388 
bids me expatiating any further on this 
head. j 
‘«* FROISSART appears to have been a man 
of gaiety and curiosity from his earliest youth. 
He had scarcely attained his twentich year, 
when he was engaged by his dear lord and 
master, Sir Robert de Namur, Knt. lord of 
Beaufort, to write the history of the wars of 
his own time. Four years afterwards he went 
to England, and presented part of his work 
to queen Phillippa, sister to the wife of his 
patron, who made him clerk of her chamber, 
and encouraged him to travel to various parts 
of Europe for information. He appears to 
have been in England in 1361 and 1363, six 
months in Scotland, and part of the time in 
Wales. His royal patroness died 1369, while 
he was absent, and he did not return to Eng- 
land till twenty-seven yearsafier ; viz, in 1395, 
taking advantage of the truce between the 
two nations, and furnished with letters of 
recommendation to Richard and his uncles. 
The former he gratified with an amorous 
novel, splendidly bound and illuminated ; 
and received from him in return, 100 rubles, 
equal to about 25 guineas of our present 
coin, in a goblet of silver gilt, weighing two 
marks: the king having previously proposed 
to continue him of his household; while 
the nobility and persons about the court, 
took pains to inform our trayeller in the tran- 
sactions of the reign, particularly the con- 
uest of Ireland. In relating the melancho- 
ly end of Richard, 1399, he acquits himself 
most gratefully to his prince, by the aflect- 
ing manner in which he laments his misfor- 
tunes. At the same time he remarks, that 
in this event he saw the accomplishment of 
a prediction which had been madeat his birth 
at Bourdeaux ; and also of a prophecy in 
the romance of Brutus, by Wace, which 
ointed out the prince that would destroy 
Fin. He does not seem to have long sur- 
vived, dying within two years after, at the 
age of sixty-four, having been born at Valen- 
ciennes, about 1337 ; and having been priest, 
canon, and treasurer of the collegiate church 
of Chinay, and rector of Lestine, where be 
frankly confesses the tavern-keepers had 500 
francs of his money, during the short time 
he held this yaluaile benefice. He was an 
amorous poet, a pleasant, but often too cre- 
dulous historian, and a jolly priest. His 
history extends from 1326 to 1400,and com- 
prehends the events of his own time in every 
part of Europe, and even of Turkey and 
‘Africa : divided into four volumes, arid these 
again into chapters 5 and in. some manu- 
scripts, the first volume is divided into fous, 
six, or eight parts. Froissart’s materials for 
the history of England, were of the most 
genuine kind. He lived in habits of intima- 
ey with John earl of Hainault, who had 
afforded protection to the queen of Edward 
II. when her own brother, Charles the Fair, 
king of France, was obliged to order her out 
* Mason’s Memoirs of Gray, p. 
a 
BRITISH TOPOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 
of his dominions, and her son, afterwards 
king Edward IL., martied the daughter of 
her protector, which princess afterwards be- 
came patroness of our historian, who had the 
additional advantage of being eye-witness of 
many of the facts he relates, and has been charg- 
ed with partiality to England, and hostility to 
France; from both which charges he has 
been vindicated by his biographer, Palaye, 
an agreeable abstract of whose work has just 
been published in English, by Mr. Johnes. 
“¢ Froissart was a favourite book of Mr. 
Gray, who thought it strange that people 
who would give thousands for a dozen por- 
traits (originals of that time) to furnish a 
gallery, should never cast an eye on so many 
moving pictures of the life, actions, manners, 
and thoughts of theirancestors, done on the 
spot, in strong, though simple colours.* He 
considered him as the Herodotus of a bar- 
barous age; had he but had the luck of 
writing in as good a language, he might have 
been immortal, His locomotive disposition, 
(for then there were no other ways of learn- 
ing things) his simple curiosity, his religious 
credulity, were much like those of the old 
Grecian.”’> 
The following passage, from the first 
page of our author’s history, will show 
that fancy and conjecture are substituted 
for judgment and discrimination. 
«* Among the various monuments of an- 
tiquity, which abound in these kingdoms, 
few perhaps afford so much scope for funcy, 
as well as matter of history, as the venerable 
site of Pleshy castle. ‘The stupendous keep, 
amazing ditch, and magnificent bridge of one 
brick arch, must strike the most superficial 
spectator.” ' 
Don Quixote’s dulcinea had, to him, 
a thousand charms, and a thousand 
beauties, which no other person could 
discover. Pleshy seems to be the © 
dulcinea of Mr. Gough; we are not, 
therefore, surprised at the hyperbolical — 
terms he employs to characterize it, but 
when we assert that its “ magnificent 
bridge,” is a plain, unornamented, simple — 
pile of arched brick, and that the “ stupen-— 
dous keep’ is a mole hill, compared to 
those at Marlbrough, at Old Sarum, at 
Oxford, and many other places we could 
mention ; our readers will agree with 
us, that great reliance is not to be placed — 
on such descriptions. Let us see the 
continuation of the passage. , 
ij 
«© But on a closer inspection,” observes — 
Mr. Gough, ‘* this spot will be fotvad to fur-_ 
nish some new lights for the illustration of 
our national antiquities. We may perhaps 
275. 4to. t Ibid. p. 392. ‘ 
