"I am much deceived if this be not abominable fustian." Van Lann
stigmatizes this poem, _Le Semaine ou Creation du Monde_, as "the
marriage-register of science and verse, written by a Gascon Moses,
who, to the minuteness of a Walt Whitman and the unction of a
parish-clerk, added an occasional dignity superior to anything
attained by the abortive epic of his master."

But he had some subtle, and to the nineteenth century mind,
inscrutable charm. Poets studied him and Anne Bradstreet did more
than study; she absorbed them, till such originality as had been
her portion perished under the weight. In later years she
disclaimed the charge of having copied from him, but the infection
was too thorough not to remain, and the assimilation had been so
perfect that imitation was unconscious. There was everything in the
life of Du Bartas to appeal to her imagination as well as her
sympathy, and with her minute knowledge of history she relished his
detail while reverencing his character. For Du Bartas was a French
Puritan, holding the same religious views as Henry IV, before he
became King of France, his strong religious nature appealing to
every English reader. Born in 1544, of noble parents, and brought
up, according to Michaud in the Biographic Universelle, to the
profession of arms, he distinguished himself as a soldier and
negotiater. Attached to the person of Prince Henry "in the capacity
of gentleman in ordinary of his bedchamber, he was successfully
employed by him on missions to Denmark, Scotland and England. He
was at the battle of Ivry and celebrated in song the victory which
he had helped to gain. He died four months after, in July, 1559, at
the age of forty-six, in consequence of some wounds which had been
badly healed. He passed all the leisure which his duties left him,
at his chateau du Bartas. It was there that he composed his long