art of dialogue. If any comedy of the period
stands out as superior to its fellows, it is _Les Contents_ (1584),
by Odet de Turnebe, a free imitation of Italian models united with
something imported from the Spanish _Celestina_. Its intrigue is an
Italian imbroglio; but there are lively and natural scenes, such as
can but rarely be found among the predecessors of Moliere. In general
the comedy of the sixteenth century is wildly confused in plot,
conventional in its types of character, and too often as grossly
indecent as the elder farces. Before the century closed, the pastoral
drama had been discovered, and received influences from both Italy
and Spain; the soil was being prepared for that delicate flower of
poetry, but as yet its nurture was little understood, nor indeed can
it be said to have ever taken kindly to the climate of France.

While on the one hand the tendencies of the Pleiade may be described
as exotic, going forth, as they did, to capture the gifts of classical
and Italian literature, on the other hand they pleaded strenuously
that thus only could French literature attain its highest
possibilities. In the scholarship of the time, side by side with the
humanism which revived and restored the culture of Greece and Rome,
was another humanism which was essentially national. The historical
origins of France were studied for the first time with something of
a critical spirit by CLAUDE FAUCHET in his _Antiquites Gauloises et
Francoises_ (1579-1601). His _Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et
Poesie Francoise_, in spite of its errors, was an effort towards
French philology; and in calling attention to the trouveres and their
works, Fauchet may be considered a remote master of the school of
modern literary research. ESTIENNE PASQUIER (1529-1615), the jurist
who maintained in a famous action the cause of the University against
the Jesuits, in his _Recherches de la France_ treated with learning
and vigour various important points in French history--civil and
ecclesiastical--language, literary history, and the foundation of
universities. HENRI ESTIENNE (1531-98), who entered to the full into
the intoxication of classical humanism, was patriotic in his
reverence for his native tongue. In a trilogy of little treatises
(1565-79), written with much spirit, he maintained that of modern
languages the French has the nearest affinity to the Greek, attempted
to establish its superiority to Italian, and much more to Spanish,