"Clnber a Dogwood wttb /iDontaigne 



lives " de la seule assistance de personnes 

 saines et gayes " (" with but the help of the 

 healthy and the blithe "). He belongs 

 with " natures belles et forte," the " solid 

 and fine." " History is my pursuit " (" mon 

 gibier"), "and poetry I like with a natural 

 bent." He has little to say of the best 

 contemporary poetry, however, apparently 

 preferring Etienne de la Boetie to all the 

 melodious innovators of his day. Of 

 Ronsard and Du Bellay he speaks casu- 

 ally, with respectful indifference, saying 

 that " they have done credit to our French 

 poetry " ! And when he speaks of the 

 " rich descriptions of one and the delicate 

 inventions of the other," there lies between 

 his lines a subtle criticism of the classical 

 innovations of the " Pleiade." " II en est 

 de si sots, qu'ils se destournent de leur voye 

 un quart de lieue pour courir aprez un 

 beau mot! " (" Certain fools will go half a 

 league out of the way to run after a fine 

 word! ") We can but wonder what he 

 would have said of Gautier, Baudelaire, 

 Guy de Maupassant, not to mention Eng- 

 lish and American logolepts of our day. 

 276 



