CENTRE
for
REFORMATION
and
RENAISSANCE
STUDIES
I/I
VICTORIA
UNIVERSITY
T O R O N T O
THE
FRENCH
RENAISSANCE
IN ENGLAND
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
GREAT ENGLISHMEN OF TtiE SIX-
TEENTH CENTURY.
SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERN
STAGE.
INTRODUCTION TO FACSIMILE RE-
PRODUCTIONS OF THESHAKESPEARE F]RST
FOLIO AND OF THE FIRST EDITIONS OF
SHAKESPEARE'S I'OEMS AND OF PER1CLES.
INTRODUCTION TO A COLLECTION
OF ELIZABETHAN SONNES.
INTRODUCTION TO THE CHRONICLE
ItISTOR¥ OF KING LER.
THE
FRENCH
RENAISSANCE
IN ENGLAND
AN ACCOUNT OF THE LITERARY RELATIONS
OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
SIDNEY LEE
HON. D. LITT. OXFORD ; HON. LL.D. GLASGOW
FELLOW OF THE BRI'I'IH A(AI)EMY
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
I9o
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', belote the
University of Oxford during the summer terre of 9o9 . My
thanks are due to the Delegates of the Common Unlversity
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 tltle is justified hot merely by considerations of brevlty,
but also by the fact that the French Renaissance was known
in England almost exclusively through its written word, and
only slightly and subsidlarily through its art.
AIthough I have hOt attempted to deal exhaustively with
all the aspects of the theme, I hope that I bave succeeded in
bringing home to my readers hot 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 bave 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 ,Valter Pater :
' Producers of great literature do hOt 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 xvork 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
literat 3" 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 origlnality of wellnigh all the
literary endeavour of Tudor England.
My main resuhs are due to a long-continued parallel study
of the literary work of the two countries. At the saine 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. 1 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
J The original is at Lambeth : see p. ! 73.
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 lalleatt z'slorz'tte ci crzTz'ttedelaîboésté fraJzçaz'se ait
XVI" siècle, i893 ; Arsène Darmesteter and Adolphe Hatz-
feld's Le XVI" siècle en Frattce ." h?tératttre et lattgtte, 1893 ;
Louis Petit de Julleville's Hstoire de la lattgue et de la h'tléra-
tttrefrançaz'ses, tom. iii, Seizième siècle, i897 ; M. Gustave
Lanson's [anud &i&liograîhieue de la h?léralure fran-
çaise moderne, I. Seizième siècle, t9o 9 ; together with the sug-
gestivevolumes of M. Emile Faguet,viz.: La Tragédtëfrancaise
au X7" siècle (155o-i6oo), 1897; his Settme siècle: éludes
h?léraires, 1898 ; and his Hisloire de la h'ttéralure fran-
çaise, tom. I, Jusqu'à la fin du XVI « siècle, 19ooY Among
English books which deal generally wlth the literary history of
sixteenth-century France, by far the most useful and complete
is Mr. Arthur Tilley's Lilera[ure of the Freuch Renaissance
(2 vols., 19o4). I ara 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 overpralse M. Jusserand's
exhaustive contributions to the history of English llterature.
The text of Ronsard's poetry, which I quote freel¥, presents some
difficulties, l bave used Blanchemain's edition in the Bibliothèque Elxd-
viriennt (8 vols., Paris, 857-I867}, which follows, for the early and most
important work of the poet, the first collected edition of 56o (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 584, 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 t'amiliar to the Eiizabethans, and they seem to bave used the early
editions. The textual variations are hOt 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 ttmours, based on the edition ot 578-
This volume was published in 91o, with a preface by Prof. Joseph Vianey,
and an ample apparatus criticus 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 (Oxford, 1908 )
tollows Marty-Laveaux's text.
An English translation of the whole of this work entitled A Lilerary
I-lislory of France was published by Fisher Unwin in 9o 7.
viii PREFACE
Vt'ith 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 fall to master M. Jusserand's Enh'sh Novel
Tinte of Shakesheare (x89o), his Shakes3eare it France
under the Ancien Régicide (x899), or his Lierary Itistory
of the Ettglfsh People from llte Ort'fft'llS go
(895-x9o6). 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 bave been aided by Henry Martyn Baird's t-[istory of
lhe rise of lhe Huguenots (I880), and his t[ugttenots and
t[cnry of Navarre (x886), as well as by Mr. Edward Arm-
strong's The French II'ars of Reh'gtbu (892).
It was only after my own labours were well advanced that
I enjoyed the benefit of reading M. Louis Charlanne's
euce JCrançaise ch M tgle¢erre au XI'11" siècle, Paris, x9o6,
and l)r. Alfred Horatio Upham's The Freuch IoEuence
Etglish Literalure 3Crom the I ccessiou of Elizabeth to ghe
Restoraliot (New York, Columbla University l'ress, x9o8).
M. Charlanne's literary survey starts where I end. But his
chapters on social life bave 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 ofthe saine ground,
and I have specified at various points my debt to Dr. Upham's
researches. I have also benefited by Prof. L. E. Kasmer's
papers in the Alodern LattEuaEe eviezz, (i9o7-1o) on the
heavy loans which Elizabethan poets levied on the verse of the
Pléiade. I had previously treated this branch of the theme in
my Introduction to thabethat Sonnels (in Constable's Etg-
lt'sh Garner, i9o4) , and in a paper on Chapman's Mmorous
7odt'acke in Alodern Philology (Chicago University Press,
October, 9o5). The latter essay I reprint in Appendix II of
this volume, under the title George Cha2nan aud Gilles
Duran¢, and I make in Appendix I some fresh additions to
the Elizabethan poems whose French originals I have iden-
tified by my unaided effort. But Prof. Kasmer's industry and
PREFACE ix
learning have brought to light 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
SecDnens of tire Early Poetry of France (1835) ; Father
Prout's Velittes (i836) ; and Henry Francis Cary's Early
French loets (i 846), are all suggestive, if somewhat discursive
and slender, memorials of early nineteenth-century enthu-
siasm for French poetry of the sixteenth century. Prof.
Henry Morley's biographies of Palissy the Porter (i 852 ) and of
Clément Marot (1871) 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 Poe[r.y (x868), The Frcnch Iumorists
]'rom the Twelflh fo lhe )Vineteenllt Cen/ury (1873) , and his
brief monograph on Ra3elaz's (1885).
During the second hall 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 fills in the history of modern scholarship and culture.
The early volumes of J,_lgernon 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 generation with the manner and sentiment
of the sixteenth-cèntury poetry of France. Mark Patti-
son's essays on French scholars and scholarship (Essa),s,
collected in two vols., Oxford, 1889) which were crowned
by his biography of Isaac Casaubon (i8î5), learnedly ex-
pound the value of the contribution which France of the
Renaissance made to the elucidation of Greek language
and literature. Walter Pater in his Slttdt'es )t /fie Itislory
of lAe ena'ssance (8î3), and in his unfinished romance
of Gaslon de Lalour (1896), defined with rare insight
the aesthetlc quality of French literature in the sixteenth
x PREFACE
century; while Richard Copley Christie, in his elaborate
biography of Étienne Dolet (88o), ably supplemented Mark
Pattison's earlier exposition of the achlevements of French
humanism. With these four writers it is hOt unfittlng to
associate the name of the late Lady Dilke, whose Renaissance
of Art t)t Fratce (x879) proved the first of an important
series of volumes on French art and artlsts.
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, x9o7), Mr. George XVyndham's
Ronsard and t/te Plét'ade (9o6), Prof. Dowden's A[t'chel de
zlIontat'gne (t9os),Mr. John C. Bailey's The (laiTnsofFrench
tgoelry (I9o7), and Mr. Rowland E. Prothero's Thelleasant
Land of Fratce ( 908).
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 ofview and under more headings than one. For sins
of commission or omission I crave my readers' indulgence.
I have to thank Air. W. B. Owen, B.A., formerly scholar
of St. Catharine's College, Cambrldge, for helping me to
compile the comparative chronological table of the progress
in culture and politics of the two countrles, which will,
I hope, be of some graphic ser'ice. Mr. Owen has also
prepared the index, and glven me much zealous aid in
correcting the whoie work for the press.
S. Lo
Augus! 3x, x9o.
CONTENTS
PREFACE .
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF LEADING EVENTS
PAGE
V
XV
BOOK I
THE DEBT OF TUDOR CULTURE TO FRANCE
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
The Renaissance in Italy, France, and England
England's Intellectual Commerce
The Interpretative Faculty of France .
The Culture of the French Renaissance
French Discipleship to Greece and Rome
The Italian Element .
The Diffusion of Renaissance Culture in France.
Tudor Politics : The Loss of Calais
The Elhabethan Political Links .
The Study of French in Tudor Society
French Dress, French Wines, and French Dances
England's Debt to the Art of Italy and Germany
The French View of the English National Character
3
8
13
17
21
24
29
4 e
47
54
58
BOOK II
FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH LITERATURE
*500-*550
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Vl.
VlI.
VIII.
IX.
French Light and English Gloom 65
First Gleams of Tudor Humanism 67
French Grammars from Tudor Pens 76
The Renaissance Printers of France and England 80
Early Tudor Translations from French Prose 9 °
Les Rhétoriqueurs 96
French influence on Skelton and Hawes iOl
Marot and Alamanni : Wyatt and Surrey lO 9
The lnterregnum in Tudor Poetry 127
xii CONTENTS
BOOK III
FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
I. Tendencies of French and English Prose
II. The Bible in French and English
III. Calvin
IV. Amyot
V. Rabelais
VI. Montaigne.
PAGE
133
39
I5I
59
BOOK IV
FRENCH INFLUENCE ON THE ELIZABETHAN LVRIC
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
IX.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
The Coming of Ronsard
The Birth of the Pléiade
Ronsard
The Themes of the Pléiade
The Manner of the Pléiade
The Heirs of the Pléiade
The Pléiade in England
The Elizabethan rendering of French Lyric Themes
The Metrical Debt of the Elizabethan Lyric other than
the Sonnet
The Pléiade Vocabulary in Elizabethan Poetry
The Renaissance Theory of ' Imitation'
Tlae Assimilation of the French Sonnet
Shakespeare and the French Sonnet
The Poetic Vaunt of Immortality
I83
x86
I89
I96
2ol
2e6
21o
236
243
249
252
266
276
BOOK V
THE MESSAGE OF THE HUGUENOTS
I. Characteristics of the Huguenot Movement
II. The Civil Wars in France
III. Huguenot Settlers and Visitors in England .
IV. The Devotional Literature of the Huguenots
285
288
300
307
CONTENTS xiii
V. Huguenot Pleas for Political Liberty
VI. Pierre de la Ramée
VII. Huguenot Poetry--Aubigné
VIII. Salluste du Bartas
IX. Elizabethan Disciples of Du Bartas
PAGE
3z3
323
328
333
340
BOOK VI
FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN DRAMA
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
The Foreign Sources of Elizabethan Drama 359
The Beginnings of French Drama 365
The Growth of the Theatre in France and Egland 376
The Classical Dama of the French Renaissance. 38i
The Irregular Drama of the French Renaissance. 400
The Cognate Development of French and Elizabethan
Drama . 4 6
Elizabethan Comedy and Franco-Italian Dialogue 49
The Early Fortunes of Elizabethan Tragedy 427
Current French History on the Elizabethan Stage 433
Romantic Tragedy, and other Irregular Dramatic De-
velopments in France and England 438
The Classical Reaction in Elizabethan Tragedy 442
Conclusion 45 °
APPENDIX
I. ADDITIONAL SPECIMENS OF ELIZABETHAN POETRY
WHICH ARE BORROWED WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I'ROIM CONTEMPORARY FRENCH SOURCES
II. GEORGE CHAPMA AND GILLES DURAT
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
FAC. E6LAD.
I466 [Birth of Erasmus.]
i467 Birth of Budé.
1468 Death of Alain Chartier.
147o First printing press in Paris.
147z University of Bordeaux founded.
1477
I478
1479 Birth of Jean Grolicr.
i483 Death of Louis XII. Accession
of Charles VIII. Birth of
Rabelais. [Birth of Luther.]
1484 Birth of Julius Caesar Scaliger
(' the elder Scaliger').
1485 Alaistre Pierre Pathelin (written
about 469) first published.
1487 French paraphrase of the Bible
published ai Paris.
1489 Villon's Le Grand Testament et
le Petit.
I49 Birth of lIargaret of Angoulème
(afterwards Queen lIargaret
of Navarre), Iartial de Paris æ
Vigilles de. , . Charles VIL
I494 French invade Italy. [Sebastian
Brant, 1Varrenschiff. ]
1496
I497 Birth of Clément Iarot. Chris-
tine de Pisan, La Cit( des
Dames. Za lg«f des folz, verse
translation of Brant's satire.
1498 Death of Charles VIII. Acces-
sion of Louis XII. [Columbus
discovers the American con-
tinent.]
1499 Gringoire, Le 7tdttan de Labo«r.
Caxton sers up printing press ai West-
minster; prints Moral Proverbs of
Christine de Pisan.
Birth of Sir Thomas More.
Death of Edward IV. Accession
Richard III.
Death of Richard III Accession of
Henry Vil. Linacre goes to Italy.
Malory's Le Morte Mrthur.
James IV becomes King of $cotland.
Colet and Erasmus in Paris.
[Birth of Holbein.]
Erasmus ri*st visits England ; resides
ai Oxford.
15oo Barclay's Casier of Labour from Grin-
goire's French.
I A few events (other than French) of European moment are inserted between
square brackets. Where authors' names and titles of books are given without
added word, the year to which the entry is attached is that of first publication
of the cited works.
xvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABI.E
5o Henri Étienne sers up press at
Paris.
o
5o4 Le Maire de Belges, Le Temple
d'Honneur et de I evtu. Grin-
goire Les «bl«s dn Monde.
5o8
r5o9 Birth of Calvin. .
r5to Le Maire de Belges L'Jtmant
*rt.
r51 r Gringoire's Le Ju du Prince des
Sors played before Louis XII.
53 [Machiavelli's Prince composed.]
Birth of Amyot.
54
55 Death of Louis XII. Accession
of Francis I.
a56 Bdé writcs Institution du Prince.
a7 Bud6 De lsse et [artibus dus.
x5,8
5,9 [Charles V elected Emperor of
Gcrmany.] Birth of Theodore
Beza.
t5o
5 [.Luther translates Eible into
German.]
5 Budé appointed librarian to
Francis I ; begins royal collec-
tion of Greek MSS.
53
524 Birth of Ronsard. Rabelais's
Pa»dag'ruel possib]y pub]ished.
x55 Batt]e of Pavia, defeat of French,
and capture of Francis I.
End of the Frcneh invasion of
Italy.
57 Margaret of Angoul,2me marries
as second husband Henry
d'Albrct, King of Navarre,
and opens her literary court.
Francis l's reconstruction and
decoration of Fontainebleau
and the Louvre begins.
ENGLAND.
Lady Margaret Beaufort rounds pro-
fessorships of Divinity at Oxford
and Cambridge.
Lady Margaret Beaufort endows St.
John's College, Cambridge. Bar-
clay's Shlp of Foole$--translation of
Brant's satire.
Death of Henry Vil. Accession of
Henry VIII. Death of Lady Mar-
garer Beaufort. Colet rounds St.
Paul's School. Richard Pynson first
royal printcr. Erasmus's Enco»num
Moriae. H awes's 19assayme of Plea-
urg.
James V becomes King of Scotland.
Henry VllI's sister Mary marries
Louis XII of France.
More in Flanders.
More's Utopia published at Antwerp.
Erasmus finally leaves England.
London riots against foreigners
(«Evil May Day'L
Linacre founds the College of Phy-
sicians in London.
Death of Colet. Erasmus's Colloquia.
Meeting of Henry VIII and Francis !
at the ' Field of the Cloth of Gold '.
Barclay's I»#roducton'e to zvrite and fo
[ronourwe Fretth.
Lord Berners' translation of Froissart's
Chronicks, vol. i (vol. ii,
Death of Linacre and Stephen Hawes.
Skelton's Garlande of Laurell.
Tyndale's New Testament in English.
Holbein visits England. William Lily's
GÆ¢tmmatices Rudtmenta.
CHRONOLOGICAL FABLE xvii
"i
I|I
FRANCE.
15 9 Treaty of Cambray between
Francis I and the Emperor
Charles V. Budé's Commen-
tarii Lnguae Graecae. Tory's
Chamlb-Fieuçy. Foundation of
the Collège de France.
I53o Flight of Florentine scholars fo
France on fall of the republic.
Le Fëvre's French translation
of the Bible.
153
I53 Alamanni's Oibere Tos¢ane
(Lyotas). Machiavelli's llPrin-
¢ip¢. Rabelais's Panlagruei, first
extant editlon. Birth of J. A.
de Ball First collection of
blarot's uvres. Margaret of
Navarre, Le Miroir de l'àme
pécheresse.
533 Birth of Montaigne. blarot's
edition of Villon's uvres.
Collège de Guienne opened at
Bordeaux. Catherine de'
dici marries the dauphin, after-
wards Henry II.
534 Rabelais's Garganh«a. Death
of Gringoire I ?). François
Clouet's portrait of Francis I.
Protestants of Paris denounce
the Mass. Cartier explores
North America.
535 Olivetan's French Bible.
536 Ramus attacks Aristoteliall Iogic
at Paris. [Death of Erasmus
at Basle.] Calvin's Christianae
Relig, fonis [nstilulio.
537
i538 Marot's Poems collected. Doler
sets up pres at Lyons.
1539 The acting brotherhood 'Les
Confrères de |a Passion' in-
stalled at the H 6tel de Flandres.
University of Nismes founded
chiefly by Margaret of Navarre.
r54o Death of Budë. Birth of.Joseph
Justus Scaliger (the younger
Scaliger) Dolet's La ,tanière
de bien traduire.
I541 Calvin's Institution de la religfon
Chrestwnne (first French edi-
tion). Calvin finally estab-
lishes his religious autocraey
at Geneva. Queen Margaret
of Navarre begins the Hepta-
LE
ENGLAND
Death of John Skelton.
Palsgrave's L'Esdarcissement de la
ianguefianfoyse. Death of Pynson.
Sir Thomas Elyot's Gov¢rnour.
Henry VIII, with Arme Boleyn, visits
Francis I.
Henry VIII divorces Queen Catherine
of England and marries Arme Bo-
leyn.
Lord Berners's translation of Huon of
Burdeux. Henry VIII declared
supreme head of the Church in Eng-
land.
Execution of Sir Thomas More. Cover-
dale's Bible (first 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 Dossier, the first
English comedy, acted at Eton.
Nonesuch Palace near Cheam begun
by Henry VIII. Regius professor-
ships founded by Henry VIII at
Oxford.
b
xviii CHRONOI.OGICAL TABLE
FIqANCE.
[542 Antoine Hcroct's La Parfaicte
effraye. Persecution of Frcnch
Protestants begins. Bucha-
nan's Jephthes acted by stu-
dents at Bordeaux. Ariosto's
Gh" Supposi in French trans-
lation. Dolet's translation
Cicero's Letters.
543 Ramus's rtotelicae mmad-
versmnes published and sup-
pressed.
[544 Death of Marot. New edition
of his uvres. [Birth of
Tasso.] Birth of Du Bartas.
Sçève's DJlie.
545 Le açon's French translation
of the D«cameron. French
translation of Afiosto's Gli
, Suppoi.
x546 Etienne Dolet burnt. [Death of
Luther.] Birth of Desportes.
Budé's Institulton du P«e.
Rabelaiss Pantagrud ,Book
547 Death of Francis 1I. Accession
of Henry II. argaret of
Navarre's Les bIare»ites de
la largueite des princses.
Saint-Gelais's uvres. Amyot's
L 'Histrethiopique. Ramus's
lstitutbnu dialectwaru
lib
548 Sibiletsrtpoêhque. Rabelais's
Pantagd Book IV Reli-
gious drama prohibited in
Paris The actors Les Con-
frëres de la Passion' occup
and rebuild the Htel de Bour-
gogne in Paris.
549 Death of Queen argaret of
Navarre. Birth of Du Pleis.
Formation ofthe Plêiade. Du
Bellay's Dnse et illustration
de la la»tgue françmse, Olive.
and Recui.
55 o ore's Utoa in rench transla-
tion. Ronsard»s OÆ. Théo-
dore de Bze's braha sa-
nt. Bih of Aubigné.
55 Jean Brétog's Tvagi«
produced in Paris. The
Geneva Psalter.
55 Rabelais's Pantagel t Book IV
completed . Ro nsard's
mouvs. Ba[f's ours. Jo-
delle's Clp6tre and Eugène
first perfoed before Charles
IX in Paris. Ambroise Paré
appointed surgeon to the
French King.
ENGLAND.
Dcath of James V of Scotland. Acces-
sion of Mary Quccn of Scots. Dcath
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. blary Queen of Scots sent to
France.
English Book of Common Prayer.
More's Uto]n'a translated into English.
Shrewsbury School founded.
Birth of Edmund Spenser and Sir
Walter Raleigh. Death of Alexander
Barclay.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xix
FRANCo
tSS 3 Birth of Henry of Navarre
(Henry IV of France). Birth
of De Thou. Death of Rabe-
rais. Magny'a ,'lmours. [Ser-
vetus burnt at Geneva.]
x554 Magny's Gayetes. Henri Éti-
enne's editio princepa of Ana-
1555 Huguenot settlement in Brazil.
The sculptor Goujon begins
work af the Louvre. Ron-
sard's Hymnes and Amours de
31arie. Louise Labé's uvres.
Vauquelin de la Fresnaie's
Forest«ries (Books I and
Ramus's Dmlectique.
z557 Magny's Les Soutbirs. La Pe-
ruse's M,"dée.
I558 Death of Julius Caesar Scaliger
(,Scaliger the EIder). Death of
Melin de Saint-Gelais, Queen
Idargaret's Histoire des A mans
Fortune» (reissued next year as
the L'Heptameron). Perlin's
Description of England (Paris).
Du Bellay's Regrets. Germain
Pilon, the sculptor, begins
work on royal tombs af St.
Denis.
i559 Peace of Cateau Cambrésis
tween France, Spain, and
England. Death of Henry II.
Accession of Francis II. Ca-
therine de' Medici queen-
mother. Amyot's translations
of Plutarch'« Lires and of
Longus's Datbhnis attd Chloe.
Magny's Ods. Du Bellay's
Le/oète courtisan. Bandello's
Les Histoires Ira#ques (trans-
lated by Boai«tuau and Belle-
forest).
756o Death of Francis lI. Accession
of Charles IX. L'Hopital be-
cornes Chancellor of France,
Conspiracy of Amboise. Death
of Du Bellay. Pasquier's
cerces de la France (Book I).
Ronsard's uvres (first col-
lective edition). Hotman's
Ze Tigr G an attack on Cardinal
de Lorraine.
x56i Death of Magny. Scaliger's
Poetics. Grévin's Th;d, tre
cluding his César.
ENGLAND.
Death of Edward VI. Accession of
Mary. Wilson's ,4rte of Rketon'que.
Birth of Sir Philip Sidney.
Tottel's #[iscellany. Nonesuch Palace
completed. Incorporation of the
Stationers' Company in London.
Loss of Calais. Death ofQueen Mary.
Accession ofQueen Elizabeth. Mary
Queen of Scots marries Francis II
of France.
#Iirror fo» Magislra/es» first part.
The 'Genevan' Bible in English
Westminster School founded.
Birth of Bacon. Norton's translation
of Calvln's InstiDdion of Ckrstiau
Religion. English version of the
Genevan Psalter.
xx CHRONOLOGICAI TABLE
FRANCE.
I562 Outbreak of Religious War in
France. Huguenots defeated
at Dreux. Huguenot settle-
ment in Florida. Ronsard's
Discou fs des misères de ce temps.
I563 Duke of Guise killed at siege of
Orléans (x8 Feb.). Peaee of
Amboise (9 March). Death
of La Boetie.
i564 Death of Calvin 27 May). Ra-
belais' Pantagvuel (Book V).
i565 [Cinthio's H¢«atommiad.] Ron-
sard's Ibrégé de l'art poêtique
françois and Elegies. Pasquier's
Recherches(.Books I-Il). Death
of Grolier.
566 Death of Louise Labe. Louis
des Masures' David combat-
tant, David fugitif, and David
triomphant.
i567 Defeat of Huguenots at battle of
St. Denis (xo Nov.). Ron-
sard's uvres (6 vols. . Baff's
Le Brave performcd.
568 Garnier's Po»vie.
569 Huguenots defeated at Jarnae
March. Death of Conde.
Defeat of Coligny at Moncon-
tour (Oetober). Du Bellay's
uvres. SeCole de Saint-
Marthe's Premëres (Fuvres.
I57o Peace of St. Germain (AugusO.
Death of Grévin. Baïf opens
his Académie de Poésie et de
Musique.
I 0 I De la Porte's Les Epithètes. Visit
of 'I Gelosi' Italian actors)
to Paris. [Battle of Lepanto.]
I572 The St. Bartholomew Massacre
in Paris (24 Aug.). Murder of
Coligny and Ramus. Death
of Goujon. Amyot translates
Plutarch's 3loralia. Ronsard's
Fra»ciad. Belleau's BrgHes.
Baif's Poems (collective edi-
tion). Jean de la Tail!e's çafil
1« fitrl«u.r. Henri Etienne's
T]wsaurus Gra¢cae Linguae.
I573 Sieges of Rochelle and Sancerre.
Death of Jodelle. Death of
L'Hopital. Du Bartas's La
3luse Chrestienne. Desportes'
Les premières uvres. Jean
de la Taille's La FamDte and
Les Corrivanx. Garnier's H-
polyte Belleau's La Recomm¢.
Hotman's Franco-Gallia.
ENGLAND.
English army supports Huguenots in
Normandy. Gorboduc acted at the
Inner Temple.
Ascham's Schoolmaster written. Ri-
baut's Description ofFlorida 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 ofJames Vl ofScotland. Udall's
Ralph Rolster D¢ister pri nted. Paint-
er's Palace of Pleasurt. Gascoigne's
Supposes acted at Gray's Inn.
James VI becomes king of Scotland.
Rugby School founded. Golding's
translation of Ovid's 3Ietamorlhoses.
George Turberville's translation of
Mantuanus' Eclogues.
The Bishops' Bible in English.
Skelton's Poems (eomplete edition).
Theatre [or IVorldlings (eontaining
Spenser's renderings of Du Bellay
and Marot'. Heywood's Four Fs
first printed.
Ascham's Schoolmaster. Royal Ex-
change opened in London begun
1566 .
Birth of Inigo Jones and John Donne.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xxi
FRANçE.
]574 Deatb of Charles IX. Henry I|I
becomes King of France.
[Death of Cinthio.] Jodelle's
uvres. Garnier's CorneTie.
Discours mervdllcux, an at-
tack on Queen Catherine de'
Medici.
z5"/5 Palissy's public lectures inaugu-
rate the science of Geology.
Jamyn's uvres [oCtiques.
Vauquelin de la Fresnaie's
L'Art poétique franfois begun.
Duplessis-Mornay's Discours
de la vie et de la mort. Birth
of Montchrétien.
z576 Henry of Navarre heads the
Protestants in France. Pierre
de Brach's Poèmes. Belleau's
Pierres 2brécfeuses. BC l[imes
[Book I). Bodin's République
(six books). Boëtie's Contr'Un.
Gentillet's attack on Machia-
velli's creed.
x577 Death of Beileau. 'I Gelosi'
,..Italian actors) again visit
Paris. Aubigne's Les Tragi-
ques begun published I617).
538 Du Bartas's La Semaine. Ron-
s.ard's uvres, 5 vols).. Henri
Etienne's Deux dialogues du
nouveau franfois italianisé.
Garnier's ci[arc- ,4toine.
French translation of Monte-
mayor's Diana.
x579 Larivey's Six premières comédies.
Gmïaier's La Troade. Du
Plessis- Mornay's Vindic.iae
conlra O,rannos. Henri Eti-
enne's De la Prëcellence du
Langage frafois. Pontoux's
L'Idëe.
t58o Montaigne's Essais .two books).
Garnier's .4,aone. Bodin's
Démonomanie des Sorcfers.
Beza's Icones.
t58t Du Plessis's De la venlë de la
religion chrestienne.
t582 Garnier's Bradamante. Mon-
taigne's Essais (end edition',.
Belleforest's ttisolres tragi-
ques t'from Bandello) new
edition completed. Tessier's
Premier Livre d'/tirs.
ENGLAND.
Negotiations begun for marriage of the
Duke of Alençon with Queen Eliza-
beth.
George Gascoigne's Posies.
First public theatre in London.
Kendall's Flowers of EIMg,'a,n,nes.
Golding's translation of Beza's
z4b, aham sao-ifiant. Patrick's Dis-
course upon ttw mea,ws of w¢i ve,'n-
ing, written (a translation of Gentil-
let's tract against Machiavelli'.
Mit, or for Mastrates .complete edi-
tion).
Gosson's School of ,4buse. North's
translation of Plutarch's Lives trom
Arnyot's French). Spenser's Shep-
eard's Calend«r. Gabriel Harvey.
Sidney, and Spenser form society
of the Areopagus. Lyly's Enphtws,
the 24atomy of IVit. Birth of J ohn
Fletcher. First Scotch Bible.
Lyly's Euphues and his England.
Francis, Duke of Anjou, in England
to sue for hand in marriage of
Queen Elizabeth. Sidney's .4rcadia
finished ; Sonnets and .4poiogie 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 Christian
l[editahons.
xxii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
5B3 G-rnier's Les Juives. J.J. Sca-
ligeds De
I584 Death of the Duke of Alençon
(June). The Holy League
forme& Du Bartas's La
conde Semaine. Ronsard's
uvres (x vol. folio). Freneh
translation of Tasso's Aminta.
Death of François Clouer the
painter.
i585 Death of Ronsard (27 Dee.).
Garnier's Tragédies.
J586 Pasquier's Lett«rs çten books.
1587 Henry of Navarre's victory at
Courras. La Noue's Discours
politiqnes et mtTitaires. Du
Bartas visits James VI at
Edinburgh.
J588 bIurder of Henry of Guise and
the Cardinal of Guise (.De-
cember). Montaigne's Essais
. Book IID.
589 De'ath of Catherine de' Medici
January). Henry I11 assas-
sinated (July 3I). Henry IV
claims French crown. Death
of J. A. de Baïf. Pierre
Matthieu's play ofZa Guisiade
popular in Paris.
I59o Henry IV's victory at Ivry
(March i4). Death of Charles
:X claimant to the throne
(May). Death of Paré, Palissy,
Du Bartas, Cujas, and Hotman.
59 Death of La Noue.
i592 Death of Montaigne. Death of
Alexander of Parma ,Dec. 8'.
Le Guyslen produced.
x593 Henry IV becomes a Catholic
July m5- French translation
of Guarini's I1 astor Fido.
J. J. Scaliger appointed pro-
fessor at Leyden. Death ol
Amyot.
ENGLAND.
Birth of Francis Beaumont. John
Soothern's tandora (an imitation of
Ronsard). Lyly's Caml#aSpe pro-
duced at Court. Munday's irtvo
Italian Gentlemen. Thomas Hud-
son's translation of Du Bartas's
Judith. Scot's Discoverie of I, Vitch-
craft. Temple's annotated edition
of Ramus's Dialeaica.
Permanent printing press established
at Oxford University. Raleigh's
endeavours to colonize Virginia.
English army supports Protestants of
Lv Countries. Death of Sir Philip
Sidney. Hooker's Ecclesiastical
toli(v begun.
Exeeution of Mary Queen of Seots.
Thomas Nashe's Unfortuat« Tra-
vdler. Green&s Debate belwee
Follle ad Loue, a rendering of
Louise Labé's Débat. blarlowe,
Lodge, Greene, and Peele begin
writing for the English stage. Mar-
lowe's Tamb«rlaine produced.
Defeat of the Spanish Armada.
Part of Du Plessis's Vidiciae, pub«
lished in English. Yonge's Musica
Transalpina. Greene's Padosto.
Puttenham's rte of English Poesie.
Arthur Golding completes and pub-
lishes Sidney's translation of Du
Plessis's ' Truth of Christianity'.
Hakluyt's Prindlbali Navigations.
Sidney's Arcadia. Spenser's Faerie
Que«ne (Books I-III). Lodge's
Rosalyde. Countess of Pembroke
translates Garnier's Marc-Antoie.
Two English armies support Henry IV
of France in Northern France, one
under Earl of Essex. Sidney's As-
trophel ad Stella. Spenser's Daph-
naida and Complais/s. Shake-
speare's Love' s L abouf s L ost writte n.
Shakespeare remodels Henry VI.
Constable's Dmna and DaniePs
Delia (first editions.
Death of Mariowe. Lodge's William
Longbeard and Phillis. Shake-
spear&s Venus and/ldonis. Dray-
ton's Idea. Watson's Tears of
Fancie. Countess of Pembroke's
translation of Du Plessis's Discourse
of Li[e and Death.
CHRONOI.OGICAL TABLE xxiii
:594 Henry IV enters Paris, and is
crowned King (Feb. '/). La
Satyre .lédplbét. Jean Go-
" dard's Les Ddguisès. Durant's
Euvres lSo/liques» including Le
Zodiac.4 moureux ( first pri nted
:58).
:595 [Death of Tasso.]
:596 Death of Bodm.
:597 Passerat's Poèmes (Book I).
t598 Edict of Nantes. Henry IV
grants toleration to the Pro-
testants. Installation of p:o-
fessional actors at Che Hotel
de Bourgogne, with Alexandre
Hardy a.s playright. Death of
Henri Etienne.
599
:6oo Death of Garnier.
:60: Biron's conspiracy. Montchre-
tien's Tragëdies. Bertaut's
uvres poCiques.
:6oa Execution of Biron. Bertaut's
Vers amoureux. Death of
Passerat.
:603
:6o4 De Thou's HiMory (Part I).
Death of Beza at Geneva.
:6o5 [Cervantes' Don Quixote (Part
I).] Vauquelin de la Fres-
naie's Diverses lbOèsies.
Hardy's MI,0hé, e.
t6o6 Death of Desportes. Passerat's
Euvres Potiqus. Birth of
Corneille.
-NGLAND.
Shakespeare's Lucrece. Daniel's Cleo-
batra. Madowe's Dodo and Ed-
ward II. Kyd's version of Garnier's
Cornëlie. Chapman's Shadow of
lVig/:t. Tasso' s Melancholy produced
at Che Rose Theatre.
Death of Thomas Kyd. The Countess
of Pembroke's version of Garnier's
Marc-qnloine. English translation
of La Satyre AIénifllbée (,d Pleasant
Satyre--dt Satyre 3Ienit[n'zed Sid-
ney's Mpologie for Poetrie. Spenser's
Colin Cloul, ,dmoretti, and Elbilka-
lamion. Chapman's Ozds Banqcoe!
of Senee (,including The .4morous
Zodiacke).
Spenser's Vie*v of lice State of Ireland
completed. Spenseds Facile Queene
Books IV-VI) and Prolhalamion.
Lodge's Margarite of .4 merica. Death
of Sir Francis Drake.
Bacon's Essays (:st edition). Hooker's
Eccltsiaslical Polity (rive books).
Shakespeare writes x Henry IV.
Globe Theatre bulle. Sidney's .4rcadia
in folio. Jonson's Every Man in his
Humour acted. Chapman com-
pletes Marlowe's Itero and Leande»:
Love's Labour's Losl in quarto.
Death of Edmund Spenser. Peele's
David and BetAsab¢.
Earl of Essex's rebellion and execu-
tion. Fairfax's translation of Tasso's
Jerusalem Delivered. Sir William
Cornwallis's F_ssays. Marlowe's
Massacre at Pans. Death of Hooker.
T,vo trag«dies in on published. Web-
ster's The Guise produced.
Shakespeare's ttamlet produced. Da-
vison's Poetical Rhalbsody. Bodley's
Library opened at Oxford.
Death ofQueen Elizabeth. Accession
of James l. Florio's translation of
Montaigne's Essais. I-Iamlel, Che
First Quarto.
England makes peace with Spain.
Hamkt, the Second Quarto.
Bacon's Mdvancem«n! of Learning.
Ben Jonson's Vollbone produced.
English translation of Bodin's Relbu-
blique by Richard Knolles.
xxiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
FRANCE.
607 Death of Vauquehn de la Fres-
naie. Hardy's CoHolan.
6o8
x6o9 Henry IV assassinated. Acces-
sion of Louis XIII. Regnier's
Satires (I-XII). Death ofJ. J.
Scaliger.
16II Death of Bertaut. Larivey's
Com«dits (Part Il).
Regnier's Satires çrevised edi-
tion).
[Death of Guarini.]
1614
161.5 [Cervantes' Don Quixot« (Part
II}.] Montchrétien, Traité de
l' OEconomie politique.
1616 [Death of Cervantes.] Au-
bigné's Les Tragiqu«s pub-
lished (written in I577).
ENGLAND.
Ben Jonson's VolOont. Alexander's
Monarchicke Tagedies. Chapman's
Bussy d' /t mbois. Tomkis's Lingua .
First collective edition of Sylvester's
translation of Du Bartas's La
maint complete.
King Lear in quarto. Chapman's
B),on's Conspiracy and Tragedy.
Birth of Milton.
Spenser's l'orks published in quarto.
Shakespeare's Sonnets, Troilus and
Cressida, and Pericles in quarto.
tony and Cleopatra and CoHolanus
probably produeed.
Cotgrave's French-English Dictionary.
Coryat's Crudities. Shakespeare's
Tempest written. The Authorised
Version of the Bible.
Bacon's Essays (2nd edition'. Death
of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury.
Chapman's Revenge of Bussy
bois.
Raleigh's History of the IIrorld.
Death of Hakluyt, Francis Beaumont,
and Shakespeare. William Drum-
mond of Hawthornden's Poems
BOOK I
THE DEBT OF TUDOR CULTURE
TO FRANCE
LEE
THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY, FRANCE AND ENGLAND
ENGL1SH literature of the sixteenth century reached its
ultimate triumph in the drama and poetry of .Shakespeare.
On this fact the historian and the critic dwelI with a just
persistence. Less attention is commonly bestowed on the
equally instructive truth that English literature of the six-
teenth century was 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 litemture has an unassailable
line of foreign descent and kinship. Whatever justification
historian or critic may allege for the prevalem 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 ,Vestern Europe to
eliminate barbarism and rusticity from the field of man's
thought, and to substitute humanism and liberal culture of
infinite scope. The discovery 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 with 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 ofjoy, 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
4 FRANCE AND 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 ofprogress
into France, Germany, Spain, and England.
England was slow to enlist in this triumphant advance ot
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 ail the fidds
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 artistlc 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 malntained 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 Italian 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 ltalian 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 Guarlni 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 bave no precise parallel elsewhere. It
came into belng earller, and llved 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
slxteenth 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 hls 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 bave 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 aire. In both France and Italy humanism reached its
finaI stage of perfection in art and letters while Spenser and
Shakespeare 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 faine long before the
Faerie Queeze was sent to press. The Italian Renaissance
6 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
and the French Renaissance put forth their fine.st 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 beglnning of the
sixteenth century England saw bright flashes of humanlst
development. The scholarship and speculation of Thomas
Linacre and of Sir Thomas More illumined the darkness for
a brief season. At no long interval the poets Wyatt and
Surrey brought another touch of radlance 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 Machlavelli in
Italy, Rabelais and Clément Marot in France. But the
promise proved delusive. Attractive as were the first emana-
tions of Tudor humanlsm and Tudor poetry, they were
gleams only, and quicl«ly faded. When Surrey's muse was
silenced, near half a century of darkness or hazv llght
intervened before the literary flame was to burn in England
with ample or lasting glow.
Only from the year 579, when Spenser and Sir Philip
Sidney first gave earnest of their genius, did the stream of great
literature flow in England continuously or with sustained force.
The impulse grew in strength for thirty years and then decayed.
The flourishing period of Engllsh Renaissance literature was
not only belated, but was of short duration compared with
that of France or Italy. At the extreme end of the sixteenth
century the drama of the Renaissance in Egland scaled
through one generation heights of which lhe movement
alike in Italy and in France fell short. It is no insularity on
the part of the Eglish critic, there is no proof that he is
'slck 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 English artistlc energy
during the era, nor may the historian overlook the tardiness
of the Eglish Renaissance in proving its strength, or the
brevity of the period of its prosperity.
THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND
On the threshold of our present study of literary history
we must divest oursel,,'es of many modern prepossessions.
Not till the eighteenth century opened, can England be said
to have marched in the European van of intellectual pro-
gress. The supreme work of Shakespeare 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 glants 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 Egland was content to borrow a reformed theology
and much of ber 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. \Vhatever errors may be imputed to the Spanish
occupation oi 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.
Egland followed the guidance of Spain 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 aires and
results with the bold but ineffectual expeditions of Martirt
Frobisher, of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and of Sir Walter
8 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
Raleigh's agents in Virginia. 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 ail 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 V(estern
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 ail Tudor literature, was an organism ofvaried fibre, much
of which was rooted in foreign mould.
Although the spirit ot 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-
Cf. ' The Call of the \Vest'-- four articles by the present writer in
Scribner's ,l[aga:ine for ] 907.
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
hot only in her mother-volce
Rich in oration,
but he polnted out that she
with phrases choice
o on the sudden can discourse in Greek,
French, Latin, Tuscan, Dutch, and Spanish, eke
That Rome, Rhine, Rhone, Greece, Spain, and Italy
Plead all for right in her nativity. 1
Here we have a characteristically rough and irregular, but an
almost exhaustive, enumeration of the foreign influences at
work, hOt merely on the Queen, but on the best intellects
among her subjects. All these six tongues and literatures--
Greek, French, 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
1 Joshua Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas's Second IYeeg" (4th edit.
1613, p. 333). Queen Elizabeth's varied linguistic faculty, which is well
attested by Ascham (The %/wlemas/er, ed. Mayor, p. 63), was noticed
by many other French poets. Ronsard {Book IV, § ii infra} together with
the Huguenot poets Aubigné (Book V, § vil) and Grévin (Book Vl, § iii)
ail write as admiringly on the subject as Du Bartas. The great scholar,
J. J. Scaliger, who visited England about I59o , wrote : ' Elisabeth Reyne
sçavoit plus que tous les Grands de son vivant, & parloir Italien,
François, Alemand, Latin, Grec & Anglois' (Scaligeriana, Cologne,
6-5, p. 34)-
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 x6o3, Daniel warily argued that it was
the proportion [i. e. property] of a happy pen,
Not to b' invassal'd to one monarchy,
But dwell with ail the bctter vorld of men
.Vhose 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 ail lands
And doth a most secure commercement find. t
Varied was the argument whlch 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 Carexv, 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 t3abelish confusion than any one entire lan-
guage.' 2 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 lb'orks, ed. Grosart, vol. i, p. _.87.
Camden, l?,'mains CotcertDtÆ Britain (1870 edition), p. 47.
TASSO ON THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE
Ample evidence is available of the zeal xvith which Eliza-
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 v«as flowering, in the personal experience of great
contemporary leaders of continental literature. Much mav 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 J[elancho[y
may well have had Ophelia's words for motto:
O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! . . .
The observed of ail 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 surn-ives, but there is an extant record of its first
production by the theatrical manager Philip Henslowe at the
Rose Theatre in London on August i I, 594 .a The play
proved exceptionally popular and profitable. It was repeated
six times before the end of the year and at least four rimes
next year. Tasso worked out his sad destiny while Shake-
speare's genius was first proving its strength. On April 25,
1595, the great Italian poet died, and within three weeks--on
May I4, 595 -the English piece of which he was the hero
was acted in London for at least the tenth time. Nor did its
theatrical lire then cease. Six years later, early in 6ot,
Dekker, a writer of genuine Elizabethan vigour, was em-
ployed to revise this play of Tasso's l[elanchol.),, and it
would seem to have been revived at the London playhouse
while Shakespeare was planning his great tragedy of HamleL
' 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 Di«ry, ed. Greg, vol. i, pp. 19-22.
FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
conclusion. It is lumlnous proof of the briskness of the
literary and intellectual commerce of Elizabethan England
with the Eropean continent at the end of the sixteenth
century.
III
THE INTERPRETATIVE FACULTY OF FRANCE
In estimating, with precision, the influence that France, our
sole immedlate 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 ca.st 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
bas 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 thls 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 France
was on the one hand closer than between Egland and any
other foreign country, and on the other hand France's
idiosyncrasy or individuality had unique qualification for
quickenlng England's imitative and assimilative instinct, when
the two were brought into conjunction.
It was the mission of France to bring to Egland something
more than the harvest of her own soil. Though France had
hOt yet attained the military and political ascendancy over
Erope which marked the era of Louis XIV, she first became
CHARACTERISTICS OF FRENCH CULTURE 13
in the sixteenth century that home or storehouse of culture
and ideas, she first acquired those powers of collecting and
transmitting culture and ideas, which soon led Paris to be styled
the artistic and intellectual capital, hOt alone of France, but
of Europe. Lucidity, clarity, precislon 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 ber for a
r61e of interpreter and tutor to other nations, hOt merely of
her own culture and ideas, but ofthe culture and ideas which she
absorbed from others. She had, then and later, great moments
of original inspiration. But in the history ofmodern Eropean
civilization ber interpretative faculty, her capacity for teaching
without preaching, have given ber as high a title to external
faine and gratitude as any of her original contributions to
thought or art. Her expository power bas constituted ber
for fully three centuries a universal court oftastc, an apostolate
of humanism trbt" et orbz; the world's arbiler elegaztz'artJJz.
Such offices 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 Italian sensuousness, but it owes much
of its colour to Gallic alermess and inventiveness of mind, to
the Gallic spirit of airy mockery. The terre which is often
applied to the main idiosyncrasy of the French character,
l'esri! gazdois, is a phrase which is diflîcult to translate.
It is often confused unjustly with humorous obscenity. In its
original manifestations, l'esbri¢ gaulois implies three enviable
qualities : firstly, flexibility of thought ; secondly, gaiety, tend-
ing at times to levity and coarseness, but readily yielding to
I4 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
pathetic tenderness; and thirdly, a melodious ease of frank
and simple utterance. Its main power cornes from the volatile
wit, the good-natured raillery, of the native temperament, vhich
is never readily repressed even in serious situations. The
religious drama of mediaeval France has its episodes of banter
and laughter. There was no monotony about l'esprz' gaztloz'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 fascinatlng 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 immedi'-_tely
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 oflate mediaeval
France. Tudor pioneers were often uncritical and unadven-
turous in their cholce 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-
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 Clément
arot. 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 ofexerting. Villon was mainly a national
poet in whom racial or local sentiment was, perhaps, too
strongly developed to gain easily the car 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 5
insight enabled him to interpret the blitheness, the frank-
ness, the sensibility 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
terres of a savage coarseness. At the saine time his poems
are occasionally woven ofthat 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 ofold-time Ladies),
or in his 'Ballade des seigneurs du temps jadis' (Ballade of old-
rime Lords), with the two tuneful refrains ' Mais où sont les
neiges d'antan ?' and ' Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne ?'
Something of the French breadth of sentiment which inspired
Villon appears in tlae 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 shovs 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 aflfinity 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 Villon'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 Villon,
in its unregeneracy and immodesty, joins hands for a season
6 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
with the alien learning and insight of Greece and Italy. The
poet Clément Marot, a pious editor of Villon's vork, made,
too, a humbler effort to reconcile the old spirit with the new.
The result of the compromise was something of a patchwork,
whlch challeng'ed many canons of art.
But while the past poetry was not quickly dispossessed, it
became plain, when the sixteenth century was nearlng mlddle
age, that the old Gallic taste and temper were to pass for the
rime under the sway of a new poetlc inspiration, and were
to adapt themselves to new poetic channels. When Rabelais
and Marot lald down their pens, the old forces in the French
literary arena showed exhaustion, and the literary activlty
of France ceased to pursue the ancient ways. The French
Renaissance finally proclaimed drastic innovations and de-
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 Pléiade, ail
the innovating temper of the French Renaissance came by
its own. Ronsard and his friends defiberately rejected as
vulgar and barbarous the old French idiom and the pre-
scriptive usages of the Gallic spirit. They deliberately
grafted the nation's poetry on Greek and Italian stocks.
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 patriotlc 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 cauht 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 drauhts of the new French
Helicon. t With what measure of truth such words were
spoken will presently appear.
1 Cri Relurnefrom Parnassus, 16o6, Act I. Sc. ii. z75 (ed. Macray, p. 86),
and Joseph Hall's Satires, Book VI, Sat. i, t598 (ed. Singer; I824, p. x59 ).
17
V
FRENCH DISCIPLESHIP TO GREECE AND ROME
The processes at work in the evolutlon 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 lïnest 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 identitïed with the names of
Budaeus, the Scaligers, and the Étiennes (or Stephenses).
A dozen others deserve mention in the saine breath. Greek
professorships were founded hOt 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 Gerrnany, and only four or rive 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
hOt numerous, France quickly excelled ltaly in its faculty for
textual criticism and interpretation, and above ail for transla-
tion into the vernacular. Anacreon, Phaedrus, and Plutarch
in his r61e 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 tank of
Aeschylus and Plato first brought the Hellenic genius home
to the intelligence of modern Europe. The first effective
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
LIE C
18 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
the French printers rendered Europe.an scholarship is especî-
ally characteristic of the genius of the French Renaissance;
they refashioned xvith 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,
Étienne Dolet, which was first published in 1540 and xvas many
times reprinted, was entitled La manière de bien traduire
d'une langue en autres (On the manner of translating well from
one Ianguage into others). DoIet'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 vhich, as well as the language into which, he
translates, may now sound obvious and commonplace, but they
are hOt obsolete. They were obeyed with such skill by Doler
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 Lires also became in an
English translation an Elizabethan classic. But it is significant
to remember that the Elizabethan transIation of Plutarch
vas rendered hOt from the Greek original, but from the
contemporary French. That fact, I think I shall be able to
FRENCH STUDY OF ROMAN LAW x9
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 energy 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
a native of Milan, did his most notable work as professor of
law at the universities of Avignon (from 152 J) and of Bourges
(from x 5zoE onwards). From him Erope 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
crltics, 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 (I5z-9o), professor of law
at Bourges, a Frenchman who evolved modern juridical science
out of his investigation into Roman codes. Cujas, thejunior
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 ail its course with brilliant
revelations of the significance of law in both principle and
practice. A third French professor of the period, Jean Bodin
(/53o-96), was led by similar classical avenues to a new politi-
cal philosophy, to a formal theory of government. BoElin's
i Alciati was also famous as the earliest and most popular of modern
emblem writers, and as the inventor thereby of an ingenious literary
relaxation, which was characteristic of the Renaissance temper. Alciati's
£mb/ems are proverbs in ltalian verse symbolically illustrated. They were
first published at Milan in 52, and soon achieved a very large circulation
in France, where a translation came out in 536. The continental editions
of the sixteenth century are said to bave numbered more than fifty.
Though no edition appeared in England, eighty-six of Alciati's emblems
are adopted by Geffrey Whitney in his Ch«ice ofEmblems, Leyden, t586.
(See reprint, edited by Henry Green, 866, pp. -'45-6.)
C2
o 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 sixtecnth 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 expo»ition of political
theory an academic text-book.
The political literature of the Renaissance was, like almost
ail Renaissance effort, born in Italy. rl PriJtc@e of Machia-
velli was the eadiest 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 2
Numerous Frenchmen of the Renaissance in their philo-
sophical, ethical, or logical inquiries, boldly questioned the
dassical tradition. Peter Ramus, or Pierre de la Ramée
(I5I 5-72), startled the University of Paris in t 536 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 (t533-9), created a new type of literature and specula-
tion in those familiar essays which Bacon echoed with the zeal
of a disciple. Montaigne, who discussed in the Pagan spirit
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 ltaly is
hardly less conspicuous than its debt to Greece or Rome.
The course of politics quickened those racial affinities which
ruade 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 invasion of Italy by France was inaugurated by
the French king Charles VIII in 494. Full thirty years
later it reached a close which wrought physical disaster on
the invading host. Yet the French rout under the walls of
Pavia in 525 merely served to tighten the bonds which
linked France to Italian culture. The last of the royal French
invaders, Frartcis I, who was taken prisoner in the fatal
32 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
contest, was enslaved by Italian taste. The king loved the
fanciful titles of ' le père des Muses' and ' le restaurateur des
lettres '. Ronsard hailed him as ' Nourrisson de Phébus, 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 (I 515-47), 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 hls 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.
SVhen the Republic of Florence, the chief home of the Italian
Renaissance, fell in 153 o, and was finally merged in the Duchy
of Tuscany, Florentine refugees found no warmer velcome
than in Paris. Much Italian literature was penned in the French
capital under the patronage of ' le monarque François ', and
was printed at French presses. The Italian conquest of French
taste was sealed in 533 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 familles, whose features Michelangelo
has immortalized in his famous statue of Il Pensieroso. After
Queen Catherine's husband died in 539, her three sons filled
in succession the French throne, and during those thirty years
(559-89), she found as Queen Mother full scope for her
domlnating temper. Her political ambition was nurtured by
Ronsard, OEu,res, vii. 178.
THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE o 3
study of Machiavelli's Prfncemthat stimulating Italian plea for
despotism which its author had dedicated to ber 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, a 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
court well alive till near the end of the century.
No unmixed good issued from the Italian predominance.
ltalian 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 ofthe 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-beingof 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 1II. 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
i Cf. Ronsard's uvres, iii. 379 (Le Bocage Royal) :
Elle, se souvenant des vertus de sa race...
Laquelle a remis sus les lettres et les arts...
Sans cette noble race en oubli fust Athènes.
In Les Posies inCites de Catherine de 2V[/dids (Paris, 1884),
M. Édouard 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.
A sense of nationality deepened in France with the peaceful
solution ofher internal strife. Henry ofNavarre, xvho brought
the century's civil and religious warfare to an end, invigorated
the sense of patriotism and discouraged dependence on the
foreigner. The epoch closed amid cries of revolt against the
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 ofthe standard of
rebelllon produced no sudden collapse ofthe old régime. The
Italian ride ebbed slowly in French literature. It was flowing
most strongly when Elizabethan literature was born, and the
French poetry which flourlshed contemporaneously with the
Eizabethan 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. V'ith
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. 1 None the less the
country outside Paris fed the flame of culture with a signal
cf. James Howell's Instructions for Forreine Trave11, t642 (ed. Arber,
p. 28), ' Paris, that huge though dirty theatre of ail nations.' Howell is
writing of Paris as he knew it in 618.
FRENCH CENTRES OF CULTURE 2 5
efficiency. The provinces, with their local parliaments and local
traditions, encouraged a sentiment of local independence and of
neighbourly rivalry, vithout seriously imperilling the country's
homogeneity. The political divisions gave cultured energy a
series ofcompeting rallying-points. A small district of the south
formed during most of the century the affiliated kingdom of
Navarre, and that ilt#ert'tt»,t t)t i»,tierio played a noble part in
the development of the new enlightenment. From x527 to
x 549 Marg'aret, Queen Consort of Navarre, Francis I's sister
and Henry of Navarre's gmndmother, ruade ber palace at
Nérac a nursery of art and letters, which was hardly second
in brilliance to the Louvre or to Fontainebleau. The court
of Navarre, v,'hose 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 Némc
stand alone. France was honeycombed with citadels of culture,
which helped to broaden, fortify, and vivify national sympathy
with art and literature.
SVell might Marot liken the cultured eminence of the town
of Lyons, for example, to Troy or Mount Pelion. From
the early days of the century many cities boasted annual
poetic competitions--Graltds./rottrs--which were seasons and
ceremonies of popular holiday. Ronsard, the kingly poet of
the Renaissance, ranked above ail his many honours the silver
statuette of Minerva which the city ofToulouse 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 saine festival of Toulouse ; so inveterate was
the literary tradition of provincial France, and so deep were
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 '. vrith his gaze
fixed beyond Paris the national poet may win pardon for the
exaggeration in his hymn to his fatherland (oE'nvres, v. OE87) :
Dedans l'enclos de nos belles citez
Mille et mille arts y sont exercitez.
6 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
The activity of provincial universities ruade twenty towns
rivals 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 ail 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
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. Such a
phase of the intellectual history of France strangely contrasts
with the circumstance that in England London alone tan
claire an uninterrupted succession of printers during the saine
era. Neither Oxford nor Cambridge, England's only two
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, ruade
their first appearance in France at the end of the fifteenth
century. ' Les bisouarts,' as these ballad-mong'ers 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 tan compare with this diffusion of
intellectual energy and ambition.
THE REFORM OF RELIGION 7
The roots of Renaissance culture were planted deep in
France and fertilized all the 1and. 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 splrit 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
lais dogma with the pursuit of intellectual and artistic ideals.
bluch will be said of the contribution of the Huguenots
to French literature ata 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 ofmediaeval 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
loyers of ancient dogma, and the progress of humanism
enjoyed the sanction of Roman Catholicism. 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
28 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
accommodating their conceptions of religious truth with
humanist ambitions. Arhen civil war broke out between French
Catholics and Huguenots, humanism continued to flourish in
both camps. If Ronsard and the leaders of the Plélade were
Catholic laymen loyal enough to the faith to fill abbacies
and other ecclesiastical benefices,--Palissy the potter, Goujon
the sculptor, Goudimel the musician, Ramus the logician, the
Étiennes 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 Reforrnation, 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-
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
Étienne 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 toits humanist
leaven. No fact bears more graphic testimony to the strength
of the impression which Renaissance sentiment ruade on the
French mind, and no fact is of greater significance in thestudy
of French influence on Elizabethan literature, than this liberal
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 lire. Humanism moulded
the lives and immortalized the names of many Frenchrnen
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 loyers 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 hOt to men of letters.
These two standard-bearers of culture in the citizen army
of the Renaissance were hOt, strictly speakinæ, contem-
poraries. Grolier was born in 1479 and died in i565, when
he was in his eighty-sixth year. De Thou was born in
i553, and lived on till I6I 7. Their two lires cover 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 aire to legal, official, 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 ruade to measure the
3 ° FRANCE AND
literary indebtedness of the
poetic ideas, oftert circulate
ously detached and isolated
of transference is alleged, it
no the hard material fact
TUDOR CULTURE
one to the other. Literary ideas,
through the world in so mysteri-
a way that, when a definite process
is prudent to ascertain whether or
of historical intercommunications
will support the allegation of borrowing. Certain historical
conditions must accompany transference of llterary 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, ail 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-
turc, 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 IOO years'
war in 453 is not marked by much cordiality between the
peoples. Yet even then something might have been said for
Pope's epigram, vhich was suggested long afterwards by the
dependence of England on French taste in Charles IFs reign :
We conquered France, but felt our captive's charms,
Her arts victorious trlumphed o'er out 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 i453 was 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 countrles. It was
THE BALANCE OF POWER
3 1
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-polnt 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 relgn of Henry Vil new diplomatic theories
of the balance of power were inaugurated in Europe, and
France and England, despite preliminary threatenings of war-
rare, 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 VIII's reign and during nearly the whole of Queen
Eizabeth's reign. Henry VIII frankly acknowledged the
principle of the balance of power when he devised, according
to popular tradition, his bold motto, cm" adhaereo )braeest,
--' 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
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
i Camden's Annals, edit. 688, p. 223.
3 2 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
diplomatie cordiality between France and Tudor England
quickly led, like lovers' quarrels, to new assurances of
political affection. When Henry VIII 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 avoval of friendliness filled that pacifie interval.
From 513 to x543 the diplomatie 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,
made the French court, for the short season that the monarch
survived his marriage, a rendezvous of English nobility and
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 vith markedly French predilections.
Anne Boleyn, who was Queen Elizabeth's mother, ranks high
among English apostles of French culture.
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 x52x , vorthily inaugu-
rated Henry VIII's loyal discipleship to the French king in
matters of taste. Henry wrote French verse on the rather
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
near 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-
bridge and Oxford in x 540 imitated in spirit and closely fol-
lowed in point of time Francis I's establishment of like chalrs
BOULOGNE AND CALAIS 33
in his new foundation of the Collège de France in I53o.
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 English 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 VllI'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 resuh for the time was an extension of
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 hOt
maintalned. France chafed under the indignityand recovered
Boulogne of Henry VIII's son and successor, Edward VI.
V'ithin another eight years, at the close of the brief suc-
ceeding reign of Henry VIII's eldest daughter Mary, France
and England were at war for a thlrd tlme in the century.
The short campaign robbed England of Calais for ever. In
I558 ' for the first rime for two hundred years, England was
deprived of ail footing on the European continent.
The unexpected humiliation was a source of deep grief to
the English people, and overwhelmed the English sovereign,
Queen Mary, with a fatal melancholy. The English crown,
she said, had lost its brightest jewel. But the heavy cloud
had for England a silver lining. Ahhough Elizabethan
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 de.serve 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 Ènglish defeat evoked from French poets a
patriotic demonstration whose tone shovs 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 Itymne au roy sur la firinse de Cala's
than an assurance that the body of France, long mutilated by
'le furieux Anglois', was now made whole. 1 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 2kngloys,
Qu'on disoit tant imprenable,
Et-il pris a ceste fois ?
Through forty-six such stanzas the Frenchman modestly ex-
patlated on the glorious miracle. 9 French humanism of the
strictest classical type shared the general jubilation, and
2kdrian Turnebus, the eminent Greek professor at Paris,
voiced the national satisfaction at this dlsmissal of England
from French soil in a voluble, but temperate, 19anegyr[cus
de Cah'sio ca#fo :
Nunc naufragus Anglus
Eiectusque miserque suae est illisus arenae, z
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,
a Du Bellay, OEuoE,res, 1597, ff. i7o et seq.
* De Magny, Odes, I876, ii. p. 4-
s Gruter, 1961iliae C. 'oelam«n Gallorum (i619) , pars iii, IOI4. There
was another Latin poem by a Frenchman, Guillaume Paradin, which bore
the title : ' De Motibus Galliae et expugnato receptoque Itio Caletorunl,
Anno MD.LVIII.' Leyden, 1558 , 4to.
FRENCH POETS ON CALAIS 35
was chanted in street and lane. 1 A morality play, La
Re'ise 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 l'antique bourne,
Pour France bourner. 2
In England the humiliation went unsung. A ballad in
defence of Lord V'entworth, the English commander who
was put on his trial for the loss of the French town, is the
sole poetic record in Englisla of tlae disaster, and that unique
declaration is no longer extant. "
The crisis of Calais left no lasting resentment on either
English or Frencla minds, in spire of the passing thrill in
Frencla 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 Englisla queen sent an army into
France to support a domestic revoit of French Protestants
against the established government. But this somewhat
laesitating 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 France amid general rejoicings. Throughout the
* Le Roux de Lincy, Re, ueil des Chanls ttisloriques Franfais depuis
le XII" jusqu'au XII'III" siècle, ii. =x. M. de Lincy cites a Parisian
publication of 559, Recueil des lus belles Chansons de ce lemibs mis en
lroisarlies, for the chief chansons on the capture of Calais.
= L. Petit de Julleville, La Com,«die et les murs en France au moyen
Age. Paris, 1886, p. 83.
A ballad called The Purgation of... Lord It7enlworlh was licensed
for publication in April, 1559. See Arber's Regislers, i. o.
36 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
dramatist's lifetime the political relations of England and
France were mainly governed by this convention. In June,
t564, splendid fètes took place at Lyons, when the French
king, Charles IX, received the Order of the Garter from the
Eglish 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-
sance, Ronsard, vas vowing to Sir William Cecil, the prime
minister of Egland, that the heavenly powers had long
since promised to
. . joindre un jour par ridelle alliance
Vostre Angleterre avecques nostre France. 1
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-
ligious reformers in France towards the end of Francis l's
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-
lutism. The English 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
a Ronsard, uvres, iii. 395 (le Bocage Royal); cf. Paul Laumonier's
l?onsard, Poète Zyrique, 9o9, pp. 14-5.
FRENCH REFUGEES IN ENGLAND
37
failed to awaken some echo in English hearts. English Pro-
testants came either tacitly or openly to applaud the political
sentiment of the Huguenots as well as their spiritual dogma.
When Edward Vl's reign ruade England a distinctively
Protestant country, the Eglish people eagerly acknow-
ledged a new fellow feeling with an energetic and alert-
minded section of the French people. Englishmen eagerly
offered hospitality to French refugees from Catholic
tyranny. Early in Edward VI's 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 test
of the century. Persecuted Protestants from the Low Coun-
tries, from Italy, and even from Spain, likewise sought an
asylum in Elizabethan England. Flemings 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
the most part skilled artisans or professional men, silk-weavers
or practitioners in medicine. The refinements of life bene-
fited in ail directions by their presence. Tudor England was
backward in manufacturing or scientific ingenuity, and the
alien Protestant invasion vas 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 Étienne, the scholar printer, who did more than any
man in Europe for the scholarly study of Greek and the
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
3 8 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 ofbattle in France. A brilliant
file of Huguenot leaders--Odet de Chàtillon, Coligny's brother,
vchom Ronsard acelaimed as ' l'Hereule Chrétien ', François
de la Noue, general and military writer, Du Plessis Mornay,
apologist for Protestantismneame to the English court to
petition the queen for military help. In all these men
humanist sympathies enlivened religious zeaI. Elizabethan
courtiers delighted in personal friendship with the floxver of
the Huguenot fraternity. The ehief Elizabethan champion
of the Renaissance, Sir Philip Sidney, lived in elosest intimacy
with the most enlightened of French Protestants throughout
his short career of manhood.
The development of the French Reformation helped, some-
what illogically, to ratify in publie 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
between the two countries, which the Huguenot movement
encouraged, was the prolonged negotiation for the marriage
of the English Protestant queen to a French Catholie prince.
Thls strange scheme of diplomatie matrimony was pursued
intermittently but without disruption for thirteen years. Reli-
gious differenees did not deter Queen Elizabeth from serious
contemplation of a matrimonial union with a Catholie prince
of France. Indeed, she encouraged the advanees not of one
heir of Freneh 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 young'er
brother Francis, the Duke of Alençon. Both princes were
sons of Catherine de' Mediei, and were in sympathy with the
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FRENCH SUITOR 39
Italian leanings of the French world of art nd 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 ,cas a pious
lucubration of Huguenot tendency, 'Le miroir de l'àme
pécheresse' (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.
' Royalle,' ' douce," courtoise,' 'honneste,' 'liberalle,' 'jeune de
face,' and ' vieille de prudence,' are among the epîthets 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 ber
Elizabeth professed herself in complete aesthetic sympathy,
and for the Duke ofAlençon she soon pretended a consuming
passion. She charitably pardoned his ugliness, and her playful
blandishments led him to accept with a cheerful acquiescence
the appellation of ' little frog' which she bestowed on him.
Twice he visited ber 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 Abbé de Brant6me, the blithe biogrzpher
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 lear.ned visltor,
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
19e la Rétt6litte in a Latin translation. On examining
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 inefïicient
that he hurried home to turn his work into scholarly LatinY
The anecdote suggests how the presence in England of
Bodin's toaster, the Duke of Alençon, served incidentally to
quicken the development of English scholarshlp 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 Gallic enthusiasm of the English upper classes.
In the straitest clrcles 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 bltter-tongued opposition was reduced to impotent
clamour. The personal constitution of the duke'sescort, 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 etïicient than the
queen's matrimonial designs or the Huguenot intercourse.
The strong political and social rie xvhich bound France
to Scotland, the independent northern hall of the British
island, stimulated the tendency to make English culture
tributary to France. The political and social intimacy
of France and Scotland was long a supreme factor in
Scottish history, and it worked as an active solvent of
English 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
cultmx, in both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Much
French poetry bears witness to the intimacy of French and
Scottish royal circles. James l'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.
t Preface to the English translation of Bodin's Commonweale, by
Richard Knolles, 16o6.
THE FRANCO-SCOTTISH ALIAANCE 4
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 ofJames V's two queens, Marie de Guise,
was daughter of the great Catholic bouse, 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 ber mother-tongue, and the French
.accent with which she spoke Scottish ruade the tongue, other-
wise most cacophonous to French ears, graceful and har-
monious. French poetry was Mary Stuart's chief reading.
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. 1 Her son James, whom Henry of Navarre
called ' captain of arts and clerk of arms ', welcomed French
poets to his court with ail 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 was
educated in France. Scottish students dlstingulshed themselves
as professors at French Universities. Scottish hospitality was
constantly offered to French guests, and England lay within
the lines of communication3 The Gallic sentiment which
was woven into the web of Scottish culture had opportunities
of communlcating 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 tb.e Scottish king's claire to the
English throne, and the strong Scottish party in England saw
an advantage in championing French standards oftaste. When
the sixteenth century came to a close, French breezes played
perceptibly on Elizabethan England from the Cheviot Hills
i Cri Brantôme, Vies des Dames Illustres, No. III, 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 Che»tins d'Angleterre fort
negessaire à ceux" qui y voyaffent ou quiassent de France en Escosse.
42 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
as well as from the English Channel. Politics in England,
whether they be examined in their ecclesiastical, their diplo-
matie, or their dynastie 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-
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 tbe most part by French example. The insular
prejudice against foreigners was not extinguished, and the
notorious riot in London on ' Evil May-day' of 5x7, when
the lires 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-
ries round 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 Engllshmen 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. The foundation of Trinity College, Dublin, in x592
ENGLISHMENS STUDY OF FRENCH 43
was justified on the ground ' that many of our people bave
usually heretofore used to travel into France, Italy, and Spain,
to get learning in such foreign universities, whereby they have
been infected with popery and other iii qualities ,.1 But tle
usage of youthful peregrination was barely affected by such
suspicions. The young Eglishman's educational tour often
extended to ltaly and Germany as well as to France, but
France was rarely omitted, and many youths confined their
excursions to French terrltory. Neither Francis Bacon nor
his brother Anthony passed in their llanderj'ahre 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 2Xlontaigne. Almost every French unix, ersity
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
clalmed, 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 x55o , 'at any rate among the princes and their courts
in ail their talk.'" In I552 , Étienne Pasquier, a poet and
! j. W. Stubbs's Histary oflhe Universilr of Dublin, I889, p. 354-
Jacques Peletier du blans, Dialogues de l"Ortogra[e, p. 6o (155o):
« En Angleterre, amoins entre les Princes e en leurs cours, iz parle[n]t
François en tous leurs propos.' Of the distribution of « la tres-noble et
44 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
critic who lived on friendly terres 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 ,.1
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
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 André, a native of Toulouse,
tutor to his sons, Arthur and Henry. André was so facile
a writer of French and Latin verse that by a paradoxical
freak of fortune he became Poet Laureate at the English
court. Among other French tutors in Tudor England was
Nicolas Bourbon, a protégé of Queen Arme 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 Française ', Mellema, author of a Dictionnaire flamand-
français, 159I, writes somewhat later: ' Puis grande partie d'Alemaigne,
du pays de Levant, de Muscovie, de Pologne, d'Angle/erre el d'Ecosse
usent de ladite langue.'
i Les Lettres d'lsti«nne Pas¢uier, Amsterdam, I73, Liv. i, p. 5:
' Presque en toute l'Allemagne (que dy-je, l'Allemagne, si l'Angleterre et
l'Escosse y sont comprises)il ne se trouve maison noble qui n'ait pre-
cepteur pour instruire ses enfans en nostre langue Françoiie. Donques
l'Allemand, l'Anglois et l'Ecossois se paissent de la douceur de nostre
vulgaire.'
NICOLAS DENISOT IN ENGLAND 45
Of a third French tutor in England an even more
interesting story may be told. A French poet of modest
attainments, with an equal capacity for art and poetry, Nicolas
Denîsot (I515-59) was French tutor of the three daughters
of Protector Somerset, the Protestant statesman. Under
Denisot's guidance the young English ladies vrote 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 155o under Denisot's
editorship. The poetic essay moved the sympathy of
Denisot's poetic friends--plustétrs des e.,-celletz 15oètes de
la Fraltce. 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 thon approaching the
throne of French poetry, and in one of the great poet's
earliest odes he salutes the ladies Seymour with charming
buoyancy. IfOrpheus had heard
.... le luth des Sirenes
Qui sonne aux bords escumeux
Des A_lbionnes arenes,
the Greek l)-rist would bave forsaken his own pagan key and
learned of the Englishwomen thelr 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 heuré [i.e. heureux]
D'avoir oublié sa terre
Et passager demeuré
Trois ans en vostre Angleterre . . .
.... les esprits
I)'Angleterre et de la France,
Bandez d'une ligue, ont pris
Le fer contre l'ignorance.
a The rare volume is entitled Ze to»tb«au de 3hrgu,'rite de I6rlais
royne de Na,arre faict 2kretttieretttent en distiques Zatitts tar les trois
surs Arme, 3[argt«erite et Jeanne de Sey»tour» princesses en Angleerre
(Paris, 55)-
46
FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
Ail that was needed to seal the union, in Ronsard's g'allant
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 sonnée
Qui crîra vostre hymenée. 1
The mlssionaries of French humanism among the Tudor
nobility did not lire without honour in their own country.
Bernard André, Nicolas Bourbon, and Nicolas Denisot were
all faithful servants in the temple of French scholarship, if
they did hOt 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 toaster
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
profession in Elizabethan En#and was disposed to cultivate
friendly 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
i Ronsard, Odes, Livre V, No. III. Ronsard addresses Ode X in the
saine book to Denisot as ' peintre et poète'. Remi Belleau, Ronsard's
colleague of the Pléiade, paid Denisot in a sonnet a naïve compliment on
his industrious pursuit of the two arts (oEu2,res, ed. Gouverneur, Paris,
1867, t. i, p. 202):
Ce double trait, dont l'un industrieux
Ravit notre oeil, l'autre doux notre oreille ;
De ta main docte annonce la merveille»
Et de tes vers l'accent 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
eady efforts in lexicography which Elizabethan England
produced--Randle Cotgrave's well-known French-English
Dictionary (16xl). Thls 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, v«ho acted as chaplain to Henry VIII's sister
while she was Queen of France. Later Palsgrave became
tutor of Henry VIlI's natural son, the Earl of Richmond.
His voluminous L'tsclarcissetstezt de la latfftte Fratço),se,
which was published in London in 153o , is a philological
monument and the acknowledged parent of ail 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 {'INES, AND FRENCH DANCES
There was no phase of social lire in whlch 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 Eglish 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 hot is French.
His nether limbs are cased in French costume.
His shoes are French. In short, from top to toe
He stands the Frenchman. 1
The English gallant was not averse to modifying French
schemes of apparel by adapting features from Italy and
.%pain. According to Shakespeare's «'[erchaut of Venice
(l. il. 79-8i) the young baron of England buys only his «ound
hose in France ; he obtalns his doublet from Italy, his bonnet
from Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. Similady
Dekker remarks that an Englishman's suit of clothes steals
patches from evcry nation 'to piece out his pride '. But
French tailors controlled the Tudor scheme of dress. The
Porter in ]Iacð (!I. 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
Egland, and that the store of French patterns was daily
renewed? The best judges in such matters shared Polonius's
opinion (lr-fallt[el, I. iii. 70-4), when he advised his son--
1 I quote the efficient English rendering by John Howard Marsden in his
Philopttot us : no/es on La/in oettts of Thontas «lIore, nd edition, 1878,
P- 3- In More's Eigratttptata the satiric poem is headed ' In Anglum
Gallicae iinguae affectatorem ". The opening verses run :
Amicus et sodalis est Lalus mihi,
Britanniaque natus altusque insula.
At cum Britannos Gailiae cultoribus
Oceanus ingens, lingua, mores dirirnant,
Spernit tamen Lalus Britannica omnia,
Miratur expetitque cuncta Gallica.
Ca,nden, l?emain» 187o 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 bore ail
the swa),, and dailj¢ renew the store."
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 French finery,
like ail 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. V'hen a
number of young English noblemen and gentlemen returned
home from a visit to the French court in i518 , 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 Eglish ', 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 Eglish man of fashion More again writes in
language which was often repeated :
If he speak
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
5 ° FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
the absurdity of his bastard cosmopolitanism. ' With accent
French ', More's Englishman
speaks the Latin tongue,
V¢ith accent French the tongue of Lombardy,
To Spanish words he gives an accent French,
German he speaks with the saine accent French.
In truth he seems to speak wîth accent French,
AIl but the French itself. The French he speaks
With accent British.
More's sarcasm plainly credits France with the function of
missionary of ail forelgn culture. The satirist Nashe broadly
insinuated that the Englishman who travelled in France gained
no profit save the habit of loose living and of speaking Eng-
lish strangely and insolendy. 1
In no branch of fashlonable 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 were re-
published in Egland. 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 bave the best invention of any in Europe ', and
their epicurean ingenuity was denounced as unrighteous
alchemy. Of extravagant entertainments among the English
nobîlity, the gossiping letter-writer, Chamberlain, bittedy
complains early in the seventeenth century, and he lays the
1 Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Travel[er, 1587 (Works, ed.
McKerrow, ii. 3oo}: " What is there in France to be leamed 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
haros are scabbed. For the idle traveller (I mean not for the soldier}
I have known some that have continued there by the space of halfa 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 Ènglish strangely. Nought 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.'
2 Moryson's llinerary, 1617, Part III, p. 135 : Harrison's 1)escrilMion
(I577) , i. I44 (New Shakspere Soc.).; Overbury's Characterss 1614,
'A French Cook.'
FRENCH WINES
51
fault at French doors. After describing a series of rich
banquets in London he remarks: 'But, tott" retourne" à
nos moulons, this feasting begins to grow at an exces-
sive rate. The very provisions of cates for this supper,
rising to more than ../'60o; whereDt we are too atis/z [o
imitate []te French monkeys Dt such monstrous waste.' 1
French wines seem also to bave been reckoned enviable
luxuries for which hlgh prices were paid. The taste for
foreign wines steadily grew through the sixteenth century,
and was gratitïed by importations from Spain and Germany,
and even from Italy and Greece, as well as from France. But
France easily maintalned her supremacy as wine-purveyor for
the Egllsh market. In Shakespeare's youth it was stated
that as many as fifty-six sorts of French wine were known in
England, whereas no more than thirty kinds came from the
rest of the Continent. z Nashe credits the travelled Eglishman
with a capacity to distinguish between the truc 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. Thc
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 hot solely devices of French birth which France intro-
duced into England. Many Italian and some Spanish accom-
plishments reached Egland 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 ttamlel (iv. vil. a oo) mentions Frenchmen as champions
t Courl of James I, i. 459-
* William Harrison's Descri#lion of England (I 577, i. 149-
Fynes Moryson's Ilintrary, 1617» Part III, p. 13.
E2
52 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
of the exercise, and calls fencing experts ' scrimers '. The
terre 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 manège in Elizabethan England--the
exercise of'riding the Great Horse ',--much the saine story
has to be told. The chief riding-masters in London were
Frenchmen. Shakespeare grows eloquent over the equestrian
feats of' the Yrench ', who' can well on horseback' (Ifamlet,
Iv. vil. 84). French manuals on the equestrian exercise
were prized by Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, and the technical
terms were French words. 1
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 X SZl, 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 Go,ernour
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, galllards, rounds and brawls, all of which are either
directly or indirectly of French origin. Often a popular
Elizabethan dance reached Egland through France from
more distant lands. Many dances familiar to Eizabethan
students, like the pavane, the galliard, and the coranto, bave
See Lord Herbert of Cherbury's/tutobiograhy, ed. Lee, 2nd edition,
PP. 39 sfq.
The treatise on dancing is thus introduced:--'Here foloweth the
maner of dauncynge of bace daunces after the use of fmunce 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 89o (pp. clx-clxii).
FRENCH DANCES 53
been traced to Italy or Spain, but France borrowed them
from those countries, and in her familiar r61e imported them
into England.
The names of some very new and fashionable dances of
Shakespeare's day hetray a pure French origin. ' The French
brawl,' a kind of cotillon, and the ' cinque pace ' or 'cinq pas'
(i. e. rive 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
569, salutes the 'brall' as just 'corne 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, ahhough the steps approxi-
mated to leaps. Troilus complains that he'cannot heel [he
ht'gk lavolt or sweeten talk or play at subtle gaines '.
' Lavolte ', or' la volta ', was, in spite of its Italian naine, of
French, or at any rate of Provençal 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
* Lilly's Ancient Ballads and Broadsides, p. 22I. The naine of the
dance, ' brawl,' cornes from the Old French wotd bransle, and is altogether
distinct from 'brawl' in the sense of 'quarrel'. The likeness between
the two words encouraged an obvious pun. Cf. Shakespeare's Zove's
Labour's Lost, III. i. 9--10 : ' |OTH. Master, ,viii you win your love in
a French brawl ? ARMAD. How meanest thou ? braz,li, tg in F'ench ?'
Troilus and Cr«ssida, Iv. iv. 88; see also Shakespeare's ttenry ; III.
v. 33. Other Elizabethan dramati.'ts attest the vogue of this new dance.
» Ronsard,in his poem called La Charitd(578haddressed to Marguerite,
Henri lll's sister and Henry of Navarre's wife describes the dance
'hich he calls ' la volte provertçale ' :
Le Roy (i. e. Henri III) dansant la volte Provençalle
Faisoit sauter la Charité sa Sur;
Elle, suivant d'une grave douceur,
A bonds legers voloit parmy la salle:
Ainsi qu'on voit aux grasses nuits d'Automne
Un prompt Ardant sur les eaux esclairer,
Tantost deçà, tantost delà virer,
Et nul repos à sa flame ne donne. (uvres, iv, pp. I82-3. )
Reginald Scot, in his Disco,erie of Wit«hcraft 584), ridicules the French
writer Bodin for having attributed to witches the recent introduction ' out
of Italie into France o[ that dance which is called La volta'.
54
FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
and tumultuous movements of the indigenous English jig.
The Elizabethan Englishman's bearing acquired much new
gravity and dignity in the dancing-schools of France.
XII
THE DEBT TO THE ART OF ITALY AND GERMANY
France never worked quite single-handed in the cause of
English aesthetic progress. She had some coadjutors. A
few refinements of the noblest kind, which swayed Tudor
England hardly less conspicuously than literature moved her,
can scarcely be reckoned among the genulne fruits of French
influence. Tudor music, Tudor architecture, Tudor painting,
owed much tO the inspiration of Europe, but other countries
than France offered England incentive in those branches of
culture.
Music roused much enthusiasm in Tudor England, but
its most popular developments were dictated by Itallan and
hOt by French example. The great poets of the French
Renaissance were devoted to music, but French musicians
were for the most part pupils of ltaly, and gathered their
honey from Tuscan or Neapolitan flowers. 1 The madrigal,
so marked a feature of Elizabethan music that one might
easily mlstake it for a domestic invention, was, in spite of
abundant imitations in France, an Italian importation. It
was only in the year 588 that the term was first employed
in English. An English amateur who had travelled in Italy
then ventured to write of 'certaine Italian madrigales'3
The word had already been naturalized for a generation by
the poets of France, but the text and music of the Eliza-
bethan madrigals were more often drawn direct from
Italian compositions than from French. Elizabethan music-
Ronsard, a musical enthusiast, uses this language of Orlando di
Lasso (1532-94), ' divin Orlande' a musician of French birth who spent
most ol; his lire abroad and was a composer of the first tank.
N icolas Yonge, .l[usi,'a Tatsal2Mna ¢ 1588), preface.
MUSIC AND ARCHITECTURE 55
books are largely of Italian parentage, and most of the
musicians whom Queen Elizabeth and ber father took into
their service were Italians.
The early date, at whieh Tudor interest manifested itself
in Italian music of the Renaissance, may be gauged by the
fact that the organist of St. Mark's, Veniee, Fra Dionysius
Memo, was brought to England by Henry VIII soon airer
his accession. Bassano, Lupo, Ferrabosco, are the names of
the chief musicians in Queen Elizabeth's service.
French musicians were not vholly 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 bave reached England
was Jean Lanier of Rouen, a musician who died in London in
572. But, despite a few French traces, Italians 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 ofthe Renaissance had
re-created the Gothic vogue abroad or replaced it by another
manner. Native architecture was not eager to assimilate
a The most distinguished member of this family, Nicolas Lanier (1588-
1686), whose portrait was painted by Vandyke, was hot appointed toaster
of the King's music before 66. 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
158 he published in Iaris a book of airs [Premier Lin,re d'4irs)
prefaced by an Italian letter addressed to the King of France, Henry III.
The opening piece is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth : ' alla serenissima et
sacratissima regina d' Inghilterra.' Fifteen years later a book of French airs
(Le Premi«rLi,r«de Chansons «fAits) published in London vas described
as by Carie Tessier, ' musitien de la chambre du Roy' (i. e. Henry IV).
Carie Tessier was possibly a son of G. Tessier, and was likewise
apparently an occasional visitor at Queen Elizabeth's court. (Cf. Picot,
Les Français [talianisan¢s, 9o7, vol. ii, pp. o5-7. )
5 6 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURF
foreign example. St. George's chapel at Windsor and
Henry VIFs chapel at Westminster, despite a few Italianate
details, bear v¢imess 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 medlaeval combina-
tion of brick and tituber long continued, and the development
of fresh artistk: feeling vas discouraged.
But while the sixteenth century was still young, some
architectural innovations of the Renaissance reached Eng-
land from ltaly. Ultimately the ltalian Renaissance found
luxurious expression in the royal palace of Nonesuch and
in a score of noblemen's mansions. Much fine decorative
work in Henry VllI's later years was designed and executed
by Italian craftsmen or by Englishmen who had studied in
Italy. \Vida 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 H6tel
des Villes Hanséatiques at Antwerp.
France meanwhile ruade slender contribution to the archi-
tectural activity of her neighbour. Only a little mlnor
ornamentation in Tudor churches or houses is attributable
Cf. Reginald ]31omfield's ttistory o[ Renaissance Architecture in
2ïn.Eland, 1897, i. In Braun's Urbium Praect'fiuarum ,l[undi Theatrum
1"582) there is an engraving of Nonesuch Palace, with the comment that
the architects and artificers empioyed on it included Frenchmen as well
as Dutchmen, Italians, and Englishmen. Mr. Blomfield's remark on
this statement runs thus li. 8):"lhe 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 French 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 ruade in France and
shipped to the port of Rye, some nine toiles distant from Brede.'
TUDOR ART
57
to French hands. The master-mason or chief architect of
James V of Scotland came from France, and Stlrling Castle
and Falkland Palace bear traces of French ingenuity, but
in Scotland, too, the Italian or German vogue prevailed.
In the result, Tudor England remained poorer in speci-
mens of Renaissance architecture than Italy or France. (lf
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 in
beauty or originallty with the wealth of chàteaus 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 genlus before the
rise of Inlgo Jones, the designer of the banquetlng-hall of
Whitehall. Jones, born in 573, was a pupil ofa sixteenth-
eentury Itallan toaster, Palladio. No Englishman before him
grasped the full significance of the art of the Itallan 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 Engllsh exponent.
To Germany Tudor England is mainly indebted for its
plctorlal art. Though Henl'y VIII, in loyal discipleship to
Francis I, invited to England a few Italian palnters, as well
as Italian architects and muslcians, the chief painters of Tudor
England came, like her tutors in theology and ber experts
in metallurgy and mechanics, from Germany or the Low
Countries. The greatest painter of Tudor England, Holbeln,
was a native of Augsburg. His chief successor here, Sir
Antonlo More, w.'s a native of Utrecht. Of the best known
Elizabethan artists, Lucas de Heere came from C, hent, 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 57 an ambltious art-dealer of Paris wrote
entreating Sir XVilliam Cecil, Queen Elizabeth's prime
5 8 FRANCE AND TUDOR CULTURE
minister, to submit proposais to his royal mistress for the
purchase of his magniticent 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 belote any effort was made to practise it on English
soli. Not until the art of engraving was perfected in Italy,
Germany, and the Loxv Countries were any specimens
attempted in England. Copperplate engravers grew numer-
ous in Eizabeth's reign, but they were, for the most part,
Flemings or Germans of secondary repute in the world at
large. Eglish pupils occasionally did their Teutonic masters'
instruction much credit, but Tudor Egland produced no
master capable of emulating the smallest of the achievements
of Albrecht Dfirer, the German, or of Marcantonio Raimondi,
the Italian--the two artists who early in the sixteenth century
first set engraving securely among the fine arts. 2
XIII
THE FRENCH YIEW OF THE ENGLISH NATIONAL
CHARAÇTER
However uncongenial may be the conclusion, we must face
with what cheerfulness we may, the historic fact that Tudor
England owed the graces of lire to foreign influence, and
chiefly to the influence of France. Afier 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 Xl'l sicle et les l'alois, par le Comte de la Ferrière, Paris,
1879, pp. 3oo--I.
See Sidney Colvin's Early Engr, n,ers and Engta,ing in England,
I545-1695 : A Historical and Critical Essay. tPrinted by order of the
Trustees of the British Museum, 19o5. ) The useful and beautifitl 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 trom
ltaly in 155! (see W. J. Hocking's ._æ»me l5»[es on lhe Early Histoy of
Coinage by 21[achinery, 19o9).
ENGI.ISH ' BARBARISM' 59
a commonplace in foreign literature. It Iinds echo in
Shakespeare's t]'enry I', where the French ofiïcers taunt the
Eglish, hot only with excessive devotion to great meals of
beef, but with deiiciency in intellectual armour) Courage and
tenaclty are the only virtues these eensors put to the eredit
of English nationality. Foreign visitors, even scholars like
Scaliger, dwell regretfully on the English people's want of
eourtesy, and aceept the mysterlous 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 continent.al authors.
The fable seems to bave been Iii'st formulated in print by the
halian historian of England, Polydore Vergil. The Eliza-
bethan topographer of Kent, ,Villiam Lambarde, reproaches
Polydore with having led foreign nations to ' believe as verely
that [Kentishmen] have long tailes and be monsters by
nature ,.3
The Engllsh people repaid such insults with 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 Eglish people,
and of the superior treatment which English visitors received
in France. 'Les gens de ceste nation hayent à mort les
Francoys, comme leurs vielz ennemis, et du tout nous ap-
pellent France chenesve, Fratce dogue, qui est a dire
"maraultz Francols ", "chiens Francois ", et autrement nous ap-
pellent orson [whoreson], " villains "," filz de putaing" .... Il
! Hnty U III. iv. I58-62.
PerambulaIionofl(«nt, I587, p. 315. CL Fynes Moryson, ]Nnerarv,
I67, Part III, p. 53 : 'The Kentish men of old were said to have tayles,
because traf-ficking in the Low Countries, they never paid full payments
of vhat they did owe, but still left some part unpaid.' Moryson's hardly
satisfactory explanation does not seem fo be round elsewhere.
- 1)escrilSlion des royaulmes dLqttgleIerre el d'Escosse, Paris, 1558;
reprinted, London, 775, PP. 1-2.
60 FRANCE .AND TUDOR CULTURE
me desplait que ces vilains, estans en leur pays, nous crachent
a la face, et eulx, estans à la France, on les honore et revere
comme petis dieux; en ce, les Francois se monstrent francs
de cur et noble d'esperit.'
Another French view of Tudor Englishmen deserves cita-
tion. In De la Porte's standard thesaurus called Les
(Paris, ISîl) , more generous terms are employed in an esti-
mate of English 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, coués (i.e. tailed),
belliqueus, anglo-saxons, superbes, rouges, furieus, hardis,
audacieus.' The legend of the 'tails' is hOt 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
i Page 17. To the Scotch, De la Porte applies the following list of descrip-
tive epithets (p. 9 2 b): '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 INFLUENCE 6
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 saine
way as in the eighteenth century France interpreted Eng-
land's ideas to Germany. France was the chier refining
agent in Tudor soclety. 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 halian 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 ltaly, was impulsively moved
to the harsh hexameter:
O times, O manners, O French, O ltalish England3
The lament was short-sighted. The national genius was
absorbing" the most healthful sustenance. All that was 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 wrought 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 bas no parallel in foreign countries.
x Letterbook of Gabrid Harvey, 573-8o, f. 52 (Camden Soc., 884,
P- 97).
BOOK II
FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH
LITERATURE I8oo-i58o
FRENCH LIGHT AND ENGLISH GLOOM
FRENCH literature of the first hall of the sixteenth century
bas an abiding interest in the way alike of performance and
promise. Contemporary English literature makes no pre-
tension to equal vîta]ity. Humanism was advancinff 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 Ga]lic tradition, which Vil]on had lately glorified,
acquired a fresh charm at the hand of Clément Marot, whose
buoyancy and versatility were but lightly tinged by classica]
and halian colour. The Graeco-Italian spirit was on the
point of refashioning French poetry, but it had hOt yet
acquired strength or fervour. The mediaeva] temper was hot
yet exorcised.
In prose, forces of the past were also assertire. Rabelais,
who was endoved with the most liberal intelligence 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. While Rabelais was still jovially blending simples
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 wrîting new hot
only to France but to Europe.
Just as the half-century closed, Ronsard and his friends of
the PICade judicially pronounced the Gall.ic tradition of the
past tobe a relic of barbarism. The year 155o just stops
short of the finest development, the greatest triumph, of the
t F
66 FRENCH INFLUENCE x5oo-I55 o
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 hîs 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 Egland
kindled no achlevement of the first rank. There was a
fleeting radiante in the poetry of Wyatt and Surrey, in which
Italian inspiration mingled with Frenchi 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
English prose of Rabelais's era. An Englishman, Sir Thomas
More, made one prose endeavour of supreme originality in
his U,¢oz'a. But in a comparative survey of literature More's
masterpiece prompts a paradoxical reflection. The work was
written not in English, but in Latin, and England showed no
sign of appreciating îts imaginative and speculative virtues at
their truc rate until she slowly learnt their value from con-
tinental criticism, llore'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 reeognition
vas due to foreign scholarship and foreign insight. More's
U,¢ol3ia 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 year 55 o, when France ,,vas bright with literary
tire, vernacular literature in England was suffering eclipse.
Such literary energy as flung a tempered or a muflled light
on the previous half-century appeared to be exhausted. The
middle years of the century form in Eglish 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.
Il
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 atone 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 France.
They eagerly studied Greek, and awoke some enthusiasm
for the new learning in England. England seemed actively
to be seeking atliation with the Eropean confederacy of
humanism. Indeed, Linacre and More personally played
distinguishable parts in the Eropean drama of culture. But
there were limitations in these Oxford scholars' intellectual
atïinities 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
F2
68 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-x55o
the torch of poetry and imaginative enthusiasm. More vas
better endowed vith the literary instinct than his assoclates;
he delighted in the Greek anthology, and brought a literary
touch to illumine social speculation; yet his main interests
were absorbed by politlcal economy and theology. Linacre
was fascinated by the inquiries of Aristotle and other Greek
investigators into natural science; he finally concentrated hls
attention on the study of Greek mediclne, and gained
continental faine by a translation into Latin of the work of
Galen, the Greek medical wrlter. At home he is chiefly
remembered as the founder of the Engllsh College of
Physlclans. His frlend Colet's zeal for educational reform
n'as more vividly coloured by the genulne 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 hls intellectual affinlty was mainly with
scholastlc philosophy and wlth Neo-Platonic mysticism. These
Oxford ploneers 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 tlde of intellectual or literary energy.
They failed to sweep the country into the broad continental
flood of liberal culture, even if they deserve the credit of
building on English soli one or two outworks of that intel-
lectual empire whlch ruled beyond the seas.
Foreign impulses moved these early Tudor scholars.
Italian influence wrought primarily on them. Most of them
sojourned in youth in Florence 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 se.al on the humanist development of Europe.
Linked together by ries of close friendshlp, these two men,
whose names are familiar in the classicized forms of Budaeus
and Erasmus, exereised a sovereignty in Èuropean seholarship
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 France became the European centre of
scholarship. Italy, which first introduced modern Europe to
Greek literature, yielded to France her place as apostle of
classical and notably of Greek culture. Primarily associated
with the triumph of France is Guillaume Budé, or Budaeus
(i467-x54o), 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 faine
as an author, hot merely on Greek philology, but on
Roman law, numismatics, and education. While librarian to
Francis I, he formed a noble collection of Greek manuscripts,
and, after long years of controversy, he induced the king to
establish the Collège de France for the promotion of the
scholarly study of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, by way of
a liberalizing counterpoise to the conservative Sorbonne.
13udaeus wrote as ably in French as in the learned tongues.
In his own language he penned his 11tstiltt/ion dtt tgritce,
which he dedicated to his royal patron, while King Francis 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 philolo£T.
Budaeus's repute finally rested on his discursive ConTttetlarii
litguae Gî'aecae, 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, was a greater scholar and more learned
man. The hlghest testimony to Budaeus's eminence
Though written in J 5 j6, Budaeus's Iptslilttliozt was not published till
1546.
7o FRENCH INFLUENCE xSOO-X55 o
was given by his younger contemporary, Calvin, who
saluted him as ' the foremost glory and support of litera-
ture, by whose se'ice 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 Ulolbia received in its
early days. More's contemporary, Sir Thomas Eyot, was one
of the earliest English disciples of Budaeus's Greek scholar-
ship, and he declared that the Frenchman's commentaries ' first
offered an exact trial Il. e. elucidation] of the native sense of
[Greek] words '. From the hand of Budaeus English scholars,
like continental scholars, recelved 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 466-1536), who, although a Dutchman, mainly developed in
Paris his scholarly genius. His alert and inspiring personality
is chiefly responsible for the best fruit ofthe humanist enlighten-
ment all over Europe. With the Oxford pioneers of Renais-
Some of the Latin elegies on the great man's death (in 154o) were
rendered into English by poetasters, whose veneration was character-
istically masked by a barbaric uncouthness of utterance. Compare, for
example :
Ail 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 «,f lkigrammes, by Timothe Kendall, 1577 (Spenser Society,
1874, pp. 7o-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, I879, p. 60.
ERASMUS î
sance culture, his relations were continuous and close, and their
debt to him scarcely admits ofexaggeration. 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 Blount, 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 Egland, at the invitation of his noble English
pupil. Henceforth Egland was his frequent home, and he
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 Eglish disciples. To Easmus's eager
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 Easmus 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
prominence in the history of the written language. The
secular verse and the polemical theology which he penned in
his native tongue bave claires to the attention of students of
popular speech and of popular taste, but they bave hOt the
supreme touch of style and inventiveness, which makes for
vital or permanent influence.
More's political and social romance of U[oz'a stands on a
different footing. It does hot strictly belong to English
literature, for it was written in Latin. Although its topics lie
outside the aesthetic îeld, 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 régime prefaces illuminating proposais for the regeneration
72 FRENCH INFLUENCE tSOO-t55 o
and reconstruction of society. Cultivation of the intellect,
religlous toleration, civil liberty, high levels of physical well-
being, are the watchwords of More's social reformation.
More's work has varied foreign aflînities. The speculative
temper is coloured alike by Plato's Reîu&lic, and by vague
reports of aboriginal polity which had reached the writer from
the discoverers of the New World. France can only claire in-
direct influence in its composition. Yet it was while More was
engaged on diplomatic business at Antwerp, where French
vas the lang'uage of official circles, it was while he was
talking in French with a Portug'uese sailor who had voyaged
to America, that More's alert imagination conceived his new
ideal of society.
More's Ulolt'a 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 cleady visible. It was, too, on the
Continent and hot in England that the Ulolia found its
welcome.
Renaissance teaching had not yet permeated English
sentiment, despite the efforts of Linacre and Colet. The
fortunes of More's Ulolt'a 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 Louvain with
the commendations of foreign, but of no English, scholars. It
was quickly re-issued at Paris with an attractive episde 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
i The young Englishman, a protégé of Colet and an enthusiastic student
of the New Learning, supervised the proofs.
MORE'S UTOPIM IN FRANCE 73
text till the Oxford Press produced an edition in 663, nearly
5o years afier its first publication.
Nor was English, the native language of the author, the
first vernacular into which the work was translated. It ,cas
a French version which first popularized More's speculations.
The French rendering preceded any English rendering by
at least a year. The priority of France in this regard needs
no recondite explanation. The U,opt'a had a closer aftînit 3
with French intellectual progress than with English. In her
association with More's [_/'toia France, too, was true to her
r61e of agent-general for European culture. The great
French scholar Budaeus may be said to have rendered
England as well as Europe the ser,ice of interpretlng the
significance of More's philosophy. The anonymous French
translator of I549, and the Parisian bookseller, Charles
Angelier, who in i55o 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 OElo[a
of the risk of oblivion to which English blindness exposed it.
The paradoxical features which attach to the early rate 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 U-to.#» printed in Paris
in the original Latin; hOt only was it eulogized by foreign
scholars; not only was it translated into French before
England gave any sîgn of recognition, it was also read and
i The terres of the title of the French translation are interesting : La
Description de l'isle d'Vtopie ou est comprins le miroer des republicques
du monde, et l'exemplaire de vie heureuse redigé par escript en stille tres
elegant de grand'haultesse et maieste par illustre bon et scaieant per-
sonnage Thomas Morus citoyen de Londre & chancelier d'Angleterre.
Avec l'Epistre iiminaire composée par Moasieur Budé maistre des
requestes du feu Roy Françoys premier de ce nom .... Les semblables
sont à vendre au Palais à Paris au premier pillier de la grand'Salle en la
Bouticque de Charles Angelier devant la Chapelle de Messieurs les
Presidens.' I55 o. The volume opens with a publishing licence of the
Parlement of Paris dated 14 Nov. 49.
74 FRENCH INFLUENCE I5OO-I55O
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
r61e 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.
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 ', vas threatened by the Dipsodes
with assault. According to the story, the giant straightway
undertakes the defence of the Utopians. Rabelais's island of
Utopia, with ' the great city of the Amaurots ', cornes straight
from More's romance. The names are of More's invention. 1
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 9,876,543,2 io men, women, and children, ' besides artificers
of all trades and professors of ail 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 reneved 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 Utopiansfl
i Prof. Abel Lefranc, in Les lVavigations de Pantagruel: dlude sur la
gdogr, alhie rabelaisienne (Paris, 19o5) , while pursuing a different line of
mqmry, was the first to call attention to Rabelais's indebtedness to More's
Ut,,pia.
2 The story of Pantagruel's relations with Utopia and the city of the
Amaurots begins in Chapter 53 of Rabelais'» second book, and i» con-
RABELAIS'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 with rods of iron '. For the force of arms Rabelals would
substitute ' affability, courtesy, gentleness, and liberality ', so
that the conquered people rnay learn to lire well under good
laws. ' Nor cana conqueror,' arguez Rabelais in the precise
ven of Sir 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 slaows
itself in victory and conquezt ;. his justice vill 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 atone 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 lire 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 3I, closing in the first chapter of the third
book with Rabelais's benevolent remarks on the duties of the conquering
colonist. It was hot as a contribution to Englisla literature, but to the
continental literature of the Renaissance, that Rabelais knew the Ulo13fi.
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, t'antagruel's companion, Panurge,.cites a barel¥
intelligible sentence on the inequality of the rewards of wrtue, which he
pretends to be in English. Itis clearl), Lowland Scotch derived trom
some Scotch student in Paris. ISee Prof. Ker on 'Panurge's Englisla'
in ,4n. English 3liscellany, presented to Dr. Furnivall, Oxford, 19o,
pp. 196-8.) In succeeding chapters of Rabelais's second book (chaps.
8-2o) there is a farcical account of a disputation conducted by means
of pantomimic signs between Panurge and a vainglorious English
scholar called Thaumast. Tle latter had corne 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
truc well, fountain, and abyss of tlae 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 INFLUENCE tSOO-X55 o
the only Englishman who made in his day a substantial
contribution to the broad stream of European thought.
More's work was done before the tide of Eropean en-
lightenment had effectively stirred the intellectual waters of
England. Of ail the great French writers of the epoch
Rabelais was least known in Tudor Egland. Although there
was much in his boisterous frankness and intoxicated fooling
which adumbrated the Eizabethan spirit, he for a long
perlod escaped the observation of Englishmen. The ex-
uberant sarcasm of some late Ellzabethans, 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 ruade a tardy and imperfect
acknowledgement of kinship with Rabelais. Their fathers
were too backward in their study of humanism to spell out
his alphabet.
III
FRENCH GRAMIIARS FROM TUDOR PENS
The French mind under the eady impulse of the Re-
naissance was sensitive to nexv intellectual or imaginative
suggestion and impression. But in the seed-time of the
French Renaissance, in the epoch of Rabelais, Egland 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 dwlndled 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, whlch fostered a spirit of exclusiveness. As a conse-
quence Elizabethan poetry won no recognltion in France.
Had the literary genius of the English Renaissance blossomed
half a century earlier, England might bave 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 Eglish literary energy,
were occasionally supplemented by experiments in grammar
and lexicography. More especially dld 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
More's Uzto.ihia, we find English authorshlp of the sixteenth
century offering French students nothing besides the Gibeon-
itish service of hewer of grammatical wood or drawer of
lexicographic water. In ail other fields throughout the
period, England was the borrower and France the lender.
The story of the French grammars of Tudor Egland is
a somewhat depressing pendant to the episode of the ad-
ventures in France of More's Ulo.iia. But the two incidents
bave 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 lA'illiam Lily,
who was the first master of Colet's foundation of St. Paul's
school, acquired a foreign as well as a domestic vogue. If
they are elementary and hOt 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 ,Vestminster
School, first tried his hand at a Greek grammar for English
boys (x575), and this endeavour in a revised version by Grant's
successor at Westminster, V¢illiam Camden ( 597), achieved
7 8
FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-55 o
a wide popularity. But the most remarkable grammatical
energy of Tudor Egland was bestowed on the French lan-
ffuage, and it was there that English energy mainly won recoff-
nitlon in France. The rooted conviction among the cultivated
classes of Tudor Egland that a familiar knowledge of French
was essential to refinement found emphatic expression in aseries
of grammatical compilations. Caxton publlshed some French-
English dialogues. Alexander Barclay, a literary journeyman
whose industry was mainly displayed in translation, compiled
a French-Eglish grammar as early as 15 2 i. Barclay's efforts
to reproduce phonetically French pronunciation is of im-
portance to the study of English and French phonetics allke.
For our present purpose the value of Barclay's In¢'oduclorzé
[o Il'rite and trouottuce Freuck lies in the testimony that
it offers to the Englishman's reverence for French speech.
The Eglishman 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. 1
The two names vhich are to be malnly associated with the
Tudor devotion to French grammar are Giles Dewes and
John Palsgrave. Palsgrave's achievement entitles him to the
respect of ail philologists, and confers distinction on the
slavish toil of ail grammarians. Dewes seems to have been
a Frenchman who came here to teach French to Henry VIII,
and then transferred his services to Henry VIII's daughter, Mary
Tudor. For the princess Mary he wrote .,4u Ingroducgorie
for fo learne o 'ede, fo )brotottnce, and fo slbeake French
lrezoly, whlch was first published about i58. The work is
short. It opens with rules ofpronunciation. 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 Engllsh 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 13arclay's French grammar that translation from his own
pen of a treatise on French dances to which reference has been made
above : see p.
PALSGRAVE'S 3//GNUI OPUS 79
information, suggest by way of compensation the formal quaint-
ness of conternporary conversational style in both languages.
I-'a|sgrave's work is tar more impressive. _An Englishman,
educated at Paris, he went to the French court as chaplain of
Henry VIII's sister lIary, when she rnarried the French king"
Louis XII. But his life was rnainly spent in England as
tutor to pupils of good birth, arnong whorn was Henry VIII's
natural son, the Earl of Richmond. Hurnanisrn sheds some
brightness on his eareer. He was a familiar figure in learned
society, and c|airned friendly intimacy with More and Erasmus.
His nagnu1t opus, which he entitled L'Esclarcisselueut de
la languefyauçoyse, was prepared by hirn 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 t 53 ° by
the Norrnan immigrant Pynson, startles us by its enorrnous size.
It reaches a total of t o large quarto pages. But it» system-
atized and exhaustive design almost justifies the remarkable
bulk. lalsgrave rnakes a sustained endeavour to cornpare the
idiom and gramrnatic 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 ail
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 Io/nan
de la Rose, the ample fountain of alrnost all rnediaeval
aIlegory ; frorn Alain Chartier, the laureate of Y'rench poetry
and prose of the first half of the fifteenth century ; and from
Le Maire des Belges, 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 realrn and ail other persons,
80 FRENCH INFLUENCE I5OO-I55 O
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
which 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 manifestations of artistic genius as well as a reforma-
tion of theological principle and practice. But the art of
typography vas the most momentous glft 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 quallties and
tendencies of the two peoples in the days of Colet and More,
of Budaeus and Rabelais, by a summary comparison of the
A reprint in 889 quarto pages which was undertaken in 1852 by the
government of Napoleon I II does ample justice to Palsgrave's ingenuity.
The editor salutes Palsgrave's volume as the only complete and authentic
inventor¥ of the French ianguage of the compiler's da),.
THE FIRST PRINTERS IN FRANCE 8I
character, work, aims, 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 Sorbonne, who brought from
Germany experts in the newly discovered art early in ,47o.
The craft was first practised within the precincts of the
Unlversity. The Parisian professors' original object xvas 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, Sallust, Juvenal, and
Persius, and two contemporary contributions to literature
from the accomplished pen of Aeneas Syh'ius, who was
a pioneer of learning in the tîfteenth century, and ended his
career as Pope Plus II. 1
The invention of printing instantly fasclnated the cultivated
intelligence of France. XVithin thirty years of its introduction
a mass of printed literature in French and Latin was generally
accessible, and the obser'er is amazed by its vastness and variety.
Religious sera'ice-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 poetry. Presses multlplied with bewilder-
ing rapidlty, hOt 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 country outside.
The owners and workers of these numerous presses were nearly
ail scholars and men ofletters. Printing was formally admitted
The First Paris Press. An account of the books printed for G. Fichet
and J. Heynlin in the Sorbonne, t47o--2, by A. Claudin (Bibliographical
Society's Publications, I898).
LE G
82 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-55 °
at the dawn of the French Renaissance into the circle of the
learned professions, if hOt of the fine arts.
Throughout the sîxteenth 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 tienne the first, Robert Étienne
his son, and Henri Étienne the second his grandson, whose sur-
naine took on English lips the form Stephens, have many titles
to faine. Thelr careers cover the whole ofthe sixteenth century.
The eldest of the three set up a press at Paris in x5ox. 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 saine rime 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 retaper of their craft.
The Renaissance fostered the association of typography
with 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 Étiennes supply ; yet the
Étiennes are stars in a French galaxy ofcultured typographers.
The lieutenants need fear no comparisons with the captains
in this field. The erninent bookseller and publisher of Paris,
Geoffroy To:y, to whose artistie skill the É, tiennes' press
owed many of its aesthetic improvements, held his own in an
almost wider region of culture. Born at Bourges about 48o,
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 eciency 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 eut woodblocks
with his own hand and devised illuminated miniatures. As an
THEIÉTIENNES AND DOLET 8 3
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
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, tienne Dolet, the scholar-printer of Lyons, com-
bined, in only a degree less than Tory or the ]Étiennes, literary
skill and enthusiasm with mechanical and mercantile aptitude.
His scholarly love for the style of Cicero led him to trans-
late Cicero's works into French, and he was a voluminous
original writer alike in his own language and in Latin. Both
Rabelais and Clément Marot honoured him with their friend-
ship. Yet the most effective service which Dolet rendered
to humanism was his work of printer at Lyons in the genera-
tion succeeding that of Tory, and he sealed his renown as a
humanist by suffering martyrdom in the Place Maubert at
Paris in the cause of freedom of opinion and of the press, z
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
printing in England. The contrast illustrates how far Tudor
England loitered behind France in ber intellectual progress
and in her encouragement of culture. William Caxton was an
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 13ruges.
There he learnt French and took pleasure in reading French
' Tory's Cham2k-Fleury, which does hot compete with Palsgrave's
treatment of French grammar, was published at Paris in 5o.9--a year
belote Palsgrave's book. The author died in t533, aged 53-
2 R. C. Christie's masterly biography of Doler (o-nd edition, I899)
supplies a graphic detailed picture of the character and achievements
of this representative scholar-printer of the French Renaissance.
G2
84 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-I55 o
books in manuscript. By way of recreation he translated with
his own pen a French mediaeval chronicle concerning the siege
ofTroy. This literary labour he began at Bruges on March i,
468, and he completed it on September i9, 47 I, 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 xvas of German origin,
came for the first time under English notice. Vhen 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 476. Thus the first
Eglish 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, t
Caxton soon repeated his experiment on English soli. He
brought from the continent the needful apparatus in 477, and
opened a press in V'estminster in x478. The interval between
the beginnings of French and Eglish 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 ofits
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 ofits 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
"l-he 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 Ferre . . . which said translation and work was begun in
Bruges in the county of Flanders the first day of lXlarch 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 small hand 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 eentury 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 few books at Oxford in
Caxton's day, but this enterprise came to an early end and
round for near a century no assured successor. The history
of the Oxford Unlversity Press cannot be traced further back
than the year i585 . Of Cambridge University a very
similar story bas to be told; there a visitor from Cologne
first printed nine or ten books in i52 and 52. -, but no
attempt was ruade to inaugurate a permanent press till x582.
An English schoolmaster ruade a few typographic experiments
at St. Albans in the early days. It was only in l.ondon that
the art was practîsed from the tifteenth 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 chier assistant, \Vynkyn de 3.'orde, who came from
Alsace, succeeded to his master's position of wellnigh solltary
eminence. The rhin 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 that
in one or two cases Caxton had his books set up in Paris, and
was the importer, and hot the manufacturer, of volumes bearing
his trade-mark. Of like significance is the fact that the'copy'
with which he largely fed his press ivas translations by him-
self or by his patrons which were mainly from recently printed
Cf. F. Madan's /Chart of Oaford Printinff (Bibliographical Society's
Motaographs, No. XII), 19o4, and his Early Oaford tress, 1468-164 °
(Oxford Historicai Society, 1895); and Robert Bowes and G. J. Gray,
J. Siberdt (the first Cambridge printer}, Cambridge, I9O6.
84 FRENCH INFLUENCE I5oo-55 o
books in manuscript. By way of recreation he translated with
his own pen a French mediaeval chronicle concerning the siege
ofTroy. This literary labour he began at Bruges on March t,
1468 , and he completed it on September 19, I47t , 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, whlch was of German origin,
came for the first tlme under Eglish notice. Vhen 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
Eglish 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, t
Caxton soon repeated his experiment on English soil. He
brought from the continent the needful apparatus in 477,and
opened a press in XVestminster in i478. The interval between
the beginnings of French and Eglish 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 ofits
early progress lie very far asunder. In France printing was
deliberately imported from Germany with a '«iew to facilitating
the growth of culture, and scholarship took control ofits opera-
tions from the first. For Egland it came into beingas the pas-
time of an Eglish trader who was domiciled abroad, and the
seed which he sowed and watered in his own country developed
slowlv 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
Eglish printers' literary handiwork was confined to trans-
lation from French prose in print or manuscript, and was
i The title runs to this effect :--' The volume, entitled and named the
Recueil of the histories of Troy, [was] composd and drawn out of divers
books of Latin into French by the right venerable person and worshipirul
man Raoul le Ferre . . . which said translation and work was begun in
/Sruges in the county of Flanders the first day of March the year of the
Incarnation of out Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and eight,
and ended and finished in the holy city of Cologne the nineteenth day oi r
September the year of our Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and
eleven.'
CAXTON 85
designed for popular recreation or edification. Scholarship
had small hand 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 ail save Caxton's wcre small
ventures of half-educated foreign mechanics. A German,
independently of Caxton, printed a few 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 x585 .t Of Cambridge University a very
similar story has to be told; there a visitor from Cologne
first printed nine or ten books in 5-', and 522, but no
attempt was ruade to inaugurate a permanent press 611 t58: ,.
An English schoolmaster ruade a few typographic experiments
at St. Albans in the early days. It was only in l.ondon that
the art was practised from the fifteenth century without
interruption.
Even in the English metropolis, the scope of the operatlons
was modest when they are compared with those of foreign
centres. Foreign hands guided the English enterprise.
Caxton's chief assistant, V'ynkyn de .Vorde, who came from
Alsace, succeeded to his master's position of wellnigh solitary
eminence. The thin ranks of London printers weregradually
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 energ-y of the French. It is clear that
in one or two cases Caxton had his books set up in Paris, and
was the importer, and hot 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
1 Of, 17. Madan's A Chart of Ofotd Prin¢ing (Bibliographical Society's
Monographs, No. XII), 19o4, and his Earl), Oxford Press, 1468-164o
(Oxford Historical Society, 895); and Robert Bowes and G. J. Gray,
J. Siberch (the first Cambridge printer), Cambridge, 9o6.
86 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-55 o
French literature. It is not therefore surprising to learn
that, after V(ynkyn 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 497 Pynson gave the
English press its first tinge of scholarship by printing for
the first time in Egland 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
effort in typography. To the Frenchman, English typo-
graphy, however, lies under a substantial obligation. He
was the first royal printer in Egland, receiving the appoint-
ment from Henry VIII on his accession in I5c9 . Thus in his
person the new art first received officlal recognition. Pynson
introduced" the Roman letter ' in place ofthe ancient Gothicor
' black letter ', beyond which Caxton had not ventured. But in
spire ofPynson's skilful embellishments of his craft, which were
generally accepted bv 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 538, under the auspices ofthe minister
Cromwell, a complete translation of the Bible, which was
known as the Great Bible, was prepared for authorized use in
Eglish 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 .llilone, is doubtfitll, assigned to Oxford, I48O.
FRENCH TYPOGRAPHY IN ENGLAND 87
French typographical craftsmanship and energy. The subsi-
diary mechanical 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 bave been cast here. For the best part of a century
type was imported from the continent. The earliest manu-
facturer of type in Egland 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, a
French and other forelgn printers had their agents in London
throughout the early years of the sixteenth century, and French
editions hOt only of the classics but of religious service-books
abounded in the Eglish market. The classical texts which
were studied by Tudor scholars were invariably foreign im-
portations, and largely came from France, although Germany
and ltaly 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 hOt practised at ail 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 i5o 7, when
some of Theocritus's poems were produced in Paris, was
Greek printing associated with the French press. Soon after
that date the French scholar-printers became Greek printers
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 i54t, and ' French Royal'
type long held sway throughout Europe. No Greek book
was printed in Egland before 543, when Reginald Wolf,
a German immigrant, set up an extract from Chrysostom in
Greek type ot French design. Wolf's volume had few and
Alien 2le»tbers of lhe Æook /'rade «htring lhe Tudor Perio,t, edited
by E. J. ,Vorman (Bibliographical Society, t9o61, pp. i 3-4. The French
denizen, Hubert Danvillier, had a kinsman, Antonius Danvillier, also
a French subject, who was naturalized in I567, after having practised, at
least since 1 62, as a ' fusor typorum' in Blackfriars.
See Robert Proctor's Printinff of Greek in the Fifteen/h Centttry
(Illustrated Monographs, Bibliographical Society, No. IIl, 19oo). A
few words in Greek type were introduced into Latin texts by Siberch, the
printer at Cambridge in 52, and that example was followed several
88 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-55 o
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-
turc, a chier source of the new enlightenment, owed almost
everything in Tudor England. a
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 Vrorde'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 Vrolf, a native of Strasburg, who came to
England in adult years, and was appointed royal printer to
King Edward VI. V'e bave .just seen that he en.joys the
distinction of priming in England the first Greek book.
was he, too, who originally devised and planned the great
chronicle of English history which is identified with the naine
of Holinshed, its chier compiler. Yet Vrolf 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 fir»t 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. 16o)» 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.
ENGI.ISH PRINTERS AND PURITANISM 8 9
of culture. Many French printers, including- the l2tiennes,
were of the Reformed faith, but the Huguenot sentiment
worked otherwise than English Puritanism. Wolf came to
identify himself wholly with Eglish Protestantism, and his
press ultimately served the cause of religious dogma almost to
the exclusion of profane letters. There were examples ol
a like degeneracy on the part of a few printers of Eglish
birth, who shared XVolf'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
actlvity was afterwards restricted to paths of Puritan theology.
John Da5. , the printer-friend of John Foxe, the martyrologist,
controlled a press of hig'h mechanical repute, for which he
wrote much; but all his writing was designed to champion
the cause of Puritanlsm 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
mlddle years of the century. Here and there an English
printer claimed responsibility for a translation of a popular
profane pamphlet from a foreig'n tongue, but the episode was
infrequent and rarely bore wimess to a pronounced literary
feeling. The choice of text showed indeed less taste than was
exhibited by Caxton, the father of English typography, who
ruade small pretension to aesthetic or scholarly aim. Nor did
any of Caxton's successors approach him in his translating"
industry or versatility. From whatever point of view we
examine the literary effort of Tudor printers, there emerges
the plain fact that the French type of scholar-printer, whose
literary skill and sympathy ranked him with the g'reat con-
temporary men of letters, was unknown to Tudor England.
The contrast between the positions assigned by the two
countries to the prlnter 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 Èngland incorporate
by the name of Stationers ; for there they are privileged above
9 ° FRENCH INFI.UENCE 5oo I550
mere mechanics, and honoured with a habitation, as it were,
in the suburbs of litemture itself. 1
V
EARLY TUDOR TRANSLATIONS FROM FRERCH PROSE
Although printers in England of the early sixteenth century
were comparatively few and uncultivated, they were hOt 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.
Mediaeval literature in England was scanty. Caxton put into
type the poetry of Chaucer and Lydgate, but most of his
abundant energy was absorbed by translation from the French,
much of which came from his own pen. Caxton's translations
were invariably in prose. A little French poetry was rendered
for him by others into English verse. From the date of
the introduction of printing into England down to i55o ,
the bulk of the literature offered by the printers to the
English reading public was in prose, and for the most part
in prose which was translated from the French. The
French source was not always itself an original vork ; it was
often a translation from the classical tongues, or from the
Italian or the Spanish. Cicero, Vergil, Seneca, Thucydides
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 was pursuing a veteran tradition in offeringEnglish
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-
i Arber, Stationers' Com2b, O, Regsters, i. 584.
CAXTON'S TRANSI.ATIONS 9 t
dilection. French literature of the Renaissance type was
unborn in the season of Caxton's actlvity. The first English
printers were bound to have recourse to the expiring literary
efforts of medlaeval France. There were voluminous stores
in both manuscript and print from which Caxton could glean.
The faine of the later mediaeval authors was still strong in
France, and the early French presses increased the circulation
of thelr work. The books belonged to a school which the
Renaissance was on the point of dlsmissing 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 chlvalry, of romantic
allegories with ethical intention, and of plcturesque 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 foar SoJts of «4j,»toz«, The L OEe
of Charlettagze, and the romantic ttz'story of Blazchardt)z
and Eglaztize. Of all Caxton's publications none in the
category of French chivalric romance claires a higher interest
than lais «l[orte d'Mr/httr, a cycle of Arthurian legend. Sir
Thomas Malory had adapted the work from the French some
seven years before Caxton set up his press at ,Vestminster.
Malory's manuscript was completed before Caxton had learned
the printing art at Bruges or Cologne. In publishing it
Caxton illustrated hls sympathy with a pre-existent vogue.
It was in France that the Arthurian tradition, which English
llterature 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
9 z FRENCH INFLUENCE 55o-x55o
and tutor. Malory is a compiler on a liberal scale, and brings
together scattered storîes, but he offers his readers little that
cannot be traced to a comparatively early French original.
To Caxton's typographic labours on Malory's Al'orge d'Arlhur
is mainly due the fruitful career which Arthurian romance
has since run in English poetry. There is no more striking
testlmony either to the continuity of French influence on
English literature or to the stimulus vhich that influence
derlved 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 vriter who
enjoyed wlde vogue was Alain Chartier (t39o-t458),
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, dellghting in ballades and
rondeaus, in melancholy strains of ethical allegory, and in
prose disquisltions 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 hls ugliness,
and excused herself for the breach of etiquette by the remark
that she kissed the golden wisdom which issued from the
ugly lips. Chartler died in old age in 458 after a life spent
in the service of Church and State. But his name had lost
The story was first printed by Étienne Pasquier, the poet-historian, in
56o, vho illustrates Chartier's 'mots dorez et belles sentences' by a long
quotation from his Cuqal (sec Les Recherches de la France, Livre VI,
ch. xvi, in Pasquier's uvres, Amsterdam, 173, i. 584-5). The story
was weii known to the Elizabethans. Puttenham relates it somewhat
inaccurately in his Arte of English Poesie, 589 (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 VIII,
and after to Louis the XI 1, 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 ail their hearings, " we may
hOt of princely courtesy pass by and hOt honour with our kiss the rnouth
from whence so many sweet ditties and golden poems have issued."'
CHRISTINE DE PISAN 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 Cur{al, a gently pathetic description of the trials of
a courtier's lire. 1 English readers welcomed the book with
something of the Scottish princess's ardour.
Another French writer, whose faine in England Caxton
rather extended than inaugurated, was Christlne de Pisan, wife
of Étienne Castel (x363-i 43 o ?). She ma,,- almost be regarded
as the earliest of professional authors amongst women, and is
certainly worthv to tank 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 ber contemporary Joan of rc alone excelled
among the women of her time. A lyric in praise ofthe Mad
of Orleans was one of the latest of Christine's songs. Christine
had declined the invitation of Henry 1V of Egland to visit his
court, but her only son, Jean Castel, learned knightly exercises
from an English toaster. In the household of the Earl of
Salisbury Jean Castel was serving when Caxton was a young
man. The teaching which Christine devised for ber son in
her versified JIora! Proz,erks was turned into English by
Erl Rivers, brother of Edward IV's queen Elizabeth, and
was circulated by Caxton in print. To Christine is ascribed,
moreover, the original French of the chivalric handbook,
Fayts of Mrms and Ch{z,alry, 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 Egland the honours of its chief priestess.
a To Caxton's volume there was prefixed a translation of a ballade of
unexceptionable moral intention with a clums¥ burden ('Ne chyer but
of a man Joyous'). The poem, though assigned to Chartier, is from
another pen. Sec M. Paul Meyer's note in reprint of Caxton's volume
by the Early English Text Societï.
96 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-155 o
and Joinville. Mediaeval England was innocent of such
masters of historlc sensibility.
The romance of Huon of tYordeau_r, which Berners also
communicated to his fellow countrvmen in their own tongue
about 153o, belongs to another literary category. Its pre-
tences to historic truth are empty flourishes. It is a curious
medley of French charm and Itaïv«lé and of Gothic and
grotesque legend. Vqth a welcome inconsistency it imports
into feudal scenery the alry figure of Oberon, King of the
Fairies. Oberon is an ethereal conception even in Berners's
dry presentation of the French, and it stirred the English
imagination. Shakespeare drew from Berners's English ver-
sion his knowledge of the fairy king. If the influence on
English literature of mediaeval French fancy were confined to
those scenes in M .l[idslttttter A't'ghl's DreaIz of which
Oberon is the hero, English gratitude to mediaeval France
and her Tudor interpreters ought not to be grudging.
But it was not only chivalric history or romance that Tudor
England found of interest and service in French prose.
The translators from the French supplied Englishmen with
much of their first knowledge of practical science. Botany
became a popular English study largely under French
influence. ' The Grc[e tterball, which giveth parfyt know-
lege and understandyng of ail maner of herbes and there
gracyous vertues,' which was till near the end of the sixteenth
century the standard English manual of botany, was a literal
rendering ' out of ye Frensshe into Englysshe' of Le Grand
tterbt'er, an early publication of the press of Paris. The
English version was first printed ' at London in Southwarke' in
i 5oE6, a year after the publication of the second and concluding
volume of Lord Berners's notable rendering of Froissart.
VI
LES RHÉTORIQUEURS
Berners, like Caxton, translated French prose into English.
Neither betrayed interest in French verse, nor showed much
acquaintance with strictly contemporary French literature.
POETIC RHETORICIANS IN FRANCE 97
Both sought their materia[ in work of a past generation.
There were, however, poetic writers in Egland of Berners's
generation who stood to French literature in a somewhat
different relation. The debt of early Tudor poetry to France
was hardly smaller than that of early Tudor prose, but the
loans involved no calls on the past; they were levied with-
out exception on the present. The French literature from
which the early Tudor poets sought inspiration was of their
own epoch, and free adaptation took for the most part the
place of direct and avowed translation. A few poetic voices
in early Tudor England essayed some original utterance,
but they failed to strike a distinctively national note. The
native fancy was for the most part a foreign echo, and the
metrical form was invariably a foreign suggestion. None the
less the obligation to the foreigner usually stopped short of
literal transference.
A crowd of poetic pens were active and voluble in
France at the end of the fifteenth and through the early
decades of the sixteenth century. The printing presses
groaned more heavily beneath the weight of freshly penned
verse than of freshly penned prose. Èaborate treatises on
the art of poetry and on prosody bore witness to the serious-
ness with which poetic labour was pursued. There ,cas a
sportive ingenuity in some new metrical devices, although
the light verse often sank to the level of inane punning and
did hOt disdain the verbal quip of the charade. Rondeaus
and ballades abounded, for the gay heart of France had not
eeased to beat. But Villon's triumphs were not repeated.
Dullness was the goddess to which the French contemporaries
of early Tudor poets often saerificed their energies. The
French poets of the epoch too often yielded to the torpor of
rhetorical and allegorical convention which the otau de la
Rose inaugurated more tlaan two centuries before. Rhetorical
allegory was the staple of their argument. The view of life is
always ethically sound ; the warnings against sin and impos-
ture are fervent, but the savour of tediousness is pronouneed.
' Les rhétoriqueurs,' as the early poetic sehool of six-
teenth-century France is known to French eritics, have
98 FRENCH INFLUENCE 15oo-155 °
for numbers, fertility, and popularity no counterpart in con-
temporary Egland. In them the old mediaeval tradition,
although just tinged with the new humanism, died hard.
Jean le Maire de Belges (I473-525?), who wrote of
honour and virtue with much allegorical skill and more
variety than is common, was reckoned by charitable friends
the Homer of this band. The grammarian Palsgrave
cites him liberally, and he was confidently placed among the
immortals. There is more reason in the ridicule which
Rabelais bestowed on another eminent member of the
brotherhood, Guillaume Crétin (d. 525)--/e bon Cré[t)t art
vers ¢quiz,oque--the poetic historiographer of Francis I.
Of him, under the grotesque naine of Raminagrobis, Panurge
takes humorous counsel on the subject of marriage, quoting
literally one of his serious poems as if it were an effort in
burlesque. In the train of this army there tramped, how-
ever, one attractive vagabond figure, Pierre Gringoire, who
lived in somewhat obscure circumstances from 475 until
about 534 . He was a professional actor, whose main energy
was engaged in penning rudimentary plays, dramatic dialogues
and satires, insolently lampooning current politics and social
life. 111 the presentation of his social and political burlesques
on the stage he filled the chief parts. But Gringoire was more
versatile than his dramatic essays suggest. He made many
experiments in that allegorical interpretation of virtue and
vice, in which the 'rhétoriqueurs' did homage to the ancient
manner of the IoJ1tal de la Iose.
It was to Gringoire and to his masters, ' Les Rhétoriqueurs,'
that the early stream of Tudor poetry was largely tributary.
English allegory and satire of Henry VIIl's reign were of the
contemporary French pattern. Gringoire and his companions
of the French stage also fed Tudor drama at its birth. John
Heywood's Z:our t9's follows closely a French model. 2 But
Heywood and his disciples refrained from confessing their debts
to France. Nor of five English verse-writers of the epoch
Out of the uncertainties of his biography was evolved the little
rnodern French play by Théodore de Banville, recently farniliar on the
English stage under the title of' The Balladrnonger '.
2 See p. 372, infra.
ALEXANDER BARCLAY 99
who merit notice, did more than one frankly avoxv themselves
tobe translators of current French or other foreign poetry.
Only one plainly announced an ambition to improve Tudor
culture by accepting forelgn guidance. The other four xvorked
more subtly and less openly, but their labours almost as clearly
echoed the French note.
The credit of first openly introducing Tudor readers to
French poetry of their own perlod belongs to Alexander
Barclay 0475 ?-552) He is a figure of great importance in a
comparative study of Tudor literature and the contemporary
literature of the Continent. One of the many Scotchmen who
were educated in Paris,he passed all his adult career in England,
holding ecclesiastical office in Devonshire, Ely, or London.
He declared that his aire in lire was to' Eglish such foreign
authors as might benefit the mind and morals of English
people'. He modestly disclaims ability to do more. Though he
did hOt confine his attention to French literature, his laborious
compilation of a French grammar, The Iittrodttctory to 1I "rite
and to tronottnce FrencA, shows how high the French
language stood in his regard.
Ail Barclay's translations showed a poetic facility which
caught the popular ear, and familiarized a somewhat sluggish
audience with the drift of much contemporary foreign effort.
Very widely known was Barclay's rendering of the Latin
Eclogtes of the contemporary Italian, Baptista Mantuanus, the
' good old Mantuan ' ofShakespeare's schooldays) Even more
acceptable proved Barclay's çht of Fools, which came from
the German of the toaster satirist of the era, Sebastian Brandt.
A French rendering of the çit of t:ools was printed as
early as x497. French example governed there and elsewhere
Barclay's cholce of material. It is more pertinent to our
present purpose to dwell on Barclay's allegorical poem called
The Casle of La&out, which came from the contemporary
a A later translation by George Turberville came out in j67. Cf.
Lovds Zabour's Lost, v. , where Holofernes the schoelmaster quotes
the opening words of glantuanus's EdoKues :
«" Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra
Ruminat,"
and so forth. Ah ! good old Mantuan... Old Mantuan ! old Mantuan !
Who understandeth thee hot, loves thee hot."
oo FRENCH INFLUENCE t5oo-55 o
French of Pierre Gringoire, and is peculiarly characteristic of
the pre-Renalssance tendency of poetry in France.
Gringoire's Châleau de Labour, which vas turned into
Ènglish verse by Barday, is cast in the conventional mould.
'Jeune Enfant' IYoung Child) is the hero, who after much
tuition from personages named respectively Chastisement
(' Chastiement'), Free Will (' Franc Arbitre '), and Reason
(' Entendement ')--the last a very grave old man--is misled
by a lady of fashion whom he marries. Legal tricksters
involve 'Jeune Enfant' in many misunderstandings with his
wife. He is finally led by' Bon Voulant ', ' Boncoeur',' Talent
de Bien-Faire' (Desire of XVell-doing) to the Castle of Labour,
where he finds peace and satisfaction. Hard work is the
salvation of man's soul. Such is the moral of the piece, which
runs conversely in Barclay's words :
Idleness, mother of ail adversity,
Her subjects bringeth to extreme poverty.
Barclay's version went through at least tvo editions. The
French muse of Gringoire smoothed the path of allegory
in Tudor England.
Alexander Barclay was hardly less well acquainted with
Gringoire's master in allegory, Jean Le Maire de Bdges,
whose fame was made by Le TeJtle d'Hnneur el de Verlu
(c. x5o3). The French poet wrote this allegorical poem ' à
l'honneur de feu Monseigneur de Bourbon'. In 5x3, when
Sir Eward Howard, the Lord High Admlral of England, ,vas
slain in a sea-fight with the French off the coast of Brittany,
Barclay followed closely in the Frenchman's footsteps of
elegy, and gave voice to the national mourning in ' The
description of the Towre of vertue and honour into the which
the noble Howarde contended to enter by worthy actes of
chivalry '. Barclay's Towre was planned on the model of Le
Maire's TeJple.
The discipleship to foreign masters of the four Tudor poets,
John Skelton (i46o-59) , Stephen Hawes (t47o?-t54),
Sir Thomas Wyatt (t5o3-4), and the Earl of Surrey
Mr. Wilfrid P. Mustard, ,l[odern Language Nates, Jan., 19o9,
Vol. xxiv, No. 1, pp. 9-1o.
FOUR TUDOR POETS o
(57-47), lies less on the surface than in the case of Barclay.
Their ambition led them far from the path ofmere translation.
The little group falls chronologically and critically into two
virtually independent pairs. Skelton and Hawes differ much
in manner and matter, but they were preclse contemporaries,
and they are nearly akin with the past in their primitive senti-
ment. XVyatt and Surrey are of a younger generation, and, for
ail their uncouthness, had a touch of lyric intensity and a flexi-
ble retaper which encouraged the pursuit of novel effects. Very
distantly they heralded some coming developments. The part
they play on the stage of British literary history is somewhat
shadowy and solltary. But their aflïnity is with the future.
The chronological interval between these twin pairs of
poets exposed them to French influences ofsomewhat different
kinds. Hawes and Skelton began their work late in the
fifteenth century, and were coeval with the latest survivors of
French mediaevalism, with the ' rhétoriqueurs' who, though
they absorbed something of he new classical learning
drew most of their inspiration from an era that was dying.
The current French poetry which offered its stimulus to
Hawes and Skelton mainly consisted of allegories on the
pattern of Le Maire de Belges or Gringoire, or of verse
chronicles of recent and contemporary history, or of crude
dramatic satire which attacked with an undiscriminating
insolence political and theological opinion or social life.
More promising were the French auspices which smiled on
Wyatt and Surrey. They were young enough to witness the
glorious advent of Clément Marot (t497-t544), who carried
on the mediaevalized tradition of the 'rhétoriqueurs', but
touched it with the hand of genius. Marot's spirit caught the
sunset glow of the Middle Age, and fused it with the dawning
light of the French Renaissance.
Vil
FRENCH INFLUENCE ON SKELTON AND HAWES
From the days of Chaucer in the fourteenth century
Englishmen had acknowledged the fascination of the metrical
dexterity and variety of French poetry. The tune often
102 FRENCH INFI.UENCE I5oo-I55 o
attracted Englishmen more potently than the words. The
first Tudor poets were loyal to the Chaucerian traditions of
dependence on French metre. They pursued almost in-
voluntarily the old habit of naturalizing French rhyme. The
marrer was often a loan from France. But the metrical
chains which bound early Tudor poetry to the French muse
are more promising features of the picture than the links of
topic. There was little in contemporary French verse to
quicken English poetlc thought. But the French metres were
capable of increasing the pliabillty of the Engllsh language
and of English prosody.
The mediaeval French poets were marvellously fertile in
the development of metrical forms, and fully warranted English
emulation. Ballades and rondeaus, virelays and chansons, are
the best known though by no means the only metrlcal
inventions of mediaeval France, and they were wrought to
melodious effect by many generations of French poets before
the Renaissance came into being. The French contemporaries
of Hawes and Skelton were loyal to the old forms, but were
prone to pedantic emendation whlch often issued in grotesque
puerilities, in shallow fopperies of rhyme. The sensitive
taste of the full-fledged Renaissance was offended by the
' rhétoriqueurs" extravagances, and the whole mediaeval usage
was quickly involved in an ill repute which was not wholly
deserved. The old metrical standards were rejected for new.
Skelton and Hawes, came for the most part under the sway
of these unregenerate crudities and eccentricities. Both derived
inspiration from the French ' rhétoriqueurs', who were their
contemporaries.
Skelton, although capable at times of gentle tones, was in
the main a bitter and aggressive satlrist of persons and things.
For Frenchmen he showed small personal friendship. He
attacked a distingulshed French humanlst and historian, Robert
Gaguin, who was ambassador at Henry Vlll's court. The
foreigner had frowned on him ' full angerly and pale '. But
despite bis insular professions, Skelton's work pays ample
tribute to French culture. It abounds in French words and
phrases. He christened his diatribe against his French foe
SKELTON'S FRENCH MODELS o 3
Gaguin with the French substantive ]?ecule (i.e. retort). One
of his best known poems, an allegorical description of the vices
of courtiers, called 7,e &oq£e of Courl, employs, oddly but
characteris6cally, an anglicized form of the French word
bon-e (mouth) in the sense of' rations'. A translation by
Skehon of a popular mediaeval ethical treatise, Guillaume de
Guilleville's Péleripage de la z,ie ]aie, attests, too, a
French afiïnity, and an involuntary respect for the French
mediaeval tradition.
More important are the signs that Skelton gave of the close
attention with which he watched the poetic rhetoricians who
ruled the French realm of letters in his own time. From them
he eagerly caught hints. Le Maire de Belges, the most versatile
ofthe rhetorical poets in France at the opening ofthe sixteenth
century, gained much faine from a pla.vful piece called
L'Apzal verl. There 'the green loyer ', i. e. a parrot, retires
two lively addresses or «oes in verse to the bird's mistress,
a patroness of the poet, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy.
Skelton dedicated to Queen Catherine of Arragon, Henry VIII's
first queen, two rambling satires called Se]ee, Parrol, which
he also placed in a parrot's lips. It s 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 lem is in ill-printed
French. The English parrot has a far more strident note
than the French bird, but the kiship is hot in doubt.
Yet Skelton's chief debt to French influence only becomes
visible when we compare wkh French verse the English poet's
i This achievement illustrates the persistent popularity in England of
comparatively valueless French mediaeval literature. Skelton here
anglicized part of Le Roman des 'rois ]élerinages, a long moralizing
paraphrase of I.e loman d« la Rase (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 af La«rel. Lydgate had alread¥
translated the saine work. A translation of another portion of Guilleville's
gigantic work Caxton printed in 483 as Te Yilgrimage ortie
o 4 FRENCH INFLUENCE xSOO-X55 o
characteristic metre of short lines which vary in number of
syllables from four to six, and rhyme usually by couplets, but
at times four, rive, or six times over. This mette, 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 Skelton'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 ve»tured 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
show that its most telling features, which have no English
precedents of earlier dates, are matched in popular French
verse of Skelton's oxvn 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 Vil (who died in x46x), Les
lïgt7es de la llOr/ de Charles ['II. The author was
lartial de Paris, who is often called Martial d'Auvergne
(i44o--5o8). His spirited verse is said to have been sung by
French peasants while they laboured in the field. lartial
specially loved the jog-trot melody of rive- and six-syllable
lines, with an ingenious rhyming scheme which pleasingly
relieves the monotony of the brief line:
lieux vaut la liesse,
L'amour et simplesse
De bergiers pasteurs,
Qu'avoir à largesse
Or, argent, richesse,
Ni la gentilesse
De ces grans seigneurs:
THE SKELTONIAN METRE o 5
Car ils ont douleurs
Et des maux greigneurs;
Mais pour nos labeurs
Nous avons sans cesse
Les beaux prés et fleurs,
Fruîtaiges, odeurs,
Et joye à nos curs,
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
rive- and six-syllable lines in Skeltonian English, which the
English poet addressed to a weil-wisher :
Sterre 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 towre:
t Les totesfrançoisjus¢u'à ,llalherbe (Paris, 1824, t. II, pp. 282-3).
o6 FRENCH INFLUENCE 1513o-I550
V¢ith solace and gladnes,
Moche mirthe and no madnes,
All good and no badnes.
But Skelton mainly devoted his short rhyming lines to
satiric railler3". 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,
V'aketh now for wages;
And, as a man that rages,
Or overcome with ages,
l)isputeth per alJzbages,
To help these parasites,
And naughty hypocrites,
V'ith 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 truncatlons of metre were chiefly,
although not exclusively, consecrated at the beginning of the
sixteenth centurv 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'ouïr, de parler,
De manger ne chair, ne pouesson,
De boyre de nulle bouesson,
Sur paines de leurs disciplines;
Mais eux avant dire matines,
Leurs lessons et leurs oresmus,
Ils faisaient tous gaudeamus.
! Petit de Julleville, La Coppt&tie el les ma'urs ept France au
(Paris, I886, pp. 222-3).
THE ENGLISH VOGUE OF SHORT METRES
Skelton's rough tongue was clearly practising a French
tune. The macaronic tags of Latin in both the French and
English lines tell their own tale.
Short-syllabled rnetres were farniliar to later generations of
Tudor England. Skelton's example was largely responsible
for the vogue. Yet the fashion was also rnaintained for a rime in
France after Skelton's day, especially by satiric writers for the
French stage. Marot, 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. \Vyatt's experiments with it are doubtless due to
his study of Marot. The uses to which John Heywood and
other ernbryonic drarnatists put it were the fruit of his acquain-
tance with contemporary French drama. In Elizabethan days,
when this rnetrical 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 rnerely of
interest as evidence that the short trotting verse was
recognized tobe a French importation.
Skelton's conternporary and chier poetic rival, Stephen
Hawes, pursued a more conventional aire. His topics brinff
hirn into alrnost closer association with the expiring efforts of
French rnediaevalism. 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 rnasters that he supplernented
i Tarlton's News out ofPurffatory, 59 o.
108 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-55o
their tuition by French instruction. He mainly devoted his
peu to allegorical romance on the old French pattern, which
the lopltalt de la lose had created for Europe as well as for
France, and to which the ' rhetoriqueurs' were givlng in his
time a new popularity. Hawes's seven-lined stanza is of
stubborn antiquity, but hîs allegorical machinery closely
reflects the current French standards. Hawes's E.a:aItlble of
l'z'r/ite shows Youth's adventure in pursuit of Wisdom, much
as Le Maire portrays the like struggle in Le 7"ezle d'Itou-
zeur c de lCtu. Hawes's chief work, The Paslipte of
Pleasure, or lac [-[t'slory of Grattttd 4 tltottr attd La Bel
tgttcel, 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 Marot
as a youth subsequently paid court in his Tettple de Cuidon.
Alexander Barclay was translating Pierre Gringoire's Chdleau
de Labour near the saine date as Hawes was engaged on his
tgasNme. 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 faire. It is easy to perceive how
busily French allegorical ingenuity was fertilizing the English
soli whence Spenser's Faerie Quecue was in due time to
sprint.
Very early in the sixteenth century numerous editions appeared in Paris
of a French didactic poem called Le tgasse-t«tttsde tout homme et de toute
femme, by Guillaume Alexis, prieur de Buzy, a voluminous poet, who
died in 486. 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 AI.AMANNI o 9
VIII
IAROT AND .ALAMANNI: WYATT AND SURREY
Twenty years may be reckoned as the interval of tlme
which separates the flourishing day of Skelton and Hawes
from the epoch of .Vyatt's and Surrey's poetic activltv. The
later scene differs much from the earlier. In the work of the
young-er Tudor poets we 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, )-et 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 hot to be mistaken in the
work of Vt'yatt and Surrey.
Elizabethan critics claimed that the poetic labour of Vyatt
and Surrey began a new era in English literature, and that
their innovating tendency owed its virtue solely to liberal
draughts of the poetic inspiration of haly. The EIizabethan
critic, Puttenham, in his M'te qfl£1glish toesie, penned these
familiar sentences in 1589 :
In the latter end of the saine king's [Henry VIII'si 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 and
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.
There is obvious evldence of Wyatt's and Surrey's indebted-
ness to Italian effort, notably to the muse of Petrarch. The
influence of Dante and Ariosto is hot 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.
xc FRENCH INFLUENCE x5oo 55 o
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 thelr 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 llterature an even
nobler part than the sonnet, and the debt to Surrey is enhanced
proportionately. But Surrey has no better clalm to the
invention of blank verse than to that of the sonnet. Blank
verse was another Italian invention.
The invasion of France by ltalian culture began under
Francls I but bore its ripened literary fruit in the reigns of his
son and grandsons. Not until the relgn of the French king
Henr 3- II, the contemporary of the Englisla sovereigns Ed-
ward 1"1 and Mary Tudor, did either the sonnet or blank
verse become familiar to France. Yet I.tallan culture made its
primary assault on French taste in the generation of Wyatt
and Surrey, even if it was durlng the succeedlng epoch that
the Italian spirlt helped to refashlon French poetry.
The signs of Wyatt's and Surrey's Italian inspiration are not
to be mistaken, but there are subsidlary aspects of the Itallan
influence whlch link \Vyatt's and Surrey's work with contem-
porary France more closely than Puttenham perceived. They
learned much of the poetlc art of Italy from an Itallan poet
who xvas domlciled in their day in Paris and was bringing to
French notice the new modes of poetlc satire, of blank verse
and the sonnet; while the English poets' debt to the indl-
genous poetry of France calls for a fuller acknowledgement
than has yet been rendered.
Both English poets had intlmate personal acqualntance
with France. \Vyatt alone of the pair went to Italy, and hls
sojourn was hOt prolonged. Surrey never passed the Alps,
save in the fictions of the crltlcs. Surrey and Wyatt alike
spent much time at the French court. The former as tutor
of Henry VIII's natural son, the Earl of Richmond, lived for
nearly a year at Paris or Fontainebleau with Francls I and
hls family. \Vyatt was repeatedly in the French capital on
diplomatic missions, and he mixed in cultivated French society.
SURREY AND WATT IN FRANCE
The ambitious Eglish votaries of the muse were not likely
to resist the alluring appeals whîch contemporary literature in
France ruade to their allegiance.
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 Engllshmen occasionally translated or
paraphrased sonnets and odes direct from Petrarch or from
his Italian disciples. Yet, while ,Vyatt and Surrey sojourned
in French territory they had opportunities of studying current
Italian literature which was in course of publication in l'rance
at the time. Thus in ail probability were Wyatt and Surrey
most effectually brought in Paris under the Italian literary yoke.
At every turn in out story, Paris presents itself as the chief
mission-station of Renaissance culture.
The volce of the native muse of France also gained the
two English poets' ear, while they were at the French court.
Ch)ment Marot was the king of French poets in the epoch
of Wyatt and Surrey, and comparison of them with him is
inevitable. In his own country Marot's faine largely suffered
eclipse with his death in t544. 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 Vyatt and Surrey,
and expanded later. \Vyatt caught inspiration from the
versatility of Marot, and Spenser echoed some of his strains.
His father, Jean Marot, a poetaster of the rhetorical school,
edited the work of the medlaeval master, Alain Chartier,
whose naine Caxton had ruade familiar to English ears.
Clément'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 toaster 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 ail 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
II FRENCH INFLUENCE I5oo-55o
turning into French verse two of Erasmus's colloquies.
He knew no Greek, but hls study of Latin coloured his
imagery. He interpreted in Frenda translations a portion of
Ovid's 3[elamo'bhoses, 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
vivaclty 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 Shehea'ds Calendo', the earllest flower of great
Elizabethan poetry. Marot wrote eplgrams 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. XVith much of his wonted airiness Marot in
early days paid tribute to the exigent convention ofmediaeval
France by penning a pleasant allegory of love's supremacy
over life, called Le Temlble de Cupidon. There the poet, in
the rein of the old Roman de la Rose, makes adventurous
search for Jeune Amour, whom he finally meets in Cupid's
temple amid flo,vers and birds which gaily haunt the adorable
shrine. In less ambitious efforts, however, he achieved his chier
triumphs. Marot worshipped at Villon'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 fable ofthe Lion and ghe Rat breathes a buoyant
simplicity and a rhythmical ease, which axe 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 I5i to the Duke d'Alençon
when leading the armies of France against the Low German
CLÉMENT MAROT 3
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 isspontaneous,
intelligible, and melodious. He gossips fluently in poetical
epistles to patrons and ffiends over his servant's pilferings or
hls creditors' importunities. An unpretentious grace and a
cheerfulness which mocks at sorrow rarely forsake him amld
his voluble confessions of poverty and mlsfortune.
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 idlosyncrasy.
Ahhough he denied that he was a' Luthériste', he openly
censured Papal doctrine, and his patron, Francis I, could not
protect hlm from persecution in Paris at the hands of the
guardians of the Catholic creed. The French king's sister,
the cuhured Queen of Navarre, offered him an asylum i,
that court of arts and letters at Nérac over which she
presided for some two and twenty years (tSaT-t549}. Marot
requited the hospitality of his royal mistress in charmlng
eulogies, but even his patroness could hot give hlm lasting
security, and he left France 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 splrit
drooped when he was absent from his beloved city. He
obtained permission to return home on condition that he
abjured his heterodoxy. I3efore long, however, he involuntarily
renewed his old offence by the bold innovation of versifying
in French some fifty of the Psalms. Marot's French render-
ings of the Psalms are hot great poems, although they rank
with the best vernacular versions in any language. In poetic
temper they are far superior to the famous Ènglish version of
Hopkins and Sternhold, which was undertaken six or seven
years after. Marot's phraseology is hOt defaced by the homely
tameness of the Eglish. His metre is perhaps too jocund,
Marot, OE'ttz, t'es, il. 71-7.
4 FRENCH INFLUENCE 15oo--I55o
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 religlous bellef got them by
heart. Even Francis I hummed them in the gallerles of Fon-
tainebleau. But the doctors of the Sorbonne were suspicious
of their fascination. The sour dogmatists deemed Marot's
versîfication 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
playing the gaine of backgammon, and retreated before the
scandal to Turin, where he died at the age of 47, in i544.
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
anclent 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
Parnassus. But his influence continued to work in Tudor
England after it was stilled in France.
Marot was the chief French poet wlth whom XVyatt and
Surrey were contemporary, but his labour was not done in
isolation. Poetasters of the perlod were legion, and despite
thelr crabbed power often engaged in more or less friendly
rivalry with Marot. Occasionally a promising experiment
was made by a contemporary in tields into which Marot did
not venture. Such a one was Antoine Heroet, a protégé of
Queen Margaret of Navarre, whose chief poem was a philo-
sophic disquisition on Plato's conception of love, whieh was
entitled La tgafaicle 4mye (The Perfect Mistress). This
was published by the scholar prlnter, Dolet, at Lyons in 15423
Heroet became Bishop of Digne in 1552 , and died in 1568 , aged
about seventy-six. An admirable edition of his uvres l'adliques, edited
SAINT-GELAIS AND ALAMANNI
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 tire,
The base-born brood of blindness cannot guess,
Nor ever dare theîr dunghill thoughts aspire
Unto so lofty pitch of perfectness.
But Heroet's pure aspirations passed for the rime unnoticed
in Egland. Marot easily ruled the French Parnassus
in the era of Spenser's predecessors, and by them his
supremacy went tmquestioned. Only one writer was
reckoned even among his own countrymen to approach his
throne--Melin de Saint-Gelais (t49t-t559) , a fashionable
courtier and ecclesiastic of the orthodox type, who acknow-
ledged less grudgingly than Marot the seduction of Italv.
His early biographer indulgently credited the sweet Itallan
air with conveying a rare refinement and a classical purity
to the crudity of Melin's native temperament. Melin seems
responsible for the earliest French experiment in halian
sonneteering, and he bas the distinction of adapting his words
to lute accompaniments of his own composition. But he
hardly merited his temporary vogue. His verse is, for the
most part, pedantic artifice, and lais obscenity passes permis-
sible bounds. He lacks Marot's fresh wit and airy tluency.
Wyatt gives occasional signs of acquaintance with his work,
but Melin had little stimulus to offer foreign students, t
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 Marot preserved a patriotic
independence, Italian sentiment was freely sown in lais da)" in
Parisian fields. Italian authors were esteemed there, and to
by Ferdinand Gohin, was published by the Société des Textes Français
Modernes in 9o 9.
Melin de Saint-Gelais is rarely mentioned in Tudor literaturê.
Puttenham, in his Arte f English Poesie ( 589, notes that Melin, hke
Marot and ' Salmonius Macrinus', was rewarded b¥ Francis 1 with
office at court on account of his poetic excellence. Sahnonius Macrinus
or Jean Salmon Macri»us (149o-557) was a Latin poet, and a friend of
Rabelais and Marot.
xx6 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-55o
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 Lyons, under the
French king's patronage and at his expense, a mass of
Italian poetry, which caught the ear of France. Èvery
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 versatility and
ingenuity lent some distinction to his irrepressible industry.
Alamanni's perseverance and ingenuity lacked no honour in his
land of exile. Francis I hOt only proved a munificent patron,
but the king's daughter-in-law, Catherine de' Medici, ruade
him her izaîre d'hôCel. 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
Vyatt's efforts alike have undoubted affinity?
Some of Surrey's and Vyatt'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. Alamanni
was the first modern writer to employ blank 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 versisciolti (i. e. 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. While the likdihood may be admitted that one
or other of these two Italians was Alamannïs 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 ltaliane alla Col-te di
Francesco I re di Francia' in his S'lttdi di Storia Lett«raria Italiana
e Straniera, Livorno, 89, pp. u7o seq.
.lhtmanni, sa ie et son a'u,re, par H. Hauvette» Paris» 19o3,
PP- - 5 seq.
BI.ANK VERSE x7
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 hls curious poetic description of the inunda-
tion of Rome by an overfloxv of the Tiber in 153 ° (Il 1)t'/ttz, io
Ro11«ato). Alamanni xvas conscious of the novelty of his
usage, and feared that it might rouse conservative censure.
When dedicating to his patron, Francis I, in 53 2, his Ocre
Toscate-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
ofliterary taste, approved Alamanni's experlment. Alamanni's
royal patron was also personally acquainted with the English
poet. The Italian's appeal to the French king for a sympathetic
judgernent on his metrical immvation attracted Surrey's
notice.
Alamannî'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 lais translation of the
second and fourth books of Vergil's ,4etteid hoxv the English
language adapted itself to unrhymed verse. Italian authors
other than Alamanni xvere at the time applying the new
metrical derice 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 clted 'Seigneur Loys
Aleman' as the sole champion, de tostre tests, of the free
rhymeless line, and if they questioned the fitness of his z,o's
h'dres for general use, they comrnended his bold originality, a
t Du Bellay's Deffense et illuslralion de I« lattffue frat,foyse, 1549,
p. 32.
I8 FRENCH INFLUENCE I5oo-I55 o
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 Eizabethan England Alamanni's metrical innova-
tion of which Surrey was the first Englishman to make trial.
Surrey's literary ally, Sir Thomas Wyatt, acknowledged
more openly Alamanni's tuition. V'vatt followed the Floren-
tine's guidance in two most characteristic performances
--in his satires and in his poetic rendering of the Peni-
tential Psalms. XVyatt's three satires on a courtier's lire,
which recali the gentle vein of Horace, are often reckoned
the first examples of poetic satire in England. They are to
a large extent paraphrases of Alamanni's satires. Here and
there they sink to literal translation. V'hen Wyatt is explain-
ing to'mine own John Poins' whv he flies 'the press of
courts' and ' cannot honour them that set their part with Venus
and Bacchus ail their life long', he is repeating verbally the
assurances that Alamanni gave his familiar friend ' Thommaso
mio gentil' in the satires which he published in Paris under
Francis I's auspices ver 3- few years earlier. Nor does Wyatt's
assimilation of Alamanni's unexceptionable sentiment exhaust
the debt. He borrowed Alamanni's satiric metre, which, al-
though the English adapter did hOt know it, is indistinguish-
able from Dante's ?erza r'ma, and was already applied to
satire by the earliest of Italian satirists, Antonio Vinciguerra,
and by his more famous successor, Ariosto.-" XVyatt's rhymes
The famous Italian author Aretino, writing to Alamanni June 1o,
1542, mentions a translation of Vergil by one of Aretino's friends secondt,
['uso de' ,oslri «,ersi scio[IL Surrey's blank verse translation of Vergil's
..I«neid, Books II and IX', was hOt published until 1557, ten years after
his death. It was probably written about 538. The second book of
the Aeneid in Italian blank verse was first published at Castello in 539,
and the first six books in the saine metre at Venice in 54o.
Flamini, Il Cinquecento, pp. o6- 7 (in Sloria Lel&'raria d' IlaliaL
Le Maire de Belges claimed to bave first used in France (about I5o31
this metre, which he calls ,,e,'s liercets à fit façon Ilalienne ou Toscane.
But the ler-a rima, although the poets of thë Pléiade made some experi-
ments with it, did hOt become cornmon in France ; cf. Prof. L. E. Kastner,
)'ench Versiflcatian, pp. 16 7 seq. Prof. Saintsbury calls XVyatt's satiric
verse ' intertwined decasyllables ', and seems puzzled to account for their
intricacy ( Hist. of Prosody, i. 311-I2).
AI_.AMANNI'S Æ.4 TIRES I 9
in his decasyllabic satires look to the English eye curiously
intertwisted. The first and third lines rhyme together; then
the second, fourth, and sixth; then the fifth, seventh, and
ninth ; then the eighth, tenth, and twelfth, and so on :
I cannot honour them that set their iarl
With Venus and Baechus, ail their life lozg;
Nor hold my peace of them, although I ss«,zrl.
I cannot crouch nor yield to such a oroJtg,
To worship them like God on earth aloJte,
That are as wolves these sely lambs alszottg.
I cannot with my words complain and »toalt,
And surfer nought; nor smart without coztzplat'tJl;
Nor turn the word that from my mouth is goûte.
The following quotation shows how precisely XVyatt foliows
here Alamannïs metrictl as well as his verbal guidance :
Non saprei reuerir chi soli adora
Venere & Bacco, nè tacer saibrei
1)i quel che '1 uulgo falsamente honora.
Non saprei più ch' a gli immortali l)et"
Rendere honor con le ginoeehia z'ttcht'Jzc
A più ingiusti che sian, fallacl, & fez'.
Non saprei nel parlar courir le spz)te
Con simulati tior, nell' opre kauendo
Mele al principlo, & tristo assentio al fltte?
Nor, again, is it likely to be an aceidental coincidence that
XVyatt should be the first to versify in Eglish the Penitential
Psalms, and that Alamanni while at the French court should
render the Sal»«z" Pent'tezliah" a like service in Itallan just
before. The choice of the same sacred topic by the two
secular pens bas corroborative value in the argument.
Little doubt remains that France in her wonted r61e of
missionary introduced to Wyatt's and S urrey's notice that
mass of Italian poetry which the Florentine Alamanni penned,
or at any rate published, while he was domiciled in Paris.
Alamanni included in his work centuries of ltalian son-
nets. As soon .as Alamanni's sonnets, which are themselves
Alamanni, Satira X, Oper« 7"ascane, 53z, P. 4ol. Wyatt's debt to
Alamanni is well estimated in Carlo Segrè's ' Due Petrarchisti inglesi
del secolo xw ' in his .bltt,[i l"«trarchés,hi, 9o3, pp. 335 seq.
o FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-t55o
largely echoes of Petrarch and his early disciples, are
closely compared with the Englishmen's small harvest,
they suggest a partial source of English insplration. 1 The
living" Alamanni at any rate stood beside their desks to in-
terpret the sonneteering" practice of Petrarch, Arlosto, and
Sannazzaro. France could hOt otherwise glve them much
help there.
Ronsard and hls disciples were to ¢onvert the Italian
fashion of sonneteering" into a French vogue. But French
literature in the pre-Ronsardian era caught only a first fleet-
ing gllmpse of the Italian sonnet. At most a dozen French
sonnets were in circulation while SVyatt and Surrey were
active. Clément 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
Vyatt's and Surrey's effort that France completely naturalized
the Italian sonnet. Vhen the English Muse awoke at the end
of Elizabeth's reign from that slumber which befell her on
Wvatt's and Surrey's death, she discerned in the sonneteering
activities of France an almost keener stimulus than in those
of Italv. Wyatt and Surrey round as sonneteers little assis-
tance in French poetry.
It may even be doubted if the English pioneers owed any
thing" to thls sparse effort of the first French sonneteers.
Both Englishmen and Frenchmen often had independent
recourse to the saine Italian originals. It is curious to note
that one of Vyatt's sonnets, in which a lover's life is some-
what clumsily compared to the A1ps--
Like unto these immeasurable mountains
ls my painful life the burden of ire--
nearly resembles that French sonnet by Melin de .Saint-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 are
discussed at p. 264 infra. Alamanni prefers a somewhat original form of
tercet cde» ode.
THE FIRST ENGLISH SONNETS .'I
Voyant ces monts de veue ainsi lointaine,
Je les compare à mon long deplaisir.
But itis unquestionable that both Wyatt and the French poet
had here independent recourse to an original ltallan sonnet
by Jacopo Sannazarro, a Neapolitan sonneteer of a little
earlier date, who is best known as author of the pastoral
romance of the trcadz'a and was one ofAlamanni's masters.
Sannazarro's sonnet opens with the lines :
Simile a questi smisurati monti
È l'aspra vita mia colma di doglie.
Wyatt's rendering of the halian is more literal than the
Frenchman's version. 1
In other branches of Wyatt's verse an influence of pure
French stamp can be trace& The clues graphlcally illustrate
Ènglish receptivity to current tendencies of the French muse.
Wyatt's varied lyric experiments passed far beyond the scope
of the sonnet or the tera 'ima of Italian satire. At times he
affects a simple stanza of six octosyllabic lines of which the
tirst four rhyme alternately and the last two form a couplet ;
thls stave was already familiar in English 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
qulte new intricacies. The diversity is suggestive of con-
temporary France rather than of contemporary Italy. Manv
of Wyatt's lyric measures clearly reflect the rhythms of
Clément Marot and his school, and the points of iden-
tity leave no doubt that the Englishman was ofien a
direct borrower from Marot." Both poets occasionally
Cf. Gl' i»tilalori slat.;o'i di J, tco .S'azna.'aro, Ricerche di Fran-
cesco Torraca, Rome, »88e, pp. 3I-Z.
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
Poems, p. 89. ) The first lines are :
I. ç)" la bottl( se ,ouloil esmamter
. A[a tttailresse a ff ne scai quoi de boa
3. a#tes ] a qui de ces eau oj,sta/littes
4. 5ï ar tttemoire atttou? el k de,oir
5" Plume fui fus dtt ciel predestin&
6. licite»te »zal qui le desir rctorte
2 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-I55 o
employ a stanza eight lines long, and although there are
slight varlations in the length of line, the rhymes are in both
French and English cast in an identical mould of unusual
type--ababbcbc. 1 Wyatt's little six-line and eight-line poems
repeatedly catch the note of the st'rat)es or hier'lai'les of
Marot or of hls rival, Melln de Salnt-Gelals. The ses[htas
and ot[az,as of the Itallans are in a somewhat different
key. By Tudor Englishmen such fragmentary verse xx-as in-
variably assoclated with France. In the openlng days of
Queen Elizabeth, George Gascolgne, the author of the
earliest English treatise on prosody, employed the French
terms dz'.raz)ts and sz'.raDzs 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, XVyatt's fondness for irregular lines of Skeltonlan
brevlty echo a French predilectlon to which Marot was no
7. Si vous pense." ue ma mie heust qu« faire
8. Frere T]libaud sdjolt,'n t gros et gras
9. Un jour lla nlie croit toute seulette
1o. J« ne OE,eux rien qu'un baiser de fit b,udle
I I. Une belle jeune eibousée
! 2. J'ai vu le «os qui konore notre age
The first is Melin de Saint-Gelais's poem,' Au Roy François' (tçuvres, il.
1441, and the eighth is an epigram of Clément Marot (No. XLIV}. The
sources of the others have not been traced, but ail are probably tran-
scripts by XVyatt of contemporary French poetry.
Si au monde ne fussiez poDlt,
Belle, jamais je n'aymerois;
Vous seule avez gaigné le îboinct
¢3ue si bien garder j'eserois;
lais quand à mon gré vous aurois
En ma chambre seulette,
Pour me venger, je vous f crois
La couleur ,ermeillette.
{Marot, Chanson XVIII, in t'u«,res, ii. !5-)
I shall assay by secret suit
To show the mind of mine intcnt;
And my deserts shall give such fruit
As with my heart my words be me«lnt;
So by the proof of this consent
Soon out of doubt I shall be sure,
For to rejoice or to rebent,
In joy or pain for to endure. (Wyatt, IVorks, p. 16o.)
" Ccrlaync Aretcs of Instruction in Gascoigne's l'osi«s (Cambridge,
19o7, P, 47),
WYATT'S RONDEAUS '--3 "
stranger. 1 The light French note seems also struck by'Vyatt
in both the metre and the sentiment of such a familiar poem as
' The Careful Loyer Complaineth and the Happy Loyer Coun-
selleth'.Z More signifioent is the fact that Wyatt's muse
loved that form of lyrlc known as the rondeau, which was
a petted child hot only of the medlaeval muse of France, but
of her latest disciples ofthe early sixteenth century. Occasion-
ally the rondeau had been tried in England by Chaucer and
I.ydgate, but old English experiments were rare anti 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 irvariably consists of two stanzas,
Compare
Such tire and such heat
Did never make ye sweat;
For without pain
Vou best obtain
Too good speed and too great.
Whoso doeth plain
Vou best do feign
Snch tire and such heat,
\Vho now doth slander Love. çWyatt, ll'otks, p. 39-)
J'ay grand desir
i)'a'oir plaisir
D'amour mondaine ;
.Mais c'est grand' peine,
Car chascun loyal anaoureux
Au temps present est malheureux;
E le plus fin
Gaigne à la fin
La grace pleine.
(Marot, Chanson XXVIII, in rçuvrcs, il. 189.)
This s,ng, which Shakespeare parodies ( Tt,clfth N(¢h¢, IX'. ii. 79-8o,
begins
Ah ! Robin !
Jolly Robin !
Tell me how thy Leman doth.
Marot in his l:'ch.¢ues calls himself" Robin ', a common appellation of
French pastoral poetry, and applies the naine 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 r,an'e and/e lOhtintif.
FRENCH INFLUENCE 5o0-55 n
one of eight lines with a marked pause after the fifth line, and
the other of rive lines, while each stanza closes with a refrain
formed of the three or four opening words of the poern.
V'yatt's rondeaus invariably respect that reforrned scherne
which enjoyed Marot's peculiar sanction. Though there is
nothing in X, Vyatt's bathetic cadences to recall the felicities of
Marot's best harrnonies, the resernblance 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."
1 larot's notable triumph in the refrain of the rondeau is especially
commended by Boileau, the poetic censor of early French poetry, when
he mentions Marot's metrical inventiveness :
Marot bient6t après fit fleurir les ballades,
Tourna les triolets, rima les mascarades,
Et des rq[rains rdele- ass:rvit les rondeau.r
Et montra pour rimer des chemins tout nouveaux.
It is interesting to compare from the metrical point of view two
rnndeaus respectively by Wyatt (lf'orks, p. 81) and Marot (uvres, ii.
1571, 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
Wyatt is at his normal level :
MAROT.
Ttn/ sett[«ntotl ton amour te de-
mande,
Te suppliant que ta beauté com-
mande
Au cueur de moy comme à ton
serviteur,
_uoyque jamais il ne desservit heur
Qui procedast d'une grace si
grande.
Croy que ce cueur de te congnoistre
amande,
Et vouluntiers se rendroit de ta
bande,
S'il te plaisoit luy faioe cest honneur
Tattl setdentenL
Si tu le veulx, metz le soubz ta
commande ;
Si tu le prens, las[ je te recom-
mande
Le triste cors: ne le laisse sans
Mais loges y le tien, qui est vain-
queur
De l'humble serf qui son vouloir
te mande
,VYATT.
ttclh »te to seek/ for I lost it
there ;
And if that ye bave round it, ye
that be here,
And seek to convey it secretly,
Handle it soif 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;
Hcl me go seek .t
Aias! and is there no remedy:
But have I thus lost it wilfully.
1 wis it was a thing ail too dear
To be bestowed, and wist hOt
where.
It was lnine heart! I pray you
heartily
jr]e/î ntt tO sek ]
MAROT'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND I., 5
\Vith the close of Surrey's and Wyatt's poetic careers,
poetic ambition in England 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-ltalian path.
The French Muses under Ronsard's rule redoubled their
energy and gathered without pause new strength and faine.
In Englatad there was no contemporary of Ronsard's royal
calibre to tread in .Vyatt's and Surrey's somewhat faltering
steps. Their ventures were hOt pursued. They had no
genuine disciples, and poetry was for the moment silenced
in England.
Yet ,Vyatt and Surrey do hot lack ail links with the
Elîzabethans, 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 Eglish poetry
aspire to borrow notes from Ronsard's more accomplished
lyre. Spenser's boyish endeavour of The I ïsiots o_felrarçh
cornes straight, hOt from an Italian source, but from Marot's
Les lïst'ous de _Pétrarque. Two of the eclogues or pas-
torals in Spenser's The Shepheards Caleuder paraphrase
with literalness poems by Marot. Spenser's friendly con-
temporary and commentator, ' E lç.', tells how the English
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 l'hirondelle qui vole
Puis ça, puis là. L'fige me conduisait
Sans peur ni soin où mon cur me disait,
En la forèt, sans la crainte des loups.
Sl3enser , under the pastoral naine of Colin, echoed the stralns
126 FRENCH INFLUENCE 5oo-155o
of the French Robin and pa]d his addresses to Pan in Marot's
accents. (Shepheards Caleuder, xii, 11. I9-24. )
Whilome in y'outh, when flowered my joyful sprinff,
Like swallow swift, I vandered here and there
For heat of heedless lust me so did sting,
That I of doubted danger had no fear.
I went the wasteful voods and forest widc,
Withouten dread of wolves to be espied.
Marot's appeal--
Escoute un peu, de ton vert cabinet,
Le chant rural du petit Robinet--
sounds oddly in Spenser's rendering:
Hearken awhile from thv green cabinet,
The rural song of careful Colinet.
Thus Elizabethan poetry betraved no reluctance to exercise
its prentice hand in'le style Marotique' after that vogue in
France was dead. The Elizabethan muse while approaching
maturitv cast many a backward glance on old French litera-
ture, as if to seek counsel there for future progress. Marlowe
followed Marot in verslfylng in his own tongue Musaeus's
poetic tale of Hero and Leander. Adaptation of Marot's fancy
was indeed pursued on occasion throughout the Elizabethan
era. More than one instance is found ill SO representative
a miscellany of the epoch's verse as Davison's tgoe/ica/
tdhaisod3,, which was first published in i6o2. 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. t
1 The following typical specimen of the turning of a dixain by Marot
into a sonnet of Davison's Po«tical l?haiOsody may be examined with
advantage. The four italicized Eglish lines are original interpolations
by the English versifier:
MaRor. Ze Diane, Epigram Ixii,
Estre Phebus bien souvent je desire,
Non pour cognoistre herbes divine-
inent
I)AVSON. Ed. A. H. Bullen, 89,
i, p. 9 2.
To MISTRESS DIANA.
t'hoebus of ail the Gods, I wish to
be ;
Not of the world to have the over-
seeing;
For of alA titings in t/ce a,orl, t's
drcuil beinff ,
One only thin.q I al.a'«rs a,ish lo
QUEEN MARGARET OF NAVARRE a7
IX
THE INTERREGNUM IN TUDOR 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 France still shed
light, ahhough the glow was intermittent. Marot's influence,
whlch was not yet exhausted, was supplemented by that of
Marot's patroness, the Queen of Navarre (,49.?-549). The
' tombeau' or elegiac tribute which the daughters of the Pro-
tector Somerset paid her memory on ber death, 1 illustrates the
impression which her literary activity left on the England of
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 bas 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.
Ahhough Eglish poets paid her less notice than they paid
Marot and some of hls predecessors, although the versatility
Car la douleur qui mon cur veut
occire
Ne se guerist par herbe aucune-
ment ;
Non pour avoir ma place au firma-
n-tellt,
Car en la terre habite mon plaisir ;
Non.pour son arc encontre Amour
salsir
Car à mon Roy ne veulx estre
rebelle :
Estre Phebus seulement j'a¥ desir,
Pour estre aymé de Digne la belle.
Not of ail herbs the hidden force to
know,
For ah ! my wound by herbs cannot
be cured ;
Not in the sky to bave a place as-
sured ;
For my ambition lies on earth be-
low ;
eVot 1o be ;brime o/ the cel«slial
quire
»'or I ene ny.tph ;brize more
ail the Muses;
Not with his bow to offer love
abuses,
For [ love's vassal ara, and dread
his ire,
But that thy light from mine, might
borrowed be,
And t'air Diana might shine under
me.
Sce p. 45, supra.
FRENCH INFLUENCE t5oo-t55 o
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 '. Very
surprising was her industry in authorship. Verse and prose
constantly occupied her graceful and thoughtful pen. Her col-
lccted poetry, entitled Les J[argttertTes de la 3[arguert'[e la
1riucesse ( 547), gave her a title only below that of Marot
among the best poets ofher day. She excelled in eplgram, mad-
rigal, and elegy. Nor did she eschev morality plays or farces.
Many of her poetic themes were pious and scriptural, but ber
evangelical sentiment did not narrov the range of her literary
sympathies. A mysticism, which owed much to study of
paraphrases of Plato, often coloured her speculations on
spiritual and emotiolml questions, on the nature of perfect love.
She was no prude, and among prose authors the Italian
Boccaccio chiefly appealed to her. She hOt only caused
Boccacclo's 1)ecanzerou to be translated into French, but
composed a work herself on the same model, which she
christened the ttetamerou. There she narrated seventy-tvo
stories or anecdotes, ail 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 oflearning 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 Nimes 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 MARGARET OF NAVARRE la 9
on the nation's horizon. Henry VIFs mother and Henry VIII's
grandmother, the Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-5o9) ,
founded Lady Margaret Professorships of Divinity at both
Oxford and Cambrldge Unlverslties (in 502), besides endow-
ing two colleges at Cambrldge--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
ZlJ«ftaNo C/rt'sl; and of other works of devotion from the
French. In the annals of humanism the English Lady Mar-
garet is a slender prototype of her French 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 French queen in ,'ersatile 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. l On the French queen's
death, in i549, the daughters of Protector Somerset penned
those elegies which won Ronsard's admiration." But it was
the Italian affinities of the literary queen which chietly took
the fancy ofthe Elizabethan pioneers. Queen Margaret's great
endeavour to continue kloccaccio's work in ber ttelazJterolt
was more loudly applauded by early Elizabethan authors
than ber French verse. Fifieen of the queen's tales figure
in Painter's talace tleas«tre (1566), the first collection of
short stories which came from the Eglish press. Painter's
talace formed the favourite reading of Eglish ladies in
the rst decades of Elizabeth's reign, and the French queen
of culture found ardent worshippers in Eizabethan boudoirs.
But in splte of such foreign stimulus and example as Queen
Margaret and Marot offered, the Elizabethan awakening" was
slow in coming'. Torpor lay heavy on the Eglish mind in the
generation which succeeded the poetiç lispings of Henry VI II's
» See p. 39. 5ee p. 45.
13o FRENCH INFLUENCE 15-o-I55 °
courtiers. In the dark days which intervened before the true
illumination, voices of lament were heard that England lacked
the enlightened ardour of France. While Henry VIII was
yet alive, Sir Thomas Elyot, the industrlous author of The
Govertour, 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,
ail 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-
toaster 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.
B(-)(-)K I I I
FRENCtt INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN
PROSE
TENDENCIES OF FRENCH AND ENGI.ISH PROSE
EXGLISll critics laave often confessed themselves inappre-
ciative of French poetry and bave pronounced the French
genius to be better adapted to prose. The English ear is
wont to mss the rhythmlcal 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 rlses above that of a pleasant jingle.
Insular prejudice or ignorance seems largely lesponsible 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, Chénier, and Victor Hugo,
prove that France has yielded songwhich belongs to the
world's poetie wealth. The harmonies of French mette are
hot those of English or Italian metre, but they are often
equal to either in beauty and orlginality, if hot in volume of
sound. The Ronsardian lute was strung wlth Apollo's hair
as surely as the lute of Shakespeare and the lute of Tasso.
'One star differeth from another star' onlv 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 ber foreig'n influence to ber interpretative faculty, and that
idiosyncrasy often found in prose its fittest agency. Ellza-
bethan England eagerly absorbed the teaching which lay at
her dlsposal in the prose-wrlting ofcontemporary France, some
t[me before she exacted tribute of the ripest fruit of French
poetry.
134 FRENCH INFI.UENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
The service that France rendered Elizabethan prose requires
care in definition. Other influences besides the French were
actively at work and claire 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 Beners, illustrate how large was the part
that French influence played in the early process ofsubstituting
F.nglish 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 hot quite
habitual through the half-century following the introductiol of
printing. The ride which Caxton set flowing owed most
of its impetus to fifteenth-century France, but it needed the
deliberate enlistment of other sources of energ 3" belote 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 hot 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
ITAI.IAN AND SPANISH ROMANCE 35
prose sought much nurture in fields outside France 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. Itallan
influence predominated in thelr recreative prose. Italy was
the original home of the short story, of the little novel, of the
art of fiction in any modern sense. The French)'a&h'att or
confie did not pass beyond the primitive stage of the anecdote,
and the French tale of knightly adventure, while it ruade
small attempt to respect methodical principles of construction,
transgressed the llmits of length whlch the art of story-telling
required for its full effect. Boccacclo was the founder of
the novel in the fourteenth century, but his slxteenth-
century disciple lqandello greatly extended the vogue and
range of fiction. Renaisnce France energetically imitated
Boccaccio and translated Bandello, but she dld 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 Itallan flavour retained
much of its zest. Spanish literature also exerted subsidiary
influence on the llghter forms of Elizabethan prose literature.
The affectation of Lyly's Etthttes, 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 jrack ll't'l[ott reflected the swaggering tone of
the Spanish story of roguish adventure, which Nashe may
bave read at first hand. Some popular Eizabethan experi-
ments in romantic fiction mingled numerous simples in
varied proportions, but the French element was usually" less
perceptible than other ingredients. Sidney's lrcad'a owed
most of its diffuse matter and manner to the late Greek novel,
and to 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.
Willlam Painter's Palace of Pleasttre is the earliest collec-
i36 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON EIAZABETHAN PROSE
tion of short stories which an Engllshman compiled, h was
published in London early in 566. The book makes no
pretenslon to orlginality, and a summary analysis of its sources
well illustrates the general distribution of the foreign influences
on the Elizabethan prose of recreatlon. Of Painter's hundred
and one little novels, fifty are drawn from the tales of
Boccaccio or from those of hls sixteenth-century halian
disclples Bandello or Cinthlo. More than thirty corne direct
from the Latin or Greek hlstorlans. Fifieen ofthe remalnder
are translated from the French of Queen Margaret of Navarre's
t[ettalltero»t, and one is described as being drawn 'out of
a little Frenche booke called Co«'e dot l[otcte M z,a#treu.t" '.
Queen Margaret's volume is itself an imitation or development
of Boccaccio's l)eca#eerou; but in any case France holds among
Painter'sauthorities a place far less conspicuous than that of Italy
or even of Greece and Rome. h should be acknowledged
that the Itallan novelist Bandello, on whom Painter levled
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 French translators of Bandello--' François Belleforest ' and
' Pierre Boaistuau, surnamed Launay '. Yet when ail allow-
ance is ruade for French aid, the French influence whlch
l'ainter acknowledged is impregnated with a pronounced
' Itallanate' sentiment. On almost ail the recreative prose of
Elizabethan England the like judgement may be passed.
The Elizabethan romance, in the final form whlch Greene
and Lodge favoured, is marked by a diffuse floridlty of style,
while the theme is presented with an artificlal sensuousness
which has little relation to llfe or nature. The mode is
of Italian lineage, wlth an occaslonal infusion of the artificlal
solemnity of Spain and a slender tincture of French clarity.
Outside the bounds of Ellzabethan fiction, Latin intluence
came to compete with French in moulding Elizabethan
prose literature. A reviving zest for Latin scholarship
stlmulated the progress of English composition during
the middle years of the sixteenth centurv. Latin influence
helped to quicken the development of English prose.
THE INFI.UENCE OF LATIN 37
But Latin tultion, while it gave a more businesslike
regularity to syntactical structure, was touched by no
warmth of feeling, by no artlstic expansiveness, by small
originality or exuberance of thought. Sir Thomas Elyot's
Goz,er.ttotr (! 531 ), Thomas Vilson's .4rle of lhelorz'7te
(7553), and Ascham's School1Jtasler (57 o) are substantial
experiments in serious prose. Elyot and Ascham's books
are technical treatises on educatlon. Vilson's volume is
a practical manual of composition. On each of the three
works much reading of l.atin authors bas 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 ]iterary arena. Elyot, Vilson, and Jkscham, xvho
were ail efficient classical scholars, bear cumulative testimony
to the spreading habit of making English instead of Latin
prose the expository implement of educated Englishmen.
Vilson deprecated the employment of French tr ltalian
words in place of English, and betrayed a certain insularitv
of sentiment, although he borrowed freely from Quintilian
and Cicero. Elyot and Ascham were closer observers of the
progress of humanism in France, and were conscious of
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 solidltv.
But, in the heyday of the Elizabethan era, serious prose
writers freely acknowledged the claims of French models to
allegiance or to respectful study. lost of the Ellzabethan
works which dealt with philosophy, theoloffy, and blography
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.
In the course of the century serious French prose acquired
a new dlrecmess and dignity, a grace and facility, whlch ma)"
3 8 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN 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. Scholarshlp and liberality
of outlook absorbed the old French 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 French development of literary form and
subject is traceable to French translations of the Bible.
England sought to adapt to her earnest purposes ail these
clarifying, liberalizing, and fertilizing strains of French 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 France. Classical suggestion was still operative with-
out immediate French agency, while the English version of
the Scriptures lent an independent measure of warmth and
intensity. But even in these collateral directions France gave
much help. French zeal for the vernacular translation ofthe
Bible as well as for classical study communicated itself to
England, and stimulated the Hebraic as well as the classical
aflinities 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. "£he essay was a form of literary effort directly
imported from France. The minglingof theolog), and political
philosophy, which gave Hooker his fame, is of more complex
origin. The union bas precedents in mediaeval scholasticism.
But the Frenchman Calvin may well claim the main credit
of laying the foundation on which Hooker built. While
every allowance should be ruade for the progress of I.atin
scholarship in Tudor England, it is clear that the Elizabethan
THE FRENCH BIBLE 39
essay and the biographic and speculative triumphs of Eiza-
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 Cah-in
whose chief work was donc in the first hall of the century,
and to Amyot and Montaigne whose chier work was donc
in the second half. Ellzabethan England will be found to be
under obligation in different degrees 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 hot quite exhaust the
scope of the present inquiry. The French Bible 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 saine time. The enthusiasm of English
students, despite the primal debt to Germany, xvas soon
whetted by the French piety which, born in Paris, developed
in Antwerp, and ultimately round a permanent abode in
Geneva. The biblical influences on Eglish prose were
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, vho translated much ofthe 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
4o FRENCH INFI.UENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
vernacular study of the Bible in England, France of the
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 ephome--belonged to the thirteenth century. Based on
the Vulgate, it was a hundred years older than the endeavour
of Wiclif. Of thls French rendering the New Testament
alone came from a Lyons press as early as I477; both Old
and New Testaments were prlnted in Paris in I48î. Nearly
two generations passed away before an 5" endeavour of a like
kind was ruade in Èngland. Not only the French and the
German, but the Itallan and Spanish presses also issued
vernacular translations of the Scriptures hall a century before
the English press approached this sphere of activity.
The story of the original editions of the French Bible
provldes suggesth-e 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 into French was Jacques
I.efèvre d'ltaples, 1 an accomplished humanlst, who began
theological research long before the Huguenot Church was
organized, before indeed Luther, his junior by twenty-eight
years, had formulated hls doctrine. As earlv as I512 Lefèvre
d'Étaples published a statement of his religlous opinion
which anticipates at many points the principles of the coming
Reformatlon. In a Latin commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, he
claimed the rlght of freely interpreting the scriptural text by
the aid ofunfettered reason. The royal humanist Francis I was
at thls period so unsuspicious of heterodoxy, or so fasclnated
by speculative orlginality, that he ruade Lefèvre tutor to a
younger son. Only towards the close of hls long llfe, which
was mainly devoted to a French translation of the Bible, did
Lefèvre rouse orthodox hostility. The first instalment of
Iefèvre's Biblical enterprise, which, llke the mediaeval para-
. Hallam, in his History oj Li¢erature. confusingly cails Lefvre
d'Etaples by his Latinized narne Faber Stapulensis. 13orn at Étaples
[Pas-de-Calais) in x455. of parents named Leèvre, the French translator
,lied in 537-
LEFEVRE I)'ITAPLES AND OLIVETAN 4 t
phrase, was largely based on the text of the Vulgate, appeared
in Paris in 523. -ïwo years later the Parlement of Paris,
at the bidding of the obscurantist Sorbonne, condemned the
liberal tendency of the design. But Queen Margaret of
Navarre encouraged the translator to continue his labour, and
other portions followed. Lefèvre's whole Bible in French was
finally printed in a single olume at Antwerp in 53 o by
Martin de Keyser (or Martin l'Epereur), a Fleming, whose
press enjoyed a cosmopolitan repute. Lefèvre'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, Lefèvre's translation became the authorized
French Bible of the Catholic Church, and enjoyed a wide
esteem.
Meanwhile Lefèvre'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 Calvin, who was a near
kinsman of the editor. Both were natives of Noyon in
Picardy. Olivetan's version was published in Neufchatel in
1535, the expenses being defrayed by a subscription of the
Taudois of Piedmont. It became the Authorized Version
of the French Protestant Church, and the foundation of
Authorized Versions of Protestant churches elsewhere. Thus
by I535 two adequate French translations of the Bible were in
general circulation among Frenchmen, 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 qu[te the saine advantage.
Eglishmen trod the path of Lefèvre and Olivetan at
a slower pace. In her biblical as in almost ail other enter-
prises England long leaned heavily on foreign props.
Tyndale, the first of the Tudor translators of the Bible, began
his pioneer labours almost at the saine time as Lefèvre.
Coverdale, the second of the Tudor translators of the Bible,
was at work simultaneously with Olivetan. The French and
English undertakings were bound together by stronger links
4 ¢) FRENCH INFIUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
vernacular study of the Bible in England, France of the
Renaissance lent active help.
France was very early in the field of bibllcal 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 3,'iclif. Of thls French rendering the New Testament
alone came from a Lyons press as early as 1477; both Old
and Nev Testaments were printed in Paris in 1487. Nearly
two generations passed away before an)- 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 Engllsh efforts.
The mediaevai paraphrase, although fonstantly reprlnted, was
soon dlscountenanced by scholars. The tirst translator on
scholarly lines of the whole Bible into French was Jacques
l.efèvre d'Étaples, 1 an accomplished humanist, who began
theologlcal research long before the Huguenot Church was
organized, before indeed Luther, hls junior by twenty-elght
years, had formulated hls doctrine. As earlv as i 512 Lefèvre
d'l:;taples published a statement of his religlous opinion
which anticipates at many points the prlnciples 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 ofunfettered reason. The royal humanist Francis I was
at thls period so unsusplcious of heterodoxy, or so fascinated
by speculatlve originality, that he made Lefèvre 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
Lefèvre rouse orthodox hostility. The first instalment of
l.efèvre's Biblical enterprise, which, like the mediaeval para-
. Hallam, in his Histor_v oj Zilerature, confusingly calls Lefvre
d'Etaples by his Latinized naine Faber Stapulensis. Born at Étaples
Pas-de-Calais} in I455, of parents named Lefèvre, the French translator
,lied in 1537.
LF.FI":.VRE 1)'TAPLES AND OLIVETAN 4
phrase, was largely based on the text of the Vulgate, appeared
in Paris in 5-"3. 'i'wo vears later the Parlement of Paris,
at the biddlng of the obscurantist Sorbonne, condemned the
liberal tendency of the design. But Queen Margaret of
Nararre encouraged the translator to continue llis labour, and
other portions followed. I.efèvre's whole Bible in French was
tinally printed in a single olume at Antwerp in 53«» by
Martin de Keyser (or Martin l'Epereur), a Fleming, whose
press enjoyed a cosmopolitan repute. I.efèvre's perseverance
was ultimately well rewarded. French Catholics, desplte the
jnisgivings of the weaker brethren, were indisposed to reject
permanently the fruits of hls industry. After undergoing
some revision, Lefèvre's translation became the authorized
French Bible of the Catholic Church, and enjoyed a wide
esteem.
Meanwhile Lefèvre's work underwent correction at
Huguenot hands of a thorough and scholarly klnd. The
Huguenot recension was undertaken by Pierre Robert
Olivetan, under the auspices of Calvin, who was a near
kinsman of the editor. Both were natives of Noyon in
Picardy. Olivetan's version was published in Neufchatel in
535, the expenses being defrayed by a subscription of the
Vaudois of Piedmont. I became the Authorized Version
of the French Protestant Church, and the foundation of
Authorized Versions of Protestant churches elsewhere. Thus
by g3.g two adequate French translations of the Bible were in
general circulation among Frenchmen, 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 qulte the same advantage.
Ènglishmen trod the path of Lefèvre and Olivetan at
a slower pace. In ber biblical as in almost ail other enter-
prises England long leaned heavily on forelgn props.
Tyndale, the first of the Tudor translators of the Bible, began
his pioneer labours almost at the saine time as Lefèvre.
Coverdale, the second of the Tudor translators of the Bible,
was at work simultaneously with Olivetan. The French and
English undertakings were bound together by stronger llnks
142 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON EI.IZABETHAN PROSE
than chronological ties, but the chronological association is
worth emphasizing. It was hOt 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 afier
Lefèvre's New Testament in French was issued at Paris,
Tyndale's New Testament in English came out at Cologne
(i525). Tvndale subsequently, in 153o, published his
anglicized Pentateuch with a German printer, apparently
of \Vittenberg; that event synchronized with the issue at
Antwerp of the whole Bible in Lefèvre's French. In the
German edition of his English Pentateuch Tyndale nearly
reached the limit of his labour. He did hOt, like Lefêvre,
complete lais task, but in his remaining effort he came into
more intimate relation with his French competitor. At the
identical _Antwerp press of Martin l'Empereur, which gave
Lefèvre's finished venture to the world, Tvndale printed in
1531 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 Lefèvre'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
l'Empereur, forms a personal bond between the first com-
plete French Bible of the French Renaissance and the first
English Bible which Tyndale began and failed to finish.
Tyndale's successor, Miles Coverdale, retrieved his defeat.
Coverdale compiled the first English translation of the whole
Bible. It appeared in i535, again at Antwerp, although at
Jacob van Meteren's and hOt at Martin l'Empereur's press.
Lefèvre had brought his ga'eat task to an end rive years before,
and Olivetan'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
EARLY TUI/OR VERSIONS 143
printed in England earlier. In 537, sixty years after the
work of publishing the Scriptures in the vernacular had been
successfully inaugurated in Paris, England ruade a first entry
into the field.
It is abundantly clear that the early English translator 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 Lefèvre and Tyndale does not
exhaust the evidence of association. The second complete
version of the English Bible, which was known as Mattlew'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 537- The Apocrypha
was now first included, and that section of the volume offered
signal proof of Eglish 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 Lefèvre'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 Egland formed
personal alliances. In Paris itselfthe partnership was pursued.
Coverdale was a frequent visitor to Paris, and there, at the
well-equipped press of François Regnault, he superirttended
in 539-4 o the printing of the Great Bible--the third
complete English version--which was constructed of earlier
Eglish 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 vere 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 version of the Bible to receive in England
otïicial ecclesiastical recognition.
Nor does the account of the debt of the Eglish Bible to
French exertion by any means end here. When during Queen
14Z FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
than chronological ties, but the chronological association is
worth emphasizing. It was hOt 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 Nev Testament--the parent contributions
to the Tudor Biblewwere first printed. Two years after
Lefèvre's New Testament in French was issued at Paris,
Tyndale's New Testament in English came out at Cologne
(1525). Tyndale subsequently, in 53 o, published his
angliclzed Pentateuch with a German printer, apparently
of Vïttenberg; that event synchronized "«-ith the issue at
Antwerp of the whole Bible in Lefèvre's French. In the
German edition of his Ènglish Pentateuch Tyndale nearly
reached the limit of lals labour. He did not, like Lefèvre,
complete his task, but in his remaining effort he came into
more intlmate relation with his French competitor. At the
identical Antwerp press of Martin l'Empereur, which gave
Lefèvre's finished venture to the world, Tvndale printed in
t53 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 Lefèvre'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
l'Empereur, forms a personal bond between the first com-
plete French Bible of the French Renaissance and the first
English Bible which Tyndale began and failed to finish.
Tyndale's successor, Mlles Coverdale, retrieved his defeat.
Coverdale compiled the first English translation of the whole
Bible. It appeared in x535, again at Antwerp, although at
Jacob van Meteren's and not at Martin l'Empereur's press.
Lefèvre had brought his ga-eat task to an end rive years before,
and Olivetan'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
EARLY TUDOR VERSIONS 43
printed in Egland earlier. In 537, sixty years after the
vork of publishing the Scriptures in the vernacular had been
successfully inaugurated in Paris, England ruade a fit 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 saine
printer at Antwerp should be slmultaneously engaged on the
two biblical manuscripts of Lefèvre and Tyndale does not
exhaust the evidence of association. The second complete
version of the English Bible, which was known as Matthew's
Bible, vas a composite compilation of both Tyndale and
Coverdale's work. This was again publi»hed at Antwerp
by van gIeteren, and appeared in 537. "Fhe Apocrypha
was now first included, and that section of the volume offered
signal proof of Engllsh knowledge of the French activity.
A part of the Apocrypha was avoxvedly translated from
Olivetan's Irotestant version of the French Scriptures, the
Neufchatel revision of Lefèvre's great work. Matthew's Bible,
which was the first Bible to be fully legalized for sale in
Egland, was under a direct obligation to France.
1X'or was it only as far afield as Antwerp that the biblical trans-
lators of the French Renaissance and of Tudor Egland formed
personal alliances. In Parisitselfthepartnership was pursued.
Coverdale was a frequent visitor to Paris, and there, at the
well-equipped press of François Regnault, he superintended
in 539-4 o the printing of the Great Bible--the 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 nd 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 version of the Bible to receive in England
oflïcial ecclesiastical recognition.
li'or does the account of the debt of the Eglish Bible to
French exertion by any means end here. When, during Queen
14 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
than chronological ties, 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
Lefèvre's New Testament in French was issued at Paris,
Tyndale's New Testament in English came out at Cologne
(i5oE5). Tyndale subsequently, in 153 o, published his
anglicized Pentateuch with a German printer, apparently
of \Vittenberg; that event synchronized with the issue at
Antwerp of the whole Bible in Lefèvre's French. In the
German edition of his English Pentateuch Tyndale nearly
reached the limit of his labour. He did not, like Lefèvre,
complete his task, but in his remaining effort he came into
more intlmate relation with his French competitor. At the
identlcal Antwerp press of Martin l'Empereur, which gave
Lefèvre's finlshed venture to the world, Tvndale printed in
t53 i 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 Lefèvre's
Antwerp printer continued longer. Under the same auspices
there came forth two years later a second improved edltion
of Tyndale's Nev Testament. The Antwerp printer, Martin
l'Empereur, forms a personal bond between the first com-
plete French Bible of the French Renaissance and the first
English Bible which Tyndale began and failed to finish.
Tyndale's successor, Miles Coverdale, retrieved his defeat.
Coverdale compiled the first English translation of the whole
Bible. It appeared in i535, again at Antwerp, although at
Jacob van Meteren's and not at Martin l'Empereur's press.
Lefèvre had brought his great task to an end rive 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
EARLY TUI)OR VERSIONS 143
printed in England earlier. In 537, sixty 3"ears after the
work of publishlng the Scriptures in the vernacular had been
successfully inaugurated in Paris, England ruade 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
primer at Antwerp should be simultaneously engaged on the
two biblical manuscripts of Lefèvre and Tyndale does hot
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 /leteren, and appeared in i537. The Apocrypha
was now first included, and that section of the volume offered
signal proof of Eglish 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 Lefèvre's great work. 5Iatthew'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 Altwerp that the biblical trans-
lators of the French Renaissance and of Tudor England formed
personal alliances. In Parisitselfthe partnership was pursued.
Coverdale was a frequent visitor to Paris, and there, at the
well-equipped press of François Regnault, he superintended
in 539-4 o the printing of the Great Bible--the 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 nd presses were transported to Egland,
and the work was completed in London. The Great Bible,
which is virtually a specimen of fine Parisian typography,
was the earliest version of the Bible to receive in England
otïicial ecclesiastical recognition.
bIor does the account of the debt of the English Bible to
French exertion by any means end here. V'hen during Queen
44 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
Mary's reign, English Protestants sought an asylum in Geneva,
they came directly under the personal influence of Caivin.
The Frenchman then ruled the Swiss city with despotic
rigour. His chier lieutenant, another Frenchman, Theodore
Beza, was, despite his stern Puritanism, the most cultured
humanist among French religious reformers. The Èglish
exiles at Geneva devoted their energies to a new recension
of the Eglish 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 French chieftains of their city of refuge.
Olivetan was a chier authority for the English scribes.
Calvin and Beza were their trusted guides. The Genevan
Bible, which was compiled under French auspices, was first
printed in 156o in the French atmosphere of Geneva.
Eizabethan Puritans treated the book for half a century with
superstitious reverence. Two hundred early reissues of the
Genevan Bible attest its popularity in England. Nor did
Scotland escape the contagion. The fil-St Bible to be printed
in the vernacular in Scotland followed the Genevan version.
It was issued in Einburgh in x579. The influence of the
Genevan version is hardly capable of exaggeration. Its
pronounced pietistic sentiment gave the cue to many devo-
tional idiosyncrasies of Puritan prose, and riveted Hebraic
fervour on the style of much profane writing. The French
energy of Geneva greatly stimulated English 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, God's servant, died
I564.' Shakespeare was a month old at the moment of
Calvin's death. A few years later the Genevan version gave
him his first knowledge of the Scriptures. The dramatist
on one occasion in adult life acknowledged the pertinacity
of the French in translating the Bible by quoting a verse in
CALVIN'S FRENCH PROSE J45
its French garb. In Henry V (III. vii. 7 o) the Dauphin cites
2 Peter ii. 22, in an early French version: ' Le chien est
retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au
bourbier.' The dramatist's compliment was well deserved.
France is well entitled to share with Germany the honour of
promoting in Egland biblical study and knowledge. The
influence of the Genevan version was especially long-lived.
The English Bishops' Bible of i568 and King James's
Authorized Version of i6ii betray at many points the
French influence of Geneva.
III
CALVIN
Huguenot writers claim for Olivetan, the translator ot the
Bible, a great advance on the efforts of his precursor Lefêvre,
and credit him with an influence on French prose which out-
distances that of ail other writers of the epoch. But it
doubtful if such pretensions can be justified. Olivetan's merits
consist of literal and simple accuracy, which, while it ,.",-eH
served the cause of piety, exerted small effect on the artistic
development of literature. _As a writer of French prose, Calvin
( 5o9-1564), Olivetan's cousin and leader, has an insistent indi-
vîduality which gives him a commanding place in the history
of style to which the French translators of the Bible can sub-
stantiate no daim. 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 cornes from the majestic sobriety of his original
thought. His greatest work in French prose, his
Chrélieuze, 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 lJtsiltz'ot opcns
with a manly dedication to the royal apostle of French
humanism, Francis I. Calvin relis his sovereign that he writes
I44 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 Svlss city with despotic
rigour. His chier lieutenant, another Frenchman, Theodore
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 French chieftains of their city of refuge.
Olivetan was a chier authority for the English scribes.
Calvin and Beza were their trusted guides. The Genevan
Bible, vhich was compiled under French auspices, vas first
printed in I56o ia the French atmosphere of Geneva.
Elizabethan Puritans treated the book for hall a century with
superstitious reverence. "Fwo hundred early reissues of the
Genevan Bible attest its popularity in England. Nor did
Scotland escape the contagion. The fil-St Bible to be printed
in the vernacular in Scotland followed the Genevan version.
It was issued in Edinburgh in I579. The influence of the
Genevan version is hardly capable of exaggeration. Its
pronounced pietistic sentiment gave the cue to many devo-
tional idiosyncrasies of Puritan prose, and riveted Hebraic
fervour on the style of much profane writing. The French
energy of Geneva greatly stimulated English love of the
Bible.
The connexion of the Genevan version of the Bible vith
its place of origin and vith the French ruler of the Sviss
city, "«'as kept ,'ell in mind by successive English editors.
Into the preliminary almanac there vas introduced at an early
date and there was retained in permanence the entry under
the day May -'7, 'Master John Calvin, God's servant, died
564. ' Shakespeare vas a month old at the moment of
Calvin's death. A fexv years later the Genevan version gave
him his first knowledge of the Scriptures. The dramatist
on one occasion in adult lire acknowledged the pertinacity
of the French in translating the Bible by quoting a verse in
CALVIN'S FRENCH PROSE 145
its French garb. In Henry V (III. vii. 7 o) the Dauphin cites
2 Peter il. 22, in an early French version: ' Le chien est
retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au
bourbier.' The dramaUst's compliment was well deserved.
France is well entitled to share with Germany the honour of
promoting in England blblical study and knowledge. The
influence of the Genevan version was especially long-lived.
The Ènglish Bishops' Bible of I568 and King James's
Authorized Version of i6ii betray at many points the
French influence of Geneva.
III
CALVIN
Huguenot writers daim for Olivetan, the translator ot the
Bible, a great advance on the efforts of his precursor Lefèvre,
and credit him with an influence on French prose which out-
distances that of ail 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
(I 5o9-1564), Olivetan's cousin and leader, has an insistent indi-
viduality xvhich gives him a commanding place in the history
of style to which the French translators of the Bible can sub-
stantiate no claire. 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 cornes from the majestic sobriety of his original
thought. His greatest work in French prose, his
Ck'e'ltëJzne, 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 Izs[ttt[t'ot opens
with a manly dedication to the royal apostle of French
humanism, Francis I. Çalvin tells his sovereign that he writes
I46 FRENCH INFIJUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
for Frenchmen, for his fellow countrymen. It was in their
interest that he compiled hls encyclopaedic plea for the
phîlosophic 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 youth in the classics, and studying
law under Alciati at Bourges, he inaugurated his lîterary
career with an edition of Seneca's ethical tract ' On .",Iercy'
(De CleJJteJt[t'a). 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 I»slilttlion Chr«'ienne
he applauds the pagan writers" ' admirable lumière de vérité '.
In the Roman jurisconsults he detects 'grande clarté de
prudence en constituant un si bon ordre et une police si
équitable'. To Latin literature he traces the invention of the
art of logical debate--' l'art de disputer, qui est la manière 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 faine. 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. H is tone ranges over many keys. At times he
rises to a chastened eloquence; at times he slnks to a dry
sarcasm which is coloured by a Gallic turn of wit. His
attacks on ' the sophisters of the Sorbonne 'i 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 tan hardly
be over-estimated. His vocabulary and the turn of his
CALVIN'S ENGLISH PUPILS 47
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 archalc
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 toaster and his English
disciples, and greatly increased his authority. When, on
Henry VIII's death and Èdward VI's accession, ecclesiastical
reform vas carried toits completion in England, the chiet
organizers of the Protestant movement, Protector Somerset
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 dedined 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
Vhitgift both respected his spiritual theory and the clarity of
his reasoning, if they dlsagreed 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 langruage
of his creed--predestination, election, reprobation, grace, faith
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 ot
our Church call M. Calvin one of ¢ke best wrilers,' wrote
L2
I48 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
approvingly some Protestant clergymen of the Church of
England in a manifesto on Anglican dogma in i599 .1
All Calvin's writings, whether in Latin or French, were
translated into English. Some of his French serinons were
published in London as early as i56o. Between that year
and 16o--a period of fifty years--there came out in England
ai least seventy-five editions of English translations of various
French or Latin works of Calvin. Calvin's standard treatise,
The Inslittlion of Chris[ian Religion, which his admirers
reckoned the chier jewel in his literary crown, originally
appeared in England in x56i, and before the end of the
century the English version went through at least rive 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 Comrnons, Norton sought sober recreation in secular
literature as well as in theological debate. He lacked any
gift of brilliance. Three of the rive acts of Gorboduc, 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 Inslinlion of Chrislian Religion. At
the saine time the merits of the Frenchman's exact style ruade
a strong appeal to his intellectual temper. Calvin's habit ot
packing 'great plenty of matter in small room of words
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 bave preferred Calvin's Latin
to his French text. But Norton's opaque leaves rail to exclude
Calvin's luminosity altogether. Here is the guise (in modern
Cf. Hooker's Ec«lesiaslical l'ality, the Fifth Book, ed. Ronald Bayne,
19o2» p. 62I.
CAIVIN IN ENGIASH 49
spelling) in which Norton presented to Eiizabethan readers
Calvin's rational plea for the study by Christians of pagan
classical literature. The rhetorical flow bas, however faintly,
the right current.
So off 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 .... Shail
we deny that the truth shined to the old lawyers which bave
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 ?
Shall we say that they had no wit, which by setting in order
the art of speech bave 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 ofall 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 thing-s without great admiration of their wit.
But shall we think anything praiseworthy or excellent, which
we do hOt reknowledge to corne of God? Let us be ashamed
of so great unthankfulness, into which the heathen poets fell
hot, which confessed that both philosophy and laws and ail
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 Eg'lish 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 Èlizabethan era, the nascent literary taste joined hands
with religlous zeal in paying honour to Calvin. Arthur
Golding', the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and himself a leading
' Calvin's I, ts/i/ulfon, London, 1582, f.
150 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
tigure in the first generation of literat T Elizabethans, made his
earliest fame by versifying in English Ovid's zll"elamohoses.
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 round ready purchasers.
Typographical skill was freely lavished ort 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 fifih book of Moses called Deuteronomie '. Nashe, the
Eizabethan satirist and critic, enters Golding's naine on a
' page ofpraise ', not merely for his toil on Ovid, but for ' many
exquisite editions of divinity turned by him out of the French
tongue into our own'.l 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 clerlcal authors in England as a result caught much
dominant colour from the abounding Calvinist literature.
The greatest of all Eizabethan theologians, Richard Hooker,
despite his antagonism to the Calvinist polity and to much of
Calvin's doctrinal theory, proved in his tcclesiastical Poh?y
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 bec.ame pastor of the Genevan church
in Hooker's youth (t572) and was, after Hooker's death, ruler
of the Genevan state in succession to Beza from 6o 5 to
t6-'8. - Yet to Calvin b.imself 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
i Nashe's preface to Greene's ,lI«nahon, ! 58% in Nashe's IVorks, ed.
McKerrow, iii. 319 .
u Goulart, the third occupant of the Genevan throne, survived Hooker,
who was some nine years his junior, by twenty-eight years.
AMYOT'S ACHIEVEMENT
much of the sonorous grandeur of the English version of the
Bible and was greatly intluenced 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 tlow 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 IusO'teO'ot
Chrétt'euue is the French book which best deserves a place
beside Hooker's lcclest'aslt'cal toh'A '.
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 (5J3-593). 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 cornes into the arena
as a liberal humanlst, 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
-5 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
of perfection. His efforts rendered his unlearned countrvmen
two services. ()n the one hand he familiarized 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 L'ves, was rendered into
English, and thereby English minds and English prose were
ruade 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 withln thirty toiles of Paris. As a poor
student he studied Greek at Paris Unlversity and then obtalned
an appolntment as private tutor. In that employment he
came under the notice of Queen Margaret of Navarre, the
motherly patroness of humanism. She appolnted him teacher
of Greek in the Unlversity of Bourges, a university of
fifteenth-century foundation, whlch was famous for its devotion
to law and to the classlcs. The young teacher's tirst literary
undertaking, which he completed at Bourges, was a transla-
tion of the z4et/z'o]Sz'ca of the Greek novellst Heliodorus.
Already in holy orders, he receired 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 ot
Greek manuscripts. He worked in the library of St. Mark's,
Venice, and in the Vatican Library at Rome. At Venlce he
discovered manuscrlpts of as many as rive hitherto unknown
books of Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian. Charac-
terlstically he translated these books into his own tongue,
belote publishing the recovered text. On returning to France
he was ruade tutor to Francls 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
thelr names loom large in the literary annals of the French
Renaissance.
While engaged at court Amyot completed the work by
whlch he galned his faine, hls French translation of Plutarch's
AMYOT'S CAREER
L[ves (559). His French rendering of a second Greek novel,
Dahttis altd C'bloc, by Longus, also gained much popularity,
and for his royal pupils he prepared a treatise on rhetoric,
which gives evidence of educational sagacity. When his ekler
pupil ascended the throne as Charles IX, Amyot in 156o
obtained the high office of Grand Almoner to the king. and
ten years later he owed to the saine patron the bishopric of
Auxerre. The see lay amid vineyards some lO 9 toiles south-
east of Paris. He lived on as bishop for twenty-three years
from 57 ° to 1593- The days of his episcopate were troubled
by the religious wars, whlch 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 ofeighty 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 Lires had attracted little attention from
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 bas never ceased
to vibrate. Plutarch the biographer oxves his modern faine
chiefly to Amyot. 1
Amyot has himself described his method as a translator and
his aire as a writer. ' Take heed,' he bids us, ' and find the
words that are fittest to signify the thing of which we mean to
a A minute critical analysis of Amyot's method as translator of
Plutarch's Zives will be round in a recent monograph by M. René
Sturel, entitled.[aques Mmj,ot, traducteur des Vies parallPles de Phttarque,
Paris, 19o8. M. Sturel's learned study is issued in the Biblioth,que
Littdraire de la Rnaissance, dirigée par M. P. de Nolhac et M. Dorez.
(Première série. Tome huitième.)
154 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
speak. 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
.kmyot'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
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 languageofcultured circles, stripped
of Italianisms. Nor did Amyot favour latinized or archaic
terminology. He is said to have spoken his own language vith
singular polish and purity, and to have written as he spoke.
Jkt the same tlme /kmyot although a sound scholar was hOt
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
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 Lires and in his Zorals, he rendered vast
service not to France alone but to the world at large. Plutarch's
.llorals consists of miscellaneous ethical essays which display
a broad-minded sagacity and charity. But it is the chief glory
of Amyot's Greek toaster to have placed biography in the
category of the literary arts. Plutarch's method may hOt at the
first glance promise any very pregnant result. He is in essence
an anecdotal gossip. He fores to accumulate microscopic
particulars of men's lires, 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 55
to evolve a speaking likeness of his chosen heroes, ail of
whom were of dignified stature.
The sentiment which Amyot's labour on Plutarch's Lires
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, 'glve prick and
praise untoJaques Amyot above ail our French writers, not only
for his natural purity and pure elegancy of the tongue...
but above ail, I con him thanks that he hath had the hap
to choose, and knowledge to cull-out so worthy a work [as
Plutarch's Lzes] and a book so lit to the purpose, therewith
to make so invaluable a present unto his country. We that
are in the number of the ignorant had been utterly confounded,
had not his book raised us from out the dust of ignorance
... Itis our breviary.' Iontaigne'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 pàture des grandes àmes '. Through
Amyot's exertion Plutarch's L«es ruade 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 Z.tes 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 queen from the field of
battle during his fiercest struggle with the league, he addressed
her in terres 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, b, Iy 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 anv other the moral and intellectual elevatlon which the
humanists of the French Renaissance fostered by thelr study of
the classics. The scholars and men ofletters hOt merely appre-
ciated the aesthetic quality of Greek and Latin llterature, but
they were led and they led their students instinctively to apply
to current purposes of lire the wisdom of the golden past.
Elizabethan men of letters quickly yielded to the fascination
of Plutarch's Lires. But they owed the introduction to
Amyot, the excellence of whose style ranked him, in the
opinion of Elizabethan critlcs, with the Renaissance masters
of prose throughout Erope. Gabriel Harvey, the Cambridge
scholar, declared hlm to be as fine a writer in French, as Bembo
was in Iatin, Machiavelli in Italian, or Guevara in Spanlsh. !
Sir Thomas North's English translation of Plutarch's Lires
wholly came from the French version. It produced on
Egland 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 xSî4. It -,vas four years after thls
visit to France that North published in a massive folio his
Plutarch's Lt'z,es in Eglish. 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 ofNorth's rendering with the French version shows
an admirable fidelity. There is hardly an epithet or adverb
of Jkmyot's invention whlch North omits. Jkmyot's redundant
embellishments or expansions of hls Greek text are all re-
produced in the English. In the two sentences, for example,
in which Jkmyot descrlbes the heroic efforts of Cleopatra and
t Gabl'iel Harvey, Pit'rgt's .çupererogalion, 593, quoted in Elicabethan
Crilical Essays, ed. Gregory Srnith, vol. il, p. u76.
SIR THOMAS NORTH 57
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 l'lutarch's
meaning. But North reproduces the French, if hOt 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.
i 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.
AM','OT.
' Car on tiroit ce 2#auvre homme
tout souillé de sang tirant aux
traicts de la mort, et qui tendoir
les deux mains à Cleopatra, et se
soublevoit /e mieul:" qu'il ouz,oi/.
C'estoit une chose bien malaisée
que de le monler, mesmement à
des femmes, toutefois Cleopatra en
grande peine s'efforceant de toute
sa 2#uissance, la teste courbee contre
bas sans jamais lazcher les cordes,
[eit tant ci fit flt qu'elle le monta
et rira à soy, l'aide de ceulx
d'abas qui luy donnoient courage,
et tiroyent autant de peine à la
,oir ainsi travailler, comme elle
mesme.' (Amyot, ch. lxxvii.)
NORTH.
' For they plucked up oore An-
tonius all bloody [as he was], and
drawing on with pangs of death,
who holding up his hands to Cleo-
patra, raised up him selle as sell
as he could. It was a hard thing
for these women to do, lo lift him
u,# ; but Cleopatra stowping downe
with ber head, butling to ai1 ber
slrenglk lo lire ull«rmosl 2#o2oer,
did lift him up z,ith itu(tt adoe,
and nec,er let go ber hold, vith the
helpe of the women beneath that
bad her be of good corage, and
were as sorie fo see ber labor so,
as she her selle.' (North's 1'lutarch,
Tudor translations, vol. vi, p. 80.)
5 8 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON EI.IZABETHAN PROSE
Plutarch in North's version xvas an inspirer of Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's observant eve detected in Plutarch's Lires,
as revealed to him bv North through Amyot, a stimulating
source of inspiration. No depreciation of the worklng of
Shakespeare's genius attends a frank recognition of the
immense debt which his Roman plays owe to Plutarch's
suggestion. The character of Theseus in M A[idsullt»ter
Aïghl's 1)reaIt is a first faint echo of North's voice. But
the three Roman plays.jrtth'us Caesar, M Jtlo O' attd Cleotatra ,
and Coriolalzus, mark the consummation of Shakespeare's
debt. The Greek blographer and his translators are worthv
of their disciple.
The English dramatist was hOt the first to perceive in
Plutarch a rich mine of materlal for drama. For the moment
I will onlv state the fact, commonly overlooked in our literary
histories, that some vears before Shakespeare turned Plutarch's
Lz'z,es of Roman heroes to dramatic purposes at least rive
French dramatists had levied slmilar loans on the saine source.
Plutarch's lires of Julius Caesar, Brutus, Mark Antony, and
Coriolanus had been wrought into tragedles on the French
stage before Shakespeare approached those themes. 1 Here
it is only pertinent to notice how Xorth's prose was frequently
converted by Shakespeare with the smallest possible change
into vivacious blank verse and genuine poetry'. The process
illustrates hOt only ,Shakespeare's ingenuity, but the singular
strength lurking in North's style which is in so marked a
degree the gift of Amyot's French. The perfected prose
of the French Renaissance was one of the many influences
working at a short remove on Shakespeare's dramatic
language. The close of Antony's dying speech in Plutarch's
life of Mark Antony is rendered by North from the French,
in o'aNo obh'ftta thus: ' And as for himself, he entreated
that she [Cleopatra] should hOt lament nor sorrow for the
miserable change of his fortune at the end of hls days, but
rather that she should think him the more fortunate for the
former triumphs and honours he had received, considering
See infra, pp. 386 seq.
SHAKESPEARE AND PLUTARCH J59
that while he lîved he was the noblest and greatest prince of
the world, and that now he was overcome not cowardly, but
valiantly, a Roman by another Roman.' Shakespeare trans-
forms this passage into oralio recla. Shakespeare's Antony
with his last breath bids Cleopatra--
The miserable change now at my end
Lainent nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
In feedlng them with those my former fortunes
VVherein I lived, the greatest prince o' the world,
The noblest ; and do now not basely die,
lgot cowardly put off my helmet to
My countryman; a Roman by a Roman
Valiantly vanquished.
There are slight inversions, and about half a dozen words are
added. But Amyot may almost be held responsible for one
of the most tragic utterances penned bv the English dramatist.
Shakespeare's Roman plays offer a hundred similar examples
of hls loans on Engllsh prose which is of French inspiration.
Amyot is a hero of English as well as of French literature.
V
RABELAIS
Rabelais (J495-553) was born within rive years of the close
of the fifteenth century. He is the senior of Calvin by fourteen
years and of Amyot by eighteen years. He died ten years
earlier than the French reformer, and forty years earller
than the translator of Plutarch. Rabelais is of the era of Sir
Thomas More and the Earl of Surrey, both of whom he out-
lived, rather than of the epoch of Spenser and Hooker, whose
lives.just began when the Frenchman's closed. Yet his influence
failed to invade England before Elizabethan llterature was
ripening. His arrival on the English stage is hot only later
than that of hls two great contemporary masters of French
prose, but its results are, contrary to what his boisterous
expansiveness might suggest, far smaller and less conspi-
CL1OL1S.
160 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
It is difficult to place Rabelais's work in any of the recognized
literary categories. His Lt'z,es, herot'c deeds atd sa,t)tgs of
Gargaultta altcl his sou ]galtlag'ruel, was begun as a bur-
lesque continuation of a mediaeval romance of bombastic and
impossible heroisn. H is disorderly style, and his incurable
habits of digression, closely link him with the crudities of
the past. Yet in truth Rabelais is a brilliant child ot the
Renaissance, a man of vast reading and close observation,
bent on proving that mediaeval thought and custom had
outgrown the needs of society and that new ideals had arisen
to challenge the old conceptions of life. No aspect of
human existence does he omit to place beneath his satirlc
microscope. Religion, philosophy, law, politics, education,
are all scrutinized, and the chaff sifted from the grain with
droll animation. Rabelais's career is as paradoxical as his
theme and style. Successively a Franciscan friar, a Benedic-
tine monk, a physician, a corrector of the press, a canon, and
a curé, he corresponded in Greek with ]3udaeus, and was
suspected of heresy by the obscurantist clergy. He was
favoured alike by the heterodox Queen of Navarre and by
the orthodox Cardinal du Bellay. Ail the knowledge ofhis
age was at his disposal; )'et he met death with the grim
pleasantry that he was on his way to seek ' the great Perhaps'
(le ffraucl
Rabelais writes with such extraordinary exuberance, he
runs riot in such grotesque exaggerations, he indulges in such
obscene buffoonery, that his contribution to the progress of
thought stands in danger of neglect. Sagacious reflections on
education, on the vice of ignorance and the value of scientific
knowledge, on the true sanctions of religion and politics, are
mingled almost inextricably with nonsensical burlesque and
offensive obscenlty. The discursive plot brings Rabelais's
heroes after much devious travel to the shrine of the Divine
Bottle, where the priestess of the oracle greets the pilgrims
with the exhilarating injunction ' Drink'. The priestess delivers
the genuine message of the Renaissance: 'Let every man
possess his soul with cheerfulness, sing, laugh, and talk, enjoy
the golden sunshine and the purple wine, and live according
RABELAIS IN ENGLAND I61
to the laws of the world, but at the same time study nature,
learn patiently and hopefully ail that is to be known of ber,
and never lose faith in a Divine Creator.' This is Rabelais's
philosophy, however it be disguised in his wild vocabulary;
a philosophy redolent ofa full-blooded humanity ; an amalgam
of the philosophy of Falstaff and that of Prospero. The see-
ing e)e detects earnesmess in Rabelais's aire. There is more
significance than appears on the surface in the paradoxical
apophthegm of a French poet and critic of the Renaissance :
' Rabelais laid the eggs which Calvin hatched.'
Rabelais's writings were originally published in rive books,
of which the first came out in 1532, and the last posthumously
in 562. No part of his work is extant in any English trans-
lation of the Elizabethan era. GargaJt[tta his tgro2#hecie was,
according to the London Stationers' Registers (il. 607, 6x3),
the title of a publication of the year x592 , but no copy has
been met with, and it can only have presented a fragment
of Rabelais's achievement. It was hOt till the seventeenth
century was well advanced that Rabelais came forth in English
dress. The eccentric Scotchman, Sir Thomas Urquhart, who
had much in common with Rabelais's riotous temper, published
his admirable version in 653.
Like Rabelais himself, Urquhart has some title to be regarded
as an elder brother of the Elizabethans. Rabelais's name was
not unfamiliar to the Elizabethans, but they showed unac-
countable reluctance in plainly recognizing the relationship.
References to him in Elizabethan literature are sparse, and
suggest that he was barely understood by Englishmen of the
sixteenth century. Very often the allusion is of derogatory
tone. The satirist Joseph Hall writes of ' wicked Rabelais's
drunken revellings '. The scholar Gabriel Harvey complains
of his lying extravagance. Rarely is the sign of acquaintance
with the French humorist appreciative. Donne mentions
Rabelais's burlesque hero Panurge as a mighty linguist of
humble birth, and quotes Rabelais's tale of words that freeze
in winter and thaw in the spring. Sir John Harington,
in his cloacinean satire, The 3IetazJtorphosis of M]'a.r, cites
' the reverent Rabbles tteJn hotort's causa ilOiitl'ltO '. Bacon
i6oE FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
calls him 'the great jester of France' and a 'master of
scofting', but shovs no full knowledge. Enthusiasm is
wanting, and there is no clear sign of close study.
Shakespeare probably knev as much of Rabelais as the
average Elizabethan. The schoolmaster Holofernes in Love's
Laboctr "s Lost is remlniscent of that famous doctor ofdivinity
Tubal Holofernes, to whose care the boy Gargantua was for
a season confided. Vhen Celia is about to tell Rosalind in
./Is ]'ou L,'be I! (III, il. OE3 8 seq.) the great news of ber meet-
ing with Orlando in the forest, she says : ' You must borrow
me Gargantua's mouth first: 'tis a word too great for any
mouth of this age's slze.' The giant Gargantua was the
hero of a mediaeval story-book before Rabelais re-created
him. Yet Celia seems to be recalling Rabelais's own descrip-
tion of Gargantua's mouth, which was of such abnormal size
that he put into it rive pilgrims with thelr staves, who
accidentally fell into a salad that the giant was eating. Else-
where Shakespeare proves that he well knew Rabelais's
peculiar rein of pleasantry. In TzoeoEh 2Vz'ght (II. iii.
OE3 seq.) the simple knight Sir Andrew Aguecheek recalls
some very gracious fooling with which the clown of the play
had solaced him in his cups in the small hours of the previous
morning. Sir Andrew commends his companion's wit in
speaking unintelligible nonsense about ' Pigrogromitus, of the
Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus'. "Twas very
good, i' faith,' says the simple knight. This is the mystifying
kind of jargon which Rabelais loved. The words are not to
be found in Rabelais's text, but poor rabbit-witted Sir Andrew
is hardly likely to report correctly in the morning a difficult
verbal quip which he had heard at a convivial debauch at
a late hour the night before. Again when Edgar (in Kz)tg
1 Bacon mentions Rabelais and his mock-library of St. Victoire at
Paris in his Essay Of Unity in leligion (Essay III): ' There is a master
of scoffing ; that in his cataIogue of books, of a feigned library, sers down
this title of a book : The .4lorris 1)ance oftteretics.' In the A3o3h/hegms
Bacon tells the apocr3'phal story of Rabelais's death: 'Vfhen Rabelais
lay on his death-bed, and they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar
friend of his came to him afterwards, and asked him, How he did ?
Rabelais answered : Even going my journey, they bave greased my boots
already.' (I/Vorbs, ed. Spedding Ellis and Heath, vii. 3.)
RABELAIS AND NASHE 16 3
Lear, III. iii. 7), in his disguise of madman, mutters how ' Nero
is an angler in the lake of darkness ', Shakespeare is con-
fusedly recalling Rabelais's original and uncorroborated dis-
covery that Trajan was in hell as an angler for frogs, while Nero
was there as a fiddler. But Shakespeare's echoes of Rabelais
are hardly more distinct than those of Donne and Bacon.
On only one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, Tom Nashe,
is Rabelais's influence defined with absolute clearness. Thomas
Nashe, the reckless prose satirist who tried his hand at drama
and rornance as well as parnphleteering, approaches nearest
of any Eizabethan writer to the Rabelaisian type. Nashe's
prose style and ternperarnent corne as near Rabelais as any-
thing with which one meets in Elizabethan Eglish. But
Nashe wrote nothlng on so large a scale as his toaster, for no
such extended outlook on the world lay within his arnbition
or power. He was a lampoonist, who filled up his vacant
hours with a short novel of adventure, and some lyrics and
plays. He made his fame chiefly by a bitter controversy xvith
the Cambridge scholar, Gabriel Harvey, on whom he turned
all his artillery of unlicensed abuse. But he was always comical
in his scurrility, and his sense of the ridiculous was strong and
lively. One of his denunciations of the pedantic Harvey he
dedicates with mock gravity to the barber of Trinity College,
Cambridge, and his love of irresponsible fooling and grotesque
hurnour led him at the extreme end of his life into an hilarious
panegyric of the red herring, which he dedicated to a friendly
tobacconist.
Nashe formally admits his discipleship to Rabelais. The
indebtedness was recognized by Nashe's critics. Gabriel Harvey
deplores that Nashe cast his work in ' the fantastical mould ot
Rabelais, that monstrous wit ', and he denounces his adversary
as a Gargantuist who seeks to devour his enemies in salads.
Nashe's breezy insolence of speech bas affinity with another
foreign author, the halian Aretino, who defied proprieties
with almost as great a gusto as Rabelais. To him also Nashe
makes obeisance. But, in spite of tuition gained from other
quarters, it is his reading in Rabelais which accounts for most
of the peculiar eccentricities of Nashe's prose style, for most of
M2
16 4 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON EI.1ZABETHAN PROSE
his contumacy of phrase. Like Rabelais, he depended largely
on a free use of slang for his best burlesque effects. So too
his habit of inventing grandiose words is a gift of Rabelais.
When he found no word quite fitted to his purpose, he
followed the example of his foreign master in coining one out
of Greek, Latin, Spanish, or Italian. ' No speech or words,'
he wrote, ' of any power or force to confute or persuade, but
must be swelling and boisterous,' and he was compelled to
seek abroad, he explained, his boisterous compound words,
in order to compensate for the great defect of the English
tongue, ' which of ail languages most swarmeth with the single
money of monosyllables.' The Eizabethan poets also went, as
we shall see, to contemporary France for aid in remedying the
monosyllabic tendency of their own tongue, but Nashe is franker
than they in the admission. Like Rabelais, too, Nashe sought
to develop emphasis by marshalling columns of synonyms
and by constant reiteration of kindred phrases. His writings
have at times something of the fascination of Rabelais's rough
tongue, but as a rule his themes are of too local and topical
an interest to appeal to Rabelais's world-wide audience. His
bursts of joviality are not linked with Rabelais's penetrating
sagacity. Nashe's influence on language and literature is not
profound. He was hardly great enough to have disciples.
Nashe plays a somewhat isolated part on the Elizabethan
stage, but Rabelais did not pass from the English horizon
with Nashe's death. Like Bacon, Sir Thomas Browne knew
that ' bundle of curiosities ', Pantagruel's burlesque catalogue
of the library of the abbey of St. Victoire at Paris. The
French humorist's ebullient note was more often detected by
contemporaries in the Jacobean hero, Tom Coryat, the bom-
bastic narrator of marvellous pedestrian feats on the European
continent. A friendly versifier, by way of jest, bestowed on
the giant walker, who was known as the Odcombian from his
native village of Odcombe in Somerset, the Rabelaisian title
of'cet Heroique Geant Odcombien nommé non Pantagruel
mais Pantagrué ', while his volume of Crudilies was hailed as
worthy of a place in the library of the abbey of St. Victoire
between ' Marmoretus de Baboinis et cingis' and ' Tirepetanas
MONTAIGNE'S CAREER 6 5
de optimitate triparum '. Coryat's Cruch'/ies was indeed re-
christened by a Rabelaisian enthusiast in his master's dialect
' La Caberotade de Coryat ou l'Apodemistichopezolie de l'Od-
combien Somerseti'. But Coryat did less than Nashe for the
Rabelaisian tradition. Few passages of his farcical rhodo-
montade approach Nashe's Rabelaisian swagger. Surly Doctor
Donne in some commendatory verses compares Coryat's story
of travel xith Rabelais's report of his hero's wonderful voyages.
But Coryat cannot sustain the blustering rein, and usually
ambles on tamer levels. Readers who recalled the whlmsical
voyages which Rabelais assigned to Pantagruel and Panurge,
likened Coryat to the French comedian from the grotesque-
ness of his pedestrian adventures rather than from his ordinary
manner of reporting them. The popular association of Coryat
with Rabelais shows how Rabelais's Eglish reputation grew
after Nashe had confirmed its footing. Nashe's Rabelaisian
accents, which added an iridlscent touch to Elizabethan humour,
helped to keep alive in the next age some interest in the
exploits of the French master of the comlc spirit.
VI
IONTAIGNE
The fourth o the great French prose masters of the
sixteenth century, and the most fascinating, is Michel de Mon-
taigne (i533-i592). A Gascon, cheerful and self-possessed,
he was son of a squire or small nobleman living on his estate
hOt far from Bordeaux. Brought up to the law, he practised
as a youth in local courts, and obtained a clerkship bi the
provincial Parlement of Bordeaux. At the age of thirty-eight
his father died, and he retired from his profession to the
castle and farm of his patrimony. He thenceforth lived for
the most part the life of a countr 3- gentleman, though he left
home for occasional visits to Paris, and once ruade a prolonged
foreign tour through Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.
Towards the end of his career he acted, too, as Mayor of
Bordeaux. But the main interests of his later years were his
fatras, his country neighbours, and, above ail, his books. His
I66 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
library, which filled the upper chamber of an octagonal tower
of his house, was his earthly paradise, and the Latin and
Greek classics were unfailing fountains ot delight. He set
the pleasures of reading above those of writing, although,
happily for posterity, he fell into the habit of recording
his thought.
As in the case of so many contemporary humanists, his first
contribution to literature was a translation. He tried his
hand at literary composition by turning from the Latin into
French an outspoken speculation on natural theology by
a Spaniard, Raymond de Sebonde. It was in 580, when he
was nearing fifty years, that he published the greater part of
the work which gives him ail his fame--the first two volumes
of his Essat's. The third and last book came out in I588,
the year alike of the Spanish Armada, and of the outbreak
of the last civil war of the century between Catholics and
Protestants in France. He died at Bordeaux in x59-, in his
sixtieth year. Shakespeare was then twenty-eight years old,
and wasacquiring his earliest repute. Bacon was a year older.
Montaigne is the first of modern essayists in point alike of
time and quality. Although he probably owed some suggestion
for the form to one of his favourite classical books, Plutarch's
3[orals, the essay may fairly be reckoned Montaigne's
invention. Montaigne's essays--xo 7 in all--are desultory
personal reflections on various aspects of life and experience.
They are put together without method. In theme and style
they are incurably rambling and digressive. The titles give
one a notion of their scope. Some taken at random run:
idleness, the punishment of cowardice, pedantry, friendship,
names, age, books, thumbs, anger, the incommodity ot
greatness, vanity, experience. The field is wide as life.
Montaigne's supreme virtue is his egotism. He is the
prince of egotists. His charm lies in his irrepressible faculty
for gossip about himself. ' I speak to paper,' he says, 'just
as I would to a man I meet. My thoughts slip from me with
as little care as if they were quite worthless.' He writes just
as he feels, without ceremony and without concealment. His
want of premeditation not infrequently leads him to con-
MONTAIGNE'S PHILOSOPHY
167
tradict himselt. But the contradictions preserve the living
semblance of reality. Human nature is a bundle of incon-
sistencies. ' Ail the contraries,' says Montaigne, 'are to be
round in me in one corner or another.' Montaigne's language
faithfully reflects unconstrained conversation. It always
maintains an easy flow, rarely rising and rarely sinking. He
ambles along, serenely satisfied with himself, and he infects
others with his self-satisfaction. But as he talks volubly from
his easy chair, he does not surfer his reader to forget that he
is in his library and that books are at his side. The classics
were his intellectual rare from boyhood. He was deeply
read as a youth in Seneca, Cicero, and, above ail, in Plato and
Plutarch. Plutarch as a biographer and as a philosopher
chiefly moulds his thought, and to Plutarch's French apostle
Amyot he extends the adoration which that scholar paid
the Greek master. The enthusiastic eulogy which he passes
on-Amyot, Plutarch's French translator, may prepare
us for the knowledge that his fluent French style bears
eloquent testimony to Amyot's influence. Montaigne betters
Amyot's instruction in facility of phrase and easy wit, but
hot in syntactical regularity. Yet it is among Amyot's titles
to faine that he was Montaigne's master in French prose.
Montaigne is the latest and the most seductive champion of
the spirit of the French Renaissance. To greater effect than
any of his predecessors he adapted the flower of ancient
wisdom to the needs and notions ofmodern rimes. Montaigne
in effect converts into current coin all the emancipating
aspirations of the Renaissance. The passion for extending
the limits of human knowledge, and for employing man's
capabilities to new and better advantage than of old, the
resolve to make the best and not the worst of life upon earth,
the ambition to cultivate as the highest good the idea of
beauty, the faith in man's perfectibility on the physical as
well as on the spiritual side--these fundamental aspirations of
the era found no more convincing exponent than Montaigne.
Very characteristic of his intellectual temper is this passage :--
'There is nothing in us elther purely corporeal or purely
spiritual. 'Tis an inhuman wisdom that would have us despise
168 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
and hate the culture of the body. 'Tis not a soul, 'tis not
a body, we are training up, but a man ; and we ought not to
divide him. Of all the infirmities we bave, the most savage is
to despise out being.'
In his attitude to religion, Montaigne was a sceptic or
agnostic. ' Que sais-je ?' (' What do I know ? ') was his
motto. Of the mysteries of heaven he thought no man could
know anything, and he was content to be ignorant. He
tries, he tells us, to sit through life on the stool of the
Christianity of utter ignorance. He had no claire to the
stool of the Christianity of perfect knowledge. The first
stool is his natural seat. He does not deny that the received
opinions may be truc. He simply says he does not know
whether they be true or false, The mysteries of faith are not
comprehensible by reason, therefore his reason leaves them
alone. For current controversies between Huguenot and
Catholic he cared nothing. The theological points at issue
seemed to him superficial or trivial. Shakespeare sums up
Montaigne's mental temperament when he calls ' modest
doubt the beacon of the wise', and Hamlet speaks in
lIontaigne's accents when he ejaculates:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
It is a practical, worldly xvisdom which lIontaigne preaches.
But his argument is always coloured by gentlemanly feeling,
which restrained him from unseasonably parading his opinions
to the wounding of others' susceptibilities. He calls himself
in one place a creature of convention; the common customs
and usages are good enough for him. On his death-bed he
was quite ready to accept the priest's offer to celebrate lIass,
not because he had belief in the efficacy of the ceremony, but
because it xvas more civil to accept the priest's ministrations
than to refuse them.
a It was in adniring discipleship to lXlontaigne that Byron wrote (Don
Jean, c. ix. st. 17):
'Que sais-je?' was the motto of Iontaigne,
As also of the first academicians.
That ail is dubious whieh man may attain,
Was one of their most favourite positions.
IIONTAIGNE'S ESSe4 I'S IN ENGLAND x6 9
But however easy-going and garrulous was Montalgne's
habit of mind and speech, he was never a mere laughing com-
mentator on human affairs. At heart he was an earnest
moralist. He seriously recognizes the defects of human
nature, and sagaciously seeks to explain them without excusing
them. There is, for instance, much vicious work, he points
out, in politics ; base tricks, bribes, diplomatie lying infect the
political sphere. He suggests that these vices may be like
poisons, which are employed in maintalning the health ot
one's body. Though they are bad things in themselves, they
may prove useful in their application. Their baneful quality
may thus be deprived of its effect. But, he adds, with ironical
frankness, he has no personal liking for poisons, and bas no
intention of mixing in the business in which they are needful
solvents. With a somewhat cynical smile he adds :-- Let us
resign the acting of this political part in life to hardy citizens,
who sacrifice honour and conscience, as others of old sacrificed
their lires, for the good of their country.'
Almost every subject of social economy he illuminates with
similar sprightly wit, in which irony clothes insight. At rimes
the sportive note predominates anti obscures the serious in-
tention. His remark on marriage is proverbial. He will sav
no more about the merits of that institution, of which he had
personal experience, than that it presents itself to his mind
like a cage. «The birds without despair to get in--the birds
within despair of getting out.' Montaigne round l'esril
gaulois not always easy to bridle.
In spite of the tendency to mask his penetrating obsel'vation
with badinage, Montaigne's fascinating flow of wit and wisdom,
of gravlty and seriousness, succeeded in bringing an ethical
view of social duty down to the level of the popular and
worldly intelligence. Montaigne's work also inaugurated a
new form ofliterature. The matter and manner alike exerted
a vast influence on European thought and taste.
Montaigne's Essays were soon known in England. The
final edition was published in Paris after his death. Ail his
manuscript corrections were there incorporated by Mlle de
Gournay, a young lady of great cultivation, who brought to
17 ° FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
her editorial work an enthusiastic worship. The volumes
were published in I595. The Parisian edition of that year
gives the authorized text of the Essays. It is significant of the
closeness with which French literary effort was watched in
Elizabethan England that on October 2o of that same year,
1595, a licence was issued by the Stationers' Company in
London for the publication of an English translation. ! A
second printing licence was dated some rive years later. No
English translation earlier than 16o 3 is extant. But there are
indications that a manuscript translation was in circulation
some years before. Montaigne's name indeed became a
household word in Eizabethan England very soon after he
had become the idol of French enlightenment.
The first English translator of Montaigne's Essa3,s was a
well-known figure in Elizabethan society. John Florio was
son of a Florentine Protestant who settled in England while
Edward VI reigned and before his son's birth, to escape perse-
cution at home. John became well known in Oxford as a
teacher of Italian, and then pursued the same vocation in
London. His pupils included Shakespeare's patron, the Earl
of Southampton, and at a later date James I's queen, Arme o
Denmark. He mixed freelv in the best literary circles, and
he reckoned Shakespeare among his acquaintances. An
industrious compiler of aids to Eglish students of Italian, he
published useful Italian-Englishdialogues, and acopious Italian-
Eglish dictionary which he called ' A Vorld of V'ords ', a
work of lexicographical value. His most important literary
effort was his translation of Montaigne's Essays. That
piece of work, which has been highly praised for its style,
certainly conveys something of the ease and flow of
the French original. Yet it has too many clumsy and
confused clauses to rank it with the best of the Tudor trans-
lations. North's -Pluta'ch is a superior venture in perspicuity.
Arber's Transcrilb! al the Stationers" Comlbany , iii. 5o:--'2o of
October [! 595]- Edward .4ffffas. Entred for his Copie vnder the handes
of the Wardenes The Essais of |lCHAELL Lord of Mountane . . . vjd.'
On June 20, 16OO, another stationer, Edward Blount, ' received a license
to print 'The Essais of IICHAEL lord of bIountaigne translated into
English by John Florio' (Arber, iii. 162.
FRANCIS BACON AND MONTAIGNE 7'
The later English translation of Montaigne by Charles Cotton,
the friend of Izaak Walton, has some claire to tank above
Florio's. The archaic flavour which sometimes attaches to
lXlontaigne's own manner of speech seems unduly accentuated
by Florio. Yet his success in familiarizing Shakespeare's
Egland with the wealth of Montaigne's genius was in no
way prejudiced by defects in his literary accomplishments.
In Egland the finest fruit of Montaigne's effort is Bacon's
£ssa.t's. Bacon's genius was too original to make him a
servile imitator. The brevity of Bacon's essays distinguishes
them at a first glance from the majority of IXlontaigne's,
although a few of Montalgne's essays are of Bacon's modest
dimensions. There is no garrulity about Bacon, no genial
exchange of confidence with his readers, no digressions. He
rivets his reader's attention by the incisiveness of his utter-
ance and by the aptness of his illustration. He is impatient
oflevity and sternly avoids it. Yet Bacon follows Montaigne
in the general design of bringing home to the untrained
mind the leading truths of experience. The word ' Essays' in
the sense of informal comments on things at large, was first
introduced by Bacon into the English language, and came
direct from Montaigne. Bacon's ambition to bring wlsdom
informally and occasionally ' home to men's business and
bosoms' was the inspiration of lIontaigne.
Bacon admits that lIontaigne taught him to be an
essayist. In the opening essay, Of Trtth, he enforces his
denunciation of the vice of lying with a long quotation from
Monta[gne's essay on 'giving the lie '. With some quaintness
Bacon notes that Montaigne writes on the topic 'prettily'.
liontaigne's topics are often borrowed by Bacon, and Bacon's
style, flowing for the most part, but sometimes abrupt in its
turns, catches frequently a note of lIontaigne's homely
naturalness.
Literary historians appear to have overlooked a curious
personal link between Bacon and the great French essayist,
which may well have drawn the Eglishman into the circle
of Montaigne's disciples. Bacon had opportunities in his oxvn
household of learning much of Montaigne. Bacon's elder
7 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
brother, Anthony, with whom he cherished life-long ties of
close affection, spent txvelve of his forty-three years of lire in
the south of France. Much of his time between x583 and
59 t xvas passed at Bordeaux, where he made the acquaintance
of Montaigne and of all enlightened Huguenots and Catholics
of the province. Vith Montaigne he formed a close intimacy
and maintained a correspondence. Anthony Bacon returned
to England after his long absence in the early spring of 592.
On September 13 of that year Montaigne unexpectedly died.
A letter from his English friend was the last plece of writing
which reached the great Frenchman's hand or caught his
eve. Within a month the sad news was sent to Anthonv
by Montaigne's neighbour and close friend, Pierre de
Brach.
Brach, a poetic aspirant of the school of Ronsard and the
warm admirer of his fellow-Gascon Du Bartas as well as of
Montaigne, enjoyed some reputation as a poet and sonneteer.
A tolerant Catholic lawyer and squire, who patriotically de-
plored the civil wars of his country, he is chiefly remembered
as the loyal friend and eulogist of three men greater than
himself--of Montaigne, of Du Bartas, and of a foreigner,
Justus Lipsius, the Leyden professor of classical scholarship.
Anthonv became an intimate of Brach's social circle at
Bordeaux, and a close personal friend of the well-to-do poet.
Classical repute already attaches to Brach's letter to Justus
Lipsius, giving the authoritative account of Montaigne's
death. The communication to Lipsius bas often been printed ;
it was written on Februarv 4, 593- Yet it was four months
earlier that Brach sent the melancholy tidings to Anthony
Bacon in a letter which still remains in manuscript among
Anthonv Bacon's papers at Lambeth.
The communication is worthy of more attention than it has
vet received. After expressing regret for Anthony's continued
ill-health and reminding him that, in his anxiety to breathe
again his native air, he had neglected warningrs against the
dangers of the sea, Bradl laments the strife which infects France
and tells of his retirement to hls estate near Bordeaux, there to
pen elegles on his recently deceased wife. The Frenchman
ANTHONY BACON AND MONTAIGNE x73
continues, for the benefit of his English correspondent, with
these memorable words :
But I ara so touched to the quick by a new grief, by the
news of the death of M. de Montaigne, that I ara hot myself.
I have lost the best of my friends ; France the completest and
liveliest wit that she ever had ; ail the world the true patron
and mirror of pure philosophy, so that the world has borne
tribute to the shock of his death no less than to the writings
of his life. According to what I have heard, this last great
event has little in it to discredit his lofty writing. The last
epistolary missive that he received was yours which I sent
him. He did not answer, because he had to answer Death
who has seized only on what was mortal in him. The rest
and the better part--which is his naine and mernory--will
only die with Death itself, t
The original letter is among Anthony 13acon's manuscripts at Lambeth.
Dr. Birch prints a sulnmary in his lIemoirs of//te Reig'n of Queen
Elisabeth, 1754 li. 88). The following is Dr. Birch's full transcript, now
in the British Museum (Additional MSS. 411o, f. I23 :--
Monsr. De 13rach to Mr. Bacon: 'Monsr.; Il me souvenoit tant de
l'estat ou vous estiez quand vostre despart vous desroba de nous,
qu'aussitost que je vy le sieur, qui me rendist la vostre lettre je luy
demanday comment il vous alloit, sans que je prins le loisir de l'apprendre
par vous mesme. Ainsi s'enquiert-on, suivent de sçax oir & de voir, ce que
le plus souvent nous trouverons contre nostre desirs comme contre mon
desir & avec grande desplaisir je sçeu la continuation de vostre nauvais
portement. 11 me souvient bien, que je me deffiois qu'en une saison si
facheuse vous peussiez supporter le travail de la mer, qui vous devoir
porter. Mais vous estiez si affamé de vostre air natural, que ce desin
vous faisoit mespriser tout danger. Vous aviez raison de vouloir
s'éloigner le nostre pour la mauvaise qualité, qu'il a prins par les eva-
paratons de nos troubles, qui l'ont tellement iniccté, qu'il n'a nous laissé
rien de sain, & nous enmaladé autant de l'esprit que du corps.
Quant à moy, monsieur, je me suis retiré en ce lieu, ayant tout à faict
quitté Bourdeaux, pour ce que Bourdeaux ne me pouvoir rendre ce que
j'y ay .perdu, & je continue en ma solitude de rendre ce que je dois à la
memore de ma perte. J'ay icy dressé un estude aussi plaisant à mon
desplaisir que nouveau en ses peintures & devises, qui ne sortent point
de mon subject. Je les vous descriray, si j'avois autant de liberté
d'esprit que de volonté. Mais je suis touché si au vif d'un nouvel
ennuy p.ar la nouvelle de la mort de Monsr. de Montaigne, que je ne
suis point t moy. J'y ay perdu le meilleur de mes amis; la France le
plus entier & le plus vif esprit, qu'elle eut onques, tout le monde le vray
patron & mirroir de la pure philosophie, qu'il a tesmoignée aux coups de
sa mort comme aux escrits de sa vie ; & à ce que j'ay entendu ce grand
effect dernier n'a peu en luy faire dementir ces hautes parolles. La
dernière lettre missive, qu'il receut, fut la vostre, que je luy envoiay,
à laquelle il n'a respondu, pourcequ'il avoit à respondre à la Mort, qui
a emporté sur luy ce qui seulement estoit de son gibier; mais le reste
& la meilleure part, qui est son nom & sa memoire, ne mourra qu'avec
174 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
It is of interest to learn that, as far as extant information
goes, it vas to an Englishman that the first posthumous
tribute to Montaigne's eminence was addressed either inside
or outslde France. It is not, too, without significance that
when in 1597 Francis Bacon published the first edition of
his Essa.j,s, he dedicated them to Anthony, his ' dear brother
loving and beloved ', who was Montaigne's friend and an early
sharer of the grief evoked at Bordeaux by his death.
Bacon, the essayist, in his dependence on Montaigne, did
not long stand alone. He initiated the vogue of the
English essay on Montaigne's pattern, and he soon had a
large following. Ben Johnson declares, in a notable passage
in hls comedy of l'olihoJte, that 'ail our English writers...
will deign to steal . . . from Montalgne ,,1 and in hls mlscellany
of criticism which he called 7"t)ltbeJ- he describes Montaigne
as master of ail essayists, but rather crabbedly complained
that men who, like Montaigne, write dlscursively tend to self-
contradiction. At any rate, there qulckly arose in England
a school of essayists under Montaigne's banner. The
second writer either to use the term or to practise the genre
was Sir ,Villiam Cornwallîs, who brought out a first volume
called Essa.),s in i6oo. Sir ,Villiam was a country gentle-
man and a member of parliament, following a career not
wholly unlike that of Montaigne. For thirty years he was a
prolific essayist. ,Vith a frankness exceeding Bacon's acknow-
ledgement, he admits familiarity with Montaigne's work;
but he only knew it in the English version. He is liberal
in the recognition of his debt, and praîses the pregnant force
of Montaigne's style and thought, albeit his familiarity with it
did not extend beyond the English translation. ' For profitable
recreation, that noble French knight, the Lord de Montaigne,
is most excellent, whom though I have not been so much
la mort de ce tout, & demeurera ferme comme sera en moy la volonté de
demeurer tousjours, Monsr., Vostre très humble & affectionné serviteur,
De brach.
'De la Motte Montassan près Bordeaux ce 1o Octob. 1592.'
Act 111, Sc. ii. Here Jonson purs Montaigne on a level with Guarini's
t'asAor/«ido, as a ready object of pillage for English authors. Jonson's
comedy, which was first produced in 16o5, was published in 16o7.
CORNWALL1S'S ESSe1
175
beholding to the French as to see in his original, yet divers
of his pieces I have seen translated: they that understand
both languages say very well done, and I am able to say (if
you will take the word of ignorance), translated into a style,
admitting as few idle words as our language will endure:
it is well fitted in this new g-arment, and Montaigne speaks
now good English.' The Elizabethan essaylst often literally
copies Montalgne's language and sentiment wlth scant cere-
mony. But he amply atones for his servility by the enlightened
tribute whlch he pays the French toaster. Montalgne, con-
tinues Cornwallis--
speaks nobly, honestly and wisely, with little method, but
with much judgement; learned he was, and often shows it,
but with such a happiness, as his own following is not dis-
graced by his own reading ; he speaks freely, and yet wisely ;
censures and determines many things judiclally, and yet
forceth you hOt to attention with a hem, and a spitting
exordium ; in a word he bath ruade moral philosophy speak
courageously, and instead of ber gown glven her an armour ;
he hath put pedantical scholarism out of countenance, ant
ruade manifest that learnlng mingled with nobility shines most
clearly. I
These appreciative sentences were published, it should
be borne in mind, three years before the first extant
issue of Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essa.)'s. Corn-
wallis clearly read Florio's work in manuscript. His
testimony confirms the evidence which is offered by the
Stationers' Registers that as soon as the authentic edition of
the Essa.),s came from the press in Paris, English curiosity
vas active. How far-reaching in England was Montaigne's
influence as the creator of a new literary mode will be
obvious to any one who recalls that the essays of Cowley,
Addison, and Charles Lamb ail own kinship with the Frençh
endeavour.
The final proof of Montaigne's influence in Elizabethan
England is to be deduced, as in the case of Amyot, from
* Cornwallis's lssayes, No. I2, Of Censuring.
17 6 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
Shakespeare. Some critics bave strained to breaking-point
the tilial theory of literary parallels, by adducing numerous
passages from Shakespeare and Montaigne in which the
general identity of sentiment is not to be questloned.
But many of these parallels bear witness to an intellectual
sympathy or to an affinity between the two writers which
ma), 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 corne
within measure of identity before out road is absolutely
clear. There are instances in which a briJua fane case
for borrowing may posslbly be ruade out, but where it is
unsafe to dogmatize, x Very characteristic of Montaigne is
the observation, ' feasts, banquets, revels, dancings, masks and
tourneys rejoice them that but seldom sec them, and that
have much desired to sec them: the taste of which becomes
cloysome and unpleasing to those that daily sec, and ordinarily
have them.' Shakespeare twice makes the like refleetion in
terres 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 Ft)'st Part of Henr.y If;
1. ii. -6-8, says Prince Hal :
If ail the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom corne, they wished for corne.
Many passages of this kind are collected by Mr. J. bi. Robertson in
his interesting volume Ionlaigne and SItaks2bere (new ed., I9o9) .
SHAKESPEARE AND MONTAIGNE I77
So again in the Soltnels (Iii. 5-7) 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 plac6d are.
Another parallel between Montaigne and S hakespeare may
be set in the same category. Cowards, says Julius Caesar
(ll. il. 3-'-7) :
Cowards die many times before ther death.:
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of ail the wonders that I yet bave heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will corne when it will corne.
So Montaigne (i. 9):
Since we are threatened by sb many kinds of death, there
is no more inconvenience to fear them ail than to endure one:
what matter when it cometh, since it is unavoldable.
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 trt's¢a fac'e 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 English dramatist's im-
mediate dependence. In 7"he 7"e»test (II. i. 154 seq.), Gonzalo,
the honest old counsellor ofNaples, 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
which ail things should obey nature, ail things should be in
common :
I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of tra/ïic
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;
| 78 FRENCH INFLUENCE ON ELIZABETHAN PROSE
No use of metal, corn, or vine or oil,
No occupation ;--ail men idle, all.
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty .......
Ail things in common nature should produce
\Vithout sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
"¢'ould I hot bave; but nature shotdd bring fortb,
Of its own kind, ail foison, ail abundance,
To feed my innocent peoplc.
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.
Montalgne's calmibals are hOt eaters of human flesh, but
savages who obey instinctive feeling and are innocent alike
of the vices or the virtues of clvilization. Montaigne describes
this Utopian people thus 1I quote Florio's version):
It is a nation that hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of
lctters, 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 manurlng 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 'ocabulary 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
Ellzabethan literature. Elizabethans knew least of Rabelais,
the earliest master in prose of the French Renaissance. Yet
to him the pamphleteers of Shakespeare's day owed some
suggestions for their svaggering satire. From Calvin the
Elizabethans drexv precision in expounding theologlcal 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
I79
detail. From Montaigne came pointed fluency and a cheerful
habit of reflecting detachedly on lire. 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 Eglish 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 F. uropean
thought and culture.
BOOK IV
FRENCH INFLUENCE IN THE
ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
TtlE COMING OF RONSARD
THEgeneral course that English poetry followed in the
sixteenth centurr has been described already. The main
historical or chronologlcal 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 ebullltion of Wyatt and Surrey in the early years wlth
evanescent effect. The lyrists of Henry VIII's 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--Sackville's ' In-
duction' to 7"he .l[ror of 31agisl'ales. In that poetic
allegory, published in 1563, the poet, guided by the per-
sonification of sorrow, visits, after the manner of Vergil or
Dante, the abodes of the great dead. Sackville's faculty is
impressive, but it is doubtful if his slnall and isolated output
does more than attest a craving for a heightelaed standard of
poetic art. Itis a ray of light which failed to disperse the
prevailing gloom. 1
i Although Sackville's verse betrays little sign of French influence, the
poet, like most cultured Englishmen of his day, was well acquainted witlt
France and Frenchmen. Just before the publication of his ' Induction' he
was making a tour of the continent, and soon al'ter his return he was
twice in Paris on diplomatic business. In 1568 he was much in the
society of Queen Catherine de' Medici, and sought to overcome ber
objections to the proposal that her son the Duc 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 IStow's Chronich', p. 668.
He wrote to Queen Elizabeth of the Italian comedies which he wit-
nessed at the French court (Baschet, Les Comédiens Italiens à la Cour
«te France, I882, pp. 15, 61. Four years later Sackville hospitably re.-
ceived the Huguenot envoy, Cardinal Chàtillon, at his palace at Sheen.
x84 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN EIZABETHAN LYRIC
Spenser's She2bkearcls Calender, published in 1579, must
for aesthetic purposes be viewed as the starting-point of the
Eizabethan tide. Spenser lived on till 1599, steadily develop-
ing in poetic genius for the best part of twenty years. Vrith
Spenser's early work was associated in point of time that of
Sir Philip Sidney and Thomas VVatson. The trio, in the
order in which their names are mentioned, presents a desoend-
ing scale of merit. Sidney was no match for Spenser.
VVatson 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 ne,v lyric fields with Sidney's
industry, if with little of his poetic feeling. He SUl'ived
.Sidney by some six years, dying in 1592. It was hOt,
however, until these two pioneer-companions of Spenser
had lcft the scene that the lyric inspiration gained its full
fervour or strenh 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; ail flourished in the last decade of the century.
In that darkest age of poetic effort which followed the burial
of Vyatt and Surrey, Tudor England vainly turned anew
for tuition to Clément Marot, the toaster of French poetry in
the first half ofthe sixteenth century. Vyatt, who had adapted
Marot's characteristic rondeaus, had acknowledged Marot's
sway. The crew of doggerel poetasters, ,,,,'ho ambled across
the Eglish stage between the exit of VVyatt and the entry of
Spenser--men like Turberville and Gascoigne--are stated by
a contemporary critic to have ' corne 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' (x575) excuses himself for occa-
sional impropriety by the example of Marot's '.Alyx', an
epitaph of brutal grossness on an unchaste woman? The
1 Marot, OE'uvres, ii. 29. Gascoigne's lines run :
Read Fausloes filthy tale, in .Ztriosloes ryme,
And let hot .llaro¢s .4lys" pass, without impeach of crime.
These things considered well, I trust they will excuse
This muse of naine, although she »eem such toys sometimes
tO use.
MAROT DETHRONED IN FRANCE 85
Marotic tradition was still flickering in England in the anuus
nira&ih's 1579. Spenser paid tribute to Marot's vogue in
his earliest poetic endeavours. Of his S]tebheards CaleJtder,
the title translates the naine of a popular French tract Le
lçaletdrier des t?ergiers, and tvo sections of the English
poem paraphrase Marot's old-fashioned eclogues. That in-
teresting act of homage was a belated courtesy and it was
occasionally repeated. But it was on French poetry of more
modern fibre and more nearly contemporary date that Spenser
and the adult Elizabethans fixed their steadiest gaze.
In the gloomy interval betveen Wyatt and Spenser, lIarot
was himself dethroned in France. A new king of poetry
arose. France came under a new poetic dispensation, of
which the chief apostle was Ronsard. Ronsard was, if not
the inaugurator, the acknowledged toaster of a new poetic
school in France, a school of unprecedented wealth in melody
and fancy. The temple of French 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 158o treated
France as their consecrated home. ' Never belote,' truthfully
writes the literary chronicler of the era, ' had France such
a plenltude of poets (lellefoisou deboèles). Eery province,
every city, sent its poets to enrol themselves under the
standard of the new chieftain, Ronsard.' 1
It is for us to study the impression which this re-birth of the
poetic art in France left on Eglish poetry, to estimate how
far the Eizabethan 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 ail 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 French 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
Êtienne Pasquier's Lettres, 555, in uvres, Amsterdam, 7z 3,
ii, p. 11.
I86 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 Èlizabethan song
and sonnet are reckoned among the fairest flovers of Eliza-
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 Èlizabethan sanction,
Elizabethans quaffed copious draughts of the new French
Helicon.
II
THE }]IRTH OF THE IgLÉIADE
In 549, rive years after Marot's death, rive young men of
literary ambition and of high classical attainments, were
attending at a college--le Collège 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, ail of good family and from cultured homes.
also read for themselves much recent Italian literature. When, in
the confidence of ambitlous youth, they compared the literary
masterpieces of Greece and modern ltaly 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 themseh'es 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 ltalian 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 words,
' French poetry is spiritless and crude; it is no credit to
DU BELLAY'S MANIFESTO I87
out 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 conoeious alto. Change in the temper and tone of
poetry has been in this country an unconscious development,
notwithstanding Zordsworth'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 conslstently and consciously planned in minute
detail. The victory has led to experiments of similar calibre
in France at a later date. The romantic movement--/e
Roman/[c[sme--of the early nineteenth century arose in ver),
like fashion.
The creed of the new sixteenth-century school was set forth
in a preliminary manifesto from the pen of the oldest of the
revolutionary spirits--ofJoachim du Bellay, aged twenty-four
The manifesto was published in x 549 under the title La De_ffCse
et Illuslrat[on de la langue J'rançoz'se. The main argument
runs thus: The French language was hOt to be scorned. In
the hands of great writers it might reach the level of Latin
and Greek. But to give it its needful lustre, it must be
fertilized anew by foreign importations. Hard work and long
nights must be devoted to study of the ltalian, the Latin, and
the Greek. The Italian had enriched itself by thefts from the
Latin. Latin had ennobled itself by thefts from the Greek.
The French could only find salvation by thefts from ail the
three. The old forms--rondeaus, virelays, et autres épiceries--
must be abandoned. Chansons or songs must be replaced by
odes ; comic fables by satire ; mystery-plays by comedies and
tragedies ; dixains by sonnets, ' that cultured and charminff
ltalian invention.' Mediaeval fancies and childish ineptitudes
must be dismissed to the Round Table of a played-out
age. There was need of a more elevated poetry drawn from
sources of real antlquity--from the antiquity which conserved
I88 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
enlightenment, not from the antiquity which cloaked obscu-
rantism.
From end to end Du Bellay's plea was permeated by the
broad humanism of France. He deprecated sympathy with
those who despised the French language and deerned it
incapable of ultimate perfection. He was no less hostile to
scholars, who treated Latin and Greek poetry and prose like
sanctified relics, which must be looked at in sacred places
through panes of glass, and rnust never be touched with one's
own hands. Greek and Latin books ought rather to corne out
of their dead shells. They ought to wing their way daily
through the mouths of men in modern speech. But while
the revolutionary leader commended as true patriotisrn the
labours of translation, he pointed out that translation had
spiritual limitations. The dangers of constraint and ungrace-
fulness were never negligible. It was not to be expected that
ail translators could satisfy the supreme test of raising in
their readers' minds the precise feeling evoked by the originals.
Vernacular adaptation of the aesthetic spirit of the classics
was the safest road to emancipation.
The names of the rive young men who organized the new
school were Pierre de Ronsard, Joac.him du Bellay, Remy
Belleau, Jean Antoine de Baïf, and Etienne Jodelle. Ba'if
and Jodelle were only seventeen years old, Belleau was
twenty-one, and Ronsard and Du Bellay twenty-four. To
the rive there were soon added a more mature student, Pontus
de Tyard, aged twenty-eight, and the Greek professor,
Jean Dorat, aged forty-one. This band of seven, buoyant
with youthful hope, was first content to be known as le docte
brfgade. But it soon gave itselfthe more distinctive naine of
the Seven Stars, the Pléiade, after a company of Greek poets
at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus at Alexandria, which
had assumed the saine designation. The French Pléiade is
the best known constellation in literary historv.
The work of the Pléiade was voluminous and varied. The
new poets tried every manner of literary experiment in their
effort to acclirnatize Greek and Italian forms of poetry, in their
resolve to give French poetry new grace and refinement. But
RONSARD'S CAREER 189
save Dorat, whose work being in Latin hardly concerns us, all
devoted their best e.nergies to lyric or elegiae verse, to short
poems of love or reflection, among which the imitation of the
Italian sonnet filled a commanding place. The drama and the
epic were not ignored. Jodelle, one of the seven chieftains,
did his main work as a dramatist and in that capacity exerted
influence at home and abroad. But the lyric note predo-
minated and gave the Pléiade its widest faine. A new style
of lyric elegance and lyric melody was the most characteristic
fruit of the great poetic movement.
III
RONSARD
The acknowledged chief of the Pléiade was Pierre de
Ronsard, who deserves to rank with the poetic artists of the
world. His poetry presents nearly ail the characteristics
of his school in their perfection. \Vhile he lived he was the
dlctator of French literary taste. He is the poetic master
of the French Renaissance. Born on September i i, 15--'4, at
his father's Château de la Poissonière, near Vend6me, in the
valley of the Loire, he was son of a steward of Francis I, and
after a brief education in Paris, became in boyhood page to
the king's son, the Duke of Orleans, who died young. From
the age of ten to twenty-four he served in royal or noble
households. Many of his masters were engaged in foreign
diplomacy, and the youth visited foreign countries-- Scotland
and England, Flanders and Holland--in the ambassadors'
train. Ill-health, which resulted in permanent deafness, com-
pelled him in early manhood to abandon the active life of the
court and diplomacy. It was then that he renewed his studies
with extraordinary ardour, and joined his tutor Dorat and
his fellow students, Du Bellay, Baïf, Jodelle, Belleau, Tyard, in
their efforts to re-create French poetry. Thenceforth Ronsard
consecrated his life to the Muses and to culture.
No one is entitled to question Ronsard's declarations that he
sang from boyhood because he must. The genuineness of
I9O FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
his inspiration admits of no doubt. Of the spontaneity and
the fluency which cornes ofthe divine fount Ronsard has no lack.
Yet he is far removed from the poetic children of nature who
sing but as the linnets sing. He vas a man of learning, and
although his sympathy with nature and with humanity often
invests his verse with an unaffected simplicity, his style was
deliberately fashioned in moulds of scholarship and art.
Poetry was for him ' la belle science '. Like Horace, he wrote
much of the Art of Poetry, and the broad prlnciples on which
he lays emphasis in his critical essays throw light on the
general character of the Pléiade and explain its far-reaching
influence.
In the first place Ronsard framed the rule that the vocabu-
lary of poetry was of right far removed from that of prose.
The verse that could readily be turned into prose vas bad
verse, and the prose that could readily be turned into verse
was, according to Ronsard, bad prose. The bounds of the
one rarely, if ever, encroached on those of the other. In the
second place the French poet preached the close affinity of
music and poetry. He judged that poetry vhich did not
lend itself with facility to musical setting vas without sure
signs of excellence. ' La musique,' he said, 'est la sur
puisnée de la poësie, et les poëtes et musiciens sont les
enfans sacrez des Muses ; sans la musique la poësie est presque
sans grace, comme la musique sans la melodie des vers, est
inanimée et sans vie.' 1 New turns of language, which removed
verse from common speech, and new turns of metre which
gave prosody the melody of music, are among Ronsard's main
contributions to poetic art.
Like his allies, Ronsard, though an innovator in literary
matters, was a conservative in religion and politics, a loyer of
law and order, a faithful adherent of the catholic king, and a
foe to the doctrine of the Huguenots. One of his colleagues,
Pontus de Tyard, became Bishop of Chàlons. He himself
took minor orders, and was rewarded with Church preferment
freed of clerical duty. He held the pleasant priories of
uvres, ed. Blanchemain, viii, p.
RONSARD'S RELIGION
St. Cosme near Tours and of Ste. Croix-Val, both in Touraine.
The religion of their ancestors was good enough for Ronsard
and his fellow servants of the Muses. Belief in a beneficent
Creator, 'le père de tout bien,' satisfied their spiritual
aspiration ; niceties of dogma failed to more their interest.
To Ronsard and his friends the austere ideals of a Huguenot
dispensation were repugnant. In 563 Ronsard replied to
fellow countrymen of the Reformed faith who reproached
him with self-indulgence. He warmly denied their allegations
that he was an atheist or a drunkard or the victim of vicious
disease. But with splendid self-confidence he exposes the
futility of lire without art. He claires that his religious
beliefs are as simple as those of his censors, and that by his en-
thusiasm for the reformation of art he renders his countrymen
as high a spiritual service as they by the reformation which they
are devising of Christian doctrine. He rejoices in the confes-
sion that he loves laughter and women's smiles, music and the
masque, a cup of wine, a walk beside a river, or a book in
season beneath a shady tree. He is proud to assert that the
Muses have adorned his brow with myrtle, and that he wears
the laurel of Apollo. 1
The souls of Ronsard and his friends sought indeed
poetic sustenance in other revelations than those of the
orthodox Church. Ronsard's temperament was largely
pagan. Greek sentiment swayed his being. He invoked
Apollo and Pallas to protect him from worldly distractions.
He worshipped at the shrine of Aphrodite and ber son Eros.
His poetic ritual was devised in honour of Pan and Bacchus.
His genius sought the companionship of Naiads and Dryads.
The brightness and joyousness in his nature found their
closest affinity in the atmosphere of a pagnn world.
A regnl belief in himselfand in his work is another dominant
feature of Ronsard's character. His self-assurance was fos-
tered by the circumstances of his lire. He never lacked
royal patrons. Four kings of France paid him the highest
honours, and he received their marks of respect with an
uvres» vii, p. 26.
192 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
admirable assurance. Mary Stuart prided herself on hls
friendship, which round expression not only in beautiful
verses from her own pen, but in the glft of a silver model
of Mount Parnassus, inscribed ' A Ronsard l'Apollo de la
source des Muses '. He was at one rime the guest of the
English queen, who acknowledged his eulogies of herself and
of her favourite the Earl of Lelcester, as well as of her minlster,
Sir \Villiam Cecil, with the gift of a diamond, whlch, she de-
plored, vas less lustrous than his poetry. Ronsard was never
sparing in compliments of exalted persons, a Soon after
France and England ruade the great treaty of peace at
Troyes within a few weeks of Shakespeare's birth in x564,
the poet confirmed the instrument, almost as though he were
one of the high contracting parties, by dedicating to the Engllsh
queen a new volume of Elégt'es, 2[ascarades et Bergeries.
His patroness, Queen Catherine de' Medici, approved his
i Queen Elizabeth's beauty and accomplishments lose nothing at
Ronsard's hand. Like so many who paid personal court to the
English queen, Ronsard is specially delighted with ber power of speaking
many languages. He looks for the day when swans on the river Thames
will proclaim that the Muses have deserted Parnassus to greet in poetry
the sovereigns of England, but the day of the swans of the Thames had
not yet dawned. In complacent mood Ronsard regrets that God bas
denied England the joy of the ineyard, with whieh his own country
was bountifully endowed, but bids her take comfort, Bacchus had
not refused Britons ail his gifts; the merry god had joined Ceres in
creating beer {Le tocaffe Royal, I567, in uvres, ed. Blanchemain,
iii. 33. Cecil, whose name and lineage Ronsard fancifully derives
from Sicily, he praises for his politic diplomacy and his courtesy to
strangers (oEuf,res, ed. Blanchemain, iii. 393)- ' Milord Robert Dudley,
Comte de Leieester,' is credited with almost divine faeulties,--the
beauty of Venus, the wit of lIercury, and the wisdom of lIinerva.
His triurnphs in the tournament, the chase, and the dance are beyond
compare. Ronsard declared that he risked the perils of the ocean to
cast his eyes on so noble a prodigy. Ronsard's opinion of Leicester
changed as years rolled on, and with characteristic frankness he
adapted his verse to his altered views. When he reprinted the poem
he removed ail reference to Leicester, substituting for the Earl's naine
that of King Arthur, and representing his laudation of the English noble-
man as Merlin's mythical description of the old British king. Finally
Ronsard suppressed the panegyric altogether (uvres, ed. Blanchemain,
iv. 382). The French poet elsewhere shows his early interest in
Leicester b¥ reporting the rumour of his coming marriage with Oueen
Elizabeth. He mentions among extraordinary prophecies-- ~
Et qu'un Anglois si fortuné sera
Que sa maitresse un jour espousera.
OEttz,res, ri. 262.
RONSARD'S SELF-CONFIDENCE
193
interposition. In the dedicatory epistle the poet contentedly
professes to commend his naine and faine for ail future time
to Queen Elizabeth's care. Yet impatience of claims
to glory which he dld hOt share, ruade it congenial to him
to keep before the mind of royal and noble patrons the
truths that poverty and lowly rank are surer roads to hap-
piness than pomp and state, and that rich and poor will both
alike corne to dust.
Toutes choses mondaines
Qui restent nerfs et reines
La mort égale prend,
Soient pauvres ou soient princes ;
Car sur toutes provinces
Sa main large s'estend."
The estimate which Ronsard formed of himself as well as of
others won general authority, despite the evergrowing range of
his pretensions. He claimed, when denouncing the Huguenots,
that the poet--not the preacher--confers greatness on a people.
His poetic work, he asserted, had set the Frenchman on the
level of the Romans and the Greeks, and had given his fellov
countrymen a reputation that they never enjoyed before.
The credit which the French settlers in Gcneva clainaed was
part of his gift tu his nation. ' Vous estes,' he relis the wrang-
ling theologians, the Zwingllans, the Lutherans, the Ana-
baptists, the Calvinists, and ' les autres Puritains ',
Vous estes tous issus de ma iX/use et de mur :
Vous estes mes sujects, je suis seul rustre roy :
Vous estes mes ruisseaux, je suis rustre fonteine. :»
"-fhe dignity with which he often rcceived and distributed
flattery yielded at times tu his thirst for extravagant and
J This dedicatory epistle seems only tu appear in a rare first edition of
Eh(ies, gllascarades et liergeries (i 565). The eFistle is hot tu be fuund itx
any reissue of the volume, but it is reprinted in Marty-Laveaux's edition
of the PIéade, vi. 446. (Cf. Paul Laumonier:s R«,nsard, l'aXIe Lyrique,
19o9, pp. e14-tS. ) The volume includes pueras addressed tu the Erl
ol Leicester and Sir William Cecil as well as tu t2ueen Ehzabeth, ail of
which reappeared in Le ]9'ocaffe l¢oyal ( 567 .
Ronsard, Odes, Bk. IV, Ode v (oE'uz,res, ii. e53).
uvres» vil, p. z8. Ronsard's puera was tarzt published in t563.
The word ' Furitan' would seem tu have been used tamiliarly in France
before it was generall, accepted in England.
LEE O
194 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
pompous adulation. He liked to be told that the deafness
from which he suffered resembled the blindness of Homer.
Finally he summed up his attitude to the world in the
haughty line :
.,le suis Ronsard, et cela te suffice !
The expression was taken seriously by his admirers, and was
deemed by a contemporary biographer to be a fittlngepitaph.
Ronsard's last years were spent in retirement, whlch he
dividcd between his two abbeys of Ste Croix-Val and of St.
Cosme. There library and garden gave him contentment.
A gentle melancholy lends a peculiar pathos to his latest
works and his declining days. Although he had no misgivings
of the immortality of his renown, he was nervous of neglect,
and the praises of younger men caused him, in spite of hls
disclaimers, discomfort. Disease had turned his hair gray at
thirty, and the further ravages of age dejected him. The
miseries of civil and religious strife oppressed him like
personal sorrows.
Yet Ronsard died in the fullness of his faine. Two months
after his death at St. Cosme (on I)ecember 7, 585), a
ozzzc fttzzèbre was celebrated in the chapel of the
Collège de Boncour at Paris, and its splendour might have
reconciled him to his dying anxleties. The crowd of royal
and noble rnourners was so great that even princes and lords
of Church and State were turned from the chapel doors. The
English ambassador of the day, Sir Eward Stafford, had
small sympathy with literature and much suspicion of ail
Catholic ritual. He probably ruade no effort to attend, but it
is permissible to conjecture that the ambassador's chaplain,
Richard Hakluyt, whose mind was alert to every intellectual
influence, was not willingly absent from the great ceremony.
The oz-az'soz fztzzèbre was pronounced by the most cultured
preacher of the day, Jacques du Perron, who next year did
a like service to the memory of Queen Mary Stuart, and later
presided at the ceremony of Henry IV's abjuration of the
Protestant faith. Finally a cardinal, Du Perron won lame
as a poet as xvell as a Catholic controversialist and pulpit-
orator. His funcral cloe of Ronsard is a model of elegiac
FUNERAL ORATION ON RONSARD 195
eloquence, and still preserves that living grace which gives
enduring freshness to so much of the fruit of the French
Renaissance.
' He will lire,' the preacher prophesied of the mighty poet,
' he will be read, he will tlourish, he will be cherished in the
thought and memory of men, so long as there shall be any
signs and any memorials of the realm of Frenchmen, so long
as the French tongue has currency and sound among foreign
peoples, so long as letters shall enjoy reverence and esteem.
.. Time will only serve to increase his fame .... Vials
full of perfumes and scents, coming to be broken, spread their
odour further than they did before.' 1
Ronsard was laid to test soon after he completed his sixty-
first year. Shakespeare, his junior by thirty-nine years,
came of age while the French poet was still alive. As far as
chronology goes, the sovereign genius of English Renaissance
poetry might have been son to the emperor of French
Renaissance poetry on whom the preacher passed a j ust
verdict. Although much of Ronsard's voluminous work is
tedious pedantry, his fine achievements are many, and they
deserve the eulogy passed on the French queen Marie
Antoinette by Burke, when he described her at the zenith of
her career as 'glittering as the northern star, full of life and
splendour and joy '.
Ronsard, uvres, viii, p. z13. « Il vivra, il sera leu, il fleurira, il se
conservera dans la pensée et dans la souvenance des hornmes, tant qu'il
y aura quelques enseignes et quelques marques de l'empire des François,
tant que la lange françoise aura quelque cours et quelque son parrny les
nations estrangeres, tant que les lettres seront en estime et en reverence.
. . Il ne craindra aucune suitte de temps ny aucune antiquité, il fre-
quentera spirituellernent et invisiblernent avec nous, et plus il ira en
avant et plus il verra croistre et augmenter sa renommé; . . . ny plus
ny moins que les phioles pleines de parfums et de senteurs» lesquelles
venant à se casser» espandent leur odeur encore beaucoup plus loin
qu'elles ne faisoient auparavant.' The simile of ihe broken scent-bottle
adumbrates Shakespeare's conternpt for sealed vials of rose-water, 'a
liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass' (Sonncts» v. 1o).
I96 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
IV
THE THEMES OF THE PLÉIADE
The subject-matter of the Pléiade's songs and sonnets
strikes various notes. Xhe poetry in its more serious strain
voices patriotic elation, political ambition, religious zeal, dread
of death, sympathy with suffering, and an almost romantic
feeling for nature. But the theme to which the canvas owes
its sparkling radiance is the pagan delight in life's fleeting
joys. Xhe doctrine that the present is all that counts, the
worship of love and youth, the faith in women and wine, are
main articles in the poetic creed of the PICade. The parentage
of these blithe conceptions deserves attention.
French adaptations of the Pindaric ode were the first
achievements of the bold innovators, but a quite unexpected
stimulus of a somewhat different calibre came at the outset
from the discovery by Henri ]tienne, the great scholar-printer
of France, of a manuscript containing a series of Greek poems
ascribed to Anacreon. That lyric poet was known to have
lived and written in the sixth century before Christ. Early
Greek grammarians mention Anacreon's work, but, until
Étienne discovered in a unique manuscript the collection oI
lyrics which he set to Anacreon's credit, Anacreon's verse was
unknown. Euenne's unique manuscript formed an appendix to
an isolated codex of the Greek anthology. Other manuscript
copies of the Greek anthology had been recovered earlier.
That poetic miscellany had been printed early in the six-
teenth century; but Anacreon's work was hot associated
with it, before Étienne's discovery of I552. Since É, tienne's
day scholars have proved conclusively that the poems
assigned by him to Anacreon are of a date later than
Anacreon's era, that they were probably penned at AIexandria
early in the Christian era, and that they are spurious
imitations of the poet's genuine work, specimens of vhich
bave since corne to light. Only a minute criticism can
differentiate the true Anacreon frorn the false Anacreon.
Both present gay lyrics of love and pleasure in blithe lilting
THE DISCOVERY OF ANACREON 97
measures. True or false Anacreon is far lig'hter in tone
than most of the Greek anthologists. The latter often treat
patheticall¥ of solemn themes, and move to tears as often
as to hughter. Anacreon is the poet of joy.
The school of the Pléiade was fascinated in its infancy by the
Anacreontic verse which l;tienne brouht first to his country-
men's notice. X.Vritten copies of the Greek text must have
been in their hands even belote ltienne's book was published.
For Ronsard and his friends printed avowed imitations in
French of Anacreon's poems belote i554, the date of Étienne's
publication. Within a year of the issue of tienne's volume
a translation of the whole into French verse came from the pen
of Remy Belleau, one of Ronsard's colleagues, and thence-
forward adaptations, translations, imitations abounded. The
Pléiade laid the deeper-toned anthologists also under con-
tribution. But Anacreon'sjocund temper and short, dancinff
mette were worshipped by them almost idolatrously. X.Vell
mlght Ronsard fil1 hlgh the flowing bowl and chant the
toast (Odes, Bk. v, Ode xv)--
Verse donc et reverse encor
Dedans ceste grand' coupe d'or;
Je vay boire à Henry Etienne
Qui des enters nous a rendu
Du vieil Anacreon perdu
La douce lyre te'ienne.
The poets of the Pléiade were the tirst hOt only to trans-
late Anacreon's Greek into modern speech, but to make the
Anacreontic rein current coin of modern poetry. The
French Renaissance failed on its advent to deprive of its
old predominance the solemn and hortative allegory which
had ruled the mediaeval realm of French poetry. But
that sad and serious form of poetic endeavour retired dis-
comfited at the bidding of a newly revealed tuneful Muse,
who lightly and naïvely declared in song that lire owed its zest
to women and wine, to roses and honey, to kisses and sighs.
Under Anacreontic influence, airy reminders to
Gather ye rosebuds while ye ma)-,
Old time is still aflying,
I98 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
became a recurrent refrain of the lyrlc ot the French Renais-
sance. None of Ronsard's voluminous poetry is more often
cited or is more characterlstic of the lyric temper of his school,
than the sonnet in which he pictures his indifferent mistress in
old age grieving after his death over her youthful obduracy,
or the song of lainent over the fading at dusk of a rose which
had bloomed in the morning. The sonnet ends with the lines :
Vivez, si m'en croyez, n'attendez à demain:
Cueillez dès aujourd'huy les roses de la vie?
The last stanza of the song runs--
Donc, si vous me croyez, mignonne,
Tandis que vostre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez vostre jeunesse:
Comme à ceste fleur, la vieillesse
Fera ternir vostre beauté."
In these two poems we have the _A_nacreontic message fitted
to the sentiment of the new age. _A_ cheerful recognition of
the inevitable conditions of mortality glves, in the verse of the
Plélade, plquancy to the passing beauty of the world.
AI1 aspects of nature which please the eye or ear are
portrayed by the Pléiade poets, not only with delicate
charm, but with accuracy in detail which testifies to close
observation. Ronsard's poems about the four seasons, the
lark, the hawthorn, or the hollybush, are close studies of
natural lire as well as vignettes of poetlc accomplishment.
.Salutations of .Spring, and especlally of the months of April
and May; exultant cries of delight at the gushingof fountains,
at the song ofbirds, at the glint ofprecious stones ; apostrophes
to roses and lilies, to violets and dalsies, to carnations and
marigolds, embroider the Plélade's airy canvas with brilliant
schemes of life-like colour. Blithe feasts of love and wine are
pictured in flowering glades lit with the summer sun.
It is an ethereal atmosphere which often envelops the scene.
A_t times, the slightest movement in lire or nature suffices for
1 Sonnets pour Hélène, xlii, in OEuf,res- i
OEu«,res, ii, p. I7 (Odes, Book I, Ode',,çiî:-'A Cassandre). The first
line reads, « Mignonne, allons voir si la rose . . .
THE MELANCHOLY OF DU BEI.LAY x99
the poet's theme. Very characteristic of one aspect of the
mo-ement is the most popular of the poerns of Ronsard's
colleague Du Bellay, whose poetic nature was more deeply
imbued with serlous sentiment than that of any of the band.
The topic is an appeal of a peasant to the wind to drire into
motion the grain beneath his winnowlng-fan. The represen-
tative 'alue of the effort is all the greater when we learn that
the poem is a maglcal translation from Latin of a nearly con-
temporary Italian poet, Navagero, who himself was influenced
by the Greek anthology. In the last x-erse the peasant offers
a parting prayer to the winds thus:
De 'ostre douce haleine
Eventez ceste plaine,
Eventez ce séjour:
Cependant que j'ahanne [£ e. tra,¢aille]
A mon blé que je vanne
A la chaleur du jour.
The charm here, as Mr. Pater pointed out, is all pure effect.
Nearly all the pleasure in the sil'ery grace of" fancy lies in the
surprise at the happy way in which an incident inslgnificant
in itself is handled. Such a comment does hot apply to the
.hole work of the Pléiade, but it is suggesti'e of much and
explains its range and variety.
The lyre of the Pléiade is hOt always so llghtly strung
Lire in its presentation by Ronsard and his allies is not
wholly free from complexlty or grief. Notes of sadness are
present, and they on occasion strike home. The cruelties
infllcted by fickle mistresses rarely touch the reader's feelings.
The loyers' melancholy has a somewhat hollow echo. Ne'er-
theless the thought that ' l'amour et la mort n'est qu'une
mème chose' is at times invested with a poignancy that is dis-
concerting, and grief for loss of friends is nearly always of
pathetic earnestness. No elegies strike a slncerer note of
sorrow than many of the lamentations of the Pléiade on the
death oftheir associates. Melancholy was curiously dominant
in the nature of Du Bellay, vho proudly claimed and was
duly accorded the honour of first domestlcatlng the Italian
sonnet in France. Seldom has more touching regret for lhe
OEoo FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
decay of greatness, for the defacement ' by Time's fell hand' of
The rich proud cost of out-worn buried age,
found poetic expression than in Du Bellay's sequence of
sonnets called Les AuNqztz'te's de I¢ome, which he penned
while on a visit to Italy. The series is a poet's reverie amid
ruins. A lively historic sense overwhelms him with despair.
Rarely, too, has a patriot's affection for his motherland
sounded a more touching note than in Du Bellay's series of
sonnets called Les Regrets, which he penned while serving
as secretary to the French ambassador at Rome :
France mère des arts, des armes et des lois,
Tu m'as nourl T long temps du lalct de ta mammelle:
Ores, comme un aigneau qui sa nourrisse appelle,
Je remplis de ton nom les antres et les bois.
Du Bellay's Les Regrets form an intimate poetic journal of
that homesickness which patriotism fosters in the heart of
a sensitive exile.
The practical outlook of the PICade often went indeed far
bevond the worshlp of love and lilies. The poets did not lire
aloof from the social and political interests of ordinary life.
They loved their country, rejoicing in her political and
military trlumphs, and grieving over her mlsfortunes. Ronsard
hlmself at times abandoned his complacency amid political
anxiet.v and bltterness ofparty spirit. In the four books of his
unfinished epic, called La 'ralzct'ade, he gives ample rein
to his patriotic ardour, and furiously denounces the foreign
and domestic enemies of France. The religiouswars at home
roused in his and the other poets' hearts despair and shame,
and on England--the prison of the venerated Queen of Scots
--they came to retlect with scurrility and to heap maledictions
in a fiercely tragic key.
Of passing events further removed from their own country
than Queen Mary's martyrdom, the poets of the Pléiade were
most deeply impressed by the discovery of America and the
devastation of Greece by the Turks. Ronsard rcjoiced to be
alive in an age which had witnessed the glorious revelation by
a Spanish fleet of a new continent, a new ocean, new peoples,
POLITICAL INTERESTS OF THE PLIADE 2o
and new languages. 1 The aboriginal tribes of America
excited immense curiosity in France. Ronsard hailed them
as survivors of the golden age of purity, as men free from the
sophistications of Europe, as human beings who were captains
of their own souls (seuls ma]res de soi) :
Ils vivent maintenant en leur àge dorée,
Vivez heureusement, sans peine et sans souci,
Vivez joyeusement, je voudrais ,.-ivre ainsi.
The love of Greek literature mainly inspired the Pléiade
with a burning zeal for the political regeneration of Greece,
which the Turks were laying waste. With ail Byron's
or Shelley's poetic rage Ronsard called upon his patron
Charles IX, King of France, to deliver the Greeks from the
tyranny of the Turks :
Bref, ceste Grèce, oeil du monde habitable,
Qui n'eust jamais n'y n'aura de semblable,
Demande, hélas! vostre bras très-chretien
Pour de son col desserrer le lien,
Lien barbare, impitoyable et rude,
Qui tout son corps germe de servitude
Sous ce grand Turc.:
Ronsard entreated Venus, the ' amoureuse Cyprine ', to seek
the aid of Mars in defending ber island of Cyprus from the
barbarous seignory of Mahomet's viceroy. "
"V
THE IIANNER OF THE PLÉIADE
Ronsard and his friends were before ail else great metrists.
They practised with admirable deftness almost every variety
of rhyming stanza, combining short lines wlth long lines in
strophes of varying lengths and numberless mutations. !t is
OEu«,res, i. 368.
uvres, iii. 32t-
- uvres, i. 385-
du Turc.'
' Vu a Venus pour garder Cypre contre l'armée
o FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
sald that Ronsard tried his hand at sixty-three metres or
strophes. One of the many innovations of the school was
that four-lined stanza of Tennyson's 2rTt l'e71toria11, in xvhich
the first line rhymes with the fourth, the second with the
third. But despite their bold claims to complete originality,
the Pléiade showed as much ingenuity in refashioning old
metrical forms as in inventing nexv ones.
Abundant experiment xvas ruade by Ronsard at the outset
of hls career in the Greek Pindarlc ode, with its classical
distribution into strophe, antistrophe, and epode. 1 But the
strict classical divisions were soon exchanged for the slmpler
scheme of the Horatian ode. Hymns, eclogues, and elegles
were of like classical lineage, but they rarely came nearer the
classica! pattern than rhyming decasyllabics could bringthem.
Such efforts as the Plélade ruade in the epic and narrative
fable were also clothed as a rule in decasyllabic rhyme--the
measure which filled in the new French prosody the place
alike of the Greek heroic hexameter and the Latin elegiac
couplet.
Jkt the saine time all the poets of the fraternity brought
their ingenulty to bear on the metrical inventions of Italy.
The sestlna, the madrigal, and even blank verse left some
trace on the work of the Plélade--yet none ofthese peculiarly
Italian innovations took deep foot in French soli. Very
different was the fortune of the sonnet, which was openly
borrowed by the P]éiade from Italy and became the chief
badge of the new poetlc movement.
The harvest in France of the Italian sonnet--often a literal
translation from the Italian--was boundless. The three most
prolific members of the Pléiade--Ronsard, Du Bellay, and
Baïf--are reckoned to have penned together 3,5x6 poems,
of which x,686 are sonnets :
Graves sonnets que la docte Italie
A pour les siens la première enfantés.
a Most of the new technical terres of the poetic art, e.g. l),ri¢tte,
,ique, and ode, corne direct from the Greek; some corne from the
(;reek through the Italian, e.g. lrag«tdie, comçtie; while others are of
direct Italian parentage, e.g. sonnet, madr(çal, sl«mce; but Greek nomen-
clature predominates.
THE FRENCH BATTLF OF THE METRES 203
Ronsard easily leads with 709 sonnets out of a total of ,396
poems. 1
It was one of the principles of the school to avoid popular
metrical devices of bygone France. Yet their broad con-
ceptions of art led them involuntarily to adapt to their
purpose some veteran metrical fashions. \Vhile they rejected
the rondeau and the ballade, they proved themselves sus-
ceptible to the influence of the past by the invention on an
old pattern of the villanelle, or rustic song, which depends for
its charm on the refrain. They revived, too, the more ancient
Alexandrine and gave it a new cadence and pliancy. One of
the band, Jodelle, was the first to employ the Alexandrine in
tragedy, and he it was who ruade the hexameter for ail rime the
standard type ofdramatic verse in France. But it was in song,
ode, and sonnet that the Pléiade wrought its main triumphs.
Never belote was there such mingling of metrical strains.
The keynotes were struck by Greece and modern Italy,
and in the revolutionary ardour of classical zeal, Bail, a chier
member of the band, took a metrical step in a wrong direction,
whlch is worth notice as an indication of a danger threatening
the new movement. Ba'if urged by precept and practice an
innovation which seemed for the moment likely to lead the
reforming movement to dlsaster. He sought to revive the
quantitative rhymeless mette of Latin poetry, with its short
and long syllables, its spondees and dactyls, its iambs and
anapaests, its hexameters and elegiacs, its sapphics and its
alcaics. He condemned alike rhyme and accent--the principles
which had hitherto held undisputed swav over French verse.
He would set in their place the unrhymed ' quantity' of vers
Itestrés. Vith unflinching thorou,hness Baïf preached the
* Although Ronsard is entitled to the invention of the Theban ode,
Du Bellay of Angers was never willing to forgo his right to the sonnet :
Par rnoy les Graces divines
Ont fait sonner assez bien
Sur les rives Angevines,
Le sonnet Italien.
A disciple, Vauquelin (19ivers Soumets, 3), addressed Du Bellay thus:
Ce fut toy, Du Bellay, qui des premiers en France
D'Italie attiras les Sonets amoureux.
zo4 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
classicization of French prosody as well as of French styleY
But his experiments proved the shallowness of his argument.
His hexameters and unrhymed anacreontics vere openly
scorned, and with reluctance Baïf returned to the beaten
track. Ultimately he followed a friendly critic's advice :
Baïf, suis le chemin que chacun va,
Car tu ne verras point réussir l'emprise de ton temps.
The classical prosodistswere slow to quit the field. They came
to concentrate their artillery on rhyme, and urged that rhyme
should be banished. Baïf argued that nusical accompaniment
was the needful complement of vers mesurés, which ought to
be sung and not spoken. To prove his allegation to be prac-
ticable, he founded in Paris, with royal sanction, and under the
auspices of the University of Paris, an academy in xvhich un-
rhymed quantitative verse should be fitted by musical composers
xvith appropriate musical notation. The professed alm was' de
renouveler l'ancienne façon de composer des vers mesurés pour
y accommoder le chant pareillement mesuré selon l'art métrique'.
The effort ruade no real advance. Disciples of Bail modified
the tactics of the campaign and belied their main principles
by adding rhyme to the vers mesurds. Rhymed hexameters,
rhymed elegiacs, and rhymed sapphics found a more charitable
reception than those measures without rhyme. ' The French
honey' of rhyme sweetened the classical pill of quantity. But
there was no relish of salvation in the mLxture, and after a
brief trial it xvas dismissed, to join in oblivion the experiments
which preceded it. The sharp controversy was, we shall
find, loudly echoed in Elizabethan England. The danger to
which Baïf exposed the nev poetlc development in France
darkened the dawn of Elizabethan literature. In both
countries ta&ulae solvun[ur risu, and the perils of classical
prosody were averted by force of ridicule.
Apart from metrical innovation the Pléiade sought to realize
t For a good summary of the history of Baif's experiments sec Kastner's
Hislory of Frencit Versiflcalion, Oxford, i9o3, pp. 295_308, and Poésies
choisies deJ.-M, de 13aiJ ed. L. 13ecq. de Fouquières, 1874, pp. xv sq.
THE CLASSICIZED VOCABULARY 205
its reformlng aim by differentiating the phraseology 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. mathdmatiue, sympathie, and atvie. Others
which were as deliberately imported were wisely given short
shrift, e.g'. enh'ldchie--the Aristotelian word for 'innate perfec-
tion ,.x Later, Ronsard and his disciples grew sensible of the
need of restricting the employment by French poets of Greek
words, and were sparlng 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 Pléiade
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 Plé.iade under
Ronsard's leadership distinguished itself mainlv by its fertility
It is usual to cite as an example of Ronsard's extravagant employ-
ment ofGreek words his lines embodying the strange expressions' ocymore ',
' dispotme', ' oligochronien ', &c. In hs famous elegy on Queen lXl argaret
oi lXavarre (Le tombeau de «[arffuerile de 'rame), which belongs fo the
poet's early years, he wrote--
Ah! que je suis marry [grieved] que la Muse Françoise
Ne peut dire ces mots comme fait la Gregeoise:
Ocymore, dispotme, oligochronien;
Certes je les dirois du sang Valesien,
Oui de beauté, de grace et de lustre ressemble
Âu lys qui naist, fleurit et se meurt tout ensemble.
Ronsard cites these three words as examples of Gr«ek which are beyond
his skill to Gallicize (uvres, vil. 178 ).
2o6 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
in inventing diminutives, and by its creation of compound epi-
thets. 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-
ment by the Pléiade was largely a revival or an expansion of
a pre-existing habit. The second device ofcompound epithets
was new to modern poetry and exerted a v«orldwide influence.
There is nothing in old French poetry with which compati-
son is possible. Ronsard personally claimed the sole glory
of the innovation which his disciples developed with grotesque
extravagance. Ronsard's ' vocables composez ', by which he
set infinite store, were only remotely framed on the Homeric
pattern. Thls final embellishment of poetlc 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 HEIRS OF THE PLÉIADE
The six active members of the Pléiade--Ronsard, Du Bellay,
Baïf, Tyard, Jodelle, and Belleau--were hot only most prolific
poets, but ail quickly gathered about them a host of disciples
who shared in varying degrees their qualities, and made ail
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. uvres, vil. 12 7 :
Indonté du labeur, je travaillay pour elle Il.e. France],
Je ris des mots nouveaux, je r'appelay les vieux,
Si bien que son renom je poussay jusq'aux cieux.
Je ris, d'autre façon que n'avoient les antiques,
Vocables com2hosez , et phrases poi2tiques,
Et mis la poësie en tel ordre, qu'aprés
Le François fut Cai aux Romains et aux Grecs.
RONSARD'S PUPILS
--o 7
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 tank 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 :
Entre les fleurs, entre les Ils,
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 :
J'aime la belle violette,
L'illet et la pensée aussi,
J'aime la rose vermeillette,
Mais surtout jaime la souci.
Few poets counselled youth more musically to snatch the
pleasures of the hour than Jean Passerat in his ode to May
I)ay--' du Premier Jour de May '-
Laissons ce regret et ce pleur
A la vieillesse;
Jeunes, il faut cueillir la fleur
De la jeunesse.
Or que le ciel est le plus gay
En ce gracieux mois de May,
Aimons, Mignonne ;
Contentons nostre ardent désir;
En ce monde n'a du plaisir
Qui ne s'en donne.
It is not easy to match in lightness of touch
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.
Jean de la
The Pléiade movement only drew its last melodious breath
on crossing the threshold of the seventeenth century. Ronsard's
o8 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
mantle of chieftain was worn on his death by a fashionable
ecclesiastic, a v«ealthy pluralist, a kindly patron ofpoor men of
lettcrs, Philippe l)esportes, who was born in 1545. His life
ended in 16o6, 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
steeped 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
xvhile on a visit to Italy in youth, and he never freed himself
of the geltre'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-absorblng love--' Douce est la mort qui vient
en bien amant '--are apt to ,,veary. But he ,,vas 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 lier that he has consoled himself with a new mis-
tress, but he ends each of the valedictory verses with the
half-jesting, half-tearfuI refrain--
Nous verrons, volage Bergère,
Qui premier s'en repentira.
Towards the close of Desportes' career, the tradition of the
Pléiade was maintalned by another clerical poet, Jean Bertaut,
who ended his career as bishop of Séez at the age of 59, in
i61i. In Bertaut the lyric fervour of song and sonnet is
colder than in Desportes ; his vows ofgallantry and his regrets
for youth's passage tend to more conventional conceits, and
the sacred topics, to which he devoted his later years, are treatcd
on lines which sacrifice charm to orthodoxy. Yet his metrical
dexterity is great; he handles the Zu .llZe,,to't'az stanza with
exceptional effect :
DESI'ORTES AND BERTAUT
Pourquoy voudroy-je encor d'un idolatre hommage
Sacrifier ma vie aux rigueurs de son oeil,
Et par un làche espoir de fléchir son orgueil,
Perdant la hberté, perdre aussi le courage ? 1
There are, too, touches of feeling in the more familiar poem
beginningw
Félicité passée
Qui ne peux revenir
In lines like these there is ethical insight--
La crainte de perdre une chose si chère
Fait que je ne sens point l'heur de la posséder.
But the inspiration seems more often on the point of exhaus-
tion. With Bertaut's death, in I61 I, the era of the Renaissance
lyric may be said to terminate in France. In the saine year
Shakespeare retired from the active exercise of lais profession.
Bertaut, like Desportes, boasted of discipleship to Ronsard
and the t'léiade, and both lived long enough to witnesssigns of
reaction against the leading principles ofthat great school. The
idolatry of Greece and Italy, which was a main creed of the
t'léiade faith, awoke in due time a patriotic revulsion of feeling.
The great scholar, Henri Étienne, in La Précellcnce du
la»gage françois, 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 Pléiade
was at length convicted by public opinion of worshipping false
gods. But the school had donc its work ; it had cradled a new
conception of lyric theme; it had created a new standard
of poetic vocabulary and, above ail, a new temper of poetic
melody. Malherbe, the next ruler of the French Parnassus,
repudiated with vehemence the authority of the Pléiade and
heaped impatient scorn on its mythological imagery and its
classical terminology. Yet the nexv toaster, in hls search
afier a greater simplicity and regularity, was largely influ-
enced by the aesthetic ideals and ambitions of those whose
faine he sought to displace. Much truth lurks, too, in the
LEE
t OEuvrespoélifues, Paris, x89, p. 326.
P
o 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 frénésie,
Comme des Dieux gaspillaient l'ambroisie
Si bien qu'enfin, pour mettre le holà,
Malherbe vint, et que la Poésie,
En le voyant arriver, s'en alla.
Vil
THE PLÉIADE IN ENGLk, ND
Long" before the day of Malherbe, the voice of the Plélade
in ail 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 Pléiade influence is visible in
Elizabethan metre, in turns of phraseolog3" , in sentiment, in idea.
In some instances the influence works through a process of
adaptation which leaves ample room for the independent
activity of Elizabethan 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
ofother 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 hot invariably known to Elizabethans in their
original language. Much classical and ltalian poetry circu-
lated in England more freely in a French dress than in its
native garb. Doubt is at tlmes 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 PLIIADE OE
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 has 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 va.st deal of the blitheness, music,
and fragrance of the Elizabethan lyric, and proves the foreign
suggestion to be more often of French than ofclassical or Italian
origin. The inspiration of the Pléiade 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 Pléiade far beyond the Elizabethan era. The
French airs are echoed in the poetry of Wither and Herrick ;
even the lyres of Charles IFs day were attuned to them. Here
we do hOt carry our inquiry beyond the close of the sonneteer-
ing vogue in Elizabethan England, which synchronizes with
the publication of Shakespeare's sonnets in 6o 9. On the
Elizabethan sonnet French influence wrought with exceptional
energy and a very evenly sustained strength.
The evidence within the Elizabethan field is voluminous,
and can only be indicated in outline. It is the internal proof
which cornes of setting Elizabethan poems at the side of
eadier 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 Pléiade 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 Poësie
That France brought forth, thougb, fruitful of brave wits,
Well worthy thou of immortalitie.
P2
2 2 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
Thomas Watson, the second writer of verse to enter the
truc Elizabethan fold, was adjured by an admirer to note
how the French tongue was garnering the wealth of Par-
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 159o , in
a satirlc tract, Tarllon's News out of ['urgalory, a large
company of poets is described as assembled in Purgatory to
hear ' old Ronsard ', who died rive years before, recite a
description of his mistress, Cassandra, one of the heroines of
hls 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 I594
Michael Drayton deplored that it was 'a fault too common in
this latter time' to ' filch' 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 hls own
countrymen's poetic efforts from disparagement argued that
' France-remarked Bellay ' and ' court-like amorous Ronsard'
were currently overpraised. But this note was hOt repeated.
A year later Thomas Lodge, one of the most popular of
Elizabethan lyrists and one of the heaviest debtors to the
Pléiade, 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. '2 At the extreme end of the century,
in the Cambridge Universlty play, the I¢elttrnefrom tar -
nassus (c. 1600), an amorous youth employs a friend to write
sonnets for his lady-love, and he suggests to his poetic aide-
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.
a Gallica Parnasso coepit ditescere lingua
Ronsardique operis luxuriare nouis.
(Vatson's tteca/oma/ttia, 1582 , ed. Arber, p. 34.)
AIargarile of America, 1596.
EARLY TRANSLATIONS OF RONSARD -3
But suggestive as are the notices of the work of Ronsard
and hls friends in Elizabethan books, no adequate testimony
is ftrnished there to the extent of the French influence on
the lyrîc fertillty of Elizabethan England. The relations
between the two schools of poetry are hOt 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 ruade open confession of translation from the
Pléiade. 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 Dt'scouts des 3lisères de ce teltt;bs à la Roj,ite itère dtt
Roy was issued in Paris in 562. It is the poet's fervid denun-
ciation of Calvln. It is his refutation of Huguenot slanders,
and a valuable piece of autobiography; although penned
wlth a convincing eagerness and brilliant volubility, it bas
indeed more personal than aesthetic value. Thomas Jenye,
a Yorkshlreman, who was in the service of Sir Henry Norris,
the English ambassador in Paris from I567 to 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 V'atson, the popular
contemporary of Spencer, whose muse ,,vas overweighted by
his learning, publicly stated that four of his hundred poems
of passion- his Hecatotathia--which appeared in i582 ,
adapted specified poems of Ronsard. Two years later a very
clumsy practitioner in verse, 'John Soothern, Gentleman,' in a
volume which he christened Pandora: the l"Itst'Ttte of [he
ea«[t'e of h 's [[s[resse Dz'ata, gave in discordant doggerel,
and in a vocabulary freely strewn with French words and idioms,
t Jenye's book bears this title : 'A Discours of the Present Troobles
in Fraunce, and Miseries of this Tyrne, compyled by Peter Ronsard
Gentilman of Vandome, and dedicated unto the Quene Mother. Trans-
lated into English by Thomas Jeney, Gentilman. Printed at Andwerpe.
1568, 4to.' Only one copy seems to bave been identified in modern rimes.
It belonged to the great collector, Richard Heber, and its present where-
abouts seem unknown.
I 4 FRENCH INFLUENCE IN ELIZABETHAN LYRIC
a series of sonnets, odes and ' odelettes' which crudely adapt
Ronsard's lyrics. The source, though imperfectly admltted
by Soothern, was generally recognized by Eglish 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 Pindarisé.
Ronsard's chief lieutenant, Du Bellay, enjoyecl a somewhat
fuller measure of open acknowledgement. In 1569, a year after
Jenye's renderingofRonsard appeared,Edmund Spenser, while
little more than a schoolboy, issued by way of a first poetic ex-
periment a literal translation into unrhymed English verse of
some fifteen of Du Bellay's French sonnets. Du Bellay called
these sonnets, which freely paraphrased the Apocalypse,
Sollges ou l't'sious sur tmze. The English youth entitled
his rendering The l't'simts of tella3,. Du Bellay remained
one of Spenser's acknowledged poetic heroes. Twenty-two
years later the English poet reissued his l'isions of Bellay
in a rhymed revision, and added to them a sequence of thirty-
two sonnets whlch were drawn from the saine French treasury.
The I¢tt)es of lome, l 3, tRella3,, are a literal rendering by
Spenser of Du Bellay's characteristically pathetic ./-/
Puttenham, in The trte of English Paesie (1589) , writes of Soothern's
effort to naturalize Ronsard's work in England: 'Another [writer] of
reasonable good facilitie in translation finding certaine of the hymnes
of Pvndarus and of tnacreons odes, and other Lirickes among the
Greékes very well translated by 'ounsard, the French poet, and
applied to the honour of a great Prince in France, cones our minion
and translates the saine out of French into English, and applieth them
to the honour of a great noble man in England (vherein 1 commend his
reuerent ninde and duetie) but doth so impudently robbe the French
l'oet both ofhis prayse and also ofhis 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 fre«hlon, egar, sufierbous,
fll, tnding, celest, calabrois, thebanois and a number of others, for English
wordes, which haue no maner of conformitie with our language either by
custome or deriuation which may make them tollerable. And in the end
(which is worst of ail) makes his vaunt th:tt neuer English singer but his
bath toucht Pindars string which was neuerthelesse word by word as
Rounsard had said before by like braggery.' {Puttenham, ed. Arber,
1869, pp. 259-60.) The words which follow in Puttenham's text are
quoted infra on page 249.
FORTUITOUS COINCIDENCES
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
ofher 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 PICade ranks, was honoured
by Elizabethan translators with a frank avowal of their
obligation to his xvork. The sole Eglish volume which bore
Desportes' name on its title-page during Shakespeare's lire-
rime was an uncouth English translation of the Frenchman's
free rendering into his own tongue of a poem by Ariosto?
The genuine influence of the PICade operated more
subtly. Eizabethan 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 wlthout 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 cogim 
