1 however it may be with the Latin original, the translation often stands in need of commentary. The work is preceded by a long prologue in which Pierre explains his method of work ("je prendrai la lettre mot a mot, droytement, sans rien changer, et puis si la exponeray clerement," &c.), and then gives us the benefit of a study on 'Boethius.' The translation of i. m. 1 begins as follows: "Je, Boece, qui ay fait ancienement les ditiés en l'estude florissant, hay las! je, plorable, sui contraint assenler les vertus tristes." After an explanation three times as long as the translation, he goes on again: "Blessay les sciences depeciees qu'il me ditent choses de escrire, et les vers de la chaitivité si arosent mes balievers 2 de verais plors." At the end the author submits his work to his patron, some high personage, perhaps the king, begging his indulgence and intelligent interpretation : "Je sui certain que tante est vostre debonaireté que vos suplerois toutes mes defautes et que par vostre entendement l'euvre sera dou tout clere a tous ceaus qui vodront avoir la conoissance." 1 Op. cit., p. 262. 2 Bas-lièvres-i.e., the lower part of the cheek. SECTION VIII.-ANONYMOUS POET (138- ?). Authorities.-M. Delisle, as before; M. E. Langlois, in 'Catalogue général des MSS. des Départements,' t. vii.; MSS. in B. M. Add. 26,767 (early xv.), Roy. 20. a, xix.* (xv.) Certainly during Chaucer's lifetime, and most probably almost synchronous with his 'Boëce,' there appeared in France a translation which is generally known by the words of its first line "Celui qui bien bat les boissons [Est dignes d'avoir les moissons].” Until 1873 it was accepted, on the authority of Buchon,1 as the work of the famous Charles d'Orléans ; but in that year M. Léopold Delisle 2 proved beyond the shadow of doubt that the conjecture, however ingenious, was wrong, which ascribed this version to the prisoner of Agincourt. Buchon was led to it by a passage in the prologue, where the poet gives as the motive of his work a wish to calm the grief caused to a king Charles, who had quite lately mounted the throne, by the misfortunes of his subjects. I have written it, he says "afin Que Charles roy qui a este Souef nourri nomme daulphin, 1 Choix d'ouvrages mystiques, tome 21-23 (in the Panthéon lit téraire). 2 Op. cit., p. 317. En sa nouvelle mageste Ne soit a courroux trop enclin De la baniere anticristin." Buchon at once jumped at the conclusion that the young king was Charles VII. and the writer Charles d'Orléans, and proceeded to support his theory by the following arguments :— 1. Charles d'Orléans was something of a Latin scholar, and as such, likely to pride himself on his knowledge, rare in a man of his rank. 2. The handwriting of the Paris and Brussels MSS. is the handwriting of Charles d'Orléans's day. 3. The Brussels MS. has a princely look. 4. The royal personage of the prologue is addressed in terms of familiarity which would be unseemly in the mouth of other than one of his own family. 5. The style and feeling of the translation are in perfect harmony with the style and feeling of Charles d'Orléans's authentic poems. The date he proposed to assign it was the moment of Charles VII.'s accession-i.e., 1422. To upset this ingenious fabric a single MS. of date anterior to 1422 is sufficient. Such a MS. exists in No. 14,459 of the Fonds français in the Bibl. Nat., written in 1413. Trinity Hall Library of 1406.) (There is one in But M. Delisle's sagacity has enabled him to adduce a yet stronger proof. To No. 1982 (Fonds fr. nouv. acq.) there is appended an epilogue which gives us the writer's name, Raoul d'Orléans. Now Raoul d'Orléans is perfectly well known as a copyist whose period of activity ranged between 1367 and 1396, and Charles d'Orleans was not born till 1391! With these facts before us, it only remains to be seen what were the changes from dauphin to king in the latter part of the fourteenth century; and these were in 1364 and 1380, when Charles V. and Charles VI. respectively began to reign. It is to the last of these years that we must in all probability assign the composition of “Celui qui bien bat les boissons." Were it not for the mere pleasure of telling the story of M. Delisle's skill and judgment, and how he timely saved French literary history from a serious blunder, I need not have gone so minutely into the details of the case. For at Toulouse there has been found another manuscript of this translation, having an entirely unknown epilogue in thirtytwo lines, which tells us by an amusing if somewhat exasperating periphrasis that the poet was a native of Picardy, a monk of the order of St Benedict, that he had been Prior in Savoy, and further, that he had sat at the table of Louis II. of Bourbon, count of Clermont in Beauvaisis. As this nobleman became count of Ferez in 1382, we can have no difficulty in assigning an approximate date to his commensal.'1 Here, as elsewhere, I shall give part of the rendering of ii. m. 5 as a sample of the translator's style : |