Affic Miscellany, Dec, 1824 (B. M

— serait à croire qu'ils sont du même auteur. UEdinburgh Beuieu) {iS2b) contient ég-alement un paragraphe sur Sylvester dans lequel il est dit : « Sylvester, whose popularity more than rivalled the famé of Shakespeare and Spenser is now almost entirely un^nown » (i).

Wordsworth parle de Sylvester comme d'un poète complètement oublié : « Who is there, that now reads the Création of Du Bartas ? Yet ail Europe once resounded with his praise : he was caressed by kings; and^ when his Poem was translated into our lang-uag-e the Faery Oiieen faded before it » (2).

Hallam (3) est assez sévère pour Du Bartas et nos critiques modernes se montrent généralement plus indulgents que lui. M. Saintsbury, en particulier, s'est fait le champion de Du Bartas et de Sylvester. Mais donnons-lui la parole : « The merils of... Du Bartas... are extremely greatand his personage andwork very interesting. It has been said of him that he represents, in the first place, the extrême development of the Ronsardising innovation, in the second place, the highest literary culture atlained by the French Calvinists. Inferior to d'Aubigné in knowledge of the world, in the choice of subjects perennially interesting and in terse vigourof expression. Du Bartas was the superior of the Great Protestant Satirisl in pictures-