PETER DE, a French poet, was born at the castle of Poitouliere in Vendomais in 1524. He was descended of a noble family, and was educated at Paris in the college of Navarre. Academical pursuits not fitting his genius, he left college, and became page to the duke of Orleans, who resigned him to James Stuart, king of Scots, married to Magdalene of France. Ronfard continued in Scotland with King James upwards of two years, and afterwards went to France, where he was employed by the duke of Orleans in several negotiations. He accompanied Lazarus de Baif to the diet of Spies. Having from the conversation of this learned man imbibed a passion for the belles-lettres, he studied the Greek language with Baif's son under Dorat. It is reported of Ronfard, that his practice was to study till two o'clock in the morning; and when he went to bed, to awaken Baif, who refused his place. The muses possessed in his eyes an infinity of charms; and he cultivated them with such success, that he acquired the appellation of the Prince of the Poets of his time, Henry II. Francis II. Charles IX. and Henry III. loaded him with favours. Having gained the first prize of the Jeux Floriaux, they thought the reward promised below the merit of the work, and the reputation of the poet. The city of Toulouse caused a Minerva of maffy silver of considerable value to be made and sent to him. This present was accompanied with a decree, declaring him The French Poet, by way of distinction. Ronfard afterwards made a present of his Minerva to Henry II. and this monarch appeared as much elated with this mark of the poet's esteem for him, as the poet himself could have been had he received the present from his sovereign. Mary, the beautiful and unfortunate queen of Scots, who was equally sensible of his merit with the Toulouese, gave him a very rich set of table-plate, among which was a vessel in the form of a rose-bush, representing Mount Parnassus, on the top of which was a Pegasus with this inscription:

A Ronfard, l'Apollon de la source des muses.

From the above two anecdotes of him may easily be inferred the reputation in which he was held, and which he continued to keep till Malherbe appeared. His works possess both invention and genius; but his affection of everywhere thrusting in his learning, and of forming words from the Greek, the Latin, and the different provincialisms of France, has rendered his versification disagreeable and often unintelligible.

Ronfard, dit Despréaux, par une autre méthode, Reglant tout, brouilla tout, fit un art à sa mode; Et toutefois long temps eut un heureux destin; Mais sa muse, en François parlant Grec et Latin, Vit dans l'âge suivant, par un retour grotesque, Tomber de ses grands mots le faute pédantesque.

He wrote hymns, odes, a poem called the Franciad, eclogues, epigrams, sonnets, &c. In his odes he takes bombast for poetical raptures. He wishes to imitate Pindar; and by labouring too much for lofty expressions, he loses himself in a cloud of words. He is obscure and harsh to the last degree: faults which he might easily have avoided by studying the works of Marot, who had before he wrote brought French poetry very near to perfection. "Marot's turn and style of composition are such (says Bruyere), that he seems to have written after Ronfard: there is hardly any difference, except in a few words, between Marot and us. Ronfard, and the authors his contemporaries, did more difference than good to style: they checked its course in the advances it was making towards perfection, and had like to have prevented its ever attaining it. It is surprising that Marot, whose works are so natural and easy, did not make Ronfard, who was fired with the strong enthusiasm of poetry, a greater poet than either Ronfard or Marot." But what could be expected from a man who had so little taste, that he called Marot's works 'a dunghill, from which rich grains of gold by industrious working might be drawn?' As a specimen of our author's intolerable and ridiculous affectation of learning, which we have already censured, Boileau cites the following verse of Ronfard to his mistress: Effervescus pas ma seule entelechie? 'are you not my only entelechia?' Now entelechia is a word peculiar to the peripatetic philosophy, the sense of which does not appear to have ever been fixed. Hermolaus Barbarus is said to have had recourse to the devil, in order to know the meaning of this new term used by Aristotle; but he did not gain the information he wanted, the devil, probably to conceal his ignorance, speaking in a faint and whispering sort of voice. What could Ronfard's mistress therefore, or even Ronfard himself, know of it? and, what can excuse in a man of real genius the low affectation of using a learned term, because in truth nobody could understand it. He has, however, some pieces not destitute of real merit; and there are perhaps few effusions of the French muse more truly poetical than his Four Seasons of the Year, where a most fertile imagination displays all its riches.

Ronfard, though it is doubtful whether he ever was in orders, held several benefices in commendam; and he died at Saint-Cosme-les-Tours, one of these, December 27, 1585, being then 61 years of age. He appeared more ridiculous as a man than as a poet: he was particularly vain. He talked of nothing but his family and his alliances with crowned heads. In his panegyrics, which he addresses to himself without any ceremony, he has the vanity to pretend, that from Ronfard is derived the word Roignol, to denote both a musician and a poet together. He was born the year after the defeat of Francis I. before Pavia: "Juft as heaven (said he) wished to indemnify France for the losses it had sustained at that place." He blushed not to tell of his intrigues. All the ladies sought after him; but he never said that any of them gave him a denial of their favours. His immoderate indulgence in pleasure, joined to his literary labours, served to hasten his old age. In his 50th year he was weak and valetudinary, and subject to attacks of the gout. He retained his wit, his vivacity, and his readiness at poetical composition, to his last moments. Like all those who aspire after public esteem, he had a great number of admirers and some enemies. Though Melin de Saint-Gelais railed at him continually, Rabelais was the person whom he most dreaded. He took always care to inform himself where that jovial rector of Meudon went, that he might not be found in the same place with him. It is reported that Voltaire acted a similar part with regard to Peron *, of whose extemporary fallies and bon mots he was much afraid.

Ronfard's poems appeared in 1567 at Paris in 6 vols 4to, and in 1604 in 10 vols 12mo.