He gives to Maurice Scève the honour of captaining the leading ship of this fleet; and then follow all the well-known names (and some not so well known) of the school proper, the catalogue being capped by some extremely interesting and valuable critical-anecdotic remarks on the greater writers, especially Ronsard himself. [Sidenote: _and criticism of contemporary French poetry._] One could hardly be more just on this difficult[191] poet than is Pasquier, who allows him not merely grandeur but sweetness to almost any extent, “quand il a voulu _doux couler_”; calls him _grand poète entre poètes_, but admits that he was “très mauvais censeur et aristarque de ses livres.” Then he partly returns upon his steps in another chapter, where he approaches French poetry from a different side, considering especially its verse-structure, with examples from Marot downwards, and dwelling on the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes which Ronsard had sanctioned. On this matter the historical equity of Pasquier is especially noticeable, as opposed to the somewhat excessive correctness (according to pedagogic ideas of the correct) shown by most Frenchmen. He declines to take a side between “this new diligence and the old nonchalance.” And he makes the very acute observation that Marot only allowed himself this nonchalance in verse _which was not to be sung_—a proof, as he remarks, that though Master Clement might not be Ronsard’s equal in learning, he had a _facilité d’esprit admirable_. In yet another passage he compares French with Italian poetry, and, emboldened by this, with Latin itself; taking the patriotic side with equal courage and ingenuity, and ending with the citation of some of his own Latin verses on Ronsard, and with the sigh, “De toute cette grande compagnie qui mit la main à la plume sous Henri II. il restait quatre, Théodore de Bèze, Ponthus de Thyard, Louis le Caron, et moi.” Then, after a short appendix-chapter on classical metres in French (which he would like to approve, but seems in two minds about), he passes to language, on his treatment of which we cannot dwell. But he never allows himself to stray far from literature, and makes a pretext for returning at some length to his beloved _Pathelin_. ----- Footnote 191: Difficult, that is, to appraise critically—not to understand. ----- It may be observed that Pasquier, though interested in letters to an extreme degree, enjoys more than he judges—not perhaps the worst defect of the critic.