Jean Antoine de Baif[197] was a man of more varied talent than Belleau, and his history and personality are more interesting. He was the natural son of Lazare de Baif, French ambassador at Venice, and of a noble lady of that city. Marriage was impossible, for Lazare de Baif, who was himself a man of letters, was in orders; but he did his best for his son, and in 1547, when he was still very young, left him a considerable fortune. Baif was, except Jodelle, the youngest member of the Pleiade, but he early distinguished himself by his expertness in the classical languages. He began in French, like the majority of his school, with a collection of sonnets and other pieces, entitled _Les Amours de Meline_, and he followed them up with the _Amours de Francine_. Francine is said to have had over her predecessor the advantage or disadvantage of existing. Baif then turned to the new theatre, which his comrade Jodelle had introduced, and translated or adapted several plays of Plautus, Terence, and Sophocles, but these will be noticed elsewhere. He returned to poetry proper in _Les Passe-Temps_, a poetical miscellany of merit. Lastly, in 1581, appeared a curious work, entitled _Les Mimes_, composed of octosyllabic dizains, half-moral, half-satirical in tone and subject. Baif, who was thought by some of his contemporaries to write even better in Latin than in French, was a chief defender of the often-mooted though preposterous plan of adjusting modern languages to the exact metres of the ancients. This idea, which somewhat later seduced no less a man than Spenser for a time, and with him many of the brightest wits in England, is perhaps almost more hopeless in French than in our own tongue, owing to the omnipotence of accent and the habit of slurring almost all the syllables of a word except one. But it was frequently entertained at different times through the century, and is said by Agrippa d'Aubigne to have been started as early as 1530 by a certain Mousset, of whom there is no other trace. Baif, who was also a spelling reformer, wrote a good deal of verse in the metres he advocated, but with no greater success than the other adventurous persons who have attempted the same _tour de force_. He is also said to have conceived the idea of an Academy, and to have in many other ways shown himself an active and ardent reformer of letters. It is for this alertness of spirit and general proficiency in literary craftsmanship that Baif is memorable, rather than for supreme or even remarkable poetical power. His epitaphs are among his best work, probably owing to his careful study of the hardly-to-be-surpassed examples of this kind of composition which the classical languages afford. He was a diligent panegyrist of country life and country ways, but no single work of his in this class comes up to the masterpieces of Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Belleau. Range, variety, and inventiveness of spirit are Baif's chief merits. [Sidenote: Daurat, Jodelle, Pontus de Tyard.]