falls foul of thine epitaph on Mai'tre Francoys
and cries, 'Ronsard a voulu faire des vers mechants; il n'a fait que de
mechants vers.' More truly saith M. Sainte-Beuve, 'If the good Rabelais
had returned to Meudon on the day when this epitaph was made over the
wine, he would, methinks, have laughed heartily.' But what shall be said
of a Professor like the egregious M. Fleury, who holds that Ronsard was
despised at Court? Was there a party at tennis when the king would not
fain have had thee on his side, declaring that he ever won when Ronsard
was his partner? Did he not give thee benefices, and many priories, and
call thee his father in Apollo, and even, so they say, bid thee sit down
beside him on his throne? Away, ye scandalous folk, who tell us that
there was strife between the Prince of Poets and the King of Mirth.
Naught have ye by way of proof of your slander but the talk of Jean
Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling apothecary, who put forth his fables
in 1697, a century and a half after Mai'tre Francoys died. Bayle quoted
this fellow in a note, and ye all steal the tattle one from another
in your dull manner, and know not whence it comes, nor even that Bayle
would none of it and mocked its author. With so little knowledge is
history written, and thus doth each chattering brook of a 'Life swell
with its tribute, that great Mississippi of falsehood,' Biography.

IV. To Herodotus.

To Herodotus of Halicarnassus, greeting.--Concerning the matters set
forth in your histories, and the tales you tell about both Greeks and
barbarians, whether they be true, or whether they be false, men dispute
not little but a great deal. Wherefore I, being concerned to know the
verity, did set forth to make search in every manner, and came in my
quest even unto the ends of the earth. For there is an island of the
Cimmerians beyond the Straits of Heracles, some three days' voyage to a
ship that hath a fair following wind in her sails; and there it is
said that men know many things from of old: thither, then, I came in my
inquiry. Now, the island is not small, but large, greater than the whole
of Hellas; and they call it Britain. In that island the east wind
blows for ten parts of the year, and the people know not how to cover
themselves from the cold. But for the other two months of the year the
sun shines fiercely, so that some of them die thereof, and others die of
the frozen mixed drinks; for they have ice even in the summer,