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him,

his theory. We can appreciate, thanks to the difference between the diphthongs úi, óu, éi, éu, and úo, ie, îu, to; between the vowels i and u, and the consonants j and v.

The change of d into t, b into p, &c. (in technical language, of initial voiced stop-consonants into voiceless consonants), is carefully recorded, as the following passage shows: "Sanctus paulus kehîez tien dîe in sînên zîten uuândon des sûonetagen. táz er êr nechâme. êr romanum imperium zegîenge. únde antichristus rîcheson begóndi. Uuér zuîuelôt romanos íu uuésen állero rîcho hêrren. únde íro geuuált kán ze énde dero uuérlte?"1

In a word, as Dr G. Eduard Sievers points out, he did for German phonetics, only even more fully, what Ormin did for those of England.2

The plan I had before me at the beginning of this chapter of dealing with the medieval translations in chronological order without having regard to the countries where they were made, has served well enough so far. But with the eleventh and twelfth centuries there comes a change over European literature. The stream which we have hitherto been content to regard as one, breaks up into a

1 Vide supra, p. 192.

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2 Encycl. Brit., sub voce Germany (Language)."

number of branches, which run further and further apart as time goes on. France and England, Italy and Germany, have from henceforward each a literature of their own, and each demands a separate consideration. The two last, under this new arrangement, will be found to be of small account; and England must now yield the precedence to France, for French, both in virtue of the number and the date of its translations, has the foremost claim on our notice.

FRANCE.

SECTION V.—SIMUN DE FRAISNE'S 'ROMAN DE FORTUNE' (thirteenth century).

Authorities.-M. Paul Meyer, as recorded in a note. 'Hist. Litt. de la France,' t. xviii. Thomas Wright, Biogr. Brit. Lit., ii. MS. in B. M., Roy., 20. B. xiv., f. 68* (xiiith cent.)1

The earliest vernacular version of Boethius,' after Alfred's, that I have come upon in any language is the Anglo-Norman 'Roman de Fortune' of Simun de Fraisne. With regard to the literature of which it is an example, M. Paul Meyer has well said2 that, however slight its intrinsic merit may be, it deserves

1 I have marked with an asterisk those MSS. from which my quotations are taken.

6

2 Bulletin de la Soc. des anciens, textes fr.,' 1880, No. 2.

a close attention, as representing the sustained effort which enabled the language and ideas of France to hold their own for so long on British soil.

But over and above the general interest of this literature, the present example possesses not a little of the genuine poetic instinct.

Our knowledge of its author, Simun de Fraisne (whose name appears in the initial letters of the first fourteen lines), may be summed up in a very few words. He was canon of Hereford, and the near friend of Giraldus Cambrensis. Indeed it is the date of Gerald's death, 1223, that gives us the clue to the period of Simun's literary activity. Besides a number of Latin poems, among them one in defence of the bishop-designate of St David's, he wrote a Vie de St Georges' and the Roman de Fortune.' This last is a reminiscence of Boethius, a variation on the description of Fortune in the early books of the 'De Consolatione.' It runs to sixteen hundred lines of eight-syllabled rhyming couplets, and is couched in the form of a dialogue between 'le clerc' and 'dame Philosophie,' who has the same part to play here that is assigned to her by Boethius, her business being to show the emptiness of earthly riches, honours, and delights. The poem is found in two manuscripts-the one in the British Museum

(as recorded above); the other, and apparently the more correct, in the Bodleian (Douce MSS. 210). Of these I have only been able to examine the first, and that under pressure of time; still I have seen enough to convince me that there is some ground for M. de la Rue's eulogistic notice in the 'Histoire Littéraire de la France.'1

I will quote but one passage to show that the poet had a true feeling for nature—

"Homme poet auer grant delites

Quant il veit en mai les flurs
Esemblant de veus plusurs
Quant il veit gardins florir
Ky frut deit le cors norir
Et veit ben leuer les pres
Et les champs revestuz de bles
Ses oils poet de joie pestre

Pur les bens ky il veit crestre.”

SECTION VI.-ANONYMOUS WRITER (thirteenth century) AND JEHAN DE MEUN (1297-1305).

Authorities.-M. Léopold Delisle, 'Inventaire des Manuscrits,' t. ii. M. Paul Meyer in 'Romania,' t. ii., 1873. MSS. in B. M. Add. 21,602 (early xv.); Add. 10,341 (xv.) Harl. 4335-9* (xv.) Harl. 4330 (late xv.)

Whatever may be our opinion of the character and aims of Philippe-le-Bel, Dante's

"Mala planta

Che la terra cristiana tutta aduggia,"

1 Loc. cit., p. 822.

"2

2 Purgat., canto xx. 1. 43.

we cannot deny his statecraft and his skill in matters of finance. That he was also a friend to learning and letters is shown by the flourishing state of the University—there were more colleges founded under this king than during the whole thirteenth century —and by the numerous literary achievements of his reign. It was for his edification that Gilles de Rome, archbishop of Bourges, wrote his treatise, 'De Regimine Principum,' on the model of Aristotle's Politics'; it was to his command that Jehan de Meun translated the Rei Militaris Instituta' of Vegetius, the 'Merveilles d'Irlande' of Giraud de Barri, Abelard's Letters,' Ealred's De Spiritali Amicitia,' and the 'Consolation of Philosophy.' This last he dedicated and presented to the king with his own hands, if we may believe the miniature which appears on the first page of many manuscripts.

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The prologue contains a courtly compliment to his royal master on his scholarship ("ja soit ce que tu entendes bien le latin," &c.), a lengthy disquisition on the goal which mankind should make for, and on the profit to be drawn from the pages of the 'De Consolatione' (" entre tous les livres qui oncques furent faiz cestui est souverain a despire les biens vilz et descevables "), a sketch of Boethius's life, and an explanation of his book.

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