Of the high series which Rome called forth from Du Bellay during that
bitter diplomatic exile of his, I have chosen these three sonnets,
because they seem best to express the majesty and gloom which haunted
him. It is difficult to choose in a chain of cadences so equal and so
exalted, but perhaps the last, "Telle que dans son char la
Berecynthienne" is the most marvellous. The vision alone of Rome like
the mother of the Gods in her car would have made the sonnet immortal.
He adds to the mere picture a noise of words that is like thunder in the
hills far off on summer afternoons: the words roll and crest themselves
and follow rumbling to the end: he could not have known as he wrote it
how great a thing he was writing. It has all the character of verse that
increases with time and seems superior to its own author's intention.
_THE "ANTIQUITEZ DE ROME."_