If the ancient Romans had been so negligent of the culture of their language when first they began to develop it, it is certain that they could not have become so great in so short a time. But they, in the guise of good agriculturists, first of all transplanted it from a wild locality to a cultivated one, and then in order that it might bear fruit earlier and better, cut away several useless shoots and substituted exotic and domestic ones, mostly drawn from the Greek language, which have grafted so well on to the trunk that they appear no longer adopted but natural. Out of these have sprung, from the Latin tongue, flowers and colored fruits in great number and of much eloquence, all of which things, not so much from its own nature but artificially, every tongue is wont to produce. And if the Greeks and Romans, more diligent in the culture of their tongue than we are in ours, found an eloquence in their language only after much labor and industry, are we for this reason, even if our vernacular is not as rich as it might be, to condemn it as something vile and of little value?
The time will come perhaps, and I hope it will be for the good of the French, when the language of this noble and powerful kingdom (unless with France the whole French language is to be buried),[18] which is already beginning to throw out its roots, will shoot out of the ground and rise to such a height and size that it will even emulate that of the Greeks and the Romans, producing like them, Homers, Demostheneses, Virgils, and Ciceros, in the same way that France has already produced her Pericles, Alcibiades, Themistocles, and Scipio.
[Footnote 18: Du Bellay here refers to the unhappy political state of France during his short life of thirty-six years. He was born one year before the defeat of Francis I at Pavia. When twenty years old, Henry VIII in league with Charles V had invaded France. Fourteen years later the country was distracted by disastrous religious wars which led up to the massacre of St. Bartholomew a few years after his death.]
Born in France in 1583, died in 1592; educated at a college in Bordeaux; studied law; attached to the court of Francis II in 1559, and to the person of Henry III in 1571; traveled in Germany, Italy and Switzerland in 1580; made mayor of Bordeaux in 1581; published his "Essays" in 1580, the first English translation, made by Florio, appearing in 1603.