Letters to Dead Authors | Page 9

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 't was somewhat bitter to taste, as 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 th> 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 the 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 book-sellers, '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 e'tait reve'tu d'un emploi
honorable; Ronsard e'tait 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'Orle'ans, of Charles IX., he is traite'ensubalterne, and is jealous
of a frocked or unfrocked manantlike Maitre Francoys! And then this
amazing Fleury falls foul of thine epitaph on Mai'tre Francoys and
cries, 'Ronsard a voulu faire des vers me'chants; il n'a fait que de
me'chants 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