Ad consultissimos Supremi Senatus Gallici Patronos, in Rupeæ Pulicem ludentes.
Abdita causarum si vis responsa referre,
Hos tam perspicuos consule Causidicos:
Qui juris callent apices, vestigia morsu
Metiri pulicum carmine certa sciunt.
Ecquid eos latuisse putas dum seria tractant,
Qui dum nugantur, tam bene parva canunt?
The President of the Parliament of Paris, Pierre de Soulfour, compared the flea to the Trojan horse, and introduced this gigantic compliment with a stroke of satire.
Quid Magni peperêre Dies? res mira canenda est,
Vera tamen; Pulicem progenuere brevem.
Quicquid id est, tamen est magnum; Magnisque Diebus
Non sine divino numine progenitum.
Ille utero potuit plures gestare poetas,
Quam tulit audaces techna Pelasga duces.
Tros equus heröes tantos non fudit ab alvo,
Dulcisonos vates quot tulit iste Pulex:
Pasquier was proud of what he had done in starting the flea, and of the numerous and distinguished persons who had been pleased to follow his example in poetizing upon it; pour memorial de laquelle, he says, jai voulu dresser ce trophée, qui est la publication de leurs vers. So he collected all these verses in a small quarto volume, and published them in 1582, with this title. LA PUCE; ou Jeux Poëtiques Francois et Latins: composez sur la Puce aux Grands Jours de Poictiers l'an 1579: dont Pasquier fut le premier motif. He dedicated the volume to the President Harlay, in the following sonnet:
Pendant que du Harlay de Themis la lumiere,
Pour bannir de Poictou l'espouventable mal,
Exerçant la justice à tous de poids égal,
Restablessoit l'Astrée en sa chaire premiere;
Quelques nobles esprits, pour se donner carriere,
Voulourent exalter un petit animal,
Et luy coler aux flancs les aisles du cheval
Qui prend jusque au ciel sa course coutumiere.
Harlay, mon Achille, relasche tes esprits;
Sousguigne d'un bon œil tant soit peu ces escrits,
Il attendent de toy, ou la mort, ou la vie:
Si tu pers à les lire un seul point de ton temps,
Ils vivront immortels dans le temple des ans,
Malgre l'oubly, la mort, le mesdire et l'envie.
The original volume would have passed away with the generation to which it belonged, or if preserved, it would, like many others more worthy of preservation, have been found only in the cabinets of those who value books for their rarity rather than their intrinsic worth: this would have been its fate if it had not been comprized in the collective edition of Pasquier's works, which, as relating to his own times, to the antiquities of his country, and to French literature, are of the greatest importance. It was properly included there, not merely because it is characteristic of the nation, and of the age, but because it belongs to the history of the individual.
Here in England the Circuit always serves to sharpen the wits of those who are waiting, some of them hungrily, and but too many hopelessly, for practice; and as nowhere there is more talent running to seed than at the bar, epigrams circulate there as freely as opinions,—and much more harmlessly. But that the elders of the profession, and the judges should take part in such levities as the Jeux Poetiques of Poictiers, would at all times have been as much out of character in England, as it would be still in character among our lighter-heeled, lighter-hearted, and lighter-headed neighbours. The same facility in composing Latin verse would not now be found at the French bar; but if a flea were started there, a full cry might as easily be raised after it, as it was at the Grands Jours held under the President Harlay; and they who joined in the cry would take exactly the same tone. You would find in their poetry just as much of what Pasquier calls mignardise, and just as little exertion of intellect in any other direction.
It is not language alone, all but all-powerful in this respect as language is, which makes the difference in whatever belongs to poetry, between the French and the English. We know how Donne has treated this very subject; and we know how Cleveland, and Randolph and Cowley would have treated it, licentiously indeed, but with such a profusion of fantastic thought, that a prodigality of talent would seem even greater than the abuse. In later times, if such a theme had presented itself, Darwin would have put the flea in a solar microscope, and painted the monster with surprizing accuracy in the most elaborate rhymes: he would then have told of fleas which had been taken and tamed, and bound in chains, or yoked to carriages; and this he would have done in couplets so nicely turned, and so highly polished, that the poetical artist might seem to vie with the flea-tamer and carriage-builder in patience and in minute skill. Cowper would have passed with playful but melancholy grace
From gay to grave, from lively to severe,