constructed that medium for themselves, and no force of the reaction which they provoked was able to undo their work. Adverse criticism and the natural course of time rejected much that they had added. The charming diminutives they loved so much went out of fashion; their compounds (sometimes it must be confessed, justly) had their letters of naturalization promptly cancelled; many a gorgeous adjective, including some which could trace their pedigree to the earliest ages of French literature, but which bore an unfortunate likeness to the new-comers, was proscribed. But for all that no language has ever had its destiny influenced more powerfully and more beneficially by a small literary clique than the language of France was influenced by the example and disciples of that Ronsard whom for two centuries it was the fashion to deride and decry. The Ronsardists. Du Bartas. D'Aubigne. In a sketch such as the present it is impossible to give a separate account of individual writers, the more important of whom will be found treated under their own names. The effort of the "Pleiade" proper was continued and shared by a considerable number of minor poets, some of them, as has been already noted, belonging to different groups and schools. Olivier de Magny (d. 1560) and Louise Labe (b. 1526) were poets and lovers, the lady deserving far the higher rank in literature. There is more depth of passion in the writings of "La Belle Cordiere," as this Lyonnese poetess was called, than in almost any of her contemporaries. Jacques Tahureau (1527-1555) scarcely deserves to be called a minor poet. There is less than the usual hyperbole in the contemporary comparison of him to Catullus, and he reminds an Englishman of the school represented nearly a century later by Carew, Randolph and Suckling. The title of a part of his poem--_Mignardises amoureuses de l'admiree_--is characteristic both of the style and of the time. Jean Doublet (c. 1528-c. 1580), Amadis Jamyn (c. 1530-1585), and Jean de la Taille (1540-1608) deserve mention at least as poets, but two other writers require a longer allusion. Guillaume de Salluste, seigneur du Bartas (1544-1590), whom Sylvester's translation, Milton's imitation, and the copious citations of Southey's _Doctor_, have made known if not familiar in England, was partly a disciple and partly a rival of Ronsard. His poem of _Judith_ was eclipsed by his better-known _La Divine Sepmaine_ or epic of the Creation. Du Bartas was a great user and abuser of the double compounds alluded to above, but his style possesses much stateliness, and has a peculiar solemn eloquence which he shared with the other French Calvinists, and which was derived from the study partly of Calvin and partly of the Bible. Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne (1552-1630), like du Bartas, was a Calvinist. His genius was of a more varied character. He wrote sonnets and odes as became a Ronsardist, but his chief poetical work is the satirical poem of _Les Tragiques_, in