Next to Ronsard, and perhaps above him, if uniform excellence rather than bulk and range of work is considered, ranks Joachim du Bellay[195]. He was a connection, though it does not seem quite clear what connection, of the Cardinal du Bellay to whom Rabelais was so long attached, and whose house included other illustrious members. Probably he was a cousin of the cardinal and of his two brothers the memoir writers. His youth was rendered troublesome by illness and law difficulties, but at last he was able with Ronsard, whose junior he was by a little, to give himself up to study under Daurat. His prose manifesto has already been dealt with, and almost immediately afterwards he in some sort anticipated Ronsard's poetical carrying out of his principles by a volume of _Sonnets to Olive_, the anagram of a certain Mademoiselle de Viole. The sonnet, however, was not such an absolute novelty as the ode, having been introduced already by Mellin de Saint Gelais. Shortly afterwards he went to Italy with the Cardinal du Bellay, a proceeding which did not bring him good luck. The intriguing diplomacy of the papal court displeased him, and he soon lost his cousin's favour. A volume of sonnets entitled _Regrets_, full of vigour and poetry, dates from this time. But Du Bellay, deprived of the protection of the most powerful member of his family, again fell into difficulties, and finally died in 1560 at the age of thirty-five. His Roman sojourn has given birth to perhaps the finest of his works, _Les Antiquites de Rome_, Englished by Spenser under the slightly altered title of 'The Ruins of Rome.' Du Bellay's works are not extensive, and indeed they could hardly be so, considering the shortness of his life and the interruptions of business and study which even that short life underwent. But he is undoubtedly the member of the group whose work keeps at the highest level. Nor is his excellence limited to one or two tones. For grace and simplicity his _Vanneur_, his _Epitaphe d'un Chat_, and several others of his _Jeux Rustiques_ challenge comparison. He had a strong vein of satire, which he showed in denouncing fawning poetasters as well as the corrupt and intriguing hangers on of the Papal court. His sonnets to Olive have the finest flavour of the peculiarly cultivated and graceful voluptuousness which has been noted as one of the distinguishing marks of the French Renaissance. His _Antiquites de Rome_ exhibit even more strongly another of those distinguishing marks, the melancholy sense of death, destruction, and nothingness; indeed, as the _Heptameron_ is the typical prose work of this period, so Du Bellay's poems may be taken as its typical poetry. He has been called the Apollo of the Pleiade, but he should with justice be called its Mercury as well, for, as he was perhaps its best poet, so he was certainly its best prose writer. It is unlucky that he was less favoured by fate and fortune than any other of the greater writers of the century.