'De vif cinabre estoit faicte sa joue, Pareille au teint d'un rougissant oeillet, Ou d'une fraize, alors que dans de laict Dessus le hault de la cresme se joue.'
That is, whether it belonged to Marguerite or not, a divine complexion. It is the kind of thing that cannot be said about two ladies; the image is too precise to be interchangeable. This may be a reason why it was applied to a lady _hors concours_ for Ronsard.
But we need, in fact, seek no reason other than the circumscription of Ronsard's poetical gifts. They reduce to only two--the gift of convinced commonplace, and the gift of simple melody. His commonplace is genuine commonplace, quite distinct from the tense and pregnant condensation of a lifetime of impassioned experience in Dante or Shakespeare; things that would occur to a bookish country gentleman in after-dinner conversation, the sentiments that such a rare and amiable person would underscore in his Horace. (From a not unimportant angle Ronsard is a minor Horace.) These things are the warp of his poetry; they range from the familiar 'Le temps s'en va' to the masterly straightforwardness of
'plus heureus celui qui la fera Et femme et mère, 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 'saoûl 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.
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.