Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/560

544 the University of Utrecht. In 1785 appeared his Vader- landsche Gezangen, which at once gained him the highest reputation as a poet. Three years previously a small volume of his, Gezangen mijner Jeugd, published under the pseudonym Zelandus, had attracted considerable atten tion. His longest and, in the opinion of many, his best work is the poetic romance Roosje, 1784. Bellamy was one of the first to create a new and original literature in Holland ; his songs have had wide circulation and great popularity.  BELLARMINE (undefined. ),, Cardinal, Catholic theologian and polemic, was born, October 4, 1542, at Montepulciano, in Tuscany. He was destined by his father for state service, but his inclina tions were too strong to be restrained, and at the age of eighteen he entered the Society of Jesus. After studying in various colleges for some years, he was appointed by the order to lecture on theology at the famous university of Louvain. His seven years residence in the Low Countries brought him into close relations with modes of thought differing essentially from his own, and so compelled him to define his theological principles more clearly and sharply than before. On his return to Italy he received from Gregory XIII. an appointment in the newly -founded Col legium, Romanum, and began to deliver lectures on the prin cipal points of difference between the Roman Catholic and other forms of faith. Out of these lectures grew his famous work, Dispittationes de Controversiis Christianas Fidei adversus hujus temporis Jlcereticos (3 vols., 1581, 1582, 1593), for long the finest polemical writing on the Catholic side, and still worthy of consideration. It was replied to at the time by Chemnitz, Gerhard, and Chamier, and con tinued for many years to furnish occasions of attack to Protestant theologians. So highly were Bellarmine s abilities rated, that he was selected to accompany, in the capacity of divine or theologian, the legation sent into France in 1590 by Sixtus V. In 1599 he was, much against his will, raised to the dignity of cardinal, and two years later was made archbishop of Capua. He resigned the archbishopric in 1605, being detained in Rome by the desire of the newly- elected Pope Paul V. About the same time he had a con- oversy with James I. of England, who, after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, had passed severe laws against Roman Catholics. In 1610 he published his work De Potestate summi Pontificis in rebus Temporal ibus, directed against William Barclay, in which he asserted boldly and un- disguisedly the doctrine of the Pope s temporal sovereignty. For some years before his death, which occurred at Rome, 17th September 1621, he held the bishopric of his native town. Bellarmine, whose life was a model of Christian asceticism, is one of the greatest theologians, particularly in the department of polemics, that the Romish Church has ever produced. His works, which are very numerous, are written in an easy perspicuous style. The most important are the Disputatio de Controversiis, the De Potestate summi Pontificis, Institutiones Hebroeicce Lingua;, De Scriptoribus Ecdesiasticis, De Ascensione Mentis in Deum. A life of Bellarmine, founded on an autobiography, was written by Fulligato, 1624.  BELLAY,, an eminent French poet and member of the Pleiad, was born late in 1524, at Lyr4, on the left bank of the Loire, not far from Augers. In the absence of documents we are thrown upon the autobio graphical passages in his poems for information about the events of his life, and these, fortunately, are copious. From these, and especially from the beautiful Latin elegy addressed to his friend Jean Morel, we learn that, deprived early of both his parents, he was left to the mercy of an elder brother, who allowed him to be brought up without other education than what his own ardent spirit supplied. Before he reached manhood this brother also died, and Joachim found himself at the head of the family, a vigorous, manly, but half-cultured youth. Suddenly he was struck down by illness ; and, confined for many months to his bed, he softened the long hours of suffering by fervent study ; he now read the Latin and Greek poets for the first time, and felt a passionate desire to imitate them in French. In 1548, having to a great measure recovered his health, he happened to meet Ronsard in an inn in Poitiers, and a friendship instantly sprang up between them that ceased only with Du Bellay s death. He joined the six poets, who, under Dorat, were forming a society, the Pleiad, for the creation of a French school of Renaissance poetry ; and his first contribution to it was a prose volume, the famous Defence et Illustration de la Langue francoise, which remains one of the earliest and most perfect pieces of literary criticism in existence, and overweighs in positive value much of his actual poetry. This appeared in 1549, and was followed within a twelvemonth by two volumes in verse, the Recueil de Poesie, and the collection of love- sonnets called L Olive. The latter celebrate, in the manner of Petrarch, the loveliness of a semi-mythical mistress, understood to be a Parisienne, and by name Viole, of which Olive is an anagram. The Recucil caused a quarrel with Ronsard, about which much speculation has been wasted, and which still remains obscure. It seems that Ronsard had invented a new form of the ode, which he allowed Du Bellay to see in manuscript. Ronsard s book was delayed in publication, and Du Bellay s odes, written after his metrical pattern, appeared first. Ronsard s natural and passing vexation has been exaggerated into a law-suit ; but the friends were soon on the old affectionate footing. In L Olive Du Bellay was the first French writer to use the sonnet with fluency. After he had translated two books of the ^Eneid, which appeared in 1552, the yearning he had always felt to visit Italy was appeased by his being sent to Rome in 1550 as secretary to his influential relative, Cardinal du Bellay, and he remained in that city four years and a half. At first, however, he was miserable enough. Everything around him was displeasing to him and jarred on his refined and sometimes sickly nerves. At last he fell violently in love with a lady, whose real name was Faustine, but whom he celebrates under the poetical title of Columba and Columbelle. In his Latin poems this sincere and absorbing passion burns like a clear flame, more veiled though no less burning in his French Regrets. Be fore he won her she was shut up from his sight by her old and jealous husband. Frenzied with grief and desire, burning with fever, exhausted with watching and physical suffering, for his health was still very delicate, Du Bellay walked day and night to and fro before the house. At last, mysteriously enough, she is given to him ; and the Latin poems end in rapturous delight. At this point, however, and possibly for this reason, he was hurried back to Paris, where he became canon of Notre Dame in June 1555. He returned by Venice, the Grisons, and Geneva, and was received by his friends in France with transport. He set himself to literary labour of various kinds, publish ing his Latin poems and his French sonnets called Lea Antiquitez de Rome, in 1558, and his greatest lyrical work, the Regrets, in 1559. In the latter year, however, a calumny deprived him of the protection of the -cardinal, and threw him into the deepest distress and embarrassment. The nature of this charge is not known, but it must have quickly passed away, for later on in that year we find him preparing a new volume of poems, Les Jeux Rustiqucs, for the press, and nominated archbishop of Bordeaux. He did not live to enjoy this distinction, for on the 1st of January 1560, he died of apoplexy, and was buried in Notre-Dame de Paris. Like Ronsard he was very deaf. 