[111] The best edition of Brantôme is that of the Société de l’Histoire de France. Prosper Mérimée edited an incomplete edition in the “Bibliothèque Elzévirienne.” Partial reprints are numerous. [112] Ed. Brunet et Champollion, 1875-1881. [113] Ed. M. Ch. Read, Paris, 1880, in Jouaust’s “Librairie des Bibliophiles.” [114] The standard edition of Montaigne’s _Essays_ is still that of Le Clerc, reprinted in 1865-66. There have been two recent reprints of our own excellent and contemporary translation by John Florio; one, very handsome, in Mr Henley’s “Tudor Translations”; and another, cheap and pretty, edited by Mr Waller, in six small volumes. [115] Ed. Amaury Duval, 1828. [116] Œuvres Complètes, 1641. CHAPTER XII. THE LATER RENAISSANCE IN ITALY. THE LATER RENAISSANCE IN ITALY--TORQUATO TASSO--HIS WORK--THE ‘GERUSALEMME LIBERATA’--GIORDANO BRUNO--LITERARY CHARACTER OF HIS WORK--GIAMBATTISTA GUARINI. The Later Renaissance, which was so great in Spain and in England, and in France was important, was elsewhere a time of decline, of silence, or of very faint beginnings. The literature of Germany has been broken into periods of vigour, with long intervals of silence between. The second half of the sixteenth century was one of these. Among the smaller peoples, with Holland at their head, there was as yet little more than the attempt to produce literature. [SN: _The Later Renaissance in Italy._] The case of Italy was more fortunate than that of Germany. She at least can count two of her most interesting sons among the men of letters of this time, Tasso and Bruno. But here the decadence had begun, and had made no small progress towards the sheer dexterous futility which was to be personified in Marini. The spirit of the Renaissance was worn out, and was replaced by mere accomplishment, and by the nervous fear which is visible all through the life of Tasso. The Roman Catholic reaction was not favourable to literature. It brought with it the tyranny, or at least the predominance, of a religion which could no longer inspire. The Popes of the time endeavoured to make Rome moral by methods which might have commended themselves to the strictest sect of the Puritans; and commendable as this effort to restrain the licence of the earlier Renaissance and the period of the Italian wars may have been, still it was an example of the attempt to repress which was being made everywhere in Italy, and which succeeded, since it had only to deal with men of a weak generation. Giordano Bruno was, indeed, indisciplined enough; but he spent the active part of his life out of Italy, and when he did return, his fate was a severe warning against independence of character. [SN: _Torquato Tasso._]