and careful examiners have found more than three hundred examples of such words in his verse. As the French have not chosen to make use of a freedom legitimate enough in a language which contains such words as _marche-pied_ and _aigredoux_, Du Bartas has suffered for his boldness. It is easy enough to find pedantry and bad taste in him; and it would be easy, by confining attention to the “Pindaric” side of Ronsard, to show that he was a stilted and pompous writer. But it is no less the case that there is a vehement grandeur in Du Bartas which is painfully rare in the correct poetry of France. It may be fairly said that if the quality of the French mind, which Frenchmen call “le bon sens français,” achieved one of its triumphs when it wholly rejected Du Bartas, it also condemned its literature to possess no Milton. When it is your exclusive ambition to be without fault, to be merely correct, your safest course is to abstain. If you will keep from the “wine cup” and “the red gold,” from love, adventure, and ambition, then you may “easy live and quiet die”; but you will hardly do anything passionate. Nothing is so “correct” as cold water. [SN: _Agrippa D’Aubigné._] Theodore Agrippa D’Aubigné, the contemporary, friend, and kindred spirit of Du Bartas, was a gentleman of an ancient family in Saintonge. His long life was full of agitation and many-sided activity. Jean D’Aubigné, his father, was Chancellor of Navarre. The son was born in 1550, and received a careful education, by which he unquestionably profited, though we may doubt the exact accuracy of his own assertion that he could read Greek, Latin, and Hebrew at the age of six. Jean D’Aubigné was a vehement Calvinist. It is one of the best-known stories of the time that he made his son, then a mere boy, swear, in the presence of the decapitated heads of La Renaudie and the other chiefs of the conspiracy of Amboise, to revenge their deaths. D’Aubigné kept this “oath of Hannibal” to the end of his life. When only nine years old he risked the stake, “his horror of the Mass having overcome his fear of the fire.” He took part in the defence of Orleans in the first war of Religion, and from thence escaped to Geneva, where he studied under Theodore Beza. At a later time he served under Condé, and then attached himself to Henry of Navarre. It was his good fortune to be in hiding for a duel when the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew took place. He remained with Henry at the French Court. During this period he seems to have so far departed from the rigidity of his principles as to bow down with his master “in the temple of Rimmon.” At this time he certainly met Ronsard, and fell under his influence. He wrote court poetry, composed a tragedy, and belonged to the Academy of Baïf. When Henry of Navarre made his escape, D’Aubigné accompanied him. The Bearnais had no more daring or faithful servant, and none who spoke to him with a ruder frankness. The abjuration of Henry IV. was a bitter