obscurity of Ronsard,” says M. Guizot, in his Corneille et son Temps, “is not that of a subtle mind torturing itself to make something out of nothing; it is the obscurity of a full and a powerful mind, which is embarrassed by its own riches, and has not learned to regulate the use of them.  Furnished, by his reading of the ancients, with that which was wanting in our poetry, Ronsard thought he could perceive in his lofty and really poetical imagination what was needed to supply it; he cast his eyes in all directions, with the view of enriching the domain of poetry.  ‘Thou wilt do well to pick dexterously,’ he says, in his abridgment of the art of French poetry, ’and adopt to thy work the most expressive words in the dialects of our own France; there is no need to care whether the vocables are Gascon, or Poitevin, or Norman, or Mancese, or Lyonnese, or of other districts, provided that they are good, and properly express what thou wouldst say.’  Ronsard was too bold in extending his conquests over the classical languages; it was that exuberance of ideas, that effervescence of a genius not sufficiently master over its conceptions, which brought down upon him, in after times, the contempt of the writers who, in the seventeenth century, followed, with more wisdom and taste, the road which he had contributed to open.  ‘He is not,’ said Balzac, ’quite a poet; he has the first beginnings and the making of a poet; we see in his works nascent and half-animated portions of a body which is in formation, but which does not care to arrive at completion.’ "

This body is that of French poetry; Ronsard traced out its first lineaments, full of elevation, play of fancy, images, and a poetic fire unknown before him.  He was the first to comprehend the dignity which befits grand subjects, and which earned him in his day the title of Prince of poets.  He lived in stormy times, not much adapted for poetry, and steeped in the most cruel tragedies; he felt deeply the misfortunes of his country rent by civil war, when he wrote,—­

          “A cry of dread, a din, a thundering sound
          Of men and clashing harness roars around;
          Peoples ’gainst peoples furiously rage;
          Cities with cities deadly battle wage;
          Temples and towns—­one heap of ashes lie;
          Justice and equity fade out and die
          Unchecked the soldier’s wicked will is done
          With human blood the outraged churches run;
          Bedridden Age, disbedded, perisheth,
          And over all grins the pale face of Death.”