En leur payant un dizain, toutefois

Tel que le votre, qui vaut mieux mille fois,
Que l'argent deu par vous, en conscience:
Car estimer ou peut l'argent au poids,
Mais on ne peut (et j'en donne ma voix).
Assez priser vostre belle science.

If those, Marot, by whom you're held in thrall,
Esteem'd, like me, your richy excelling vein,
Full soon their harsh demands they would recal, i'
And quit you of your debts, both great and small,
One polish'd stanza thankful to obtain;
For verse like your's I hold more precious gain/
Than commerce knows, or avarice can devise:
Gold may be rated to its utmost grain,

But well I deem (nor think my judgment vain),
That none your noble art can over-prize,

If Marot is to be believed, in his answer, he made good use of this ele gant compliment:

Mes creanciers, qui de dizains n'ont cure,
Ont-leu le vostre: et sur ce leur ay dit,

Sire Michel, Sire Bonaventure,

La sœur du roi à pour moi fait ce dit:
Lors eux cuidans que fusse en grand credit,
M' ont apellé Monsieur à cry et cor,
Et m' a valu vostre escrit autant qu'or:
Car promis ont, non seulement d'attendre,
Mais d' en prester, foi de marchand, encore:
Et j' ay promis, foi de Clement, d'en prendre.

My cits, who nor for ode nor stanza care,
Have read your lines, and op'd their rugged hearts;
I said, Sir Balaam, and Sir Plum, look there,
Thus our king's sister values my good parts:
They, deeming me advanc'd by courtly arts,
Honour'd and worshipp'd me, with bows profound,
And by your golden verses I abound;
Like ready coin, my credit they restore;
To lend again my worthy friends are bound,
I pledg'd my honest word to borrow more.

A collection of the poems of this celebrated lady was published, under the title of Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses; the Pearls of the Pearl of Princesses; a conceit worthy of the compiler, who was her valet de chambre.

Margaret was suspected of an attachment to the reformed religion, in common with several of the wits whom she patronized, but her brother's affection sheltered her from persecution. Francis condemned the opinions of the reformed, as tending more to the destruction of monarchies, than to the edification of souls. Brantome adds, in his manner,

that the great Sultan Soliman was of the same opinion.* An excellent authority for the papal religion !

Even the death of this princess was connected with her love of knowledge; she contracted a mortal disease, by exposing herself to the night-air, in observing a comet.+

Her virtues were not inherited by the first wife of Henry IV. who bore the same name and title; but the second Margaret

* The whole passage is curious. "Le grand Sultan Soliman en disoit de mesme: laquelle (la reformée) combien qu'elle renversa plusieurs points de la religion Chrestienne et du Pape, il ne la pouvoit aymer; d' autant, disoit-il, que les religieux d'icelle n'estoient que brouillons et séditieux, et ne se pouvoient tenir en repos, qu'ils ne remuassent tousjours. Voila pourquoi le roi François, sage prince s'il en fust oncques, en prevoyant les miseres qui en sont venues en plusieurs parts de la Chrestienté, les haïssoit, et fut un peu rigoureux à faire brusler vifs les heretiques de son temps. Si ne laissa-t-il pourtant à favoriser les princes protestants d'Allemagne contre l'Empereur. Ainsi ces grands rois se gouvernent comme il leur plaist.

↑ Ib. tom. ii. p. 289.

Brantome, tom. ii. p. 281, 2.

seems to have possessed, with the spirit of gallantry, some degree of the love of letters, which distinguished her grandfather Francis I. It is sufficiently clear, from many scattered anecdotes in Brantome, and other writers of that time, that during the brilliant period of her youth, her manners were calculated to encourage the class of authors which I have been describing; but it must be owned, that she concluded like many other lively characters, by shewing as much fervour in devotion, as she had formerly displayed in libertinism.

Among those fascinating women, who united the attractions of taste and knowledge to those of elegance and beauty, it would be unjust to forget the unfortunate MARY STUART. Brantome, an eye-witness of the early part of her life, informs us that she was much attached to literature, and that she patronized Ronsard and Du Bellay. Her dirge on the death of Francis II. which Brantome has pre

served, contains some touches of true feeling amidst its conceits.

The affair of CHASTELARD, of which the same writer gives us an account, shews her affability to men of genius; though it must be confessed, that she exhibited at last, a degree of prudery, perhaps too austere.

Chastelard was a young man of family and talents, who had embarked in the suite of Mary, when she returned from France, to take possession of a disgusting sovereignty. He paid his court to the queen by composing several pieces of poetry, during the voyage, and one among the rest, which I have been tempted to imitate from Brantome's Sketch of it. "Et entre autres il en fit une d' elle sur un traduction en Italien; car il le parloit et l'entendoit bien, qui.commence: Che giova posseder citta e regni, &c. Qui est un sonnet très-bien fait, dont la substance est telle: De quoi sert posseder tant de royaumes, citez, villes,