Indeed, Caen appears at all times to have been fruitful in literary characters.  Huet enumerates no fewer than one hundred and thirty-seven, whom he considers worthy of being recorded among the eminent men of France.  The greater part of them are necessarily unknown to us in England; and allowance must be made for a man who is writing upon a subject, in which self-love may be considered as in some degree involved; the glory of our townsmen shining by reflection upon ourselves.  A portion, however, of the number, are men whose claims to celebrity will not be denied.—­Such, in the fifteenth century, were the poets John and Clement Marot; such was the celebrated physician, Dalechamps, to whom naturalists are indebted for the Historia Plantarum; such the laborious lexicographer, Constantin; and, not to extend the catalogue needlessly, such above all was Malherbe.  The medal that has been struck at Caen in honor of this great man, at the expence of Monsieur de Lair, bears for its epigraph, the three first words of Boileau’s eulogium—­“Enfin Malherbe vint.”—­The same inscription is also to be seen upon the walls of the library.  So expressive a beginning prepares the reader for a corresponding sequel; and I should be guilty of injustice towards this eminent writer, were I not to quote to you the passage at length.—­

   “Enfin, Malherbe vint, et le premier en France
    Fit sentir dans les vers une juste cadence: 
    D’un mot mis en sa place enseigna le pouvoir,
    Et reduisit la muse aux regles du devoir. 
    Par ce sage ecrivain, la langue reparee,
    N’offrit plus rien de rude a l’oreille epuree. 
    Les stances avec grace apprirent a tomber,
    Et le Vers sur le Vers n’osa plus enjamber.”

Wace and Baudius, though not born at Caen, have contributed to its honor, by their residence here.  Baudius was appointed to the professorship of law in the university, by the President de Thou; but he disagreed with his colleagues, and soon removed to Leyden, where he filled the chair of history till his death.  Some of his earlier letters, in the collection published by Elzevir, are dated from Caen.  His Iambi, directed against his brethren of this university, are scarcely to be exceeded for severity, by the bitterest specimens of a style proverbially bitter.  Their excessive virulence defeated the writer’s aim; but there is an elegance in the Latinity of Baudius, and a degree of feeling in his sentiments, which will ensure a permanent existence to his compositions, and especially to his poems.—­He it was who called forth the severe saying of Bayle, that “many men of learning render themselves contemptible in the places where they live, while they are admired where they are known only by their writings.”—­Wace was a native of Jersey, but an author only at Caen.  The most celebrated of his works is Le Roman de Rou et des Normans, written in French verse.  He dedicated this romance to our Henry IInd, who rewarded him with a stall in the cathedral at Bayeux.