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By Root 19825 0

’ and, in dedicating the collection to Toby Matthew, bishop of Durham, mentions that they were written a year before, while travelling in France. They are closely modelled on the two series of ‘Sonnets Spirituels’ which the Abbé Jacques de Billy published in Paris in 1573 and 1578 respectively. A long series of ‘Sonnets Spirituels’ written by Anne de Marquets, a sister of the Dominican Order, who died at Poissy in 1598, was first published in Paris in 1605. In 1594 George Chapman published ten sonnets in praise of philosophy, which he entitled ‘A Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy.’ In the opening poem he states that his aim was to dissuade poets from singing in sonnets ‘Love’s Sensual Empery.’ In 1597 Henry Locke (or Lok) appended to his verse-rendering of Ecclesiastes a collection of ‘Sundrie Sonets of Christian Passions, with other Affectionate Sonets of a Feeling Conscience.’ Lok had in 1593 obtained a license to publish ‘a hundred Sonnets on Meditation, Humiliation, and Prayer,’ but that work is not extant. In the volume of 1597 his sonnets on religious or philosophical themes number no fewer than three hundred and twenty-eight.

Thus in the total of sonnets published between 1591 and 1597 must be included at least five hundred sonnets addressed to patrons, and as many on philosophy and religion. The aggregate far exceeds two thousand.

X.—BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN FRANCE, 1550-1600.

Ronsard (1524-1585) and ‘La Pléiade.’ Desportes (1546-1606).

In the earlier years of the sixteenth century Melin de Saint-Gelais (1487-1558) and Clément Marot (1496-1544) made a few scattered efforts at sonnetteering in France; and Maurice Sève laid down the lines of all sonnet-sequences on themes of love in his dixains entitled ‘Délie’ (1544). But it was Ronsard (1524-1585), in the second half of the century, who first gave the sonnet a pronounced vogue in France. The sonnet was handled with the utmost assiduity not only by Ronsard, but by all the literary comrades whom he gathered round him, and on whom he bestowed the title of ‘La Pléiade.’ The leading aim that united Ronsard and his friends was the re-formation of the French language and literature on classical models. But they assimilated and naturalised in France not only much that was admirable in Latin and Greek poetry, but all that was best in the recent Italian literature. Although they were learned poets, Ronsard and the majority of his associates had a natural lyric vein, which gave their poetry the charms of freshness and spontaneity. The true members of ‘La Pléiade,’ according to Ronsard’s own statement, were, besides himself, Joachim du Bellay (1524-1560); Estienne Jodelle (1532-1573); Remy Belleau (1528-1577); Jean Dinemandy, usually known as Daurat or Dorat (1508-1588), Ronsard’s classical teacher in early life; Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1532-1589); and Ponthus de Thyard (1521-1605). Others of Ronsard’s literary allies are often loosely reckoned among the ‘Pléiade.’ These writers include Jean de la Péruse (1529-1554), Olivier de Magny (1530-1559), Amadis Jamyn (1538?-1585), Jean Passerat (1534-1602), Philippe Desportes (1546-1606), Estienne Pasquier (1529-1615), Scévole de Sainte-Marthe (1536-1623), and Jean Bertaut (1552-1611). These subordinate members of the ‘Pléiade’ were no less devoted to sonnetteering than the original members. Of those in this second rank, Desportes was most popular in France as well as in England. Although many of Desportes’s sonnets are graceful in thought and melodious in rhythm, most of them abound in overstrained conceits. Not only was Desportes a more slavish imitator of Petrarch than the members of the ‘Pléiade,’ but he encouraged numerous disciples to practise ‘Petrarchism,’ as the imitation of Petrarch was called, beyond healthful limits. Under the influence of Desportes the French sonnet became, during the latest years of the sixteenth century, little more than an empty and fantastic echo of the Italian.

Chief collections of French sonnets published between 1550 and 1584.

The following statistics will enable the reader to realise