numerous instances of misplaced poems. As tres irmãs (1, 166) belongs with Flor do dia (11, 226, cf. also 1, 29); Conde Claro (1, 405) should be transferred to p. 350 of the same volume. The three poems, 1, 414-419, belong with the series of Dom Carlos d'Alem-mar (1, 356-408), as does also Dona Ausenda (II, 222). The fragment entitled Bandeira de guerra (II, 287) should be included in the series called here Bella Infanta (1, 33-69). In some cases two or more themes which might better have been kept separate are grouped under the same head (cf. Dom Carlos d'Alem-mar, Dona Anna, etc.); but it would be wearisome to particularize further. Each volume is provided with an index of titles. I note only two omissions, As duas donzellas (1, 594), and O Fradinho pedinte (II, 534). An index of first lines does not appear so necessary in this case as it is for Spanish romances, where the title is usually secondary. In passing it may be remarked that the absence of any sort of index from Menéndez Pelayo's collection of romances (Antología, vols. VIII-X) is a serious blemish to the work, and the less excusable since Durán long ago set a well-nigh perfect example of indexing. It would lead too far to go into a comparison of Portuguese and Castilian traditional ballads, though the question is most interesting. Why are the former so much more numerous? Here are five hundred and sixty-six different poems and variants, nearly all collected from oral repetition within the last eighty years, against two hundred and two in the Romances tradicionales of Menéndez Pelayo (Antología, x), of which eighty are mongrel versions from Catalonia and Turkey. Perhaps fifty other Castilian traditional romances have been published, including fourteen more from Turkey (Rev. hisp., x, 594 ff.). One would be at first inclined to account for the disparity by the greater industry of the Portuguese investigators, for Spanish territory outside the mainland has scarcely been touched by ballad-hunters; South America very little, and Cuba, Porto Rico and the Canaries not at all. It is likewise true that the south-eastern part of Spain proper still awaits exploration by the folk-lorist. But even. taking these facts into consideration, it seems likely that the Portuguese people have preserved its taste for the short epic more than the Castilian, which latterly has become devoted to the lyric. Leaving out the Azores, Madeira, Brazil, India and Galicia, we still have two hundred and eighty-two ballads from continental Portugal, compared with some one hundred and fifty of equally pure Castilian lineage, gleaned from a larger area. And yet the great majority of subjects reached Portugal through Castile; very few are native. Looking back to the great Spanish collections of the sixteenth century, it would seem that the epic spirit has been dying out in Castile in proportion as it has risen in the eastern and western borders of the Peninsula. To sum up, the second edition of Braga's Romanceiro geral is a compilation which will be indispensable to folk-lorists. It will not replace the previous collections, because it has none of their notes and introductions, but it will prove a boon to the many who cannot possess them. There is probably little more to be expected in the way of new finds which ought to go into a collection of Portuguese romances, but this work is below the standard which we might expect from its experienced and learned editor, and far too faulty for a true "edição integral e definitiva.” Of the youth of Maurice Scève little is known, although his father played a very prominent rôle in the legal circles of Lyons. It is nevertheless very probable that the rich, though poorly classified, archives of that city contain much undiscovered information concerning this family. But to undertake a thorough search through the vast array of documents would require far more time than one would care to spend. And still it is only in this way that any light can be thrown on that mysterious personage, A. Scève, who has a poem. in the Livre de plusieurs pièces,' and whom M. Baur has entirely omitted. But if the author has been unable to unearth much of interest concerning Scève's early life, he has made up for this by giving us a very careful study of the poet's first literary attempts, which at once placed him at the head of the École lyonnaise. The influence of Scève's literary friendships, to which he was more or less susceptible, is well brought out in several of the succeeding chapters. However, one can hardly accept the characterisation of one of these personages-Louise Labé-as a mere "courtisane." M. Baur bases this conclusion on the statements of the poet, Olivier de Magny, and the historian, Claude de Rubys. M. Montaury, on the contrary, has clearly shown "qu'il n'y avait que du dépit" in their accusations, inasmuch as they were both rejected suitors of the Belle Cordière. The The very fact that de Rubys selects the chapter devoted to the praise of the virtues of the poetess as evidence of the unreliability of Paradin's Histoire de Lyon is sufficient to cast on him the suspicion of a desire for vengeance. Furthermore, de Rubys Furthermore, de Rubys was an implacable enemy of all who sympathized with the Renaissance. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should nourish some ill-feeling for Louise Labé, who was the favorite of the poets and scholars of the new school. And M. Baur is incorrect in stating, as additional evidence of the "mauvaise conduite" of the Belle Cordière, that she forms the subject of Gabriel de Minut's work 3 1Le Livre de plusieurs pièces, c'est à dire faict et recueilly de divers Autheurs, come de Clement Marot et autres: ce que tu verras en la page suyvante. A Lyon, par Nicholas Bacquenois, 1548, pp. 74-79. Revue du Siècle, 1899, pp. 77-89. 3 Cf. his Résurrection de la Messe. Lyon, 1563. 4 5 on la Beauté. The lady therein described is Paule de Viguier, a Toulousan, who was the Abbess of a convent. As a matter of fact, it is very doubtful if Minut ever was in Lyons. After the death of his father, Jacques de Minut, president of the Parliament of Toulouse, Gabriel went to Ferrara, where he received the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1544. Afterward, he returned to Toulouse, where he remained until his reception in the Parliament which occurred after 1550. It is, therefore, probable that to him, the Belle Cordière-if known at all-was a mere name. 6 The full title of this volume, which has rarely been given, is as follows: De la Beauté, | Discours divers, | pris sur deux fort belles façons de parler, desquelles | l'hébrieu et le grec usent, l'hébrieu Tob | et grec kaλòv k'ạyaðòv, voulant signifier que ce qui est naturellement beau est aussi naturellement bon ; | Auec la Paule-Graphie | ou description des beautez d'une dame tholosaine nommée | la Belle Paule; | Par Gabriel de Minut, | Chevalier, baron de Castera, seneschal de Rouergue. | A Lyon | Par Barthelemi Honorat, / 1587/ Small in-8° of 268 pp. This exceedingly rare work (which is in the Bibl. Nat. Réserve, R 2,550) was reprinted at Brussels in 1865. The reprint, however, is now almost as rare as the original edition. Cf. also Picot, Catalogue de la Bibliothèque Rothschild, II, p. 337, and Baudrier, Bibl. lyon., IV, p. 157. 5 Cf. Visagier's funeral oration on him in the Epigrammatum Libri IV, Lyon, 1537, in 8°. Also Lettres de Jean de Boyssonné, published by M. Buche in the Revue des Lan gues Romanes, 1895-97. A curious epigram, addressed to Gabriel de Minut, is found in Stephani Forcatuli (Étienne Forcatel) Iureconsulti Epigrammata, Lyon, Jean de Tournes, 1554, in 8°, p. 181. For further information on Gabriel, see Baudrier, op. cit., II, p. 185, and IV, pp. 111 and 158. Picot, Les Français à l'Université de Ferrare, 1902, p. 29. 7Cf. the huitain of Charles Fontaine addressed to ses deux amys, monsieur Maurice Scève et maistre Bartolomy Aneau, in the Fontaine d'Amour, Paris, 1546, fol. mvi vo., Bibl. Nat., Rés. Ye 1609. It may also be added that notwithstanding the close friendship of Aneau and Fon A READING IN Piers Plowman. To the Editors of Mod. Lang. Notes. SIRS-My attention has been directed to a comment by Mr. George T. Flom, in your issue of May, on a contribution of mine to the Modern Language Review, relating to a reading which I discovered in a Bodleian MS. of Piers Plowman. I must confess myself greatly surprised at Mr. Flom's statement that the phrase, to have one's reed, "may be found in both Southern, Midland, and Northern M. E., and in Old Norse." Had I known that this was the case, I might have modified my note a little. But so far I have been unable to trace any instance of this phrase besides the well-known one in the received text of the passage we are discussing. (The other, quite different, locutions, which Mr. Flom's quotations exemplify, are, of course, familiar.) suggest that Mr. Flom would be making a useful contribution to Middle-English lexicography if I taine, we find no mention of the latter poet in Aneau's works. 8 As of mere bibliographical interest, it may be added that there is in the Bibl. de Chantilly a copy of Scève's La déplourable fin de Flamete, 1535, Lyon, of which M. Baur knows only the one in the possession of M. Abel Lefranc. Scève has also translated some of the Paradossi of Ortensio Lando (Venetia, 1545, in 8°, fo. 42) which remain inedited. My friend and teacher, M. Émile Picot, called my attention several years ago to an interesting distich of Scève on the title of the Forciana Questiones, in quibus varia Italorum ingenia explicantur, multaque alia scitu non indigna, autore Philalethe Polytopiensi cive (Neapoli, excudebat Martinus de Ragusia, anno 1536, in 8°). "LONGFELLOW AND HIS HEXAMETERS." To the Editors of Mod. Lang. Notes. SIRSIn the suggestive letter in your March number on "Longfellow and His Hexameters," there is a slight error which, for the sake of those among your readers who care for accuracy in what Donne calls "those unconcerning things, matters of fact," had perhaps better be corrected. The writer asks, "What perhaps suggested to Longfellow that he was to accomplish, to some extent at least, what Clough and Southey had failed to accomplish?" It was, however, Longfellow's hexameters that set Clough on the writing of The Bothie. This appears from the following sentence in an interesting letter to Emerson, dated February 10th, 1849: "Will you convey to Mr. Longfellow the fact that it was the reading of his Evangeline aloud to my mother and sister which, coming after a reperusal of The Iliad, occasioned this outbreak of hexameters ?" This letter is to be found in The Poems and Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, London, 1869, Vol. I, p. 135. 66 I Professor Skeat finds it " a difficult passage because of the "two staues." He says: suppose the sentence to mean that Tom Stowe, who had neglected his wife and let her get into bad ways, or who had allowed her to be punished as a scold, had much better fetch her home than leave her exposed to public derision. Such an errand would require a strong arm, and two staves would be very useful in dispersing the crowd. I do not think it is meant that he is to beat her, for then one would have sufficed; nor would Reason give such bad advice." Assuming Professor Skeat to have the correct line of argument, would he not have explained the passage entirely, if he had gone a step further and supposed that Felice was quite as anxious to be brought home as Ton was to bring her? For not even a scold would like the vexation and notoriety of the cuckingstool, when there was any possible means of avoiding it. In such a mood Felice, who was probably one of the laboring class and consequently possessed of some muscle, would be no contemptible ally for Tom in working out her own salvation; and the pair, each armed with a stave, would beat a much more effectual retreat through the jeering, interfering crowd than would be possible, if we assume that Tom had to conduct an obdurate wife with one hand and dispel a meddlesome crowd with the other. Indeed, he would surely know that such an undertaking would be foredoomed to failure. We can only suppose, then, that Tom, familiar with his wife's disposition, knew he could rely on her to aid in her rescue; accordingly he went armed with two staves. This, however, is a mere suggestion. Pultneyville, N. Y. A. W. FISHER. BRIEF MENTION. INTERNATIONAL ROMANCE DIALECT SOCIETY. We have just received the prospectus of a Societé internationale de dialectologie romane, whose headquarters are at Brussels and whose object is the study of the various Romance idioms, particularly the patois. The entire Romance territory is divided into twelve districts to each of which a specialist has been assigned in order to collect, revise, or edit material for publication. This material, according to its nature, will appear in one of three publications adapted to the particular kind of contribution: a Revue, a Bulletin, and a Bibliothèque de dialectologie romane. Besides the twelve districts comprising the territory where Romance idioms are those principally spoken, there are five divisions comprising non-Romance nations, but among which there is more or less activity in Romance subjects, according as any one particular phase presents itself for consideration. One of these five divisions is the United States. If it be recalled that out of a population of 76,303,387, 10,356,644, or 13.6% are foreigners, the reason for including this country as possibly worthy of study becomes apparent. There are certain areas whose linguistic features have already received some slight attention, Canadian-French, for instance, that of Louisiana, and the Portuguese of New Bedford. There may also be found settlements of Italians and Spaniards in our country whose ethnological and linguistic conditions may prove of much interest for this International Society. Further information will be gladly sent to those sufficiently interested in the object of the society to care to correspond with or furnish data for publication to the United States editor: J. Geddes, Jr., Boston University. |