The reformer talked to the poet about this grand Hebrew poesy, which, according to M.Villemain's impression, "has defrayed in sublime coin the demands of human imagination." Marot, on returning to France, found the College Royal recently instituted there, and the learned Vatable [Francis Watebled, born at Gamaches, in Picardy, died at Paris in 1547] teaching Hebrew with a great attendance of pupils and of the curious.

The professor engaged the poet to translate the Psalms, he himself expounding them to him word by word.

Marot translated thirty of them, and dedicated them to Francis I., who not only accepted the dedication, but recommended the work and the author to Charles V., who was at that time making a friendly passage through France on his way to put down the insurrection at Ghent.

"Charles V.accepted the said translation graciously" [as appears by a letter in 1559 to Catherine de' Medici from Villemadon, one of Marguerite of Navarre's confidential servants], "commended it both by words and by a present of two hundred doubloons, which he made to Marot, thus giving him courage to translate the rest of the Psalms, and praying him to send him as soon as possible the Psalm _Confitemini Domino, quoniam bonus_ [Trust in the Lord, for He is good], so fond was he of it." Singular fellow-feeling between Charles V.and his great adversary Luther, who said of that same psalm, "It is my friend; it has saved me in many a strait from which emperor, kings, sages, nor saints could have delivered me!" Clement Marot, thus aided and encouraged in this work which gave pleasure to Francis I.and Charles V., and must have been still more interesting to Calvin and Luther, prosecuted his work and published in 1541 the first thirty psalms; three years afterwards, in 1543, he added twenty others, and dedicated the collection "to the ladies of France," in an epistle wherein the following verses occur: "Happy the man whose favored ear In golden days to come shall hear The ploughman, as he tills the ground, The tarter, as he drives his round, The shopman, as his task he plies, With psalms or sacred melodies Whiling the hours of toil away! O, happy he who hears the lay Of shepherd and of shepherdess, As in the woods they sing and bless, And make the rocks and pools proclaim With them their great Creator's name! O, can ye brook that God invite Them before you to such delight?
Begin, ladies, begin!.

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