85 



Yet Ronfard both 'had, and continues to have his admirers; Thuanus 

 fays of him, " naturam arte ita temperavit, admifcens Graife ct Latins 

 Cam;Kn£B fpiritum, ut pofl: Auguftum feculum poetarum qui pod fue- 

 runt, pr^flantiffimus evaferit." But to Defportes the French poetry 

 owes more than to any other writer, except Marot, notwithftanding his 

 Grsco-Franco hexameters had expofed him to deferved ridicule. But 

 fuch was then the tafte of the day ; which had probably been picked 

 up from Figliucci,^ who, in the year 1551,* having publilhed his ad- 

 mirable commentaries on Ariftotle's Ethics, a book then in every one's 

 hand, had taken occafion to abufe rhirae as Gothic, and of barbarous 

 introduftion, recommending the Greek and Roman quantities in its ftead : 

 himfelf at the fame time fetting the laudable example by tranHating the 

 verfes which Ariftotle had quoted from Homer and Euripides, into the fame 

 metre with their originals. This concetto, however, as might be ex- 

 peaed, juft lived out its day, and died; and I do not find that the 

 folemn Spaniard ever condefcended to canter in daftyls, or trot in te- 

 trameters.§ The daftyls of Defportes and his cotemporaries referable 

 thofe in Englilh modelled after the manner of Figiiucci, being the two 

 firft lines of Abraham Fraunce's attempt to tranflate the ^thiopic romance 

 of Heliodorus into Englifli hexameters. 



As 



* Yet above a century before, we have Leo Baptlfll Albert! dabbling In this muddy 

 ftream, who, with Tolomeo and others of lefs note, probably firft fuggefted to Figiiucci 

 thefe quaint attempts. Alberti was a man of talents, and moft of his poems have been 

 preferved, but by the fate of his Italico-Latiuo-metrico, which has perilhed, we may 

 eftimate the value his cotemporaries fet upon it. Vaffari, his biographer, has, however, 

 preferved two of its precious lines, with which Mr. Rofcoe has favoured U5, in his ad- 

 mirable Life of Lorenzo de Medici, Vol. i. chap. 2. 



" Quefta per eftrema miferable piftola mando, 

 " A te, che fpregi miferamente noi." 



y This muft be faid with fome referve, for Gonzales Perez, in compliance witli tl,s 

 fafh.on, IS faid to have tranflated into his own tongue the whole of the Ody%, in 

 the fame feet with the original. 



