But living BLANCHE. He could not think of lending Attention now to FELIX' prose, I ween.

as for SAINT-PIERRE to feel grateful to the hand which had spared him when in its power, and proud of the attention shown him by a monarch, and of the trust reposed in him by a victorious enemy. That this trust was to the prejudice of his own countrymen, and that the benefits received from EDWARD were to recompense him for a breach of natural faith, is nowhere shown, nor will a sneer be allowed to be an argument to prove it.

Finally, the minuteness with which FROISSARD has detailed the whole incident in question, the simplicity of his language and its adherence to nature, the very conduct of the characters in that little drama, (and which, as we have seen, has been objected to as inconsistent!) all these particulars are internal evidences of the truth of the story. Indeed, if it be an invention of the chronicler, or an enlargement and embellishment of some more meagre and less brilliant circumstances, we shall be obliged to allow, that from the sacred hand which penned the tale of JOSEPH, down to the elegant biographer of FERDINAND and ISABELLA, there has never lived the historian that could match him in the counterfeit of nature, and that even the dramatist SHAKSPEARE himself, in adapting the discourse of his real characters to the fictitious scenes in which they figure, was but a fool to this same simple JOHN FROISSARD.

P. S. Since I have carried this note to such an unintended length, it will but little more fatigue the reader if I add the following remarks. FROISSARD is very generally, though perhaps unjustly, accused by the FRENCH of partiality to the ENGLISH. If indeed the historian were in the interests of the latter nation more than in those of any of the various others with which he had in turn to do, he could never have been more so than when he presented the first part of his chronicles to PHILIPPA. It is in this part that the siege of CALAIS is recounted. How comes it that he should have told a circumstance so injurious to the character of EDWARD; a story which M. LEVESQUE would have to be of his invention or of his embellishment? There would have been little wisdom in carrying his performance to a court where there were so many persons who

To con the poetry of BLANCHE's eyes

Is sweeter task. So o'er the square he flies.

could not fail to know at once, from their own experience, the truth or falsehood of every particular therein recounted. Now the siege of CALAIS happened when FROISSARD was but ten years old. The first part of the Chronicle, he tells us at its very outset, he copied from the writings left by JOHN LE BEL (which have not come down to us). Can there be any doubt that this romantic incident, among others, had a place in the narrative of his predecessor? FROISSARD, therefore, would not at any rate be the inventor of this story; and his contemporaries would only have omitted it, simply because it fell not into their hands. Upon all that part of his history which he borrowed from another, he professes, and is known, to have bestowed unusual pains, revising and correcting it several times, in his great regard for accuracy. (See p. xxx, note, of the 1st Vol. of JOHNES's Froissard, ed. of 1839.)

In truth, the same praise may be bestowed upon FROISSARD that is given to the historian whom in some particulars he much resembles, HERODOTUS; a sincere wish, and a firm intention to do justice, subject to the infirmity perhaps of occasional prejudice, which will influence all men at times, and of a credulity to which the age wherein he lived was prone. No historian perhaps ever existed that shows so little partiality of any kind, or whose narratives, however romantic, have less of the coloring of exaggeration. "Le bon FROISSARD," says one who was well calculated to appreciate, at its proper value, the simplicity and ingenuousness of the Herodotus of chivalry," le bon FROISSARD a marché en son entreprise d'une si franche naïfveté, qu'ayant faict une faute, il ne craint aucunement de la recognoistre et corriger, en l'endroit où il en a esté adverty, et nous represente la diversité mesme des bruits qui couroyent, et les differens rapports qu'on luy faisoit. C'est la matiere de l'Histoire nue et informe: chacun en peut faire son profit autant qu'il a d'entendement." This is a character of no little candor. See Essais de Montaigne, Liv. ii. chap. 10. Tom. iii. p. 81, éd. de COSTE, or (at p. xli. Vol. i. of JOHNES's Froissard, ed. of 1839) the observations of SAINTE-PALAYE, who has cited the same passage.

106

CARRYL OFFERS HIS SERVICES.

CXXIII.

I mean to say, he quicken'd his slow pace,
As far as pride, or Cupid, would allow.
He saw the blood run riot in the face

Of BLANCHE, as soon as near enough to bow.
But she, who was all ease, if not all grace,
Took care her lips should not as much avow,
So straight assail'd him in her usual fashion,
To show her nerves were nowise shook by passion.

CXXIV.

"She 'd rambled out," she said,

"to see the city;

Suppos'd that the signór had done the same;
But fear'd that there was nothing very pretty ;

And fancy'd that the town look'd mean and tame ;
That on the whole 't was rather out of pity

She 'd suffer'd one they cicerónè name

In her own land, and whom he 'd found beside her, About so prison-like a place to guide her.

CXXV.

"But then, the valet (1) serv'd as a protection,
An escort which she could not do without;
And, where there was no room to make selection,
One priz'd the service of the dullest lout."
Therewith, our hero begg'd to take direction
Of her perambulations round about.

"He knew no more of CALAIS than did she ;
But that was nought, where there was nought to see.

(1) Valets de place is the name of these persons.

CXXVI.

"He would advise her therefore to dismiss
Her servant, and take up with him instead."
Archly the little ROMAN smil'd at this;

"His counsel was not scriptural," she said;
"They might perchance their way together miss ;
The blind should never by the blind be led.
Would he join forces? she was nothing loath ;
The man could go before, and serve for both."

CXXVII.

So CARRYL and BIANCA, side by side,
Walk'd on together, and the guide before.
FELIX, who 'd linger'd, for a moment ey'd
The group so sadly that his eyes ran o'er :
"More love?" he mutter'd to himself, and sigh'd;
"More time misspent, more heart-ache, and O! more...
Alas! and yet so good! 'T was all his say:
He turn'd him round, and walk'd another way.

CXXVIII.

Ere many minutes, ARTHUR had succeeded
In laughing his companion into reason.

In sober truth the valet was not needed;

He did a something he might charge his fees on,
Show'd the few lions, but they were not heeded;

And all his histories were out of season.

The streets were straight; then CARRYL had his chart : To follow one's own nose was no great art.

CXXIX.

So by themselves the gentle couple bent
Their footsteps to the ramparts. Strange to say,
Their lighter spirits for a time seem spent,

Now nothing interferes to balk their play.
With eyes cast down, they on in silence went,
As they were measuring the public way.

At length BIANCA ask'd, with accents low,
"How came they first acquainted? did he know?"

CXXX.

CARRYI, albeit he felt a slight surprise,
Thinking perhaps she knew as well as he,
Yet answer'd gallantly, "To analyse
Our pleasures is to set their essence free,
To get at nothing; which is sure not wise.
I am too happy now, that I should be
At all tormented by a wish of knowing
To what blest accident my joy is owing.

66

CXXXI.

Moreover,' playfully the swain declares, -
The while his lip a smile half-mocking wore,
"My heart, dear lady, just at present swears
That it has known you thirty years or more.
Pardon my memory, that no trace it bears
Of what must thus have happen'd long before
Or you or I was born.

But let me blame

The faithless creature, that she dropp'd your name.