Note 674 — BOOK IV[649]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Honoré d'Urfé (1567-1625), after a life spent in war and diplomacy, wrote the famous pastoral romance of the Astrée, in which he depicted the happiness of the shepherds of the Lignon. The singular book was received with the greatest favour, and gave rise to a whole school of bucolic novelists. D'Urfé died before completing his work, and his secretary, Baro, finished it from the author's manuscripts or his own imagination.—T.