So far so good.

:

1

But now comes the difficult question, which is Jehan de Meun's translation? For there are two, entirely distinct, to which this prologue is affixed. The one is in prose, a word-forword rendering of this there are five manuscripts at Paris-the oldest, a fragment, dating from the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century. The other, a more scholarly performance, follows the scheme of the Latin original: of this there exists an infinity of manuscripts, both in Paris and London, besides several printed examples. M. Paul Meyer cannot allow the former to be J. de Meun's work at all; but he offers no explanation of the dedicatory preface. M. Delisle, while he recognises the justness of M. Meyer's remarks, still speaks of the first as a "traduction en prose, par J. de Meun," and of the second as a "traduction en vers et en prose attribuée à J. de Meun." And there the matter must rest. Whoever was the author of the first translation (which for the future I shall style MS. 1097, from the earliest complete copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale), there is an interesting point about it in connection with Chaucer, which has as good a right to be considered here as later.

1 Op. cit., p. 272.

2 Op. cit., p. 318.

"2

Dr R. Morris, in his edition of Chaucer's 'Boëce '1 (p. xiii.), has the following remarks: "Chaucer did not English Boethius second-hand through any early French version, as some have supposed, but made his translation with the Latin original before him. Jean de Méung's version-the only early French translation, perhaps, accessible to Chaucer-is not always literal, while the present translation is seldom free or periphrastic, but conforms closely to the Latin, and is at times awkwardly literal. A few passages, taken at haphazard, will make this sufficiently clear."

Unfortunately, Dr Morris's passages are not taken from any translation by Jehan de Meun. What they are taken from is an anonymous version made in 1477 " par un pauvre clerc désolé quérant sa consolation en la traduction de cestui livre." This was published by Colard Mansion in the same year, and may possibly have been written by the famous printer himself.2 A reprint of it was issued by Antoine Vérart in 1494, of which there is more than one copy in the British Museum, where it stands catalogued under the name of "Jean de Méung." Hence, I presume, Dr Morris's mistake.

1 E.E.T.S., 1868. Reprinted 1889.

2 See Gustave Brunet, La France Litt. au XVe Siècle, p. 29.

Now the translation which we may safely look upon as Jehan de Meun's has evidently no connection with Chaucer. Half-a-dozen parallel passages will suffice to show that. But I am by no means so certain about the other.

Through the kindness of M. Louis Denise, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, I am enabled to set side by side with eight out of the twenty-eight passages selected by Dr Morris the corresponding renderings of MS. fr. 1097 in the Paris Library.

In the third column will be found some halfdozen passages which I claim are sufficient to establish Chaucer's independence of J. de Meun's translation, at any rate.

Comune strumpetis of Ces communes puter- Ses vilz ribauldes.

siche a place pat men

clepen pe theatre.

eles.

The reader is now in possession of a certain number of the passages in question. It would not, I suppose, take much more time and trouble to complete the tale. But this method of random selection, though it may serve well enough in the case of works of manifestly different scope and character, such as are Chaucer's 'Boëce' and Jehan de Meun's translation, is a poor

1 M. Denise has sometimes gone beyond the letter of my request, and given me more of the French than I asked for. I am glad of the excuse to supply the English context (in italics) to match the surplusage.

and unsatisfactory test when we have to try two versions which have so many points of resemblance as 'Boëce' and MS. 1097. Nothing short of a thoroughgoing and systematic comparison of them could make an opinion on the subject worth having, and so I do not propose to offer one. I am only anxious that when excerpts are made from "the only early French version, perhaps, accessible to Chaucer,” we should at least be sure that we have the right version before us.1 When its turn comes, I shall pass Chaucer's work under review, and endeavour to show that it bears, on the face of it, strong evidence in favour of originality.

SECTION VII.-PIERRE DE PARIS (thirteenth or early fourteenth century).

Authority. M. Ernest Langlois in 'Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits,' t. xxxiii., 2e partie, 1889.

The Vatican Library possesses (Vat. 4788) a. prose version and commentary of the Consolation,' dated 1309, which we owe to a certain Pierre de Paris, the author of two other unknown translations. M. Langlois in his account of the MS. declares that

1 As a matter of fact, there is nothing in the mere date of the version either of J. de Cis or R. de Louhans which would put them out of our English poet's reach.