Was it knowledge of this passage, Master, or ignorance of everything else, that made certain of the common steadfast dunces of our days speak of thee as if thou hadst been a starveling, neglected poetaster, jealous forsooth, of Maitre Francoys Rabelais?  See how ignorantly M. Fleury writes, who teaches French literature withal to them of Muscovy, and hath indited a Life of Rabelais.  ’Rabelais e’tait reve’tu d’un emploi honorable; Ronsard e’tait traite’ en subalterne,’ quoth this wondrous professor.  What!  Pierre de Ronsard, a gentleman of a noble house, holding the revenue of many abbeys, the friend of Mary Stuart, of the Duc d’Orle’ans, of Charles IX., he is traite’ en subalterne, and is jealous of a frocked or unfrocked manant like Maitre Francoys!  And then this amazing Fleury falls foul of thine epitaph on Mai’tre Francoys and cries, ’Ronsard a voulu faire des vers me’chants; il n’a fait que de me’chants vers.’  More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, ’If the good Rabelais had returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the wine, he would, methinks, have laughed heartily.’  But what shall be said of a Professor like the egregious M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was despised at Court?  Was there a party at tennis when the king would not fain have had thee on his side, declaring that he ever won when Ronsard was his partner?  Did he not give thee benefices, and many priories, and call thee his father in Apollo, and even, so they say, bid thee sit down beside him on his throne?  Away, ye scandalous folk, who tell us that there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth.  Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling apothecary, who put forth his fables in 1697, a century and a half after Mai’tre Francoys died.  Bayle quoted this fellow in a note, and ye all steal the tattle one from another in your dull manner, and know not whence it comes, nor even that Bayle would none of it and mocked its author.  With so little knowledge is history written, and thus doth each chattering brook of a ‘Life’ swell with its tribute ‘that great Mississippi of falsehood,’ Biography.

IV.

To Herodotus.

To Herodotus of Halicarnassus, greeting. —­Concerning the matters set forth in your histories, and the tales you tell about both Greeks and barbarians, whether they be true, or whether they be false, men dispute not little but a great deal.  Wherefore I, being concerned to know the verity, did set forth to make search in every manner, and came in my quest even unto the ends of the earth.  For there is an island of the Cimmerians beyond the Straits of Heracles, some three days’ voyage to a ship that hath a fair following wind in her sails; and there it is said that men know many things from of old:  thither, then, I came in my inquiry.  Now, the island is not small, but large, greater than the whole of Hellas;