JAMYN, AMADIS, a celebrated French poet of the sixteenth century, was born about 1510 at Chaouace, in Champagne. Trained under Dorat, Turnebus, and other great scholars of that era, he early showed a great fondness for literary pursuits. Ronsard, then the acknowledged coryphæus of French poetry, was pleased with his youthful effusions, and had him appointed secretary and reader to Charles IX. On the death of this benefactor, Jamyn quitted the court, and returned to his native town, where he died about 1485. His Œuvres Poétiques were published at Paris in 1575, and again in 1577. They are divided into five books, and consist chiefly of amatory and lyrical pieces, sonnets, elegies, and eclogues. He seems to have taken his friend Ronsard as his model, and though he does not equal him in fancy or passion, he is more true to nature, and shows a finer taste. Besides his original works, Jamyn published (Paris, 1574, and again in 1780 and 1784) a translation of the last thirteen books of the Iliad, and of the first three of the Odyssey, in Alexandrine verse. These translations contain many beautiful lines and numerous passages that happily recall the splendid thought and diction of the Greek original; but they are sadly marred by barbarous solecisms, giving the idea rather of a travestie than a translation.