2°<i S. N° 108., Jan. 23. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



65 



castle of Lusignan, from its position, played a 

 conspicuous part in the wars between the French 

 and the English ; and M. de Montaiglon has col- 

 lected together on this subject many valuable 

 details by way of preface to his reprint of the 

 present rhymed narrative. 



4. One of the most amusing of old French poets 

 is certainly Villon.* He has left behind him the 

 reputation of a scamp, and it cannot be doubted 

 that he fully deserved it : but as a writer he is far 

 above the affected and artificial conceits of Alain 

 Chartier ; and his graceful Ballade des Dames du 

 I'emps Jadis would of itself suffice to establish his 

 unquestionable merit. The Elzevirian edition of 

 F. Villon's works has been prepared with the 

 greatest care by M. Paul Lacroix, who has re- 

 vised Prompsault's text and added a variety of 

 notes. The frequent allusions of Villon, that true 

 enfant de Paris, to local facts, customs, and topo- 

 graphy, rendered this part of the task indispensable 

 and difficult. The following lines on James II., 

 King of Scotland, may perhaps be remembered by 

 some of your readers as occurring in the Grand 

 Testament : 



" Semblablement, le roy Scotiste, 

 Qui demy -face eut, ce dit-on, 

 Vermeille comme une amathiste, 

 Depuys le front jusqu'au menton?" 



5. The second volume of Bonaventure Des 

 Periersf is the only part of that author's works 

 which M. Jannet has published as yet ; but it 

 contains his most celebrated writings, namely his 

 Recreations et joyeux Devis, which have obtained 

 for him the rank he occupies amongst the literati 

 of the sixteenth century. In arranging this edi- 

 tion, M. Lacour has bad to correct some unac- 

 countable blunders of La Monnoye, whose fame 

 as a critic is a great deal superior to his real 

 worth. 



Although Bonaventure Des Periers is not quite 

 so gross as Straparola, yet his Joyeux Devis par- 

 take too much of that licentiousness which charac- 

 terises the novelists of the time in which he lived. 

 They are all imitated from various authors, and 

 have, in their turn, been freely made use of, chiefly 

 by Henry Estienne, in his cutting satire L'Apo- 

 logie pour Herodote. 



6. Theophile and Saint- Amant are two authors 

 generally classed together. J They both belong to 

 that group of poets who, during the first half of 

 the seventeenth century, maintained against the 

 authority of Boileau and the other strict purists 



* " Oiuvres completes de Fran9ois Villon. Nouvelle 

 Edition, revue, corrig^e et mise en ordre, avec des notes 

 historiques et litt^raires, par P. L. Jacob, bibliophile, 

 1 vol." 



t "Les nouvelles recreations et joyeux devis de Bona- 

 venture Des Periers, revus sur les editions originales et 

 annot^es par M. Louis Lacour. 1 vol." 



X "CEuvres completes de Theophile, revues et annot^es 

 par M. Alleaume. 2 vol." 



the rights of fancy and the privileges of wit. The 

 Moise Sauve of Saint- Amanl^* is chiefly known 

 from Boileau's severe critique ; but it abounds in 

 passages of great beauty : and we may venture to 

 assert that the author of the Lutrin was far in- 

 ferior either to him or to Theophile for imagina- 

 tion and feeling. Saint-Amant accompanied to 

 England the Count d'Harcourt, whom the French 

 government had sent as ambassador in 1643, and 

 his impressions of the country can be gathered 

 from his Albion, a poem now published for the 

 first time. That he was a staunch royalist is quite 

 clear ; and in an amusing epigram he says that if 

 the devil has not yet carried off Fairfax, it is be- 

 cause 



" .... II craint que par quelque attentat, 

 Que par quelque raoyen oblique, 

 Fairfax n'aille du moins renverser son ^tat. 

 Pour en faire une r^publique." 



7. M. Charles d'Hericault, in editing for the 

 Bibliotheque Elzevirienne the poems of Roger de 

 Colleryef, has drawn our attention to a writer 

 hitherto little known, and belonging to the 

 same category as Rabelais, Villon, and the other 

 jovial songsters who sought their inspirations inter 

 pocula. The piece entitled Sermon pour une 

 Nopce is a singular example of a sort of satire 

 which obtained about the time of the Reformation, 

 and the origins of which may be traced as far back 

 as the fabliaux of the old Trouveres. 



8. Ronsard. Thirty years ago this poet, whom 

 his contemporaries "boldly placed on a level with 

 Virgil, Horace, Petrarch, and Pindar, was still 

 considered as little better than an obscure, prosy 

 rhymester, and it required all the ingenuity of M, 

 Sainte-Beuve to convince the public that there, 

 really was something worth reading in the nume- 

 rous effusions of the author of Francion. The 

 edition I am now alluding to \ is to comprise six 

 volumes, two of which have appeared. M. Pros- 

 per Blanchemain, well known by his previous 

 researches on Ronsard, has spared no pains to 

 render this elegant reprint as perfect as possible. 



9. In examining the satires and epistles of Reg- 

 nier, we are continually reminded of Horace, 

 Ovid, Moliere, and Boileau. Parallel passages 

 from these different writers suggest themselves 

 almost spontaneously to our mind, and give us 

 an opportunity of weighing Regnier's merits as an 

 original poet. M. VioUet le Due's annotations to 

 the Elzevirian edition § will be found very com- 



* " CEuvres complfetes de Saint-Amant, revues et an- 

 not^es par Ch. L. Livet. 2 vol." 



t " CEuvres completes de Roger de Collerye. Edition 

 revue et annotde par M. Charles d'Hericault. 1 vol." 



I " CEuvres completes de Ronsard, avec variantes et 

 notes par M. Prosper Blanchemain. Vols. 1, 2." 



§ " CEuvres de Mathurin Regnier, avec les commen- 

 taires revus et corrig^s, pr&dd^es de THistoire de la 

 Satire en France, pour servir de discoura pr^liminaire, 

 par M. Viollet le Due. 1 vol," 



