LA BOETIE
million beauties, nature has endowed you Madame, these verses merit your cherishing; for you will be of my opinion that there have come none out of Gascony having more ingenuity and charm, or testifying to have issued from a fuller hand. And do not grow jealous because you have but those remaining after what I erstwhile printed under the name of Monsieur de Foix, your good kinsman: for really these exhibit a something, I know not what, more lively and sparkling; for he made them in his youth and warmed by a fair and noble ardour, which I will tell you about, madame, one of these days, in your ear. The others were made later, when he was in pursuit of his marriage, in honour of his wife, and when he already felt I know not what marital coolness. And I am one of those who hold that poetry is never elsewhere so smiling as it is on a wanton and irregular theme.
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