He expresses a hope that the fame of his mistress will rival that of Laura.

J'espere avec le tans que sa belle ramée

Pourra par mes escrits jusqu'aux astres monter,

que

Et
La dedaigneuse Nimphe en laurier transformée.
Diverses Amours, Sonnet xi.

les Florentins cesseront de vanter

p.

I trust, in time, her lovely branch will rise,
Rear'd by my numbers, to the starry skies;
And Florence boast no more that scornful maid
She saw transform'd into a laurel shade.

516.

If Petrarch were in any danger of being eclipsed by Desportes, it would be from the veil which he has cast over his lustre in those passages of which he has attempted a translation into French. The reader will see an instance of this inferiority, by comparing the well-known sonnet,

Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi,

with Desportes, S. xlv. p. 201.

A pas lens et tardifs tout seul je me promaine.

He did not wish to conceal the numerous obligations he lay under to the Italian poets; and when a book was written with a design of shewing how much the French had taken from them, good-humouredly observed, that if he had been apprized of the author's

intention to expose him, he could have contributed largely to swell the size of the volume.

If he has made thus free with the property of others, there are those who in their turn have not scrupled to borrow from him. Some stanzas in an admired ode by Chaulieu, on his native place, Fontenai, must have been suggested by the pathetic complaint which Desportes supposes to be uttered by Henry III. at Fontainbleau, where that monarch first saw the light.

Chaulieu.

Fontenai, lieu délicieux,

Où je vis d'abord la lumiere,
Bientôt au bout de ma carrière
Chez toi je joindrai mes aïeux.

Muses, qui dans ce lieu champêtre
Avec soin me fîtes nourrir;

Beaux arbres, qui m'avez vu naître,

Bientôt vous me verrez mourir.

T. 2, p. 145. Paris, 1757.

Desportes.

Nimphes de ces forets mes fidelles nourrices,

Tout ainsi qu'en naissant vous me fustes propices,

Ne m'abandonnez pas

Quand s'acheve le cours de ma triste avanture;

Vous fistes mon berceau, faites ma sepulture,

Et pleurez mon trespas.

P. 673.

Nymphs of the forest, in whose arms I lay
Nurs'd in soft slumbers from my natal day,

Now that my weary way is past,

Desert me not; but as ye favouring smiled,
And weaved a cradle for me when a child,

Oh weep, and weave my bier at last.

The song at the beginning of the Bergeries and Masquerades is exceedingly sprightly and gracious. I will add another, which, though scarce less animated, is in a graver style.

Las que nous sommes miserables,
D'estre serves dessous les loix
Des hommes legers et muables
Plus que fueillage des bois.
Les pensers des hommes ressemblent
A l'air, aux vents, et aux saisons;
Et aux girouettes qui tremblent
Inconstamment sur les maisons.
Leur amour est ferme et constante
Comme la mer grosse de flots,
Qui bruit, qui court, qui se tourmente
Et jamais n'arreste en repos.

Diverses Amours, Chanson, p. 570.

Alas! how hard a lot have we,

That live the slaves of men's decrees,

As full of vain inconstancy

As are the leaves on forest trees.

L

The thoughts of men, they still resemble
The air, the winds, the changeful year,
And the light vanes that ever veer
On our house-tops, and veering tremble.
Their love no stay or firmness hath,
No more than billows of the sea,

That roar, and run, and in their wrath
Torment themselves continually.

His verses on Marriage, and his Adieu to Poland, prove that he could be at times sarcastic.

At p. 596, we find a sonnet on the Bergerie of Remy Belleau; and at p. 631, another on the death of the same poet.

There are commendatory verses on Desportes himself, by the Cardinal du Perron at p. 243, and by Bertaut at p. 306; and in one of the elegies to his memory, at the end of this volume, with the signature, J. de Montereul, (of whom I find no mention elsewhere,) he is thus described :

Il estoit franc, ouvert, bon, liberal, et doux;
Des Muses le sejour, sa table ouverte a tous
Chacun jour se bordoit d'une sçavante trope
Des plus rares esprits, l'eslite de l'Europe.

Open he was, frank, liberal, and kind;
And at his table, every Muse combined
To greet all comers, and each day did sit
Those throughout Europe famousest for wit.

Philippe Desportes was born at Chartres, in 1546; and died at his Abbey of Bonport, in Normandy, on the fifth of October, 1606. Charles IX. presented him with eight thousand crowns for his poem of Rodomont; and for one of his sonnets, he was remunerated with the Abbey of Tiron. It was a piping time for the Muses. Of the wealth, which thus flowed in upon him, he was as generous as his eulogist has described him. Almost all the contemporary poets were his friends; and those amongst them who stood in need of his assistance, did not seek it in vain.

JEAN BERTAUT.

THE edition of Bertaut's poems, which I met with in the old French library, was entitled, Recueil des Oeuvres Poetiques de J. Bertaut, Abbé d'Aunay, et premier Aumonier de la Royne. Seconde edition. Paris, 1605. The reader will not expect much imagination in copies of verses written on such subjects as The Conversion of the King, The Reduction of Amiens, A Discourse presented to the King on his going to Picardy to fight against the Spaniard, A Discourse to the King on the Conference held at Fontainebleau; and there is about as much poetry in them as in those by Waller, Dryden, and Addison,