic stage in London, almost as frequently as in Paris. VII Elizabethan Comedy and Franco-Italian Dialogue We have already seen that Tudor England mainly borrowed from contemporary France the fashion of the interlude, which in the last years of Henry VlII's reign heralded the coming of Elizabethan comedy. Foreign guidance, other than French, was soon enlisted in the task of moulding the Elizabethan type of comedy, and of developing its satiric, farcical, and romantic lineaments. Through the middle years of the six- teenth century, Latin and Italian comedy was in sporadic process of adaptation to requirements of English taste. The archetypal English comedy Ralph Roister Doister^ w^hich was written about 1540 by Nicholas Udall, a head master of Eton, for his pupils to act, crudely paraphrased Plautus's Latin comedy of Miles Gloriosiis. The piece was a pedagogic exercise in farce. The performance, which was for the time an isolated episode, belongs to the annals of the country's educational rather than of its literary progress. There is no link here between English and French dramatic endeavour. An adaptation of Plautus's play was attempted in France at a later date.^ No French influence is discernible in Udall's comic crudities, which were a somewhat barbarous fruit of the revived interest in the classics. But the next phase stands in a different light. George Gascoigne, rather than Udall, deserves the credit of inaugurat- ^ For the French rendering, De Baif, one of Ronsard's best-endowed lieutenants, was responsible. Baif's Brave, on Taillelnas, which was performed in the Hotel de (aiise in 1567, presented Plautus's comedy with far more artistic feeling than is discernible in Udall's Roister Doister. E e 2 420 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA ing Elizabethan comedy, and he was wholly inspired by con- tinental example. The first regular English effort in the comic branch of dramatic art was Gascoigne's Supposes. The play was produced in 1566 by lawyers of Grays Inn. The f^London barristers were therein, consciously or unconsciously, Vemulating a prescriptive habit of the lawyers of Paris, — ' Les Clercs de la Basoche.' Gascoigne's Supposes., which mingles romance with farce, was a translation from the Italian prose of Ariosto's Gli Supposiii, but French suggestion is apparent. Gascoigne, the English author, was a close student of current French literature. He was well versed in the poetry of Marot, \ and in a treatise on English metre — ' Certayne Notes of \ Instruction ' — he dwelt on the forms of verse ' commonly used 1 by the French'. Ariosto's comedy was popular in France. As early as 1542 there had been published in Paris a French translation, which was printed side by side with the Italian. The French writer called his version ' La Comedie des Supposes '. In his prologue Gascoigne admits that his hearers may well be puzzled to know ' the meaning of our supposes ', and he interprets the strange and unauthorized noun as ' mystakings or imaginations of one thing for another'. His novel title came from the French model, which stirred his ambition to plant regular comedy on English soil.^ Gascoigne's effort proved popular in England, and one incident in the story of its vogue illustrates the bearing of French agencies on Shakespearean drama. Gascoigne's comedy supplied the underplot of Shakespeare's Taming of I the Shi^ew. The disguises and mystifications which attended ( the amorous adventures of the shrew's younger sister, Bianca, I are borrowed from the Italian comedy which Gascoigne para- \ phrased at the prompting of PYance. Shakespeare's responsi- ^bility for the subsidiary scenes of The Taming of the Shrew ^ A free French metrical version by Jean Godard of Ariosto's comedy was printed under the title of Les Desguisez in 1594. On October 2, 1595, a year after, the English theatrical manager Henslowe produced a (lost) piece called Tlie Disguises, which translates, there can be no doubt, the new French recension of Gli Stippositi. PARISIAN INFLUENCE 421 has been cfuestioned, but the continental affinities of the piece are not thereby affected. Comedy of romantic intrigue in England was deeply in- debted to Italian drama for its subsequent development, but English study of Italian effort continued to obey French guid- ance. The French stimulus in the field of comedy often lost little of its force, when it was itself tributary to the Italian, The triumphant career of Larivey, who planted Italian comedy firmly on the Parisian stage, quickened the Eliza- bethan progress alike in intrigue and in the fantastic conceits of comic dialogue. It is easy to show the process at work. One of Larivey 's most popular efforts, Le Fidelle^ was an adaptation of an Italian comedy of intrigue, II Fedele, by a writer named Luigi Pasqualigo. The piece which was published at Venice in 1574 obtained more conspicuous fame abroad than in Italy, No sooner had the French adapter given it a Parisian vogue than at least two Elizabethan Englishmen sought to familiarize their fellow countrymen with it. The classical and the popular schools of Elizabethan England were both clearly attracted by the popularity which the Italian piece acquired in France, Abraham-Fraunce, a strenuous advocate of the classical law of drama, turned Pasqualigo's effort into Latin under the title of Victoria, the name of one of the heroines. Anthony Munday^ an active champion of the new romantic movement, produced as early as 1584 an English translation under the designation of The pleasaiuit and fine conceited Comedie of Tzuo Italian Gentle- men} Munday's rendering is crude and clumsy. All is in verse, and for the most part in rambling lines of varying lengths wdiich occasionally reach sixteen syllables.^ Snatches of both ' Fraunce's Latin comedy was first printed from the manuscript at Penshurst by Prof. G, C. Moore-Smith in Bang's Materialien sur Kundc lies cilteren englischen Dramas, Band xiv, Louvain, 1906. Munday's EngHsh version was reprinted from the copy at Chatsworth by Fritz Fliigge in Archiv fiir das Studiuin der neueren Sprachen und Liieraturen (1909), xxiii (new sen), pp. 45-80. 2 The following incantation is a typical example of the normal metre (11. 487-92):- This water and this oil I have, is conjured as you see, In the name of those sprites that written on this image bee. Now must I write the name of him whom you so much do love : Then bind these sprites, him to the like affection for to move. 422 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Latin and Italian occasionally adorn the dialogue. But the Eni^lish translator retains little of the sprightly temper of the Italian original, and when we contrast the Elizabethan version with the French adaptation, which is a free and idiomatic expansion of the Italian text, we recognize how greatly the spirit of comedy in France already excelled in point and vivacity the comic forces that were operating at the moment in England and Italy. Shakespeare's efforts in romantic comedy bear abundant signs of Italian influence. But it was rarely that he sought direct access to the Italian sources. Italian inspiration usually reached him through French or English translation. There is evidence in the case of Pasqualigo's comedy of // Fedele that Shakespeare knew not only Munday's English version, but Larivey's expansive adaptation in the French language /as well. Shakespeare, in The Tzvo Geutleuieii of Verona, I turned to account Munday's title of the Italian piece and ^some of the incidents and phraseology of the English render- \; ing. Shakespeare's ' Two Gentlemen ', like the' Two Italian >( Gentlemen ' of Munday, pay addresses to two Italian ladies and in the evolution of the plot exchange their mistresses. There is no question that that cynical episode of intrigue w^as an invention of the Italian drama, which Munday conveyed to Shakespeare.^ I charge you as you mean to purchase favour in his sight : And by the virtue of mine art, tell me his name aright. r Occasionally the six-line stanza of Ve/ius and Adonis is used : I serve a mistress whiter than the snow, Straighter than cedar, brighter than the glass. Finer in trip and swifter than the roe, More pleasant than the field of flow'ring grass. More gladsome to my withering joys that fade, Than winter's sun, or summer's cooling shade (11. 216-21). Shakespeare in his early dramatic works employs at times the same stanza (cf. Love's Labour's Lost, I. i. 147-58, iv. iii. 210-15. and Komco and Juliet, I. ii. 45-50, 88-93, v. iii. 12-17, 304-9)- ^ The exchange in the Italian piece, as of the French version, is not a temporary phase of the story, as in Shakespeare's comedy, but is the final denouement, while Victoria, the mistress of one of the two heroes, is already another's wife, a debasing circumstance from which Shakespeare's play is free. Shakespeare borrowed other hints for his 7'-u'o Gentlemen from the Spanish romance oi Diana, by Montemayor, where Felismena's pursuit in masculine disguise of her lover, Don Felix, adumbrates Julia's pursuit PEDANTRY IN ELIZABETHAN COMEDY 423 Larivey's best defined contribution to the development of Shakespearean comedy touches a different issue. The con- ceited dialog-ue of Renaissance comedy was largely of Italian origin, but it was greatly developed by the French gift for badinage, Larivey has some claim to the title of European master of eccentric pedantry on the comic stage. Munday gives small indication of the dramatic capacity of pedantic humour, Larivey's versions of Pas(iuahgo's // Fedele and other Italian comedies first Invested the dialogue of subsidiary characters like gallants, schoolmasters, serving-men, and clowns with that note of quibbling whimsicality which became habitual to the Elizabethan theatre.' Shakespeare's comical > ' chop-logic ' and punning by-play have a colour which Is more French than Italian. Shakespeare's comedy of Loves Labour's Lost, probably his first dramatic experiment, reflects, as we shall see, much that was passing at the time in France. It Illustrates the Ehzabethans' tendency to weave Into their plots actual incidents or personages which were exciting attention across the English channel. Here It Is more per- tinent to observe that the protagonists engage In a ' civil war of wits ' the temper of which has French analogues. The mock-learning of the French schoolmaster Holofernes In Shakespeare's Loves LaboiLV 's Lost and the later echoes of the same note on the lips of the Welsh schoolmaster. Sir Hugh Evans, In The Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as on those , of the pretended tutor, Lucentio, in The Taming of the I ShrezL\ approximate with astonishing closeness to the currentj French comic dialogue which expands or re-fashions Italian affectations. In Larivey's popular French play Le Fidelle, the pedant on whom the French author bestows the original name of M. Josse, talks a dialect which is indistinguishable from that of Proteus in Shakespeare's play. But there is only one gentleman lover in the Spanish story ; the duplication, which is the essence of Shake- speare's play, is alone anticipated by Pasqualigo, Larivey, and Munday. ^ John Lyly seems to have been the first Elizabethan comic writer to naturalize on a small scale this continental fashion. Lyly's comedies, which for the most part adapt themes of classical mythology, present detached examples of such quick repartee as Larivey actively developed under Italian tuition. Shakespeare passed early beyond Lyly's bounds. 424 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA of Shakespeare's Holo femes. Munday's bald language gives a very imperfect notion of the pedantic vein of pleasantry. A few quotations will bring home the debt which much of whimsical dialogue in r^Hzabethan comedy owed to the French bettering of the Italian instruction. Some of M. Josse's phrases run thus : Comme il est escrit d'Ulisse, on en peut autant dire de moy : Qui mores honiinuin viultoruin vidit et iirbes . . } Or, maintenant, je cognoy estre vray ce que dit nostre Nason : Littore tot cone ha e, tot sin it in amove dolot^es . . .- Si tu ne I'entend, tu es comme morte, nam sine doctrina vita est gnasi mortis imago . . .•' O fcejuinam acntissimam f elle contrefait encores sa voix pour n'estre cogneue. Comme dit bien le bon Naso, sapientem faciebat amor.^ In conversation with Babille, a maidservant, the pedant acquits himself in a fashion which is peculiar to Larivey : Babille. Le seigneur Fidelle sont-il en la maison ? M. Josse. Fa;mina proterva^ rude, indocte, imperite, ignare, indiscrette, incivile, inurbaine, mal, morigeree, igno- rante, qui t'a enseigne a parler en ceste fa^on ? Tu as fait une faute en grammaire, une discordance au nombre, au mode appele nominativiis cum verbo^ pour ce que Fidelle est 7ULmeri singjilaris^ et sont 7iumeri phiralis, et doit-on dire: est-il en la maison ? et non : sont-ils en la maison ? Babille. Je ne S9ay pas tant de grammaires. M. Josse. Voicy une autre faute, un tres grand vice en Toraison, pour ce que, comme dit Guarin, la grammaire estant art rede loqnendi recteqne scribendi, ja9oit qu en plusieurs langues elle soit escritte, n'est pourtant sinon un seul art, parquoy envers les bons autheurs ne se trouve grammatice grammaticartim., ne plus encores que tritica triticoriim., et arene arenamm^ car il se dit tant seulement au singulier . . .^ A scene in Larivey s Le Laquais — an adaptation of Lodovico Dolce 's Ragazzo~\)X^^vs, another schoolmaster Lucian, in discourse with Maurice, a recalcitrant pupil : L,ucia7i {inaitre es arts) . , . tu n'asois accoustume passer ^ Viollet-Le-Duc's Ancien Theatre, vi, p. 319. " Ibid., p. 349. ^ Ibid., p. 372. Cf. the dialogue between Malvolio and the Clown in Twelfth Night, iv, ii. 40 seq. : ' I say there is no darkness but igno- rance,' &c. ^ Ibid., p. 445. * Ibid., p. 371. LARIVliY'S PP:DANTS 425 uii jour sans me niontrcr ciuckjue theme ou epigramme; nunc vera, et credo quae /una quatey lafnit^ tu ne me montres amplius ny prose ny vers, et ne hantes les escoles, com me avois accoustume, ou, si tu y vas, tu oy seulement une le9on, et puis adieu. Maurice (eleve). Ne sgavez-vous cjue diet Terence ? Lucian. Quidinquit comic us, nosier Ji/i} II a une memoire tresague. Maurice. Haec dies aliam vitani adfert, alios mores postulate s'il men souvient. Lucian. lia est, mais tu ne penetres bien la mouelle de ceste tant belle sentence. Maurice. Exposez-la. Lucian. Terence veut inferer que, quand I'enfant est sorty de I'age pueril et entre en I'adolescence, comme tu es ; tunc alors, haec dies, ce temps, adfert ameine, aliam viiam une autre vie, et ipsa subintelligitur aetas vel dies, postzilat re- quiert, alios mores autres moeurs ou fa^ons de vivre : id est qu'il devroi tretenir en soy-mesme un peu plus de gravite, et laisser^^?;/?///.?, du tout, les fa^ons pueriles, &c. . . . The dialogue takes a more comic turn, when Valere, an impudent serving-man, invites the tutor to let him share the instruction, and fails to distinguish between Latin words and French. Valere. Cuj'um pecus, est-ce Latin ou fran9ois ? Lucian. C'est tresbon Latin, et fut chante par ce Mantuan, qui modula Titire, tu patulae. A very narrow interval here separates the Elizabethan comic writer from the French. It is in the strain of Larivey's M. Josse or of his Lucian that Holofernes fashions his snatches of Latin and of affected English which he addresses indiscriminately to the ignorant constable Dull, to the villager Costard, to the wench Jacquenetta,and to the curate Sir Nathaniel, whose parishioner's sons he tutors. Shakespeare's note is at times more boisterous and exuberant, but the key is identical.^ Holofernes' simi- 1 The pedagogue Lydus in Plautus's Bacchidcs seems to be the archetype of the schoohnaster in the comedy of the Renaissance. But the concep- tion was greatly developed first by the comic writers of Italy and then by those of France. Shakespeare's pedant, Holofernes, is of the type of Sir , Philip Sidney's Rombus, in his fantastic masque The Lady of the May (a work which, aUhough Sidney wrote it in 1579, was not printed till 159S). , Rombus, a village schoolmaster, there talks in a vein which adumbrates \ 426 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA larity of phrase may be judoed from the following passages : ' Meherclef if their sons be ingenuous, they shall want no in- struction . . . But, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. . . Fausie, precor gelida quaiido pectis ouiue sub umbra Ruminai, and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan.' ^ Here is a sample of the conversation in which Holofernes engages with the curate vSir Nathaniel and the constable Dull : Holofernes. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood ; ripe as a pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven ; and anon falleth like a crab on the face q{ terra, the soil, the land, the earth. Nathaniel. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least ; but, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck of the first head. Hoi. Sir Nathaniel, hand credo. Dull. 'Twas not a haud credo ; 'twas a pricket. Hoi. Most barbarous intimation ! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication ; facer e, as it were, replication, or, rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, un- pruned, untrained, or, rather, unlettered, or ratherest, uncon- firmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer. Dull. I said the deer was not a haud credo: 'twas a pricket. Hoi. Twice-sod simplicity, bis cocius \ " Nor is any violent difference discernible between the mannerism of Larivey's characters, M. Josse and Lucian, and that of Sir Hugh Evans when, with digressive irrelevance rto the dramatic scheme, he asks his pupil William Page ' some questions in his accidence ' {Merry Wives, IV. i. passim). . Mistress Quickly 's futile interruptions seem, too, to reflect the that of Holofernes in Shakespeare's Z^?7v'jZr?<^^)//r VZ^j/, which was penned about 1591, seven years before the publication of The Lady of the May. But Shakespeare's pedants, Holofernes and Sir Hugh Evans, seem cast in the mould of Larivey rather than of the Frenchman's Italian prototypes or of any English master. ^ Lcn'e's Labour 's Lost, IV. ii. 80-98. 1 >* Ibid., IV. ii. 3-22. On Sir Nathaniel's poetic experiments Holofernes I comments (iv. ii. 125 sq.) in M. Josse's precise vein thus: 'Let me L supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified ; but, for the I elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, ca)ct. Ovidius Naso was \ the man ; and why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odoriterous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention ? ' TH]<: RlSl^ OF ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY +27 hurk'sciui' inisuiuU'rstandin^s of Larivcy's maid-servant Babille I or of his lackey Valere in the jircsence of his pedants M. Josse J and Lucian. Evans. What is he, William, that does lend articles ? Ullliaui. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined, Siiigulariter, noiiniiativo, hie, haec, hoc. Evans. Noiinnaiivo, hig^ hag, hog\ pray you, mark: geniiivo, hnj'ns. Well, what is your accusative case ? William. Accnsativo, hiuc. Evans. I pray you, have your remembrance, child ; accu- sal ivo, hung, hang, hog. Qnickly. Hang hog is Latin for bacon, I warrant you. The likeness between Larivey's and Shakespeare's exercises in pedantic quip may be best explained by the theory that the Franco-Italian dialogue of comic pedantry caught the ear of the great writer of Elizabethan comedy, and stirred him to feats of emulation. VIII The Early Fortunes of Elizabethan Tragedy The Latin writer Seneca deserves to be reckoned the father of tragedy in England. It was under his exclusive inspiration that Goi'boduc, the first English tragedy, was written in 1560, two years after Queen Elizabeth's accession. Two lawyers of the Inner Temple were authors of the play, and it was first acted by gentlemen of their Inn of Court. For tragedy as for comedy English barristers rendered English dramatic lite- rature a service very like that which Parisian lawyers—' Les clercs de la Basoche'- had already rendered dramatic literature of France. At the date of the production of Gorboduc the Greek drama was far less known in this country than in France. The study of Seneca was rarely qualified by that of Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides. Greek guidance was, however, soon sought at second hand. George Gascoigne, author of the first regular English comedy oi Supposes, is here again the pioneer. The second Engllshjragedyi^/^^^JVV?, came from his pen, and 428 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA it emulated at a distance the Greek type. Jocasia was an adaptation of liuripides' Phoeiiissae. But there is no ground for assuming that Gascoigne had direct recourse to the Greek original. Nor was there any French translation of the Phoenissae w'hen Gascoigne adapted the theme to purposes of English drama. It was an Italian version by Ludovico Dolce which jhe. English writer followed. The English tragedy of Jocasta obeys the classical canons of chorus, unity, and monologue more closely than its predecessor Gorboduc. Its mould is almost identical with that of Jodelle's Cleopdii^e or Garnier's Conielie, and it familiarized cultured society in England with the processes of tragic composition which were already in operation in France. If English tragedy threatened at its birth to pursue a classical path under Italian rather than under French direction, it showed during its infancy a tendency to defy pre-existing convention for which France must be credited with a partial responsi- bility. There were early signs of deviation into those irregular by-ways which the popular French drama had begun to tread. The first steps which popular tragedy took in Elizabethan England were discouraging to cultured onlookers who hoped to identify it wath classical traditions. The first results accentu- ated all the least admirable features of the popular movement in France. It was no real blemish that the plot, as in France, should be sought outside Greek myth or Roman legend, or that themes of romance or of modern history — ' les nouveaux arguments ' — should be presented with the frequency to which the popular stage of France gave its sanction. But the rise of the profession of actor and the first organization of the theatre in England seemed likely not merely to drive the infant Elizabethan tragedy altogether out of classical channels but to plunge it irretrievably into ignoble streams of coarse and extravagant sensation. The scenes of turgid rant and sanguinary violence discredited by their uncouthness the popular development across the Channel. The infant tragedy of Elizabethan England loved ' inexplicable dumb- shows and noise ', and revelled in the accumulation of mysterious and blood-curdling crimes. THE DF.GKNERACY OF ENCxLISH TRAGEDY 429 In its wholesale defiance of classical canons the construc- tion of early popular tragedy in Elizabethan England went in all directions beyond continental limits. The law of unity vanished altogether ; the Chorus dwindled to the dimensions of prologue or epilogue of an Act ; choric debates within the 1 play disappeared, and their place was often filled by digres- sions into farce. The London stage in Shakespeare's boyhood made a grotesque effort to continue the allegorical tradition of the old ' morality '. Allegoric symbolism had never been wholly abandoned in Paris, but grim statuesque figures per- sonifying abstractions like Lust, Jealousy, or Murder, walked the London boards more often than the Parisian. The boisterous encroachment of farce on the tragic domain had, too, its foreign precedent ; the professional rulers of the Hotel de Bourgogne encouraged it ; it was a universal mark of the popular revolt against the classical convention of austerity. But the mingling of rough merriment with tragic gloom won a wider vogue in England than anywhere else. ' Lamentable tragedies mixed full of pleasant mirth ' — plays which associated stories of revolting crime with scenes not merely of romance but of horseplay — were incongruities which were rare outside the early playhouses in England, The first Elizabethan play-goers fed eagerly on such confused and discordant fare which was inferior in literary dignity or dramatic flavour to any of its continental analogues. When Shakespeare was entering manhood, English tragedy of popular acceptance, though so new a growth, gave little artistic or literary promise. The w^orst French examples were of a more hopeful design. Popular English tragedy offered in its infancy few titles to respect. To rescue it from a premature degeneracy needed strong hands of genius, which happily were not wanting. Two policies of reformation were initiated very soon after Shakespeare's professional career opened about the year 1587. One policy sought to counteract the current sensational extravagance and brutalities by infusion of poetic dignity and romantic glamour. The other policy aimed at a return to the laws of classical simplicity. The active champions of both 430 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA remedial policies turned to France for aid and support. The effort to enforce the classical ideal proved a failure ; the effort to fuse tragedy with poetry and romance won lasting triumphs. France more actively encouraged the classical movement than the poetic and romantic endeavour ; but French influences were at work in both. /^Marlowe led the way to a poetic reform of Elizabethan Vdrama. He created the English art of tragedy. France only offered him subsidiary inspiration, but his pioneer effort has many links with what was passing in that country. His career and achievements bore a strange resemblance to those of Etienne Jodelle, the dramatic pioneer of the Pleiade school some forty years before. The likeness of the two men's fortunes and labours impressed Elizabethan critics, and Marlowe's name was from an early date associated with that of his PVench predecessor. The striking similarity between the sensational ways in which the French and English creators of tragic art met death, especially helped to bring the dramatic movements of the Renaissance in the two countries within one perspective. Jodelle 's career ended in 1573 at the early age of forty-one amid degrading disease and want. To him there clung the same suspicions of atheism as darkened Marlowe's sordid death, twenty years later, in a tavern brawl at the '^age of thirty. A Puritan schoolmaster, who was soon to reckon Cromwell among his pupils, called attention to the coincidence as early as 1597. He narrated how the French tragical poet Jodelle 'being an Epicure and an Atheist, made a very tragical and most pittifull end ; for he died in great miserie and distresse, euen pined to death, after he had riotted out all his substance, and consumed his patrimonie '. A few pages onwards the same author tells how Marlowe, ' one of our own nation, of fresh and late memorie,' rivalled Jodelle not only in his atheism and impiety, but also in the manner of his punishment.^ The parallel was not forgotten. A year later— in 1598 — Francis Meres, a n Elizabethan student of 1 Thomas Beard's Theatre of Goifs Judgements (1597), 3rd ed., revised and augmented (1631), pp. 146, 149. MARLOWE AS REFORMER 431 comparative literature, who pronounced Shakespeare to be the greatest genius of the age, drew more emphatic attention to the coincidence. ' As JoDKl.LR, a French tragical poet,' wrote Meres, ' being an Epicure and an Atheist, made a pitiful end ; so our tragical poet Marlow, for his Epicurism and Atheism, had a tragical death.' ^ Marlowe and Jodelle shared the common fate of reformers whose vision was wider than that of their neighbours. Each was the father of tragic arti in his own countr}\ ' Christopher Marlowe, the founder of Elizabethan tragedy, echoed the ambition of the French leaders of the Pleiade when in 1589 in the prologue of his earliest play, Tambtirlaine, he , declared war on the past age of drama with its 'jigging [ veins of rhyming mother wits, and such conceits as clownage keeps in pay '. Marlowe promised to show the world how \ * ' high astounding terms ' were essential elements of tragedy. This was the spirit that awoke and flourished in France some forty years before, and led Du Bellay in the name of the Pleiade to decree the banishment q>{ softies and badi'neries, of farces and moralities, from the French theatre. The . decree was only partially effective across the channel. The proclamation was often repeated there. Twenty years after Du Bellay 's manifesto and twenty years before Marlowe's fulmination, the classical tragedian Jean de la Taille impres- sively warned the French theatre anew against ' telles badineries et sottises qui comme ameres espiceries, ne font que corrompre le goust de notre langue '. Marlowe's aspirations had ample French precedent. Marlowe showed faith in the main principle of classical tragedy by concentrating his energy on the portrayal in elevated language of colossal types of passion. Of classical law he was careless ; he practically eliminated the Chorus ; he neglected the unities ; he presented violent action on the stage ; nor could he check his tendency to bombast. Yet the > spirit of his work has classical aflSnities, and there are indica- tions that he was familiar with current French developments not merely of classical, but of popular drama. Under such ^ Meres, Palladis Tainia (1598) : Arber, E7ii;;lish Garficr, vol. ii, p. 103. 432 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA influences Marlowe sought to lift Elizabethan tragedy out of the depths which it touched before he began his campaign of poetic reform. ' Marlowe, like Jodelle, wrote a tragedy of Dido. Although a comparison of the two pieces suggests little direct indebted- ness on the part of the English author to his French pre- decessor, there are characteristic points of contact.' Both paraphrase Vergil freely. In some respects Marlowe is more f loyal to the classical story. He, like the Roman poet, and unlike the French tragedian, introduces Juno, Jupiter, and \ Venus as effective controllers of the action. The hosts of heaven exaggerate in Marlowe's tragedy the magisterial functions of the old Chorus. Impatient of the unity of time, Marlowe expands Jodelle's narrow canvas by presenting / Aeneas's amorous adventure from the hour that he is wrecked \ on the Carthaginian coast until his departure three or four I weeks later and Dido's subsequent suicide. Poetic feeling reaches a loftier key in Marlowe's work than in the French. But the tone of passion is at times indistinguishable. Dido's parting cry in the two plays well illustrates both the similarity and dissimilarity of the styles in adapting the poetry of Vergil. The passage runs thus in Jodelle {Qijivres, Paris, 1868, i. 221): Quant a vous Tyriens, d'une eternelle haine Suiuez a sang & feu ceste race inhumaine ! Obligez a tousiours de ce seul bien ma cendre, Qu'on ne vueille iamais a quelque paix entendre. Les armes soyent tousiours aux armes aduersaires, Les flots tousiours aux flots, les ports aux ports contraires. Que de ma cendre mesme un braue vangeur sorte. Que le foudre & I'horreur sus ceste race porte. Voila ce que ie dy, voila ce que ie prie, Voila ce qu'a vous Dieux, 6 iustes Dieux, ie crie. ' The topic oi Dido was very familiar in Italy before and after Jodelle's time. A lost Italian tragedy of the name is assigned to the year 15 10. Lodovico Dolce published a second piece called Didonc Tragedia in 1547, and Giraldi Cinthio followed with yet a third in 1583. Cinthio closely anticipates Marlowe in his frequent introduction of Juno, Venus, Cupid, and Mercury. Cinthio's third act opens with a long monologue spoken by Fama, which owes much to Vergil, and seems to adumbrate many similar prologues of Rumour in Elizabethan drama. MARLOWE'S MASSACRE AT PARIS 433 In Marlowe, Dido's speech takes this form : And now, ye gods, that guide the starry frame, And order all things at your high dispose. Grant, though the traitors land in Italy, They may be still tormented with unrest ; And from mine ashes, let a conqueror rise, That may revenge this treason to a cjueen, By ploughing up his countries with the sword. IX Current French History on the Elizabethan Stage Dulo holds a modest place in the catalogue of Marlowe's dramas. Its suggestion of the influence of continental classicism lends it its chief literary interest. Another of Marlowe's minor dramatic endeavours brings him into closer relation with the popular French drama which dealt with contemporary French affairs. His Massacre at Paris crudely but vividly presents not only the Bartholomew Massacre of 1572, but the sequence of stirring events in Paris which issued in the assertion of Henry of Navarre's claim to the French throne in 1589. Marlowe's piece, which has only three_Acts, and is cast in the mould of the dramatic chronicle, echoes rapidly a series of French plays portraying the crimes of the Guises. In the First Act the opening scenes show Charles IX, the French king, in colloquy with the Duke of Guise, Coligny, and the Huguenot leaders; at its close the St. Bartholomew massacre is realistically pictured, together with the murders of Coligny and Ramus. In the Second Act Charles IX dies, and is succeeded by his brother Henry III, who quickly quarrels with the Guises. In the last Act the Duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinal are murdered, Henry III is assassinated, and Navarre reaches the throne. Eternal love is finally sworn by the new French king to the Queen of England ' whom God hath blest for hating Foperie '. Marlowe's Massacre at Paris contributed little to the artis- tic development of Elizabethan tragedy. Its interest largely lies in its plain indication of the sort of dramatic theme and sentiment which uncultured taste was still exacting of Eliza- bethan playwrights, after the inauguration of the endeavour LEE F f 434 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA to lift drama to a high poetic jilane. There is abundant evidence in the diary of Philip Henslowe, a prosperous manager of the popular stage, that Marlowe's topical play held the suffrages of the play -going public for the long period of ten years. Whenever French affairs attracted marked notice in England, Henslowe promptly revived Marlowe's lurid tragedy. The piece is a first message from the Elizabethan stage, of English sympathy with the cause of Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots. Much in the same vein was to follow Marlowe's tragic comment on the French civil wars. Shakespeare's patrons, while they were giving sure signs of an improved taste, en- couraged theatrical portrayals of sensational crises in French affairs. It is significant that Shakespeare himself courted in early life this topical predilection. The great dramatist's comedy, Love's Labour 's Lost^ which lightly satirizes many passing events at home and abroad, makes free with the names and character of important personages in contemporary France. The hero, the King of Navarre, in whose dominion the scene is laid, bears the precise title of the Huguenot leader in the civil war of France, which was at its height between 1 589 and 1594. The fortunes of the true King of Navarre, who was supported on the battlefield by many English volunteers of social position, engaged, while Shakespeare was writing Love's Labo2ir 's Lost, much anxious notice in England, , The two chief lords in attendance on the king in the play, ' Biron and Longaville, bear the actual names of the two most active associates of the Huguenot chieftain across St. George's Channel. ' Lord Dumain ' is a common anglicized version of the name of that Due de Mayenne, another French general and statesman, who had already played a small part under the like designation in Marlowe's Massacre at Paris. He was frequently mentioned in popular accounts of current French affairs in connexion with the King of Navarre's movements, and, although he belonged to the house of Guise, Shakespeare fan- tastically numbered him among his supporters. Shakespeare's comedy is in most respects a satiric ' revue ' or ' sottie ', a topical extravaganza. It is no serious presentation of history. But the THE GUISES IN ENGLISH DRAMA 435 dramatist attests in whimsical fashion the prevalent interest which current French poHtics excited in theatrical circles. Many popular pieces, of which the text has not come down to us, are stated in theatrical records of the time to have dealt with the same theme as Marlowe's Massacre at Paris. The theatrical manager Henslowe who revived Marlowe's play under the name of The Guise, as well as under its original title, added to his repertory, in the autumn of 1598, a drama called The Civil Wars in France. This piece was in three parts, and was the fruit of pens so eminent as those of the poet Michael Qrajton and the practised dramatist Thomas Dekker. Very early in the next century, on November 3, 1601, Plenslowe produced yet another play called The Guise, which came from the more distinguished hand of John Webster. The extant French tragedies of the previous decade, La Guisiade and Le Guisien, clearly had a large English progeny. One of the latest playwrights of the Elizabethan school, Henry Shirley, brother of James Shirley, the last sur- vivor of Shakespeare's generation, was responsible for a tardy recension of the w^ell-worn story of the Duke of Guise, which is again no longer extant. The Guisian topic, indeed, be- came so embedded in the tradition of Elizabethan tragedy that John Dryden, the glory of English tragedy in the next era of the Restoration, brought his energies to bear on it anew, in collaboration with his disciple, Nathaniel Lee. A tragedy called The Dnke of Guise, which appeared in 1682, was a joint production of Dryden and Lee. Nor did the succession stop there. A different version of the story by Lee alone came out in 1690 under Marlow^e's old title of The Massacre of Paris. The fascination which current French history exerted on dramatic effort of Shakespeare's own generation is signally illustrated by the work of George Chapman. An Elizabethan whose classical erudition was linked with a rugged force of expression. Chapman was deeply read in French literature, and he based no less than five five-act tragedies on more or less contemporary themes of French poirtics?"' For the most ^ Chapman's main authority was A General Inventorie of the History of Fruiue, 1607, a translation by Edward Grimestone from the French of Ff2 436 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA part he followed almost slavishly an English translation of a recently published French history. His tragedy of Philip Chabot^ Admiral of Finance ^ dramatizes the pathetic story of a favourite of Francis I ; the hero, a man of integrity, was wrongly suspected of disloyalty, and, though acquitted of the charge, died of a broken heart. The protagonist of Chapman's tragedy, Etissy iVAinboise^ was a favourite of the Due d'Alen9on, who was familiar to Englishmen as Queen Eliza- beth's French suitor. Bussy, in Chapman's tragedy, was slain, owing to a disreputable intrigue of his master. Chapman pursued the course of events in a sequel, The Revenge of Biissy d'Amboise^ which told of the vengeance taken by Bussy 's brother on his murderer. There the assassination of the Duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinal, in 1589, was once more handled on the English stage. The most interesting of these labours of Chapman were two further tragedies which dealt with the career of one of the best- known lieutenants of Henry of Navarre through the early years of his triumph. Monsieur de Biron, whose charming personality dominated under his actual name vShakespeare's Love's Labo2ir's Lost, was a trusted counsellor and friend of the Huguenot leader until his death in 1594. But Biron's son was even more intimately associated with his sovereign's fortunes. Every dignity that it was in the French king's power to bestow on a subject, the younger Biron en- joyed, and when he paid a visit on diplomatic business to Queen Elizabeth in 1600, the English sovereign and her people accorded him an heroic welcome. But his ambition soon afterwards o'erleapt itself He was charged with con- spiring to depose his generous benefactor, and he paid for his treason on the scaffold. Chapman, in two tragic pieces, the one called Biron's Conspiracy, and the other, Biron's Tragedy, narrated the sad story of the unhappy nobleman's fall. The two plays transcribe passing events with a strange literalness. Henry IV of France, in Chapman's piece, describes the Huguenot Jean de Serres (1597) with additions from Alatthieu, Cayet, and others (see F. S. Boas in Athenaeum, 10 Jan. 1903, and Modern Philology, iii. 1906). Chapman shows his predilections for French topics and characters in his comedies, Monsieur if Olive and A Humorous Dafs Mirth. For Chapman's and other French dramatic themes, see F. E. Schelling's Elizabethan Drama, ijjS-1642, i. 414 seq. CHAPMAN'S FRENCH PLOTS 437 the hero's successive promotions with the baldness of a legal record [Biron's Tragedy, Act I, Sc. i) : When he was scarce arrived at forty years, He ran through all chief dignities of France. At fourteen years of age he was made Colonel To all the Suisses serving then in Flanders ; Soon after he was Marshal of the Camp, And shortly after, Marshal General, He was received High Admiral of France In that our Parliament we held at Tours ; Marshal of France in that we held at Paris. And at the siege of Amiens he acknowledged None his superior but ourself, the King ; Though I had there the Princes of the blood, I made him my Lieutenant-General, Declared him jointly the prime Peer of France, And raised his barony into a duchy. Elsewhere Chapman lays stress on Biron's patriotic service in the days of his country's deepest distresses : When the uncivil civil wars of France Had poured upon the country's beaten breast Her batter'd cities ; press 'd her under hills Of slaughter'd carcasses ; set her in the mouths Of murtherous breaches, and made pale Despair Leave her to Ruin; through them all, Byron vStept to her rescue, took her by the hand ; Pluck'd her from under her unnatural press, And set her shining in the height of peace.^ ^ Bhons Conspiracy, Prologus. A curious endeavour to bring Biron's historic position home to the Elizabethan audience is made by Chapman in the closing scenes of Biron's Tragedy. The doomed hero contrasts his position with that of Queen Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Essex, after the latter's conviction of treason. Biron. The Queen of England ] Told me that if the wilful Earl of Essex Had used submission, and but ask'd her mercy, She would have given it, past resumption. She, like a gracious princess, did desire To pardon him ; even as she prayed to God He would let down a pardon unto her ; He yet was guilty, I am innocent : He still refused grace, I importune it. C/ianc. This ask'd in time, my lord, while he [i. e. Essex] be- sought it, And ere he had made his severity known, Had with much joy to him, I know been granted. (Biron's 'Tragedy, Act v, Sc. i.) 438 I'RANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA A note of genuine sympathy with recent sufferings of France and Frenchmen is sounded in these lines. That note is characteristic of all Chapman's dramatic handling of French political topics. Only a corresponding sentiment on the part of his Elizabethan audience would have justified his persistent devotion to the drama of current French history. From the period of Marlowe's rise to that of Shirley's fall, strong links in the chain which bound the France of Ronsard and Montaigne to the England of Shakespeare and Bacon are discernible in English by-ways of popular tragedy. X Romantic Tragedy, and other Irregular Dramatic Developments Active as were Elizabethan dramatists in treating con- temporary French affairs, the theme only sustained a sub- sidiary current of the mighty dramatic movement. The main stream flowed in the broader channels of poetic sublimity or living action to which Marlowe's genius had pointed. Finally the reformed drama travelled far beyond the bounds which he had known, and absorbed in its onward course elements of penetrating introspection and romantic passion, of which he as pioneer had dim perception. The generation that succeeded Marlowe was swayed by his defects, as well as by his merits. There was room for purgation in the work of his disciples as well as for processes of broadening and of deepening. Marlowe interspersed his majestic efforts in poetic tragedy with much rant. Many of his successors were less richly endowed than he with poetic genius, and in their tragic work developed more of his extravagances than of his dignity. Yet Marlowe's tragic aim of stateliness, which accorded with the classical canons of Europe, left an indelible im- pression on his own and the next generation. He excited a dread of the ignoble lowering of the tragic standard to the debased level of the previous era. Thomas Kyd, a pupil of Marlowe, whose sanguinary tragedies achieved even greater ROMEO AND JULIET IN FRENCH 439 popularity than his master's on the Elizabethan stage, echoed, despite his inferior powers of execution, Marlowe's plea for elevation in tragic theme and treatment. Comedies [he declared] are fit for common wits ; . . . Give me a stately written tragedy. Tragedia cothiwnata, fitting- kings, Containing matter, and not common things.' Romance held an inconspicuous place in Marlowe's scheme of tragedy. His disciples endeavoured to supply this want. Kyd mingled scenes of romance with his tragic violence, and the popular drama of France was well qualified to help him there. Kyd was well acquainted with current developments of tragedy in Italy and France, and when, in his most popular piece. The Spanish Tragedy, he intro- duces the device of a play-scene in anticipation of the familiar episode in Hauilet, his characters profess knowledge and study of histrionic methods of both France and Italy, Kyd's hero insists on the need of rapidity in production to give impressive effect to tragedy, and he speaks of the French modes from personal experience. I have seen the like j In Paris, mongst the French tragedians. ^ Kyd's contemporaries raised no question that the French theatre could teach much to Englishmen. Shakespeare's genius for romance was of too original a compass to owe much to foreign sustenance. But it is significant that Shakespeare's first original experiment in romantic tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, treated a theme which had already served theatrical purposes on the other side of the Channel, In 1580 there was performed at the French court before Henry III, a tragedy founded on Bandello's tale of Romeo and Juliet, The author was a professional actor in the royal service who held the honorary rank of royal valet de chanibre:' It is curious to note that ' Kyd's Sfanish Tragedy, iv. i. 156-60. - Ibid., IV. ii. 166-7. " ^ According to La Bibliotheque fran<^oise (vol. ii), by Antoine da \'erdier, Sieur de Vauprivas, which was first published at Lyons in 1585, ' Cosine La Gambe dit Chasteau-Vieu.x a recite plusieurs comedies ct 440 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA in England the king's players— of whom Shakespeare was one— received from James I the like titular recognition of ' grooms of the royal chaml)er '. The French tragedy of Romeo et Jnlietle is not known to be extant, but the con- temporary evidence of its production is of undisputed authen- ticity. There is no ground for crediting it with the lyric splendour or tragic intensity of vShakespeare's effort, but a ray of reflected glory from that supreme masterpiece illumines the record of the French actor's earlier labour. Tragedy, comedy, and romance did not exhaust the energies of the Elizabethan dramatists, and everywhere French pre- cedent is recognizable. Mediaeval tradition, in England as in France, still encouraged fresh experiments on the pattern of the old moral or scriptural play, and the scriptural and moral drama of the Elizabethan age borrowed suggestion of the French theatre. Of the scriptural drama of the Elizabethan [era a representative example is George Peele's The Love of King David and fair Bethsabe, wi/h the tragedie of Absalon. This paraphrase of the Bible story is a con- tinuous piece without division into acts or scenes, and was often acted in London before its publication in 1599. Peele's work, in spite of its superiority in dramatic movement and scenic construction, has affinities with the French presen- tation of the same scriptural theme in Des Masures' David coinbattant, fngitif triomphani (1566). Montchretien's David^ on f Adnltere^ which is cast in the classical mould, was written almost contemporaneously with Peele's work ; its production corroborates the affinities of dramatic aim in the two countries at the end of the sixteenth century. The ' morality ' of the ancient pattern was practically swept tragedies devant le roi Charles IX et le Roi a present regnant (Henri III),eten a compose quelques-unes, assavoir Le capitainc Bonboujle et Jodcs, comedies, Romeo et Juliette et Edouard i-oi d Afigleterre, tragedies tirees de Bandel, Alaigre,' &c. The dramatic author, Chateau Vieux, who is thus seen to have penned two (lost) tragedies on Italian tales by Bandello, won great fame as an actor at court, chiefly in comic roles. In \'auquelin de la P'resnaie's L Art poetiqite f7'anqo!s, which was written before 1589, though it was not published till 1605, ' Chateau Vieux, le brave farceur,' is twice mentioned with great commendation. In one place he is credited with ' la douceur ' both in writing and in speaking dramatic verse (Vau- qucliii, Diverses Poesies, cd. Travers, 1869, vol. i, pp. 26, 85). THE ELIZABETHAN 'MORALITY' 441 away by the new dramatic movement, but a few l^>lizabethan survivals betray the activity of foreig-n influences. The general situation may be gauged by the history of two English sj:)ecimens belonging respectively to the beginning and end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. About 1561 there was first published ' Acertaine tragedie entituled 1^'reewyl '. The work is a con- tribution to polemical theology on ' moral ' lines. It champions allegorically Protestant doctrine against the papal creed. The original source of this controversial drama is an Italian Tra- gedia dellibero arbitn'o, which was first published in 1546. A Erench version, Tragedie dii Roy Franc-ai'bHi'c, came out at \^illefranche in the south of France in 1558, and a Latin transla- tion of the French in the following year at Geneva. The English rendering holds the fourth place in the succession, at the head of which stand versions in Italian and French. The fact illus- trates that England was still travelling slowly in the rear of her neighbours. In the case of the second typical moral play of the Elizabethan era, which was written at the extreme end of the sixteenth century, France supplies the sole inspiration. A ' farce nouvelle des cinq sens de I'homme ', in which ' Bouche ' (i. e. mouth) plays a chief part, was produced in Paris about 1550. This French ' morality ' suggested ' Lingua, or The Combat of the Tongue, and the Five Senses for Superiority, a pleasant Comedie ', which was written by Thomas Tomkis, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, before Queen Elizabeth died.^ Other dramatic experiments in Elizabethan England which were without ancient sanction, mediaeval or classical, were of foreign origin, but they came from Italy rather than from P'rance. The new forms of masque and pastoral found at the extreme end of Queen Elizabeth's reign among her subjects a first audience which quickly grew in eagerness and number during the reign of her successor. The English pastoral drama was a direct offspring alike in France and England of recent Italian effort. Tasso's Aininla (1581) and Guarini's Pastor Fido (1590) are the parents of both French and English pastoral plays. Three P^rench renderings of Auiinta (of ^ The French farce is printed in Viollet-Le- Due's Ancien i/icdlrc fraii^ais, vol. iii. The English comedy was first published in 1607. 44^ FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 1584, 1593, and 1596) and one of Pasior Fido (of 1593) chiefly broug-ht the pieces to the knowledge of the Eliza- bethans. The French versions failed to modify the Italian tone and colour, and the influence which they exerted was predominantly Italian. The Elizabethan and Jacobean masque is also the child of Italian parentage. The French form of the English word bears witness to French agency in bringing to England the Italian inaschera or mascheraia. But the English masque embarked on its main career after the Eliza- bethan era — strictly speaking — closed, and it is not necessary here to apportion the varied foreign influences— of Greece as well as of France and Italy — which went to its final evolution. XI The Classical Reaction ix Elizabethan Tragedy The enthronement of Romance in the realm of Elizabethan tragedy rendered irreparable the breach with classical tradi- tion. But it was with misgivings that the classical law of Tragedy was abandoned b}- scholarly Elizabethans, and the triumph of Romance failed to still the doubts of conservative ■• culture. When Marlowe was preaching his new creed of dramatic freedom and poetic dignity, an endeavour was made to elevate English tragedy by a different process, by a revival of the classical dispensation which frowned on romantic experi- ment. Although the attempt failed, it was slow to acknowledge defeat. Its history bears interesting testimony not only to the current state of critical opinion in England but to the in- veterate reliance of cultured sentiment on French taste. While Elizabethan tragedy was yet in its turbulent and • unregenerate infancy, Sir Philip Sidney, the chief Elizabethan champion of the principles of the continental Renaissance, waved with new energy the classical banner. In his Apology for Poetry Sidney warned English dramatists of the peril that they ran in neglecting classical rules of tragedy which alone made for ' honest civility and skilful poetry '. Sidney's ideal of dramatic perfection was the style of Seneca with his ' stately speeches ', his ' well sounding phrases ', and his ELIZABETHAN ADMIRATION OF GARNIER 443 ' notable morality '. He even complained that Gorhnduc, the archetype of English tragrcdy, was ' very defections in the circumstances', and could not serve as 'an exact model'. 'The two necessary comi)anions of all corporal actions' in ^ the theatre were the unities of time and place, to which h^lizabethan tragedy from the first paid scant respect. Sidney admitted that the sins of Gorbodnc were nothing in comparison with those of its defiant and decadent suc- cessors. There the action moved, he lamented, from Asia to Africa, and even to the under-kingdoms of the world. The stage was in quick succession a garden, a rock, a cave, a battle- field. Within two hours' space a child might be born and grow to manhood. Crimes of repellent brutality were, too, com- mitted in sight of the audience. Especially bitter was Sidney's denunciation of mongrel tragi-comedy — of ' tragical mirth ' — in which hornpipes were matched with funerals, to the sacrifice of the genuine spirit of comedy and tragedy alike. vSidney finally cited as best worthy of study and imitation the Latin tragedies on conventional classical lines of Buchanan, the vScottish scholar who had been a professor at a French University and had reckoned Montaigne among his pupils. vSidney's counsel carried little weight with popular opinion. I^nglish tragedy found ultimate salvation in poetry and I romance which ignored the classical canons. Marlowe devised the only path in tragic art that could satisfy the national sentiment. Yet while Marlowe's pen was active strenuous efforts were initiated to purify ihe turbid stream of F2lizabethan tragedy by a liberal assimilation of classical theme and mould. The new school of conservative reformers sought \ the aid of Garnier, the latest and the best-endowed apostle of ' classical tragedy in France. The inauofurators of the classical reaction inherited the literary feeling and ambition of vSir Philip Sidney who was patron-saint of the new movement. His accomplished sister, the Countess of Pembroke, and his intimate friend, Fulke Greville, were leaders of the classical champions, and their influence easily led professional men of letters to give their efforts some practical aid. The ablest adherent of the move- 444 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA ment was the poet wSamuel Daniel, while Thomas Kyd turned aside, at the prompting of the Countess of Pembroke, from his unlicensed pursuit of popular favour to supplement the countess's endeavours as a translator of Garnier into English. The popular irregularitiesinspired even the practised dramatists of the day with uneasiness. The Countess of Pembroke took the first effective step. ' The Tragedieof Aittonie^ done into English by the Countess of Pembroke ' was the literary labour which occupied her leisure during the summer and autumn of 1590.^ Marlowe was then in the full flush of his fame, and Shakespeare was just about to challenge fate with his Romeo and Juliet^ a romantic type of tragedy, which was already known to France but was new to England. The countess translated the Alexandrines of Garnier s regular tragedy of Marc-Anioine into English blank verse, which was very literal and none too graceful. She cast the choruses into the six-, eight-, and eleven-lined stanzas of the French. The brief play, which is in iiQur^cts, brings events only as far as the death of Antony, The countess's crude English hardly did justice to the clear current of the French style, and its obvious inadequacy was not of good augury for the future of the classical reaction. But the countess's energy stirred emulation in abler pens. Under her auspices Thomas Kyd forsook his full-blooded work in irregular tragedy of the stamp of his Spanish Tra- gedy^ in order to give the English public a better taste of Garnier's quality. Kyd undertook to translate two of Garnier's tragedies — Cornelie (Pompey's widow) and Porcie (Brutus's wife). The promise of Porcie remained unful- filled. Kyd's rendering of the French dramatist's Cornelie was duly published in 1594. The English tragedian in the preface expresses a warm admiration for ' that excel- lent poet, Ro : Garnier ', and apologizes for the ' grace that excellent Garnier hath lost by my default'. He commends the tragedy as 'a fair precedent (i.e. example) of honour, magnanimity, and love '. Kyd's style as a translator is more ' It was first published in 1592. A reprint, edited by Alice Luce, was issued at Weimar in 1897. DANIEL AS GARNIKR'S PUPIL 445 facile than that of his patroness. But his literal method, like the Countess of Pembroke's, emphasized unduly Garnier's tendency to a stilted convention. ]\lean\vhile the poet Samuel Daniel presented Cleopatra's fate afresh, on Garnier's lines but in F.n<,dish language of his own. Daniel brought to the classical revival for richer poetic gifts than Kyd or his noble patroness. He abandoned the method of literal translation from the French, and brought some original power to reinforce the countess's aspiration to free Elizabethan drama of the Gothic taint. Daniel's CJcopafrtty his first contribution to the new classical school (^{ (haiiia, was avowedly a continuation of Lady Pembroke's A iitonie ; it carries the story from Antony's death to Cleo- patra's suicide. In a dedication to the countess Daniel explains that his Muse would never have ' digressed ' into such a path — ' had not thy well graced Antonie, (Who all alone having remained long) Wanted his Cleopatra's company.^ Daniel was encouraged by his poet-friend, Edmund Spenser, \ whose sympathies were classical, to attune his lyre to tragic / plaints. Daniel scarcely fulfilled Spenser's anticipations of success in the tragic sphere. He keeps close to French models. His Cleopatra at times is a mere paraphrase of Garnier's Marc-Antoine. Such a chorus as that in which both English and French dramatists apostrophize the Nile illustrates the general relationship of their sentiment and metrical scheme. ' At no long interval Daniel took a second ^ Works, ed. Grosart, vol. iii, p. 23. ^ Cf. Garnier's Marc-Antoine t^ • y, r^, l . /i ^ 1 -1 (Act II ad fin). Daniel's c/^(?^i/^ra (last chorus). O vagueux prince de fleuues, And canst, O Nilus, thou Des Ethiopes I'honneur, Father of Floods endure, 11 faut qu'ores tu espreuues That yellow Tiber should Le seruage d'un Seigneur : With sandy streams rule thee ? Oue du Tybre qui est moindre Wilt thou be pleas'd to bow En puissance & en renom To him those feet so pure, Voises (i. e. ailles) reuerant le nom, Whose unknown head we hold Qui fait tous les fleuues ciaindre, A power divine to be ? Superbe de la grandeur Thou that didst ever see Des siens qui veulent enceindre Thy free banks uncontrolled De ce monde la rondeur. Live under thine own care. Ah, wilt thou bear it now ? And now wilt yield thy streams A prey to other realms. 446 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA step along- the classical road. His second tragedy dealt with the tale of Philotas, the friend of Alexander the Great, who was convicted of treachery. Here Daniel, again pursuing Garnier's path, dramatized an episode in Plutarch's Life of Alexander. He exaggerated every classical convention. The speeches run to inordinate length. A messenger narrates the catastrophe in tedious detail, and a long chorus on varied rhyming schemes brings each act to a close with gnomic platitudes. The classical movement was continued by Sir Philip Sidney's friend, Eulke Greville. Greyille, followed the Countess of Pembroke and Samuel Daniel in a design of dramatizing on ancient lines — for a third time in English — ' the irregular passions of Antonie and Cleopatra ', who * forsook empire to follow sensuality '. The story of Antony and Cleopatra, which had fascinated Jodelle and Garnier, the founders of the tragedy of the French Renaissance, clearly exercised as magnetic an attraction on the advocates of a classical reform of Ehzabethan tragedy. Greville's drama on the subject is not^xtant. It was ' sacrificed to the fire ' by his own hands.^ Not that he doubted its literary merits, but that he feared that his treatment of the Queen of Egypt and her paramour might be suspected of aiming at ' vices in the present governors and government '.^ Greville fancied some vague sort of resemblance between the relations of Queen P21izabeth and the Earl of Essex, and those of Cleopatra and Antony. Greville's remaining dramatic work, which was not exposed to a suspicion of political libel, survives. Although it touched contemporary history more closely than classical, and its I Greville's Life of tJie Renoivned Sir Philip Sidfic'v, 1552, p. 178. ''' There was much to prejudice the classical dramatic revival in the eyes of the English public. Among the obstacles to progress was an unexpected and unfounded suspicion that its intentions were other than those of literary purification. Daniel's classical tragedy of Philotas, which was written quite innocently for amateur acting by gentlemen's sons at Bath, was suspected of ulterior political motives. There, as in Greville's lost tragedy, some likeness was presumed between the fate of the imperial favourite Philotas and that of ()ueen Elizabeth's Earl of Esse-\. GREVILLI':'S CLASSICAL TRAGEDIES 447 theme passed outside the strict classical confines, it was strictly loyal to the classical form. There was French precedent for an extension of the topic of regular tragedy beyond the boundaries of classical mythology and history. Greville ; sought his dramatic material in recent oriental history, and' was thus in accord with French example. One of his two| tragedies, Mustapha, dealt with the death of a Turkish prince! of the name, w^ho was slain in 1553 by his father, the great Sultan Soliman the Magnificent, at the instigation of theSukan's wife Rossa.^ Mustapha's story had already engaged the hand of a French dramatist. La Soltane, a tragedy which was published at Paris in 1561, presents in like form the incidents of Greville 's piece, but the sultan's wafe, as the title indicates, fills a rather larger space of the canvas than the sultan. The other of Greville's classical dramas, A/akam, heir to the King of Ormus^ is a more crabbed presentment of an episode of JMohammedan history. Enthusiastic praise was bestowed by contemporaries on Fulke Greville's endeavours to enshrine oriental heroes in classical English tragedy. A wish was expressed — To raise this busken-poet to the skies ; And fix him there among the Fleyades, To light the Muse in gloomy tragedies.- In point of gloomy solemnity at any rate Sir Fulke's work entitled it to share the fame of the tragedy of the French Pleiade. The classical effort of the Countess of Pembroke, of Kyd, of Daniel, and of Greville, was continued at the beginning of the seventeenth century by William Alexander (afterwards Earl of Stirling), a young Scotsman, who at the end of the ^ The great Sultan Soliman, who reigned from 1520 to 1566, was a familiar figure on both English and French stages. Shakespeare bears witness to his wide repute by a mention of him in The Merchant of Venice. The prince of Morocco swears (11. i. 24-6) : ' By this scimitar — That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince That won three fields of Sultan Solyman! '- John Davies of Hereford in Scourge of Folly, which was probably published before 1611. 448 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA previous century left Glasgow University to travel abroad. On his return home in 1603 he entered the service of James of Scotland, then newly king of England, and published a tragedy of Darfiis on the strict classical model. There followed in rapid succession three similar compositions: the tragedy of Croesus, kiiig nf Lydia, the A lexajidrean Tragedy, which dealt with the struggle among Alexander's generals for Alexander's crown after his death, and finally the tragedy oi Jnlhis Caesar. The four pieces were published together in 1607 under the general title of The Monarchic ke Tragedies. All but one of the plays had French precedents. No French writer seems previously to have dealt with the story of Croesus. The fate of Julius Caesar was repeatedly handled by French dramatists, and the vScottish dramatist failed to modify conspicuously the French treatment of the theme. The stories of Darius and Alexander were also thoroughly identified with the French theatre. Not only did Jacques de la Taille, one of the pioneers of classical tragedy, make his reputation by dramas on the same two heroes, but Alexandre Hardy, who tried to amend the old classical method of the French stage, dramatized both the Plutarchan topics anew early in the seventeenth century. In their treatment of Alexander the Great, Jacques de la Taille and Hard)- were content to bring Alexander's career to its close. In the plot of his Alexandrean Tragedy, the Scottish dramatist pursued the story of the conqueror's influence beyond his death. But the Scotsman's dramatic scheme shows little variation on the foreign models. His speeches are of interminable length. The choruses are in a sombre monotone, William Alexander's pen was rarely touched by the Promethean fire. None the less, his discipleship to classical tutors constituted him, in the in- dulgent view of British scholars, ' the monarch tragick of this isle,' even in the era of Shakespeare's maturest achievement. With Sir William Alexander's Moitarchicke Tragedies the effort to acclimatize classical drama in Elizabethan England practically ceased. The active champions of the irregular drama had then won their final victory. The critics acquiesced in the inevitable issue with regret. Garnier's W-EBSTER'S APOLOGY 449 failure to gain the popular ear in rLngland was held to do no credit to public taste. It was deemed inglorious that Kyd's tribute to ' tragicke Gamier — his poor Cornelia . . '. should stand naked upon every post ', should suffer popularly humi- liating neglect. ' Howsoever not respected in England,' Kyd's endeavour was in critical judgement ' excellently done '.^ Such a view was widely held. Many of the dramatists who resisted classical authority viewed their revolutionary courses with searchings of heart, and blamed the cruel necessity which compelled them to serve a perverted public opinion. Ben Jonson constantly deplored the breaches of] classical decorum, of which his colleagues and himself w^ere I guilty. He reckoned among ' the ill customs ' of the age '' dramatic infringements of unity of time, which permitted) children to grow into old men in the course of a single playJ and he ridiculed the absurd excesses of violent action within] sight of the audience, which made ' three rusty swords ' Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars.-^ John Webster, a master of the Elizabethan type of romantic-^ tragedy, whose powers were only second to those of Shake- speare, was even franker in his comment on the same text.^i When publishing in 161 2 his White Devil, a typical Eliza- j bethan tragedy of lawdess romantic passion, A\^ebster sadly » acknowledges that it ' is no true dramatic poem '. But he \ explained that he had broken classical laws knowingly, and attributed his default to the ignorance of the play-goer. ' Willingly and not ignorantly in this kind have I faulted ; for should a man present to such an auditory the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, observing all the critical laws, as height of style and gravity of persons, inrich it with the sententious chorus, and as it were, life in death in the passionate and weighty nuntius ; yet after all this divine rapture, ' O dura ^ William Gierke's Poliinanteia, 1595- ^ With significant irony Jonson describes the innovation of diversity of place. ' How comes it,' asks a character in Every Man out of his Humour {\l<^<^), ' How comes it then, that in some one play we see su many seas, countries, and kingdoms passed over with such admiralile dexterity ? ' The answer is : ' O that but shows how well the authors can travel in their vocation, and outrun the apprehension of their auditory.' G g 450 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA messorum ilia,' the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to poison it ; and ere it be acted, let the author resolve to fix to every scene this of Horace — Haec hodie porcis comedenda relinques.' Gamier, throughout the Elizabethan and Jacobean era, enjoyed the critics' reverence, and was even credited with a truthfulness and vivacity which were superior to that discernible in the irregular Elizabethan drama. At the very close of the great period of English drama the poet William Browne, in his Bintannias Pastorals^ ascribed to Garnier's ' buskined muse' capacity to 'infuse the spirit of life' into the 'very stones '. The verdict is of more archaeological than aesthetic interest, but it is a significant tribute. XII Conclusion William Browne wrote when Shakespeare's professional career was just ended, when, save in the complacent language of courtesy. Gamier had finally lost his place of predominance in the world of dramatic art. It does not fall within the limits of the present study to describe those pre-eminent features of Shakespearean or Elizabethan drama which lay beyond the scope of French influence. There is nothing in the labours of the French dramatists of the sixteenth century which is com- parable with Shakespeare's subtle portrayal of character, with his universal survey of life, with his all-embracing humour, or with his magical command of language. There is little or nothing in the French theatre of Shakespeare's own or the pre- ceding generations to account for these dazzling radiations of English dramatic genius. We are here only concerned with the humbler constituent elements of English drama which owed support and suggestion to France, more especially while the Elizabethan movement was in the stage of experiment and on the road to its apotheosis. It is clear that within these limits active help and passive suggestion were real and substantial. It is in the themes of tragedy and comedy that the closest TH]": CHORIC in.KMENT IN SHAKKSPEARE 451 bonds of union between the dramatic work of the two countries are visible. Chronolog-y leaves small doubt that this resem- blance of topic is a debt on the part of the English movement to the Erench. The Elizabethan theatre's impatience of classical restraint never diminished the demand for plots which had served in Erance the purposes of classical tragedy. It was no small benefit to I'Llizabethan dramatists first to learn from Erench tutors how adaptable Plutarch's Lives were to the con- temporary stage. Each of ^Shakespeare s great Roman plays, Julius Caesar, A ntouy and Cleopatra, and Coriolamts, had its precedent in a Erench tragedy which had lately been fashioned out of Amyot's standard Erench version of the Greek biographies. Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra repeatedly figured on the tragic stage of Renaissance Erance, and were among the best- applauded dramatis personae. Coriolanus was a new-comer and a less familiar visitor to the PVench dramatic arena, but he was there before vShakespeare introduced him to his own clients. In spite of the popular demand for dramatic licence in Erance through the Renaissance era, the classical conventions of drama were powerfully supported there, and well held their own. The breach which Elizabethan drama contrived with the old tradition was for the most part bold and complete. Yet the English dramatists viewed their revolutionary conduct wath small exultation, and remained loyal to much subsidiary machinery of the old regime. The choric element, which survives in Shakespearean drama in a modified form, seems to reflect influences issuing from the classical reaction of his day in his own country, — a reaction which flowed directly from Garnier's predominance in the Erench theatre. Daniel, the most powerful and active of the reactionaries, laid stress on the importance of the Chorus to the due exposition of tragic motive : We, as the Chorus of the vulgar, stand \ Spectators here, to see these great men play j Their parts both of obedience and command, ; And censure all they do, and all they say. Gg2 452 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Such comment helps to explain the manifest reluctance with which the great Elizabethan dramatists of the irregular school parted with the chorus. The tragic chorus, which was so conspicuous a feature of classical tragedy, was indeed never rejected with the same completeness as the classical rule of unity and statuesque declamation. Traces of the Chorus are widely distributed over the Elizabethan drama, and are promi- nent survivals of the classical form in both Marlowe and Shake- speare. Not only did Shakespeare occasionally introduce choric prologues on which, as in Henry V, he lavished freely his lyric gift, but in some of his tragedies he allots choric functions to subsidiary characters. The choric note of inde- pendent exegesis is plainly sounded in some speeches of Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, and when Shakespeare's tragic power was at its zenith — in his two Roman plays of Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolamts — he fully invests with the choric oflfice the character of Enobarbus in the one case and that of Menenius Agrippa in the other. In his own original way Shakespeare pays weighty tribute to the worth of the ancient choric formula, and implicitly adopts Daniel's estimate of its purpose. Nor, again, did vShakespeare, in spite of his accep- tance of the new dramatic principle of scenic presentation of violent crime, exclude altogether the classic method of the ' nuntius ' or ' reporter ' of acts of death and outrage. The descriptive reports of the murder of the princes in the Tower in Richard ///and of Ophelia's death by drowning in Hamlet recall the speeches of messengers in classical tragedy. It was not only the classical themes which had already inspired tragedy in the French theatres that figured anew in Shakespearean drama. The adapters of French history to the uses of the French stage had before Shakespeare's day dealt with the pathetic episode of Joan of Arc's exploit in the war with England. The Maid of Orleans was more than once an honoured heroine of French tragedy, and her associa- tion with the French theatre is not likely to have escaped the attention of Shakespeare's coadjutor, who treated her with scant courtesy in / Henry VI. The foundations of Shakespeare's earliest comedy, his satiric Love's Labour 's CONCLUSION 453 Lost, were openly laid on French soil. Nor in those paths of dramatic romance which Shakespeare's genius illumined with its own incomparable light can he be often reckoned a l)ioneer. Not only had the fortunes of Romeo and Juliet been during Shakespeare's youth adapted from the Italian story to purposes of romantic tragedy in France, but the Italian fables of his two romantic comedies, The Tiuo Genileinen of Verona and Tivel/th Night, had suffered the like fate across the l^nglish channel. The French dramatic endeavour, as we have seen, was very often an Italian inspiration, and Italy must share with France the glory of guiding Shakespeare's steps. Like both romantic and comic intrigue, comic pedantry was a foreign importation on the Elizabethan stage, which came from Italy, chiefly through France. When all the circum- stances of Elizabethan England's relations wath the culture of the continent of F^urope are carefully weighed, when the French tendency to assimilate Italian example and the Eng- lish tendency to assimilate French example are each fairly estimated, the pretensions of France to instruct Elizabethan dramatists in the dramatic efforts of Italy as well as in those of her own people cannot be lightly dismissed. In the study of the causes and the origins of English literature in the sixteenth century it must always be borne in mind that France stimulated F^ngland's intellectual energy in two ways— by imparting her own knowledge, ideas, and example, and by imparting the knowledge, ideas, and example which she herself derived from Greece and ancient and modern Italy. England benefited not merely by the original inven- tions of literary France, but by the French power of absorb- ing the spirit and forms of Greek, Latin, and Italian Hterature. Much came to Elizabethan England from Italy direct. Italy may well claim to have introduced the first English humanists, Linacre and Colet, to an intelligent study of the classics. Elizabethan men and women of culture were well read in Italian poetry and prose. Yet it was the F>ench habit of translation, of which England took every advantage, that must be credited with making the subject-matter of Greek and Latin literature current coin of English thought and 454 FRANCE AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA expression, while only slightly smaller was the service which Frenchmen rendered the general Elizabethan public by their interpretation of Italian literature. In poetry the Erench influence is imposing. The Pleiade may almost be said to have taught the Elizabethan lyrists their trade. Much of the imagery and metre which is often regarded as most characteristically Elizabethan reflects the Anacreontic vein of Ronsard's school. Not merely did French metres attract the English poets, but welcome was extended to French phraseology of classical flavour, like compound epithets, and to the accepted French terminology of the poetic art. Nor was secular verse alone affected. Huguenot example was a moving cause of the sacred poetry, including the sacred epic, of both the Elizabethan and Jacobean epoch. If Germany was first to instruct Tudor England in Pro- testant theology, France gave her the doctrine of Calvin, and presented it in language of so logical a precision that serious English prose caught thence a new coherence. In recreative prose the chief French gift to Elizabethan England was the essay. In drama the Elizabethan spirit winged a flight beyond the range of France, but even there French suggestion first disclosed the dramatic potentialities of Plu- tarch's Lives and the primary conception of tragi-comedy or dramatic romance. The English genius had no lack of robustness or originality ; above all, it never lacked passion ; but it worked early in the sixteenth century sluggishly and fitfully. It acquired the agility and facility, which spurred it forward to its Elizabethan triumphs, largely from its intellectual and social commerce with its more precocious and vivacious neighbour overseas. Thereby the Englishman's assimilative instinct was quickened to beneficent and enduring purpose. None who compare the two literatures are likely to question the justice of the conclusion that a knowledge of the literary activity of contemporary P"rance is essential to a sound conception or estimate of the literary forces at work in England throughout the period of the Tudor sovereigns' rule, from the accession of King Henry VII to the death of Queen Elizabeth, and even through the generation beyond. APPENDIX I ADDITIONAL SPECIMENS OF ELIZABETHAN POETRY, WHICH ARE BORROWED WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGE- MENT FROM CONTEMPORARY FRENCH SOURCES In order to give the reader further opportunities than space allowed in Book IV of studying the Elizabethan method of direct and unavowed transference from French poetry of the Pleiade School, I print here in full in parallel columns seven illustrative French and English poems. Two of the five French poems are by Ronsard, three by Desportes, one by Du Bellay, and one by Jean Passerat. The Elizabethan renderings of Ronsard and Desportes, of each of which I have cited a single stanza in the text, are by Thomas Lodge ; Daniel is the literal adapter of Du Bellay and Drummond of Haw- thornden of Passerat. It would be easy greatly to expand this section, but my purpose is confined to a general cor- roboration by concrete evidence of my allegation that much representative Elizabethan poetry was nothing more than a more or less literal reproduction of current French poetry. I. RONSARD,Cm«^,lxviii (1573) ; CEiivres, ed. Michiels, p. 40. Ma nef passe au destroit d'une mer courroucee, Toute comble d'oubly, Thiver a la minuict ; Un aveugle, un enfant, sans souci la conduit Desireux de la voir sous les eaux renversee. Elie a pour chaque ranie une longue pensee Coupant,au lieu de I'eau, I'esperance qui fuit ; Les vents de mes soupirs, efifroyables de bruit, Ont arrache la voile a leur plaisir poussee. De pleurs une grand'pluie, et I'humide nuage Des dedains orageux detendent le cordage, Retors des propres mains d'igno- rance et d'erreur. De mes astres luisans la flamme est retiree. L'art est vaincu du temps, du bruit et de I'horreur. Las I puis-je done rien voir que ma perte asseuree ? Lodge, Verses from Rosalynde, 1590; Sonetto by Phoebe (1819 ed., p. 103). My boat doth pass the straits Of seas incensed with fire. Filled with forgetfuiness ; Amid the winter's night, A blind and careless boy, Brought up by fond desire. Doth guide me in the sea Of sorrow and despite. For every oar he sets A rank of foolish thoughts. And cuts, instead of wave, A hope without distress : The winds of my deep sighs That thunder still for noughts Have split my sails with fear With care and heaviness. A mighty storm of tears, A black and hideous cloud, A thousand fierce disdains Do slack the halyards oft : Till ignorance do pull. And error hale the shrouds. No star for safety shines. No Phoebe from aloft. Time hath subdued art, and joy is slave to woe : Alas Love's Guide, be kind, what shall I perish so ? 45 '^- 3> 322 ; friend of Gabriel Harvey, 321 «, Boleyn, Anne, 32, 39, 44. Bonnefons, Jean, 468 seq. Bourbon, Charles de : claim to French crown, 295 ; death of, 297. Bourbon, Nicolas, 44, 46. Brach, Pierre de, 172 ; letter to Anthony Bacon on Montaigne's death, 173 and n. Branlome, Pierre de Bourdeilles, AJjbe de, 39, 41 «., 292. Braun, Georgius, 56 «. Brazil, French explorations in, 7 ; Huguenots in, 305. Bretog, Jean, 407. Breton, Nicholas : debt to Du Bartas, 350-1. Browne, Sir Thomas, and Rabelais, 164. Browne, William : praise of Du Bartas, 347 j praise of Gamier, 450. Brutus, Stephanus Junius, pseudonym : see Du Plessis-Marly. Buchanan, George, 226, n. 2 ; his Latin tragedies of Jephthes and Baptistes, 382, 397-8; praised by Sidney, 443. Budaeus, see Bud^, Guillaume. Bud^ (Budaeus), Guillaume, 17, 68, 70, 72, 73 and n., 80, 160 ; his Lnsti- ttUion du Prince, 69 and n. ; his Comnientarii linguae Graecae, 69 ; elegies on, 70 w. ; correspondent of Rabelais, 160. Burbage, James, 380. Burghley, Lord, sec Cecil. Burke, Edmund, 195. liyron, Lord : lines on Montaigne's scepticism, i6Sm. ; 201. C. , E. : his Emaricdulfe, 256 n. Calais, loss of: celebrated in French poetry, 29 seq., 34, 35. INDEX 481 Calderon, dc la Barca, 359. Call of the ll\-sf, the, 8 n. Calvin, John : read by Margaret of Navarre, 25; his doctrine, 27, 300; condemned by Ramus, 325 ; his hu- manism. 28 ; his logical style, 65, 308 ; his influence on Hooker, 138; as prose writer, 139, 178-9 ; the Genevan liible, 144; his career, 145-51 ; his Instiltition ChitUifiiiie, \^z^-G ; trans- lated into English, 1 48 ^fi/.; Calvinism and humanism, 285-7; see also 70;/., 140, 159, 305, 323, 339. Cambridge University Press, 85. Camden, William, 10, 48, 49 n., 77, 304- Campion, Thomas, 238. Canada, French colonization of, 7. Carew, Richard, lo, 48. Cartier, Jacques, 8. Cary, Henry Francis, ix. Casaubon, Isaac, 304. Castel, Etienne, 93. Castel, Jean, 93. Catherine of Arragon, 103. Cato the Censor, 291. Caxton, William, 78, 83-6, 89-97, 103 71., ui, 134-5. Cecil, Sir Robert : friendly to Hugue- nots, 301. Cecil, Sir William : Lord Burghley praised by Ronsard, 36, 192, 193, Jt. i ; see also 57, 309. Cellini, Benvenuto, 22. Chamberlain, John, 51. Champ-Fleury, 83 and n. Champlain, Samuel, 8. Chapman, George, translation of Mu- saeus, 112; his protest against classi- cism, 238-9 ; translator of Homer, 348 and«.2;hisactivity,2o7-8; his tragedies on current French history, 435-8 ; his Philip Chabol, 436 ; Biissy d'Amboise, 436 ; Revenge of Btissy iV Amhoise, 436; Birons Conspiracy and Biron's Tragedy, 436 and 437 n. ; his Monsieur d' Olive and A Hnniorous Day's Mirth, 436 n. ; his plagiarism from Gilles Durant, 230-1 and Appendix II, 465- 77; his Quids Banquet of Seine : its publication and bibliography, 465 ; description of work, 466-7 ; his servile plagiarism, 468 ; his Amorous Zodiacke, a translation of Durant's Le Zodiac Ainoureux: printed in parallel columns, 469-77. Charlanne, Louis, viii. Charlemagne, 15. Charletnagtte, The Life of, Spenser, Drayton, Lodge, and Browne, 347 ; Ben Jonson's criticism, 347-8 ; Dryden, 349 ; Wordsworth's criticism, 349 ; influence on Spenser, 349-50 ; Hall's praise, 350; Drayton, 351; Nicholas Breton, 351 ; Sir John Davies and John Davies of Hereford, 351 ; Donne, 351-4 ; Phineas Fletcher, 355 ; Milton, 355 ; wounded at Ivry, 343 ; see also 9«., 172, 245 «., 246, 286, 391. Du Bellay, Jean, Cardinal, 160. Du Bellay, Joachim : on the loss of Calais, 34 ; praise of Mary Queen of Scots, 41 ; praise of Alamanni, 119; h.\% Deffetise et Illustration, 187-9; his Les Antiquities de Rome, 200; Les Be- grets, 200 ; his sonnets, 202 ; influence m England, 210-15, 253-6 ; Spenser's praise, 211; influence on Spenser : The Visions of Bellay and The Ruines of Rome, 214-15; Amoretti, 263 n. ; his octosyllabic metre, 240 ; resemblances in Drayton, 242; Sidney's debt, 257; I Daniel's debt, 258-9, App. I, 462 ; on i 2 484 INDEX the immortality of poets, 277-9; his views on the drama, 383 and n. ; see also 199, 286, 334, 431. Dumain, see Mayenne. Du Mans, Jacques Peletier, 43, 11. 2. Dii Moulin, Pierre, 303. Dunster, Charles : on Milton, 3.^5 n. Du Perron, Cardinal Jacques : eulogy of Ronsard, 194-5 ; condemns Baif's metrical innovations, 239, n. i ; pane- gyric on Henry of Navarre, 297. Du Plessis, Philippe de Mornay, sei- gneur du Plessis-Marly, 38, 311-13; welcomed in England, 311, 343; friend of Sidney, 312; contributions to devotional literature, 312-13 ; praised by Du Bartas, 312-13; by James Howell, 313; ' Pope of Huguenots,' 313; his Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, 316-17, 319: in English translation, 317; burnt at Cambridge, 320; his lucid style, 328. Durant, Gilles : debt of Chapman to : Appendix II, 465-77; his Le zodiac ai/ioureux, its publication, 467 ; his other poetic work, 467-8 ; see also 207, 225, 231. Durer, Albrecht, 58. Edward I\' of England, 93. Edward VI, 37, 49, 59, 88, no, 300. Elizabeth, Queen : her linguistic faculty, 9 and n. ; her French wooers, 38-9, 183 w., 295, 436; her Mirror of the Sinftd Soul, 39, 129; Ronsard's praise of, 39, 192 and n. ; her French music- ians, 55 and n. ; Catholic attacks on, 319-20; heroine of French drama, 370 ; Grevin's praise of, 391-2 ; pro- tagonist in L'Escossaise, 406 ; see also 31-2, 35, 57, 294, 309, 437, 446 and n. 2. Elyot, Sir Thomas, 52, 70; his Gover- 7iour, 52, 130, 137. Enfant s sans Souci, Les; 5^£ Theatre in France. Erasmus : friendship with Colet and More, 68-73 > ^^^ ^l^'^ 79) i ' 2, 269 n. Essays : use of word by Bacon, 171. Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 297, ,437 "•) 446 and «. 2. Etaples, see Lefevre. Etienne, Charles, 392, n. 2, Etienne, Henri, 28, 315 ; refugee at Edward VPs court, 37, 304; his pub- lication of Anacreon, 196-7; his Pr^- celknce du langage franfois, 209, 246- 7 ; on compound epithets, 248. Etiennes, The, 17, 28, 82, S3, 89, 286. Euripides, 347, 418, 427-8. Faber Stapulensis, see Lefevre. Fairfax, Lord : indebtedness, to Aubign^, 372 and «. ; to St. Amant and Mal- herbe, 333 n. Faquet, Edmund, 3S4 ;;. Fauquemberge, et de Courtenay, Le Comte de, Jodelle's patron, 269-72. Fell, Dr. John, 88. Ferrabosco, musician, 55. Ferrara, Duchess of, 1 1 3. P'iggis, J. N., his Political thought from Gerson to Grotius, 319 «. Flamini, Francesco, 117 n., 118, ;/. 2. Fletcher, Giles, 256;;. Fletcher, John, 359. Fletcher, Phineas, debt to Du Bartas, 355- Florida : French colonization of, 7 ; Huguenots in, 305. Florio, John : his translation of Mon- taigne's Essays, 170-1, 175, 343 «. ; his IFor/d of IVords, 170. Fontainebleau, 22, 25, 32, no. Fo.xe, John, 89. Franciade, La, 403. Francis I, 17, 21, 22, 29, 38, 82, 98, no, 114, 116, 118-20, 140, 145, 152, 300, 313, 436. Francis II, 22. Fraunce, Abraham : his Victoria, adapted from Pasqualigo, 421 and n. i. Freewyl, A certaine tragedie etiiitnled, Italian and, French versions, 441. Fremy, M. Edouard. 23;;. French actors in England, 372 and «. 3; travelling companies in France and Germany, 378-9. French cookery, 50- I. French dancing, 52-3. French fencers, 51-2. French grammars, 46- 7 ; in England, 76 seq. French printing presses, 80 seq. French wines, 51. Frobisher, Martin, 7. Froissart, 14-15, 95-6. (jaguin, Robert, 102. Galen, 68. Gammer Gurtons Needle, 36S, Garamond, Claude, 87. Gargantua, his Prophecie, i6r. Garnier, Robert, 393-9 ; his lyric power, 394 ; Ronsard's and Baifs praise, 395 ; his recensions of Seneca, Hippolyte, La Troade, Antigone, 395 ; his Porcie and CornJlie, 395,428 ; his Ma/x Antoine, 395-7 ; compared with Shakespeare's, 397 ; influence on Daniel's Cleopatra, INDEX 485 444-5 and ;/. ; his Sc'iitfiif , 397 8 ; his Bradaniautc, 398-9 ; its debt to Ariosto, 398 ; the Corneille of the Renaissance, 405 ; champion of clas- sical drama, 394, 400, 403, 417, 443, 451; his Knglisli discijiles: Countess of Tenihroke, Kyd. and Daniel, 443 scq. ; his neglect in England, 448-9 ; Elizabethan reverence of, 450 ; praised by William Browne, 450. Gascoigne, George : inaugurates comedy in England, 419; his Supposes; trans- lation of Ariosto's Gli Suppositi, 420 ; influence on Shakespeare, 420 ; his Ccrtayne Notes of Instruction, 122; 264 and «., 420 ; his Posies, 1S4 and ;/., ))ioneer of English tragedy, 427; his Joeasla, adaptation of Dolce's version of Euripides' Fhoenissae, 428 ; obeys classical canons, 428; see also 122, 184 and «., 264 and )i. Gaston de Foix, 403. Gaulois, L esprit, i^set/. Geneva Psalter, 310. Gentillet, Innocent : refutes Machiavel- lian doctrines, 318; in English trans- lation, 318, 320. Gerrard, George, 352,'/. i. Gerrard, Mark, 57. Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 7. Giotto, 4. Godard, Jean : his Les Desguiscz and its English version, 420//. Goddard, William: h.\s Satyricall Dia- logue, 276 «. Goethe, 339. Golding, Arthur, 149, 150, 221, 312. Gorboduc: first English tragedy, 427-8, 445- Gosson, Stephen, 360 and n. Goudimel, Claude, 28. Gouge, William ; student of Ramus, 327, n. 2. Goujon, Jean, 5, 28. Goulart, Simon, 150 and n. 2, 339 ; his summary of Du Bartas, 347, ;/. i. Gournay, Mile, de, 169. Gower, John, 107. Grant, Edward, 77. Greece, conquered by the Turks, 201. Greek type in France, 87 ; in England, 87, 88 and n. Greene, Robert, 136, 150;/. ; his use of French, 243 and n. 2, 244; debt to Louise Lab^, 374-5 ; his Pandosto, 414. Gregory Smith, Prof. G., 156;/. Greville, Fulke, 256 «., 312, 343 «., 443 seq, ; his tragedy on Cleopatra, 446 ; his loyalty to classical form, 446-7 ; his Mustaplta, La Soltanc, Alahain, 447 ; contemporary praise of, 447. (ircvin, Jacques, 2S6, received by Queen Elizabeth in l^ngland, 391 ; praises her linguistic powers, 9 n., 392 ; his I.a Trhoritre and Les Jisbahis ; debt to Jodelle and Charles Etienne, 392 and ;/. 2 ; his tragedy of Char, 392-3, 395 ; compared with Shakespeare's, 393- Gresham, Sir Thomas, 56. Griffin, Bartholomew, 256 n, Grindal, Edmund, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 147. Gringoire, Pierre, 98-100; his Chdteau de Labour translated by Barclay, 100, loi, 108; his dramatic work, 369-70, 413; actor and manager of I^es Enfant s, 378. Grolier, Jean, 28, 29. Gruter, Jean, 34, n. 3. Guarini, Giovanni Battista, 5, 210; his I\istor Fido, 174 «., 269 ;/., 441-2. Guevara, Antonio di, 156. Guicciardini, Francesco, 4. Guilleville, Guillaume de, 103 and n. Guise, Fran9ois, Due de, 294, 404, 433. Ciuise, Marie de, 41. Guise, The, 435. Guises, The, 293 seq. ; death of, 296, 433; tragedies on by Marlowe, Dray- ton, Dekker, Henry Shirley, Webster, Dryden, and Lee, 435. Guisiaiie, La, 435. Guysien, L.e, 404, 435. Hakluyt, Richard, 7, 194 ; account of Huguenot colonial discoveries, 306 ; admirer of Ramus, 328 and n. I. Hall, Joseph, 16 n.; on Rabelais, 161 ; on compound epithets, 247 and n. 2 ; on Du Bartas, 350, 352. Hallam, Henry, 140 ;/. Hardy, Alexandre : parallel with Shakespeare's career, 413; his versa- tility, 413; his tragedies, 413 seq.; use of classical themes, 414, 448 ; his Alariamne, 414; his tragi-comedies, 414; Ft'listnene : its debt to Monte- mayor's Diana, 414 ; I^andoste : debt to Greene, 414 ; his Coriolan and French adaptations, 415 ; his dramatic outinil, 415 ; his influence, 415-16. Harington, Sir John, on Rabelais, 161. Harrison, William, 50, «. 2, 51, «. 2. Harvey, Gabriel, 61 and n.; praise of Amyot, 156 and n. ; advocacy of clas- 486 INDEX sical prosody, 238; on Rabelais, 161, 163; friend of Bodin, 321 n. ; admirer of Ramus, 326 ; admirer of Dii Bartas, 346-7- Hatzfeld, Adolphc, vii. Hawes, Steplicn, 100-2 ; his work and metres, 107-9. Hebcr, Richard, 213 «. Heine, 326. Heliodorus, 152-3. Henry IV of lingland, 93. Henry VH, 31, 44, 372 and n. 3. Henry VHI, 6, 31-2, 44, 55-7/78, 95- '02-3, 130, 370, 374. Henry, Prince, son of James I, 344. Henry H of France, 22, no, 152, 385, 387. Henry HI of Prance, 22, 23,38, 53, «. 3, 152, 156, 295-6, 319, 3S4, 404, 439 and n. Henry IV of France (Henry of Navarre), 22-4, 53, ;/. 3, 319, 404; his study of Plutarch, 155-6 ; his culture, 286 ; his leadership of the Huguenots, 295 seq. ; becomes a Catholic, 297, 299 ; crowned king, 297 ; friendship of Aubigne, 329-30, 332 ; James I's correspondence with, 341, 406; at Ivry, 343; his interest in drama, 384 ; hero of drama, 433, 435-6- Henslowe, Philip, 11, 420 «., 434-5. Herball, The Crete, 96. Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, 241 n. Hcrbier, Le Grand, 96. Heroet, Antoine, 114 and «. Herrick, Robert, 211. Heywood, John, 98, 107 ; his interludes, 372 56'^.; French influence on, 372, «. i; his Four P's and Merry Play between the Pardonner and the Frere, 372 ; their French prototypes, 373; Merry Play betiueen /ohan the Husba7tde, Tyb the wife, &c., and its French parallel, 373; his dialogue of wit and folly, 374; his metre, 374; comic element, 374 ; his successors, 375. Holbein, 56, 57. Holinshed, Raphael, 88. Holy-band, see De-saint-liens, Claude. Homer, 186, 194, 286, 334, 348. Hooker, Richard, 20, 138, 148 «.,i50-i ; 159' 327- Hopkins, John, 113. Horace, 210, 215-16, 241, 242 and n., 331. 352 ; on the immortality of verse, 276-7. Hotel de Pourgogne, see Theatre in France. Hotel des Villes Ilanseatiques, 56. Hotman, Francis, 315 17, 320, 339 ; his Franco Gallia : in Latin, 316 ; in French translation, 316. Howard, Sir Edward, 100. Howard, Henry, see Surrey, Earl of. Howell, James, his Instructions for Forreine Travell, 24 «., 43, 313, 332. Hudson, Thomas, translator of Du }ia.T\.a.s^?,Jiidith, 340. Hugo, Victor, 25, 133, 331, 339, 359. Huguenot Society Publications : see 301, n. 1. Huguenots, The Message of the : see Book V, 285-355. Huon of Bordeaux, 95, 96. I mi tat to Christi, 129. Imitation, Renaissance theory of, 249 seq.; Pultenham, and Montaigne, and Dryden on the plagiaristic tendency, 250; iinitatio and its divisions; Ben Jonson's definition, 251 ; Ascham's treatment of, 251 n.; Johann Sturm's work on, 251 //.; Scaliger's maxim, 252 ; Vida's view of, 252, «. 3. Immortality of verse, Poet's vaunt of, 276-81. Interlude, see Heywood and Drama. Italian acting companies in France, 410. Ivry, Huguenot victory at, 297. James I of England (James VI of Scot- land) ; his culture, 41 ; patron of Florio, 170; attitude to Huguenot opinion, 320 ; admirer and friend of Du Bartas, 340-2; translates VUranie, 340 ; letter of invitation to Du Bartas, 341 n. ; his protection of Montchretien, 406 ; see 57 and 448. James I of Scotland, 40, 41. James IV of Scotland, 372. James V of Scotland, 41, 57. James VI of Scotland, see James I of England. Jamyn, Amadis, 219, 26S and n., 273. Jarnac, Battle of, 294. Jebb, Sir Richard, iS. Jenye, Thomas, 213 and «., 214. Joan of Arc, 93, 452. Jodelle, Etienne, member of the Pl^iade, 1S8-9, 206; his satire on L'Hopilal, 292 ; sonnets to a noble patron and comparison with Shakespeare, 269-72, 274, 275, ;/. I ; as dramatist, 384-92 ; his Eugene, 3S5 ; j)raised by Baif and Ronsard, 3S5 ; his alleged atheism and comparison with Marlowe, 385, 430-1 ; his Cleopdtre, 3S6-9, 428 ; compared with Shakespeare's treat- INDEX 4«7 ment of the topic, 3S7 ; his treatment of the unities, ^SS-y ; versification, 389 ; his treatment of comedy, 3X9 ; Eugi-ne, 389-90 ; his Didon, 390, 432 ; Marlowe's debt, 432 ; his imitators in Prance, 391 scq., 396 /. Johnson, VV., 354 n. Joinville, Jean, Sieur do, 96. Jones, Inigo, 57. Jonson, lien, on Montaigne, 174; his I'cHiis's Riiiuvivay, 219; use of 'In Memoriam ' stanza, 241 n. ; his defini- tion of poetry, 251-2 ; criticism of Du Bartas, 347 8 ; criticism of Shake- speare, 3S6 ; his character study, 412; breach of the dramatic unities, 449 and w. 2. Joseph h Chaste, 402. Journal du Theatre frattfais, Le, 384 «. Julius II, Pope, 370. Jusserand, J, J., vii, viii. Juvenal, 81, 331, 352. Kalcndriey dcs Bergiers, Le, 185, Kastner, Prof. L. E., 118, «. 2 ; his work on French versification, 204 n. ; on English indebtedness to French poets, 235 «., 258,;/. I, 464;;. Kendall, Timothe, his Floivers of Epi- gravimcs quoted, 70 n. Ker, Prof. W. P., on Rabelais, 75 n. Keyser, Martin de, 141-2. Knolles, Richard, 40;/. Kyd, Thomas: rendering of Garnier's Cornilie, 444-5, 449; his admiration for Gamier, 444-6. Lab^, Louise (La belle Cordiere) : in- fluence on Robert Greene, 374-5. La Fontaine, Jean de, 113. La Gambe, Cosme (Chasteau-Vieux), 439> «• 3- Lamb, Charles, 175. Lambarde, William, 59. Laneham, Robert: his Letter, 52, «. 2, 94 «. Lang, Andrew, x. Lanier, Jean, musician, 55 and n. Lanier, Nicolas, musician, 55 n. Lanson, Gustave, vii. Larivey, Pierre de : his comedies, 410 seq.\ debt to Italy, 411, 421-7; his Les Trompen'es drawn from Secchi's Lyigaiini, 411 ; use of prose, 411 ; his translation of Straparola, 411 ;/. ; his Esprits, a forerunner of Moliere's £icole des Maris, 412; his character study, 412; combination of classical and popular drama, 412; his Zp Fidelle and Pas(Hialigo's II Fedele, 421-3 ; his Lc J.aquais and Dolce's Kagazzo, 424 ; resemblances to, in Shakespeare's comedies, 422-7. La Rochelle : Huguenot stronghold, 302-3 ; siege of, 295. Lasso, Orlando di, 54, n. i. Laudonniere, Rene de, 305-6. Laumonier, Paul, biographer of Ronsard, 36, 11. I, 192 n. Launay, see Boaistuau. Le Challeux, Nicholas, 306. Lee, Natiianiel, 435., Lefevre, Jaccjues, d'Eta]ilcs : his trans- lation of the Bible, 140-3. Lc Fevre, Raoul, 84 n. Lefranc, Abel : his study of Rabelais, 74. «• I- Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 44, 192, 193, n. I, 238. Le Jars, Louis : his comedy of Lucelle, 408-10. Le Maire de Beiges, Jean, 79, 98, 100-3, 108, 120 n. Le Moine, Jacques, 306-7. L'Empereur, see Keyser. Le Roy, Adrien, 237, n. 2. Lery, Jean de, 353. L'Hopital, Michel de, 291-4; chancel- lor of France, 291 ; his tolerance, 291 ; his culture, 292 ; Ronsard's praise, 292 ; his attempts at pacification, 293-4 ; Sidney's praise, 293 ; his death, 294. Lily, William, 77. Linacre, Thomas, 6, 67, 68, 70, 77- Linche, Richard, 256 n. Lipsius, Justus, 172. Lodge, Thomas, 136, 184; tribute to Desportes, 212; debt to France, 230-4, 255-6, 257-8; translations from Desportes and Ronsard, 231-4, 242-3, 260, 261 «. ; Appendix I, 455-62, 465 ; debt to Italian poets, 261 ;/. ; praise of Du Bartas, 347 and «. 1 ; translates Goulart's commentary on Du Bartas, 347, H. 1. Longaville, 434. Longiis, 153-4. Lorraine, Cardinal of, 314. Louis XI, 40, 92, 370. Louis XII, 32, 79, 92 «., 95, 370, 374. Louis XIV, 12. Lownes, Humphrey, 355. Luther, Martin, 139, 140, 300, 309. Lupo, musician, ^c,, Lupset, Thomas, 72. Lydgate, John, 90, 103 «., 107, 123. Lyly, John, his Euthues, 135, 247, n. % '■, 488 INDEX his lyrics, 184, 21S, 2iy and )i. ; comic dialectic in his comedies, 423;/. Lyndsay, Sir David : debt to Frencii drama, 372, ;/. 3. Machiavelli, Niccolo, 415, 6, 20, 23, 156, 313, 317-19; in Elizabethan drama, 318 w. ; in Marlowe's Jew of Alalia, 318 w. Macrine (Macrinus), Jean Salmon, 115 n. Madan, F., 85 n. Madeleine, daughter of Francis I, 41. Mailre Pathelin, 368-9 and n. i, 3S9 ; story in England, 372. Malherbe, Fran9ois, 209, 210. Malory, Thomas, 91-2. Maniere de bien traduire d'liiic langite en a III res, la, 18. Mantuanus, Baptista, 426 and 7i. 2. Mapes, Walter, 467. Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, 103 n. Margaret of Navarre : her culture, 23, 141 ; her court at Nerac, 25, 1 13-14 ; her Miroii- de Fdvie pdche?-esse trans- lated by Queen Elizabeth, 39, 129; elegies on, 45 and n., 129; Les Mar- guerites de la JMargiierite la Princessc, 128; Heptameron, 128-9; debt of Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 129, 136; patronage of Amyot, 152 ; admirer of Rabelais, 160 ; Ronsard's elegy on, 205 71. ; author of ' mysteries ', 366 ; attacked on stage, 370. Margaret of Scotland, wife of Louis XI, 40, 92. Marie Antoinette, 195. Marlowe, Christopher: his Hero and Leander, 112; his Massacre at Parts and the death of Ramus, 294, 326-7, 433-5 ; introduction of Machiavelli on the stage, 318 ; his conception of tragedy, 363 ; his career compared with Jodelle's, 385-6, 430-1 ; his reforms in tragedy, 430-2 ; his Taiii- burlaine, 431 ; elevation of tragic diction, 431, 442; his Dido, 390, 432 seq. ; foreign treatment of the subject, 432 n. ; his extravagances in tragedy, 438-9 ; see also 359, 444, 465. Marot, Clement, 7, 14, 16, 25, 44, 65, loi, 129, 186 ; influence of his poetry and metres on Wyatt and Surrey, J 07, 111-13, 120, 121-6, 127; influence on Spenser, 125-6, 185, 237, 256 ;;. ; other English imitators, 184-5; l^i^ version of the Psalms, 290, 309-10 ; compared with Beza's version, 310 n. Marot, Jean, in Martial, 1 13. Marty-Laveaux, vii, ;/. i. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, 41, 192, 194, 200; subject of drama, 404; Montchretien's IJEscossaisc, 405-6. Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, 32, 78-9, 95, 374- Mary, Queen of England, 33, no, 143, 300. Mather, Richard : student of Ramus, 327- Matthieu Pierre : his La Guisiade, 435. Mayenne, Due de, 434. Medici, Catherine de', 22, 38, 183 «.; her J'ot'sies, 23 ti. ; her patronage of, Alamanni, n7-iS; of Ronsard, 192; her suppression of the Huguenots, 293-4; Huguenot attacks on, 315- 16. Medici, Lorenzo de', 22. Melin de Saint-Gelais, see Saint-Gelais. Memo, Era Dionysius, 55. Menippus of Gadara, 298 n. Meres, Francis : on Marlowe's career, 431- M^ronee, 403. Afejy Tales, &c., 372, n. 2, Messengers' speeches, 403 ; in Daniel's Philotas, 446 ; relic of, in Shakespeare, 452. Metre : English debt to French lyric metres, 101-2 ; Skeltonian metre : Skelton's use of French metres, 103 seq. ; his short lines and rhyming coup- lets, 104-7 ! his successors, 107 ; Wyatt's debt to Marot, 107 ; Hawes's seven-lined stanza, 108 ; Surrey and blank verse, no; blank verse an Italian invention, n6 ; Surrey's debt to Alamanni, 117; Wyatt's debt to Alamanni, 119-20; to Marot, 121- 2 ; rhyming schemes of sixaijts and kiiitaiits, 122; the rondeau, 123; Wyatt's debt to Marot, 1 24 ; metrical terms borrowed from France, 236-7 ; Baif's plea for 'vers mesures ', 237; introduction of classical metres into England, 237-8; Gabriel Harvey's influence, Sidney's and Spenser's ex- periments and revolt, 238 ; classicists' attack on rhyme, 238 ; Campion's, Daniel's, and Chapman's views, 238-9 ; Ronsard's and Baif's five-line rhyming stanza, 239; Drayton's and Shake- spen re's debt, 239-40; the //i A/ewor/a/n stanza : Bertaut, Du Bella)-, and Sidney, 240 ; Ben Jonson and Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 241 «. ; odes in France and England, 241-3; dramatic metre, Jo- INDEX 489 delle's, 389 ; metre of Dido, 390 ; Gar- iiier's use of the Alexandrine, 394; Miintlay's lines, 421 ; in Lady I'em- broke's Anionic, 444. Sec also under Sonnet. Meyer, Edward : on I\Iachiavclli and tin- Elizabethan Drama, 318 ;/. Michelangelo, 5, 22. Milton, 331, 339; his debt to Du Hartas, 3-io, 35? and n. I\Iiroir dc VAinc pechcrcssc, Le, 39. Mirror for Ma^i^istratcs, 348, n. 2. Moliere, 352, 368; disciple of Larivey, 41 1-12. Montaigne, Michel de : friend of An- thony Bacon, 43; his prose style, 139, 147; admirer of Plutarch, 155, 165 .f(V/., 250; fust of modern essayists, 166 ; his egotism, 166-7 ; his scepti- cism, 168 ; Essays in Kngland, 170 and n. ; Brach's account of his death, 172, 173 and ;/. ; influence on Shakespeare, 176, 177-8, 179; friend of De la Boetie, 314; as actor, 382; pupil of Buchanan, 443 ; sec also 5, 21, 44, 66, 286, 289, 319, 43S. Montchretien, Antoine de, 286, 322 ; his Traicti de F GLconoinie Politique, 323; invents term 'Political Economy', 406 ; his VEscossaisse, 405-6 ; loyal to classical canons, 405, 412; the Racine of the Renaissance, 405 ; his lyric feeling, 405 ; his Sophonishe and Les Lacaies, 406 ; his death, 406 ; his David, on I ' Adultf-rc, 440. Montemayor, George: his Diana, ^1^, 422, n. I. Montgomerie, Alexander, 256 n. Montjoy, Christopher, 302 «. Mornay, sec Du Plessis. Mouhy, Chevalier de, 384;;. Mountjoy, William Blount, Lord, 71. More, Sir Antonio, 57. More, Sir Thomas : epigram on, 44 ; satire on English imitation of French fashions, 48 and w., 49-50 ; his culture, 67-8, 79, 80; satirized by Skelton, 106; Brantome on, 292; Du Bartas on, 342 and n. 2 ; his Utopia, 66, 71-7, 79-80 ; French translation, 73 and n. ; see also 6, 93. 159. Morley, Prof. Henry, ix. Morley, Thomas, 237, ;/. 2. Morte d'' Arthur, 91-2. Moryson, Fynes, 50,?/. 2,5i,«.3,59,«.2. Moschus, influence in France and Eng- land, 219. Muflet, Thomas, 245 n. Munday, Anthony : his Two Italian Clcntleinen, adapted from Pasqualigo, 421 and n. i, 422-3. Murct, Marc Antoine, 382, 392. Musaeus, 1 1 2. Music : renaissance music, 54-5; nffinity of, with poetry, 190; Ronsard and Shakespeare on, 228-9. Mussato, Albertino, 381 ?t. Musset, Alfred de, 92. Mustard, Wilfrid P., 100. Nantes, Edict of, 299; its revocation, 300. Napoleon III, 80 n. Nashe, Thomas : satire on English imi- tation of the French, 50 and n. i ; his Jack IVilton, 135 ; his praise of Gold- ing, 150; debt to Rabelais, 163-5; demand for 'compound words', 247; on the eternizing power of poetry, 279 ; praise of Sidney, 342, w. 2 ; see also 321 n. Navagero, 199. Navarre, Henry of, see Henry IV of France. Navarre, Margaret of, see Margaret of Navarre. Niccols, Richard, 348, ;/. 2. Nonesuch Palace, 32, 56. Norris, Sir Henry, 213. North, Roger, second baron, 156. North, Sir Thomas, 138 ; translation of Plutarch's Zztw, 156-8, 157 «., 170. Norton, Thomas : translates Calvin's Institution Chretienne, 1 48-9. See also Gorbodtic. Old Hundredth, The, 310-11. Olivetan, Pierre Robert : his version of the Bible, 141-5. Ovid: Metamorphoses, 112, 150, 221, 312; his view of the immortality of verse, 276-7. Oxford, Edward de Vere, Earl of, 227. Oxford University Press, 85. Painter, William : his Palace of Plea- sure, its debt to Margaret of Navarre's Heptameron, 129, 135. Palissy, Bernard, 28. Palladio, 57. Palsgrave, John, V Esclarcissemcnl de la languc francoise, 47, 78 seq. ; reprint, 8g ft., 95, 98. Paolo Veronese, 5. Paradin, Guillaume : on the loss of Calais, 34, n. 3. Paris, Martial de i^Martial d'Auvergne), 104, 105. 490 INDEX Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Can- terbury : friendly to Huguenots, 300-2. Parma, Alexander of, 297. Parsons, Robert, 320. Paschale, Lodovico, 261 n. Pasqualigo, Luigi ; his // Fede/e, in- fluence in^Frnnce and England, 421-3. Pasquier, Elienne, 43, 44 and «., 92 n. ; his criticism of Ronsard, 185 ; of Maitre Pathclin, 369. Passerat, jean, 207 ; adaptations from, by Drummond of Hawthornden, 234- 6 ; Appendix I, 463-4. Pater, Walter, ix, 199. Patrick, Simon, 318. Pattison, Mark -. ix ; on Joseph Scaliger, 304- Peele, George : his David and Beth- sabe and French counterparts, 440. Pembroke, Mary Herbert, Countess of, 312 ; leader of classical reaction, 443 ; her Tragedie of Antonic, 444-5. Pepvvell, Henry, 94. Percy, William, 256 n. Perlin, Estienne : his criticism of the English, 59 and n. 4. Persius, 81, 352, 465. Petit, de Julleville, Louis, vii, 35, «. 2, 106 n. ; his works on tlie French drama, 367, «. 2, 13, 384 w. Petrarch, Francesco, 4 ; vogue in t ranee, 16, 24 ; influence on Wyatt and Surrey, 109, III, 120; influence in England, 210, 347, 254, 256;;., 261 11. Phaedrus, 17. Phaer, Thomas, 348 and «. 2. Philip H, of Spain, 317. Philonah'e, fciH Die d'Hippolyte, 40S. Picot, Emile : his Les Fran^ais Ita- lianisanis, 55 n, Pilon, 5. Pindar, 16, 186, 214W., 242, 276-7. Pisan, Christine de, 14, 93, 94. Pius II, see Aeneas Sylvius. Plagiarism, see Imitation. Plato, 17, 72, 8r, 167, 329. Plautus, 360, 368,418; his A/enaec/imi, 382 ft. ; his A/i/es Gloriosus, English and French adaptations, 419 and n.; his pedant in Bacchides, 425, n. i. Pleiade, The : see Book IV (pp. 183- 281) passim: members of, 186-9; poetic themes of, 196-201 ; poetic forms of, 201-4 ) phraseology, 205-6 ; their successors, 206-10 ; the influence of their themes in England, 210-36; their metrical influence in England, 236-43 ; the influence of their vocabu- lary, 243-5 ; compound epithets, 245- 9 ; their sonneteering influence, 252-66; Sliakespeare's debt, 266-76 ; their 'eternizing' pretensions, 276-81. Plutarch, 17, 19, 286; his Lives, 19; Amyol's and North's translations, 152 seq., 167 ; Montaigne's admiration, 250 ; use for French and English drama, 363, 386-7, 415, 418, 446, 451, 454; his Morals, 153-4, ^66- Politian, Angelo : debt of Chapman to, 466. Politiques, Les, 296 seq. : scorned by Aubignd, 330. See also Satire Minip- pce, La. Ponsonby, William, 343, «. i, Pontoux, Claude de, 257 and n. 2. Pope, Alexander, quoted, 30. Prothero, Rowland E., x. Prout, Father, ix. Provincial centres of learning in France, 25 seq. Psalms : Marot's versions, battle-songs of Huguenots, 290. See also Beza and Marot. I'seudonyms of French actors, 410. Ptolemy Philadelphus, 188. Piicelle de Doin Ketny, La, 403. Purfoot, Thomas, 46. Purgation of Lord Wentworth, The, 35. «• 3- Puritan, word first used by Ronsard, 193 and n. 2. Puttenham, George, 92 «., 109, no, 1 15 «., 214 «., 249 n. Pynson, Richard, 79, 86. Quintilian, 137. Rabelais, Fran9ois, 5, 6, 15, 16, 44, 65, 66, 74, 80, 98, 116 «., 139, 178-9, 286, 369 ; influence of More's Utopia on, 74 and notes, 75-6, 80 ; his life and work, 159-65 ; Gargantua and Pan- tagruel, 160-1 ; English version, 161 ; Shakespeare's notices of, 162 ; Bacon's notices of, 162 n. ; influence on Nashe, 163-5 ; '"•cts in a ' moral comedie ', 367, ;/. I. Racine, Jean, 133. Kaimondi, Marcantonio, 58. Rainolds, John, 319. Rainolds, William, 319. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 7 ; debt to Hugue- not colonial experience, 306-7. Ramee, Pierre de la, 21, 28; death of, 294, 4.^3; 323-S ; his challenge of Aristotle's authority, 324; his gram- mars, 324; theology, 325; assassina- INDEX 49' tion of, 336 and //. ; influence in Eng- land, 326-7 ; his Dialfitiis in England, 327; founded lectureships in Paris, 32S ; praised by Halcluyt, 328. Ramus, sec Katiu'e. Raphael, 4. Reed, Edward Uliss, Poems of Lord Fairfax, 333 //. Regnault, Franfois, 143. Regnier, Mathurin, Donne's notice of, 352 and n, Returuej'rom Parnassus, 16 ;/.. 212. R/it'loriqiieurs, Les, 97. Rhyme, see under Metre. Ribaut, John, 305 seq. ; his story of Florida, included in Ilakluyt, 305-7 ; slain in Florida, 306. Rich, Lady, 343 n. Richmond, Earl of, 33, 47, 79, no. Rigal, Eugene : his Le Thc'iUre Fran- eais, 378; his Hardy et le theitre fran^-ais, 384 «., 413 n. Rivers, Earl, 93. Robertson, Mr. J. M., his Montaigne and Shakspere, 1 76 n. Robin and Marion, 365. Roland, Madame, 155. Holland, Romain, 228 n. Roman de la Rose, 97-8, 103 n. Ro/ndo et Juliette on the French stage, 439- Rondeaus, 123. 124. Ronsard, Pierre de, 5 ; praise of Queen Elizabeth, 9 «., 192, «. 2 ; as reformer, 16, 66 ; praise of Francis I, 22 ; praise of Catherine de' Medici, 23 ; his poetic honours, 25 ; his religion, 28 ; praise of Sir William Cecil, 36, 192, «. 2 ; praise of Mar>- Queen of Scots, 41 ; praise of the ladies Seymour, 45-6 ; praise of Denisot, 46 «. ; description of the French dance, 53, n. 3 ; praise of music, 54, n. 1 j< influence on English metres, 107 ; debt to the Italian son- net, 120 ; supersedes Marot, 125 ; influence on the English lyric, 183- chief of new French poetic school, 185, iSS; his career, 189-95; his views of music in relation to poetry, 190; his religious orthodoxy, 190-1 ; his Pagan- ism, 191 ; his protests against the Huguenots, 191 ; his self-assurance, 191 ; his royal friends, 192; guest of Queen Elizabeth, 192 ; praise of Earl of Leicester, 192, ;/. i ; attack on Huguenots, 193 ; first uses word ' Puri- tan ', 193,;/. 3; his confidence, 194; last years, death, and funeral eloge, 1 94-5 ; his Anacreontic themes, 1 96-8 ; his poetic forms and metres, 201-3; his sonnets, 202-3 ; use of Greek words, 205 and ;/. ; his lyric themes, 206-8 ; intluenccin England, 209-16; Watson's praise, 212; bis Discours des Miseres de ee temps in English translation, 213 ; Watson's adaptations, 213; Soothern's plagiarisms, 213-14; Puttenham's criti- cism, 214 ;/. ; debt to Horace, 215-16 ; influence on Lyly, 218-19 and «.; on Spenser and Siiakespeare, 220 ; his Venus and Adonis, 221 ; resemblances to Shakespeare, 222-9; plagiarized by Lodge, 231, 233 ; his ' Amours', 237 ; his rhyming schemes, 239 ; his five- line stanza, 239-40 ; his odes, Dray- ton's and Lodge's imitations, 241-3; his vocabulary, 244; use of compound epithets, 245-6 ; spreads to England, 247-8 ; his sonnets, influence in Eng- land, 254 seq.; translated by Lodge, 260, 261 n. ; Appendix L 455-7 ; Spenser'sdebt, 262;/.; metrical schemes, influence in England, 264-7, 269; his vaunt of immortality, 276-9, 281 ; praise of L'Hopital, 292; influence on Huguenot poets, 329 ; praised by Du Bartas, 333, 335-6 ; translates Aris- tophanes' Flutiis, 382-3 ; his praise of Jodelle, 385 ; of Gamier, 395 ; see also 5, 133, 286, 2S8, 297, 312, 323, 337. 384. 391. 394.438,454- Rose Theatre, 11. Rossaeus, G. Gulielmus, pseudonym, see Rainolds, William. Royal Exchange, 56. Royden, Matthew, 465-6. Rucellai, Giovanni, 116. Rutland, Earl of, 303. Rutland, Countess of, 343 n. Sackville, Thomas, his Mirror 0/ Magis- trates, 183 and n. Saint-Amant, Marc Antoine de, 333 n. Saint Bartholomew Massacre, 293 seq. ; plays on, 433 seq. Sainte-Beuve, C. A., vii. Saint Denis, battle of, 294. Saint-Gelais, Melin de, 115 and «., 120, 122 and n. Saint Germain, Peace of, 294. Saint Simon, Louis, Due de, 331. Saintsbury, Prof. G., 118, n. 2. Sallust, Si. Sancerre, siege of, 295, 353. .Sannazarro, Jacopo, 120, 121 and ;/., 261 n. Sasso, Pamphilo, 226, n. 2. 492 INDEX Satire Mt'iiifpt'e, La, 298 and «., 352 ; in English translation, 298, 299 and ;/. Savile, Sir Henry, 88 ;/. Scaevola, Q. Mutius, 19. Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 9 ;/., 1;, 28, 37, 59, 286, 304. Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 17. 252, 381 ;/. Scalii^criaiia, 9 11. Sceve, Maurice, 257. Schelling, F. E. : on Chapman's treat- ment of French history, 436. vScot, Reginald : his Discffi'e7-ie of Witch- craft, 53, n. 3; debt to Bodin, 322. Sebonde, Raymond de : Montaigne's translation of, 166. Segr^, Carlo, 119 11. Seneca, 90, 418 ; hisZ*^ dementia, I46 ; studied by Montaigne, 167 ; vogue among Huguenots, 286; French study, 382 ; influence in Jodelle's CUopdtre, 3S6 ; French translation of his Medea and Agamemnon, 391 ; father of English tragedy, 427 ; Sidney's praise of, 442. Seymour, Ladies Anne, Marguerite, and Jeanne, 45 and «., 46, 129. Shakespeare, William : on English imi- tation of French fashions, 48-9 ; on French horsemanship, 52 ; French dancing, 53; his imitative spirit, 61 ; debt to f/tion of Bordeaux, 96 ; debt to North's Plutarch, 157-9; debt to Rabelais, 162-3 ; debt to Montaigne, 168, 176-8; kinship with Horace and Ronsard, 215-16; debt to French lyric suggestion, 217, 220-4, 226-30 ; his use of the word 'air', 237, n. 2; use of French words, 243-5, 248 ; use of compound epithets, 248-9 and n. ; debt to French sonneteers, 253-6; resemblances in French sonnets, 266- 76 ; reference to French Civil Wars, 297 ; his acquaintance with a Hugue- not family, 302 n. ; to Puritan psalm-singing, 311; his republic an argument, 314; resemblances to Du Bartas, 337 and «., 340 ; his blending of tragedy and comedy, 361 ; his debt to Bandello, 362, 363 ; debt to French inspiration, 364-5 ; comedy, 368, 374-5 ; debt to Plaulus's Menaechmi, 382 «.; his rapid writing, 386 ; connexion with Jodelle and Gamier, 388, 390, 392-4, 397, 399; his subdivisions of drama, 401 ; career parallel with Hardy's, 413 ; Taming of the Shrew : debt to Gas- coigne, 420-1 ; Italian influences on : Two Gentlemen of Verona, debt to Munday, 422; Love's Labour's Lost, debt to Larivey, 423 seq. ; Merry Wives, debt to Larivey, 423 Jtvy.; his pedants, 423 seq., 425 ;/. ; his genius, 450 ; his Roman plays and French example, 451 ; the choric element in Heniy F, A'omeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, 452 ; mes- sengers' speeches, 452 ; his treatment of French history, 452-3. Shakespeare, references to his works : AlVs Well, 411 ; Antony and Cleo- patra, 158, 222, 314, 452; As You Like Lt, 227 ; Comedy of Errors, 297, 382 ;/. ; Coriolanus, 158, 452 ; Cymbcline, 226 ; Hamlet, 48, 52, 401; I LLenry LV, 176; Henry V, 452; Hemy VLLL, 228; Julius Caesar, 158, 177 ; Loves Labour^ s Lost, 224,423 seq., 434-6; Macbeth, 48; Measure for Measure, 224, 408, 410, 434-6 ; Merchant of Venice, 48, 227, 229, 447, n. i ; Merry Wives, 423 seq. ; JSLidsummer Nighfs Dream, 96, 158; Romeo and Juliet, 409, 439-40, 444; .Sonnets, 177, 253 seq. ; Taming of the Shrew, 420-1,423 ; Tempest, 177-8; Timon of Athens, 220 ; Twelfth Night, 41 1 ; Tzvo Gentle- men of Verona, 399, 414, 422 ; Venus and Adonis, 221, 337, 394; Winters Tale, 226, 414; see also 5, 7, 11, 35, • 51. 133. 144. 170. I95> 207, 209,211- 12, 344> 359. 438- Shelley, 201. Shirley, Henry, 435. Shirley, James, 435, 438. Siberch, J., 85 n., 87, n, 2. Sibilet, 369, 71. 2. Sidney, Sir Philip, 6, 38, 149, 184,465; his Arcadia, 135, 266 «. ; his views on classical prosody, 238 ; use of Ln Memoriam metre, 240 ; use of com- pound epithets, 247 and n. 2, 248, 344 and n. ; his sonneteering, 253; Astro- phel and Stella, 256, 257 ; his rhyming scheme in the sonnet, 265-6 ; his con- ceit of blackness, 274 ; on the immor- tality of verse, 279; his praise of L'Hopital, 293 and n. ; patron of French colonial pioneers, 307 ; friend- ship with Uu Plessis, 312, 316 ; student of Ramus, 327 ; praised by Du Bartas, 342 and ;/. 2 ; translates verse of Du iiartas, 343 and n. ; his Lady of the May, 425 n. ; his advocacy of classical rules for tragedy, 361, 442-3; his criticism of Gorbcduc, 443. Skelton, John, 100-7, 109 ; his trans- INDEX 493 lations from the French, ioa-3; his metres of short lines and rhymes, 103-7 ; English imitators, 107. Smiles, Samuel, on The Hiigiienols in England, 301, ;/. i. Smith, Richard, 467 ;/. Smith, William, 1^6 n. Soliman, Sultan, 404, 447 and n. i. Soltant', La, 404. Somerset, Protector, 45, 127, 129, T47. Sonnet : an Italian invention, 202 ; in France, 202-3 > French sonnet in Eng- land, 252 scq. ; first experiments in England, 253 ; Italian influences in England, 254; French influences, 255 seq. ; Elizabethan plagiarism, 255 ; Spenser's translations of Du Bellay's sonnets, 255; Watson's collection, 255 ; Sidney's collection, 256-7 ; chronology of Elizabethan sonnet-se- quences, 256 ;/. ; Daniel's Delia, 257; Constable's Diana, 257 ; Drayton's Idea, 257 ; Lodge's Phil lis, 257-8 ; Prof. Kastner on English indebtedness to French, 25S «. ; examples of Eliza- bethan plagiarism by Daniel, 258-9, 462 ; Lodge, 260, 455-62 ; Constable, 261 ; Spenser, 262-3; Drummond of Hawthornden, 463-4 ; Chapman, 465 seq. ; metrical schemes : Italian, 264 ; French, 264; English, 264-5; Gas- coigne's description, 264-5 > Shake- speare's rhyming scheme, 265 ; Sidney's, 265-6 ; Surrey's, 265 n. ; Daniel's, 266 ; Spenser's, 266. Soothem, John, 213, 214 and «., 241, 242 «., 249. Sophocles, 1S6, 359, 427; translations by Scaliger and Alamanni, 381 «. Southampton, Earl of, 170. Spenser, Edmund, his Shepheards Calender, 112, 184-5 ; his Anacreontics, 219; his praise of Du Bellay, 211 ; his Sonnets, 237, 255, 262-3, 266 ; his Ruines of Time, 280 ; on Du Bartas, 347 ; influenced by Du Bartas, 349. Spingarn, Prof. J. E., 252, n. 2. Stafford, Sir Edward, 194. Stapleton, Richard, 466, 467, n. i. Stephenses, see Eliennes. Stephanas Junius Brutus, pseudonym, see Du Plessis-Marly. Stemhold, Thomas, 113. Stirling, Earl of, see Alexander, Sir William. Stow, John, his Chroniek, 183 n. Strype, John : Annals and life of Arch- bishop Parker, 301 ;/. Stubbs, J. W,, 43. Sturel, Rene, 153 «. Sturm, Johann, \\\s De ///iila(ione,2^\ n. Sully, Due de, 299. Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of, 6, 33, 66, 100, 109-12, 115-19, 121, 125, 127, 159, 183, 185, 253, 265 M. Swinburne, Algernon Charles, ix. Sylvester, Joshua, translator of Du Bartas's La Semaine, 9 n., 337 and n., 344-9> .=551. 353-5- Taille, Jean de la, his Les Gabaonites and Saiil Furieux, 398. Tarlton, Richard, 107 «. Tarldni's .Vews out 0/ Purgatory, 212. Tasso, Torquato, 5, 133, 359; ' Tasso's Picture' and 'Tasso's Robe', 11; praise of Catherine de' Medici, 23 ; waning influence in France, 24; in- fluence in England, 210. 254; Daniel's plagiarism, 236; his A/ninta, 441. Tasso's Melancholy, 1 1 . Temple, William, 327. Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, In Mevioj-iam metre in France, 202, 20S, 240. Terence, 81, 86, 360, 382, 389. Tessier, Carle, 55 ;/. Tessier, G., 55 n. Theatre in England : first theatres, 380-1 ; Burbage and the first play- house,' 380-1 ; sixteenth - century growth, 381. Theatre in France, 376 seq. ; French theatre a mediaeval organization, 376 ; dramatic guilds, 376 seq. ; Les Con- freres de la Passion at the Hotel de Bourgogne, 376-7 ; their wide in- fluence, 377 ; the stage and its ma- chinery, 377 ; Les Etifants sans Sotici and Gringoire, 377-8 ; Les Clercs de la Basoche jawyer actors), 378 ; touring companies, 378-9 : amateur actors, 379 ; theatre becomes wholly profes- sional, 379 ; the Hotel de Bourgogne opposes classical tendencies, 379, 383- 4; professional actors at, 413. Theocritus, 87, 217. Th^ologastres, Les, 370. Thomson, Richard, 304. Threadneedle Street, Huguenot church in, 301 ; registers, 301, «. i, 302, Thucydides, 90. Tig)-e, Le, 314. Tilley, Arthur, vii. Tintoretto, 5. Titian, 4. Tofte, Robert, 256 «. Tomkis, Thomas : his IJngua and its French original, 441 and n. 494 INDEX Torraca, Francesco, 1 1 1 n. Tory, Geoffroy, 82, 8^^. Traj^edy, sre Drama. Travcrs, Walter, 303. Trinity College, Dublin, founded, 43. Triomphc dc la Ligue, Lc, 404. Trissino, Giovanni Giorgio, 116; liis Sofonisba and Similliini, 381 n. Turberville, George, 184. Turnebns, Adrian, on the loss of Calais, 34- Two Tragedies in One, 407. Tyard, Pontusde, 188-90, 206, 257,;/. 2. Tyndale, William, 141-3. Udall, Nicholas : his Ralph Roister Doister, adaptation of Plautus, 419. Unities: Jean de la Taille's dictuin, 388-9 ; ' unity of place ' transgressed by Jodelle, 389 ; Hardy's treatment, 414-15; in England, 417; in Gas- coigne's Jocasta, 428 ; defied in early Elizabethan tragedy, 429 ; neglect of by Marlowe, 431-2 ; Sidney's views on, 442-3; Ben Jonson's criticism, 449 and n. Upham, Alfred H., viii ; estimate of Du Bartas's influence in England, 349, n. 3. Urquhart, Sir Thomas, i6r. Vaganay, Prof. Hugues, vii, n, i, 226, n. 2. Vandyke, 55 n. Van Meteren, Jacob, 142-3. Varro : his Saturae Menippeae, 298 n. Vauquelin de la Fresnaie, 203 n., 207, 352, 366 and n., 440 //. Vega, Lope de, 359. Venus and Adonis by Ronsard, 221 ; by Shakespeare, 222. Verard, Antoine, 94. Verdier, Antoine du, sieur de Vauprivas, 310 «., 439, «. 3. Vergil, Polydore, 59. Vergil, 81, 90, 112, 119, 183, 286, 334, 348. 359? 432. Veronese, see Paolo Veronese. Vianey, M., vii, ;/. i, 226, n, 2. Vida, an imitation, 252, n. 3. Villegagnon, Nicholas Durand, sieur de, 305. Villehardouin, Geoffroy de, 95. Villon, Francois, 14, 15,65, 97, 112, 133. Vinciguerra, Antonio, 118. Viollet-Le-Duc, M., 352, Jt. 2, 424 «., 44', ''''. I. Viret, Pierre, 150, 308. Virginia, linglish colonization of, 8. Vocables compose/,, see Compound epithets. Waddington, C. : Life of Ramus, 325 7t. Waldegrave, Robert, 303 and ;/. Wallace, Dr. C. W., 302 ;/. Walsingham, Sir Francis, 311, 328 and «•, 343«- Walton, Izaak, 170. Warning for Fair IVomen, A, 407. Warton, Thomas, 108, 372. Warwick, Earl of, 280. W^atson, Thomas, 184; adaptations of Ronsard, 212-13, 221, «. 2; use of the word ' Amour ', 237 n. ; his Hecatom- pathia, 255-6 and //. Webster, John, 359 ; his White Devil, 408, 449 ; his play of The Guise, 435 ; criticism of classical rules, 449. Wentworth, Lord, 35. Whitgift, John, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 147. Whitney, Geffrey : his Choice of Em- blems, 19 n. Wiclif, John, 140. Williams, Thomas, 466. Wilson, Thomas, 137. Wither, George, 211. Wolf, Reginald, 87, 88. Wordsworth, William, 187, 359. W^orman, E. J., 87, n. i. Wyatt, Sir Thomas : debt to Petrarch, 109-10; to Sannazarro, in; Italian influences, 1(1-12; debt to Marot, 112; to Melinde Saint-Gelais, 116 ; to Alamanni, 1 16-18; his use of Alaman- ni's language and metre, 119-22; his short metres, 122-4 • ^^^ ^^^° 6, 33, 66, 100, loi, 115, 125-7, 1S3-5. 253, 265 n. Wyndham, George, x. Wynkyn de Worde, 85, 86. Yonge, Nicolas : his Miisiia Trans- alpina, 54, «. 2. Zuccharo, 57. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: Tel. No. 642-3405 Renewals may be made 4 days ijrior to date due. Renewed books are subjea to immediate recall. IffCT^ npr ngpT I ■i'M ' '^m 2 ' i IS/b 7 : MAY 6 1986 m.GIL wR-ttt LD21A-20m-3.'73 (Qs677sl0)47('.-A-r!l General Library University of California Berkeley M GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY BDDmiSMb3 ^ Oi^yv