That is not by Ronsard, but by Remy Belleau, for Ronsard soon came to
have a school. Six other poets threw in their lot with him in his
literary revolution--this Remy Belleau, Antoine de Baif, Pontus de
Tyard, Etienne Jodelle, Jean Daurat, and lastly Joachim du Bellay; and
with that strange love of emblems which is characteristic of the time,
which covered all the works of Francis the First with the salamander,
and all the works of Henry the Second with the double crescent, and all
the works of Anne of Brittany with the knotted cord, they called
themselves the Pleiad; seven in all, although, as happens with the
celestial Pleiad, if you scrutinise this constellation of poets more
carefully you may find there a great number of minor stars.
The first note of this literary revolution was struck by Joachim du
Bellay in a little tract written at the early age of twenty-four, which
coming to us through three centuries seems of yesterday, so full is it
of those delicate critical distinctions which are sometimes supposed
peculiar to modern writers.
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