'plus heureus celui qui la fera
Et femme et mere, en lieu d'une pucelle.'

His melody, likewise, is genuine melody; it is irrepressible. It led him
to belie his own professed seriousness. He could not stop his sonnets
from rippling even when he pretended to passionate argument. Life came
easily to him; he was never weary of it, at the most he acknowledged
that he was 'saoul de la vie.' It is not surprising, therefore, that his
remonstrances as the tortured lover have a trick of opening to a
delightful tune:--

'Rens-moi mon coeur, rens-moi mon coeur pillarde....'

In another form this melody more closely recalls Thomas Campion:--

'Seule je l'ai veue, aussi je meurs pour elle....'

But to compare Ronsard's sonnet with 'Follow your saint' is to see how
infinitely more subtle a master of lyrical music was the Elizabethan
than the great French lyrist of the Renaissance. From first to last
Ronsard was an amateur.

[SEPTEMBER, 1919.

_Samuel Butler_

The appearance of a new impression of _The Way of all Flesh_[10] in Mr
Fifield's edition of Samuel Butler's works gives us an occasion to
consider more calmly the merits and the failings of that entertaining
story. Like all unique works of authors who stand, even to the most
obvious apprehension, aside from the general path, it has been
overwhelmed with superlatives. The case is familiar enough and the
explanation is simple and brutal. It is hardly worth while to give it.
The truth is that although there is no inherent reason why the isolated
novel of an author who devotes himself to other forms should not be 'one
of the great novels of the world,' the probabilities tell heavily
against it. On the other hand, an isolated novel makes a good stick to
beat the age. It is fairly certain to have something sufficiently unique
about it to be useful for the purpose. Even its blemishes have a knack
of being _sui generis_. To elevate it is, therefore, bound to imply the
diminution of its contemporaries.

[Footnote 10: _The Way of all Flesh_. By Samuel Butler, 11th
impression of 2nd edition. (Fifield.)]

Yet, apart from the general argument, there are particular reasons why
the praise of _The Way of all Flesh_ should be circumspect. Samuel
Butler knew extraordinarily well what he was about. His novel was
written intermittently between 1872 and 1884 when he abandoned it. In
the twenty remaining years of his life he did nothing to it, and we have
M