the original "Tigre"
which cost the lives of Lhomme and Dehors, it needs only a very
superficial comparison of the two to convince us that the poem is
only an elaboration, not indeed without merit, of the more nervous
prose epistle. The author of the latter was without doubt the
distinguished _Francois Hotman_. This point has now been
established beyond controversy. As early as in 1562 the Guises had
discovered this; for a treatise published that year in Paris
(Religionis et Regis adversus exitiosas Calvini, Bezae, et Ottomani
conjuratorum factiones defensio) uses the expressions: "Hic te,
Ottomane, excutere incipio. Scis enim ex cujus officina _Tigris_
prodiit, liber certe tigride parente, id est homine barbaro,
impuro, impio, ingrato, malevolo, maledico dignissimus. Tu te
istius libelli auctorem ... audes venditare?" While an expression
in a letter written by John Sturm, Rector of the University of
Strasbourg, July, 1562, to Hotman himself (Tygris, immanis illa
bellua quam tu _hic_ contra Cardinalis existimationem divulgari
curasti), not only confirms the statement of the hostile Parisian
pamphleteer, but indicates Strasbourg as the place of publication
(Read, pp. 132-139).

The "Epistre envoyee au Tigre de la France" betrays a writer well
versed in classical oratory. Some of the best of modern French
critics accord to it the first rank among works of the kind
belonging to the sixteenth century. They contrast its
sprightliness, its terse, telling phrases with the heavy, dragging
constructions that disfigure the prose of contemporary works.
Without copying in a servile fashion the Catilinarian speeches of
Cicero, the "Tigre" breathes their spirit and lacks none of their
force. Take, for example, the introductory sentences: "Tigre
enrage! Vipere venimeuse! Sepulcre d'abomination! Spectacle de
malheur! Jusques a quand sera-ce que tu abuseras de la jeunesse de
nostre Roy? Ne mettras-tu jamais fin a ton ambition demesuree, a
tes impostures, a tes larcins? Ne vois-tu pas que tout le monde les
scait, les entend, les cognoist? Qui penses-tu qui ignore ton
detestable desseing et qui ne lise en ton visage le malheur de tous
tes [nos] jours, la ruine de ce Royaume, et la mort de nostre Roy?"
Or read the lines in which the writer sums up a portion of t