great Frenchmen whose labours contributed in other directions to promote the growth of French literature. Jean Calvin, a native of Noyon, in Picardy, had published in Latin, in 1536, when only twenty-seven years of age, his greatest work, both from a literary and theological point of view, "The Institution of the Christian Religion," which would be accepted as the product of full maturity of intellect rather than the firstfruits of the career of a youth. What the Pléiade had done to create a French language adequate for the highest expression of poetry Calvin did to enable facility in argument and discussion. A Latin scholar of the highest order, avoiding in his compositions a tendency to declamation, he developed a stateliness of phrase which was marked by clearness and simplicity. Théodore Beza, historian, translator, and dramatist, was another contributor to the literature of this period. Jacques Amyot had commenced his translations from "Ethiopica," treating of the royal and chaste loves of Theagenes and Chariclea three years before Du Bellay's manifesto appeared. Montaigne, referring to his translation of Plutarch, accorded to him the palm over all French writers, not only for the simplicity and purity of his vocabulary, in which he surpassed all others, but for his industry and depth of learning. In another field Michel Eyquem Sieur de Montaigne had arisen. His moral essays found a counterpart in the biographical essays of the Abbé de Brantôme. Agrippa D'Aubigné, prose writer, historian, and poet; Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas, the Protestant Ronsard whose works were more largely translated into English than those of any other French writer; Philippes Desportes and others might be mentioned as forming part of that brilliant circle of writers who had during a comparatively short period helped to achieve such a high position for the language and literature of France. * * * * *