Of most of the poets who followed “the conquering banner” of their Prince, Ronsard, as of the lesser learned poets of Spain, no detailed mention can be made here. The abundance of literary talent which has seldom been wanting in France accounts sufficiently for the “crop of poets” which sprang up “at the summons of Du Bellay, and under the hand of Ronsard.” That time of war, oppression, and conspiracy might have seemed to be “wholly consecrated to the Muses.” Olivier de Magny (d. 1560), Jacques Tahureau (1527-1555), Nicolas Denisot (1515-1559), called “le Comte d’Alsinois” by anagram, Louis le Caron (1536-1617), who called himself Charondas, Estienne de la Boetie (1530-1563), the friend of Montaigne, who indeed saved him from oblivion, and others whom it were tedious to mention, were men of talent, respectable members of the army of minor poets, which in nations of considerable literary faculty, and in times of literary vigour, has never been wanting. One really original poet usually makes many who are accomplished, but who without the example might never have written, and would certainly not have written so well. It was perhaps the necessity for finding a rhyme to _haut_ which induced Boileau to quote, from among all the followers of Ronsard, the names of “Desportes and Bertaut.” His dogmatic assertion that they were made “more restrained” by the fall of Ronsard is perfectly unfounded. Desportes (1546-1606), who in character was a courtier of the baser kind, owed his great popularity at Court to the fact that he was an echo of one part of Ronsard.[93] Bertaut (1552-1611), another courtier, was also another Desportes. Their greater measure was mainly due to the fact that they represented the decadence of their school. There are, however, three poets of the later sixteenth century in France who stand apart, though all are fairly describable as followers of Ronsard, and to one of them it was given, in the French phrase, to “tell its fact” to the meticulous criticism of Malherbe. They are Du Bartas, Aubigné, and Regnier. [SN: _Du Bartas._]