454 NATIONAL POETRY. 



But around the Pleiad there were several poets superior to those who com- 

 posed it-: Berenger de la Tour, the best bucolic poet of the age, author 

 of the " Siecle d'Or " and the " Amie Rustique ; " Olivier de Magny, a great 

 lyric poet, as may be gathered from his " Amours," " Odes," " Soupirs," and 

 "Gaietes;" Amadis Jamyn, Ronsard's favourite pupil, and the writer of 

 several charming pieces which have more life in them than those of his 

 master ; and Guillaume du Bartas, the creator of descriptive poetry, who, in 

 his poem upon the creation of the world, entitled " La Semaine," reached 

 almost at once the sublime and the ridiculous. 



It is most wonderful that France, amidst her civil and religious wars, 

 and the terrible disorder which prevailed during the reigns of Charles IX. 

 and Henri III., should have produced such a number of poets that it is 

 impossible to name them all. Everybody wrote and admired poetry at the 

 court of the Valois kings, princes, nobles, and ladies alike. Every kind 

 of poetry ambitious and familiar, amorous and melancholy was repre- 

 sented by one or more works of merit, and we can only afford space to mention 

 the bare names of a few writers : Marc-Claude de Buttet, a native of Savoy ; 

 Flaminio de Birague, an Italian who had been naturalised French ; See vole 

 de St. Marthe, a Loudunois gentleman ; Madame des Roches, of Poitiers ; 

 Guillaume Belliard, of Blois ; Jean Passerat ; Etienne Pasquier, &c. A 

 special mention must, however, be made of Philippe Desportes, who excelled 

 in gallant poetry ; of Jean Bertaut, distinguished in the same way ; of Jean 

 and Jacques de la Taille, better known as dramatic poets ; and lastly, of 

 Agrippa d'Aubigne, who may be termed the Petronius and Juvenal of the 

 sixteenth century. 



But Malherbe, who had just been born, was destined, in the course of his 

 attacks upon the Ronsard school, to form the new French poetics, of which 

 his odes represent the most perfect model and style. 



