his days as a wanderer on the face of the earth, the homeless pilgrim of a cause he no wise had at heart.  He was accused by the Sorbonne, and ultimately driven into the profession, of the heresy of Calvinism.  Expelled from the bosom of the church, he sought an uncongenial refuge among the apostles of the new faith, only to be thrust forth from the city, for no more heinous offence apparently than that playing back-gammon with the Prisoner of Chillon.  He died at Turin in 1544.

But, however fascinating Marot may be as an historical figure, he was in no sense a great poet.  His chief merit in literature, apart from his often delicate epigrams, his elegant badinage and his graceful if at times facile verse, lies in the power he possesses, in common with Garcilaso and Spenser, of treating the allegorical pastoral without entirely losing the charm of naive simplicity and genuine feeling.  In his Eclogue au Roi he addresses Francis under the name of Pan, while in the Pastoureau chrestien he applies the same name to the Deity; yet in either case there is a justness of sentiment underlying the convention which saves the verse from degenerating into mere sycophancy or blasphemy.  His chief claim to notice as a pastoral writer is his authorship of an eclogue on the death of Loyse de Savoye, the mother of Francis; a poem through which, more than any other, he influenced his greater English disciple, and thereby acquired the importance he possesses for our present inquiry.

Marot, however, whose inspiration, in so far as it was not born of his own genius, appears to be chiefly derived from Vergil, whose first eclogue he translated in his youth, was far from being the only poet who wrote bucolic verse or bore other witness to pastoral influence.  France was not behind other nations in embracing the Italian models.  Margaret, as I have said, imitated Sannazzaro in her Histoire des satyres et nymphes de Diane.  The Arcadia was translated in 1544.  Du Bellay was familiar with the original and honoured its author with imitation, translation, and even a respectful mention of it in his famous Defense.  Elsewhere he asks: 

    Qui fera taire la musette
    Du pasteur neapolitain?

The first part of Belleau’s Bergerie appeared in 1565, the complete work, including a piscatory poem, in 1572.  On the stage Nicolas Filleul anticipated the regular Italian drama in a dramatized eclogue entitled Les Ombres in 1566.  Later Nicolas de Montreux, better known under the name of Ollenix du Mont-Sacre, a writer of a religious cast, and author of a romantic comedy on the story of Potiphar’s wife, composed three pastoral plays, Athlette, Diane, and Arimene, which appeared in 1585, 1592, and 1597 respectively.  They are conventional pastorals on the Italian model, futile in plot and commonplace in style.  He was also the author of the Bergerie de Juliette, a romance published in 1592, which