keys to an old woman: Honte, Peur, Malebouche, and Dangier, guard the four principal doors. The poet, deprived of the aid of Bel-Accueil, can only grieve over the price he has had to pay for the first favours of love.

At this point Guillaume de Lorris's portion of the poem ends.

Brief as the above sketch is, to follow Jean de Meun's continuation of the poem at the same length would occupy far too much space; it must suffice therefore to keep to the mere skeleton of the story.

We left the lover lamenting at the foot of the tower in which Bel-Accueil is confined: when he is in despair of success the God of Love comes to his aid, and summons his barons to assist; these are dames Oyseuse, Noblesse de Cœur, "Nobleness of Heart," Simplesse, "Simplicity," Pitié, Largesse, "Bounty," Hardiesse, "Courage," Honneur, Courtoisie, Déduyt, Sureté, Jeunesse, Patience, Humilité, Bien-Celer, "Secrecy," these bring with them two new personages, Faux-Semblant, "False-Semblance or Guile," and Contrainte-Abstinence, "Constrained Abstinence." Love is unwilling to admit these two strangers into his train; but is persuaded to do so on the intercession of the others, and Faux-Semblant is appointed leader of the troop.

The attack on the castle commences. The chief, Faux-Semblant, and his companion, Contrainte-Abstinence, equipped in their proper costume; the latter,

wrapped in a hair-garment, her head covered with a nun's hood, carries her psalter and pater-nosters; Faux-Semblant, in the habit of a mendicant friar, wears a bible round his neck, and supports himself by a gibbet for a staff. Thus accoutred, they approach Malebouche, one of the guardians of the castle. He, affected by a pious discourse from Faux-Semblant, kneels down to confess; but while he is stooping his head, his confessor, Faux-Semblant, seizes him by the throat, strangles him, and cuts out his tongue with a razor that he had concealed under his sleeve. The soldiers who supported Malebouche meet with no better fate, Faux-Semblant makes his way into the castle, the lover again gets sight of Bel-Accueil, and with his aid is just about to pluck the rose, when a cry uttered by Dangier, brings Honte and Peur to the rescue. Bel-Accueil and the lover are once more defeated.

After another fruitless attempt by the army of the God of Love, the aid of Venus is called in; she is soon followed by another ally in the shape of Genius, the chaplain of dame Nature; he, dressed in a magnificent cope, wearing on his finger the pastoral ring, and on his head a mitre, ascends a pulpit, and haranguing the defeated army, inspires it with new courage. The siege is renewed, Venus throws a burning brand into the castle, Bel-Accueil is released, and the lover is enabled to pluck the rose-bud without terms.

In the original plan of this poem, as drawn by

Guillaume de Lorris, we can discover little more than a simple allegory, such as a trouvère of his time might employ in describing the incidents that would befal a lover in the chaste pursuit of his love, though expressed in a far more flowing and purer language than had till then been used. Jean de Meun has made his continuation the vehicle not only of a less chaste morality, but of a display of learning considerable for those times, and of the most unsparing satire on the clergy and on the female sex, of which we have above slight specimens in the conclusion of the story, and in the characters of Faux-Semblant and Contrainte-Abstinence.

The only originality to which Guillaume de Lorris can lay claim is that of telling his story under the form of an allegory; Jean de Meun is in that respect only his follower; but he is entitled to a far higher meed of praise, in that he not only possessed, but made use of, for the advantage of the literature of his time, a store of learning then common to but few, and by those few never before employed to adorn the national literature, which till then had made little improvement on the primitive songs, ballads, and versified stories, which are ever the first poetical efforts of a rude and illiterate people.

Diffuse and unconnected as it was, this application of learning, borrowed from the ancients to the popular literature of the age, was doubtless a great step in

advance, but save in that it earned for its author immediate popularity and a lasting renown, it produced no visible effect on the writings of his successors, who contented themselves with imitating him so far only as to adopt his allegorical instead of the usual real personages of romance, and to reiterate his sarcasms against the clergy and the female sex.

For two centuries and upwards the Romance of the Rose was the Iliad of France.

To pass over the Romance of Pilgrimages by Guillaume de Deguilleville,* a work comprising three Dreams, the first of Human Life, the second of the Soul separated from the Body, the third of Jesus Christ; the metrical work on the Chase by Gaston de Foix; the rondeaux and ballads of the historian Jean Froissart; the joyous drinking songs of Olivier Basselin, supposed to be the inventor of Vaux-deVires; and others of still less note:-passing over these we must pause a moment to pay a tribute of respect to Christine de Pisan.

She was born at Venice about the year 1363, and at the age of five years was removed to Paris by her father, who in the character of an astronomer was

* Born 1295, died about 1360.

+ Born 1331, died 1391.

↑ Born 1337, died after the beginning of the following century.

§ Died about 1418.

taken into the service of Charles the Fifth. At the age of fifteen she married the king's secretary, Etienne du Castel, but shortly afterwards had the misfortune to lose her father, and to this grief was added that of being left a widow with three children at the early age of twenty-five. To the consolation which the education of her children would afford, she added that of a taste for polite literature, which a collection of books, left her by her father and her husband, enabled her to indulge: the fruit of her studies soon shewed itself in the production of a number of little pieces called dictiez, consisting of ballads, lais, lessus or complaints, virelays, and rondeaux; these soon attracted notice, and gained her no inconsiderable reputation. The Earl of Salisbury, favourite of Richard the Second, took her eldest son to be educated with his own; Henry the Fourth invited Christine herself to the English court; and the great and good of her own country paid no less homage to her virtues and her talents.

Her writings are numerous, as well in prose as in verse: among the latter, besides many ballads, may be mentioned Le Debat des deux Amants, Le Chemin de longue Etude, and Les Dicts Moraux, or "Moral Sayings," addressed to her son: throughout, these poems breathe a spirit of refinement, purity and plaintive sweetness, which will be sought in vain among the writings of any of her cotemporaries.