ersion of the fourth book of the _Aeneid_, with other translations and
some occasional poems. In the next year he went to Rome as one of the
secretaries of Cardinal du Bellay. To the beginning of his four and a
half years' residence in Italy belong the forty-seven sonnets of his
_Antiquites de Rome_, which were rendered into English by Edmund Spenser
(_The Ruins of Rome_, 1591). These sonnets were more personal and less
imitative than the _Olive_ sequence, and struck a note which was revived
in later French literature by Volney and Chateaubriand. His stay in Rome
was, however, a real exile. His duties were those of an intendant. He
had to meet the cardinal's creditors and to find money for the expenses
of the household. Nevertheless he found many friends among Italian
scholars, and formed a close friendship with another exiled poet whose
circumstances were similar to his own, Olivier de Magny. Towards the end
of his sojourn in Rome he fell violently in love with a Roman lady
called Faustine, who appears in his poetry as Columba and Columbelle.
This passion finds its clearest expression in the Latin poems. Faustine
was guarded by an old and jealous husband, and du Bellay's eventual
conquest may have had something to do with his departure for Paris at
the end of August 1557. In the next year he published the poems he had
brought back with him from Rome, the Latin _Poemata_, the _Antiquites de
Rome_, the _Jeux rustiques_, and the 191 sonnets of the _Regrets_, the
greater number of which were written in Italy. The _Regrets_ show that
he had advanced far beyond the theories of the _Deffence_. The
simplicity and tenderness specially characteristic of du Bellay appear
in the sonnets telling of his unlucky passion for Faustine, and of his
nostalgia for the banks of the Loire. Among them are some satirical
sonnets describing Roman manners, and the later ones written after his
return to Paris are often appeals for patronage. His intimate relations
with Ronsard were not renewed; but he formed a close friendship with the
scholar Jean de Morel, whose house was the centre of a learned society.
In 1559 du Bellay published at Poitiers _La Nouvelle Maniere de faire
son profit des lettres_, a satirical epistle translated from the Latin
of Adrien Turnebe, and with it _Le Poete courtisan_, which introduced
the formal satire into French poetry. These were published under the
pseudonym of J. Quintil du Troussay, and the courtier-poet was genera