desolate landscape of snow-covered roofs and frozen streets, shut in by
mists, and with a menacing shiver in the air. It is--

sur la morte saison,
Que les loups se vivent de vent,
Et qu'on se tient en sa maison,
Pour le frimas, près du tison.

Then all at once the grey gloom lifts, and we are among the colours, the
sunshine, and the bursting vitality of spring.

The great intellectual and spiritual change which came over western
Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century was the result of a
number of converging causes, of which the most important were the
diffusion of classical literature consequent upon the break-up of the
Byzantine Empire at the hands of the Turks, the brilliant civilization
of the Italian city-states, and the establishment, in France, Spain and
England, of powerful monarchies whose existence ensured the maintenance
of order and internal peace. Thus it happened that the splendid
literature of the Ancient World--so rich in beauty and so significant in
thought--came into hands worthy of receiving it. Scholars, artists and
thinkers seized upon the wondrous heritage and found in it a whole
unimagined universe of instruction and delight. At the same time the
physical discoveries of explorers and men of science opened out vast
fresh regions of speculation and adventure. Men saw with astonishment
the old world of their fathers vanishing away, and, within them and
without them, the dawning of a new heaven and a new earth. The effect on
literature of these combined forces was enormous. In France
particularly, under the strong and brilliant government of Francis I,
there was an outburst of original and vital writing. This literature,