It is hardly for us to prophesy whether he will devote the
labour. His fluency tells us of his energy, but tells us nothing of its
quality. We can only express our hope that he will, and our conviction
that if he were to do so his great pains, and our lesser ones would be
well requited.
[SEPTEMBER, 1919.
_Ronsard_
Ronsard is _range_ now; but he has not been in that position for so very
long, a considerably shorter time for instance, than any one of the
Elizabethans (excepting Shakespeare) with us. Sainte-Beuve was very
tentative about him until the sixties, when his dubious,
half-patronising air made way for a safe enthusiasm. And, even now, it
can hardly be said that French critical opinion about him has
crystallised; the late George Wyndham's essay shows a more convinced and
better documented appreciation than any that we have read in French,
based as it is on the instinctive sympathy which one landed gentleman
who dabbles in the arts feels towards another who devotes himself to
them--an admiration which does not exclude familiarity.
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