early style, 'qui pour chanter si bas n'est point ordonné,' the
difference is too hard to detect; one is forced to conclude that it is
precisely the difference between a court lady and an inn-keeper's
daughter. As far as art is concerned the most definite and distinctive
thing that Ronsard had to say of any of his ladies is said of one to
whom he put forward none of his usually engrossing pretensions. It was
the complexion of Marguerite of Navarre of which he wrote:--

'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