patterned after that of Ronsard, whose popularity for a time had
convinced France that no other poet had been before him, and that
no successor could approach his power. He chose to study classical
models rather than nature or life, and his most formidable poem,
merely a beginning of some five or six thousand verses on "the
race of French kings, descended from Francion, a child of Hector
and a Trojan by birth," ended prematurely on the death of Charles
IX, but served as a model for a generation of imitators.

What spell lay in the involved and interminable pages the modern
reader cannot decide, but Milton studied them, and affirmed that
they had aided in forming his style, and Spenser wrote of him--

"And after thee, (du Bellay) 'gins
Barras hie to raise
His Heavenly muse, th' Almighty to adore.
Live, happy spirits! th' honor of your name,
And fill the world with never dying fame."

Dryden, too, shared the infatuation, and in the Epistle Dedicatory
to "The Spanish Friar," wrote: "I remember when I was a boy, I
thought inimitable Spenser a mean poet, in comparison of
Sylvester's 'Dubartas,' and was wrapt into an ecstasy when I read
these lines:

"'Now when the winter's keener breath began
To crystallize the Baltic ocean;
To glaze the lakes, to bridle up the floods,
And periwig with snow (wool) the bald-pate woods.'