R (1544-1590), French poet, was
born near Auch in 1544. He was employed by Henry IV. of France in
England, Denmark and Scotland; and he commanded a troop of horse in
Gascony, under the marshal de Martingan. He was a convinced Huguenot,
and cherished the idea of writing a great religious epic in which
biblical characters and Christian sentiment were to supplant the pagan
_mise en scene_ then in fashion. His first epic, _Judith_, appeared in a
volume entitled _La Muse chretienne_ (Bordeaux, 1573). This was followed
five years later by his principal work, _La Sepmaine_, a poem on the
creation of the world. This work was held by admirers of du Bartas to
put him on a level with Ronsard, and thirty editions of it were printed
within six years after its appearance. Its religious tone and fanciful
style made it a great favourite in England, where the author was called
the "divine" du Bartas, and placed on an equality with Ariosto. Spenser,
Hall and Ben Jonson, all speak in the highest terms of what seems to us
a most uninteresting poem. King James VI. of Scotland tried his
"prentice hand" at the translation of du Bartas's poem _L'Uranie_, and
the compliment was returned by the French writer, who translated, as _La
Lepanthe_, James's poem on the battle of Lepanto. Du Bartas began the
publication of the _Seconde Semaine_ in 1584. He aimed at a great epic
which should stretch from the story of the creation to the coming of the
Messiah. Of this great scheme he only executed a part, marked by a
certain elevation of style, but he did not succeed in acclimatizing the
religious epic in France. The work is spoiled by a constant tendency to
moralize, and is filled with the indiscriminate information that passed
under the name of science in the 16th century. Du Bartas, perhaps more
than any other writer, brought the Ronsardist tradition into dispute. He
introduced many unwieldy compounds foreign to the genius of the French
language, and in his borrowings from old French, from provincial
dialects and from Latin, he failed to show the sure instinct and
prudence of Ronsard and du Bellay. He was also guilty of reduplicating
the first syllables of words, producing such expressions as
_pepetiller_, _sousouflantes_. Du Bartas died in July 1590 in Paris from
wounds received at the battle of Ivry.

Joshua Sylvester translated the _Sepmaine_ in 1598; other English
translations from du Bartas are _The Historie of Judith ..._ (1584),
by Thomas