430 NATIONAL POETRY. 



different shape, and with a meaning diametrically opposite to that which had 

 inspired the author of the first part, who had merely endeavoured to imitate 

 Ovid's " Ars Amandi." The poem of Guillaume de Lorris had caused quite 

 a new sensation at the French court, the ladies more especially being enthu- 

 siastic in its favour, and they regretted that the author did not live to finish 

 it. It was not till sixty years afterwards that Jean de Meung, surnamcd 

 Clopinel, resumed the work, and though a man of erudition and a philosopher, 

 he did not possess the delicacy and refinement which were the distinguishing 

 features of Guillaume de Lorris' s talent. Thus the poem, as continued, was 

 an entirely new piece, except that the personages had the same names as in 

 the first part. It was, in fact, not so much an elegant and picturesque poem 

 as a rhymed encyclopaedia, into which Jean de Meung crammed all he knew 

 of philosophy, cosmography, physics, alchemy, and natural history. Jean de 

 Meung was not innately bad, but he was a sceptic and a free-thinker, and 

 very fond of railing at the powers that be. Yet his poem, though ridiculous 

 in form and containing much that was heretical, was greatly admired, and 

 looked upon as the masterpiece of French poetry in the fourteenth century. 

 Jean de Meung, like most of the poets who wrote in the Tongue of Oil, was the 

 reverse of complimentary to the fair sex, in whose favour Guillaume de Lorris 

 had said so much. But he did not express the general ideas of the time, 

 and the " Romance of the Rose " is but the fanciful creation of a man of 

 letters not the faithful portrayal of the manners of a whole epoch. 



Long before this running to seed of French poetry, the national language 

 of France had spread throughout Europe. It was spoken and written in 

 England, Italy, and Germany, and as early as the twelfth century many of 

 the chansons de gestc and romances of chivalry were translated or imitated in 

 the latter country. In fact, it was beneath the double inspiration of the 

 poetical works of the South and of the North of France that began the golden 

 age of the literature of romance and of chivalry in Germany (Fig. 336). In 

 the latter part of the twelfth century the number of Minnesingers was more 

 than three hundred, most of whom composed their love-songs in the soft and 

 graceful dialect of Swabia. Henry of Waldeck is the oldest of these poets, 

 who imitated the troubadours; while the most prolific and the most senti- 

 mental was Wolfram of Eschenbach. To the same epoch belong the great 

 German epodes, in which are embodied the recollections of the heroic age and 

 the historical traditions of Germany. The " Helden-Buch " ("Book of 



