376 Le Roman de Rose. Q APRIL, 



" So the week before he left the Somme, came a learned clerk, well versed 

 in astrology and magic, and believed, as he had foretold so much, to be a good 

 diviner. Wherefore he divined for the duke, who, said he, should safely pass 

 over the sea, and fulfil his purpose without fighting. Harald would submit, 

 and consent to hold his lands as William's vassal; after which things, the 

 latter would return in surety. Well did he foretel concerning the good end ; 

 but as to no fighting, there, indeed, he lied. When the duke landed on the Eng- 

 lish coast, remembered he the diviner, for whom he inquired. Replieth one 

 of the sailors : c Pie is drowned, and the ship lost which bore him.' Saith the 

 duke : ' Little doth it matter : a pretty conjurer truly ! Not well could he 

 divine of me, seeing that he could not divine of himself: if he could foresee 

 every thing, why not his own death ?' (Tom. ii. p. 150-151.) 



The remaining events recorded in the Roman de Rose belong to Eng- 

 lish history, and are too well known to be noticed here. 



From the extracts which have been made, the reader will perceive that 

 Nace's merit as a poet is not of the highest description. In carefully 

 perusing both the volumes, we do not remember to have met with a 

 single poetic image not one allusion to the objects which are so familiar 

 to the " sons of song/' Never did the world produce two such rhymers 

 as him and Benait de St. Maur. Yet, strange as it may seem, neither 

 were ignorant of the immortal inspirations of the Roman muse. During 

 the darkest periods in the middle ages, Virgil was read in the cloisters ; 

 and it is difficult to conceive why no portion of his divine soul was 

 infused into the reader. To say that his beauties were not understood, 

 would be a libel on the monastic character. Perhaps the frigidity of 

 feeling engendered by the seclusion of the cloister, and by a total absence 

 of the incentives which animate the rest of men to tread the paths ot 

 glory or wealth, may explain at least in a considerable degree the 

 lifeless, we might say the soporiferous, chronicles of former ages. Yet 

 the simplicity with which Nace executes the task assigned him by his 

 royal benefactor; his excessive credulity; his faithful picture of the 

 manners and opinions of the times ; his general accuracy as to events 

 not derived from his two usual guides ; and, above all, the language in 

 which he writes, will ever make him both an amusing and an instructive 

 author. To the historian of Normandy, he cannot fail to prove of inva- 

 luable service ; and by the historian of England, he may be consulted 

 with profit. Of the latter, his account of the battle of Hastings, and his 

 enumeration of the vaKant barons who fought with the Conqueror on 

 that eventful day, are especially deserving of notice. That the Roman 

 de Rose should be here for the first time published, is not very creditable 

 to the present age, or to those immediately preceding ; nor do we think 

 that London has much reason to rejoice that Rouen has, on the present 

 occasion, cast her boasted spirit of literary enterprise into the shade. 



