imes.

{576} [Sidenote: Idolatry of ancients]

The classics were not only studied in the sixteenth century, they were
loved, they were even worshipped. "Every elegant study, every science
worthy of the attention of an educated man, in a word, whatever there
is of polite learning," wrote the French savant Muret, [Sidenote: 1573]
"is contained nowhere save in the literature of the Greeks." Joachim
du Bellay wrote a cycle of sonnets on the antiquities of Rome, in the
spirit:

Rome fut tout le monde, et tout le monde est Rome.

"The Latin allureth me by its gracious dignity," wrote Montaigne, "and
the writings of the Greeks not only fill and satisfy me, but transfix
me with admiration. . . . What glory can compare with that of Homer?"
Machiavelli tells how he dressed each evening in his best attire to be
worthy to converse with the spirits of the ancients, and how, while
reading them, he forgot all the woes of life and the terror of death.
Almost all learned works, and a great many not learned, were written in
Latin. For those who could not read the classics for themselves
translations were supplied. Perhaps the best of these were the _Lives
of Famous Men_ by Plutarch, first rendered into French by Amyot and
thence into English by Sir Thomas North.

[Sidenote: Value of classics in 16th century]

Strong, buoyant, self-confident as was the spirit of the age, it bore
plainly upon it the impress of its zealous schooling in the lore of the
ancients. In supplying the imperious need of cultured men for good
literature the Romans and Greeks had, in the year 1500, but few
rivals--save in Italy, hardly any. To an age that had much to learn
they had much to teach; to men as greedy for the things of the mind as
they were for luxury and wealth the classics offered a new world as
rich in spoils of wisdom and beauty as were the East Indies and {577}
Peru in spices and gold. The supreme value of the Greek and Latin
books is that which they have in common with all literature; they
furnished, for the mass of reading men, the best and most copious
supply of food for the intellectual and spiritual life. "Books," says
Erasmus, "are both cheering and wholesome. In prosperity they steady
one, in affliction console, do not vary with fortune and follow one
through all dangers even to the grave. . . . What wealth or what
scepters would I exchange for my tranquil reading?" "From my earliest
childhood," Montaigne confides, "poetry