character, who knows the special tendency of the nation to drop from time to time into a sterile self-admiration, and an easy confidence that it is the all-sufficient wonder of the world, can doubt its wisdom. Certainly, whatever may be thought of it in the abstract, it was justified of its children. The first of these was, as has been said, Ronsard's _Odes_, published in 1550. These he followed up, in 1552, by _Les Amours de Cassandre_, in 1553 by a volume of _Hymnes_, as well as by _Le Bocage Royal_, _Les Amours de Marie_, sonnets, etc., all of which were, in 1560, republished in a collected edition of four volumes. From the first Ronsard had been a very popular poet at court, where, according to a well-known anecdote, Marguerite de Savoie, the second of the Valois Marguerites, snatched his first volume from Mellin de Saint Gelais, who was reading it in a designed tone of burlesque, and reading it herself to her brother Henry II. and the court, obtained a verdict at once for the young poet. The accession of Charles IX. brought Ronsard still more into favour, and during the next ten years he produced many courtly poems of the occasional kind, besides others to suit his own pleasure. In 1572 the first part of his most ambitious, but perhaps least successful, work appeared. This was the _Franciade_, a dull epic. At the death of Charles, Ronsard retired to his native province, where he had an abbacy, Croix-Val. Here all his poetical powers returned, and in his last _Amours, Sonnets to Helene_, and other pieces, some of his very best work is to be found. The year before his death he produced an edition of his works much altered, but by no means invariably improved.