Still,methinks,there was a book in the hand of the grave and learned poet;still thou wouldst carry thy Horace,thy Catullus,thy Theocritus,through the gem-like weather of the Renouveau,when the woods were enamelled with flowers,and the young Spring was lodged,like a wandering prince,in his great palaces hung with green:
Orgueilleux de ses fleurs,enfle de sa jeunesse,Loge comme un grand Prince en ses vertes maisons!
Thou sawest,in these woods by Loire side,the fair shapes of old religion,Fauns,Nymphs,and Satyrs,and heard'st in the nightingale's music the plaint of Philomel.The ancient poets came back in the train of thyself and of the Spring,and learning was scarce less dear to thee than love;and thy ladies seemed fairer for the names they borrowed from the beauties of forgotten days,Helen and Cassandra.How sweetly didst thou sing to them thine old morality,and how gravely didst thou teach the lesson of the Roses!
Well didst thou know it,well didst thou love the Rose,since thy nurse,carrying thee,an infant,to the holy font,let fall on thee the sacred water brimmed with floating blossoms of the Rose!
Mignonne,allons voir si la Rose,Qui ce matin avoit desclose Sa robe de pourpre au soleil,A point perdu ceste vespree Les plis de sa robe pourpree,Et son teint au votre pareil.
And again,La belle Rose du Printemps,Aubert,admoneste les hommes Passer joyeusement le temps,Et pendant que jeunes nous sommes,Esbattre la fleur de nos ans.
In the same mood,looking far down the future,thou sangest of thy lady's age,the most sad,the most beautiful of thy sad and beautiful lays;for if thy bees gathered much honey 'twas somewhat bitter to taste,like that of the Sardinian yews.How clearly we see the great hall,the grey lady spinning and humming among her drowsy maids,and how they waken at the word,and she sees her spring in their eyes,and they forecast their winter in her face,when she murmurs "'Twas Ronsard sang of me."Winter,and summer,and spring,how swiftly they pass,and how early time brought thee his sorrows,and grief cast her dust upon thy head.
Adieu ma Lyre,adieu fillettes,Jadis mes douces amourettes,Adieu,je sens venir ma fin,Nul passetemps de ma jeunesse Ne m'accompagne en la vieillesse,Que le feu,le lict et le vin.
Wine,and a soft bed,and a bright fire:to this trinity of poor pleasures we come soon,if,indeed,wine be left to us.Poetry herself deserts us;is it not said that Bacchus never forgives a renegade?and most of us turn recreants to Bacchus.Even the bright fire,I fear,was not always there to warm thine old blood,Master,or,if fire there were,the wood was not bought with thy book-seller's money.When autumn was drawing in during thine early old age,in 1584,didst thou not write that thou hadst never received a sou at the hands of all the publishers who vended thy books?And as thou wert about putting forth thy folio edition of 1584,thou didst pray Buon,the bookseller,to give thee sixty crowns to buy wood withal,and make thee a bright fire in winter weather,and comfort thine old age with thy friend Gallandius.And if Buon will not pay,then to try the other booksellers,"that wish to take everything and give nothing."Was it knowledge of this passage,Master,or ignorance of everything else,that made certain of the common steadfast dunces of our days speak of thee as if thou hadst been a starveling,neglected poetaster,jealous forsooth of Maitre Francoys Rabelais?See how ignorantly M.Fleury writes,who teaches French literature withal to them of Muscovy,and hath indited a Life of Rabelais."Rabelais etait revetu d'un emploi honorable;Ronsard etait traite en subalterne,"quoth this wondrous professor.What!Pierre de Ronsard,a gentleman of a noble house,holding the revenue of many abbeys,the friend of Mary Stuart,of the Duc d'Orleans,of Charles IX.,HE is traite en subalterne,and is jealous of a frocked or unfrocked manant like Maitre Francoys!And then this amazing Fleury falls foul of thine epitaph on Maitre Francoys and cries,"Ronsard a voulu faire des vers mechants;il n'a fait que de mechants vers."More truly saith M.Sainte-Beuve,"If the good Rabelais had returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the wine,he would,methinks,have laughed heartily."But what shall be said of a Professor like the egregious M.Fleury,who holds that Ronsard was despised at Court?Was there a party at tennis when the king would not fain have had thee on his side,declaring that he ever won when Ronsard was his partner?Did he not give thee benefices,and many priories,and call thee his father in Apollo,and even,so they say,bid thee sit down beside him on his throne?Away,ye scandalous folk,who tell us that there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth.Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean Bernier,a scurrilous,starveling apothecary,who put forth his fables in 1697,a century and a half after Maitre Francoys died.Bayle quoted this fellow in a note,and ye all steal the tattle one from another in your dull manner,and know not whence it comes,nor even that Bayle would none of it and mocked its author.With so little knowledge is history written,and thus doth each chattering brook of a "Life"swell with its tribute "that great Mississippi of falsehood,"Biography.
