"L'effect Est faict: La bel-le Pucel-le," etc. So Spaniards, Gascons, Provencaux, Italians, rhyme, and all those of the south who have retained their glorious "a's" and "o's". As for the spirit of it--God bless him!--it is a subject for perpetual merriment to think of such a man's being taken for a true Huguenot and enmeshed, even for a while, in the nasty cobweb of Geneva. But in the last thing I shall quote, when he is Bacchic for the vine, you will see it still more. _NOEL._ _Une pastourelle gentille Et ung bergier en ung verger L'autrhyer en jouant a la bille S'entredisoient, pour abreger: Roger Bergier Legiere Bergiere, C'est trop a la bille joue; Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._ _Te souvient-il plus du prophete Qui nous dit cas de si hault faict, Que d'une pucelle parfaicte Naistroit ung enfant tout parfaict? L'effect Est faict: La belle Pucelle A eu ung filz du ciel voue: Chantons Noe, Noe, Noe._ TWO EPIGRAMS. (_The 41st of the First Book and the 46th of the Second._) These two epigrams are again but examples of the readiness, the wit, the hard surface of Marot, and they needed no more poetry than was in Voltaire or Swift, but they needed style. It was this absolute and standard style which his contemporaries chiefly remarked in him: the marvel was, that being mainly such an epigrammatist and scholar, and praised and supported only in that guise, he should have carried in him any, or rather so much, fire. The first was his reply to a Dixaine the king's sister had sent him. The second explains itself. _TWO EPIGRAMS._ _Mes creanciers, qui de dixains n'ont cure, Ont leu le vostre; et sur ce leur ay dict: "Sire Michel, sire Bonaventure, La soeur du Roy a pour moy faict ce dit." Lors eulx cuydans que fusse en grand credict, M'ont appele monsieur a cry et cor, Et m'a valu vostre escript aultant qu'or; Car promis m'ont non seulement d'attendre, Mais d'en prester, foy de marchant, encor, Et j'ay promis, foy de Clement, d'en prendre._ _Paris, tu m'as faict maints alarmes, Jusque a me poursuivre a la mort: Je n'ay que blasonne tes armes: Un ver, quand on le presse, il mord! Encor la coulpe m'en remord. Ne scay de toy comment sera; Mais de nous deux le diable emport Celuy qui recommencera._ TO HIS LADY IN SICKNESS. (_The 16th Epistle._)